It’s true too that there were long sequences in which Stephen Fry wandered about London and Bath dressed in a toga

It’s true, too, that there were long sequences in which Stephen Fry wandered about London and Bath, dressed in a toga and sporting a set of classical curls. But Hislop appeared to know what he was talking about (he wasn’t just reading the script, he had written it too), and the Fry sections turned out to be useful on two counts, delivering choice extracts of Juvenal’s dyspeptic writing and preserving us from the laborious explanation that, actually, he was, you know, like, amazingly relevant for our times.
Even more remarkably, something moderately novel was said about satire, that most dog-eared of cultural subjects. It’s true that Ian Hislop presented it, rather than some tweeded academic with cigarette ash in his turn-ups – which might be thought to count as shameless popularisation. There was, as far as I could see, no anniversary to account for this. It didn’t introduce a new series or form part of Scorn Night, a festival of vituperation through the ages. Juvenal wasn’t even billed as the Ben Elton of the Palatine Hill. Laughter and Loathing (BBC2) had clearly been broadcast simply because someone thought it might interest some of the viewers There was no excuse for it whatsoever.

The official would be one Rev Al Green, Seventies soul superstar who saw the light of Jesus supposedly after a girlfriend threw a pan of hot grits (corn porridge) over him. There’s a two-year waiting list for the services of the Reverend Al.Three songs about Memphis: “Memphis Tennessee” by Chuck Berry (1959); “All the way from Memphis” by Mott the Hoople (1973); “Walking in Memphis” by Mark Cohn (1991).TIM PERRY. Something very odd happened the other night. The BBC broadcast a little programme about Juvenal, the Roman satirist. Built at the start of the Nineties, this was meant to be a multimedia experience centre dedicated to the Egyptian city of the same name, but they ran out of funding and it’s now a weirdly-shaped sports and entertainment complex.Place to get married: No, not Graceland, but the Full Gospel Tabernacle in the pleasant suburb of Whitehaven. Mmm.Top hotel: The stately old downtown Peabody with its Marching Ducks.

Each day at 11am and 5pm these pampered fowl exit their rooftop suite and ride down the elevators, exiting to the tune of Sousa’s King Cotton March before going for a splash around in the lobby fountain.View from the plane: The Mississippi River – about a mile wide at this point Downtown on its east bank, is the 32-storey Pyramid. A favourite recipe of his was to gouge the flesh out of a loaf, fill it with peanut butter and bananas and then fry the whole thing in butter. Many of the session players for Sun and Stax (arguably the most famous of all Memphis labels) are still around and the city’s studios are doing well out of bands coming to pay respect.Food: Memphis brags loudly that it’s the barbecue capital of the world, but more unusual offerings are to be found in the soulfood cafes which serve such highly-calorific Deep South delicacies as fried yams, ham hocks and chitterlings (pig intestines) Apparently Elvis himself was a mean chef. Now restored into a heritage area but with half a dozen or so lively blues clubs in a two-block stretch.

Definitely worth a look.Has anything happened since punk?: An ironic yes. Jerry Lee Lewis – The Killer – is known to drop in on Beale Street clubs and challenge whoever’s playing to a jam session.Nightlife: Most people head to Beale Street. Once the bustling centre of black culture in the Delta and lined with theatres, pawn shops and gambling dens, this is the place where (urban) blues was born. This is where Elvis got his career start after producers listened to a record he cut there for $4 as a present for his mama.Other big names: Blues singer/guitarist BB King owns a touristy live music club and cafe downtown on Beale Street and plays here about half a dozen times a year, when the cover charge rockets up from the usual $5 to beyond $25. Elvis decked out the place to his own design and it’s, well, hideous. The Jungle Room, a splishsplash of clashing colours, features carpet on the ceiling and a waterfall: it was meant to remind him of Hawaii, his favourite place.