Worlds Colliding and Information Withheld

One of these nights, I'll get through the Victoria Wood Christmas special without falling asleep. My second attempt may have got me to the 20-minute mark, though it's hard to know the exact moment at which shut-eye occurs. Probably during the unending Last Cranford to Trancentral parody.

So, to something I have watched all the way through. Great to see Stewart Lee not only do well on Celebrity Mastermind (Monday 4 January, BBC1), but to do well by choosing a specialist subject that, by the standards of many contestants - never mind celebrity competitors - was well out there. Derek Bailey (no, not the host of Mr & Mrs) was a Yorkshire-born avant-garde jazz guitarist (1930-2005) with a long and varied career. For some who have followed Lee down the years, and know all about the Evan Parker menu music for the 90s Comedian DVD, not to mention the use of Harrison Birtwistle in This Morning with Richard Not Judy, perhaps Derek Bailey needs little introduction. Though it might have helped if Lee had been asked his reasons for selecting Bailey by John Humphrys, the man with the most unsettling laugh in Britain. (He yelps like a puppy facing a firing squad.)

I got a big fat zero on Derek Bailey. Stewart Lee did stupendously well. It's not often references to "ECM Records", "John Zorn" and the "Spontaneous Music Ensemble" abound on early-evening BBC1. And it certainly beats when Myleene Klass chose whatever series it was of Sex and the City. Had she only ever seen the one she'd chosen?

If Lee's choice of questions puzzled those tuning in by mistake for The One Show, I was the perplexed one watching We Need Answers (BBC4, Tuesday 5 January). From reading a Radio Times write-up, I had been expecting the "humiliation" of Kelvin MacKenzie, one of this week's two guests. MacKenzie, for the uninitiated, was editor of The Sun for 13 years, during which time he ran a series of libellous and damaging stories about Elton John (who later sued to the tune of £1m), suggested in a front-page article that Liverpool fans urinated on the dead at Hillsborough in 1989, included extremely unnecessary detail about the victim of a rape that bordered on titilation, and revelled in publishing highly unpleasant and misleading copy about Peter Tatchell. Amongst many other misdemeanours.

I usually enjoy We Need Answers. Inessential viewing, but a pleasing way to pass thirty minutes, a low-key, "Radio 4" version of Shooting Stars if you like, and unlike SS in recent times, with guests I'm more likely to have heard of. In this series we've had Jenni Murray off Woman's Hour, Inbetweener Simon Bird, Miranda Hart, Sophie Grigson, Ian McMillan and Neil Innes. What troubled me about Kelvin MacKenzie being invited to take part, though, is that unlike a lot of people who turn up on television all the time, he and his work made decisions that have caused severe harm to people, including people who did not seek nor wish celebrity. In his world, where as long as something sold papers (even when that thing was "stuff that's not true"), it's just a game. And so, as We Need Answers is just a game, he has nothing to lose by appearing on it. Apart from when co-host Mark Watson made the point about lying in an aside, MacKenzie was treated with kid gloves. MacKenzie was, slightly annoyingly, a good sport. Maybe, I have to concede, I find it difficult to forgive someone like him. But I just remember the gleeful spite that dripped from his work for many years, and which under his successors has continued to do so. But then what was I expecting from a genial if eccentric quiz? Mindless violence?

Next week, Terry Christian will be on the show. I'm likely to tune in and chuckle at one or two things he says. Despite myself. Am I a hypocrite for not giving Kelvin MacKenzie the benefit of the doubt?