Adam and Joe win fuck all

And they were up for four awards. Sure, they were runners-up in three categories, but nobody remembers you if you came second.

These awards, nominated by the great and the good*, seem to prefer shouty men (Evans) and women (Feltz) or worthy projects (Radio 3, Brixton prison) to shows that are funny, fresh and imaginative. Still, it’s a reminder how something you think is self-evidently the best thing on the radio can fly straight over the heads of everyone else. 

*They’re not.

Help

Early on Saturday 9th September 1995, TV Cream hurried down to its local record shop to be sure of buying a new album released that day and predicted to sell out by lunchtime.

It’s hard to recapture the sense of non-cynical responsibility that hung in the air that day. The only information about the album in question had been in the papers and on the radio. It wasn’t even guaranteed that it would be available right across the country.

Buoyed by a mixture of excitement and earnestness, TV Cream ended up buying not one, not two but three copies, before going round to a mate’s flat for an afternoon spent listening and attempting to determine the precise running order of tracks and artists. There was no information on the album as to its performers or songs; simply a paragraph of text with a few names and “apologies to others still to be confirmed”.

The Help album was one of the high points of the 1990s. It had been ages since a decent charity album had come along. It had been ages since a decent charity had come along. Up till then the only attempt at fusing music with modern life (which was Rubbish) had been the woeful anti-Criminal Justice Bill campaign: a bunch of protests and singalongs that could only ever succeed in simply hurrying up the passage of legislation as MPs got up close with the sorts of people who really did live up trees and down tunnels and spent a week dancing to disco beats in a cowshed.

Anyway, the mystery and hype surrounding the project ensured its success (it was indeed sold out by lunchtime) and the generation of a significant amount of money for the War Child charity. Its hasty production (one week from recording to release) fuelled coverage in the press as well as the uncertainty regarding its contents.

It wasn’t until the following week’s NME that definite details emerged. Select magazine printed a cut-out-and-keep CD sleeve, but that was the following month. With no internet, facts were thin on the ground. Consequently, the fun was all the greater at hearing the thing for the first time and trying to work out who sang what. 

It begins, as even the news bulletins did in 1995, with Oasis, or rather Noel Gallagher and various session-ites including, apparently, Johnny Depp and Kate Moss. This was back when all those Oasis cliches (singing one line and having the backing vocals repeat exactly the same line a few beats later; harmonies moving in step with the lead vocal but a major third higher; the song title repeated endlessly at the end) felt fresh and, well, charming. It sounds decent enough today, half a world away (ho fucking ho) from all of Oasis’s bombastic crap that was round the corner.

Getting second place are The Boo Radleys, a nod to their-then Chris Evans-aided pomp, albeit with a nursery rhyme-esque reel exhorting “brother brother hold on!” TV Cream remembers liking this at the time, but the passing of the years has taken its toll on songs with airy vocals and busker guitars.

Then things take a huge dive on track 3 with a version of Love Spreads by The Stone Roses that is note-for-note identical to the original, save for the presence of a badly-played piano. Brown’s vocals sound even more wretched than before, and Squire’s guitar is preposterous. It’s amusing to think that, a year previously, this song served as a “taster” for the band’s “comeback” album. Although in a way it was ideal, by virtue of lowering everyone’s expectations ten storeys (do you see?).

The first real gem is track 4, Radiohead‘s Lucky, which would get rather shamelessly bundled out on OK Computer a year and a half later. Was this really, as all tracks were supposed to be, recorded in one day? Track 5 is Orbital, with a load of samples and pleasant electronic noodles. This was the first one that, on that Saturday afternoon, TV Cream and its mate were unable to identify.

The Portishead song on track 6 now sounds quaintly formulaic, with Beth purring “Did I…?”, all that heavily-compressed guitar tinkering and a rather clod-hopping bass.

Then there’s a version of Massive Attack‘s Karmacoma, already a year old, called Fake The Aroma, which is good but not really that different. It’s followed, however, by Suede’s version of Shipbuilding, which is, unfortunately, diabolical. Brett emotes like a maiden aunt and the band simper through the arrangement as if trying to replicate the original like-for-like.

The Charlatans do a decent job on  Time For Livin, then it’s the - gasp! – Stereo MCs. The who? Come 1995 they’d not done a single bloody thing since their debut album years ago, so this was trailed as their first “new material”. They needn’t have bothered, though nowadays it’s a cautionary reminder of how a) they could never really sing and b) they could never really play.

Sinead O’Connor‘s version of Ode to Billie Joe, a last minute addition to the album, still sounds great. Unlike The Levellers with their fuck-you finger-pointing ranting. “I see fences where there was no fence before” – fuck off.

Then it’s the Manic Street Preachers with an ace version of Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. This was a big deal for TV Cream at the time, being the band’s first official thing since Richey disappeared. TVC would see them later in the year supporting – *supporting* – Oasis, whose love affair with The Beatles had by that point reached the extent of Noel Gallagher treating the audience to a version of Octopus’s Garden on his acoustic guitar. From Revol to revolting in the course of one evening.

Terrorvision, another Evans-eulogised act, grind out some polite and decent enough funk before the KLF rustle up a rather half-arsed version of the Magnificent Seven theme, done entirely on synths with more samples and what sounds like a child playing a bassline on a Casio keyboard.

Much better stuff lies ahead, in the shape of the Planet 4 Folk Quartet. Even now TV Cream is unsure as to who, or what, this is. Was this Brian Eno’s contribution? It’s one of the best bits of the album: jaunty (but not whimsical) electronica. And it’s followed by the delightful version of Dream A Little Dream by Terry Hall and – ooh – Salad, with the lovely Marijine van der Vlugt (sic). Stephen Street produced this, and it’s his voice that’s heard introducing it. This was what the mid-90s was all about, not Keith Allen rubbing cocaine into Damon Albarn’s hair.

Speaking of which, after Neneh Cherry does something called 1,2,3,4,5 (“Once I caught a fish alive”), there’s Blur’s AWFUL contribution: an instrumental with a fucking clever-clever name (Eine Kleine LiftMusik) involving a tuneless piano and Damon going doo-wah doo-wah like a girl. Considering they were kings of Britain in 1995, you’d have thought they’d have put in a bit more effort.

The finale was the big publicity thing: Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher and Macca doing Come Together at Abbey Road. This was where the defining image of the whole Help project came from, the three of them in the studio, with Macca looking at least 10 years younger than Weller and telling everyone how “I wrote a new song on the way down, have we got time to record it?” (they didn’t). It’s an OK version, perhaps not the spectacular climax it should have been, but the novelty carries it safely home.

On the day of its release, the men in suits at Gallup decided the Help album wasn’t a proper album and therefore couldn’t be included in the following day’s charts. It got a mention in passing by whoever was doing the Top 40  – Goodier, presumably – but that was it. There have been follow-ups, but none have had the buzz and the guess-the-artist potency of the original.

TV Cream still thinks it’s one of the finest albums of the decade. It captured the best and worst of those best and worst of times.

