Summertime is that rare musical unicorn… a song that touches your heart even if you’re hearing it for the zillionth time.

Laced with tragedy, spiked with emotion, doused in joy, fired up with freedom… no wonder it is one of the most covered songs in history.

That’s why an offering on BBC4 on Friday night - Gershwin’s Summertime: A Song That Conquered The World - was music to my frostbitten, weary old ears.

Visually, too, it is a treat – stuffed with joyful retro montages of hippies (I even thought I saw my mum, wafting about in a kaftan in one of them, but can’t be sure), civil rights protests and excellent dancing that will have you swaying, tapping your foot or suddenly desperate to go out raving (depending on your age and childcare situation).

Composed in 1935 by George Gershwin as a lullaby in his all-black opera Porgy and Bess, Summertime is a song that took flight, of its own volition.

Staying classy as ever, this BBC4 film nugget (now on iPlayer) touches on the many greats who have made this song their own, via jazz, opera, rock, reggae, soul, hip hop, disco, samba… you name it. Radiohead have yet to record a version (that I know of!), but when they do, it is sure to be uplifting.

With more than 25,000 versions at the last count, the true legends still shine bright. Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald all get special mention, and to watch many of them perform is soul-feeding stuff.

The film traces how the song has been reimagined throughout the 20th century as a civil rights prayer, ode to seduction (witness the sultry Julie London titillating leering monochrome gentlemen) and a modern freedom song. Guests also talk about what the song means to them. And, while I’ll admit that most talking heads segways are a ball-achingly pointless egofest and waste of time, this is in a different league.

Musician Courtney Pine and author Bonnie Greer are no gobs on sticks but two of the millions of people moved by this song.

Right, I’ll stop banging on about it now…

There is another summery delight that warmed my cockles this week. And this is a show that officially confirms I am waaaay over the hill.

Yes, it might seem like a random newsflash, but there is something deeply, deeply meditative about The Big Allotment Challenge, which is repeated, randomly, over this wintry multiverse.

I know, I know… I should be reviewing something highbrow like, Wolf Hall. And I did want to get my teeth into this lavishly costumed, eagerly awaited, critically acclaimed Hilary Mantel drama. But… I switched it on and could just not stop laughing. Maybe I was just tired, maybe I’d had a little too much truth serum to lubricate a dry January evening.. maybe it was the music… but I found it too unintentially hilarious and had to leave the room, like a naughty kid expelled from a serious school assembly. Yes: I’m probably just too silly. I will try again, though.

Anyhoo, the tension is palpable over in the chips-and-dips round of The Big Allotment Challenge (the whole first series is being screened on BBC2 and on iPlayer, if you weren’t glued to it last spring).

There is something endlessly soothing and ceaselessly British about watching these enthusiastic gardeners, each refreshingly bonkers in their own way, and their peas. Long peas. Short peas. Pea envy. Pea experts getting noticeably aroused over other people’s peas (not as disgusting as that sentence makes it sound). A tasting competition presided over by a woman of such Anna Wintour-like severity that you might actually find yourself quaking alongside the growers in their nervous welies.

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