Giles has a ringside seat

WE’RE at The Torridon, a five-star establishment in the western Highlands, for this week’s AMAZING HOTELS: LIFE BEYONDTHE LOBBY (BBC2, 8pm).

Or rather we’re not – fat chance – but hosts Giles Coren and Monica Galetti are, getting a taste of what it’s like to actually work there.

That’s what makes this series a bit less soul-crushing than other luxury lifestyle shows, the sort whose presenters just gawp in awe. Actually putting in a bit of graft – although I do mean just a bit – offers Giles and Monica a different perspective.

A former hunting lodge,The Torridon is Britain’s most northerly five-star hotel.

And its location really is stunning. I doubt you’d find a better view anywhere in the world. All right, I doubt you’d get much chance right now but you know what I mean.Who needs dreary sunshine anyway?

The rooms are amazing, too. Giles’s has a bath made of wood.

But yes, they’re here to work, or at least to make a programme where they pretend to, and general manager Ross (“I’m a stickler for detail…”) soon has them rolling their sleeves up, albeit not literally because that would look slovenly.

First, they learn how to plump a cushion. Careful not to have that zip showing.

Then they learn how to light a fire (so as not to fill the room with smoke – quite important, that). But it turns out tasks such as these are just easing them in. Not long after, Monica is shovelling manure. The hotel is largely self-sufficient, produce-wise, so the Highland cattle’s dung is rather precious. It’s certainly nothing to get sniffy about, ha ha.

Meanwhile, Giles is being taught how to change a toilet seat. “We go through them like people wouldn’t believe,” chuckles handyman Scott. “Maybe eight a month.”

Elsewhere, the latest classic EASTENDERS (BBC1, 7.30pm) takes us back to 1998, when Pat Butcher and Peggy Mitchell were having a right old ding-dong over Pat’s ex-husband Frank. Oh, yes, he was hot property, was dodgy geezer Frank Butcher. “He’s not your Frank, he’s mine!” insists Peggy.

“Only ’cos I don’t want him,” grunts Pat.

Yes, this really did happen.And 15 million viewers lapped it up. They should bring EastEnders back, it was really rather good.

Meanwhile in BACK INTIME FOR TEA (BBC2, 7pm), the Ellis family have reached the 1970s. Power cuts, the three-day week etc.And tea itself is what?Why, spaghetti hoop puffs, of course. A tin of hoops mixed with chunks of ham, rolled in puff pastry, then deep-fried.

Or, in the words of mum Lesley, “a heart attack on a plate”.