Threat level: insidiously unsettling yet strangely reassuring

A few people have a spot of flu. Is it worth carrying an umbrella in case the sky falls on your head? Is it time to board up your front door like in Night of the Living Dead? How, in short, to make head and/or tail of a situation which is, above all, a developing situation?

Worry not, because help is at hand. The TV Cream Matrix Databank Central Office of Information has produced an illustrated alert-ometer to advise the public on the current threat level:

There are six stages of alarm, which can be recognised by the identity of the person fronting the latest government information campaign. 

1: Mike Smith. Threat level: fresh-faced to vaguely needling

2: A Radio 4 continuity announcer. Threat level: insidiously unsettling yet strangely reassuring

3. Basil Brush. Threat level: perkily ubiquitous and family-friendly

4. Rolf Harris. Threat level: sober yet good-naturedly stoical 

5. The voice of Brian Wilde. Threat level: death is stalking deceptively-shallow lakes

6. Angela Rippon, the mother of the nation. Threat level: we’ll meet again

Let’s see what the alert-ometer is registering today:

Phew!

Make sure you keep checking back here for the latest developments, every hour for the next four years until people stop coughing, or for the next four minutes until the media loses interest.

Beeb stung by stink over Brucie’s pet burial

“A group of people snivelling at a dog’s funeral. Daft I call it!”

Meanwhile, further on:

“Should children call their parents by their Christian names?”

and new names for the WC – which is “going out of favour” – include The Menace, The Necessarium and The House of Commons.

“What do we want?” “More emphasis on continuity with seasons 19-21!”

It seems some of those much-hyped and secretly-wished-for “rogue elements” ((C) The Daily Express, The Daily Mail et al) slipped into Saturday’s anti-G20 protests after all.

None of the press appeared to pick up on the presence of the poster below, although it did make it into a couple of photo libraries. Will the same folk be attending today’s demonstration? Perhaps they’ll be shape-changing at pertinent moments to avoid the gaze of the police. 

The right kind of TV Cream politician

BBC Parliament has spent the evening reliving events from precisely 30 years ago, when Donald MacCormick stood on a gantry high up in the rain outside Westminster and announced the end of Jim Callaghan’s government.

Callaghan is most definitely a TV Cream Politician. Criteria for entry into this category, one that is never very far from threatening to become important, is, inconveniently for this blog at this precise moment in time, hard to put into words.

It’s easier to use comparison. While Sunny Jim and Sailor Ted, for instance, are most definitely TV Cream Prime Ministers, Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher are not. The latter two both lurched large in the public domain and tried to cast much of the country in their own image, but neither won universal respect and/or pity.

Both divided the country down the middle. Jim and Ted did not. They united it – not necessarily in admiration (if ever), but in a more everyday, workmanlike fashion, in their stubbornness, or fallibility, or simply by dint of being human. And it’s in this sense that, while John Major is a TV Cream Prime Minister, Tony Blair is not.

It’s something to do with being ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Most of what TV Cream is about concerns everyday things being turned into the ultra-special and the uber-memorable, usually by TV, radio, music and print. So a TV Cream Politician is somebody who is thunderously ordinary and who leaves their mark on our lives through not being particularly special but having special things done to them.

This is all getting a bit convoluted, so how about a reassuring list to sort things out.

The following are all TV Cream Politicians:

Willie Whitelaw
For wearing pyjamas to Cabinet meetings.

Denis Healey
For the Nationwide panto.

Leon Brittan
For being ugly when ugliness was against the law (1983-5).

Bryan Gould
For being everywhere on TV then suddenly being nowhere.

Francis Pym
For sounding like Kenneth Williams.

Chris Patten
For forgetting to win his own election.

David Steel
For running a political party from a constituency in the middle of nowhere, making for much pitch black/reporters-standing-in-fields coverage on results night.

Virginia Bottomley
For becoming a ubiquitous anagrammatic common room joke.

The following are most definitely not TV Cream Politicians:

Norman Tebbit
For becoming his own stereotype.

Shirley Williams
For being called ‘a lovely gal’ by Norman St John Stevas in 1979. And for the fact that, while it’s good that much of what she says is right, it’s not good the way she revels it.

David Owen
For breaking up too many parties.

Edwina Currie
For substituting one vulgar cultural motif – poisonous eggs – for another – sex with John Major.

Roy Hattersley
For being the last ever Secretary of State for Prices and not doing anything about prices.

David Mellor
For being David Mellor.

Margaret Beckett
For telling Jim Naughtie to “pack it in” on the Today programme.

The Stuart Maconie catalogue

The nation’s most ubiquitous Wiganite has a new book out.

It has much in common with his previous publications: a breezy (i.e. rushed) style; sweeping generalisations rendered in whimsy; man-of-the-people rants; but above all, a crap title.

Adventures On The High Teas follows Cider With Roadies and Pies And Prejudice in sporting wordplay that somehow doesn’t work. The source of the title bears no relation to the content of the associated text; the title mixes metaphors and tells you nothing of what the book is actually about; and there’s an attempt at a pun that doesn’t come off.

Anyway, seeing as how the man seems to be stuck in a rut of sniffy inconsequential travelogues, the TV Cream Matrix Databank has come up with four possible future titles for Maconie’s consideration:

1) The Road To Wogan’s Ear
One man’s story of first hiding from, then working for, Radio 2. Besides referencing the nation’s most popular DJ, the title conveniently boasts not one but two puns that don’t work.

2) The Cant & Murray Tales
How two men called Brian and Gordon joined forces to create one of the most iconic children’s series of all time. Again, the title handily tries but fails to be a proper pun, in the process rendering the sentiments of the source utterly irrelevant.

3) The Importance Of Being Furnished
Join the author as he pays loving tribute to the living rooms of the 1970s, an era he dubs ’the decade that taste forgot’. Note how some atrocious rhyming and vague sense of upper-class snobbery combine to create another money-spinning title.

4) The New Collins Dictionary
Stuart Maconie itemises everything he likes and loathes about his ex-colleague and sometime gag-writing partner for Clive James.

I’m Hughie Green, ready to reveal another of my views of life

Do you see Britain old and worn? On the brink of ruin? Bankrupt in all but heritage and hope, and even those are in pawn?

Well fear not! Hughie Green is here with a valediction to elevate your hearts and enthuse your spirits. Friends, let us take, yes take, not borrow this year. Let it be our year. To lift up our heads. Freedom from strikes, better management, and from all of us, guts! Lest without these virtues, we lose our freedom – forever!

Altogether now (cue trumpets, timpani and ginormous choir):

STAND UP AND BE COUNTED, TAKE UP A FIGHTING STANCE!
THIS YEAR OF 1977 MAY BE OUR FINAL CHANCE…

Her again

It being the week for retreading the path of La Passionara of Privilege, and what with the 30th anniversary of her arrival in Downing Street not being broadcast by the BBC looming, here are a few short clips of when the irreconciliable worlds of Margaret Thatcher and popular culture collided.

