With his anorak to the fore, his trademark 'tache nestling cosily on his upper lip and his little corduroy hat perched on his head, David Jason was back as the titular hero of A Touch Of Frost.

In the opening episode of this new series, Denton's 'maverick' DI had tendered his resignation and was to be found hanging around a B&B run by a gay Scotsman called Brian (a nice turn from actor Peter Kelly).

DI Frost is a 'maverick' because he doesn't keep up to date with his paperwork or bother filling in his petrol expenses, habits which drive his boss, the po-faced Supt Mullett, bonkers.

Mullett is a cold fish to be sure, but he was smart enough to realise that only Frost - the Chief Constable's favourite - could get him off the hook he found himself wriggling on. Pretty soon, Frost was back, investigating the death of a gay art thief, some mysterious fingerprints and an aromatherapist who smelled decidedly fishy. Before he croaked, the painting pilferer - who also had a job as a hospital porter - managed to kidnap a patient and tip him headfirst off a bridge into a river in broad daylight without anyone noticing.

This slightly jarring note aside, it was good to see the smallest sleuth on telly back in action and to note that his fondness for big fry-ups has not abated.

And neither has my fondness for seeing greedy people get their come-uppance on The Antiques Roadshow. This week, the team visited Plymouth, but sad to say, there were hardly any of the usual mob around who turn up clutching their gimcrack rubbish hoping the programme's experts will announce that it's worth thousands of pounds.

It's great fun watching their faces dissolve into puddles of disappointment when the pundits reveal that the stuff is worth about three bob at a car boot sale. This was the last in the current series and I wish I could say the same about Harbour Lights, which continues to chug along with Nick Berry at the helm like Popeye The Sailorman except Popeye The Sailorman was at least animated.

We're supposed to believe that Nick was a minesweeper captain at the time of the Falklands War, which would, by my calculation, make him the naval equivalent of Pitt The Younger.

Pitt was at Cambridge when he was 14, roughly the same age Berry's character must have been at the time of the South Atlantic conflict.

But then everything about Harbour Lights is unlikely - the plots, the setting and, Berry's character notwithstanding, the casting of Tina Hobley as WPc Melanie Rush.

They'd have done better with Ian Rush in drag. I could just about believe her as a barmaid in Coronation Street but as a copper she comes a cropper.

The signature tune for this lot should have been written by one band only - Wet, Wet, Wet.

John Thaw was back this week as the dry-witted Kavanagh QC, who was called upon to defend a spoilt brat accused of conspiracy to murder.

There are those who say that Thaw's defining role was surely Inspector Morse, but I prefer him as the gruff northern barrister whose flowing, white locks settle gently on the collars of his immaculately-cut suits like a gentle mantle of Christmas snow.

One of Morse's many irritating ways was his habit of showing off whenever the opportunity presented itself. Kavanagh, on the other hand, wears his erudition lightly, so it was all the more charming to hear him declaiming a slice of Hilaire Belloc at the conclusion of Monday's episode. John Thaw, like David Jason and Nick Berry, is one of the country's highest paid television actors.

Thaw and Jason are the grand old men of British telly. Berry is its nice young chap.

Still, two out of three ain't bad.

AISLE BE TURNING OVER...

Between now and June 19, when that useless article known as Prince Edward finally makes it up the aisle with the gel Sophie, you may be sure that we'll be hearing a lot of R.R.R. - related royal rubbish.

Just to prove the point, the BBC has announced that it is to make a 'short series' on Royal Weddings, presented by the fragrant Jill Dando, which will focus on people's experience of these 'historic events'.

Sometimes I really regret putting my telly licence on direct debit.

LAUGH? I WISH I COULD

Julie Walters has been busy. The popular pal of Victoria Wood is to narrate a three-part series on British situation comedy entitled Laughter in the House. Hmm.

The problem with the majority of British sitcoms in my experience is that they fail to produce any laughter at all, save for that which comes in waves from drugged, drunk or similarly crazed studio audiences. Still, I suppose this will give the Beeb the chance to once again run clips of Some Mothers, Dad's Army, Fawlty Towers et al. ALMOST TOO TRUE TO LIFE

Craig Cheetham plays a grisly part in his first major TV role - the Yorkshire Ripper. This Is Personal: The Hunt For The Yorkshire Ripper has just finished filming, with veteran actor Alun Armstrong starring as the police officer who led the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe.

It's due to be shown this autumn and insiders claim that the sight of 29-year old Cheetham in Ripper costume and make-up made several of the extras feel decidedly ill at ease.

Story date: Saturday 13 March

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.