Cheeseford - Barfe's blogdom

A moving story

2011-12-08T20:35:00.003Z

After four and a bit happy years here at Blogger, I'm moving the Cheeseford experience to my own webspace. From now on, it can be found at http://cheeseford.net/blog/. See you all over there for more of the same.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 8

2011-12-08T17:51:00.001Z

Phew, we've caught up. For day 8, it's the early arrival of this week's BO Problem podcast with me and top comedy writer Matt Owen. Treat yourself to just under an hour and a half of erudition and scurrilous nonsense about the seating arrangements on Blankety Blank, how Nick Knowles got into telly, a great night out with the newsreaders, how John Travolta really made his fortune and how God-fearing Brummie comic Don Maclean blew his chances in Hollywood.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 7

2011-12-08T17:45:00.003Z

Or, if you don't fancy having a dinner party, why not get a talented mate to bring his bongo-playing chum? Even better if you've got a camera crane to hand for the bongo herbert to perch on. Yes, that's right. No inlay or overlay, Juan Mendoza is actually sat in front of the camera as it tracks in and out. Dennis Main Wilson directed this one. No idea who was on camera 1, but the hat is doffed.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 6

2011-12-08T17:42:00.002Z

Apologies. I've been a bit busy, so have missed a couple of days. Let's now play catch up. At Christmas, what could be better than having your closest friends around you? Why not have a dinner party? That's what Cleo Laine and John Dankworth would do. The campaign for a DVD of this series starts right here.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 5

2011-12-05T23:12:00.004Z

And for day 5, let's nip to Agricultural Hall Plain to visit the other side. On the right is the main Anglia building, where the company has been based since 1959, while on the left is the old Post Office, which it annexed from around 1980 to a few years back.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 4

2011-12-05T22:55:00.004Z

Apologies for a slight delay in presenting the fourth day of this extravaganza, but I found myself tired, slightly deaf in one ear and spending most of Sunday on trains. Anyway, have this picture of a pleasant Georgian building in Norwich. This is St Catherine's Close on All Saints Green, from where the BBC did its eastern stuff from the 1950s to 2003, when the operation moved to The Forum.

Oh, go on then, have another picture. This bit is the extension, built when Look East went into colour around 1975. It is now a dental practice. From Stewart White to pearly white. There you go. Don't complain. You're getting it for nothing.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 3

2011-12-03T16:38:00.003Z

For day 3, we go to something I found on the end of a VHS tape while transferring stuff a while back. From the 6 January 1995 edition of The Word (recorded because Sleeper were the opening band, I suspect), we have Frank Bruno saying something that could well be deeply inappropriate and a future sitcom vicar's wife gambling her possessions for a CD player. Postpubtastic.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 2

2011-12-02T22:29:00.001Z

For day 2, an outtake from the recording session for the inaugural BO Problem podcast, featuring a serious discussion of an important aspect of television history - the Nationwide cake-passing ritual.

The BO Problem - outtake - Nationwide (mp3)

The BO Problem - podcast number 1

2011-12-02T16:12:00.002Z

The first BO Problem podcast is up now, including Dave from Minder's porn shame, Derek Nimmo format bingo, alternate careers for newsreaders, showbiz autobiography titles and inappropriate laughter during wedding ceremonies. It's all here, folks: http://www.sendspace.com/file/g2b2st - You need to go to 'Click here to start download from Sendspace'. The other 'download' links are ads.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 1

2011-12-01T02:15:00.002Z

Blimey, is it December already? Seems so, which means another 24 days of archival oddities, you lucky people. We start with a strange and lovely thing that was looped 24 hours a day on Sky channel 999 a few years back. No word of a lie, I recorded two hours of this and have kept it on DVD. Occasionally in moments when I feel like my head is about to explode, the disc comes out and order is restored. It's a soothing yet slightly melancholy thing, thanks, I think, to the music. A talking terrier and a similarly vocal duck seated in a toy fire engine would be something rather special any day of the week, but the music elevates it somehow. I can say with confidence that it's the best thing Sky has ever made or transmitted. Less so the interactive menus featuring the dog and duck, which can be seen after the initial couple of minutes.

Casting a pod

2011-11-30T02:41:00.004Z

For yonks now, I've had the vague idea of doing a podcast, but have dismissed the whole idea of talking to myself as boring, both for me and for anyone else. However, after extensive negotiation, I have persuaded my good friend, the comedy writer Matt Owen (Private Eye/Joan Rivers Position/11 O'Clock Show) to join me once a week for the discussion of light entertainment, real ale, interpretative dance, politics and life in general. Here, from a recent discussion on Cook'd and Bomb'd radio, is a rough downloadable MP3-type idea of what to expect. Oh, and here is a link to Cook'd and Bomb'd.

Wahey

2011-11-27T21:00:00.003Z

To underline Barry Cryer's point about the warmth of the old school light entertainment stars, have a look at this glorious clip of Eric Morecambe opening a holiday home in Norfolk for handicapped children. A class act through and through, with time for everyone. "Yeah, but he's got a camera crew following him around," some of you might say. Well, I've heard numerous reports that, camera crew or no camera crew, this was how Eric Morecambe conducted himself in public. If so, it goes a long way to explain why he and Ernie were so loved. When the reporter asks a daft question in a slightly misguided effort to be funny, Morecambe plays along. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do it.

No honour among comedians?

2011-11-26T14:12:00.007Z

Some interesting comments crop up in today's Guardian interview with Frankie Boyle, comedian, Sun columnist and author of a heavily-promoted broadside against consumerism. I shall leave aside his defences of his offensiveness. I have no problem with offensive comedy, but I don't think Boyle's any good at it, or properly able to justify it. I might return to this issue when I've got less work to do and thought it through a bit more.

What really interests me is his comment about Stewart Lee being "irrelevant and flabby". In a fit of apparent gallantry, Boyle goes on to defend Michael McIntyre and Russell Howard against Lee's criticisms. However, I can't believe that Boyle's dismissal has nothing to do with Lee's criticisms of his own work, particularly Lee's assertion (once again in a Guardian interview) that with "most of those professionally offensive comedians...no one is ever actually offended. Everyone understands the parameters and operates within them, the audience and the performer".

This leads me back to something that Barry Cryer said when I interviewed him for my forthcoming book The Trials and Triumphs of Les Dawson. Baz loves everyone and is loved in turn, so he finds it distressing to see comedians trying to get at each other in public. "Writers have got more cameraderie than comics. Now it's fierce," he said, telling the story of a very famous young comic who rang him up for advice. "[He said] 'They're all having a go at me. Why? Why? Why?' and I said 'Lie back and enjoy it. You've played the O2. You're big. It could be jealousy.' He said 'People can enjoy Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, they don't have to watch me.' I said 'Calm down and enjoy'."

Baz then talked of another phone call he received, this time from one of the old guard. "I was talking to Ronnie Corbett this very morning on the phone...I said 'It's fascinating that we remember Eric and Ernie, Frankie, Tommy and everyone. They were all friends. Competitors [but] they never slagged each other off in public. Now they're all doing it. Are you jealous of him? What's happening?"

Maybe it all became too calculating and business-like with aggressive management operations like Avalon, Off the Kerb and John Noel promoting a 'kill or be killed' attitude? I'll let Baz have the last word. "Denis Norden, my dear old friend, said a brilliant thing. He's like me and Ronnie Corbett, we love the young ones. I've just done Edinburgh. I love the young ones. Denis said 'Comedy's as funny as it ever was, but it's not as much fun'. The warmth thing. There are brilliant people around now. Ross Noble's warm. Bill Bailey's warm. There's a lot of IQ about now. Brilliant brains, but not the warmth."

Now then, now then

2011-11-06T21:52:00.003Z

If I weren't so busy, I'd be very tempted to hop on a train to Leeds and pay my respects to Sir James Savile OBE KCSG at the Queen's Hotel. He was a fascinating figure and a shrewd old buzzard, as this previously-unpublished excerpt of the interview I did with Jim'll Fix It producer Roger 'Doctor Magic' Ordish for my book Turned Out Nice Again proves:

"I didn’t have big agent struggles, particularly when Jimmy Savile didn’t have an agent, really. Bunny Lewis was nominally his agent, and sometimes he’d want him to deal with something. Jim would say things like 'I don’t want to up my fee for two reasons: I’d pay to be on in the first place, and if you’re on a low fee, you’re not beholden to anyone'. For instance, sailing close to the wind, I remember he came onto a Juke Box Jury that I did, '79 or whatever it was, he wore a t-shirt that said, what does it say on hoardings? 'This space available.' Something like that. 'Your name here.' Not surprisingly we were always doing things with the railways [on Jim'll Fix It, and] we had the [British Rail] chairman Peter Parker on, and then he and Peter Parker had a serious conversation. The next year, Jimmy Savile was doing those ads – 'the age of the train' for years and years. He said, 'That’s the money I want. I don’t want the Beeb fiddling around whether they’re going to pay me another £50 or not. I want millions of pounds from British Rail. That’s the means to the end'. As they used to say at the time ‘Why is this train late, Guard?’ ‘It’s the age of the train, sir’."

Roger is a very clever chap, and it might have been easy for him to look down on the show that he oversaw for its entire 19 years on BBC television. He never did. "I really think that when I started there, most people thought 'What I make is good, and I’m not going to make it if I don’t think it’s good'. I loved that about Jim’ll Fix It. Very lowbrow, very simple programme, but we always wanted it to be good. The attitude, I feel, now is 'This is the sort of crap that they like, so this is what we’ll make'. But they’re saying this is crap. It may have been so, but we never made anything with the idea that it was going to be crap because that’s what the common people want. It’s very arrogant."

No Jobs

2011-10-06T10:34:00.005+01:00

This is a sad day. A man has died of pancreatic cancer. That man ran a computer company. Did he invent the personal computer? No, he led a team that refined the object to a point that certain people believed his computers to be more than just devices for writing, looking at the Internet, designing and editing things. Did he invent the mobile phone? No, but his company made really smart smartphones. Did he invent the MP3 player? No, but his company made the shiniest MP3 players in the business.

I love good design, and many of Apple's products qualify. Indeed, I have used Macs happily at various points in my life. However, I have a couple of problems with the whole Apple thing.

The expense. A while back, a Twitter acquaintance asked for netbook recommendations. I threw my 2p's worth in, regarding my £169 Windows machine. Another chap said that the enquirer simply had to get a MacBook Air. I did a quick bit of research and couldn't find one south of £800. It's a fine looking object, but is it £631 better than my netbook? When sitting in the British Library, making notes from the Radio Times, would I get the full benefit of that £631? Or would I be better off spending it on gin? The chap recommending the MacBook Air said it was worth every penny without providing any convincing arguments as to why. When I bought my first home computer in 1997, I really wanted a Mac. I'd worked with them at Lancaster when I was running the student newspaper, Scan, but they were so much dearer than IBM-compatibles that I climbed in through Windows 95. The same still seems to apply.
The cult of Apple. Some people seem to need something to believe in. Many of them think they're too clever for religion, but they display the same sort of blind devotion to a purveyor of technology. Apple strikes me as a more benign and slightly less expensive version of Scientology.
The smugness. Apple shops do not have customer service or repairs departments. They have Genius Bars. Even if the choice of name is slightly tongue-in-cheek, it can still fuck right off.

Naturally, the reaction to Steve Jobs' death on Twitter has been extensive. The level of gadget frotting over there is high, as is the number of people who'll make a shit joke about anything. So, the avalanche of quasi-religious Jobs worship is being counter-balanced by lots of weak iDead, iStiff and iCoffin gags. In many ways, it seems to be a Princess Diana moment for nerds. Some keen on being seen to emote the most about a person they never met or knew (Flowers being left outside the Apple shop on Regent Street? Really? Is that where we are?), while others are equally keen on being seen to show how little they care about the person in question. Neither position appeals to me, so I'm avoiding Twitter today, except for the odd dip in to see if they've stopped. There is a #ThankyouSteve hashtag that brought out the worst in me. Thank you for what? Thank you for selling me an overpriced shiny bit of kit that allows me to feel slightly superior? Thank you for all the 'inspirational' platitudes?

What about everybody else who's going to die today? Many of them will die in horrible ways that could be addressed if the world's wealth were more evenly distributed. Relative values mean that some in the west regard poverty as being unable to afford an iPhone, while many elsewhere have no access to fresh water. A man has died. Get a fucking grip.

We have been watching...

2011-09-27T14:45:00.004+01:00

Very sad news about the passing of David Croft. His greatest achievements were in comedy, rather than variety, so he got only a passing mention in Turned Out Nice Again. One of the more uncomfortable editorial decisions I had to take, but there we are. To redress the balance slightly, I think this previously-unpublished passage from the transcript of my interview with former BBC TV head of light entertainment Jim Moir is worth sharing.

---

"We were discussing how when you come off the training course, you get stuck with a whole bunch of producers. I was attached to David Croft for a show called Ad Lib. It was an early ‘you take a sentence, I’ll take a sentence and we’ve got to get to this conclusion’ type show. Very experimental for BBC2. There were two trainees on it, me and a fellow called Dick Clement. I did my bit, ran the floor, I was in the bar with David and he said ‘Well what do you think?’. I said ‘Well, I was just thinking what else we could put in the show. What about if we got a jazz singer, a scat singer? Because that’s kind of ad lib.’ He went ‘Mmmhmm’. Three weeks later, Annie Ross rocks up on the show. He had not said one single word to me, but he had listened to me, thought it was a good idea and just went out and did it. I’d not said anything to him ‘Did you do that because I said so?’ because clearly he did.

When that series came to an end in about May, the boards for the permanency – I’d been a trainee for about 6 months, the boards were in June. And it was David Croft who gave the report on me after 6 months of traineeship, and said ‘Hire this boy’. I have everything to thank him for, for that opportunity, and I can honestly say that he was probably the greatest head of light entertainment we never had. I don’t think he could have afforded the drop. He’d be looking round to commission himself. He was a powerhouse. He brought on an enormous amount of in-house talent. He was generous, as was Michael Hurll with the people who came up under him, as was Yvonne Littlewood. I don’t think people even know they’re doing it. It’s not ‘Today I will bring on X amount of talent’. You just do it. You recall the chances you were given."