1) Maggie does stand-up. Cecil and Ken seem to love it,  Tom King is in hysterics, but someone else appears to be choking into a handkerchief and the second tier of people on the platform are clapping because everyone else is. It’s a shame you don’t have party conferences like this anymore, with everyone in rows on a giant dais below a huge cardboard logo. Thatcher sounds like she’s reading the agenda at a meeting of a local parish church council. The sequence ends with the cameraman attempting, and failing, to find somebody in the audience who is laughing through comprehension, not apprehension.

2) Another conference, earlier in the decade. It’s 9.10am and waiting for Maggie outside the lift doors is John Stapleton with a huge stick microphone. He ushers her and her party (including Denis, who almost gets caught in the lift) over to a small frontispiece saying ‘TV-am Blackpool’ and a birthday cake. “We shall have to have just a small slice”.

…but wait, because there’s a Cilla-esque look-at-a-monitor-over-there surprise: a live link-up with Eggcup Towers, where Carol is sitting on the sofa. Maggie talks about a cosmetic case in which “you can put shoes”. They swap memories about a cake made to resemble a roundabout (how would this have worked?), before Thatcher launches into a classic ramble. ”Children don’t want fruit cakes for their birthday, they want sponge cakes, something quite light…” John tries to interrupt, but her eminence presses on. “They also like Twiglets…”

3) More TV-am, this time from the confines of the studio. Thatcher, who has a bad throat, croaks at her interviewer with the kind of well-spoken rage that went out of fashion c. 1994.  ”Do you think Mr Frost that I spend my days prowling round the pigeon holes of the Ministry of Defence? If you do, you must be bonkers…I’m sorry, what did you say?”

4) Britain is broken, and some kids want something done about it. This involves yelling during the 1980 Tory party conference. Maggie does her best headmistress – “Never mind, it’s wet outside, I expect they want to come in” - before giving the nod to a group of men to kick the hecklers in the teeth.

5) Finally, it’s lunchtime on 22nd November 1990, and just before some “mystery art lovers are revealed in Neighbours,” Philip Hayton has some important news. You could always tell when there was important news on the BBC in the Birt era, because rather than cut to the presenter after the titles, the camera went straight into a clip. Or rather, a freeze-framed clip that then jerked into life once the music had stopped. Phil sits at his desk in a really strange position and cues in William Waldegrave (“Are you still behind the prime minister Mr Waldegrave?” “Yes I am”) and some dreadfully-filmed footage of Heseltine being interviewed at an acorn-planting ceremony. 

Fantasy Sunday night schedules: slight return

Thanks to those few people who took up TV Cream’s challenge and devised a Sunday night line-up for BBC1 that captured some of that Grade-endorsed ”smell” of bygone days.

It wasn’t a competition, but it turns out there was a winner. Step forward John Connolly, whose prize is to have his schedule rendered in this tasteful slide:

John also supplied billings for each of these shows.

Second prize goes to anybody who is willing to hazard a guess at what was on the original version of that enticingly-late-80s-looking continuity slide.

Let’s play…fantasy Sunday night scheduling

Thinking more about Sunday Night Telly (TM), particularly in light of some of your comments, it’s clear that it was once, more so than any other, the night that had the most palpable associations with watching TV. More so than Saturday night, when the business of sitting in front of the box would forever be disturbed by social events and comings and goings. No, Sunday night was once the time when the black arts of scheduling were deployed to the full and you happily surrendered yourself to the crystal bucket until you decided/were told to go to bed.

Which leads to this: a TV Cream challenge. Imagine you are Controller of BBC1. How would you schedule Sunday night so as to restore some of that once-pervasive Grade-patented “smell”? What, in other words, is your fantasy Sunday night line-up?

A couple of rules. This isn’t a free-for-all: the BBC department chiefs are supplying you with a fixed roster of shows, with only one gap for a completely new commission. And the slot to fill is 6.30-11.30pm: five hours.

To play with, in alphabetical order, you have:

Contemporary drama series (50 minutes)
News and weather (15 minutes)
Period drama serial (50 minutes)
Personality-led documentary/investigation (40 minutes)
Quiz/panel game (30 minutes)
Sitcom (30 minutes)
Topical chat/talk show (45 minutes)
YOUR CHOICE (40 minutes)

The programme just before 6.30pm is Songs Of Praise, and at 11.30pm there is a Late Film. If possible, please give examples of the kind of sitcom/talk show etc. you want to put in each slot, with presenters where necessary.

Time to spin that schedule wheel…

A Twit of a do

TV Cream is now on Twitter. So far the updates mostly comprise drink-soused dispatches from The Phoenix on Charing Cross Road in London.

Also starring Stephen Merchant as Norman Tebbit

Taking a cue from Five-Centres’s speculation on the likelihood of a docudrama about the Marchioness, it’s time for another bout of fantasy casting – specifically, the identity of those gracing this year’s slew of anniversary programming.

Where There Is Discord…
A 90-minute drama marking the 30th anniversary of the election of Britain’s first female prime minister.
When Jim Callaghan’s Labour government loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, the country goes to the polls. The choice: Uncle Jim’s battle-worn administration, recently buffeted by headlines accusing them of leaving the entire nation’s dead unburied on street corners; or a woman from Grantham willing to be photographed holding a baby cow.
Starring Alun Armstrong (Jim Callaghan), Richard Briers (Michael Foot), Penelope Wilton (Margaret Thatcher), Peter Egan (Denis Healey), Caroline Quentin (Shirley Williams), David Mitchell (Roy Hattersley), Richard Wilson (Willie Whitelaw) and David Tennant (David Steel). With guest appearances by Ralf Little (striking binman), Ruth Jones (steel worker’s wife) and Les Dennis (man who designs Labour Isn’t Working poster); and Tony Blackburn, Rik Mayall and David Dimbleby as themselves.
(BBC4)

Marchioness! The Day Thatcher’s Children Died
30-minute dramatisation of the sinking of the pleasure boat Marchioness by the dredger Bowbelle in August 1989.
A star-encrusted cast recreate a night of tragedy. Starring Jessie Wallace, Christopher Ellison, Kate Copstick, Tony Slattery, Melinda Messenger, Leslie Grantham and Colin Baker. Featuring a guest appearance by Norman St John Stevas.
(Five)*

It’s Good To Squawk: Busby, BT and The Great British Sell-Off
Raucous 60-minute comedy drama revisiting the background to the privatisation of British Telecom 25 years ago: an emblematic moment in Thatcher’s Britain and the first of many denationalisations of publicly-owned utilities.
It’s 1980: British Telecom is born, and two hassled advertising executives (Mark Gatiss and Paul Shane) struggle to come up with a gimmick to promote the new brand. Little do they know that four years later their client will be forced to sell itself back to the country and our heroes will be landed with a wave of come-and-get-it national campaigns. Also starring Stephen Merchant as Norman Tebbit, Rob Brydon as Neil Kinnock, Catherine Tate as Margaret Thatcher and Simon Bates as himself.
(Channel 4)

*Actually, according to Wikipedia a dramatisation has already been made and was scheduled for transmission in 2007, but ITV pulled it.

You might remember 2009 from such anniversaries as…

What’s to look forward to this year on a notable numerological bent?

