Fantastic to see David Coulthard back on the podium after all this time. Few would begrudge the big-jawed Caledonian a restorative victory after some frustrating seasons. True, it was only ITV’s All Star Mr & Mrs, but confidence is the key word here.

Our records indicate that the crystal-encrusted Mr & Mrs carriage clock awarded to Coulthard and his fiancée, Karen, at the weekend was the first proper competitive trophy the racing driver has had to find house-room for since his third place in the Monaco Grand Prix in 2006. It’s something to build on.

The broader lesson for future drivers on this circuit is that one can be well off the pace after the soundproof booth session and still regain the lead by putting in some quick laps in the His ’n’ Hers round. Emerging a little tentatively from the headphones and blindfold, Karen managed only one match out of three in the early exchanges, and nobody was predicting a champagne outcome at that point.

In fairness, though, Karen’s costly reluctance to confirm that Coulthard wears nothing under his kilt was founded not on a lack of intimacy with her partner in this area, but on her perfectly respectable feeling that the question centred on one of those timeless cultural mysteries that one doesn’t just casually solve, like the existence of Father Christmas. By lifting Coulthard’s kilt in so public an arena, Karen clearly felt she would have been letting light in on magic far more widely. My feeling is that when the stewards look again at the tapes, they will restore the point.

It’s academic in any case, because the couple’s maximum six out of six at the second time of asking left the rest of the field — Vic Reeves and Nancy Sorrell, and, somehow unthinkably, Bez, from the Happy Mondays, and his fiancée, Monica — desperately looking for a clean track.

Incidentally, not for the first time in this series of All Star Mr & Mrs, the merely cohabiting outnumbered the actually betrothed (only Reeves and Sorrell), meaning that all sorts of questions about technical qualification to compete once again abounded.

Having discussed this matter here a couple of weeks ago, when Joe Calzaghe and his girlfriend were prematurely offered a bout on the show, we have nothing further to say on the point, beyond noting that one has reached an intriguing point when the last man standing for traditional conduct is Reeves. However, if, as increasingly seems to be the case, the producers are taking a pessimistic view on the likely success of celebrity marriages and getting in early on the grounds that these unions won’t necessarily last, then cynicism is even more rife within the industry than we already knew.

Still, who could deny that this new spirit of inclusiveness has its bonuses? How sad it would have been to see a mere piece of paper come between Coulthard and his first televised triumph in living memory. And I, for one, won’t easily forget the glimpses of life chez Bez offered in the preliminary film report, nor the news that Bez sleeps with one eye open, laughing hysterically.

There was also a collectable moment when the Happy Mondays man and his partner were quick to agree that, of the two of them, Bez was the more likely to get an Asbo. I don’t remember that kind of question coming up in the Derek Batey era, but then I don’t remember Bez being on the show too often back then, either.

One was only surprised that it was Monica who went into the soundproof booth rather than the legendary Mancunian party animal, who, one assumed, would have fancied it. Headphones? Blindfold? Confined space? Banging!

Elsewhere, expectation gathers for the return, on Sunday, after eight years, of Gladiators, the pro-am, Lycra-on-Lycra, rubberised smackdown fest. Like Bez, we are sleeping with an eye open and a permanent cackle of expectation gurgling from our throats. “I think it will be the TV event of the year,” Ian Wright, one of the show’s presenters, said during a recent preview. You can bet your last pugil stick it will be. And one in the eye, there, for those who thought the TV event of the year was Wrighty retiring from BBC football coverage.

The former Arsenal goal machine steps into the chaotic footsteps of John Fashanu. As Ken Warwick, the show’s original producer, has pointed out, “Fash was all over the place — but he was a sportsman. He was expected to be.” Wrighty — there is your mission statement. And if in doubt, shout “Awooga!” It worked for Fash.

Meanwhile, the Gladiators squad for 2008 has been announced. Destroyer was always going to be the first name down on the teamsheet. Inferno was bound to be there or thereabouts. Ice comes in along with Tempest, and Spartan and Panther are also rewarded with a call-up. No sign, as yet, of Steroid, Cramp or Botox, but it’s early days.