There, in an empty husk of a Strathclyde steel mill, stood some bloke posing away, flexing his biceps. Now that the work has gone, the labour force of Coatbridge has turned to body-building: the muscles that built the empire now reduced to an oiled-up prop in the pursuit of narcissism. It is very easy for those of us with arms the circumference of a chicken's leg and thighs that could see service as kebab skewers to make mockery of men who build their bodies into absurd parodies of reality. But, unlike this reviewer, Short Stories resisted the temptation.

Mainly because, you suspected, the lads from Coatbridge would cave yer heed in at the first hint of a snigger. These were, as the subtitle suggested, 'Hard Men'. 'There's homos in this sport,' said a hugely muscled former welder as he polished up his friend's gleaming parts. 'But just 'cos I'm doing this, I wouldn't want you to think I'm one of them.'Never said a word, mate.The programme followed one builder, Brendan, through his pursuit of the title of Mr Strathclyde 1994 Brendan, in his mid-twenties, has never worked. Three years ago, he swapped a life of drowning his boredom in alcohol for one of weight- lifting. He met Jim, a bullying trainer who screamed abuse at him while he was doing his squat thrusts. He ate only tuna and potato for months and, for 12 weeks before the competition, he dieted to shed the last ounce of fat.

The life of no food and intense training left him depressed, hungry and tired. There was, as he practised posing in his mum's flat, a certain nobility in his desperate effort to make something of a dead-end life.All territory covered in the brilliant Pumping Iron, perhaps But 'Hard Men' had a different spin. Mr Strathclyde was not the Mr Universe at the heart of that film. Held in a tiny community centre hall, it was parochial, tatty, not awash with glamour. Brendan, though, made a great poser, up there in his leather-look briefs: 'That's the best I've ever felt in my whole life.