CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Examining bones of Celtic princess on BBC’s Digging For Britain archaeologists

Digging for Britain

Classification: ****

romantic getaway

Classification: ****

Humans do not change. As different as technology was 2,000 years ago in the Iron Age, vain people loved a fad diet just as much as they do today.

Examining the bones of a Celtic princess, discovered by archaeologists in a Dorset village on Digging For Britain (BBC2), Professor Alice Roberts detected signs of malnutrition.

The noblewoman, who died around the age of 25, was buried with her riches, including a gleaming bronze mirror and a colored glass bead. Her wealth was so conspicuous that historians believe her tribe, the Durotriges, were matriarchal, ruled by their royal ladies.

This princess was too fancy for her five a day. Living on meat and milk, she did not seem to eat fruits or vegetables. . . and so she suffered from scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency that left her with weak bones.

Professor Alice Roberts (pictured) takes viewers on a historical journey through the Iron Age in a Dorset village in Digging for Britain

These days, people on low-carb, high-protein diets can also suffer from a lack of vitamin C. It’s strange to think that, after all these centuries of progress, we’re still capable of getting sick for fashion’s sake.

Professor Alice’s sacrifices to the fashion gods are less dangerous. When she first visited the Durotriges excavation, 13 years ago, she was blonde. Now her hair is pastel pink.

It has a vivid twist of the phrase that helps bring the story of all ages to life. At a Roman dig at Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, he commented on the elegant military brooches and hairpins: “The quality suggests some very well-dressed Romans.”

And at Cookham, by the Thames, where an Anglo-Saxon nunnery was being unearthed, he described the row of hearths and ovens as ‘a medieval Greggs setup’.

His imagination really went to work at the old Royal Mint in the Tower of London. Around the walls of the accounting office were eerie paintings of avenging angels and tormented demons, a less-than-subtle reminder of the eternal punishment that awaited anyone who tried to trick the king.

The professor (pictured) visited the former Royal Mint at the Tower of London.

Professor Alice looked at San Miguel with her scales of justice and shuddered. The mere thought of real anger was making her sweat, she said.

The king’s wealthy (yes, that’s a word) were also sweating, hammering precious metals into coins. Working the furnace bellows was such hot work that each man was allowed ten pints of beer a day. That must have caused runaway inflation of the waist.

We learned how, despite the threat of eternal damnation, Henry VIII undermined the entire English economy by ordering cheap copper to be mixed with the silver of his coins.

He followed a quick guide for Tudor counterfeiters, showing how easy it was to mint counterfeit coins with a fire, a pair of tongs, and a hammer. This is what quantitative easing must have looked like in the 16th century.

Professor Alice called it “fraud on an industrial scale.”

Technology has evolved, but human motives remain the same, in the heist sitcom Romantic Getaway (Sky Comedy). Your heart might sink in the casting: Stars Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan are in every panel game and celebrity contest, regardless of which channel you’re watching.

Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan star in heist comedy Romantic Getaway on Sky Comedy

But as actors they are fiercely competitive, pushing each other for the most laughs. They create believable chemistry as a naive and clumsy couple who can’t resist conning their boss out of half a million pounds worth of Bitcoin.

Johnny Vegas is boisterous as the drunken, smug thug who throws tantrums when his employees treat themselves to a pack of cookies from petty cash, but can’t imagine trying to steal his fortune.

The story is solid, the gags are good, and frankly, I liked it a lot more than I expected.