Bye Bye Wild Guy

The Wild Gourmets is at an end. This is sad, for the pointlessness of this series touched and moved me deeply. What were they hoping to prove? Viewers are most unlikely to be able to pop up to Scotland for the red deer cull for their daily dinners, so the programme fails to be like most cook shows, where you might conceivably improve your life by making some of the recipes. Equally, stomping about the Scottish Highlands with a land rover shows us very little that is unfamiliar enough to be a revelation, so the "wild" side of things seems pretty tame; a far cry from Bruce Parry or Bear Grylls.

Still, they earned my kindly if rather patronising respect because Guy can kill a deer with a single shot, poke it in the eye to check it's dead, and then gut it without turning a hair. Tommy can pick an entire salad from a mouldy old wall, and confidently identify berries that won't kill you so she can cook them for Guy when he returns with the Meat and Makes Fire for her. As old fashioned family values go, they are Poster Children. And of course, should anything ever bring civilisation to collapse, they would be good types to Take To The Woods With. Remember you read it here first.