Tonight TV alert

At 1900 hours on Channel 4 - Atlantic Britain

I reckon he should have called his ship 'Dignity'*.

I don't have a clue about the quality of the programme, but it's an 8-part series of half hourers. It gets 'Choice' rating in the Radio Times, whose website says

The west coast of Britain is home to an inhospitable stretch of water that has put paid to the hopes - and hulls - of more than 3,000 boats.

"It's a coast that's generally avoided by amateur sailors," understates the narrator of this new series. Enter, with a foolhardy flourish, amateur sailor Adam Nicolson, who decides to embark upon a perilous 1,500-mile trip.

What follows is a delightfully old-fashioned adventure, with local characters and seafaring tales framing the odyssey of Adam (and friend George Fairhurst). Naturally, it's not all plain sailing.

Though Adam's pronouncements occasionally loiter on the wrong side of pretentious, this is an otherwise rollicking voyage through surprisingly unfamiliar waters.

I've set my video: David Beckham's taking us out for dinner tonight (a tenner at 8/1 to score first on Wednesday). Other half is backing Italy to win the Olympic Gold, but my instinct says Iraq. Whether I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is is another matter...

*Lyrics below...

Dignity - Deacon Blue

There's a man I meet walks up our street
he's a worker for the council
has been twenty years
and he takes no lip off nobody
and litter off the gutter
puts it in a bag
and never seems to mutter
and he packs his lunch in a "Sunblest" bag
the children call him "bogie"
he never lets on
but I know 'cause he once told me
he let me know a secret about the money in his kitty
he's gonna buy a dinghy
gonna call her Dignity

And I�ll sail her up the west coast
through villages and towns
I�ll be on my holidays
they'll be doing their rounds
they'll ask me how I got her I�ll say "I saved my money"
they'll say isn't she pretty that ship called Dignity

And I�m telling this story
in a faraway scene
sipping down Raki
and reading Maynard Keynes
and I�m thinking about home and all that means
and a place in the winter for Dignity
and I�ll sail her up the west coast
through villages and towns
I�ll be on my holidays
they'll be doing their rounds
they'll ask me how I got her I�ll say "I saved my money"
they'll say isn't she pretty that ship called Dignity

And I�m thinking about home
and I�m thinking about faith
and I�m thinking about work
and I�m thinking about how good it would be
to be here some day

on a ship called Dignity
a ship called Dignity
that ship