WHERE would you go if you were on the run?

I was asked this by my nephew the other evening during Channel 4's Celebrity Hunted. I'm looking after him and his brother this week, and this compelling fly-on-the-wall show, following 'fugitives' on the run, is the only thing we've watched on telly together. Teenage boys don't do Strictly Come Dancing...

Maybe that inter-generational appeal is what has made this show such a a ratings hit. The format is simple: take a bunch of celebrities, (I use the term loosely, since the teams include a couple from Gogglebox and a pair of posh boys from Made in Chelsea), and set them on the run. Where they go is up to them, as long as they keep one step ahead of the 'hunters' - a crack team of former MI5 hot-shots tracking their movements via 'phone activity, CCTV and social media.

It's a hoot. Gogglebox's Steph and Dom Parker, whose idea of slumming it on the run was lying low in a friend's country house, soon came undone when a drone spotted them packing up a car, faffing about and bickering. Anneka Rice, sticking out like a sore thumb in a bad wig and over-sized specs, was captured after a Carry On-style chase down a London street. For someone who's terrified of being chased ("It's why I retreated from public life," she told the camera, rather loftily), she took quite a risk running out of a building she knew was surrounded by hunters.

Posh boys Jamie Laing and Spencer Matthews are managing to just about outwit the hunters, despite posing for selfies with a family who took them in, and former boyband stars Jay McGuiness and Siva Kaneswaran are relying on the kindness of strangers, and devoted fans, to give them lifts across the country in trucks and camper vans. The pals, clearly still good pals after a decade in The Wanted, are thriving on the run.

Heck, I'm rooting for them. Hiding out in rain-soaked tents and out-of-season caravan sites is a world away from their pampered London-centric lives, and you find yourself in their shoes, desperate to outwit the smug 'crack team' of former police officers, intelligence and army personnel on their tail.

In stripping the 'fugitives' of trappings of modern life - they're not allowed their own 'phones or money - the programme exposes survival instincts, and vulnerability. Jamie Laing, who appears to have a charmed life, broke down in tears as he movingly reflected on the emptiness of valuing self-worth in Instagram "likes".

So where would I go on the run? Probably not very far, since I have a shamefully poor sense of direction. It's so bad I could do with leaving a trail of bread behind me wherever I go, so I can re-trace my footsteps. I lose my bearings in multi-storey car parks, I struggle to find my way around buildings and sometimes even get lost driving to places I've known for years.

On a recent road trip to the Lakes, a friend and I drove so far into the fells we ended up near the sea! On holiday in Italy, we took a walking tour of Siena, an old town filled with narrow streets. With some free time before our coach was due to leave, we meandered through the square then casually wandered back - only to end up back at the square. We did this three times before realising that when our guide had told us about a short-cut, neither of us was listening. It took several frenzied Anglo-Italian attempts at asking for directions, and a three-minute taxi ride, to reach our coach, and an inevitable slow hand-clap from the other passengers.

When it comes to going on the run, I'll stick to watching it on telly. Come on lads, I'm with you all the way.

* HALLOWEEN was once a home-made affair. Spooky costumes were usually old sheets with cut-out eye-holes, and witches' hats made from black paper and staples. A candle hissing inside a carved out turnip is a lasting memory of this simple autumn ritual.

These days Halloween lasts at least a fortnight up to October 31. It's a huge industry; TV ad breaks are filled with spook-themed party food and mass-produced costumes.

What's really scary is that environmental charity Hubbub has revealed that last year around seven million Halloween costumes ended up in the bin, contributing to the 300,000 tons of unwanted clothing sent to landfill annually. Maybe a Halloween 'swap shop' would make this seasonal nonsense a little kinder to the planet.

* IN a recent TV interview, actress Olivia Colman gushed that appearing in the new film of Murder on the Orient Express, with a starry cast including Dame Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Pfeiffer, felt like “being a competition winner”.

Oh please! Apart from sounding horribly patronising to, well, competition winners, this is excruciating false modesty. Olivia is one of the UK's biggest acting names who has won Baftas, a Golden Globe and worked with Meryl Streep. Why does she feel the need to play down her own success?