Were you one of the 2.8 million who watched the launch of Celebrity Big Brother (ITV, Monday-Friday) in the hope of seeing someone famous? Of course you weren’t. Far too sensible. Allow me to fill you in, then. Apparently I get paid to do it.

We’ve long since grown used to reality TV stretching the definition of celebrity but this lot took the Hobnob. Besides a clutch of reality show winners the only familiar faces were Sharon Osbourne, Craig the cop from Corry, and Fern Britton.

Oh, and someone called Gary Goldsmith who said he was the uncle of the Princess of Wales. Yes dear, and as Kirsty MacColl sang, there’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis. Alas for poor Catherine, turns out Goldsmith is who he says.

Osbourne had been given the special designation of “lodger”, which meant she had a private suite. She was also set to leave the house early to get home to Ozzy. We like your style, lady.

READ MORE Jailhouse gets ready to rock in Danish crime drama

READ MORE Did Scotland's Home of the Year judges get it right?

Subscribe here for more TV reviews

So far the funniest thing has been watching Louis Walsh trying not to be Louis Walsh. His brusque dismissal of the three housemates he and Osbourne selected for eviction - “We didn’t like them” - and his shoo-ing away of a minor celeb who dared take the biggest bed, has not done Walsh any favours. By Tuesday he had remembered the cameras were there and was trying to be a better person. It’s killing him.

My money is on Fern Britton to be among the last ones standing. Spending so long on daytime television has to equip a person with the skills needed to survive this experience.

How To with John Wilson (BBC2, Friday) took us back into the world of the titular “anxious New Yorker” for a third series. On the face of it, Wilson wandered around with his camera filming random occurrences and people. Don’t let that fool you; the guy does his homework and he is relentless in chasing down answers.

In the first episode of his “docu-comedy” the subject was how to find a public toilet. In New York here are eight million residents and 60 million tourists a year, yet just 1000 public toilets. Without money being spent this is the future for any urban area that neglects to deal with such a basic human need. A disgusting prospect it is too.

Shots of sewage aside, an enjoyably weird half hour during which you just knew someone would utter the phrase, “Lou Reed was here once”.

Last week viewers looked on dismayed at the supposed workings of the justice system in The Jury: Murder Trial. That was a TV experiment. This week there was the real thing in The Push: Murder on a Cliff (Channel 4, Sunday-Monday).

Anna Hall’s two-part film revisited the harrowing death of Fawziyah Javed on Arthur’s Seat in 2021. With her dying breaths, Fawziyah, 31 and pregnant, said her husband had pushed her. He claimed to have slipped and collided with her by accident.

Anyone who has watched the excellent Murder Trial series would have been familiar with the proceedings, and some of the faces (it’s a small world the Scottish legal system). Hall’s film went a little wider, taking in what went on outside the courtroom, including an argument on the street between members of the families.

The sheer volume of material pointing to the husband’s guilt, much of it collected by Fawziyah, was remarkable. She feared he was going to do her harm, as did her mother. The plan was to return from Edinburgh and move back to her parents’ house, but it was not to be. As her lawyer remarked later, with the evidence she had gathered Fawziyah was effectively speaking to the jury. What an advocate she proved to be.

If the BBC seems to be living in interesting political times today, How the BBC Began (BBC4, Sunday) showed Auntie has had it tougher in the past. The General Strike, Suez, Northern Ireland, barneys with governments over them all.

Film-maker John Bridcut made sure to include the clip of a furious Harold Wilson berating young whippersnapper David Dimbleby for daring to ask the former PM how much he was paid for his memoirs. “If this film is used or leaked there will be a hell of a row,” threatened Wilson. Of course it was leaked.

Joan Bakewell recalled the two-hour lunch breaks in the pub filled with BBC staff and assorted others, “wives, debtors, all sorts of people”. But it wasn’t just a boozing session, oh dear no, this was an essential “ferment of ideas”.

There were strict rules about some things, mind. “You would perhaps go out for a stroll if you wanted to smoke some cannabis,” said the not so saintly Joan. “You didn’t do it on the programme.”

It looked a fun place to be. Horribly elitist, sexist, racist and beholden to governments, but on the upside it didn’t have Celebrity Big Brother with Gary Goldsmith.