Fucking diddums

2011-09-02T16:19:00.008+01:00

Novelist and raddled Kevin Godley lookalike Howard Jacobson has been moved to pass stern comment on blogs and blog(wo)men. Apparently he feels "a bit chilled" when he looks at blogs. "What you read is extreme ignorance and pure poison," says Jacobson, "It is a poisonous, poisonous medium. You can’t believe how malicious, how ignorant, how stupid… and you do wonder if they don’t have anything better to do than attack people who have written articles. And you do wonder whatever happened to the idea of the critic; of the reviewer… people who have given their lives to honing the art of what they do."

He goes on to add that "Occasionally I read some people’s comments on Amazon, some of which are beyond belief", which is, for me, the clincher as it makes fairly clear that he is basing his opinion of all blogs and non-professional commenters on unfavourable comments that have been made about his work. He's Googled himself, discovered that not everyone regards his every last word as spun gold and had a hissy fit. Bless. Jacobson seems to be saying that the only valid critical opinions are the ones for which the reviewer has been paid by a mainstream publication, and that if you bought one of his books and found it rubbish, you should keep schtum about it. Obviously the same applies if you love his work. Obviously.

This attitude is problematic balls on several levels. For one thing, mainstream book reviewers run the risk of meeting the authors they're reviewing and might be tempted to temper their views for a quiet life. Or they might overstate their views to get a bit of controversy going. It's a myth to think that newspaper book reviews are beacons of fair play. You might not like the honest response of a punter, but them's the breaks. Then there's the fact that blogs are no more inherently poisonous or ignorant than a blank sheet of paper. It's what's written therein that matters.

Jacobson also seems to be saying that only paid writers pay any attention to the matter of craft, which is, frankly, insulting nonsense. "People who have given their lives" suggests a degree of suffering, but in my experience, being a professional writer means going to bed when I like, getting up when I like and, in between, having a lovely time with concepts and words, rather than "giving my life" to a grinding job that I hate for an employer I despise.

Bloggers are "people who have written articles", you hidebound old media ninny. They might not have a column in The Independent, but they have a forum, and this can be a wonderful thing. What exactly is it that makes them inferior? I write books and articles for money. I also have a blog. Do I have to dress up half as an author and half as a blogger, and argue with myself like Tommy Cooper used to? All in all, it seems to be another manifestation of the ailment known as Linehan's Palsy, in which someone moderately celebrated who likes the freedom to give out their opinions to all and sundry can't actually bear anyone else having that freedom if the opinion is not in their favour. Free speech is wonderful, but only up to a point.

Howard, love, if you look a bit harder, you might find that the vast majority of blogs aren't about you. For sure, there are some unpleasant things said out there in blogland (I've said some of them myself, I admit quite freely, and I stand by every last syllable), but there's also a lot of intelligent, in-depth discussion of interesting topics that wouldn't necessarily be covered by the mainstream media. Saying that all blogs are poisonous is as erroneous as saying that all novelists are ill-informed horse-faced narcissists.

What's a chap to do?

2011-08-17T14:36:00.001+01:00

These are fearful, paranoid times. We are all under observation (Even you. Especially you, in fact.), and our habits and utterances are being monitored for the merest hints of insurrection and incitement. There's a question to which I need an answer. Is it OK for bearded men to smile and pull faces at children on public transport? I do it because I remember how much I enjoyed a good childish adult when I was a bairn. Hiding behind a hand then removing the hand to reveal a gurning visage. All adding to the gaiety of modern life in all its grimnitude. I'm not doing it to groom anyone. I'm doing it because I'm 38 going on 6. Maybe there should be a licensed jester scheme, with CRB-checked gurners being denoted by a 'harmless loon' badge? Until then, should I just scowl at youngsters to be on the safe side? If the Phantom Dog-Nosher of Norwich does a phone-in on this, I'll know I'm onto something.

It's a scab eat dog world

2011-08-11T16:06:00.008+01:00

Not entirely unexpectedly, there has been a wee bit of reaction from within the BBC at Norwich to my musings on BBC Radio Norfolk presenter Nick Conrad. One colleague of Conrad's, whom I know a little and like a lot, dropped me a note to say "I wouldn't say we were close friends, but I have always got on very well with him and I think he's an excellent presenter". We agreed to disagree on the final point. However, another colleague was less warm, describing Conrad as a "walking disaster area", and noting that the blog post had "caused some smiles".

Conrad achieved a degree of national notoriety in February, when he had as a guest on his show a man who claimed to be the son of the rightful owner of the cat adopted as a pet by the Camerons. The whole thing was a hoax intended to highlight churnalism, and, while Conrad sounded sceptical throughout the interview, the fact was that by the time the piece went out, it had already been revealed as a hoax. That "really troubled some of us here," Conrad's colleague explained, "It wasn't only because he and others were taken in by an experiment in churnalism. They picked the story up from the Daily Mail which is their habit and then, had they simply checked on Google News, they would have found the originators 'fessing up to it. But that one simple check wasn't done."

Another broadcast that caused alarm to some of Conrad's colleagues was his show of 27 July 2011, which was billed as a look at the Olympics and Norfolk's part in the whole beano. It transpires that it doesn't have one. Once again, the programme opened with a repetitive, breathless three-minute introduction that said all that needed to be said in the first minute.

Nick Conrad 27-07-11 intro by Louis Barfe

Mmmm, pie. Any more pie? How many times did he refer to pie? I truly can't be arsed to count. The real problem with Nick's Olympic spectacular had little to do with catering arrangements or duff metaphors, though, and everything to do with the unprofessional way he addressed the unavailability of Keith Nicholls, head of the University of East Anglia's Sportspark, whom he, in the words of his dismayed colleague, "berated". "In Conrad World nobody has anything in their day which could be more important than answering his summons," his fellow broadcaster observed, "And it is in direct contradiction of BBC Producer guidelines where a clear 'empty chair' policy is set out. And we are simply not allowed to make a judgement on people who choose not to come on a programme."

Nick Conrad 27-07-11 by Louis Barfe

Note the moment where he suggests the council chap should spend more time in the Radio Norfolk studio, so that Conrad can keep him informed on his own business. That's the sound of someone who believes their own publicity a wee bit too much. It's the sound of massive self-importance, and it's completely at odds with the laid-back, gently-mocking tone of Radio Norfolk's best presenters and output.

The following day, Mr Nicholls made time to visit The Forum and make an appearance on Conrad's show. Why was Mr Nicholls denying Norfolk its slice of Olympic pie (presumably made in a tin in the shape of five linked rings)? Mr Nicholls explained calmly the logistics of Olympic training, and how it would not be in the interests of the Sportspark users to deny them use of the venue for a month so that it could be given over to training.

Nick Conrad Keith Nicholls 28-07-11 1 by Louis Barfe

Mr Nicholls is not some bland suit or a risible Mr Brittas-style timeserver. He's a former English volleyball international, and he was instrumental in setting up and designing the self-funding Sportspark over a decade ago. In summary, he knows what he's talking about, and in his professional judgment, the interests of the UEA Sportspark and its customers would not be best served by chasing reflected Olympic glory. Later in the interview, he states that he's open to discussion with teams who want to use the Sportspark, but clear that it would be on the Sportspark's terms. Fair enough. Except it isn't. Conrad ploughs on, suggesting that Nicholls and the council have lied or been guilty of some kind of cover-up, when clearly a sound and reasonable business decision has been reached. Listen to a Conrad show (if you have the stomach for it) and the phrase "I put it to you..." will be much in evidence, suggesting more an over-familiarity with the Network DVDs of Crown Court than any sound journalistic nous.

Towards the end of the interview, the subject changed to Mr Nicholls' non-appearance on the previous day's show. If you can't be bothered to listen to the whole of the following clip, go to 2 minutes 27 seconds, listen to Nicholls, then listen to Conrad's reply, and do please let me know in the comments below whose side you're on.

Nick Conrad Keith Nicholls 28-07-11 2 by Louis Barfe

"Forgive me, " Conrad practically hisses, "but I know my audience far better than you do." What a horrendously high-handed thing to say, even if true, and what an unpleasant way to say it. Conrad's despairing workmate puts it this way: "Since then 'I know my audience' has become another tongue in cheek quote plied around the production office here. But what happens next time we want to talk to the UEA Sportspark? I think it's the lack of a sense of a proportion which I find so shocking. He thinks he's Paxman."

How well does Conrad know his audience, though? As I said earlier, his tone jars hideously with the well-established personality of the station, and it's a station that has routinely beat BBC Radio 2 in the ratings on its own patch. I'd be very interested to know how Conrad's figures compare to the rest of the day's output, and with historical figures for that same slot. Maybe it's getting to the point where Conrad could reach the same number of people each morning by doing house calls on foot. When I first moved to the area, the bit between breakfast and afternoon was the largely the province of a broadcaster called John Mills, who specialised in solving problems for listeners and tackling the authorities on their behalf. Sadly no longer with us, he was a softly-spoken man whose words nonetheless carried a lot of weight, but who knew when to ease off and keep it light and polite. In contrast, Conrad seems to be under the misapprehension that you have to be a cynical, aggressive hard-arse about everything.

On the 27 July show, Conrad says that sometimes people in authority have to hold their hands up and say they got it wrong. Maybe they'd be more inclined to do so if there were a bit more give and take from his end of the studio. Conrad's personal response to criticism is illuminating. My correspondent at The Forum sent me another email this week, informing me that the ENPS database on which the station's contact details for contributors are stored has been amended to read "in big red letters" the following: "WARNING - has written offensive material online. Avoid." The entry was modified on 3 August 2011 and last modified by Nick Conrad. I have to confess that this news made me burst out laughing. Over the years, I have written plenty of offensive material, both online and in print, but I don't think my previous piece on this fascinating specimen of bad radio qualifies as offensive in the slightest. I've been in and out of The Forum semi-regularly for the last six years or so, blethering unpaid about music and archive TV, and judging talent competitions, simply because I like the station and I like the people I've been on air with. Graham Barnard, Chris Goreham and Stephen Bumfrey are among the very best presenters that radio (local or national) can offer, and I loved working with dear old Roy Waller. The production staff too: Amy Barratt, David Webster, Kirsteen Thorne, Kevin Newman, Thordis Fridriksson. All really good radio people. I said what I said about Conrad because I felt he was letting their side down, and if I'm now not welcome at The Forum for saying it, well, that's a price I'm happy to pay.

Meanwhile, he continues, stinking up the Norfolk airwaves for 2 hours a morning. Has Conrad's show really got the whole county talking? If so, what are they saying? I suspect that more than a few will be saying "Oh Christ, not him again. Turn it off".

Everybody out for some sweet and sour labrador

2011-08-02T11:41:00.005+01:00

It's always fun on BBC strike days, watching to see who's had no problem with waltzing through the picket lines. Last night, on the late edition of Look East, we got Nick Conrad, the 9am-11am presenter from BBC Radio Norfolk. Immediately, I thought "Oh look who it isn't. Not only a dog-eater, but also a scab".

A dog-eater? Why yes. I listen to a lot of BBC Radio Norfolk's output, but I'm afraid the radio goes off whenever I hear Conrad. He seems to think he's edgy and provocative, but he strikes me as terribly bland and not a little smug, which is never a combination designed to keep me tuned in. However, one morning in February, I didn't get to retune quick enough, and the intro to the show made me stay listening, because I thought "this could be interesting", and not in a good way either. Here's that intro.

Nick Conrad 09 02 2011 intro by Louis Barfe

What amuses me most in retrospect is the way that he reiterates the various points endlessly, simply to last until the end of the jingle, which is 2 minutes and 41 seconds long. After the first minute, he is talking loud and saying nothing new. Maybe he feels that the listenership is deaf and/or as thick as pigshit?

My faith was rewarded fully about 20 minutes into the show.

Nick Conrad 09 02 2011 dog by Louis Barfe

"Every animal should have a right to a human death," says one listener. Conrad corrects himself. It is unclear whether the listener in question couldn't spell or whether it was Conrad's reading at fault, but what is clear to me is the memory of spluttering coffee across the room as I burst out laughing.

Then comes David from Thorpe St Andrew, who has a point to make about the live transport of horses for food. He's unhappy with the inhumane way the cargo is treated. It is at this point that Conrad deploys what he believes to be his thermonuclear warhead, the thing that really puts the cat among the pigeons (in this case in a white wine sauce with aubergines and shallots). The way he admits to having eaten dog while on holiday in Vietnam clearly indicates that he's been bursting to drop this bombshell from the moment the show's subject was decided: "Yes, that'll get Norfolk's dander up. My canine snack will really get them going." The "What do you reckon to that?" is delivered in the manner of someone who feels he's holding four aces. Outrage will be created. Talk radio gold will ensue.

Only one problem. It doesn't work. David from Thorpe St Andrew responds in a boringly matter-of-fact manner and proves (perhaps surprisingly) open to the concept of relative cultural values, Conrad doesn't like it. When David says he's eaten kangaroo, Conrad's purse-lipped "Yes" seems to carry overtones of "YES, BUT A KANGAROO IS NOT A FUCKING DOG, SO I REMAIN KING OF THE MEAT HOBBY, THUS I WIN", an impression underlined by his "David, allow me to speak" interruption. The show is not going according to the plan he had thought so fiendish and clever. David is despatched with "Good to hear your voice, you take care", which I hear as "Good to hear your voice, but it's a shame you didn't use it to react in the way I expected. You take care. Don't fall down any manholes, y'bastard".

With David out of the way, Conrad repeats that he "ate a dog" (a whole one?) in Vietnam, and adds that it's something that "really infuriates people". Well, not everyone, evidently.

EDIT: In the interests of accuracy, I have been asked to point out that there was no picket line to cross at the Forum in Norwich yesterday. This doesn't make Conrad any less of a scab, obviously.