For starters there’s a slew of TV stations-cum-channels who are chalking up significant birthdays. Sky is 20 years old on the 5th February, the date when it launched its original four channel package in the UK on the Astra 1A satellite: Sky Movies, Sky News, Eurosport and the flagship Sky Channel with glittering new fare such as Joanie Loves Chachi, the Nescafe UK Network Top 50 and – still going strong today – The Hour Of Power. Will there be a lavish retrospective brimming with finely-chosen archivery topped off with clips personally selected by Rupert Murdoch himself? No.

More promising, perhaps, are the 50th birthdays of, respectively, Tyne Tees (15th January – that’s next week!) Anglia (27th October) and Ulster (31st October). There’s got to be some potential for nostalgia programming here, not least with Ulster, who usually seize any opportunity to poke the rest of ITV in the eye with a independent-sized finger. But is there anything scheduled for transmission next Thursday, when TTTV notches up five decades of broadcasting? An evening of fun, laughter and surprises live from a boat on the Tyne with Mike Neville? At the moment, no.

How about a few individual programmes being honoured with a coming-of-age season/remake/talking headathon on BBC4? It’s 50 years since the first Juke Box Jury, since Quatermass and The Pit, and – above all – the first proper TV general election coverage. That last one clearly merits plenty of hat-doffing, preferably in the shape of a complete repeat run of all election night programmes on BBC Parliament, including every single by-election, local election and European election to boot. Well, they’ve got three months’ airtime to fill in the summer, for heaven’s sake!

Other anniversaries include Monty Python (40 years: what’ll we get this time? A DVD entitled ‘The 40 Most Repeated Yet Undeniably Amusing In A Faintly Uncomfortable British Kind Of Way Great Big Monty Python Sketches’? Or, what we really want, a DVD of the fucking series with a load of decent fucking extras for once?), To The Manor Born, Shelley and Not The Nine O’Clock News (30 years) and Seinfeld (20 years).

Plus there are all the pop cultural milestones, like it being 25 years since York Minster was struck by lightning, the Liverpool Garden Festival and British Telecom being privatised; and 20 years since the Exxon Valdez burped all over the coast of Alaska and the Berlin Wall fell down.

Any sign of any of these being given a theme night on BBC2? A Radio 4 documentary? No. Granted, it is only 5th January. But those all-important contextualising clips of Busby, Michael Heseltine planting a tree in Toxteth and Arthur Scargill wagging a finger won’t clear themselves.

New year, new feature

Gazing into the TV Cream crystal ball, bought from the boot of James Burke’s car one foggy afternoon in 1996, what does 2009 hold in store? One word: revivals.

With it being the age of make do and mend – itself a hand-me-down maxim from former times – the next 12 months are likely to be peppered with them. Comebacks. Resurgences. ‘Welcome returns’ (a phrase nobody ever uses in everyday speech ever: “What’s on telly tonight?” “Well, there’s a welcome return for The Krypton Factor, dear!”)

Here are 20 things that could possibly reappear at some point in 2009. And look: you can vote for the ones you think (not hope) will actually happen!

A few notes. Mr and Mrs would be hosted by Alan Carr, and would be a proper ‘ordinary people’ affair. The Yeti is next in line for a wacky encounter with wacky Dr Who David Tennant. Michael Grade is surely tempted to bring back rubbed-faced funnymen and women in primetime. ‘Five pounds in notes’ was once, and could be again, the amount you’d be able to take out of the country when going on holiday. Prefab Sprout, one of the greatest bands ever, are tipped to release a new album.

ACAS is in there because there’ll be strikes (cue talk of ‘a spring/summer/autumn/winter of discontent’). Strike It Lucky would be hosted by Joe Swash and would be a flop. Gallifrey has already been mooted wisely by Stuart over on Feeling Listless. Clive James might need the money. Danny Baker seems destined to become a full-on BBC ‘face’ once more. There’ll be a general election in the autumn and nobody will win a majority. Shooting Stars would be a series. Phoenix Nights would be a one-off, called Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights For One Night Only. And December will be the 25th anniversary of Do They Know It’s Christmas. A remake will come out on SyCo records.

The Secret Diary of Alison Graham: part two

TV Cream continues its exclusive serialisation of the memoirs of the Radio Times TV editor.

PART TWO: JULY-DECEMBER 2008

2nd July
I don’t believe it. No, Victor Meldrew’s not been to see me! Rather I have just read in my column that Catherine Tate is leaving Doctor Who! Am I bovvered? You bet that I am! Why wasn’t I told? “Maybe she got tired of always doing the real work but being treated as the number two,” David said sullenly. I didn’t know what he meant.

10th July
There is a new detective programme called George Gently about a detective called George who solves crime gently. It got me thinking what I would call a detective programme in which I was playing the main character and where the title would have to say who I am and what I was like. “How about Hopeless Case?” said Gill, misunderstanding the point completely. “I am not talking about the challenging kinds of work I would take on,” I replied, “I am talking about me – my name.” “I’ve got it,” piped up David. “Alison Graham: A Criminal Employment.”  Everyone laughed, which I thought a little inappropriate: it was a good suggestion for a very serious subject.

16th July
I must say I am enjoying this new adventure show on the BBC. It is called Bonekickers and it is about archaeologists who fight crime. I think the BBC is onto a winner here. It’s so camp it’s classic!

17th July
I rang Mark to tell him how much I am enjoying Bonekickers. “Shitkickers, more like,” he replied. I was shocked into a momentary silence. I admonished him for his bad language and had to remind him he is a BBC employee. “I’m a freelancer, Alison,” Mark responded, “which means I get to think for myself.” “Oh, I could never do that,” I answered. “Precisely,” he replied, and hung up.

18th July
Gill wanted to see me before I left for Santa Barbara. Over a working lunch at the Jade Dragon, she told me she is planning “major changes” at RT in the autumn! I can hardly wait. “I love surprises,” I told her. “Great – perhaps you’ll start delivering your columns on time,” she replied. It is wonderful that someone at the top of her game has still got a sense of humour.

5th August
There is a rumpus about the number of BBC personnel who have flown out to China as part of the coverage of the Olympics. I agree. It is shocking the amount of staff who are out of the country on what seems to me to be a two-week jolly. I said as much to Gill on my first day back in the office after my fortnight’s working holiday in Santa Barbara. She gave me a watery smile.

9th August
I have seen a few episodes of a new programme called Who Do You Think You Are? where celebrities, each of whom had a relative in a concentration camp during the Second World War, talk about their memories and cry on camera. It has aroused my interest in my own history, and I am determined to find out what my illustrious forefathers got up to.

14th August
My quest to find out Who Do I Think I Am (as I am referring to it) has come to nothing. When I rang up the National Archives they claimed not to know who I was, even when I repeated my name twice. So that is the end of that. “Who knows,” I said to David while munching on a croissant, “one of my ancestors might have been a top journalist whose name was respected across the country.” “That’d be a first for your family, then,” he muttered, strangely.

18th August
There is a war between the USSR and the American state of Georgia. I decided to scrap my column – I was planning on talking about why there aren’t enough shows with happy endings on television anymore – and write about the hostilities. Maybe I will be the new Kate Adie!

