BEWARE of the Killer Sofas! Not the title of a movie collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Uwe Boll, but a headline from this week’s Watchdog (Monday, BBC1, 7.30pm). Presenter Nicky Campbell was shouting even more than usual when he announced, all mad-eyed and without the merest hint of a snigger, that coming up next would be a feature all about killer couches.

Seeing as I was perched on my sofa at the time but wasn’t sure if it was of the dangerous variety, I thought I’d better pay close attention to Nicky so that I would be prepared to defend myself against what could be a potentially murderous piece of upholstered furniture.

Keeping very still I began to wonder about its MO.

Would it collapse in on me, smothering me in a frenzy of faux suede and anti-macassars?

Would it open up and swallow me whole? Perhaps the springs would suddenly push through and impale me in a weird sofa-bed-of-nails sort of way?

Pah! I needn’t have worried.

As usual, the Watchdog gang were trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and the story was actually about some rubbishy old tat leather sofas from the Far East that had been coated in some sort of chemical which could cause terrible burns, but mainly gave people a bit of a rash on the backs of their legs when they sat on them.

Next week – When Nests of Tables Turn Bad...

From the ridiculous to the sublime a bit later was Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC 1, 9pm). This series about famous faces tracing their family history continues to throw up some corking moments and lots of unexpected twists.

It is beautifully simple but such a strong format that, for once, you have a celebrity series that doesn’t actually rely on the star to carry it.

In fact, the ancestors are often more interesting than the household names doing the research.

This week it was the turn of Kevin Whateley, famous for being Morse’s sidekick and for being a working-class Geordie.

Or so you think.

Kev himself admitted that his showbusiness persona is not exactly true and that he is a middle-class boy from one of the posher parts of Newcastle.

But his roots were firmly planted oop North and his politics were decidedly left-wing.

Which is why he was rather perturbed to discover a cache of capitalists scattered throughout his particular tree and not just any old money-mongers, but big fat kings of industry and even a director of the Bank of England, who was about as Northern as a pearly king, born within the sound of Bow Bells, selling jellied eels on the Old Kent Road, singing Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner!

All his card-carrying leftie credentials went out the window at a stroke.

And he was visibly saddened and shocked to discover that the fabulously wealthy, land-owning branch of the family from way back in the time of Cromwell had made their squillions from instigating the slave trade and introducing tobacco to the West. Oh dear.

You know what they say Kev, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.