The Daily Mail once again makes me think 'FFS'

2011-07-23T14:43:00.013+01:00

There's an awful, shitty story in today's Daily Heil about Wish You Were Here actress Emily Lloyd. The Heil is big on the physical form of women. Some are too thin. Some are too fat. If you're famous and you haven't been declared 'just right' by the arbiters of Derry Street, they let you know about it in no uncertain terms. In Lloyd's case, "the glamorous looks which once helped propel her to fame are gone". Really? She's a bit broader in the beam, but she's still recognisably Emily Lloyd.

If this story amounted to nothing more than "woman looks different at 40 to how she did at 17" it would be cunty enough. However, read further down. "She has spoken openly in interviews about her mental health problems – doctors have diagnosed mild schizophrenia, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder," Nick McDermott informs us helpfully. Well, being splashed across the pages of a widely-read newspaper in this manner's really going to help her deal with those various issues. Who are the "concerned friends" referred to in the article? Or are they not friends at all, just random fuckwits who've spotted her in the street and thought "Isn't that the girl from Wish You Were Here? She looks rough. Might be a few quid in it"?

Oi, McDermott, here's a free story for you, y'twat. At 17, I looked like this. Wasn't I a little darling? Fresh-faced, almost pert. And that's just a portrait. You can't see what I was like beneath the nipples back then. Bloody hell, I was gorgeous.

This is what I look like now, and I'm only 38. I've really let myself go, and I've done it quicker than Emily, who, as far as I can see looks absolutely lovely. I am frequently seen traipsing between my £80,000 3-bed terraced house (That's your preferred snidey house style, isn't it? I've estimated the value based on what houses of similar size go for round here now. I didn't pay that for it, obviously) and the chippy, having lost the glamorous looks that once made some girls consider me vaguely acceptable after a few pints. Unfortunately, I have no mental health issues for the likes of Nick McDermott to dwell on. I also have a penis and am not even vaguely famous, which might well be the deciding factors in the Mail's ultimate decision not to run with this exclusive.

In contrast, look at this buff, toned specimen of sex. That's Paul Dacre. He edits the Daily Mail. Look at his inviting mouth. You just would, wouldn't you? Phwoarr, eh? Eh? I think I've just spunked in my pants and I'm not even slightly gay.

If you read the Mail, remember that it hates everyone. Including you. Especially you if you're a woman.

All the news that's shit to print

2011-07-21T13:49:00.006+01:00

I first set foot in a newspaper office 23 years ago. I was 15 years old, and I was on work experience. On each desk at the Sutton and Cheam/Epsom and Ewell Herald was an in-tray, an out-tray, a telephone and a sit-up-and-beg typewriter. Stories were researched by speaking to people, either by telephone, or, as was often preferable, by getting out of the office, wearing out a bit of shoe leather and meeting them face-to-face. I remember sitting in an old people's home as a First World War veteran talked me through his experiences and showed me his photo albums. Would the story I ended up writing have been as good if I'd spoken to him on the telephone? Almost certainly not.

Nowadays, 'churnalism' is the word. Journalists from the smallest circulation local freesheet to the biggest-selling national hardly ever leave their desks. With more words needed to fill more pages, there isn't time to go out and get the stories. The typewriters have been replaced by computers, with Google and Wikipedia the overworked, underpaid hack's friend. Journalism now is increasingly about repurposing existing material. Why ring the person up when there's a tidy little bon mot on the press release? Of course it would be better to have an all-original line, but with deadlines looming, it'll have to do. I have nothing but sympathy for journalists working in this awful culture. I have less sympathy, however, for the way that many journalists now use social networking sites.

At one end of the scale is the relatively benign, but still lazy practice of plundering Twitter for a few handy opinions and bunging them into a nice space-filling box. 23 years ago, the work experience kid or office junior would have been pushed out of the door and told to get a few vox pops. Much better, and much more fun.

At the other end of the scale is the deplorable way in which individuals' Facebook profiles are often used fill in the gaps about that person. There's nothing particularly deplorable about using the profile as source material, apart from grumpy old hacks' general caveats about laziness. What makes it deplorable is the appallingly judgmental way in which the information is all-too-often used. Generally speaking, this happens when the individual has done or is suspected of having done something unpleasant or notorious. Take the case of Becki Leighton, the nurse arrested on suspicion of adulterating the saline drips at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport. Now, I have serious reservations about the correctness of naming the suspect at all. Remember Joanna Yeates' landlord? He turned out to be completely blameless, but only after his name had been dragged extensively through the mud by Her Majesty's Press. Leighton is a suspect. She could be guilty. She could be innocent. Nobody at this stage knows.

What we do know about her, though, thanks to the Daily Mail finding her Facebook profile (don't worry - it's an IstyOsty link) is that she drinks (sometimes to excess), she smokes and she has days where she really doesn't want to go to work. Well, that's pretty conclusive. Throw the book at her. Except, smoking apart, that description could also apply to me and most of the people I know. Look at the way it's presented. It is indicative of absolutely nothing, but it is presented as being of obviously massive significance. It is shitty hackery, pure and simple.

The fact is that most of us could be painted as awful and evil on the basis of unguarded remarks and stupid pictures that we intended to be seen only by people who know us well enough to understand the intent. If I became nationally infamous tomorrow, what would the Mail make of my Facebook profile? "The 38-year-old self-styled 'truffler' is seen on his Facebook page wearing sunglasses at an all-day riverside bender. His latest status update calls Rupert Murdoch 'a complete and utter bastard' and his picture albums also contain a photo of Cliff Richard in swimming trunks." Chances are that they wouldn't mention the status updates where I describe the Mail as a hateful shit-sheet, but there's more than enough source material there to make me sound properly unhinged. Maybe they'd have a point, but you could probably frame most people's Facebook updates in such a way as to make them sound unwell in the head and almost certainly a danger to shipping. What illuminating morsels could we find on the profiles of Mail hacks James Tozer, Jaya Narain, Claire Ellicott and Louise Eccles (It took four people to write that story? Seriously?) if we were inclined to look them up? In summary, judge not.

While I'm here, I should mention that I was obviously an insufferable, cocky little sod back in my work experience days, and would like to thank all the experienced professionals who put up with me on that original fortnight in the office and on my subsequent returns to the Epsom office. They all taught me things that I try to observe to this very day. When I hear people slagging off journalists, it saddens me, because I think of that team and my later colleagues at Publishing News, not of Johann Hari cut and pasting his 'intellectual portraits' or Neville Thurlbeck flogging his Horace in a naturist B&B. Without exception, they were and are good people, good journalists, good writers. Andrew, Pauline, Susan, Ian, John, Richard, Clive, Mark, Christine, Dina, Judy - thank you all for your patience and sorry for being an arse.

Brooksing no criticism

2011-07-11T01:56:00.004+01:00

So many people are saying that Rebekah Brooks must have the goods on Rupert Murdoch to be protected and supported by him in the way she has been. I don't think so. He's just in awe of someone as venal, amoral and awful as he is, and the feeling is completely mutual. She is the only thing about which he is sentimental. I have a feeling they love each other in the purest way possible. It would be touching if it weren't so damaging for just about everyone else in the world.

I have worried about this whole business fizzling out and things returning to how they were before, with elected (and unelected) leaders tiptoeing around Murdoch like he's the one really in charge. If this Daily Mirror story about 9/11 victims' phone messages being intercepted is true, there's no danger of the momentum being lost any time soon. American people seem to take 9/11 very seriously, and won't take kindly to anything disrespecting those who died. If it's true, Murdoch's just opened not a can of worms, but an exploding can of radioactive shit that will stink up his reputation globally. Things have happened that I never thought I'd live long enough to see, and the indications are that there's more to come. I continue to greet each fresh revelation in the manner of the rubber-necking old bloke on the balcony in Rita, Sue & Bob Too.

Looking Gaunt

2011-07-09T02:03:00.013+01:00

I apologise for this blog having become a digest of what I get up to on Twitter. If it's any consolation, I'm way behind with my diary as well. However, I have just experienced something I feel to be worth recording. I've never had much time for Jon Gaunt. For the uninitiated (and if you've never heard him in action, you don't know how lucky you are), he used to present the 9am-noon show on BBC London 94.9 in the days when Danny Baker was on breakfast. Whenever I was in London, I would rush to switch over or off at 9am, to avoid hearing Gaunt's oafish manner with callers and listeners. He's one of those people to whom I would take exception even if I agreed with his views 100%.

When the BBC reopened its Coventry and Warwickshire station in 2005, Gaunt - who had begun his radio career on the old BBC CWR - was enlisted to present the breakfast show, but soon resigned when a change in BBC rules meant that he would have to choose between his radio show and his column in The Sun. TalkSPORT snapped him up, and there he sat, bellowing at a microphone until he called a Redbridge councillor "a Nazi" and "an ignorant pig".

This week, he turned up on Question Time, seated at the end of the table on screen right. Those who follow the #bbcqt hashtag on Twitter will know the name given to this particular position by the irreverent. He started well by declaring that his old boss Rebekah Brooks should resign, but I lost my patience when he started shouting. You'd think that someone with as much radio experience as Gaunt would have a bit more microphone technique, wouldn't you? By the time he brought up the Divine Brown incident with Hugh Grant, order had been restored and I was back to thinking he was a steaming great nit.

All through Friday, as I tried to get on with my work, I kept thinking back to Gaunt's pisspoor performance. Finally, in a moment of boredom, I posted a fairly mild joke about Gaunt on Twitter, being sure to mention him to avoid accusations of cowardice:

"Breaking: People of Coventry wish they had somewhere to send @jongaunt."

He's from Coventry, you see? Where do you send people you want to ignore if you're already in the place to which people from other locales banish their annoyances? Geddit? Oh, suit yourselves.

A couple of hours later, came the reply:

"@LFBarfe writer? So what have you had published you no mark"

I tried to be as helpful as I could:

"@jongaunt Put my name into Amazon, you lazy sod."

He replied:

"@LFBarfe just looked at your site... Shite! Have yup published any thing?"

Oh dear. Even though it seemed likely that subtleties would be lost on Mr Gaunt at that particular moment, I felt that they were worth making:

"@jongaunt I haven't published anything. I write; my publishers publish."

In the interim, I had re-tweeted his original misguided counterblast, as a result of which, he received helpful messages from several of my chums explaining that I was a raddled old hack with two books to my name and a third on the way, to say nothing of my years insulting Alan Giles in the back of Private Eye.

Finally, I decided to put Mr Gaunt out of his misery:

"@jongaunt Seeing as you're too pissed or stupid to use Amazon, I've done the work for you, you fucking skid mark. http://amzn.to/pK1q6f "

DYSWIDT? He called me a 'no mark', so I called him...yes, exactly. Was he pissed? Who knows? Who cares? However, the timing of his replies would have been consistent with coming in from a bloody good night on the Scruttock's Old Dirigible, and deciding to fire up the computer for something to read while a kebab is demolished.

On waking this morning, I was amused to see that Gaunt had arisen and was tweeting incoherently at anyone who stood up for me. Now, Gaunt's radio show on BBC Three Counties Radio won three Sony awards in 2001, for its coverage of GM's decision to close the Vauxhall car plant in Luton. He doesn't like people to forget this achievement.

So, I struggled to maintain control of my bladder when he went at a chap called Simon Hepworth. Now, I've never actually met Simon, as we missed each other at Lancaster by a year, but we have a lot of mutual friends, and we correspond regularly. One day, we will get together for a pint and it will be like we've known each other forever. Simon's a vastly experienced TV director, best known for his work on Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow. These days, he freelances, and when he's not doing broadcast telly, he's doing corporate videos and online stuff. Anyway, Simon joined in the fun with:

"@LFBarfe @jongaunt called you a no mark...ah well, it's better than being a stain on humanity"

To which Peter Griffin's slightly less self-aware doppelganger replied:

"@heppy @lfbarfe haven't you got a shitty little video to produce"

It was then that Simon played his masterstroke. Knowing that Gaunt loves to flaunt his gongs, the "shitty little video" producer came back with:

"@jongaunt @LFBarfe How many baftas have you won then?For a communicator you're rather rubbish at it when you can't fade people out aren't you"

Gaunt's two-part response was priceless:

"@heppy no Baftas as not a TV maker but many many radio awards. How many have you won?"

"@heppy you won one!...in 2005! Now that's funny and pathetic"

Now, a Sony award is a fine thing to have, but so's a BAFTA. Why is one something to harp on about endlessly, while the other is "funny and pathetic"? Gaunt couldn't see that his own tactics were being deployed on him to considerable satirical effect. Best of all was when Gaunt responded to a jibe from Simon about his various sackings and run-ins with Ofcom with "@heppy 2005 for Dick and Dom! You haven't been sacked cos you're so bland andvworked for the Beeb, you little civil servant" Simon's a freelance who's worked everywhere, and he keeps getting hired because he's good at what he does. No cushy-job time-server he. On pointing out his freelance status, Simon got this bundle of joy from the erstwhile shock jock cock.

"@heppy freelance really? I thought that was the polite way middle class ex BBC disguised being unemployed? Sorry to get it wrong"

Unless I'm reading that one wrong, there we have a freelance ex-BBC presenter attempting to use the terms "freelance" and "ex-BBC" as insults. Or maybe it doesn't apply to working class ex-BBC types? Gaunt also dismissed Simon as "now running a very small Internet TV company. Be polite and I might consider giving you some work.. I need a new tea boy". Quite apart from the fact that Simon's Internet company Video Ventures is just one of the things he does, what work has Jon Gaunt done since he left The Sun last year, apart from stinking up Question Time (which really is some kind of achievement) and posting on his own website?

Apart from his awards, Gaunt loves mentioning his Jaguar, as though it's some kind of indicator of his great success. So it was that he finished his dialogue with Simon: "@heppy right on the hook, you were easy but you bore me now, I'm off to get the Jaguar cleaned and book my holiday. Bye bye bye" Wow, he owns a car and can afford to book a holiday. He must be Charlie fucking Big Potatoes. I have no idea of the age or model of Gaunt's Jag, but know for a fact that I could walk up the road right now and pick up a second-hand XJ6 for a couple of grand. Unfortunately, having never learned to drive, it would be a waste of wedge, but I could do it, and then I could wank on about it as though it actually meant anything. Incidentally, while we're talking of wanking, I am informed, reliably, that in Gaunt's autobiography Undaunted he tells a tale of flogging his Horace to the point of issue using the bra of his dad's girlfriend, a woman he referred to as The Slag.

