Baker street

It's strange but the more TV channels there are to chose from, the more I seem to watch only a handful.

I mainly seem to watch the BBC, Sky Sports and the comedy channels, with the occasional dip into Dave. I rarely watch ITV, except for football, Channel 4,  Five, Sky 1 (or 2 & 3) or the hundreds of other satellite channels that I pay for each month. In fact if my sons didn't watch those other channels at weekends I would probably reduce my sky bundle (or switch to Virgin - which I am seriously thinking of doing).

The BBC has recently produced three excellent programmes, all of which I have genuinely looked forward to watching.

The first is "Rev", an half an hour comedy about an Anglican parish priest in London. Not the most original plot synopsis, but due to some great writing (by James Wood) and   similarly great acting by Tom Hollander and Olivia Coleman as the Vicar (Adam) and his wife it was a joy to watch. It dealt with real issues and as someone who interacts with ministers and vicars on a regular basis got the "feel" of the role spot on. The Rev chose subject matter that many people may wonder about including divorced people getting married in church, homosexuality and the priesthood (as a result of nerves, Adam announces on the One Show that "all the Anglican church is gay") and "happy clappy" churches (the local example of this type of church have to use Adam's Church - biggest problem - where to put the smoothie bar!!!).

The second programme has only broadcast one episode but I know that I will enjoy the rest of the series just as much. This is called "Vexed" and is an one hour comedy/drama detective series. It stars Toby Stephens (who played the Bond villain Gustav Graves in "Die another Day") and newcomer Lucy Punch as his partner. The main hook of the programme is that they disagree on almost everything but underneath there is a clear attraction between the two. It is funny with a semi-serious case to solve each week and works again through good writing and Toby Stephens "chewing up the scenery". While known as a "serious" actor he is excellent in this comedy role.

Finally we have the best of the three "Sherlock". This is a 90- minute "re-imagining" of the classic Conan-Doyle stories, set in 21st century England. It stars Dominic Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. On paper it sounds very hard to pull off, but they do and how. The scripts are very fast paced and do take concentration but they follow the originals but use modern technology (Holmes has a mobile phone!). It has a feel of "Dr Who" about it, which is not surprising as it was co-created by Stephen Moffat who produced the latest series. The genius of the original stories means that they keep you fully involved and guessing what will happen but the modern take on them also means that if you know the original story you are still engaged with the plot. Cumberbatch as Holmes is a joy to watch, he plays the part wonderfully and while Freeman as Watson takes more time to adapt to, by the third episode he feels right for the part. There were only three initial episodes but the good news is that another series has already been commissioned.

Adam Crozier has a big job on at ITV if this standard of programme making continues.

Don't stand so close to me

Cash machine etiquette is an evolving process, but I was stood in the queue the other day waiting to use the machine when I was reminded of an incident that happened five or so years ago.

My sons and I were queued waiting to use a machine on fairly a narrow pavement. We were stood behind the man using the machine rather to either side of him as that always feels like you're trying to see the users pin number as they key it in.

As it was a narrow pavement people were trying to walk along it as well which prompted us to move closer to the machine, my eldest son in particular.

When the man in front finished using it, he turned around and indicated that my son particular was too close to him and to be aware of that in the future. Being the indignant father I reminded the man that as my son was only 12, he didn't use cash machines and was only trying to keep out of the way of passing pedestrians. Cries of "Dad don't get involved" from my sons stopped it going any further as the man further muttered his unhappiness and I carried on with using the machine.

Ever since then I have tried not to crowd out the user and not stand to the side, but I do regularly see queues for machines straggling out into streams of pedestrians, as I guess others use my same thought process.

It seems that the British understanding of " how waiting in a queue works" does mean that this mainly goes on without a problem, but I wonder what happens in Europe and the USA?