19th August
My new column, Why There Aren’t Enough Wars With Happy Endings Anymore, was vetoed by Gill. I sulked in my office for the rest of the day, before putting on my favourite CD – Hello I Must Be Going by Phil Collins – which made me feel better. The first track, I Don’t Care Anymore, certainly hit the spot!

26th August
I have fetched up in Edinburgh for something called the Edinburgh TV Festival. Lots of famous stars are here, including my friend Mark and my other friend Ricky. “I’m so looking forward to seeing Andy Millman back on our screens this autumn,” I told Ricky while he signed my DVD copy of The Extras. “You’re inviting the whole country round to your living room to watch this, then?” he replied quizzically, before asking me to make way for the 5,000 people waiting in the queue behind me.

27th August
I can’t believe I’ve never been to the Edinburgh Television Festival before: so much gossip and so many exclusives for my column! Apparently my new favourite programme, Celeb Air (so trashy it’s terrific!), will be coming back at Christmas bigger and better than ever! Who knows – yours truly might get an invitation!

28th August
Mark tells me Celeb Air has been cancelled because ITV think it is rubbish. I never liked it anyway, and I would certainly have never wanted to appear on such a pathetic show.  

2nd September
I was writing my latest column, why there are too many shows with happy endings on television, when the phone rang. It was somebody called Charlie Brooker, who apparently writes for The Guardian and has a show on BBC4. I told him I hadn’t heard of him, because I don’t trust The Guardian and never watch BBC4 because it is too elitist. He asked whether he could quote me on that. I said that was fine, and then rang off. Most peculiar!

5th September
I am in the doghouse! Gill has been contacted by that journalist Brooker, who told her what I said about The Guardian and BBC4. I said I could not remember speaking to him. “I do not have Perfect Recall, like Terry Wogan,” I added, which was a joke about a show that is currently on Channel 4. Gill did not seem to find this funny. “Well, we all know what they say about new tricks,” she replied. “Yes: that it is one of the BBC’s most-loved programmes,” I said. I think Gill needs to consider retirement. She has been at Radio Times for a long time and maybe this place needs a bit of a shake-up!

6th September
Terrible news! Gill has decided that Radio Times needs a bit of a shake-up, starting with the TV editorial department. I rang Mark immediately, in order to get hold of some exclusives with which I could impress Gill. He told me Tucker Jenkins was coming back to Grange Hill. Perfect! I’m sure this kind of tip-off will persuade Gill of the importance of my department and warn her off making any sudden changes!

7th September
I am not speaking to Mark. He was right about Tucker coming back to Grange Hill, but neglected to mention this was only for the very last episode of the show ever! “Yet another TV institution bites the dust,” I said to Gill. “What, have you already seen my plans for a personnel shake-up?” she replied.

16th September
I have fetched up in Canberra, Australia where I am taking a refreshing autumn break. And yes – I’ve found time to watch a bit of TV! They have lots of shows from the UK, even Neighbours. It looks like they’re quite a long way behind us, though, because Paul Robinson is still in it!

30th September
During a working lunch at Panama Hatties, Gill told me some shocking news. Apparently David has quit! He said – in his own words – he “didn’t think he had any prospects at the Radio Times, not while that old witch is still hanging on.” I told Gill I thought this was a disgraceful way to talk about someone in her position. At this Gill started choking on her pickled artichokes, and I had to call a member of staff to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre. 

1st October
David hasn’t quit after all! He was back in the building as usual this morning, looking in remarkably good health and full of beans. I know this because, when I stopped by his new office, he let me come inside, but only after the light above the door had changed from red to green. This took about two hours, so I think there must be a technical fault.

7th October
I have discovered the most amazing thing. All the programmes which were nominated for BAFTAs earlier in the year were ones which I like! How wonderful – they must have read my column! “At least someone does,” said David during a working lunch at Giovanni’s Pizzeria.

10th October
I have been invited to appear on television with Richard and Judy! This is a dream come true. Perhaps if there’s time I’ll get to have a go on Fred’s weather map.

11th October
Richard and Judy have resigned! There was something in the papers about them having quit Channel 4. I am convinced Channel 4 is now the country’s worst television station. They never seem to be able to hold onto anyone good: first Peter Sissons, now this! 

12th October
It seems Richard and Judy have a new show on a channel called Watch This. It is called The New Position. I told David I wasn’t sure I wanted to put my name to something that wasn’t likely to be seen by any more than half a percent of the country. “Why change the habit of a lifetime?” he replied, bizarrely.

17th October
I am a bit puzzled by this new series of Phoenix Nights. Brian Potter has become a woman who enters a reality TV competition in order to raise money for his club, and Paul McCartney joins him to sing the theme from Home And Away. Still, Peter Kay – garlic bread!

22nd October
Channel 4 really is in trouble. That idiot Brooker is presenting a new version of Big Brother where that wonderful hostess Davina McCall has to pretend to eat some of the contestants! British television has sunk to a new low. Thank heavens for Peter Kay.

25th October
Free packets of biscuits have been disallowed at Radio Times staff meetings! Well, what with the credit crunch, everyone is having to cut back and tighten their belts. I told Gill that despite the gloomy times she would not see any change in the content of my column. For some reason she did not look that pleased.

1st November
There is a new programme on ITV called Britannia High that I feel sure is going to be the smash of the winter. It’s so corny it’s crucial! It will be the perfect tonic for the credit crunch, and I said as much in my latest column. Nobody is interested in programmes that are about money and glamour anymore.

2nd November
Britannia High has been beaten in the ratings by Antiques Roadshow where they found a million pounds of money in a special edition hosted by the glamorous Fiona Bruce. Apparently Britannia High is a ratings flop. I’m not surprised. I knew it would not be a hit. Just as well I have my finger on the pulse of credit crunch Britain!

5th November
I have fetched up in the Cape Verde Islands on a late autumn break to escape the doom and gloom of the credit crunch. This time of year is usually very pressured, what with Christmas coming up, so I always try to get away in order to recharge my batteries and think up new ideas for my column. This year I think I am going to do a piece about the number of repeats on telly over the holiday period: just the sort of bold, new thinking which Gill has been asking for!

11th November
Apparently my idea has been vetoed by Gill because it is what everyone else writes about during Christmas. “What a pity,” said David in a live video conference link-up from his office, “maybe they could have all given you a few hints. Like how to write a decent column.” He’s so witty and perceptive, he’s wasted as my assistant!

15th November
I had an epiphany this morning. The TV programme Heroes is no longer any good. I always knew this would happen. I will have to use my column to tell the country about my bold new theory!

16th November
While on the phone to Mark, he mentioned how much better is the latest series of Heroes than the last. Apparently it is a hit with the critics. I do wish Mark wouldn’t keep changing his mind. He then mentioned that the BBC are bringing back Survivor, that rotten ITV reality show from the start of the decade where members of the public have to try and live on a desert island. The BBC is clearly in trouble if it is resorting to stealing ideas from the opposition!

