Don’t have nightmares, but this was a bit Fifty Shades of Eamonn
The idea of eamonn holmes advancing on you in his jim-jams with his nostrils flaring is enough to give anyone nightmares. God forbid he should be brandishing instruments of torture. Nobody wants to contemplate Fifty Shades Of eamonn.
These horrors flashed before our eyes in the lightweight but entertaining How To Get A Good Night’s Sleep (C5), as eamonn and wife Ruth Langsford tested cures for insomnia. The distended nostrils, which gave him the look of a mad scientist after a shot of Frankenstein’s Pick-me-up, were caused by plastic anti- snoring nose thimbles.
The other implements, a tongue plate and a chin- strap, were for Ruthie. By the time he’d trussed her up, she looked like a 17th-century witch wearing a scold’s bridle.
She needed this get-up because, according to her hubbie, she snores like a warthog. he’s a charmer, isn’t he?
That description was mild beside the verdict of retired businessman Colin in Peterborough, whose wife Jenny is said to be the loudest snorer in Britain. he compared her to all the animals in the zoo, hooting, roaring and trumpeting at once. Jenny received this criticism remarkably well. Plenty of women might take offence at being likened to a pack of hyenas with the odd elephant thrown in. Some might even respond with a few tart words about their darling husband’s own failings, before extending an invitation to sleep on the couch . . . indefinitely.
But it’s no matter for jokes: one in ten couples affected by snoring will end up talking about divorce — or so claimed the bed salesman whose top- of-the-range models cost nearly £ 50,000. he also proclaimed: ‘Sleep is more important than eating.’ Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
The world’s most comfortable bed, we learned, was in the Savoy’s royal suite, where the mattress is stuffed with Mongolian yak wool. You still snore, presumably, but at least you’ll feel like you’re floating on a cloud.
By a funny coincidence, the Savoy was also referenced on BBC2 in the kidnap drama Trust, where oil billionaire John Paul Getty was toying with the notion of buying the hotel, so that he’d be guaranteed a good sandwich when in London. And a comfy snooze, presumably. Comfort was not on the agenda for five disabled veterans, trekking across 1,000 miles of uninhabited mountain terrain in Kimberley, Australia.
The Duke of Sussex gave the adventurers a pep talk before they set out, on Without Limits (BBC1). he’d been there, he said: ‘It was horrible. Think of the worst possible things you can imagine and they have it all.’ Despite the poisonous spiders and the crocodiles, this was a documentary about overcoming mental challenges.
The older members of the team accepted their disabilities and worked with them — the youngest was just starting to get used to a life drastically changed.
Keanie Trick, 23, struggled to walk over uneven ground, following back and hip injuries during Army training.
She drew inspiration from the extraordinary courage and agility of former infantryman Shaun Stocker, who lost both legs and most of his eyesight aged 19 in a bomb blast in Afghanistan.
Shaun’s gallows humour kept his spirits high. Tightening the bolts on his prosthetic legs, he joked that while other people lost their reading glasses, he was always searching for his Allen keys.
The sound on this show was often muffled, especially the conversations in Land Rovers bumping along on rugged dirt roads. But it couldn’t fail to raise the spirits.