BEST OF THE REST
KIRSTIE’S HANDMADE CHRISTMAS Channel 4, 5pm
IT’S beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well, it is now that we’re heading back to Christmas HQ to join Kirstie Allsopp and all her crafting buddies. It’s series eight, so you should know the drill by now.
Kirstie sets up home in the most festively decorated grand grotto you’ve ever seen, and invites the most creative Christmassy crafters from all across the land to come and join her to demonstrate their skills.
They compete against each other in their respective categories in the hopes of winning a Handmade trophy and the resentful respect of their less successful competitors.
She also invites experts to demonstrate some things we can all try at home – it’s like if the Blue Peter ‘we’re going to show you how to make a present for a relative’ segment had grown up and gone extremely middle class and stylish.
For this first episode it’s the big boy – tree decorating.
CHRIS TARRANT: RAILWAYS OF THE SOMME Channel 5, 9pm
BOY, they love their train programmes over at Channel 5, and Chris Tarrant is possibly the only person who loves them even more than they do.
He’s back for a sixth series of rail-related adventures, which begins with this emotional 90-minute special. He’s travelling all over Europe, tracing the tracks of the railway and its importance in the Great War. In Northumberland, he climbs aboard a beautifully preserved First World War locomotive, and learns how vital the railways were to Britain, transporting men and supplies to large training camps around the country.
He follows the route of a ‘pals’ battalion from Alnwick to the Channel and across to France, and recounts the powerful stories of an English and a German soldier who both took trains to the Somme in 1916.
In the heart of the infamous battlefield, he’s clearly moved as he learns of the part trains played in creating trench warfare.