THE Bible famously begins in a garden and ends in a city; so it was interesting to see a couple of programmes devoted to the pro-position that it might be possible to build the New Jerusalem here and now, if we could only muster enough determination and energy.

In Mind The Gap: London vs the rest (BBC2, Monday of last week), Evan Davis explored the difference between the growth and prosperity of the capital and the stagnation of economy elsewhere. He then travelled north to see whether something could be done about it.

I enjoyed seeing someone celebrating the possibilities offered by a large city, especially at the level of growth and innovation. Particular trades have always grouped together, and it is the same today with technologies, industries, and commerce. You want to be near your competitors to see what they are up to.

There is a critical mass below which, however much money you throw at the place, it will never really take off. In the UK, we only have one conglomeration that is big enough to have international clout; so London and its south-east hinterland acts with centripetal force on the rest of the kingdom.

Davis is convinced that it is no good spreading the jam too thinly. Perhaps, with enough political will, a second mega-conurbation could be created, building on the exist-ing TransPennine constellation of Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds. In the

Industrial Revolution, this was the workshop of the world, the powerhouse of imperial wealth. Such a second mega-city would, Davis argued, be good for the UK economy as a whole.

How this vision transfers to the Church of England is no doubt the subject of 24-hour war-games undertaken by the strategy wing of the Archbishops' Council; but, as a London clergyman myself, I have indeed heard dark mutterings from those in other dioceses of how our overflowing churches, enormous staffs of priests, and abundant parish funds are resented.

It was nice to have a programme that started and ended in a parish church; but Viking Art: A Culture Show special (BBC2, Saturday) was overall a somewhat thin advert for the new British Museum exhibition, with Andrew Graham-Dixon making up in excited enthusiasm for the paucity of new material.

Every 15 years or so, we are told either that Vikings, despite their poor PR, were bringers of culture, keen on exploration and setting up new trading posts, or - and this post-revisionist view is the more interesting - that rape and pillage was indeed all they lived for: they were a race of berserkers wreaking savage annihilation wherever they landed.

Graham-Dixon tried to have it both ways, discussing with the Vicar of Lindisfarne the appalling destruction meted out to the monastery there in the first Viking raid on British soil - the razing of a centre of learning, scholarship, and manuscript-making (not to mention Christian faith) of international significance.

He ended in a place that certainly demonstrates their own art-istic ability: the fantastic Urnes Stave Church, with its glorious interlaced wooden carving - harsh pagan mythology harnessed to the proclamation of the new gospel of peace.