It's a huge shame that two of the year's most intelligent and thought-provoking pieces of television came to be scheduled at the same time this evening.

Like buses, there's bugger all on the box for weeks...and then two come at once.

BBC Two, as I've already mentioned several times, showed One Day of War.

Over on Channel 4, meanwhile, was a feature-length dramatisation of the Omagh Bombing in 1998.

Made by Bloody Sunday director Paul Greengrass, Omagh was an raw, understated examination of the bombing and the unstinting efforts of ordinary people to achieve justice for their dead loved ones.

Underlying the film is the tension between the desire for the killers to be punished and the need to move on after a period of grief. In a telling scene, the mother of one dead Omagh victim cries "What happened? Someone killed Aidan -- that's what happened. I don't care why. All I want to know is that he's at peace."

Both landmark programmes of 2004....my only concern was that a film about a bomb made from fertilizer was interspersed (unintentionally, I'm sure) with an advert for a chemical that makes your lawn grow.