Your genuine studio natural is Frew and far between

TV View: Your correspondent believes in the "natchrel" theory. It states the more at home someone appears on television, the less confident and articulate he is in real life. Pat Kenny, for instance, is by all accounts a thoroughly entertaining geezer off screen - QED. But happily there are still exceptions.

For example, you just know John Giles is not one of those who go along with the maxim about the medium being the message. In the fundamentally artificial situation a studio represents, Gilesy will instinctively go on doing what he believes he is there for, which is to soberly and unaffectedly explain what he sees.

You would probably be amazed at how rare that quality is in TV land.

In contrast to Gilesy's conviction, most other "natchrels" rely on a mixture of chutzpah and the central conceit that they deserve to be looked at by the rest of us. It can be a deadly cocktail. There are necks out there so rough they make your average jockey's haunches look tender, but their owners have turned into "personalities". They have agents, for God's sake.

The members of this species are easily distinguished by their "technique", which in Ireland usually consists of volume and liberal use of the word "oul". Get the odd profanity in as well and "natchrel" status is assured.

Happily though, exceptions who behave as if a life in front of a camera is not an end in itself still exist. But sometimes they have to come in very low under the radar.

In television terms, Eurosport is positively tree-top level. Normally the home of exotic football games between Neverheardofstan and Dontcareaboutitland, it's the channel of choice for those who have given up on ever talking to another human being.

But what it does well is tennis, and best of all it's got Frew McMillan.

One of the best doubles players of his generation, McMillan now spends his time on Eurosport, where he sits alongside his colleague Simon Reed and reminds us how good sports commentary really can be.

Blessed with encyclopaedic knowledge and a distinctive South African burr, McMillan also has the priceless gift of not pandering to his audience.

Not once over the years has this scribbler ever heard him try to dumb it down. Instead he does us the courtesy of calling it as his eye sees it.

That he does so without show, but with a dry, uncompromising wit, only makes the coverage better.

A Thursday morning second-round French Open match between Tim Henman and the Californian-based Russian Dmitry Tursenov was never going to be a contender for sexiest sports moment of the week, but under McMillan's sure touch it became almost compelling.

"I love the sound of Henman's serve," he ventured at one stage. "It's got a good resonance to it."

Such statements can normally be dismissed as time-filling fluff but McMillan then proceeded to elaborate on what constitutes good striking of a tennis ball. It had the makings of a nerd-fest. But because of the man's quite-obvious love of the game, and his ability to explain the technical niceties, it instead left the viewer wiser and more attuned to what was happening.

Which is pretty much the best that can be done. A little master class lost in the daytime graveyard of satellite TV.

If the powers that be at the BBC don't move McMillan from radio to television for the upcoming Wimbledon tournament then their eye is very much off the ball.

The only contender for the pot-and-kettle award this week is that Steven Gerrard penalty for England against Hungary. For a hard-nosed scally, Gerrard did a more than passable impression of Rudolf Nureyev as he pirouetted his way to a penalty that once more illustrated the basic requirement for football refs is to fail an eye test. But the BBC reaction was remarkable.

"A little bit of gamesmanship here," droned John Motson as the Hungarian goalkeeper walked from one post to the other before Lampard took the kick and missed.

"It worked," said Mark Lawrenson, who really should know better.

At half-time Ian Wright proclaimed Gerrard was right to cheat because other teams do it. Which only proves experience at sport's professional coal face is no guarantee of knowledge. For every Frew McMillan, there's an Ian Wright, gurning and looning his white-sneakered way into the public's disaffections.

Racing's equivalent is Willie Carson, a Group One contender for the title of world's most annoying Scotsman.

Carson's shtick is a cheeky-chappy routine accompanied by a cackle that immediately has one reaching for the mute button. But even that couldn't spoil the Beeb's excellent coverage of Saturday's Derby meeting at Epsom.

The obvious low point was the injury that caused the main Irish hope, Horatio Nelson, to be put down. It was an upsetting sequence of events, for connections more than anyone.

But what surprised was Claire Balding's decision to read out an anonymous e-mail criticising the decision to run the horse in the first place.

Editorially, the practice in most organisations is to bin communications from those not prepared to at least sign their names.

Something maybe for Claire to bear in mind next time.