GOOD old Channel Four. You can always rely on it to throw in at least one programme a week which leaves the viewers scratching their collective heads.

Last night it was the Cutting Edge documentary The Jacksons Are Coming which followed various members of the ultimate showbiz family as they sought to have a new life in Devon.

You probably don’t need to say any more than that to know it was always going to be a programme to savour, though as it turned out, not perhaps for the reasons you may have imagined.

The Jacksons themselves (not Michael) came over as genuinely wanting to avoid the spotlight and to give themselves a chance of something approaching a ‘normal’ life.

Clearly there was a flaw in their quest from the start — namely that of allowing a TV crew to follow them around.

Then again, they appeared to be let down by their right hand man who seemed to be pushing his charges into the world of the paparazzi rather than protecting them.

The result was predictable. The local residents suffered from a mass outbreak of nimbyism and the Jacksons decided that Devon wasn’t for them.

Perhaps without the glare of publicity and a degree of anonymity, they had a chance.

As it is, they probably don’t think too much of the UK.