British Style Genius
BBC2,
Sunshine
BBC1,

If nothing else, the interview-packed British Style Genius taught me that I should have retained the black rubberised trenchcoat I bought from Britain's first affordable multi-storey retail style-temple, Biba, in the summer of 1974.

A calf-length effort with a severely nipped-in waist and big rounded lapels like flower petals, it cost me three pounds something (ie only a pound more than my previous crucial fashion buy: an ill-fitting war-surplus RAF greatcoat that smelt of mothballs).

More importantly, the Biba classic's supertight slinky fit made me look a right post-modern retro-groover* whenever I wore it while dancing the Ferry Glide to Roxy Music B-sides in north-west England's glam-rock nightclubs.

Biba came under British Style Genius's microscope in outlining the high street's enduring influence on the fashion industry: cheap and distinctive schmutter for the urban masses.

Informed reminiscence flowed between Biba's founder, Barbara Hulanicki, and Twiggy. Forty years ago, of course, a teenaged Twig the Wonderkid paved the way for Kate Moss's lucrative and much-ballyhoo'd modern-day tie-up with Top Shop. Who's on top in the ongoing battle of the supermodel clobber collections between smudged-looking Croydon clothes-horse Moss and the still-radiant fiftysomething Twigster? Twiggy still wins, I reckon, especially given Moss's gormless first words at a Top Shop marketing conference concerning her original (sic) range: "That's a very Lauren jacket, isn't it?"

Right enough, fashion always re-cycles, but the Moss schmutter-making method veers closely towards facile copying (no creativity required). Just find an antique Parisian jacket here, or an old fringed top there; then unpick, re-work, et voila you've designed your own complete range!

As British Style Genius wound up reminding us, you can work similar fashion magic yourself - ethically - by visiting Oxfam and then digging out your sewing machine. Hmmm ... maybe I could find my old Biba number on Oxfam's rails. If I could just get Kate Moss to let in an extra eight inches of rubberised material around the waist.

I was really looking forward to Sunshine, a three-part series which springs from the inspired nibs of Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, the laughter-giants responsible for that towering work of laconic north-west English sitcom genius, Early Doors.

I suppose I should laud Sunshine for being a more ambitious work of comedy drama. Unlike Early Doors, it's not set in the same two rooms at the same pub, with the same weekly cast of wittering, under-achieving pub-bound gargoyles.

Sunshine has got darkness in it, too. Its lead, Bob "Bing" Crosby, is a feckless bin-man waster whose gambling addiction is threatening his family's future. Indeed, in a denouement inspired by/copied from The Sting, Bing was cheated out of his family's holiday savings by an elaborate off-course bookmaking scam.

Likewise, though, I wound up feeling short-changed by Sunshine, in which dim-witted characters all spout sentimental north-west English homilies affirming the region's bittersweet social values ("Grandad allus said me dad'd lose every bet 'e placed, but allus win me mam round").

It's like being trapped in an old Hovis ad. With Steve Coogan looking constipated. By 'eck, it's grim oop Sunshine.