CHRISTOPHER STEVENS evaluations Race Across The World: Three glasses of Georgian wine and Margo was flying!

Race Across The World (BBC1) 

Rating: Four out of five stars 

What do you have for Christmas dinner? It’s not ‘turkey’ any more. Also, you’re not allowed to go to ‘Turkey’ on holiday — and don’t say Katie Price‘s luminous dentals are ‘Turkey teeth’.

The woke pronunciation, according to John Hannah’s voiceover on Race Across The World, is ‘Tur-keeyeah’. You know you’re saying it right if you can make it rhyme with ‘Sir Keir’. Then everyone will know how politically correct you are.

This fad for renaming the country ‘Türkiye’ isn’t only pretentious, it’s nonsensical. Just like Istanbul and Constantinople, it is (in the words of Frankie Vaughan) nobody’s business but the Turks.

They have their own word for England, after all: ‘Ingiltere’. Demanding that they stop saying that would be arrogant, intolerant and probably racist . . . so why can’t we carry on saying ‘Turkey’?

For that matter, we don’t say España or Italia. Why make this exception? Surely it can’t be because Tur-keeyeah is an Islamic country?

Whatever you call it, the four remaining pairs were chasing hundreds of miles towards its border with Georgia, as the series approached its halfway point. Brother and sister Harrison and Katie started way ahead in the lead, but struck out in entirely the wrong direction and blew their advantage.

While everyone else opted for the most direct route, the young siblings seemed to think a coastal detour was the tactic they needed at this point. It’s almost as if someone on the production team was whispering bad advice in their ears . . . though that is a cynical and unworthy thought, and I’m ashamed of mentioning it.

All four teams dawdled at points, which provided us time for a good look at a part of the world few British tourists visit. On the hinterland between Europe and Asia, much of the scenery was spectacular — especially the mountaintop burial site of King Antiochus I, with its giant stone gods, 2,000 years old.

Margo enjoyed a liquid lunch while her brother-in-law Mark spent the day in bed with tummy troubles

Brother and sister Harrison and Katie started way ahead in the lead, but struck out in entirely the wrong direction and blew their advantage

‘It’s like the stairway to heaven,’ puffed Northern Irishman Andrew to his grumbling daughter Molly, as they hiked up Mount Nemrut before dawn.

The view was certainly worth it, but junior doctor Molly’s yawns made it plain she could have done without her Daddy’s lecture on how the valley lakes were formed . . . and she definitely didn’t need him pointing out the basic astronomy: ‘There’s the sun now.’

Perhaps most impressive of all the sights was the city of Akhaltsikhe, guarded by an ancient fortress with a mosque, a church and a synagogue within its walls.

The plan was evidently for widower Mark and his sister-in-law Margo to tour its ramparts. 

But Mark spent the day in bed with what he called T.T.s or ‘tummy troubles’, and without his moral influence, giddy Margo went for a liquid lunch instead.

Three brimming glasses of Georgian wine and a ‘homemade cognac’ later, she was in danger of breaking the show’s prohibition on flying. Well, if you can’t overdo it abroad, when can you?