Perhaps it was because that in my younger days, Pastor Jack Glass never seemed to be off the telly, protesting about something or other. For younger readers, all you really need to know is that Jack did, and still believes, that The Pope is the antichrist incarnate and Dr Ian Paisley considers Jack an extremist.

Produced under the Beeb’s art banner "Exs", Tuesday night’s show purported to track Jack’s battle with lung cancer, a disease Jack told us was evidence of the Devil’s work - an attempt by Satan to take one of God’s most effective middle-managers out of the game.

Not being blessed with religious belief myself, I still find myself interested in the lives of our fellow Scots who actively and noisily do God’s work. Thus, the show highlighted Jack’s flock preparing to protest at a gig performed by "Charles" (sic) Manson at the SECC. According to Jack, Gothy Marilyn was about the Devil’s work. Cue the loving preparation of admonitory banners and cue a shouty confrontation with loads of kids dressed up to the nines in black skirts, faces full of metal and loads of black eye-liner - and that was just the boys…

Jack took the cameras into a city centre church to re-enact an exorcism from earlier in his career, which seemed to suggest that the Devil had good reason to target Jack - I mean we’re talking here about Jack exorcising an entire building owned and operated by The Deity. Heavy ordinance.

The show also tracked Jack’s wandering around a cemetery musing over the loss of Glasgow’s religious spirit. He recalled Saturday night meetings 30 years ago, when 2000 people would turn up to pray. We then saw Jack undergoing treatment for his illness and then receiving the all-clear.

And then, and then, you know what? I started to really have doubts about the verite of what I was seeing. The voice-over claimed that the programme followed Jack over a year from diagnosis, through treatment to the happy denouement. Now, I’ve no doubt that the production had tracked Jack over this difficult year, but I have real concerns that what we were seeing was a series of set-ups filmed after the fact, if you see what I mean. It was just a wee bit too pat, too neat and tidy. I might be wrong about this, but consider the evidence: the show was produced by the arts team, not current affairs or documentaries.  Was the whole thing a confected cultural parable and not straight reportage?

Whatever. Jack had his extra 30 minutes of fame, the Devil had been exorcised from his internal organs and Jack’s particular and peculiar world view received vindication anew. That Jack didn’t seem in any particular hurry to meet his maker was comforting in a way. Beneath all that certitude and post facto explanation("it was God’s will"etc.), Jack was clearly just happy to be alive. Just like the rest of us really.