Towering tales of two cities

Paris BBC2
The Tower BBC1
Sensitive Skin BBC2
Location, Location, Location C4

'This is Paris... a city of romance and adventure... It has natural-born style, fabulous buildings, great restaurants, charm, glamour...'.

Ah, so that's the reason Miss Hilton wasn't christened Madrid, Rome, or Sydney. About 90 seconds in to BBC2's Paris and the trigger-finger was already itching, but I fought the impulse to switch over to The F-Word, scattering a few en route, just in case gamine presenter Sandrine Voillet suddenly revolted against the tyranny of the travelogue cliche and said something really interesting.

And lo, I didn't have long to wait because it turned out that, despite Paris being a city heaving with smart bilingual chicks amply qualified to stroll telegenically around the arrondisements, the Beeb had given the presenting gig to a girl from Nantes, so it came as no surprise that Sandrine's Paris occasionally looked and sounded like a production team's Paris. At triple Michelin-starred chef Guy Martin's Restaurant Véfour, Sandrine nibbled something divine and looked like a girl from Nantes who'd just landed the best job in the world: 'To tell the truth it's a bit pricey, so I've never eaten here before... I've never tasted food like it!'

But rive-gaucheness aside, Sandrine was as sweet as a pain au chocolat dipped into a petit dejeuner cafe-au-lait and even if her enthusiasm outweighed her insights it wasn't enough to put me off completely, simply because looking at Paris is the next best thing to being there, and I haven't been this century, which is very remiss.

Sandrine did all the obvious stuff, the Arc, Sacre Coeur, L'Opera, Louvre and Tour Eiffel ('the most famous monument in the world' apparently, though surely the Pyramids have the edge), but also swung by the Musee Rodin, which I love very much and which unexpectedly made me feel a bit soppy, not to mention keen to head for the Eurostar toot sweet.

But then I realised about halfway through Paris that it didn't matter whether, in fact, it was Paris I was watching or not, because, after two-and-a-half years living on the south coast, and thus with the novelty chafing, I was simply suffering city-lust. And I knew this because while watching I started longing very intensely for a cheese tart and a chestnut meringue from Maison Bertaux, which, being a tiny slice of Paris in Soho, is somewhat further away from France than I am.

These days I get a real frisson on the train into Charing Cross, crossing the bridge, passing the London Eye, sun glinting on its pods, and the sepia sprawl of the Houses of Parliament just downriver. So much so that while watching BBC1's new documentary series, The Tower, I found myself peering over the head of Les, the last resident of the Aragon Tower on Deptford's Pepys Estate, the better to savour his blinding city views.

The Tower is very good, if a tiny bit pleased with itself. It's a documentary subject gift-wrapped and tied up with lovely big bows - the story of a riverside south-east London council tower block being revamped as a plush lifestyle for the discerning (i.e. unimaginative, but loaded) buyer. It took three years to make so the first film featured all sorts of tantalising flash-forwards to squealing girlies being handed the keys to their first flat by mummy and daddy, but last week Aragon Tower, with its hot and cold rising damp, was still a very long way from becoming 'The Z Building'.

The people from Berkeley Homes who bought the tower from the council (how much for? We weren't told, which seemed an oversight) were in full marketing bullshit mode: 'on the edge of the river, on top of the world...', alongside predictable shots of young models sulkily sipping bubbly inside a show-home set, built to replicate the as yet unbuilt dream. 'Wow, yeah!', enthused the photographer.

Meanwhile, the reality was a bit less wow-yeah. 'Clearly there's always going to be resistance to change. That's understandable,' said the man from Berkeley, with monumental understatement, of Les, who, despite being deprived of heating and hot water and post for long, lonely stretches, was hanging out for a big compulsory purchase. In the end, Les got what he wanted, or near enough: no clown he, despite (and you can imagine the director's joy at discovering this) wearing silly hats and riding a unicycle for a living.

Other residents of the Pepys Estate - 30 year old Wayne and girlfriend Kelly, mother of his two kids, who were having a seven-year relationship itch only slightly alleviated by a posh anniversary dinner across the river at Canary Wharf and a subsequent marriage proposal in a local shopping mall, while heroin-addicted Leol, who scoured the estate for scrap metal and met his best mate Nicky 'in a skip' - were also documentary gold. With its soundtrack of arias and a sonorous voiceover from Chiwetel Ejiofor, The Tower felt slightly old-fashioned and self-conscious, but the photography was luscious - London, just like I pictured it - and it was beautifully paced. More than that, though, it was good to see it on BBC1 and at a relatively user-friendly hour.

