THERE are a lot of men out there who are big kids at heart; I should know, I’m married to one of them.

Despite the fact that we have two small girls, he has, since the day they both managed to play with toys, insisted that they prefer Star Wars Lego sets to anything else; in fact, make that any Lego set that involves spaceships, cars, pirate ships, castles and trains, but especially Star Wars kits, and the bigger and more intricate the better.

In fairness, they do play with the stuff a heck of a lot, but I began to suspect a bit of fatherly self-interest was going on when he presented our three and five-year-old with a box as big as our house containing a gazillion components, all roughly the size of a pea, that turned out to be a huge Batmobile, complete with batwing tail fins, logo wheels and a moving engine.

And when he said that they’d really enjoy “helping” him build the Star Wars Death Star, there was a distinct whiff of rat in the air.

Basically this is a standard ploy blokes use to enable them to play with toys without being laughed at because they’re now grown men.

A point proven in James May’s Toy Stories (Tuesday, BBC2, 8pm) in which May pretends to be on a mission to convince today’s techno-addled children that older style playthings are every bit as good, if not better, than modern-day gadgets but he’s actually just using the show as an excuse to play with his boyhood toys again.

If you didn’t already realise from his Top Gear antics that the elaborately barnetted May was a big kid, you do now.

This week he was singing the praises of Airfix model kits to an unconvinced bunch of school kids.

But he didn’t care, because although some of the show was about introducing them to the traditional modelling toy and the delights of sticking tiny bits of grey plastic together to make, say, a tank, the core of the show was about him pursuing his childhood dream of making an Airfix model of a Spitfire on a 1:1 scale.

That’s full size.

It was entertaining enough for a while, as he tried to convince various experts – mainly in plastic mouldings – that it could be done, but before you could say “has anyone seen my fuselage?” I was starting to find it all very dull... strangely enough, around about the time his group of young charges began to show a glimmer of interest.

And it’s not because I don’t get the joy of Airfixing – I had endless hours of fun wrecking many a boy cousin’s camouflaged creations by picking off the little stickers, which looked so nice on my Sindy doll’s bedroom furniture.

No, I was just bored.

Next week he is doing something similar, this time with Plasticine. Can’t wait...

Question: What do you do if you live in a tiny, one-bedroom flat with a kitchen smaller than one of Ronnie Corbett’s loafers?

Throw it open to the public as a 14-seater restaurant, of course!

Yes, small-scale endeavours also figured large in Restaurant in Your Home (Monday, BBC2, 8.30pm) this week, where trendy London-based couple Matt Day and Marie Sterry wanted to make some extra dosh by transforming their weeny Hackney flat into a restaurant for a night.

Matt, who worked in media, was suffering those all-too familiar recessional cash-flow problems and was hoping to recoup some of his losses with the new venture.

They had the enthusiasm, they had the personalities, but they didn’t have the know-how and they sure as hell didn’t have the room.

But this is Tellyland where anything is possible, so enter stage right Mike and Tina Pemberton, a totally bonkers but weirdly likeable couple of former city high-flyers who moved to Norfolk to start up their own in-house restaurant eight years ago, and it’s now so successful it has been awarded the Good Food Guide Seafood Restaurant of the Year. Each week they take would-be restaurateurs under their wings and, in classic Sarah Beeny off Property Ladder style, offer sound advice which is totally ignored.

Unlike Beeny, who shrugs this off, these two get rather peed off and there’s endless stage whispering, rolling of eyes and harrumphing, especially from Mike who is like a cross between the father in the F-ing Fulfords and Basil Fawlty. Paying to eat in private houses is not new, it’s been going on for ages wherever people who like to eat out but don’t want to pay a fortune for faddy food like to gather.

And wherever there’s some mug willing to cook for them all, let them traipse through their home and then do all the washing up afterwards.

Worse, diners only pay what they feel the food was worth, so if they’re like some of the tightwads I’ve been in rounds with, it could be a labour of love and not much more.

But it’s good fun, in a Come Dine With Me kind of way, and it has that extra ingredient that could make it a big hit – namely the Pembertons.

With their unintentionally hilarious conversations, petty arguments and slightly sozzled musings, they, not the would-be hosts, are the stars of the show and are welcome in my house any time.