Cupid goes for early Bath

FIRST DATES, which is back tonight (C4, 10pm), is the only TV matchmaking show I really have any time for. Mostly because it isn't just the young and the youngish it plays Cupid with.

- 

At the First Dates restaurant in Bath ("the most romantic city in Britain," insists maître d' Fred Sirieix, who's presumably never been to Hull), they regularly attempt to pair up people with proper life experience.

People, that is, who've lived a little, and in some cases quite a lot, and who, as a result, tend to be a bit more interesting and a lot less self-obsessed. It also manages to do so in a way that doesn't feel condescending, which makes a nice change.

This week's senior pair - if we have to call them that, which we don't, so I'm not entirely sure why I just have - are Derek, from Essex, and June, from Bucks.