Addiction that turns men to wrecks

Somehow the telly car-junkie's soon tragically hooked on the real hard stuff, mainlining the Discovery Turbo channel almost 24 hours a day. For this is my shameful telly car-junkie's confession: I have become woefully enthralled by Discovery Turbo's Wrecks to Riches, presented by one-time used-car salesman Dominic Littlewood.

A chirpy shaven-headed homunculus from Essex, Littlewood resembles the burly geezers in cheap suits you see clearing a path through anti-racism protesters for Nick Griffin, whenever he seeks to engage in a reasoned debate at the Oxford Union. As a presenter, Dominic has a plausible roguishness to him.

The point of Wrecks to Riches - a structured reality show which follows the same numbingly hypnotic format week in, week out - is to resurrect a nearly new, accident-damaged car, safely and professionally, within a bargain budget.

Dominic must pretend he's a genuine bloke who can truly use a socket set, rather than being the cack-handed patter-merchant he more closely resembles. He also labours to convince us that he has attained gag-cracking best-buddy status with the skilled, oily-handed mechanics who are honestly toiling to do all the actual work.

Why I like Wrecks to Riches is obvious: I am a cack-handed, car-mad wimp who's never done a day's honest toil. In addition, I desire motors I can't afford and want to be taken for a real bloke with demonstrable digital skills.

Sadly, this painful self-knowledge hasn't stopped me watching all Discovery Turbo's cheap, formulaic car repair shows - Wheeler Dealers, Auto Trader, Wreck Rescue - more than is healthy. I may soon be forced to go cold turkey and take up knitting and riding a tricycle.

Or perhaps I'll be weaned off my car obsession by watching more easily digestible costume dramatisations such as Oliver Twist. Part two was rendered extra watchable by two contrasting performers. Playing the evil Mr Monks, Julian Rhind-Tutt was a sneering study in upper-crust murderousness. As he languidly murmured, encouraging Fagin to do away with the orphaned Oliver: "He must hang - it's easy enough to get a pauper child hung."

Tom Hardy was similarly compelling as Bill Sikes. He was spellbinding earlier this year on TV as the malformed anti-hero of Stuart: A Life Backwards. His Bill Sikes is likewise menacing yet charismatic. In addition, Hardy's Victorian psycho has the same casually ominous air as yon type of young ned who pulls up next to you at the traffic lights in a heavily modified Citroen Saxo, blaring happy hardcore from his 48 sub-woofers. Real scary. Then again, if Hardy ever winds up presenting a show about such second-hand cars on Discovery Turbo, he'll know his career has reached rock bottom.

Rick Spleen's stand-up comedy career bottomed out in Lead Balloon: he was pilloried nationwide for telling jokes that had set back the discovery of a cure for Aids by five years. Jack Dee's self-unravelling misanthrope at one point arrived home to face a confrontational scrum of reporters shouting things like: "Have you got blood on your hands, Mr Spleen?"

What Rick had actually got in his hands at that moment was a waste-disposal unit. To get it, he'd had to overcome things far worse than confrontational reporters: a recalcitrant hardware store owner and his own gloomy au pair, Magda. Obviously, it transpired that Rick hadn't really de-railed the search for a cure for Aids. Lead Balloon is a fine cure for gloom, however.