Last night I watched "Survivor", the ITV programme that was on Thursday (I videoed it) about a family who survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka.

The guy who it was about, Duncan Ridgley, is a friend of mine, and although I knew a little about what happened to him & his loved ones (I wrote about it on my blog at the time (http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002661.html)) I haven't seen him since (as he's still travelling the world), just emailed briefly, and I knew relatively very few of the details.

My heart was in my mouth for almost the whole programme. It was absolutely terrifying. I remember how glad I felt that all my family were safe and alive when I heard the original news, this feeling came back to me in spades when I watched the programme.

What made it all the more real was that there was more than an element of "there but for the grace of god" for me. When Duncan bought the land in Sri Lanka, about a year ago, he had been really excited about having found paradise and bought a chunk of it dirt cheap. He talked it up so much that if I'd had £20 grand to spare, I would certainly have bought my own little plot of beachfront land in Sri Lanka and I would almost certainly have been there with my own family that Christmas.

So did anyone else see the programme?

I did Dan. The guy was actually quite chirpy although not in way that detracted from the horror they went through.

I saw it from about 20 mins in as they began to climb the house. What must go through your mind at a time like that when your kids are with you is beyond me!

The poor kids when they had to cross the river!

Yup, he's certainly a pretty chirpy person and, as I think came across in the programme, he wasn't going to let one tsunami ruin his life.

It was really moving when you saw the tears forming in their eyes as they recounted everything they'd been through - brought on the same reaction in me.

I watched this and was nearly in tears all the way through! The only thing stopping me from crying was the idea of crying infront of my bro n sis because theyd have took the P out of me!

It's just a shame it was on at the same time as Ricky Gervais and Catherine Tate, I guess most people will have been watching one or both of those, but for my money (trying to avoid being influenced by my obvious emotional involvement) Survivor was a bloody good programme. A shame they chose such an unflattering bloke to play Duncan - he is large but not quite that large :)

(Although I admit I've never seen him in trunks)