Linda Herrick: Off the Rails with Marcus Lush

There's nothing big and flashy about Marcus Lush's Off the Rails series, in which he has travelled the length and breadth of the country by rail, wherever he can find it.

But there is something quite wonderful in Lush's love affair with the train, and his palpable envy of the lucky people who get to drive them every day. He is mad about trains, and many of us feel the same way.

Lush has been able to track down rail services that Joe Public simply doesn't have access to, the freight services that trundle out sturdily each day through terrain we also will never see.

He has nosed out the devotees, of which he is clearly a club member, who watch for trains and nerdily note down their details.

We have met some of the people who restore old engines, and tootle along their own tracks on private land for the delight of others.

He has gone on a hunt for the good old NZ Rail Crown Lynn crockery and shared a cuppa with the ladies who made it. And he even got to ride on a marae train.

When Lush has had to endure the blander public train rides, he has been able to slip in some arch un-PC asides on the horrors of tourists who sit there yakking and moaning and despoil the scenery with their uniform tracksuits and bumbags.

He has stumbled across Jehovah's Witnesses scoffing Subways, and a takeaway bar that does custom-made burgers named after its customers. In other words, he has shown us heartland New Zealand.

This country's post-colonisation history is laid on the development of the train tracks and tunnels, and Lush has demonstrated the principles of some amazing engineering achievements without talking down to viewers.

Through his eyes, New Zealand pre-privatisation of the rail services looked like a kinder place, and the high ratings for the series prove we agree. Lush may call himself a fogey but if that is fogey-ism, it's darn tootin'.

Not so when it comes to Matthew Ridge and Marc Ellis, in Japan for their Rocky Road to the Land of the Rising Sun. Lord knows what their Japanese hosts have made of their barking brand of humour, where dressing up as ninjas and whacking each other around the backside with sticks renders them hysterical - and the Japanese politely impassive.

They think they are hilarious when they challenge each other to swallow a live fish, and sweat till they vomit in some sort of spiritual steam chamber - but what exactly is the point?

We learn nothing about Japan and more than we need to about this pair of overgrown schoolboys, except that big man Matthew Ridge is a bit of a crybaby. The boys need to move forward and come up with some new ideas.

Lush's series may have had you reaching for the nostalgia pills, but for less pleasant reasons so does One News' new weather presenter Brendan Horan.

A former champion water polo player and lifesaver, Horan seems a pleasant chap but is floundering in his new role. Night after night, his delivery is so stumbling, awkward and full of apology, you squirm for the poor man. It is mad he is going through this.

Someone made the decision to give Horan the job, someone is responsible for his training, someone needs to lift him out of this mire. Otherwise, we might get desperate enough to call for the return of Jim Hickey. Someone, please throw Horan a lifesaver.