Channel Hopping

DISCOVERING NEIL YOUNG

Today, Sky Arts, 7.30pm

I KNOW, I know. Everyone has different likes and dislikes, each to his own and all of that. But I am still baffled as to how this whining chancer, right, has been getting away with it for the past 50 years or so. I mean, has there ever been a more dreary song than Heart Of Gold? Yet he is adored by fans and critics alike, even though he is a narky old git who apparently makes Van Morrison look like David Niven. There’s no accounting for taste.

THE DIRTY DOZEN

Today, TG4, 9.20pm

TRUST me, I’m old enough to remember the days when it was practically compulsory for one of the channels to show this on a weekly basis. It is the run-up to DDay and Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is training a team of soldiers to cross enemy lines on a mission to kill senior Nazis. The cast includes Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Charles Bronson.

CRASH AND BURN

Monday, BBC1, 9pm

THE only things that appealed to me about F1 were the magnums of champagne and the dollybirds. But this feature-length documentary about Co Louthborn Tommy Byrne, who briefly looked set to become the world’s top driver in the early Eighties, looks interesting.

ROY ORBISON AND FRIENDS: A BLACK AND WHITE NIGHT

Friday, BBC4, 10pm

JUST a year before Roy Orbison, left, died in 1988, he was the star of arguably the greatest concert film ever made. This show, recorded in an intimate venue in LA features guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits and others.