small screen...

small screen

Let them swap cake

You've seen Mike "Smitty" Smith presenting classic television programmes, and you've seen his wife, Sarah "Greeny" Greene doing the same. But you've never seen them together... until now. Move over Richard and Judy - the most hormone-fuelled and heartbreakingly romantic showbiz partnership ever (right) is about to burn into your screens, hardening that phosphor into an indelible image of love and talent. The show in question is called The Exchange (Sun 7pm ITV), and is a forum for bartering weird and wonderful objects - a radical ruse to destroy Thatcher's monetarism, disguised as a family show which fetishizes old and valuable objects. Noel Edmonds's Swap Shop had the germ of this idea, but lacked the power to change the world because of the sheer cheapness of the items on offer. The press release for The Exchange, a masterpiece of misinformation required to get round various political censors, is cunningly persuasive: "If you own a 1930s Tiger Moth aeroplane but want a vintage Rolls-Royce..., The Exchange could make your wish come true." It is clear that the swapping of utterly incommensurable things, rather than selling one and buying the other, is really a classic Sartrean "acte gratuit", or pointless exercise, designed to remind us of the repression that lies behind the whims of fiscal authority. And who better to light the blue touchpaper on this glorious rocket of social justice than Mike and Sarah? Vive la rvolution!

Run for the sun, little one

A clutch of new stuff escapes from the Warner Home Video vaults on Monday, designed to expand your geographical and cultural horizons. First up is "The Nature of Russia" (three tapes at £10.99 each), featuring exclusive episodes from TV's Survival. Land of the White Fox is set in Siberia whose incredibly harsh terrain, with its three-month winter night, has long been the home of the tribe of reindeer-herders called the Nentsy. We follow them through a typical spring, when the snowy owl and the Arctic fox (below right) rub the sleep out of their eyes and get mating. Even the fact that this, Song of the Volga and Ring of Fire are narrated by Ian McShane doesn't destroy their shivering beauty. For a complete change of mood, "The Ballet Collection" (three tapes at £10.99 each), is an excuse for a nice holiday from reality - a pointe break, in fact.

Wings of desire

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Well, actually, the date was 1947 and the place the North Pole, a whacking great American B29 bomber went down, crash-landing on a frozen lake. The crew was rescued but the plane was left behind. Nowadays, that kind of plane is very valuable. So what kind of nutter's plan do you think aircraft dealer Darryl Greenameyer and his mate, mechanic Rick Kriege, dreamed up? Correct, they're thinking they could repair that old bird and fly it right off that there lake. Sell it and retire basically. But are things ever that simple? Follow the tribulations of the team in Encounters: The Treasure of the Humboldt Glacier (Sun 7pm C4, right) while enjoying a smugly steaming cup of cocoa.

Making Yourself Presentable

Do you consider yourself a hip young thing? Well lucky you coz Channel 4 is letting loose a new youth programme Watch This Space (Sun 5.15pm) to keep you up todate with all those vital ingredients for trendy living. This is going to take TV "into Cyberspace and its audience one step further" - boasts the blurb. Oldies with computer phobia would do best to channel hop elsewhere and leave the techno-babies to take part in the show via fax, e-mail or the Watch This Space Internet Billboard.

In Sunday's live show the audience gets to choose its own presenters while teenage goddess Patsy Palmer (better known as Bianca) leaves drab Albert Square for the bright lights of Planet Hollywood and assists Dominik Diamond as the wannabe presenters battle it out. Who said today's youth is only interested in fashion, fun and fame?

Compiled by Steven Poole

and Kate Mikhail

turn offs

Fantasy Football league watch it while fantasising about getting your hands on Skinner and Baddiel Fri 11.15pm BBC2

Sign On Nothing wrong with a programme for the deaf, but does it have to have such a - well - unemployable title? Sat 12pm C4

Tim Mel Gibson is exquisitely beautiful and in this yarn of a mentally handicapped gardener's affair with an older woman (Piper Laurie). All done in the best possible taste. Sun 2.55pm BBC1

Points of View Anne Robinson ploughs through more why oh why oh whys from the nation's smugs. Wed 8.50pm BBC1

Men Behaving Badly Why doesn't Leslie Ash just move out and spare us any more pain? Thur 10pm BBC1