17th November
I am going to try and write my next column from the point of view of a jaded misanthropic thirtysomething male. It was something I saw done in The Guardian. I am sure it will bring Radio Times a whole host of new readers!

20th November
During a working lunch at Country Joe’s Chicken Shack, Gill told us all how she’d like to experiment with dropping my new ‘Angry Alison’ column and running a few “classics” from the archives. “You could call them Golden Grahams,” quipped David, and everyone laughed, obviously realising how generous Gill had been in her offer.

22nd November
That idiot Brooker has been on the phone again to complain about me stealing ideas from his column. “Tsk,” I told David, “if he is resorting to ringing me up, no wonder he is such a miserable person.”  David responded by asking me for Brooker’s number, claiming he was a “kindred spirit”. How odd.

24th November
This new series of Survivor is certainly a departure. One of the contestants has to live in a jail where everyone can come and go as they please and there are no guards! “It almost makes you wish you were in prison!” I told David during the regular 10-second catch-up he allows me to have with him every morning.”We can but dream,” he responded, generously. “I wonder what kind of proper sentence I’d get?” I mused out loud. “In your case, any kind of proper sentence would be a first,” David replied.

30th November
Des O’Connor has been sacked from Countdown! I can understand why. He never seemed happy having to work with all those stuck-up co-presenters and female assistants. “Who wants to spend every day hanging around with a load of sour-faced old crones?” I mentioned to Mark, when I bumped into him in Waitrose. “By the way, how is David?” he replied, strangely.

4th December
Hooray! The Christmas edition of Radio Times is done and dusted and the holidays can begin! Or rather, the holidays can continue! Gill was so thoughtful the way she decided to cut my special column about why the new series of Survivor has proved that reality TV isn’t dead after all, and therefore allowed me to begin my vacation ever earlier than normal! I’m now off to Tenerife for four weeks of sun, sea and sauciness – by way of the local cuisine, that is! My tips for 2009: Phoenix Nights (a brilliant twist having Brian Potter turn into Briony Potter and go on a reality TV show!) Noel’s HQ (I’d vote for him anytime!) French and Saunders (I saw the stage show – I laughed and laughed and laughed) and Mark Lawson getting his own programme.

“Switch on to the switchover!” (slight return)

After a short interval, during which a blue screen might well have afforded readers more entertainment than what otherwise appeared on this blog, here is part two of what everyone is starting to realise no-one is calling The Really Big Switchover:

MERIDIAN
WHEN: 2012
WHERE: Southend-on-Sea
WHO: Fred Dineage, Fern Britton, Christopher Biggins, some Fraggles
HOW: Fred single-handedly sails a giant schooner up the Thames estuary towards an enormous inflatable television set-cum-floating harbour, like the ones they used in the Second World War. He docks, steps ashore and is greeted by a gaggle of Fraggles, who sing a song about multimedia cross-platform integration. Elsewhere on the floating telly, Christopher Biggins (as Queen Victoria) and Fern Britton (as Prince Albert) reminisce about The Great Exhibition and how there’s nothing nicer than the taste of Kent. Then just before a three-hour performance of Don Giovanni, Fred deals a hand of cards which, when turned over, reveal the legend SWITCH TO DIGITAL NOW. “You got a problem there?” Fred hails the huddled masses on the shoreline.

ULSTER
WHEN: 2012
WHERE: Stormont
WHO: Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness, Eamonn Holmes, Gloria Hunniford
HOW: People stand in a row equal distances apart in front of an important looking municipal frontispiece and all cut a piece of ribbon at precisely the same time. Somebody plays a bodhrán in the distance. And that is it.

SCOTLAND
WHEN: 2010-11
WHERE: Arthur’s Seat
WHO: Nicky Campbell, Tony Currie, Viv Lumsden,
HOW: A million-strong crowd gathers to form the legend SWITCH NOW, co-ordinated by Nicky through one solitary loudhailer. Meanwhile Tony spins some easy listening classics, and Viv does traffic reports.

WEST
WHEN: 2010-11
WHERE: The Severn Bridge
WHO: Chris Serle, Shoestring, Michael Praed, Bob Crampton
HOW: Having spent a week in at the deep end working as a television transmitter engineer, Chris gingerly steps up to an unwieldy electrical console to press a button and prevent the whole of the region ever seeing terrestrial TV again. However there is a problem. A circuit blows, and Shoestring has to use his knowledge as a former computer boffin to fix everything before Michael Praed, appearing in the guise of The Spirit Of Ages Past and sporting the colours of HTV Wales (the enemy!), ruins the whole occasion.

CENTRAL
WHEN: 2011
WHERE: The ramparts of Nottingham Castle
WHO: Bob Warman, Gary Terzza, Michele Newman and the Children’s Television Workshop
HOW: Special guest Nick Owen appears dressed as Robin Hood and, on the stroke of midnight, he uses a catapault on the castle wall to fire a giant goose into the milling crowd below. At the same time the Children’s Television Workshop wave from a balcony dressed as the characters of Palace Hill, and Showaddywaddy play Under The Moon Of Love under a moon of love, which rises into the sky until visible by an engineer in Birmingham who presses a button and kills terrestrial television for ever.

YORKSHIRE
WHEN: 2011
WHERE: The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
WHO: Gwen Taylor, Keith Barron, Anna Walker, Frazer Hines and the Brighouse and Rastrick Band
HOW: Gwen and Keith – in character as Amy and David – arrive back in Britain after a 20-year sojourn on the Costa Plonka. They are confused to hear that their television set will soon be going blank, and have to get Frazer Hines to explain the logistics of the switchover from within a specially-constructed patronisingly-conceived farmyard on the floor of the Crucible. A brass band is heard approaching, and Anna Walker bursts out from the centre of an over-sized snooker table just as they enter the building on the chorus of the Floral Dance. Everyone then sings a special set of lyrics reminding viewers of what to do if they still haven’t got a digital television: “So on with your coat and off the shops/it’ll cost no more than fifty quid tops/a host of shows to view at a glance/all just as jolly as the Floral Dance!”

The Secret Diary of Alison Graham: part one

A few years ago, TV Cream was fortunate enough to publish a series of extracts from the diary of the TV editor of Radio Times, Alison Graham.

The insights the diary gave into the life and work of one of Britain’s most prominent television journalists were profound and deeply instructive. They lifted the lid on the world of a TV critic with an unparalled honesty.

It’s with great pleasure that TV Cream is once again able to bring you selections from Alison Graham’s diaries, this time covering the entire year of 2008. Her tales of working with Gill (Hudson, Radio Times editor) and David (Butcher, deputy TV editor), and her relationship with people such as Mark (Lawson) and Ricky (Gervais), paint a picture of a true one-off besides serving as a suitable review of the year in television.

PART ONE: JANUARY-JUNE 2008

10th January
Well, I guess it finally had to happen. No, not me washing the tea mugs at work – I mean taking down my Christmas decorations! “Shouldn’t you have done that four days ago?” Gill asked me, glancing up from an official-looking piece of paper during a working lunch in Tony’s Trattoria. “Heavens no,” I replied, “I like staring at all the twinkly lights.” “I wasn’t talking about your decorations,” Gill snapped and pulled a funny face, before muttering something about having to tell readers I was on holiday again this week. I heartily approve. After all, I always tell readers how it is.