In a way, I feel sorry for Gaunt. He comes across like one of those punch-drunk old boxers, mumbling about past successes and talking themselves up as they attempt one last comeback. Dismissing experienced broadcasting professionals as being fit only to be his tea boy, while nobody's rushing to give him a show of his own again. He's just another freelance, like me, like Heppy. Taking our chances and trying to turn a coin by being any good. Knowing the freelance game like I do, I suspect that his bravado is a front. Maybe he's invested well or something, but at the moment I don't think he's earning enough from his media work to run a moped, let alone a Jag. I suspect that somewhere in the West Midlands, there is a man who spends three hours of every morning shouting into a hairbrush before going out to soap his motor and check out the bras on the washing line. Poor sod.

Am I missing something?

2011-06-10T01:06:00.005+01:00

I'm an old hack, and I'm quite often warm to the touch if not properly pissed, but I try not to get baffled by new technology. The users of new technology can be another matter, though.

On Thursday nights, my enjoyment of Question Time is enhanced hugely by reading and making live comments on the prog via the medium of Twitter. This week, Romaine Rand, sorry, I mean Germaine Greer (Why did Clive James ever bother with that pseudonym for his old Sydney University chum?) was on the panel and she suggested that daughters kissing their fathers goodnight were being programmed to flirt. Now, I'm quite fond of old Germaine, but I couldn't let that one pass, so I posted the following on the tweets:

"Germaine Greer suggesting daughters kissing dad goodnight is flirtation. In my case, it's more like being gobbed on. #bbcqt"

This is true. Kissing my daughter goodnight is a deeply unsexualised act akin to attempting the same manoeuvre with Roy Hattersley. She's always awash with dribble, and, when moving in for the pucker, she takes great delight in producing even more and leaving me feeling like my fizzog has just gone through the 30 degree cycle with her stained t-shirts. Tonight, I exclaimed "Eurggghhhh, you're so slobbery". She replied "No. You are". That I was now the slobberier of the pair was indubitable, but I had not produced any of the offending liquid. The comment was retweeted by your friend and mine, The Urban Woo, shortly after which both of us received the following response from some chap:

"Rubbish. Don't blame men."

To which I replied:

"Don't blame men for what?"

He replied:

"Is that combative. don't blame men for the faults of mankind is what I meant."

Slightly at a loss to work out what point he was making, I responded:

"I'm not sure what this has to do with observing that my 3yo daughter dribbles on me when kissing me goodnight."

then added:

"Tonight I said to her 'Yuk, you're so slobbery'. She replied 'No, YOU ARE'."

Now, one of the things I like most about Twitter is that people you don't know can say interesting things in response to your gibberings. Indeed, people can start by disagreeing violently with you, but you end up following each other having reached some kind of entente cordiale. You might never agree, but you respect each other's right to yada yada, and it'd be a boring shithole of a world if we all thought the same. So, despite my hackles rising, I decided not to give mateybollocks both barrels. His response to the above was one word:

"Blocked."

Curiouser and curiouser. I only ever block spammers. People who disagree with me are always welcome to continue doing so. However, as I understand it, blocking someone merely means that they can't follow you. They can still see all of your tweets if they so wish. Given that I began with no desire to follow this bloke, and that he was declining in my estimation with every word he typed, I responded accordingly:

"I wasn't following you anyway, was I?"

Then came a line that wrong-footed me a little:

"Nasty man."

Reader, I can honestly say I thought it was a joke. The person in question describes himself on his Twitter biography as a "poker of waspsnests and pisstaker of the pompous", so I assumed it was all some kind of edgy humour. Suddenly, the "Blocked" made sense. He was trying to be friendly. As such, I replied:

"Well spotted. I sense a kindred spirit."

Then a desire for context made me look at his timeline, and I was shocked and baffled by what I found, not least:

"there are some really shitty human beings on twitter."

One of his associates evidently asked what he was on about, to which he replied:

"am having some real shit on twitter tonight. Paedophile stuff. Is it not monitored?"

and:

"Got a guy (blocked now) doing paedo stuff about his daughter."

to say nothing of:

"He has 805 followers. make of that what you will."

or:

"maybe this guy should be exposed."

He meant me. And what did he mean about my followers? That much was very unclear. I tried to follow him. He really had blocked me. However, at the same time, he had started following me. So, presumably, he could see everything I was posting, having opted in. I just couldn't discuss anything with him. Funny, I thought. Later he suggested to one of his correspondents that it was fine to "Defend the internet by all means but do not allow freaks to flourish". Physician, heal thyself.

Assuming he could see my posts on account of following me, I tweeted the following:

"Right. There's someone on here who thinks I was doing 'paedo stuff' about my daughter. I was actually doing the complete opposite."

"If [name of point-missing tit] unblocked me, he & I could have a proper discussion about him accusing me of being a paedophile."

I'll be frank. I'm riled. I'd quite like to have a frank exchange of views with this person, but that isn't going to happen, because he's blocked me. I can't see any way in which my original comment can be construed as "paedo stuff". The only possible way I can read it as such is if it was seen as an expression of disappointment that my daughter was hockling at me rather than flirting with me, but then, who would read it that way? Am I missing something?

Spot the Muso

2011-06-01T13:47:00.005+01:00

Following on from the Johnny Harris clip I highlighted the other week, I felt the need to introduce both readers of this blog to one of my hobbies: muso-spotting. I know I'm not the only one to do this, because I have spent many a happy evening with my chum Gavin Sutherland, peering through a fog of multi-gen VHS, port and brandy to identify the musicians on old light entertainment shows. Is anyone else with us?

My recent bargain purchase of The Ken Dodd Laughter Show on DVD provided very rich pickings indeed. In one of the shows, there was a running sketch concerning the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette Macdonald call-and-response classic 'When I'm Calling You'. At one point, we saw Pat Ashton dressed as a squaw trilling back at Doddy while seated at a Marconi mk VII, like so.

As if that weren't enough to bring me full glee, later in the same show, we saw Rita Webb dressed as a mountie (Rita Webb! A mountie! I use exclamation marks very sparingly, but I feel this is fully deserving of them.), singing the song to a distant figure. The camera cuts to the bandstand, where Doddy is now the squaw, standing among Alan Braden's assortment of London's finest sight-readers. I know I'm on safe ground when I say that's Bill Geldard under Doddy's raised arm, with a clearly-amused Tony Fisher in front of him. On Doddy's other side is Stan Roderick (and please do click on that link - the stories are wonderful). I can't be 100% sure, but I think the partially-obscured trombonist just under Doddy's left ear is Jackie Armstrong.

This is why TV orchestras rule. You can't have this much fun with a backing tape.

Last train to Superin Junction

2011-05-25T16:50:00.001+01:00

I've been thinking a lot about this superinjunction business, and I'm unsure where I stand. I disapprove of the idea of individuals shirking their personal responsibility for their own stupid mistakes. In the same position, I would not have that luxury, nor would I want it. I make no moral judgment about what the injunctors have or haven't done. Individuals are free to do what the hell they like, as long as they can face up to the consequences. This is one of the reasons that I, as a young left-winger, came to respect Alan Clark. He was a terrible shit, but he made no bones about it. He was also lucky to be blessed with an apparently endlessly tolerant wife.

At the same time, I disapprove of the tabloids dressing it up as a freedom of speech issue. It isn't. It's a freedom to print prurient shit. Different thing entirely. At the heart of this whole brouhaha is the definition of 'public interest'. It is not 'any old thing that the public might find interesting'. I've been trying to work out what I regard to be a proper definition of the term, and, after several pints and a very decent dinner with a good friend, I think I've worked it out. If revealing a piece of information improves someone's life, then it's in the public interest.

By 'improving someone's life', I am not talking about improving the bank balance of an individual hoping to flog the sorry story of their sex life with someone moderately famous. Equally, I am not talking about improving the esteem in which the editor of a shit-sheet is held by his or her bosses following the increase in circulation. Nor am I talking about the minuscule improvement to the life of the fishwife or fish-husband reading the story of an individual's indiscretions and folding their arms in disapproval. I am referring to issues of corruption and wrongdoing, some of which are life and death matters. On the continuum of issues that affect us all deeply, a footballer or an actor who can't keep his cock in his shorts is a pretty minor business.

Not that I'm excusing the vain fools who have taken out superinjunctions, but I suspect strongly that Ryan, G----h*, H--h**, et al, have been guilty in the main of accepting duff, mendacious advice from lawyers who stand only to gain, whether the court order succeeds or fails. Moreover, I suspect that they have accepted this duff advice with relief in full expectation of what the same papers that now bemoan superinjunctions would do to them (Note the conflict of interest, right there). The saddest part of all is that by taking out their injunctions, they've created weeks and weeks worth of fish and chip paper, rather than letting the hacks have their fun and hoping the whole thing will be forgotten in days, which it almost certainly would have been.

So now we know the identity of CTB. Or rather we can talk openly about the identity of CTB, which anyone with a Twitter account's known for weeks. This is all thanks to the Sunday Herald pushing its luck and LibDem MP John Hemming using Parliamentary privilege (that is to say, immunity from prosecution for issues raised in the House, no matter how actionable). I say 'thanks', but the fact is that Hemming is not a brave freedom fighter. He's an attention-seeking twonk and, at this precise moment in time, he is Mr Murdoch & Mr Dacre's most useful idiot. Worst of all, I fear that his naming and shaming might have long-term effects on Parliamentary privilege. The key word there is 'privilege'. It is not a right. Privileges can be taken away. The concept of Parliamentary privilege dates back to before regular broadcasts of Commons and Lords sessions. That it continues to exist is a valuable weapon and a much-needed ultimate sanction, but if grandstanders and showboaters take the piss, it could well be curtailed. When Paul Farrelly used Parliamentary privilege to out Trafigura on the issue of toxic waste dumping off the Ivory Coast, that was a revelation in your actual public interest. Toxic waste dumping is a far more important issue than a randy celebrity.

As for Twitter, it has shown its ability to stand up for itself en masse and defy authority on issues that groups of its users believe to be important. That could be a great thing. Twitter just needs to make sure that it's ready do it on an issue that really really matters.

*Gwenlan

**Pugh

Going Downtown with Johnny, Don & Harold

2011-05-16T21:18:00.005+01:00

Regular visitors to this corner of the Internet will know of my affection for the great TV orchestras - the Hazlehurst band, Jack Parnell's ATV Elstree boys, Peter Knight, Laurie Holloway, Alyn Ainsworth (with or without the NDO), et al. At a recent BFI Missing Believed Wiped event, a 1969 Lulu show was shown, and it contained a performance of Downtown by the house band that nearly resulted in me having to be scraped off the back wall of NFT1. Lulu's musical director back then was a man called Johnny Harris, and there's never been a hipper bandleader, with his Carnaby Street shirts and groovy conducting moves. If that were all he had going for him, he'd have been memorable enough, but he was (and is) also a superb musician and arranger. Here we have the cream of the 1969 London session scene - Don Lusher, Harold Fisher, Don Honeywill, Ronnie Chamberlain and Keith Christie among them - tearing through one of Tony Hatch's finest moments made even finer by Harris's* educated scoring nib. Just watch, listen and marvel. Oh, and then go and buy a copy of Movements. You won't regret it.

* I am assuming that it's a Harris chart. I will, however, take correction if I'm wrong.

Whither Katie Boyle?

2011-05-14T16:55:00.003+01:00

It's the Eurovision Song Contest final once again. Come and have some fun on Twitter while it's going out live. I'm @lfbarfe, and if I hit the Twitter limit in any given hour, will be moving over to my backup account, which is @cheeseford.

Big George Webley (1957-2011)

2011-05-11T20:21:00.005+01:00

So there I was on Sunday, knackered after an 8 hours on various trains and glad to be home. Kiss the wife, check up on sleeping daughter, let the dog go mad and lick my face half-off, check the various online sources of information on which I rely. I'm perfectly prepared for the usual round of duplicity, despair and intrigue, but am not prepared for a news story about someone I regarded as a friend dying at the age of just 53.

I first made contact with Big George when he was doing a superb Sunday night show on BBC radio stations in the east, about eight years ago. I'd been a fan of his theme tune work for ages, and I knew his reputation as a top session bass player, but what I didn't know until then was that he was also a great communicator. He only played what he liked and he told you why he liked it, what made it great and so on. At the time, I was working on my first book - a history of the record industry - and I started emailing in with bits and pieces of information following up on things he said or played. Sensing a kindred spirit, he had me on the show when the book came out for a very extensive chat and wrote my first Amazon review - a rave. From then on, we stayed in touch, with the conversation always being raucous, slanderous and hilarious.

George did an overnight show at BBC London for a good long while, and was a master of the genre. Talk radio hosts in the UK tend to be either scrupulously even-handed (and dull), rampantly biased (and unpleasant) or devil's advocates taking up ludicrous positions to get a reaction. George was no fence-sitter. He had his opinions and he made sure you knew what they were. However, there was always a warmth and respect underneath. He was always happy to go at it hammer and tongs with a caller, but there was a decency underpinning it all.

Funnily enough, I was just about to email him asking for his thoughts on a work project I'm beginning. I suspect he'd have been full of good advice and eminently usable anecdotes. Now I can't. The loss felt by his family and his partner, fellow BBC London presenter JoAnne Good must be immense. In comparison, I barely knew him, but my sense of loss is great enough.

Anyway, about a year ago, he released a cover version of 'Alfie' recorded in downtime at the end of a jingle session. Danny Baker opened Monday's BBC London show with it. It's stunning. Remember him THIS way. RIP Big George.

Calling at Superin Junction, Gagging Order Halt...

