DR ALICE ROBERTS: DON'T DIE YOUNG BBC2, 8pm She's some woman, is Dr Alice Roberts. Hot-shot anatomist. Expert in osteo-archaeology. Rarely happier than when up to her elbows in old bones or sliced'n'diced pigs' entrails.
Wears her coppery hair in bunches, looks about 15. Wholesome. Often clad in non-gender-specific multi-pocketed outdoor clothing, or else a white lab coat. Cycles eight miles a day.
Looks, too, like she'd enjoy matching the blokes firkin for firkin during Dogbolter-sinking sessions down the pub, a hearty chuckle never far from her lips. Dr Alice Roberts! Every feller's ideal feisty kid sister; every gal's notion of a perky and plain-speaking pal.
More particularly, Dr Alice is the only adult woman ever likely to examine an MRI scan of her own nether regions and then utter the following statement in tones of wonder, glee and amusement (not the more customary bitter rage): "This is all the fat on my bottom!"
Dr Alice's rare attitudinal attributes were invaluable in helping reduce readings on the combined boak/titter/pure riddy meter during the opening instalment of her second series of populist scientific instruction about surviving early expiry, Don't Die Young. Because where did she begin her opening 60-minute double episode?
Down there. In the men's department. And the ladies. You know. Yon tubes and spongey tissues, near the epididymis and the ovaries. The reproductive bits and pieces. Probing frankly, Dr Alice wielded a joyous scalpel on a pig's privates, signing off with a memorable statement: "I've opened up the scrotum."
She also introduced a male pal to a vision of his sperm (a microscopic sample of same, you understand, vastly enlarged and projected on to a urology lab's wall-mounted screen). By golly, some of those little tadpoles were bolting in circles like mad rockets.
The sight of such frenzied activity made Alice's pal feel giddy, he said. Self-combusting outrage might have been the emotion if original clean-up TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse had still been with us.
In truth, Dr Alice's investigations were all very matter-of-factly conducted. No prurience. No false modesty. Education was the order of the day - although you have to wonder about the US academic institution which funded research into male-female sexual attraction by focusing on lap-dancers.
I kid you not. Some American university persuaded a bunch of lap-dancers to keep bio-fiscal diaries. It emerged that the women were invariably given much bigger monetary tips by their male clientele at that time of the month when they were at their most fertile (despite not consciously or obviously displaying any sign of their menstrual status).
Just as surprising was the revelation that testosterone makes the male skull develop a different profile to the female (sharper brow and bigger jaws in men).
In addition, we learned that every infant female emerges into the world equipped with 700,000 eggs, 10,000 British men die of prostate cancer every year and that gimmicky TV vox pops on anatomy conducted with young people in pubs inevitably produce little of real worth.
Happily, there were other more vital lessons contained within the programme. Breast-aware females should conduct regular examinations of their mammary tissue all the way up to their collarbone and under their armpits.
Likewise, men who'd like to improve their prostate health should eat one tin of tomato soup a week (it's yon anti- oxidant, lycopene). Don't die of ignorance: watch Dr Alice Roberts.
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