Wonders of the Universe episode 2 - Telly Talk

Telly Talk: A few minutes into the second episode of Professor Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe and I suddenly realised just who he reminds me of.

Do you remember Paul Whitehouse's 'Brilliant' character on the Fast Show, the one who used to walk along beaches or over fields while constantly gibbering away about just how exciting everything is?

Well, that's Professor Brian Cox, that is.

"In't the universe brilliant! One hundred billion galaxies and each one with hundreds of billions of stars! Brilliant! Every atom in my body was once part of something else! Brilliant! Everything in the universe is made up of 92 chemical elements! That's brilliant! And did you know that if you study the light coming from a stars you can tell which elements it's made from! Brilliant! Polaris is 430 light years away but by studying its light we know that it's got less carbon and more nitrogen than the sun. BRILLIANT!"

What a fantastic TV host Professor Cox is - a brain the size of Saturn but he still seems like a particularly approachable and friendly roadie for the Inspiral Carpets. And his enthusiasm, the sheer joy he has for his subject, is infectious. (And his Air Miles account must be another wonder of the universe - Nepal, California and Chile last night, Namibia and Patagonia last week. Brilliant indeed.)

I'm still not quite sure if I follow everything, mind, and although it helps to have the programme's fantastic graphics of exploding stars and galaxies an unimaginable distance away, it can still be a bit of a stretch to keep up.

Still, it's certainly worth the effort. It's brilliant.

Which is a lot more than can be said for Celebrity Naked Ambition on Channel Four on Saturday night: two hours of the boobs an' bums of the famous, presented by a plank of wood - sorry, Kelly Brook - and various talking heads. They were the usual suspects, too: her from that magazine you've never read, him off - oh, you know, her who was on that programme a few years ago and 'im and 'er who appear on these talking head shows and nothing else. And Charley Boorman. Oh dear.

I'll admit I tuned in briefly just to see what it was all about, but, really, is this the best Channel Four can do these days? This was so cheap and trashy even Channel Five would've thought twice about it.

But, having said that, can anyone give me a copy of the bit about Jenny Agutter?

Now she was brilliant.