TV View: "Je m'appelle Ron," he said, and that's kind of where the conversation ended. Never has Big Ron Atkinson struggled for words, so this was a whole new ball game. We're hardly in a position to chuckle, but chuckle we did, for Ron's efforts at learning French on the BBC2 series Excuse My French are as giggle-inducing as the name of the tribute band we spotted pulling in to a northwest fishing village the other day: The Red Hot Chilli Feckers.

Should musical differences ever result in the band's lead singer quitting, Ron could probably take over because he is a crooner of some distinction, as we learnt when he was driving through Provence with his fellow pupils, Esther Rantzen and Marcus Brigstocke. It's doubtful that Californication is in his repertoire, but he could learn it, like he's learning French, only he'd need to do it more quickly, as the Feckers have a busy schedule this summer.

And it was really only when he was singing that Ron was his usual boisterous self; the rule that he had to speak French (and absolutely no English) from when he rose in the morning until six o'clock in the evening resulted in him not being able to speak at all, apart from when he made some strange grunting sounds, eg, "je . . . sweeze . . . eh . . . une . . . eh . . . aaagh. S**t".

What made it all the more frustrating for Ron was that Esther was practically fluent in French even before arriving at their villa, and Marcus, a comedian who admitted to finding Ron not very amusing at all before they met, was making spectacular progress. So, while their teachers purred at their linguistic skills, Ron's tutor seemed close to tears for much of the programme. In footballing terms, the pupils formed a three-man defence: Esther and Marcus were Cannavaro and Thuram, Ron was Titus Bramble.

"It's only last year I took up English," Ron explained at the start of the programme, an admission to which his tutor nodded quietly, rather than laughing. Ron seemed a little taken aback that she took this as a statement of fact.

The target set for Ron by the programme-makers is to learn enough French in a month to enable him to do a live radio commentary on a French match in, well, French. While football might be an international language, the French, being the French, insist on using some of their own words for common terms like "goal". "But," Ron repeated, only it sounded like Nicky Butt's surname.

As for gardien, Ron thought that was an English newspaper and not a French goalkeeper. There's much work to be done.

He was relieved, though, when the coach of the local team told him "volley" is much the same in French as it is in English. "Volleeeeeeee," said Ron. "Oui," said the coach, and Ron was over the lune.

He, of course, calls volleys "Buddy Hollys", but French radio listeners will be confused enough when he does his game, so it's best that he sticks to "volleeeeeeees".

On the whole, then, programme one was a draining experience for Ron. "Ask the barman what his job is," he was told. Up he walked to the bar.

"What time to profession?" the subtitles told us he had said.

"Eh?" said the barman. Ron bowed his head, perhaps concerned that he'd told the barman he had a lovely bottom.

Mind you, Marcus was having his own troubles, asking a passer-by "Where is the war?" Before the passer-by could reply "On the Israeli-Lebanese border", Marcus swapped guerre for gare and got his directions to the station.

Ron, though, was having less luck getting directions to a fish restaurant. "Ou esteeee restauranteeeee poison?" ("Where is the poison restaurant?") he asked his passer-by, who ran away, much to Ron's bewilderment. No one had it in them to tell Ron to insert another s in poison to get poisson, they were enjoying his struggles too much. They were, in fact, taking Le Mick, or "Le Mickeeeeeeee", as Ron might put it.

While Ron was learning French, we were learning from viewing the British Open that we really could do with a drop of rain. Or does Hoylake always look like a corner of the Sahara? And - advance apologies - has it always been these islands' ugliest golf course, one that resembles a none-too-pretty bit of scruffy wasteland? Last we saw of Fred Couples, he'd disappeared into a bunker and never came out, perhaps trapped in a dumped washing machine or mattress.

Something else we learnt is golfers really don't like three- putting. "Hate them," said Wayne Grady in the commentary box, "I'd rather have a verruca."

Or, in Ron's French, that'd be: "Jay voudraiiiiiiiii haveeee une verrucaeeeeeee than une troiseeee Nicky Putt".