The Boat That Guy Built

There's little left for this shut in to do, little joy except for maybe now reaching for the remote to ensure I don't miss this weeks pulsating climax to The Boat the Guy Built. Have you, like us, been riveted - in a very late Victorian manner - to this all too brief series?

It's been an astonishing six week odyssey as motorcyle racer Guy Martin and trusty sidekick Mave restored their 19th Century narrowboat, Reckless, to it's, well, former glory and beyond! using only the tools and techniques to hand at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Or so.

Think I've mentioned the charismatic star, the first mate and the boat. Equal billing surely goes to the dark corners of Britain, accessible hopefully only by canal, where goods can still be manufactured in a traditional way. Every stop is truly terrifying. I can see the faces of the dead children. Enough to make me stop saying gaily 'little fingers for little stitches!' Enough to make me stop saying it altogether.

There's a BBC tradition too in these type of shows and still there's nothing quite like it, eclipsing, almost, well maybe, Michael Portillo's Rail Journeys. But that's the vein. The immersion in the richness of a best forgotten history.

What next for Guy and Mave? Well once you get the Isle of Man TT out of the way, they could co-produce and star in the great Narrowboat Detective pilot I have written for them. There's a hint of the Holmes and Watson about them for sure, we could be making a canalside Rosemary and Thyme, without the drama.  With muttonchops like that, after all, Guy Martin would wear a deerstalker well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z8jdv

Or maybe soon BBC America if you're out that way (as if).