2011-04-24T13:41:00.004+01:00

Forget your Twitters. Cheeseford is the home of the real news about this 'superinjunction' shizzle that's going down in the high courts, with the A-listers all enlisting their learned friends to keep uncomfortable details of their private lives out of the red-top blatts. As I have an exemption from prosecution for defamation that I bought out of the back pages of Health and Efficiency for a tenner, I can blow the lid off. That's enough about my flatulence, though. Here's what the big names don't want you to know:

T*d Rogers was f***ing D*sty B*n.
L**d C***les went off the rails after the death of R*y Al*n, and began pimping T*ch and Qu*ckers in a M*yfair fl*t to feed his gin and quaalude habit.
The B*C N******n D***e O******ra and the D******m G*rl P*pers - the details are too sordid even for this blog.
Ch*rlton, with numerous Wh**lies, in his dressing room at C*sgrove-H*ll.
That take 1 of the H*rry W*rth opening titles featured the comedian doing the wind*w trick st*rk b*ll*ck n*ked.
The identity of the illegitimate offspring of the Y*rkshire T*levision ch*vr*n and the B*rder ch*psticks.
B*lly D*inty and B*tty the T*a L*dy - Let's just say that I'll never watch EBC1 in the same way again.
Al* B*ngo - the unconventional way in which he made things disappear, the cheeky scamp.

More as we have it. Cheeseford will not be cowed or silenced.

Bright and not so beautiful

2011-04-18T15:51:00.004+01:00

The existence of the BrightHouse chain of stores goes some way to explaining why we're in so much trouble as a nation. The company describes itself as "the leading UK rent-to-own retailer, providing quality branded household goods on affordable weekly payments". What this means is that you can have your consumer durables now as long as you don't mind spending the next few years of your life paying through the nose for them. Let's take as our example a mid-range flat-screen television such as this Philips 32" LED set. If you have the cash or a credit card with the headroom to buy it, you can have it for a shade under £760. Or you can pay over 3 years at £7.01 a week, and it'll cost you a total of £1093.56. However, there's every chance that the item in question will be broken by the time you've finished paying for it, so, of course, you pay the extra 'optional service cover', which takes the total cost of that telly to nearly £1700.

The key phrase above is "if you have the cash or a credit card with the headroom". Nobody with either would go to BrightHouse (Obviously they're not loan sharks. Their name contains the reassuring words 'Bright' and 'House'. Shiny. Shiny. Nice. Not at all sharky.) unless they like pissing money up a wall. The company's whole business model is based on preying on the acquisitive poor, who are likely to get poorer and poorer if they keep supporting companies like BrightHouse. Interestingly, the company is an offshoot of what used to be known as Radio Rentals, from whom my grandparents rented a Baird TV (and later VCR) for about 30 years. In those days when TV sets were, by necessity, massive items of expenditure and the cathode ray tubes were notoriously capricious, renting made sense even if you were the sort of person who didn't hold with 'easy terms' for anything. Then is not now, though.

If you can get on without that state-of-the-art flat-screen set (and let's be clear, this is a case of want not need), you can have a lovely telly for 2/10 of sod all. There's Freecycle/Freegle for starters. Also, about 200 yards up the street here in Lowestoft, there's a giant British Heart Foundation charity shop selling second-hand furniture and electronics. They have a wall of widescreen CRT sets, all with 28" screens, for £45 a throw. Not £45 a month over 3 years. A perfectly serviceable TV for 15 pints of beer (or 10 at London prices), and you'll be saving a lot of plastic, metal and glass from going to landfill. OK, your spanking new flat-screen TV will be HD-capable, but how many HD programmes will you be watching on it? Even if you think that flat-panel TVs are better than CRTs (and the jury's out on that as far as I'm concerned), is the set in question 24.3 times better than the second-hand set from the charity shop? And even if you can make that leap of perception, is it really worth enslaving yourself to the likes of BrightHouse for years on end? If you can make the leaps of logic required to answer yes, you're buggered, and you deserve to be.

Herring Fishery Score

2011-04-14T15:04:00.002+01:00

Good news, Richard Herring's Christ on a Bike is coming to the Marina Theatre, Lowestoft, on 28 April. Having been in a cocoon of Dawsonage for the last few months, I failed to notice this in the list of upcoming attractions, so I am grateful to Reverend Kyle Paisley of Oulton Broad Free Presbyterian Church for bringing the "infantile" and apparently blasphemous production to my attention. The Rev Paisley (now there's a name that cries tolerance and understanding, dontchathink?) plans to lead a protest outside the theatre. Good luck to him. It's a free country (still, just about). However, his fulmination has resulted in at least one extra ticket sale for Mr Herring, namely mine. What's that about the law of unintended consequences?

AV in Colour

2011-04-12T00:24:00.003+01:00

I can't fault a word of Beetwaste's analysis of the AV debate. I'm in favour and will be voting accordingly. AV isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an improvement on what we have. Also, a win for the no side of things will kill the debate on electoral form for a generation or more, as the victors present rejection of AV as a comprehensive rejection of any sort of change.

Michael Jackson - Up the Wall

2011-04-06T02:16:00.004+01:00

There is a recording studio in London called The Premises. Until a couple of weeks ago, it was best known for its commitment to renewable energy and the recordings that have been made there. Right now, though, it's best known as 'that place with the statue of Michael Jackson dangling the baby out of the hotel window', and the studio website has been deluged with messages from Jackson fans condemning both the statue and The Premises for displaying it. The artist has, according to one fan, racked up a hell of a lot of 'Karmic debt'. What's the karma exchange rate for dangling a child out of a window? Anyway, three questions spring to mind:

1) Is art that depicts distasteful events intrinsically distasteful?
2) If you have a problem with what the statue represents, don't you have a problem with Jackson himself and his baby-dangling antics?
3) Do you have to be stupid, mad and deluded to be a Michael Jackson fan, or is it optional?

We've been here before, of course.

Lovely...lovely...

2011-02-16T15:19:00.006Z

It takes a hell of a lot to get me wearing a tie these days. Why, then, did I wear one to sit watching archive television and drinking myself into oblivion (or Mr TSW 1982, as oblivion is known officially) with several good friends last Saturday?

This is not just any old piece of neckwear. It is the LWT staff tie I was given for use in last year's advent calendar. It says everything about the quality of the company I was in last Saturday that I was lucky to escape with both my life and the tie when I finally made my exit. No item of clothing owned by me has ever been coveted by anyone (and, in this assessment, I am including nude tramps) before.

So, what other broadcasting-related ties are out there? I know of an excellent one, owned by a friend and sometime reader of these pages. Also, which bit of broadcasting iconography would you most like to see embroidered into a bit of neckwear? I'm in the market for a cravat depicting the original Harlech ident.

The Daily Mail: what is point?

2011-02-03T20:36:00.004Z

Bloody hell, I knew that the Daily Mail was a stinking dross-heap of a publication, but even I was slightly taken aback to read this tale of its non-existent ethics. At the moment, the degree of blame to be shouldered by the journalist who wrote the article is unknown. A hell of a lot can happen when subs get their hands on an innocent article, with 'improving' it on their minds.

Happy 80th Birthday Les Dawson part 3

2011-02-02T22:58:00.002Z

Here, from 1984, is a snippet of Les Dawson in conversation with Roy Plomley about his epiphany in Hull, and whether he can play the piano for real:

Happy 80th Birthday Les Dawson part 2

2011-02-02T18:04:00.002Z

For the second part of this blog's efforts to mark what would have been the great Les Dawson's 80th birthday, let's go back to 16 November 1974 for Dawson's debut appearance on Parkinson:

Happy 80th Birthday Les Dawson - part 1

2011-02-02T13:59:00.003Z

Right, let's get the Les Dawson 80th birthday celebrations underway with this spiffing show opener from the first Sez Les of series 8, currently available on DVD. Script by Cryer and Nobbs, tailors to the gentry:

The Dawson Watch

2011-02-01T03:07:00.006Z

Les Dawson would have been 80 this coming Wednesday. As my biography of him is nearing completion, I am more aware of this than most. I've spoken to many of the people who worked with him, and all loved him. His spirit has been a benign presence in my house for the two and a half years since the book was commissioned, and while many biographers end each book with diminished respect for their subject, mine for Dawson, already high when I set out, has grown. I shall mark the occasion with fine Scotch whisky and a black pudding taste test. Dawson once got into a heated debate about the way this fine delicacy should be cooked. Dawson maintained that they should be boiled, but the other participant held that they should be fried. That the other participant was the Duke of Edinburgh and that Dawson was able to disagree with him good-naturedly but forcefully in the face of protocol and etiquette says much about both men and the respect they had for each other.

Meanwhile, how is this occasion being marked by broadcasters? ITV is showing a 10-year-old half-hour documentary about the great man. I'm not complaining, because my VHS recording of the original transmission is missing the first five minutes, but is that really it? The BBC, which employed him for the last 15 years of his life, and which could repeat his excellent and charming Comic Roots documentary from 1982, where he visits the Mancunian streets of his youth and the cotton mills where the prototypes for Cissie and Ada worked, isn't bothering at all. Sadly, I can't share that one, but expect some good clips to appear here on Wednesday.

In the mean time, enjoy my good friend Walty Dunlop's review of the new Jokers Wild series 1 DVD set.

Frinton for the incontinent

2010-12-31T18:49:00.002Z

Happy new year to all my reader. Take your place at Miss Sophie's dinner table.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 24 part 4

2010-12-24T23:07:00.002Z

To close the festivities, we return to Marty Feldman, aided and abetted by Tim Brooke-Taylor, in a Punch and Judy show. After this, Marty pays tribute to the unsung heroes of the BBC. About time that someone did, too.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 24 part 3

2010-12-24T23:06:00.002Z

Nearly there. The penultimate selection in this year's advent calendar is a festive selection of items from the Fishguard news desk, staffed by Hugh Pugh, a man with an abrasive manner and a microphone that's never plugged in. Watch out for the table of Jesus-related artifacts. Re-watching that bit earlier caused the inhabitants of the Cheeseford living room to burst out laughing in a manner that bordered on indecent.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 24 part 2

2010-12-24T22:37:00.002Z

From Danny Baker's appearance on the TV version of Room 101 (Get well soon, Candyman), here's a devastating critique of consumer shows. "Heh heh. Old Joe...".

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 24 part 1

2010-12-24T16:10:00.005Z

As it's Christmas Eve all day and gremlins have hitherto prevented me opening some of the windows of this advent calendar at the correct time, we end with a bumper rollover jackpot of clips, chosen largely out of pure selfishness. We kick off with Martin Alan Feldman and John Junkin with the George Mitchell singers, rewriting 'The Whiffenpoof Song'. My good friend Gavin Sutherland showed me this sketch during a mammoth session of port and brandy at his luxury Wanstead penthouse flat over a decade ago, and it's been in my pantheon of TV greatness ever since. Not least because the end credit is sung. Take it away, ladies and gentlemen.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 23

2010-12-23T21:49:00.002Z

Here we see Les Dawson getting a curiously muted response to one of his gags. What's wrong with this audience? Don't they appreciate quality? What's wrong with the audience is that there isn't one. Any laughter you hear is the crew in studio D at the BBC's Elstree centre at the stagger-through for the 1990 live final of Opportunity Knocks.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 22

2010-12-23T21:39:00.001Z

Take two grown adults arsing about on a hillside in fake slow motion, an election slogan that we can all stand by and Frank Ricotti's wonderful arrangement of 'On a Clear Day You Can See Forever', and you have my favourite closing credit sequence of any programme ever: the end of the last episode of The Beiderbecke Affair. Alan Plater was a great man and, on the one occasion when I met him, everything I hoped he would be. Funny, interesting and kind. He's missed already.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 21

2010-12-23T17:15:00.005Z

On the 21st day of Advent, a nice chap sent to me a tie saying LWT. I don't wear ties much any more, but I have a real need to give this one an outing on some suitable occasion, says the man who graduated from university in a green Young's brewery tie.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar days 18, 19 and 20

2010-12-20T23:22:00.006Z

Apologies for radio silence (my favourite station) over the last couple of days. I have been away from home, and had unexpected trouble uploading various goodies at various points. So, here's a bumper package. Firstly, the fruits of a recent fact-finding mission in the environs of the remains of ATV Centre, B1 2JP.

Above, we have the back end of this fine edifice. Why does it say 'Accident and Emergency' over the ramp? Ah, well, the derelict building was used as a location for the remade Survivors. Then, slightly to the left, we have some fetching octagonal planters, the honeycomb being very much a motif used in the building's construction.

Meanwhile, the only visible signage linking the concrete hulk with its illustrious past was on the door of the electricity substation by the scene dock doors. Maybe one day, when Uncle Lew's pile is finally demolished, a blue plaque will be erected on the replacement saying "Crossroads was perpetrated here".

The reason for being in the West Midlands at the time was one of the always-excellent Kaleidoscope shindigs in Stourbridge, after which the following artifact was brought forth by one of the revellers and snapped. Layzengennelmen, I bring you a genuine LWT mug. (Bottle Boys something something, the punchline writes itself).

This is not the only item of London Weekend merchandise we'll be featuring in this parade of jollification. Oh noes. Be patient, dear anoraks. Tomorrow will bring hither the one item that everyone should be wearing to the office Christmas party.

Before then, though, another coffee-slurping implement from the glory days of the federal ITV system, courtesy of BBC Radio Norfolk's Graham Barnard, who gets to drink out of it, the lucky so-and-so.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 17

2010-12-17T16:55:00.003Z

At the risk of peaking too soon, let us go back to BBC1 on Saturday 25 September 1993. The show is Danny Baker After All. The guest is Bob Monkhouse. This was about the time that Monkhouse was emerging from years of being dismissed as just a game-show host, and being recognised as the serious comic contender that he really was. It's Baker, it's Monkhouse. It's Baker and Monkhouse. There's your top of the shop right there.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 16

2010-12-16T16:41:00.003Z

A few years ago, perhaps conscious of the sedentary nature of many of TV viewers, ITV decided to get pro-active. As part of its 'Britain On The Move' initiative, it doled out any number of these stylish pedometers, all the easier to calculate how close one is to one's required 10,000 steps a day. The nation took the hint, lost weight and obesity ceased to be a major problem. Tomorrow: The Border Television meter-wheel, issued to Cumbrian residents to help them calculate how far they'd walked that day to avoid watching Look Who's Talking.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 15

2010-12-15T12:45:00.005Z

Welcome to transmission control at Cheeseford Towers. 'scuse the mess. On the right is my trusty late-model GPO 746 (so late it says BT on the bottom), and on the left is my daughter's favourite toy. It's the one in the middle that concerns us. It comes from Kent House (aka the London Weekend building on the South Bank of the Thames) and was part of the communications network between transmission controllers at the various regional ITV stations. Now, with all of ITV played out from two sites (Chiswick and Leeds), the network is redundant, and these glorious red batphones were skipped, apart from those salvaged by staff, one of whom sent me this example. I have considered plugging it in and telling "that cow in Network 1 to shut up", but what if it works? And yes, I know it's BBC, but who cares. Not sure what I'm on about? Show, don't tell.

