I've decided that I'm in favour of censorship. But forget the soft porn that has the moral lab coat of the nation fraying at the cuffs... both pishes and toshes to cartoon ultra-violence and the all-too-frank talk shows. The real danger to our collective well being lurks in the smiling guise of the TV home carpentry shows and it’s about time they were stopped.

Saturday mornings no longer snarl with lawnmowers and hedge clippers. There is only the echo of wailing children whose natural habitat (seventeen inches in front of the TV) has been taken over by Dads getting their weekly fix-it fix. The channels are packed to the bilges with sawdust savants who, in the space of a half-hour (minus commercial breaks), will throw together a two-story sunroom, a Louis XVI rocker and a genuine mahogany time machine.

Then they stand there with the gall of an insurance agent and try to tell you that all you need are a few simple, helpful hints and the right tools. And we're not talking hammers and saws. Their equipment would have been the envy of a Nazi weapons-maker. More than that, all of their wood is die-straight and knot-less, their eyes never waver from true and their paintbrushes haven't congealed to a solid like the ones I have maturing in the basement.

But these shows must strike a chord, because every Saturday afternoon hardware stores are packed with eager rookies. "Do you want that corner clamp with a left or a right-handed thread?" salesmen ask with a butter-wouldn't-melt expression... and you can see the eyes start to glaze. "Do you want particle board, fibre-board, plywood - good one side or both sides or do you want to spring for the marine-quality ply?"... before long, usually responsible adults start hissing and circling each other in a kind of primitive hardware dance.

Occasionally I, too, get excited by what appears to be a relatively simple bit of construction and head down to the basement with resolve... and bandages. Fortunately, the sight of my workbench is usually enough to bring me to my senses. There, reposing under a fine sheen of rust and ancient tears, lie the mute and scarred remains of wasted sacrifice.

Amongst the twisted ironmongery I can make out:

     - a back saw (extra points for recognizing one) with which it is possible to render the 'stock' you're torturing just a little bit off in every known dimension;

     - a much cursed and much thrown hammer. And here I applaud the wily Scots, who, not known for their woodworking skills, turned a hazard to passersby into an Olympic event;

     - various lengths, widths and thicknesses of wood (some of which are involved in current projects, others - casualties of earlier engagements);

     - assorted bent nails... well, where else do you put them;

     - bottles of glue in various states of curing - supposed to be administered with surgeon-like care, but usually ladled in to gaping cracks with manic desperation; and,

     - one damp sock for wiping off excess glue. In actual fact I needed a bath towel for the LePages Falls that has transformed my workbench into a thing of dim and brutal art.

Altogether I've come to the conclusion that the cruelest thing my father ever did was to leave me his collection of tools. The simple fact is that I can't even drive a nail through a piece of wood without some sort of mishap. I once punctured the same finger with the same nail on two successive days. In fairness the second incident was in the nature of an experiment - but the example holds even if my joints don't.

Neither can I paint. Easy touch-ups have made a spattered mockery of my once respectable wardrobe. Serried ranks of throw rugs line our living room walls to camouflage my adventures with roller and brush, and my garage has become a repository for the experiments in furniture refinishing that went hideously wrong. Try as I might I never could achieve that "aged in sewage" look, so prized by collectors.

Given the myriad examples of my ineptitude and considering my wife's pleadings to hire somebody - anybody - to work on the house, my determination to flaunt the odds is a mystery. I blame the seductive powers of TV and that rogue gene that peculiar to the male of the species.

It started innocently. Every week about the time the dads of the nation came in from the punishing the yard, Bob and Norm would be helping somebody transform their oozing slum into a Taj-Ma-Boston beauty. It was mildly entertaining and, over time, developed a following. Some liked the unpretentious, low gloss feel of the show, some placed bets on how long it would take before Norm couldn't see his shoes.

I'm keen on the part when the homeowner is told that the original estimate was a bit low - nothing like introducing a touch of reality into this looking-glass land... but only a touch. Stray too far - show people the real nuts and stripped bolts world of home carpentry and sponsors would flee.

Anyway, before long anybody who could hold a hammer and fake a New England accent was out there hosting for all they were worth. They don't really even have to do anything... just off-camera there's an army of trained carpenters who actually do the work.

So until crackerjack workmen - complete with tools - come included with the plans they'll sell you for ‘these and other projects in the series’ these shows should at least come with a warning. I don't demand that they actually take them off the air - just make them come with a disclaimer. Maybe they should just run some film of me after a couple of hours in the basement. I can hear the announcer now... “It's too late for this man - but please, for the sake of the children, don't try this at home.”

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