The Dog House At Christmas; Vermeer; Tony Robinson’s Marvellous Machines; Louis Theroux Interviews

“Dogs meet people. People meet dogs. Dogs go home with people. But the life of each becomes a little bit better as a result and, in some infinitesimal way, the entire world a bit less bleak. It still isn’t as good as Noel’s Christmas Presents but nor will there be a dry eye in the house. Godspeed you to your forever homes, you daft, heartbreaking mutts! Godspeed, and merry Christmas!”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The most touching of the stories saw a bereaved man and his daughter adopting an adorable Patterdale cross called Crackers, who had been abandoned by the side of a busy road. It’s an eternal wonder that dogs can ever learn to trust humans again after an experience like that. But with a bit of love and a Christmas jumper, Crackers was wagging again.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“If you watched Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition, scheduled at a criminally late hour, your dreams shortly after may well have taken place in a 17th-century Dutch fantasia, moving through old church towers and small-town ports, mingling past bonneted milkmaids before you swept up a girl with a pearl earring in your arms and danced to a folk tune played on a hurdy-gurdy. Delirious stuff, and all because you’d been lulled into a state of entrancement at the Rijksmuseum for a full hour and a half (let’s overlook the ad breaks).”
James Jackson, The Times

“Tony was having so much fun and his delight in these devices is so infectious, that I’m already looking forward to the next series. If it doesn’t get commissioned again in this universe, I might have to apply to visit an alternative dimension.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

““Prison was a tough time, and I think it’s the most boring topic that any interviewer could ever choose to talk to me about,” Walters said pointedly. Long pause, then they both cracked up. The ex-Peckham rapper and the ex-public schoolboy — an unusual pairing, but one I could have carried on watching after it ended for, well, at least another ten minutes.”
James Jackson, The Times