Cheesford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 14

2010-12-14T19:42:00.003Z

John Dankworth is largely responsible for my love of jazz. It's equal parts him, Duke Ellington and my grandad, who introduced me to both. Obviously I know my grandad well, but I never met the Duke. I did, however, meet Sir John when he played a jazz festival in Guernsey in 2004, which I was covering for Crescendo magazine. He was a delightful, patient man, who put up with all of my anoraky questions and answered them. It was a thrill also on that gig to renew my acquaintance with the great Allan Ganley, a drummer of distinction and a lovely bloke. Passing his Ludwig 400 up to him on stage, I said "Ah, you've got a brass shelled one". He said "Yes, how can you tell through the chrome?". My reply: "Mine's an alloy shell. Yours is about twice the weight." Name-drops over. When BBC4 hoiked out a few clips of the great JD recently, I was knocked bandy by this arrangement of 'Just In Time', and thrilled to see and hear heroes like Kenny Wheeler, Alan Branscombe and Ronnie Stephenson going to town (Ronnie's the drummer - he began life as a tap dancer, and he drummed like one, with great lightness and grace). A shame it was cropped to 16:9 and shown slightly out of sync. I can't fix the former, but I have the latter, and with just over 4 hours to go until day 14, here is 'Just In Time'.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar days 12 & 13

2010-12-13T18:42:00.005Z

Yes, sorry, I missed a day. However, I feel I have an excellent excuse, a hard drive failure on Saturday resulting in the purchase of components for a new computer, which I'm building right now. It wasn't a whim or a snap decision. Long ago, I decided that the next time something major needed replacing on my nearly 6-year-old Pentium, I'd future-proof myself by getting a new machine with bags of upgrade potential. So it is. Anyway, have a Temporary Fault caption to cover yesterday.

And for today's delicacy, we return to the 1984 Royal Variety Performance for a reminder just how good Dustin Gee was. Now, I love Les Dennis to smithereens, but there can be no doubt who the senior partner was in their act. That wordless Robert Mitchum impersonation is enough to ensure Gee's pre-eminence, to say nothing of the Russell Harty. He went far far too soon, and I'm not just saying that because he smiled and waved back when my grandad and I said 'Hello, Dustin' as we walked past him on the prom at Great Yarmouth at some point in the early 1980s. Note also Les Dennis impersonating Max Bygraves as host of Family Fortunes. Who knew, eh?

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 11

2010-12-11T20:11:00.002Z

This one is inspired by recent events, namely the picture of Dave Gilmour's son swinging from a flag on the Cenotaph. Twitter was alight with amusement and disgust in equal measure. The thing that disturbed me most was that a Cambridge history student claimed not to know what he was swinging from. The act itself reminded me of nothing so much as a charming routine devised by the French humorist Robert Dhery in the 1950s, and made popular over here by the Crazy Gang in their Victoria Palace revue Jokers Wild. Dhery and company came over for the 1984 Royal Variety Performance and revived the routine, which I present for your delectation here. If there was anything this skilful or delightful on the bill at this year's show, I'll eat any one of my many hats. Over to Denis Norden for some excellent context:

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 10

2010-12-10T20:58:00.002Z

Following a request on The Mausoleum Club, here is a brief clip from 14 June 1991 (ignore the Aston) showing Cliff Michelmore unplugging a Link 110 television camera, thus closing the BBC's Lime Grove studios. The sequence is not quite what it seems. The archive listing for the show makes it clear that it was pre-recorded earlier that afternoon. It's still a rather affecting moment, though.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 9

2010-12-09T21:11:00.004Z

In the days before viral marketing and the Internet, how did the TV moguls promote their best and brightest shows? By postcard. And here's one of them, a charming little notelet sent to movers and shakers to alert them to the return of ABC TV's summer replacement for ATV's Sunday Night at the London Palladium, hosted by the erstwhile brothers Weinstein from the stage of the ABC Theatre in Blackpool. I went round the building before they turned it into a nightclub. There were still camera cable junction boxes on the stage walls. Now where are the photographs I took?

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 8

2010-12-08T19:10:00.004Z

In which I break cover and make a cameo appearance, holding the first advent calendar item from the ganderbag sent by an anonymous well-wisher. Yes, folks, it's a Daybreak mug, which I hope to use for many a day without breaking it. It's a special limited edition. One each for every viewer. You've been a wonderful audience, I'm here all advent, tip your waitress and try the stuffing.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 7

2010-12-07T19:27:00.004Z

I couldn't leave Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show behind without offering this clip up for your delectation. I've probably linked to it before, but what the hell. Here's one of the world's greatest guitarists with one of the world's greatest TV house bands - the NBC Orchestra - building a heap big new encampment around Cherokee. I'm only a drummer, but friends who play the tuned instruments tell me that this number is a bugger of the first water. They talk of it in terms of a wartime bombing raid ("We only lost eight men on the middle eight of Cherokee last night"). Walking out and taking his seat in the time it takes the band to play its rip-roaring intro (and how classy and nonchalant is that?) Johnny McL begins a little stiffly stating the theme on this one, but once his solo starts, he's away. Would that all musical interludes on chat shows were this gobsmacking.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar

2010-12-06T14:51:00.001Z

Continuing the Letterman/Carson theme from yesterday, here's the close of that tribute show, with Doc Severinsen, Tommy Newsome and Ed Shaughnessy from the Tonight Show band playing Johnny's favourite song 'Here's That Rainy Day'.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 5

2010-12-05T23:06:00.003Z

Today's window opens on the Ed Sullivan Theater (sic) in New York in 2005, on the night when David Letterman was paying tribute to his mentor, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson:

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 4

2010-12-04T21:31:00.004Z

For day 4, we come to a relic from the brief period where LWT tried to wrest control of Saturday nights from BBC1 by Bruce force. Whaddyamean, you don't want to watch Steve Jones and his £1000 Pyramid or the Glums, to say nothing of the world's only voice-controlled video game, Teletennis (shudder), or a woman dressed as the GPO Tower? As it turned out, all they needed to own the biggest night of the week was Duncan Goodhew's scalp in a box. More follows tomorrow...

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 3

2010-12-03T16:36:00.003Z

Moving slightly away from festive greetings, we turn to 1959-ish, and this trailer caption for the BBC's coverage of the Le Mans 24-hour race. It is the work of graphic designer Terence Greer, and represents an early outing for the Richard Levin-designed BBC tv logo which, quite frankly, has never been bettered in terms of corporate identity. I'm a fan of Eric Gill (well, his work), but nothing in the BBC's post-1997 look can hold a candle to Levin's logo.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 2

2010-12-02T00:56:00.002Z

Ah, this is more like it. A relic from the days of the only two-pronged Trident there's ever been. Interesting that it uses the staple 1970s TV graphic colours of blue and yellow, as Tyne-Tees did for its colour ident, but which Yorkshire, very much the dominant half of the partnership, never did.

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar 2010 day 1

2010-12-01T04:34:00.003Z

Another year, another Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar. There's a bumper crop of clips, pictures and broadcasting ephemera to open day-by-day this year, and we open with this cheery welcome from Auntie, taken from the souvenir programme of the 1973 Royal Variety Performance. A tad mundane compared to the various ads placed in the same publication by the various ITV contractors, as we shall discover in the fullness of time.

Fry's no longer a delight

2010-11-05T13:55:00.005Z

I am a fan of Stephen Fry. By which I mean that I regard A Bit of Fry & Laurie as one of the high watermarks of television comedy, have read and enjoyed most of his books and find myself relistening to my recordings of his 1980s Radio 4 series Saturday Night Fry on an alarmingly regular basis. I do not, however, follow him on Twitter. A similarly-minded friend put it perfectly the other night. "I don't follow Fry because I am a fan of his and I want to remain one," said my chum. Too right. It's not just Fry. I tend not to follow celebrities of any description. There are a couple of exceptions. Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz) is one. He doesn't babble on about the minutiae of his doubtless very exciting life. He just tries one-liners out, and some of them are fantastic, so I find him very worth following.

However, if you are on Twitter, it's almost impossible to avoid Fry. Even if he weren't all over social networking like shit in a field, people tend to re-tweet his bon mots in lieu of their own insight and wit. So, when he flounces, as he did last week, following volleys of criticism about some ill-advised remarks he made in an interview with the magazine Attitude, the ripples reach even those who shelter from his sprawling online presence.

I'm not remotely impressed by the way he's handled the affair. Flounces are twatty, whether you're famous or a whohe like me. The difference is in the response. When a whohe flounces, the usual reply is "Don't let the door hit you on the arse as you leave". This, generally, is the correct reaction. When a celebrity flounces, though, hundreds, even thousands of people beseech said personality not to go. "We love you, we need you." Really? You need some bloke/woman off the telly posting inconsequential messages about what they're having for dinner and who they're having dinner with? Why? Also, you can only flounce convincingly once. Fry's flounced from Twitter now twice, oddly enough, both times on 31 October. Do trick or treaters annoy him that much?

When Fry typed "Bye bye" last Saturday, the floodgates opened. "Come back, fluffy clever man. We wuv oo". I knew he'd be back. So it has proved. Instead of pretending nothing had happened and carrying on as heretofore, or even (and I appreciate that this is radical) admitting that he said what he was quoted as saying, Fry has returned with a long, blustering, self-justifying blog post, seeming to deny responsibility for any aspect of the whole sorry affair.

"Was it naïve in me that it never for a second crossed my mind that this conversation would be sold on to other papers? That it would be “picked up” and make a disastrous move from being a conversation to some kind of public “declaration”?" Yes, Stephen, it was. Don't come the innocent. You know how it works. By saying that it was "sold on" makes Attitude look grubby and venal, but do we know that money changed hands? Isn't it far more likely that Attitude sends complimentary copies to the mainstream press month-in, month-out, and occasionally the mainstreamers pick up on something within it?

For me, the worst aspect of Fry's bluster is his attempt to besmirch the author of the piece, Paul Flynn. "Maybe I should have guessed that the interviewer wanted not an interview but a story," Fry informs his blog readers. If this stuff was such dynamite, and Flynn wanted to capitalise on it, why did he put it in the sixth page of an eight-page feature? However, the public perception of journalists is so low that this sort of horseshit obfuscation actually works. Fry hammers his disdain home with "You will perhaps say that after nearly 30 years in the public realm I should have known better than to allow myself to have a free-wheeling happy, explorative and silly conversation with any journalist." Countless fans have replied dutifully along the lines of "What do you expect from a journalist?"

Ah, but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When the Daily Mail laid into Fry recently and dismissed him as a 'quizmaster', he responded by saying that, with his many contributions to esteemed publications over the years, he was more a journalist than a quizmaster, but that a journalist would never use the word 'journalist' as an insult. At the time, I thought "Good on you, Stephen", but now, I fear that this claim might come back to bite him on the arse. He claims that journalists can't be trusted. OK, but he also described himself recently as a journalist. Why then should anyone trust Fry? You'd think he'd have been too clever to set a trap for himself like this, wouldn't you?

Writers' rights - PLR under threat

2010-10-15T15:59:00.004+01:00

As part of Dave and Gideon's bonfire of quangos, it looks like the Public Lending Right administration system will be dismantled and the admin staff made redundant. For the uninitated, the PLR is the payment that each author receives when their works are borrowed from a public library. Currently, it stands at around 6p per loan. At the moment, the PLR payments themselves are not under threat, but is this the thin end of the wedge? Unless you're Katie Price or someone else who earns so much from books that you can pay some other bugger to write them for you, writing isn't a well-paid business, and for most authors, the annual PLR payment is a welcome boost. This year, I received £52.78, which might not sound a great deal, but came in handy for replacing the failing hard drive in my desktop PC. The great and the good fought for PLR back in the 1970s, and it still seems like something worth protecting. The current administrative arrangements have long been praised for their efficiency. As The Writers' Guild points out, placing the administrative centre in an employment blackspot like Stockton does a lot of good for the local economy. I have a distinct and horrifying feeling that whoever takes on the running of PLR won't do it as economically or as well as Jim Parker and his small team have done up until now. I believe that this is one quango that offers excellent value for money, and which should be saved. Anyone else with me?

Pope pourri

2010-09-18T12:30:00.003+01:00

Very occasionally, I wish I still lived in London. Now is not one of those occasions. Watching the news last night, and seeing all of the streets blocked up with nutters hoping to catch a glimpse of a German in a silly gown, I realised that I'm better off out of it. Meanwhile, the aforementioned German pensioner made comments about religion being marginalised in the modern world. Sadly I don't think it is being marginalised. If it were, that would be progress. Anyway, can someone wake me when he's pissed off back to the village where he kids himself he's 'head of state'? Ta.

Nazi Gold - not a new radio station

2010-07-15T14:11:00.002+01:00

Have a listen to the clip on this page. It's from Richard Bacon's BBC Radio 5 Live show a few days ago, and features an excerpt of an interview with sacked TalkSPORT presenter Jon Gaunt. Well, I say interview. It is, unsurprisingly, a Gaunt monologue. It's interesting to imagine what it would have been like if a guest had tried the same tricks on Gaunt's show, back when he had one. In particular that hideous, smug "Over to you". Said guest would have been reminded in no uncertain terms whose show it was, I'm guessing.