17th January
After watching another episode of my favourite programme Celebrity Big Brother (it’s so bad it’s good!) I suddenly realised it didn’t actually contain any celebrities. I decided to ring Mark to find out what was going on. Apparently Channel 4 has changed the format because of an incident involving a poppadom. I told Mark I once had an incident with a poppadom that left me unable to speak for three days. But when I mentioned how this had “so upset my colleagues at Radio Times”, he made a strange noise that sounded like he was choking and had to ring off. I hope he’s all right.

19th January
I remembered how much I enjoyed watching Extras during my Christmas holiday, and decided to ring Ricky to ask if he was doing another series of The Office this year. It’ll give me something to write exclusively about in my exclusive Radio Times column, I thought. Sadly Ricky wasn’t in, so I rang Mark who informed me that the British sitcom is dead! At this rate I’ll have my column sewn up until Easter!

20th January
Mark has now decided the British sitcom isn’t dead after all. I wish he would make his mind up. Nobody likes a TV critic who constantly changes their opinion about things.

21st January
I discovered that Celebrity Big Brother is doing badly in the ratings. I’m not surprised. It is a terrible programme and I never liked it.

24th January
On last night’s Crimewatch they had that lady who reads the Channel Five news as presenter. “What has happened to Nick Ross?” I asked David in the office. “Haven’t you heard?” he replied cheerily, “the BBC is replacing everyone who has been doing the same job for years and years and giving new blood a chance.” He seemed very excited, which I thought singularly inappropriate seeing as how Nick Ross was a very good presenter. Later, when David told me he was off for a special meeting in the personnel office, I called out: “Don’t have nightmares!” He gave me a funny look.

28th January
I have discovered that Trevor McDonald is back on the News At Ten! It’s only because I watch a lot of television that I notice things your casual viewer would miss. What with Trevor and all these wonderful new shows like The Palace and Moving Wallpaper, I just know this is going to be a great year for ITV!

2nd February
ITV is in terrible trouble! I rang Mark to find out why. “They have forgotten how to make good television drama,” he explained, “and that is why the ratings are so bad”. I didn’t know what he meant. When I tuned in I found that all their programmes were made properly, had beginnings and endings, and even a few famous faces.

5th February
I am convinced ITV is not in terrible trouble. Their programmes are full of famous people, whereas EastEnders on BBC1 is now having to do entire episodes with just one character! “It beats me why anybody would want to spend half an hour listening to one old woman droning on,” I said to David in the office. “That’s a shame, I was so much looking forward to your presentation at next week’s quarterly review,” he replied. I reassured him the presentation was still taking place, and suggested he get a breath of fresh air to clear his head.

15th February
While having a working lunch in The 300 Spartans, Gill asked me how I find the time to watch so many television programmes in order to sound so authoritative in my column. “Delegation,” I chuckled, giving her a big wink, before adding, “I only deal with the cream of British television!” “Yes,” Gill replied, “the rich and the thick.” I didn’t know what she meant.

22nd February
I must say I am having trouble understanding this new series of Doctor Who. The Doctor is a woman and seems to spend every episode in a police station in 1981! My suspicions about the BBC being short of money are clearly correct. I will have to be careful to set an example and not mislead my readers into thinking I am living high on the hog.

5th March
I’ve returned from a holiday in the Loire valley to find Doctor Who is still a man and the programme I saw was called Ashes To Ashes. I don’t know why I bother having David as an assistant if he never tells me anything. “Didn’t you watch Life On Mars?” he asked when I raised the matter with him. “Of course I did, I watch everything important,” I shouted. “Does that include your own back?” he murmured, leaving the room. I think David is suffering from job stress. I can’t think why: it’s not like he has to write a Radio Times column full of exclusive TV news and gossip every week of the year!

11th March
I saw from my TV column that I now think the British sitcom is alive and kicking! I immediately rang Ricky to tell him the good news and to ask when The Office is coming back. Instead I got a recorded message telling me to fuck off. He must have confused me with someone else. He’s such a wag!

16th March
It’s great having David Attenborough back on television. Even though he is old, I’m sure he will continue to deliver such extraordinary insights into our natural world for years to come.

17th March
David Attenborough has resigned! It was in last week’s copy of Radio Times, probably at the back somewhere by the letters page. He has said he has just done his final series for the BBC and has “had enough of dealing with old fossils”. When I read this out during our weekly staff meeting everyone laughed, and Gill said “I know how he feels”, which was kind of her.

27th March
I decided to have a little fun with David this morning. When he came into my office I asked him to sit down and, facing him across the desk, I said “David, I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but I’ve made up my mind and…YOU’RE FIRED!” He turned completely white! He started shouting “I’ll have you! I’m taking this to the union! There’ll be a tribunal!” He didn’t realise I was doing an impression of Sir Alan Sugar, which was a shame as I thought it was quite good. Later on I offered to buy him a coffee but he said “I don’t like bullshitters” which I thought singularly inappropriate. I am glad he is not my apprentice!

28th March
Gill has introduced a new regime whereby some members of staff will act as apprentices to other members of staff for one week. David is my apprentice. He asked me what I thought of Gavin and Stacey. “I’m not interested in your private life,” I replied, “only what you can do for me. I am unique!” – which was clever, because that is a line from the actual Apprentice. “This is not a game, Alison,” he said in a funny voice. “No, it’s Radio Times,” I replied. He clearly has a lot to learn.

13th April
I have fetched up in Venice on a quick spring break. It’s so nice to be away from the pressure of writing a weekly column. It’s not like there’s something good to watch every week as it is! Unfortunately while I was out taking a stroll I remembered I’d forgotten to set my video for my new favourite programme, Foyle’s War (it’s so quaint it’s quirky!). I immediately went back to the hotel and rang David to ask him to put a tape in. Unfortunately Gill came on the line and told me David had just jumped out of a window, but I needn’t worry about coming back and doing my column because nobody is interested in television at the moment. Gill is such a thoughtful boss.

15th April
Gill is such a mean boss. She has ordered me to come back to work because she claims I am having too much time off! Honestly, I can’t watch the television when I’m in the office, can I? To make matters worse, I have found out that Foyle’s War has been cancelled by ITV because they think it is rubbish. I never liked it anyway.

20th April
My new favourite show Heroes is back, and it’s better than ever! If I had a superhero power, it would be the ability to watch television programmes and then replay them in front of my eyes – in other words, a built-in video recorder in my brain. “No danger of that ever becoming full up,” said David. “Exactly, because I would wipe it every week,” I replied. “No change there then,” he added, strangely.

21st April
Mark told me the new series of Heroes is rubbish. It’s so confusing for me being the nation’s number one TV critic! At least he had a tip-off: Frank Butcher is coming back to EastEnders! I can’t wait to reveal this exclusive in my column.

