POOR Orville. I had always assumed that he was happily retired here in Bournemouth, maybe sharing a nice little flat on the over-cliff with Cuddles the Monkey and spending the odd (make that very odd) Christmas with his dad, Keith Harris.

So I almost fainted on Saturday evening when that Alesha from Mis-Teeq minced across the dance-floor, brazen as you like, wearing him as a frock on Strictly Come Dancing (5.45pm, BBC1).

He'd survived having Keith's hand inserted in his backside for all those years, but an entire person - now that's a different story and I have to face the fact that Orville may have gone to that big ventriloquist suitcase in the sky and will never be hear to trill "Ah wish ah could fly" ever again.

His old mate Bruce Forsyth didn't even look bothered. Mind you, I don't think he notices much these days old Brucie. In fact, a little flat by the sea could be just what he needs rather than trying to convince everybody he's still the all-round entertainer he once was.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very fond of the big-chinned charmer and I would be the first to admit that in his day, Brucie was up there with the best, a real trouper, a showman and a bit light on his toes to boot. But it's sad to see the man who had every single member of my family crying with laughter on Saturday night's at his antics on the Generation Game, now struggling to remember the punch-line of a joke he probably doesn't even get.

And don't even get me started on the dancing. The big man with the moustache, the big woman with the moustache (you know who you are), the hideously keen and competitive husband-and-wife team of Gabby Logan and the rugby player, all galumphing about the place, believing that they are taking part in the most important thing on earth, when the fact that I've just heard that Orville is alive and well and appearing in panto at Fareham this December is what makes me feel like dancing!

Why Our Children Can't Read (C4, Monday, 8pm) was a sad story. Teenagers barely able to read the most basic text, parents so illiterate they were unable to help their own kids improve on their iffy reading skills and a mish-mash of teaching techniques and methods in schools causing nationwide confusion.

There were a few lights at the end of this tunnel-vision, including the deprived estate in Clydebank, Scotland where all the children were brilliant at reading thanks to the local school and their parents actively encouraging a love of books.

Sadly, home for most of them is still a depressing ghetto-like estate, but at least by reading they now at least have a means of escape if not physically, then mentally and even if that doesn't work, the graffiti they spray on the walls will be spelt correctly.

Chef Heston Blumenthal and flibbertigibbet cook Nigella Lawson are poles apart when it comes to cuisine - but they do have one thing in common. Neither of them appear to be afraid of getting food poisoning.

On Monday night in Nigella Express (BBC2, 8.30pm) the domestic goddess drizzled a stream of half-cooked, bloody chicken juices all over the slices of bird she'd just torn apart with her bare hands and started tucking in, as did her poor, unsuspecting kids and guests.

On Tuesday in Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection (BBC2, 8.30pm) old Heston was greedily guzzling down big clumps of raw meat straight from the butcher's slab in search of the perfect beef to use in a burger.

Whether the pair will be on next week remains to be seen...