Feral Oddie = Kate Humbled

Watching BBC2's Springwatch is excruciating.

Not because of its unabashed, pig-in-shit fanfare of multiple camera, multiple location jiggery-pokery. And not because of its unconstrained delight in showing the slow-motion gang-rape of beleaguered in-season hares ("She's a spirited little thing; she'll keep fending them off all day!"). And certainly not because Kate Humble's entire persona appears to be a living, breathing embodiment of William Hague's wettest of wet dreams.

No, all these peculiar, grating distractions are soothed gloriously away by watching the breathtakingly disfunctional dynamic that exists between co-hosts Bill Oddie and the aforementioned Humble.

In short: Oddie flounces, meanders, interjects, U-turns, scurries away into off-script netherworlds, and generally rides roughshod over any semblance of continuity or structure; Humble winces, grits her teeth, and inwardly curses his name.

The fantastic thing is that there's nothing the stressed-to-the-point-of-homicide girl can do about it. Because, quite simply, the famously ramshackle Oddie is as untouchable as he is inscrutable. Potbellied, unkempt and scraggly, Bill is part of the natural order of nature programmes themselves: as feral as the bracken and briars through which his short legs tramp; as earnest and likeable as the screeching mouth of a hungry kestrel chick.

Not so the schooled, brite-smiled Humble: a posh, uptight, knowing newcomer who, lumped with holding the reins whilst her bona-fide-legend compatriot farts and fusses, is reduced to a teeth-clenched, eyes-bulging matron.

Believe me: she's hating every single minute of it. "Ben sodding Fogle knows when to shut the fuck up," her every purpled vein screams.

It's excruciating, yes, but in the best possible manner. And the producers know it. Springwatch sans Oddie is unthinkable, of course — and Humble is far too bent on racking up the career points to do anything other than continue to force a smile through pursed lips.

The poor girl's acupuncture bills must be through the roof. Being the unfortunate human sponge employed to soak up and neutralise Oddie's scattergun idiosyncrasies is a thankless purgatory we will never fully understand.

My pity, however, is reserved for her better half — for the moment when Humble arrives home each sorry evening. Someone is going to get a monumental earful. And it ain't Bill Oddie.