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Do you know how many people live in China these days? Would it help if I told you the latest estimate was 1.4 billion? It should, because that's the correct answer, but what I mean is could you get your head around that sort of figure?

Personally, I'd struggle. Big numbers rather scare me. It's not helped by the fact that the definition of "billion" hasn't always been the same. These days, it's taken to mean a thousand million, but once upon a time it meant a million million. So that's quite weird in itself, isn't it: the very idea that a number can mean two entirely different things? It's a bit like saying: "I am 52 years old. I am also 193."

Either way, the point I'm making is that 1.4 billion is a lot more people than Ben Fogle usually visits on his TV travel shows. In a typical episode of his most popular, New Lives In The Wild (which is an anagram, by the way, of New Wives In The Lidl, if you're interested), he hangs out with two or three at most, and often just one: hermit types who've chosen to live off grid in a tree or a teapot or suchlike, having decided this would be way more fun than competing in the horrid old rat race (which may well be true; I don't plan to check).

So God knows how the makers set about planning a series like this, in which Ben sets out to compare the China of old with the go-getting, tech-embracing China of, er, new. What on earth should they include? What on earth should they leave out? But someone (possibly Ben himself) wisely decided to kick things off at the Great Wall, which I do feel is a clever choice, being nicely symbolic of something or other.

Being a sleeves-rolled-up kind of guy, Ben doesn't just turn up and go, "Well, there it is then. Big, isn't it? What shall we do next, guys? Anyone fancy a pint?" No, he actually helps do a bit of repair work, overseen by a maintenance man called Mr Chung. This is along a stretch that's in a hazardous state, built in the 16th century.

To be honest, it looks like a Herculean task, the wall being 1,300 miles long, but if Ben sticks around to help for a while, maybe Mr Chung and his team could get it all done in 1,000 years or so.
Or maybe 10,000.
Or maybe both.

"Following the success of its debut series in 2023, I'm A Celebrity... South Africa returns for a brand new series". So reads the press release for this new nightly show, where Ant & Dec welcome back 12 ex-campmates from the proper version. A sceptic might ask why, if the debut was that successful, ITV have taken three years to do it again, but let's not be killjoys, eh?

Not when the likes of Harry Redknapp and Scarlett Moffatt (the only ex-winner here) are facing "some of the most epic and extreme trials in I'm A Celebrity history". Me, I'm looking forward to the one where they have to wrestle lions.

Arriving at Durham's 12th century Norman cathedral, Ashley Banjo, leader of dance troupe Diversity, decides he doesn't want his feet washed. The ancient pilgrim tradition of foot washing, which his celebrity pals are happy to embrace when it's offered to them by Canon Charlie Allen, simply doesn't appeal to him.

"I don't like my feet being touched," he tells the others. "My feet are the most ticklish." So it's definitely not because they pong of Cathedral cheddar, if that's what you're thinking.