Blags! Slags! Shootahs! - The Sweeney on ITV4

I was never allowed to watch The Sweeney first time around. It was on way past a young lad's bedtime in the late seventies, and its gritty portrayal of a world of criminals, robbers, guns and hardened coppers was not something for children to watch.

However, times have changed, and nowadays ITV4 seems to show The Sweeney at all hours of the day. Kids are probably watching it instead of CBeebies.

Mind you, they'll need a bit of help with the language. There were moments of last night's episode - a repeat from 1978 that guest-starred Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise - that could only be understood with the help of a London Police Speak Dictionary - or, in Sweeney-speak, a 'Laandaahn Coppah Tawk Dicshonaree'.

It was all 'blags', 'slags', 'shootahs',' dibs', 'dabs', and of 'goin' in 'tooled up, guv'. Daddy, what on earth is that man talking about?

The Sweeney was strong stuff thirty-odd years ago, but today it has a certain nostalgic glow about it. John Thaw's Regan, the bad-tempered, hard-drinking inspector, and Dennis Waterman's Carter, the slightly less bad-tempered but equally hard-drinking sidekick, inhabit a world where the villains have standards and the coppahs appear to know every single one of them.

Last night's episode - some old cobblers about heart pills ending up in the ventriloquist's dummy used in Morecambe and Wise's stage show - even had a scene where three criminals set out to assassinate a target who was birdwatching, but clumsily gave themselves away, allowing their victim time to flee. Nowadays, there would be a lot of swearing followed by a lot of bullets, but in Sweeneyland the victim not only saw his killers approaching, he made sure he picked up his camping stove before racing to his car.

As for Eric and Ernie, well it's always a pleasure to see them, but this wasn't exactly their finest hour. The scene of Eric throwing boxes of iced fish at the pursuing villains was a shark jumping moment audiences must have tried hard to forget. It's a shame the producers didn't give them real characters to play, rather then just being themselves. I bet Eric and Ern could have been good actors given the chance.

Still, there is something reassuring about a visit to Sweeneyland. It may have been violent and gritty for its time, but it doesn't half seem a safer place to live thirty years on.

By contrast, at 9pm BBC1 screened 'Catch Me If You Can: Armed Robbers', brought to you by the same types who turned Crimewatch into a sub-Tarantino horror show of fancy editing and voyeurism.

I gave it five minutes and then reached for the off switch like it was a long-lost friend. Let's hope to God they're not showing that in the daytime in the 2040s.

By Andrew Owen