LIKE Ronseal, Sports Disasters does exactly what it says on the tin. It's the kind of thing you watch and feel a little dirty afterwards. You just know you could have spent the last hour in a more productive way but . . . let's face it . . . people falling down and getting hurt is funny. The whole programme is jam-packed with fights, riots, accidents and people doing such insanely stupid things you find yourself wondering how the human race has survived as long as it has.

Like the thrillseekers who deliberately ski down areas that have a high risk of avalanches. One clip showed a skier carving along happily when everything around him seemed to suddenly slip, then organised itself into a giant white tidal wave and chased him down the mountainside. Needless to say it caught up with him quite easily. As jawdropping as the footage was, more remarkable was his mate who was filming the whole affair from a safe distance.

His hand didn't so much as quiver and he actually managed to zoom in on the action, while commenting, "This is a potential burial situation here." Ya think?

But don't worry, nobody ever gets killed on Sports Disasters. That would be in poor taste, but showing people getting almost fatally injured is fine. There's also a hilariously deadpan Voiceover Guy, who doesn't realise he's being funny. His portentous tones always set up what's coming ("Next to Spain, where we meet the bull they call 'El Tornado'.") and he specialises in stating the extraordinarily obvious.

After an accident in which a car managed to defy physics and flip over 17 times, an ambulance rushes to the scene and he solemnly tells us, "The driver is in need of medical attention." Just then the car bursts into flames, as pretty much everything with an engine in Sports Disasters does, and the driver staggers out from the wreckage. He too has burst into flames. As medical people jump on him with blankets Voiceover Guy says, "One wonders what it's like to be on fire." Yes, one does, but one could happily go through one's whole life without finding out.

Any football-related madness inevitably comes from South America. Like a match in Columbia where a player disagrees with the referee's decision and headbutts him. The ref staggers back two steps, before gathering himself and levelling his assailant with a right hook. He then issues a red card to the player panned out on the ground.

Sublime.

And sometimes they blindside your expectations completely. Like when they show action from a college American football game and you find your mind pondering what could happen next. A massive riot breaks out? The manager punches the umpire? The main stand collapses? None of the above.

Instead a plane crashes into the pitch.

Didn't see that one coming. And neither did some of the players who appeared to be crushed underneath, but don't worry, Voiceover Guy is on hand with his most overused line, "Incredibly, nobody was seriously injured in this incident."

The Heineken Cup Roadshow could be a sporting disaster too, but isn't thanks to the fact that George Hook and Brent Pope are such garrulous hosts. There's a small problem with the format, where Hook or Pope just point to someone in the audience and give them the floor.

Radio shows screen callers for a reason, and too often the speaker introduces their point with something along the lines of, "This was touched on earlierf" which is really just shorthand for, "Somebody made the exact same point a few minutes ago, but I agree and want to get my chance to say it on national television."

Thankfully the hosts are sharp enough to keep things steaming along and as it was the last episode in the series they ran through some of the season's highlights, including George doing voxpops on the street.

Laconic Man, "You're bigger than on TV."

George, "Do you have a big TV?"

Laconic Man [eyes George up and down], "I suppose I could get a wider one."

The two lads always seem to be up for a laugh and they finished on the kind of surreal note that it's hard to imagine, say, Giles/Dunphy or Brolly/O'Rourke agreeing to. It involved the two lads tucked up in bed together like a married couple, George is reading a book, Brent is reading a rugby magazine and there's a picture of Tom McGurk on the bedside dresser. The silence is broken when George says, "So, it's the end of the series. How do you think it went?" Brent simply harrumphs at him, flings his magazine down, switches off the light and turns away to sleep. Let's hope they patch things up before the World Cup.