Gary and Danielle's Northern Exposure, BBC1, Friday

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, causing the captive to believe he or she is dying. The technique causes extreme pain, the sensation of drowning, damage to the brain, lasting psychological harm and, if uninterrupted, death. In other words it shares many characteristics with Gary and Danielle's Northern Exposure.

The show follows Gary Lineker and his unhealthily attractive fiancée Danielle Bux as they travel around Northern Ireland, but it's unclear as to why Lineker was chosen for this task. Quite literally any one of the other six billion people on the planet could have travelled around the North looking underwhelmed, and they wouldn't have been so irritating doing it.

In his time as host of Match of the Day Lineker has single-handedly turned it into something worth recording, not because you can't afford to miss it but because that gives you the opportunity of skipping over his endless supply of unfunny puns and general smugness. He can't get through a single sentence without raising an eyebrow and cracking a lame gag.

At one point in Northern Exposure he simply had to read out a card which described what the couple's next port of call would be, but he couldn't help interrupting himself with asinine asides. "It's summertime (You wouldn't know it) and the living is easy (That's a song, isn't it?). So what better way to celebrate a grand day out than with a poke [pulls a shocked face and laughs lasciviously] down the farm (That sounds rude!)."

Apparently 'poke' is an Ulster word for an ice cream cone, although that might well have been a lie designed to give Lineker the chance to be so hilarious. They then go to see cows being milked and ice cream being made, a bit like the part where they go through the magic door in Bosco except all the magic has been removed, taken out the back and shot.

He also has the incredibly annoying habit of trying to work soccer into every situation he finds himself in, just in case we had forgotten what his prior occupation was. When he hears that the amount of milk produced by the cows is recorded on a daily basis he burbles, "Do they have a league table? Do the best ones get sold to Real Madrid?" In a camper van he attempts to play the Match of the Day theme tune on the horn.

And worst of all, when he and Danielle get taken to a yoga class the German instructor's surname is Tottenham. Oh no. Oh please God, no. "It's been a while since I've worked out with Tottenham," he inevitably chirrups.

Later, when getting a massage from the same woman, he says, "A perfect way to finish off, a penalty shoot-out with the Germans," which made no sense whatsoever, leaving you to wonder how bad the stuff edited out must have been. This programme is screening on a loop in Guantanamo Bay.

Sometimes during tranquil evenings, as On the Air embroiders a handkerchief or gently strums the lute, we like to leave on Sky Sports News as background noise. There's something comforting about the constant repetition of news combined with a complete lack of talk about terrorists or recessions. Also we live in hope of bearing witness to the inevitable day when one of the presenters loses it utterly on air, finally driven mad by their own personal Groundhog Hour and having to repeat for the umpteenth time what David Moyes thinks of Joleon Lescott. Someday Jim White is going to jump on the desk and start screaming, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore. Twenty-four million? He's not even that good. Turn off your TVs!"

The repetition makes it easier to spot glitches in the matrix though, or even flat-out editorialising. Shortly after Arsenal had defeated Celtic 3-1 in the Champions League qualifier on Wednesday, the brief highlights package included Voiceover Guy chiding Eduardo for his blatant cheating in earning a penalty. Later that evening it had been adjusted to the more neutral "[Artur] Boruc claimed he didn't touch him." Nonetheless the footage of Boruc very obviously not touching the striker was still included. It seems odd that Sky would feel the need to stop their reporter having a dig at a blatant bit of cheating; perhaps they're trying to convince viewers that the game is as pure as the driven snow, but all it does is make them seem spineless.

If they're so concerned about the game's image they should take more care with what ads they allow be shown on the channel. After showing us scenes of the violent clashes between West Ham and Millwall fans midweek, there was a commercial break that included an ad for a new film, The Firm, which concerns itself with football hooliganism. In other words, if you enjoyed that bit of football-related violence, get yourself along to the cinema to see some more. That's far more cynical than Eduardo falling over.

pnugent@tribune.ie