But since his bestselling book The Pope's Children, he's been awarded a series to back up his thesis.

In Search of the Pope's Children promised to root out the HiCo and the Breakfast Roll Man, and LoGI Jane and Decklander to prove that all these people are real, and McWilliams wasn't just coining proper nouns and then trying to find people to fit their profile.

Unfortunately, it was hard to tell which of those featuring were actors and which were real, leading one to think if McWilliams' search yielded such confusion, then are they really out there?

McWilliams' narration . . . often repeated word for word from his book . . . threw around dramatic comparisons, and asked vague questions while he strolled through Dublin's streets, collar open, pursed lips, hand in pocket.

Technically, it was expertly edited and beautifully shot. The fault with the programme is the same as with the book. It's dizzying, jumping with from topic to topic and pumping out little concrete information apart from manufactured stereotypes. The overall effect was an unstructured assault of simplistic generalisations, with some interesting information in between.

The topic would be far better served if only one or two themes or issues were dealt with in each installment. You simply cannot flit from sex to curly wurlys to ecstasy to nuclear power to traffic within the space of a few breaths. The effect is confusing and messy, and leaves all involved very open to criticism.

The second episode of The State Within, the political drama set mainly in Washington, didn't seem to have such resonance in the wake of the mid-term elections in the US, which have changed the political landscape there. Having missed the first episode, I was completely lost, so don't attempt to watch if you haven't got stuck into it already.

Surely even avid viewers would be confused by the seemingly endless number of plots running. It's more or less the eve of the execution of a British prisoner in an American jail while Clive OwenDaniel Craig hybrid Jason Isaacs, who stars as Ambassador Mark Brydon, is mulling over the leadership of Tygystan. There was plenty of other stuff going on that was lost on me, so the best analysis one could give is that it's The West Wing meets Spooks with added headache.

After such mental exertion, it was time for some light relief. Step forward one the best under-theradar comedies around, Jack Dee's Lead Balloon. A perfect substitute for The Office, its awkward, drawnout and subtle gags are almost all at the expense of the hapless Rick Spleen (Dee), a stand-up comedian who is surrounded by the furrowing brows of his American comedic writing partner Marty, his always dubious wife Mel (Raquel Cassidy, who was equally likeable in Teachers), Magda, their eastern European housekeeper, Ricks, his sponging daughter (wonderfully played by Antonia Campbell-Hughes) and her stoned looking boyfriend, Ben. It's delightful stuff.