TV Review: Perhaps it's safe to laugh now, more than 800 years later, though with "recent scientific evidence" suggesting that "one in every 200 men alive today can trace their genetic lineage back to Genghis Khan", I'm not so sure.
Genghis Khan was a portrait of the Mongol warrior from his auspicious birth in 1162, when he entered the world clutching a blood-clot (like, hello!), to his death, by which time he and his meritocratic army controlled an area twice the size of the Roman Empire.
"I am the punishment of God," Khan said to the Persians before annihilating a million of them, and on the evidence of this bloody biopic he wasn't joking. At times it was almost like watching a wildlife documentary: while Khan was still a child, his father was poisoned by an enemy chief, his family were deserted by their tribe, and Khan, proving his singular determination to survive, shot and killed his younger brother with an arrow for refusing to share the spoils of a hunt. In a nasty, short and brutish life, "the greatest riches a man could have", according to Khan, were to "conquer his enemy, steal his riches, ride his horses and enjoy his women" (one suspects his modern-day descendants might change the order).
Life on the Steppes was no garden party - inter-tribal warfare, rape, pillage, lousy weather and some deeply uncomfortable-looking headgear were the daily round. No surprise then that 50,000 Mongols chose to cross the Gobi Desert into northern China and beyond to Persia, Russia and eastern Europe. There were some deeply unpleasant vignettes en route, such as the siege of Beijing, where the determined Chinese pelted the invading hordes with huge clay pots full of chemicals, crude oil, molten metal and excrement. Not that they should have bothered; when Khan prevailed, he ordered total extermination, and a year later it was reported by foreign ambassadors that the streets were still slippery with human fat.
But the most tooth-watering moment was when the most successful military leader in history (if success can be measured by battlefields of corpses strewn like felled logs) was reunited with Jamuka, his former blood brother turned bitter rival. Jamuka, who had previously been boiling Khan's captured generals alive in a vat the size of Monaco, was delivered to Khan by a couple of treacherous guards.
"My noble lord," Jamuka implored, refusing Khan's uncharacteristic offer of mercy. "There can be only one leader just as there is only one sun. Give me a noble death, shed no blood." They took him away and broke his back - that delicate snap, crackle and pop of the vertebrae still resonates.
Well, Gordon Brown should be thanking his lucky cufflinks that he wasn't born in 12th-century Mongolia - or Bolton for that matter.
In Peaches Geldof: Teenage Mind, the physiology and psychology of adolescence were explored by the articulate daughter of Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates. The well-heeled and confident 15-year-old visited various parts of Britain to find out whether teens were a rebellious and anarchic bunch of narcissists or victims of a fashion and music industry that's never been so competitive for their attention. Peaches slummed it in Bolton to investigate some "yob culture", which involved a few hours in front of the mirror with a gang of girls and their juicy tubes, followed by a bag of chips and a night hanging out at a bus stop with about 40 lads with spotty necks and identical footwear.
Peaches asked some journalistic questions, such as "Is this it?"
When the answer was "yes", she scarpered to Wolverhampton and an alcohol-free youth club, where she interviewed a punk band called Nihilist, nice boys who used a lot of sugar to make their hair stand up and who thought Prince Philip was a bit of a legend. Peaches was obviously pining for London and the chattering classes who inhabit coffee shops with couches.
She and her girlfriends chatted about collective responsibility and whether if you weren't cool, you were a loser - to which Peaches answered a resounding yes.
She then went on to meet a bunch of adenoidal teenage environmentalists cleaning up a forest in Brighton, who couldn't care less about the undesirability of their undershot jaws or their M & S runners.
"I will never, no way ever, in my life, pick up litter," said an indignant Peaches, her voice ringing with incredulity.
She discovered on her mission that human brains continue to develop until they are 25 years old, and that the planning and decision-making function is as underdeveloped in teenagers as that bloke at the back of the class with a crush. Having been freed thus from responsibility for losing and forgetting everything, Peaches was happy, although the Brighton environmentalists had rocked her cradle.
"I should start speaking to everyone!" she told the producer. When asked if she saw herself as an individual or part of a tribe, however, Peaches answered with candour: "I might be the most stereotypical teenager of all." I think not, but it was good to see a warm, confident teenage girl on the box.
"When I'm 30," she confided, "I'll probably be having a midlife crisis." Actually, Peaches, I think you'll be leader of the Green Party.
Teenagers were proliferating this week. Mono returned with a gentle profile of the Levey family, in which former Irish jockey Micky Levey moved his wife, Tini, and their two sons, Seáand Declan, from the beautiful but ravaged Swaziland (where 40 per cent of the population of one million have Aids) to Cashel in order that his sons could have the opportunity to work with trainer Aidan O'Brien at the Ballydoyle stables.
Micky Levey was an energetic and arresting raconteur, recalling how, when his sons began riding in Swaziland, they crawled around the course on their hands and knees, hopping over two-and-a-half-foot jumps themselves to show the astounded horses how to do it.
The programme, ostensibly focusing on 16-year-old Seán, who is about to become Ireland's first black jockey (he works in Ballydoyle stables seven days a week), became instead a moving tribute to his father, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Filmed on his final journey to bid farewell to friends in Africa, Mickey described (against the deceptively beautiful background of a luscious Swaziland) how he brought a dowry of 17 cows to secure Tini's hand in marriage - "an absolute bargain", as he said. Things could be tough for women in this polygamous country and Tini had children by her previous marriage. Micky explained, however, that he preferred to have one wife and three extra kids. He went on to recall that when they decided to have a child of their own, he predicted that it would be a boy called Seán who would become a world-famous jockey.
Back in rainy Cashel, Tini was adjusting to a new society, with the support of her friends and neighbours. "He left Swaziland for us to have a better future," Seán said.
Micky Levey "was pulled in at seven furlongs". He died just days after watching Seán's first race for O'Brien at the Curragh from his hospital bed.
Genghis Khan should have been employed to boil the pop-music section of the RTÉ archive in elk oil before some bright spark decided it merited a series.
With the dullest crop of musical mementos available and an assembled punditry that looked a little dazed and confused (hang on, which RTÉ archive show is this?), the screamingly obvious solution would be one decent half-hour of Dickie Rock in a sequined catsuit or Joe Dolan with his lime-green-silk-shirted band.
Instead we will be treated to hours of reruns with a self-conscious and not very funny commentary from the normally interesting Des Bishop: "This song is called Pogue Ma Hone, Yankees, which I'm told means 'we love Americans'. " Stop it, Des, you're killing me.
In fact, there is no contest: faced with a marauding horde of Mongol nomads with weird fringes or more grisly reminiscences about comedian Jason Byrne's brother's hand-painted Iron Maiden jacket, I'll take my chances with the sartorially challenged barbarians.
