THAT will teach me to hurry. Zipping through the schedules I thought I saw a new two parter called Shock of the Nude with Mary Berry. That’s a bit of a departure, I thought, but good on her trying something new. At least she will be able to whip up considerably bigger buns if required, a la Calendar Girls.

At second glance I saw that I had mixed up my Marys. It was Shock of the Nude with Mary Beard (BBC2, Monday), with the professor of classics at Cambridge leading an exploration of the nude in western art, and not the former Great British Bake Off host. That made more sense, though I am sure Ms Berry would have given the task a jolly good go.

The subject really needed Beard, mind. Who else could tell you about the characters gazing at a nude in a painting, and in the next breath point out a group “looking straight up her bum”?

I adore Mary Beard. With her smocks and leggings and split ends she has overturned the notion that glamour and youth are what matter in a presenter. Not that every commissioning editor has received the memo, but Ms Beard is still out there, flying the flag for women usually rendered as invisible on television as they are in life.

Whether she was knocking a plaster codpiece off a male statue (“I shall be putting this on my cv”), or joining a hen party at a life drawing class (“Have a beret!” shrieked one of the gals. “It’ll suit your outfit!”), she was informative and entertaining. Next week she will be sitting for a nude portrait. Unless I’ve read that wrong, too, and it is really Mary Berry in a new programme, The Great British Bra Off.

Inside No 9 (BBC2, Monday, above) returned with a corker of an episode starring David Morrissey and Ralf Little as referees alongside series creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. The four officials had gathered for a crunch end of season game, but all the action was to take place in the dressing room.

The show is still pulling surprises out of the hat, not bad going considering it is now in its fifth series. That is the beauty of Shearsmith and Pemberton’s darkly comic mini-dramas: they are so well written, and attract such a high calibre of performer, that you forget there is a twist coming until it hits you in the face, smack, like a wet cod.

With not many new places for crime dramas to go, Baghdad Central (Channel 4, Monday) was on to a winner. Set in the Iraqi capital after the US-led invasion of 2003, the story centred on a former police officer, Muhsin al-Khafaji (Waleed Zuaiter) whose daughter had gone missing. Khafaji started to make enquiries, only to find himself the victim of mistaken identity and thrown in jail. By episode end he had a choice: collaborate with the coalition to set up a new police force (and risk death in doing so) or keep asking questions (ditto).

While the dialogue was stiff in parts the hour zipped by with plenty to see and ponder. When Corey Stoll (House of Cards) turned up as a captain in the US military police it was a sign of further good things to come.

We all love it when a house build goes wrong. It is not big or clever, but we do. Imagine, then, the joy to be had watching Britain’s Most Expensive Home: Building for a Billionaire (Channel 4, Wednesday). Having sold his mobile phone business for £1.5 billion, John Caudwell bought a pile in Mayfair and set about spending a mountain of cash on it.

Everything was ginormous. If it wasn’t huge it was draped in gold leaf. There was a nightclub, an eight vehicle “car stacker” in the basement, a dining room with a river running through it, swimming pool, etc. Everything but a cuddly toy. The initial £10 million budget had run over by £55 million, and four years after purchase the house was still not in move in condition.

Caudwell was an exacting customer, as you might expect. You don’t go from a council house in Stoke-on-Trent to a Mayfair mansion by being a meek and mild type. He had his own ideas, like having a “tree of life” in the hall representing all that was dear to him, including his cars. “I’m concerned that’s going to start looking a bit chavvy,” said his interior designer, bravely.

In the end most of it looked lovely, but it also had the air of a hotel rather than a home. Caudwell’s partner, 35 to his 66 (just saying) thought his personal dressing room, with its inlaid leather panels, was nicer than hers. Oh dear, trouble in paradise.

Talking Sex with Gran (BBC Scotland, Thursday) brought young and old together to gab about bumping bones. It didn’t work, largely because the old dears were not daft enough to say too much, but it had its moments. One gran said her fantasy involved two men. “One to do the ironing, one to do the cooking.”

“You saw that on Facebook,” said her young compadre.

Busted!