As it happens, I believe there is a place for Gaunt's style of radio, but I also believe that, to pull it off, you have to be far cleverer than Gaunt seems to be. By all means be contrarian and controversial. Go ahead and wind people up. Feel free to cloak yourself in righteous indignation. Don't, however, lose your rag, whatever you do. You'll have lost the argument, and your job too.

Idents World Cup - final results

2010-07-11T22:34:00.002+01:00

Well, the votes have been totted up and the result of the Idents World Cup final is as follows:

ATV 4 Thames 2

If it had been a Prodcaps World Cup, the boot might have been on the other foot, but I think that this is a fair and decisive result, and I'd like to thank Sir Lew Grade and Howard Thomas for the clean way in which their teams played. Let's hear that Midlands marvel once again.

Semi-final results and, holy crap, it's the final

2010-07-11T19:39:00.002+01:00

LWT 1 ATV 3
Thames 3 HTV 1

Bad luck for LWT in the semi-finals, scoring a lone goal against Sir Lew and the might of the Midlands. Bad luck also to the HTV aerial, the only ident in this semi-final line-up not to feature any vuvuzela-like brass scoring. However, HTV does take back to Pontcanna the 3rd place title. Which means that, live and at the same time as the footballers go at it, we ident fans see a stand-off between the ATV in Colour 'Zoom' ident and the Thames skyline. A few classics have fallen by the wayside, but personally, I think two stunning teams have made it to the final. Now all that remains is to decide the victor. Votes will close at the final whistle in South Africa. Get on with it.

Quarter-final results and semi final matches

2010-07-11T03:09:00.001+01:00

No time Toulouse. The results are as follows:

Harlech eye test 1 LWT river 5
Thames skyline 5 Channel 4 original 2
ATV Zoom 7 Westward galleon 0
HTV Aerial 4 BBC mirror globe 3

Oh dear. That means it's:

LWT river vs ATV Zoom
Thames skyline vs HTV aerial.

Votes by 2pm Sunday.

Block of 16 results and quarter finals

2010-07-10T16:55:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the delay in getting these results to you. I really didn't expect to spend Wednesday to Friday of this week in hospital. Best be quick.

Harlech eye test 5 BBC Schools Diamond 1
Grampian saltire 1 Thames skyline 6
LWT river 5 BBC2 stripey 2
TSW tree of bras 1 Channel 4 original 5
ATV Zoom in Colour 5 Open University 2
Yorkshire Television Colour Production 1 HTV Aerial 6
Anglia knight 3 Westward galleon 4
Central cake mark 1 1 BBC1 mirror globe 5

So, that means the quarter finals look like this:

Harlech eye test vs LWT river
Thames skyline vs Channel 4 original
ATV Zoom vs Westward galleon
HTV Aerial vs BBC mirror globe.

As we're playing catch up, I'm calling a curfew of 2am on this one, with voting on the semi-finals to follow, running into the morning, then the finals to run at the same time as the football World Cup final.

Group H results & block of 16 matches

2010-07-05T02:32:00.003+01:00

And so the group stages of the Idents World Cup draw to a close. Over to Camp Julian in Belfast for the group H results:

BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe 6 BBC TV bat wings 1
BBC TV bat wings 3 Westward galleon 4
Westward galleon 4 Tyne Tees 1980s 3
Tyne Tees 1980s 1 BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe 6
BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe 4 Westward galleon 2
BBC TV bat wings 3 Tyne Tees 1980s 4

I make that BBC1 on 9 points, Westward on 6 points and Tyne Tees on 3 points. Which means that the block of 16 is as follows:

Harlech eye test vs BBC Schools Diamond
Grampian saltire vs Thames skyline
LWT river vs BBC2 stripey
TSW tree of bras vs Channel 4 original
ATV Zoom in Colour vs Open University
Yorkshire Television Colour Production vs HTV Aerial
Anglia knight vs Westward galleon
Central cake mark 1 vs BBC1 mirror globe

Let's be having your votes, in by 23.59 on Tuesday 6 July.

Group G results and Group H matches

2010-07-05T01:18:00.002+01:00

Yes, I know the group stages are dragging on longer than the real thing, but I don't have FIFA's resources. I do still aim, somehow, to get this thing finished at the same time as the football shiznit. Anyway, we must move with all speed to the Michael Speake Leisure Centre on Norwich's busy Prince of Wales Road for the group G results.

Anglia knight 4 From the North - Granada 2
From the North - Granada 4 Teledu Cymru dragon 2
Teledu Cymru dragon 2 Central cake mark 1 5
Central cake mark 1 5 From the North - Granada 1
Teledu Cymru dragon 3 Anglia knight 4
Anglia knight 4 Central cake mark 1 3

So, that's 9 points for the Narvicensian silver knight and 6 points for the Central cake. The Granada arrow's lone victory against the Teledu Cymru dragon is not enough to see it through. We can only speculate on how the blue Granada Colour Production card would have fared. And so to H:

BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe vs BBC TV bat wings
BBC TV bat wings vs Westward galleon
Westward galleon vs Tyne Tees 1980s
Tyne Tees 1980s vs BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe
BBC1 1974-1981 Futura mirror globe vs Westward galleon
BBC TV bat wings vs Tyne Tees 1980s

We're playing catch-up, so votes by 8pm tonight - Monday 5 July - please.

Group F results and Group G matches

2010-06-28T02:01:00.009+01:00

England having given us what we all expected sooner or later, the Idents World Cup becomes the only game in town. ATV flags will be available in all branches of Poundland before the end of the week. And so to the Mike Prince Velodrome in Tamworth for the Group F matches.

HTV aerial 7 Open University 2
Open University 6 Scottish Television spinning lion 3
Scottish Television spinning lion 0 BBC2 Colour 1967 9
BBC2 Colour 1967 4 HTV Aerial 5
Open University 5 BBC2 Colour 1967 4
Scottish Television spinning lion 2 HTV aerial 7

A clean sweep for the aerial, and, in second place, the improvers of Milton Keynes.

Right, let's crack on with the next round:

Anglia knight vs From the North - Granada
From the North - Granada vs Teledu Cymru dragon
Teledu Cymru dragon vs Central cake mark 1
Central cake mark 1 vs From the North - Granada
Teledu Cymru dragon vs Anglia knight
Anglia knight vs Central cake mark 1.

Answers by 00.01 on Thursday 1 July.

Group E results & Group F matches

2010-06-25T17:47:00.003+01:00

How remiss of me. I appear to have dropped the ball slightly. Never mind, we go live now to t where they're using Peter Lewis's jumpers for goalposts for the Group E results in the Idents World Cup. The games were scored as follows:

Channel 3 North East 2 Border chopsticks 7
Border chopsticks 2 Yorkshire Television Colour Production 7
Yorkshire Television Colour Production 0 ATV in Colour Zoom 9
ATV in Colour 'Zoom' 9 Border chopsticks 0
Channel 3 North East 0 ATV in Colour 'Zoom' 9
Yorkshire Television Colour Production 9 Channel 3 North East 0

As expected, C3NE got nowhere, and is slinking back to Newcastle as we speak. A fixture against the hated ident gave Border's chopsticks its only win, but the worthy qualifiers are Yorkshire on 6 points and the sheer class of the ATV in Colour Zoom ident on 9 points.

And so to Group F.

HTV aerial vs Open University
Open University vs Scottish Television spinning lion
Scottish Television spinning lion vs BBC2 Colour 1967
BBC2 Colour 1967 vs HTV Aerial
Open University vs BBC2 Colour 1967
Scottish Television spinning lion vs HTV aerial

Another very strong group, I feel. Can monochrome beardies in kipper ties writing quadratic equations on a roller blackboard outclass Paint Along With Nancy? Or will BBC2's first colour symbol bring the trophy home to Pres B? Or will revolving wildlife spin the cup back to Hope Street, Glasgow? It's over to you.

Group D results & Group E matches

2010-06-21T17:40:00.004+01:00

You join us live at the Tom Edwards Space Centre, Teddington Lock, Middlesex, TW11 9NT, for the thrilling stand-off between some of the greats of identdom. As Tanya Jones of Gypsy Creams pointed out, this was a strong group, but I think honour has been served. The rule of thumb so far has been 'black and white idents don't make it', and this round doesn't buck that trend, with Rediffusion London winning one of its games and drawing another, but failing to overcome the might of the BBC2 stripes on 6 points or the original Channel 4 blocks on 7 points.

And so to group E (the way you like it, really like it). Pick the bones out of this little lot:

Channel 3 North East vs Border chopsticks
Border chopsticks vs Yorkshire Television Colour Production
Yorkshire Television Colour Production vs ATV in Colour Zoom
ATV in Colour 'Zoom' vs Border chopsticks
Channel 3 North East vs ATV in Colour 'Zoom'
Yorkshire Television Colour Production vs Channel 3 North East

I think I know the way this one's going to end up. Can one of the most hated rebrandings of broadcasting history and a still ident with no music overcome the majesty of two of the ITV system's biggest hitters? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no chance. Vote with your hearts and heads, please, and don't just be perverse to prove me woefully wrong.

Group C results & Group D matches

2010-06-19T14:59:00.006+01:00

As the chorus of "He's coming home, he's coming home, he's coming...Rooney's coming home" gets loud enough to drown out the Uwe Seelers, as, thanks to Danny Baker, vuvuzelas are now properly known (and if you're the twat who was blowing one in Norwich market place yesterday, a pox on you), we at the Idents World Cup alone give hope. Yes, like the old Home Internationals, it's a contest where the trophy's guaranteed to stay in the British Isles. And so we move swiftly to the Tony Curriedrome in Glesga for the Group C results.

Southern star 2 LWT river 11
LWT river 12 BBC1 COW 1
BBC1 COW 4 TSW tree of bras 9
TSW tree of bras 4 LWT river 9
Southern star 3 TSW tree of bras 10
BBC1 COW 8 Southern star 4

An unsurprising clean sweep for the LWT river, but a sharp intake of breath for number 2. I was quietly expecting the bucolic lilt of Steve Race's jingle to bring home the locally-produced, farm-assured bacon for Jack Hargreaves' Out of Towners, but the sheer barking majesty of TSW's tree of bras nabbed it 2nd place. Sadly, the BBC1 COW (computer-originated world) didn't induce the same "HOLY FUCK IT'S COMPUTERS!" frenzy in everyone that it generated in Mr Nesmith, but BBC1 has another bite at the cherry with the 1981-1985 mirror globe. And shame on you Kecske Bak for suggesting that the BBC COW is now known as Jana Bennett, although the utterly true story of her having to ask directions to TC4 after God knows how many years with the Corporation makes me sympathetic to your cause. And so to Group D. Pick the winners from these stand-offs:

BBC2 stripey vs BBC tv map
BBC tv map vs Channel 4 original
Channel 4 original vs Rediffusion London
Rediffusion London vs BBC tv map
BBC2 stripey vs Channel 4 original
Rediffusion London vs BBC2 stripey

As I have been unable to find a decent copy of the Rediffusion London ident on YouTube, most of them being from multi-multi-gen VHS or terrible mocks by 12-year-old windowlickers, I've taken the liberty of encoding and uploading a recreation of a full Rediffusion startup, made by Kecske Bak and Rory Clark of Farcical Films, who are the Morecambe and Wise, nay the Rolls and Royce, to say nothing of the Dandelion and Burdock of archive TV graphics research. Get your votes in by 6pm, Sunday 20 June.

Group B results and Group C matches

2010-06-16T17:56:00.004+01:00

The engineers at London's busy Museum telephone exchange are giving the patch cords a last-minute check, and, any moment now, we should be going over to the Sylvia Peters Continuitydrome at Alexandra Palace for the results of the Group B fixtures in the Idents World Cup (guaranteed vuvuzela-free since last week). The scores on the doors, collated from votes here, on Twitter, on Facebook and on Cook'd and Bomb'd, are as follows:

Thames skyline 11 ABC triangle 2
ABC triangle 5 BBC Schools diamond 8
BBC Schools diamond 11 Ulster oscilloscope on a stick 2
Ulster oscilloscope on a stick 4 ABC triangle 9
BBC Schools diamond 4 Thames skyline 8
Ulster oscilloscope on a stick 2 Thames skyline 10

I make that 9 points for Thames, 6 points for the BBC Schools Diamond, 3 points for ABC and sod all for Ulster. As one commenter said, it may well be that Ulster wasn't fielding its best formation. Better luck in 2014, chaps. I must say that I'm surprised at the lack of love for the ABC chimes, but that's identball. So in Group B, it's a clear win for geography and geometry, and in the next stages it looks very much to me as if Thames will be playing Grampian, with the BBC Schools Diamond competing against Harlech.

This, however, is getting ahead of ourselves, and we must deal with the remaining group fixtures first. And so to Group C, which I believe to be a very strong combination of the iconic and the memorably strange. So, we're looking for scores in the following matches:

Southern star vs LWT river
LWT river vs BBC1 COW
BBC1 COW vs TSW tree of bras
TSW tree of bras vs LWT river
Southern star vs TSW tree of bras
BBC1 COW vs Southern star

While I have, in the interests of fair play, mostly kept ident clips to the bare minimum, I feel that the plucky Plymouth outsider's offering is best seen in the context of first few minutes of the station's gala opening show. Never before have leotards, blacksmithery and rapid-cut vision-mixing been combined to such devastating effect. And that's before you get to a studio full of TSW staffers in party hats being exhorted to enjoy themselves by Lennie 'TV's Mr Punchlines' Bennett. Voting on this round closes at 6pm on Thursday 17 June.

Group A results and Group B matches

2010-06-15T00:48:00.002+01:00

Time to go over to the Redvers Kyle Stadium, Kirkstall Road, for the Group A results:

TVS glass revolve 3 Harlech eye test 12
Grampian saltire 9 TVS glass revolve 6
TVS glass revolve 6 BBC2 'Firecracker' 9
Harlech eye test 10 Grampian saltire 5
BBC2 'Firecracker' 8 Harlech eye test 7
Grampian saltire 8 BBC2 'Firecracker' 6

Three idents each won two games, bringing in 6 points, so we go to goal differences to break the tie and decide which two go ahead. Harlech is a clear winner, scoring 22 goals in winning games where its opponents managed 8, bringing a net figure of 14. BBC2 and Grampian each achieved 17 goals in the two games it won, but BBC2's opponents racked up 13 goals in those same games, compared to the 12 scored by Grampian's opponents, so Grampian joins Harlech in the knockout stage. So, Harlech will play the 2nd team to win Group B, while Grampian will take on that Group's winners.

