New diets do bear fruit

ICOULD do with losing the odd pound or 28. So I wish one of those TV diet shows would get in touch. Honestly, I’d be their perfect guinea pig (the “guinea” is optional), willingly subjecting myself to whatever weight-loss regime they cared to test on me.

Maybe it’s my attitude problem that’s putting producers off. Maybe I need to be more like Sophie and Zoe.

Sophie and Zoe are a pair of pals seeking urgent help tonight in HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT WELL: SUMMER SPECIAL

They have a works do in a week and want to look their best.And what’s the first question they’re asked by presenter Dr Helen Lawal?

“Do you feel the pressure to be constantly insta-ready? Hashtag no-filter?”

See, there you have my problem in a nutshell.While Sophie and Zoe’s reply is a simple yes, mine would have to be: “Is there any chance you could speak to me in English, Dr Helen? I feel we’d make more progress that way.”

Co-host Dr Xand van Tulleken then reveals what’s lined up for these eager volunteers. “The diets we’ve chosen,” he tells them, “centre around summer fruits.”

So if my sarky reply to Helen hasn’t already got me turfed off the show, the response I’d have to give to this announcement from Xand – namely: “I think you’ll find it’s, ‘centre ON’, mate” – will surely clinch it.

Still, perhaps it’s for the best. The diet picked for Sophie, it turns out, is the citrus diet.The acids can allegedly “help regulate digestion”. Zoe, meanwhile, is put on the “sexy pineapple diet” – which, on alternate days, means pineapple is all you’re allowed to eat.

Both, nonetheless, seem determined to stay positive.

To kick things off, Zoe is given some sliced fresh pineapple, some griddled pineapple and a smoothie made from… well, yes, quite.

“Mmm!” she exclaims, for what I suspect will be the last time in her life when presented with anything pineappley.

Sophie, meanwhile, gets cod en papillote with olives and orange. “It’s actually really nice…” she insists. Failing to make the final edit is the bit where she wolfs down the parchment and pleads for more.

And talking of hunger, a bunch of bad tempered camels, long overdue their dinner, are causing havoc in JOANNA LUMLEY’S UNSEEN ADVENTURES (ITV,

9pm). But Joanna’s too overawed by the setting – Uzbekistan’s Kyzylkum desert – to let it bother her. “This scene has been unchanged for 2,000 years,” she sighs.

Much like some of the scenes, funnily enough, in EASTENDERS

(BBC1, 7.30pm). In tonight’s archive episode, Max Branning is exposed as a scoundrel.Again.