OFFENDED by Irvine Welsh. It sounds like the world’s worst idea for a perfume. Just imagine the ad: EXT. Edinburgh city centre. Man running as if for his life. Voiceover: “Choose rotten eggs. Choose five week old kippers. Choose bin juice.” Cut to perfume bottle. “Choose Offended, by Irvine Welsh.”

Happily for those with a sensitive stomach, Offended by Irvine Welsh (Sky Arts, Tuesday, 10pm) is a documentary, and an illuminating one at that, particularly if you, like the Trainspotting author, wonder why everyone seems so ANGRY all the time.

Welsh begins with a stream of questions. “Are we offended more than ever these days? Are artists and writers running scared? Is creative risk too risky? Is artistic license too easily cancelled?”

Just when you begin to ask yourself if he is ever going to get to the end of his list he is off and running, mixing personal experience of causing offence (police raided bookshops to seize copies of his novel Filth, he recounts) and interviews with artists and writers.

His first stop is recent history: the 1997 Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. With artworks including an image of Myra Hindley, the show lived up to its billing. Welsh speaks to an exhibitor, Jake Chapman of the brothers fame, about whether there are any limits, lines that should not be crossed. Chapman is certain: “No.”

Welsh goes from gallery to studio to find out whether anyone disagrees with that. He is also seen musing in what one assumes is his very nice, extremely neat, London home (I don’t know if anyone else lives in this white walled and stripped wood palace there but I would be surprised if the family circle included a mud-loving mutt).

Other interviewees include art historian Kate Bryan. Since they could not do anything so dull as meet in the street, the pair are filmed having a FaceTime chat over the phone. He also speaks to artist Sarah Maple whose works, including a woman in a hijab holding a pig, have led to a brick through the gallery window and death threats. Maple says if men make something provocative the work is intellectualised; but if women do it they are accused of being attention seekers.

Welsh peppers the interviews with anecdotes of his own. He recalls receiving more letters of complaint about a scene involving the torture of a dog than a rape. Ever since he has made a point of writing more dog torture scenes. “I actually like dogs as well,” he says.

This is an authored, subjective piece, with no room to hear from the actually offended, whoever they might be. Considering the subject is freedom of expression there’s an irony in that.

There is nevertheless a lot to chew on, and to discover. I had not previously heard, for instance, about Dread Scott’s work, “What is the Proper Way to Display a US flag?” Scott caused a storm just by laying out the stars and stripes on the floor and placing a comments book on a shelf.

When some people stood on the flag to write in the book there was uproar. Kate Bryan says the work is still considered so incendiary it cannot be displayed to this day.

As for Welsh, the views he has at the end of the hour are the same as those at the beginning. He was open to ideas, and tried to rewrite a passage in Filth to be more politically correct, but the result was bland, awful, lifeless, and very un-Welsh like. Lang may his lum reek.

Tired of television quiz shows where you never get more than one question correct? Do the doom-laden chimes of Mastermind and the jaunty intro to University Challenge strike equal terror in your breast? Then Richard Osman’s House of Games Night (BBC1, Friday, 8.30pm) is the show for you and yours.

With his nightly appearances on Pointless, the tall guy in the specs seems to be taking over television. House of Games used to be on BBC2 at 6pm but now it is going prime time. Osman, in typically self-deprecating form, puts the move down to an administrative error. “I think maybe they thought I was Richard Hammond,” he says.

In fact, Osman is one of the sharpest operators on television. He is not just a wingman to Alexander Armstrong on Pointless, but a co-creator of the programme. A veteran of panel shows, he has a list of producing credits as long as one of his arms, including Deal or No Deal. If a show is a popular hit, chances are Osman has some connection to it.

House of Games is simplicity itself: four celebrities, questions straight out of Christmas crackers, no big money pressure (among the prizes is a onesie), and the emphasis on playing along at home. Nothing snide and a cosy atmosphere. Looks easy, but if it was we would all be doing it. Another hit for the wizard Os.