I‘ve just arrived in the offices of the Guardian. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” says the features editor, pulling hard and angrily on a Benson & Hedges. I am a few minutes late, to be fair; big night out last night. So I take out my hip flask and give him a swig. Scotch, that should appease him. It seems to do the trick. He grunts and nods at the new bird on the fashion desk. “Legs so long you’d need a pilot’s licence to get her knickers down,” he says, laughing. Knowing him, he will have a pop as well. I laugh too, all the lads do.

There’s a work experience girl in – quite cute, a bit chubby. Dead annoying though, she seems to think she’s going to be a journalist, ha ha ha. She asks me what I’ll be reviewing today. She asks me! “You don’t need to know,” I tell her. “You’re just the fat tart that makes the coffee.” The lads laugh.

Half an hour later, she’s still looking upset. “Chuffs,” I tell her. “Cheer up, for fuck’s sake,” and I offer her one of my macaroons. “You don’t look like a stranger to a macaroon.” Ha ha ha.

I’ve come to work by Tardis today, and arrived in 1982. Was it really like that? Well yes, according to The Field of Blood (BBC1), David Kane’s two-part adaptation of Denise Mina’s novel. OK, so the newspaper office at the centre of the drama isn’t the Guardian but the “Glasgow Daily News”; maybe change came a bit later there. But even so, flipping Nora! And less than 30 years ago, too!

I suppose a period drama does always like to lay on the period pretty thick, almost to the point of parody. I think that’s allowed. It’s hard to know which is thicker here – the sexism, or the smoke. God, it’s like Goose Green, in the heat of the battle. At least they’ve been more imaginative with the music than an 80s-set drama usually is, with the Jam, the Mighty Wah!, Talking Heads. Not everyone was listening to Duran Duran and the Human League back then. But everyone was smoking.

Anyway, it’s terrific, well worth getting involved with via iPlayer if you missed it. A taut and pacy murder mystery (isn’t the word “murder” so much better with a Glasgow accent?), it hums along at a fair old lick. But then Jayd Johnson as Paddy Meehan, the ambitious but unconfident boiled-egg-popping wannabe hack with a complicated Catholic domestic life, adds a depth and humanity that takes it beyond (and above) Ashes to Ashes territory. There are fine performances all over the place. Perhaps the only disappointment for me is Peter Capaldi. No, he’s not bad, there just isn’t very much of him, certainly less than his high billing suggests. I think all he says is “Leave her alone” and raises his eyebrows in part one. You’d think with all the swearing and the unreconstructed behaviour he’d been straining at the leash to get involved. Here’s hoping he does in part two. I’ll certainly be there.

Oi, where’s my coffee? And make it an Irish one. I could get used to the early 80s.

Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets (C4) may have had the nation’s favourite twitterer in charge but it was still a Channel 4 countdown clips’n’c-words show – ie a bunch of comedians and TV presenters come and talk rubbish because they want to be on the telly.

Most of what they say is fantastically uninteresting, and a lot of it is the same. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would struggle to imagine life without scissors, he says. Andi Osho can’t imagine what life was like before pens. Al Murray can’t imagine a life without toasters.

What is this telling me? Other than that these people aren’t very imaginative. Come on Al, try a bit harder, I can “imagine life without toasters”. I’d probably just use the grill, if I wanted my bread warm and crispy on the outside.

I also sometimes wonder about the sincerity of some of the contributions on these shows. I mean, is Reggie Yates really such a fan of chip and pin? Likewise Kirsten O’Brien and the camping gas stove? Or could you get these people to say anything, about anything?

May as well, seeing as you’ve got them in.

Oh, and it seemed to be sponsored by Apple. And it was three hours long. Three hours! To get to number one, the cigarette lighter. Pah!