Sensitive Skin (BBC2) is a sparkler of a sitcom. We're not talking great big blinging carats here - it wouldn't even register on Liz Taylor's Rock-o-meter, or even Posh's - but it's lovely enough for the rest of womankind to sigh with appreciation. Back for a second series, though without Denis Lawson as Joanna Lumley's husband, Al, who has died of a heart attack, it is just as cool, smart and touching as previously. And funny, obviously - though it's the sort of joke-free funny that is almost impossible to quote because Hugo Blick's prettily bittersweet writing is so un-sitcom, which is obviously a compliment.

Joanna Lumley, as the recently widowed Davina, is astoundingly good playing a woman who looks and sounds a great deal like Joanna Lumley but who isn't really like her at all. Or at least not how I imagine her to be, never having met her but, as with Victoria Wood, feeling as though I've known her all my life (poor woman, she must be constantly on the receiving end of a sort of harmless yet-irritatingly-over-familiar stalking).

Davina is at a crossroads - widowed, living with her bitter sister, Veronica (Maggie Steed) and husband-in-law, Roger (Nicholas Jones), a rubbish artist who sees Davina as his muse. She has viewed 34 properties in six months and hasn't been remotely tempted by any of them, but knows she has to go, soon. Meanwhile she has no contact with her adult son and slightly more contact than is comfortable with her studly ex-boyfriend. And then she is being hit on by the sort of boorish bloke who fancies his chances with a woman so far out of his league that it isn't remotely plausible, surely? - but for the fact that there are legions of blokes out there who, either deranged with testosterone or so comfortable in their Shar Pei skin that they never bother looking in a mirror - do this to beautiful women all the time, and they're not even billionaires.

Anyway, Davina is never less than dignified, though occasionally baffled. When boorish bloke bought Roger's latest portrait of her - a nude, obviously, with a touch of the Munch's - strapped it to the side of his truck and drove past Davina in the street, it was the kind of sight gag that begged for out-loud laughter, but, as with Blick's Marion and Geoff, all I could do was wince empathetically. It's impossible not to care about Davina because Lumley is just so wildly lovable. And maybe it's just me, but London looks particularly ravishing throughout - even the top deck of buses (was the bus scene set on a Routemaster? That's all they're good for now - prettifying the telly). By the end of the first episode Davina had quit her sister's vast and beautiful pile and moved into a funky Chelsea houseboat. Very good week, then, for the River Thames, which I'm certain has never looked lovelier.

OK, I'm just obsessed. During last week's Location Location Location (C4) I even caught myself salivating over Glasgow - also a city of romance and adventure, with natural-born style, fabulous buildings, great restaurants, charm, glamour, (etc), as well as staggering house prices. Actually it turned out to be a cracking show, as the increasingly stroppy Kirstie Allsopp reduced a house-hunter to tears by telling her that she was being greedy, though not in so many words, unfortunately. About time too, Kirstie - all your punters are greedy, wanting Left Bank glamour at ex-local authority prices. Perhaps I don't really need to be in a city, after all, just spice up my weekends with some house-swapping.

Spice of life: Happy news

It's been a momentous, historical, emotional, slightly hysterical sort of week, with standing ovations, tears and the massed ranks of photographers following everybody's every move. Some say there's a degree of cynical opportunism involved on both sides, but I think that's missing the point: the reformation of the Spice Girls, masterminded by their ex-manager Simon Fuller, is proof that Blair's Cool Britannia legacy not only lingers but thrives.

'Ooh, I love your news' said Geri Halliwell to the Channel 4 correspondent at the press conference, 'I love Jon Snow'. Back in the studio Snow looked equal parts delighted and embarrassed. Endorsed by a Spice Girl? He'll be getting air-kissed by Tony next - or worse, David Cameron, whose encouragement of his troops to their feet during Blair's House of Commons love-in smacked of wanting to be seen to be likable and not caring what he did to achieve it. Perhaps he'd like to give Simon Fuller a call.

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