ONE of my favourite shows right now is about fishing.

I have never been fishing, nor do I have any inclination to - I neither have the patience nor the understanding of why you would want to spend hours waiting to catch something you will merely photograph and then pop back in.

Not that I would want to eat the fish I, hypothetically, would be snaring, I hasten to add.

No, I am not an angler.

But I do so love watching Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer bumbling around Great Britain, enjoying the scenery and doing a spot of fishing at the same time.

To be fair, this is as much a show about enjoying life and being with people you genuinely like as it is about how large a sea going creature you manage to bring up from the river.

Pals of old, these two are just so much fun to watch - some of it might feel a bit scripted but on the whole it is like being in the pub with great mates.

I even forgive them for a rather hackneyed view of our own county - having largely overlooked the beautiful scenery of north Essex where they went fishing, they then decided to focus on the rather tired idea that all Essex inhabitants are akin to the cast of TOWIE.

Yet I will forgive them, because I genuinely enjoy their silly antics and gentle ribbing of each other and, for me, half an hour is not nearly enough for each show.

Another surprisingly engaging show which caught my eye this week also involved water.

This time it was a gaggle of celebs attempting to train for a cross channel swim in aid of the extremely important Stand up 2 Cancer appeal.

There were a surprisingly large number of high achieving Olympians among the brave number who, despite major sporting success, could not swim at all well.

The swim, which hangs in the balance after the first instalment, will be a relay.

But with a real fear of water very much in play for many of them, it was a tough ask.

There is always a TOWIE representative in these sort of programmes and here we had two for the price of one, the ubiquitous James ‘Arg’ Argent and another girl, Georgia, who I am not familiar with.

Plot spoiler - she had to bow out following advice from open-water swimming gurus Ross Edgely and Keri-anne Payne largely due being unable to even put her face in the water after a great many training sessions.

I thought she may be in trouble when she kept saying she couldn’t get the hang of ‘breathing underwater’.

Arg is actually a good swimmer, hampered by the fact he has gained ten stones in weight over the past two years (information supplied during the programme)

Which is a shame because his jolly sense of humour and glass half full nature seem to be hiding a genuine wish to lose some weight and preserve his health.

Somewhat meekly, whilst having a fitness test, he hoped to be told he was actually quite fit for an overweight person.

Alas, this was not the case.

I really hope they do it though - there was genuine fear in some of their faces which suggests there will be one or two more, however, joining Towie Georgia in the changing rooms early doors.

Fair play to them for putting themselves out of their comfort zones.

The Last Leg’s Alex Brooker is worth catching up on this alone.

If you don’t cry watching him, against the odds, complete a gruelling 500metre swim in Lake Windermere then you have a heart of stone.