Tipping the blushometer

THE lesbian love drama Tipping the Velvet has started on BBC2, along with much thigh-rubbing about the prurience of the sex scenes between Rachael Stirling and Keeley Hawes. On the evidence of the first episode, the fuss is slightly pre-fabricated, as the steamy bits were hardly Ai No Corrida. In fact, without the sex scenes, the drama would hardly have existed at all, leaving only the cinematography and a Cocknified London straight out of Oliver. I kept expecting Ron Moody to jump out with a bucket of eels.

But fear not. Due to a set of fateful miscalculations, I found myself watching Richard and Judy on Wednesday afternoon, and can hence reveal that the really rude bits occur in episode two. To prove it, R&J wired a family up to a Blushometer, measuring the embarrassment of mum, dad and their children as they watched the choreographed Sapphism, with a high pulse rate triggering a red light above their heads. In episode two, Stirling becomes a lesbian sex slave. As a result, the red lights above the family�s heads burned so brightly a small corner of the studio resembled the surface of Mars.

The hosts then retired to discuss the erotic symbolism of oysters, Judy all mumsy and tolerant, Richard hopping around like Alan Partridge in a sex shop. Blush? Matron, I nearly died.