Eating With... Oona King (BBC2); The Real Animal Farm (C4): Former MP Oona King's first job as a 14-year-old was short-lived. The manager sacked her on the spot when he learnt she was under age.
She worked in her local McDonalds at a time when fast food outlets were a novelty in this country. "I've still got my name badge - how sad is that?," she said.
At first, she was only allowed to wash the floor. Then she was allowed into the kitchen and put in charge of Big Macs. "I thought it was the most glamorous thing I'd ever done," she said.
King was passionate about politics, not food, and determined to stay out of the kitchen because that's what was expected of women.
Her attitude to food changed after marrying an Italian she met while working at the European Parliament in Brussels. Her in-laws introduced her to the flavours of Neopolitan home cooking.
But still King stayed out of the kitchen, leaving her husband to do all the cooking. Being an MP occupied her every waking hour. Pot Noodles and a can of Slimfast were her idea of a good meal.
That changed three years ago when, she recalled with candour in the latest Eating With... programme, her husband issued an ultimatum. He pointed out that in the ten years they'd been together she'd never put a meal on the table. If she didn't learn to cook, then he was leaving.
Losing her seat to George Galloway in 2005 has given her time to learn to cook, not by taking expensive lessons but following recipes in cookery books. We left King, who'd never opened a tin of tomatoes until three years ago, preparing dinner for 16 people - and, perhaps more importantly, looking as though she was enjoying it.
The Dark Side of Porn took us into a world described as "grotesque, humiliating and debasing". Or as one witness said, "It was jaw on the floor time".
Unfortunately the makers couldn't show any clips from the series of films known collectively as Animal Farm for legal reasons. We got the point without seeing it.
More than reporting on the filming of indecent acts with animals, The Real Animal Farm was the tragic story of leading lady Bodil Joensen or the Queen of Bestiality as she was known.
She had a different outlook to other teenagers, which became apparent when a farmer recalled how she "really enjoyed helping inseminate the sows".
She took her love of animals to places most of us can't even think about without wincing, starring in 40 films featuring her having sex with a farmyard of animals between 1969 and 1972. She needed the money to finance her breeding farm.
Heavy drinking and pill-taking affected her later life. When police and animal welfare officers raided her farm they found it in a disgusting state of decay, filth and neglect. It was a sad end for Bodil the animal lover.
Published: 20/04/2006