23rd April
I am not talking to Mark. Not only did Frank come back to EastEnders two weeks ago, he came back in a coffin! Selflessly, I thought not of myself, but of Mike Reid: it’s no fun having your character killed off. I decided to send him a little note.

4th May
A working lunch at the Cactus Café. Gill wanted to know my tips for shows to watch this summer. “They haven’t started yet!” I chuckled between mouthfuls of Venezuelan beaver cheese. “I can’t very well tell you about something I haven’t even seen.” “Why change the habit of a lifetime?” Gill muttered in response. I think David’s job stress is now affecting her as well.

7th May
The current series of Doctor Who is the best ever. When I mentioned this fact to David, he started talking a lot about poor characterisation and lazy scriptwriting and lots of technical jargon. I simply said to him: “Am I bovvered?” Because that’s what the character says in Doctor Who. He looked pale and angry. “Perhaps you need to see a Doctor?” I quipped. He didn’t laugh, strangely.

15th May
Came back from a fact-finding trip to Miami Beach to discover David has completely rearranged my office! He has taken my big desk, the sofa, video, tea and coffee making facilities and the office telephone, while I have to make do with a small trestle table in the corner! He says it’s because I’m hardly in, so it’s a better use of space. “Pity I can’t do anything about that other spare space,” he added. “Oh yes,” I asked, “what’s that?” “The one between your ears,” he replied. How nice of David to complement me on the size of my brain! Even so, I do wish he’d told me first before he re-arranged my room. I have no truck with people who don’t warn you they’re about to do something dramatic.

16th May
Without warning I have decided to ask Gill for a pay rise! Oh yes! “My salary does not equate with my output,” I explained to her over a working lunch in The Pride Of Bombay. “You can say that again,” Gill retorted, giving me a funny look.

18th May
I have a new favourite show: Pushing Daisies. It’s so kooky it’s criminal! It’s about what happened to Beth Jordache from Brookside after she left the Close to move to America. I’m sure it’s going to be a hit. What with that and Britain’s Got Talent, this is surely going to be ITV’s year.

25th May
I am finding it hard to understand the plot in Pushing Daisies. I bumped into Mark in the BBC canteen and he said ITV had dropped an episode to make room for the World Cup. “At least Britain’s still got Talent,” I joked. “Not from where I’m standing,” he replied, curiously.

5th June
When David came into my office this afternoon I greeted him by shouting “OWOOOGGGGOOO!” He almost dropped his cup of tea in fright! I had to explain I was quoting from Gladiators, which is back on ITV. “It’s ‘awooga’,” he replied, “and it’s on Sky, not ITV.” “Don’t be silly,” I retorted, “Gladiators is an ITV programme, how can it be on another channel?” David then started fiddling with something down the back of my office television set. When I asked what he was doing, he replied “just checking this thing is actually plugged in”. He’s such a one!

16th June
Mark tells me that Ricky is never going to write another episode of The Office or Extras again! To me this was clear evidence the British sitcom is dead. Mark, however, insisted it wasn’t dead, but neither was it alive. Instead it existed in some kind of semi-conscious half-vegetative state. I do enjoy Mark’s company; it’s so nice to talk to someone on your own wavelength.

22nd June
I saw in the paper that Ricky is doing a new series after all! I shall never trust Mark again.

23rd June
Mark rang up asking if I could trust him. Naturally I said yes, hoping for another exclusive I could use in my column! Apparently a hot tip for big things in the autumn is none other than my old mate Jack Dee! How nice to think that someone who’s been around for ages and has a reputation for mouthing off unpleasantly week after week is about to get what they deserve. When I mentioned this to David, he started laughing hysterically and ran out of the building.

to be continued…

Sans Wogan

This is no great surprise, but the choice of replacement is completely wrong.

You don’t get a camp parodist to front a camp parody. You get someone who is the complete opposite, and who is therefore able to essay some ‘ill-at-ease’ business. You also need someone who treats the thing as a television event rather than a song contest, which Norton won’t. Because despite the ever-present ‘songs are so bad they’re good’ constituency, the fact is the songs in the Eurovision Song Contest really are bad (yes they are), and the only reason so many people watch it is precisely because it is one of the few telly ‘events’ there are left. 

Someone like Chris Tarrant or Huw Edwards would have been a twenty times more sensible appointment.

Starring Radiohead, John Simm, Robert Lindsay, Daniel Radcliffe, Little and Large and Lindsay Duncan

By way of a slight return to this, how might the feature film fantasies of today’s pop elite manifest themselves on screen? Three cinematic smashes suggest themselves:

Viva La Vida
Written by David Hare
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Coldplay, Gwyneth Paltrow, David Bowie, Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Maureen Lipman
A mysterious stranger known only as Yellow (Chris Martin) returns to Britain after 20 years travelling the world. He discovers an amoral, apathetic society, kept docile and dumb-struck by an evil dictator called The Scientist (Bowie). Teaming up with various revolutionaries and radicals, including the bilingual twins X and Y (Izzard and Gervais) and a beautiful female assassin named Trouble (Paltrow), Yellow attempts to free the minds of every British citizen by voyaging around the country smuggling lugubrious ballads and bombastic stadium rock into unlikely locations, including Battersea Power Station, Blackpool Tower, Edinburgh Castle and the Tivoli Ballroom, Buckley. But will he persuade the exiled Queen Of All Humans (Lipman) to join his quest?

Back For Good
Written by Russell T Davies
From an original idea by Russell T Davies
Directed by Bob Spiers
Starring Take That, Adrian Edmonson, Alan Carr, Justin Lee Collins, Phil Collins, Catherine Tate and Graham Norton
A madcap 24 hours in the life of the nation’s favourite pop group. Follow the highs and lows of the new Fab Four as they fall foul of their wily manager Sid Fiddler (Edmondson), get double-crossed by a pair of odious tabloid reporters (Carr and Collins), have to put up with band member Mark’s cantankerous granddad (Phil Collins) and struggle to avoid the clutches of an obsessive fan known only as Patience (Tate) before performing a triumphant concert in front of some gays in a discotheque run by the peculiarly-named Francis Francis (Norton). Features guest appearances by David Tennant, Penn and Teller, Louise Wener and Lily Savage.

In Rainbows
Written by Thom Yorke and Alan Bleasdale
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Starring Radiohead, John Simm, Robert Lindsay, Daniel Radcliffe, Little and Large and Lindsay Duncan
When a provincial town somewhere in the north of England decides to cede from the United Kingdom, a number of eccentrics, inventors and musicians led by Pablo Honey (Simm) use the opportunity to create a utopian society, only to see their efforts thwarted by the OK Computer, a fiendish masterbrain developed by a lunatic oligarch known as the Paranoid Android (Robert Lindsay) and his terrorist thugs, the Karma Police. Maybe the young firebrand Kid A (Radcliffe) can save the day and show that devolution and democratic socialism can co-exist with a globalised economy. Or will the populace be lulled into a stupor by the comic stylings of stand-up funnymen High and Dry (Little and Large)? And why does Mrs Amnesiac (Lindsay Duncan) keep taking her clothes off? Black comedy from the makers of The Bourne Ultimatum and Jake’s Progress.