Which brings us neatly on to the Group B matches:

Thames skyline vs ABC triangle
ABC triangle vs BBC Schools diamond
BBC Schools diamond vs Ulster oscilloscope on a stick
Ulster oscilloscope on a stick vs ABC triangle
BBC Schools diamond vs Thames skyline
Ulster oscilloscope on a stick vs Thames skyline

Voting will close at midnight BST on 15 June. You know the drill by now.

Idents World Cup - Group A gets underway

2010-06-14T18:09:00.005+01:00

OK, more clips/stills to follow, but let's get this oil-burning pig on the road.

TVS glass revolve vs Harlech eye test
Grampian saltire vs TVS glass revolve
TVS glass revolve vs BBC2 'Firecracker'
Harlech eye test vs Grampian saltire
BBC2 'Firecracker' vs Harlech eye test
Grampian saltire vs BBC2 'Firecracker'

Is that everything covered? Scores for each game in comments, please. Each commenter can award 1 goal per game. Is midnight tonight BST late enough?

Idents World Cup - group draw results

2010-06-14T17:33:00.013+01:00

Group A
TVS glass revolve
Harlech eye test
Grampian saltire
BBC2 1990s 2

Group B
Thames skyline
ABC triangle
BBC Schools diamond
Ulster oscilloscope on a stick

Group C
Southern star
LWT river
BBC1 COW
TSW tree of bras

Group D
BBC2 stripey
BBCtv Map
Channel 4 original
Rediffusion London

Group E
Channel 3 North East
Border chopsticks
Yorkshire Television colour production
ATV in colour

Group F
HTV aerial
Open University
Scottish Television spinning lion
BBC2 Colour 1967

Group G
Anglia knight
From the North – Granada
Central cake mark 1
Teledu Cymru dragon

Group H (vertically polarised)
BBC1 mirror globe
BBC TV bat wings
Westward galleon
Tyne Tees 1980s

Idents World Cup

2010-06-11T17:10:00.002+01:00

OK, at the suggestion of that nice TJ Worthington, I'm going to run an Idents World Cup. There will be one TV ident per team, with results to be decided by a combination of my whim and votes from people who give a toss here and on Twitter. We need 32 for the first round. I reckon we have to include: LWT river, BBC1 mirror globe, BBC2 stripey, ATV in Colour, Central cake mark 1, Border chopsticks, Thames skyline, YTV Colour Production, Anglia silver knight, Tyne Tees animated with Roger Limb (allegedly) music, From the North Granada, ABC triangle, Rediffusion London with Widespread World. How many's that? 13? Right. We need 19 more quick-smart for the first round draw. Look lively.

Telly selly time: Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Guide 1955-2010

2010-06-07T13:19:00.002+01:00

Having mentioned the Kaleidoscope event below, I've just realised that I omitted to mention the new electronic version of their epic multi-volume British Independent Television Drama Guide 1955-2010. The Music and Variety Guide is one of the most frequently-consulted books in my possession, but I've dithered over buying the paper version due to lack of funds or shelf space. However, at £29.99, the PDF was a no-brainer. Hopefully the PDF of the BBC guide will follow shortly.

Anorak hierarchy

2010-06-07T11:01:00.002+01:00

Just back from a splendid weekend in the West Midlands, staying with old friends and attending one of the always excellent Kaleidoscope archive TV events at the Talbot Hotel in Stourbridge. Normally, the audience at such beanos is predictable. It consists largely of men of a certain age, many with beards, most with a sartorial style that suggests that they dress in the dark in a tearing hurry. I'm not being judgmental there, as I have just described myself. Saturday's symposium had a wider appeal, though, being about music programmes. There were even some females attending of their own volition (as opposed to the loyal spouses who attend regularly with their chaps, out of duty, and sit through the delights on screen reading a good book - ladies, I salute you and hope that he's as supportive of your interests).

The most prominent of the ladies in attendance were all too familiar. I'd never met these particular examples before, but, as a Shadows fan, I recognise all too easily women whose main ambition in life is to throw themselves onto a Cliff. At Kaleidoscope events, there's a main screening area, and a secondary screening area in the bar. It was the latter that was playing host to a screening of a 1960 ATV Cliff Richard Show and A Matter of Diamonds, the recently recovered drama starring the erstwhile Harry Webb. Normally, there's a bit of give and take. If the people at the bar are talking while you're watching something, you move a bit closer or turn the TV up. Also, if you're watching the programme yourself, but passing comment on its content ("Oooh, look, it's Mario Fabrizi" and "I wonder if it was Wood Green or Hackney. Elstree wasn't open by this point.") you sit at the back and try to keep your voice at a tolerable level.

Neither of these were good enough for the bachelor boy's biggest fans. Turning around, hissing "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" and then "We're trying to watch, and you're being very rude", before applying a blood-curdling death ray. At one point, they even shhhhhed the rather lovely Pan's Person Dee Dee Wilde, who was being greeted warmly and not too loudly at all by the event's organisers. Now, I have to say that even sitting at the back I had no trouble making out what was being said. At some points, I felt I was hearing too much. Maybe I haven't been deafened by a lifetime's exposure to 'Congratulations'. It really did seem that they felt Cliff required reverent silence. A couple of friends were bemused by the whole display, so I took them out into the hallway and explained. "They're Cliff fans. They've heard about this on the Internet and I bet they've come hundreds of miles. When the Cliff material finishes at 2pm, they will bugger off."

Almost right. They filed into Richard Marson's interview with the aforementioned Dee Dee for the first 10 minutes, but when it became clear that she wasn't going to talk about Cliff any time soon, they buggered off. Anyway, despite everything, I was glad to see them. For once, somebody made the male anoraks look normal.

Seedy? Ahhhh.

2010-06-01T13:30:00.003+01:00

I had to burn an audio CD for someone the other day, and it underlined the glacial rate at which I go through CD-R blanks these days. I've got about 30 left, and I haven't bought any for ages, compared to my regular purchases of 50-disc and 100-disc packs of DVD-Rs. It was only 10 short years ago that I got my first CD burner, which came as part of a new PC I bought. The concept and the practice of being able to make my own CDs knocked me sideways, and I used the facility extensively for off-air recordings and backup copies of precious vinyl. Then in 2004, I bought a DVD burner, and since then I've used the larger format discs for archiving, and settled for high-quality MP3s for most listening purposes.

I'm getting ready to abandon another format as it happens. The increasing decrepitude of my small family of portable mini disc machines and an irresistible special offer on Amazon led me to buy a Tascam DR07 solid-state recorder. Early reports suggest that it's a fantastic bit of kit. I'll always retain a massive affection for mini disc, but the ability to transfer my interview recordings to the computer without having to do it in real time will be a massive benefit.

Blogger-rolling

2010-05-27T17:28:00.005+01:00

I've allowed myself to become involved in something I don't fully understand, and which I'm not quite sure I want to understand. Back when I was a hack on Publishing News, I spent a lot of fun evenings at book launches in the Westminster bookshop Politico's, run by John Simmonds and Iain Dale. While I regard Iain as a friend and have always enjoyed his company, I'm not sure I really trust him. He's an operator. Normally I fight shy of such movers, shakers, shifters and shufflers, but Iain's love of small dogs and the Eurovision Song Contest have always redeemed him.

A while back, I referred to one of his blog posts about various attempts to smear him. In response, I received a communication from head Bloggerhead Tim Ireland suggesting that Daley, if not an active smear artist himself, was not inclined to help anyone else out if they were being smeared. Ireland was speaking from his own bitter experience, having had to contend with nasty, utterly unfounded allegations that he was himself a paedophile. Ireland suggested that when he asked for Dale's help in refuting the allegations, Dale had been non-committal, then silent. I suspected that Dale didn't want to get involved with something that wasn't in his area, while Ireland seemed to think that there was a more sinister explanation. I'm staying well out of that one, ta very much. Any road up, after a to-and-fro in the comments section of my original blog post, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen, a friend and a person I can honestly say that I would trust with my life, weighed in by suggesting that I had made eye contact with "the nutter on the bus".

Adam, it turned out, had dealt with Ireland in the past, and wished he hadn't bothered, a common enough situation when working for the Eye, and sifting the plausible from the deranged. A hack can only say "Really? That's very interesting, but..." so many times before the urge to shout "FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING FUCKWIT" down the blower takes over. Adam's too professional to let it get to that stage, which might be why he gets more work than I do. Anyway, Ireland seemed to think that the "nutter on the bus" comment was a statement of Eye editorial policy rather than an off-duty aside from one friend to another. He's since tried repeatedly to get a retraction from Ian Hislop, who, understandably, wants nothing to do with the situation, because it's nothing to do with him.

Now, I don't want to get involved in the political aspect of this spat or any assessments of Ireland's mental well-being, but I'm pretty satisfied that he's not a nonce. He indicates that some people have been posting his home address and encouraging others to harass him. That's really not on. Also, the original correspondence on this blog has been used by Ireland's detractors as ammunition, which I'm not entirely thrilled about. I suspect that whatever I think of Ireland, I'd be unlikely to want to ally myself with his enemies. The trouble is that the more Ireland blogs about this awful state of affairs, the more he sounds like the nutter on the bus, even if he isn't. So, as a concerned third party, I ask anyone who's perpetuating the smear stories about Ireland's sexual preferences to stop it immediately. Please.

There have also been suggestions that he's been stalking Nadine Dorries. There's a very fine line between dogged pursuit of something worthwhile and obsession/stalking. As an obsessive-compulsive myself, I know that only too well. From where I'm sitting, Ireland's interest in Dorries is a combination of horrified fascination, a desire to see the woman's manifest absurdity exposed as widely as possible and simple mischief. In summary, I approve, and the silly cow should be flattered that anyone gives a tinker's cuss about her.

Anyone waiting for my account of running for Parliament, it's half-written in my drafts folder, and will follow when I can set aside a moment or two. I'm sure you're all desperate to read that.

Direct television from Alexandra Palace

2010-05-04T03:29:00.002+01:00

I have an annoying habit of discovering interesting links or revisiting favourite sites just as I'm getting ready to go to bed. The Alexandra Palace Television Society's YouTube channel is one of the worst culprits.

D'oh

2010-05-03T00:23:00.003+01:00

The other day, I linked, rather too gleefully, to a blog that had amused me. In my reverie, I'd failed to notice that the site had connections to deeply unsavoury organisations. I've withdrawn that site's Michelin star, and no mistake.

Schaefer no nonce sense

2010-04-24T22:20:00.002+01:00

As a the splendid Jutl said on Cook'd and Bomb'd, when it came to heinousness, did ex-Nazi paedophile, friend of General Pinochet and cult leader Paul Schaefer, who has died at the age of 89, need any more to get a full house? Any overdue library books? Was he a litterbug too?

Party Political Broadcasts - the antidote

2010-04-20T16:30:00.002+01:00

Just as it's said imagining authority figures in their birthday suits can help the ordinary man or woman deal with them, so the following might help the same ordinary men and women get party political broadcasts in the right perspective. It's from the great underrated LWT sketch show End of Part One, which should have been out on DVD years ago. Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, we salute you.

Hail hail the Daily Mail

2010-04-20T13:28:00.002+01:00

The Daily Mail and General Trust has indicated that it will not be moving to a subscription model online. To support this, it presents some pretty compelling reasons for staying free, and shows that it grasps what the Internet is and what it does far better than News International or the entire record industry. It aims to compete on the Internet's terms, rather than its own, imposed by the best law money can buy, and it aims to succeed. If only the Mail showed the same enlightenment editorially as it does in business, I'd be able to wish it well for its future endeavours without any reservations.

Fade up my leader

2010-04-16T15:48:00.004+01:00

I wonder if Jake Knott was on the carpet this morning? For those who don't share my interest in the credits on TV programmes, he was the sound supervisor on last night's debate between the party leaders, and he didn't have Gordon Brown's mic faded up ready for the Labour leader's first response. When it happened, I thought "Pity the poor sod mixing this. There'll be words afterwards". The only saving grace for Mr Knott is that the director wasn't the late Stewart 'Keep the DG in shot for Christ's sake' Morris.

By the way, it was great to see all the old 'Granada TV' signs in the news coverage of the debate. When Quay Street closes, the Manchester skyline will lose a little more magic. It's already lost a bit with the removal of the lattice tower on the roof of the main office block. The debate was, unless I'm much mistaken, done in studio 6, more usually home to The Jeremy Kyle Show. It was also where they did Crown Court, Wheeltappers and Shunters and The Comedians. Please supply your own punchline.

As for who won, I couldn't care less. Brown was the most fluent. Clegg appeared to be the most sincere. Cameron ballsed up by maintaining our right to nuke China. Why couldn't I care less? We don't have a presidential system, so this debate was a mere sideshow. I'll tell you who lost, though. Alastair Stewart. Bleeding useless, much as I expected. I know Cliff Michelmore's 91 now, but he'd still have whipped Stewart's sorry arse.

Papers. PAPERS! Read all about the news.

2010-04-15T11:24:00.003+01:00

A mention in the Daily Mail. I don't know whether to feel pleased at getting the NOTA/Protest Vote movement its first national newspaper coverage or to feel dirty.

Slightly more worrying is that I'm approaching 40 and still acting the arse on occasion. I feel I should make greater efforts to grow up. Not that I haven't made massive progress over the last decade. Once upon a time, random acts of drunken idiocy were my norm, whereas I'm now a sober, boring, respectable(ish), cardigan-wearing dad 99% of the time.

The Brides in the Bath

2010-04-13T15:34:00.002+01:00

Another book review from me, this time commissioned and published by the Independent on Sunday, the finest oligarch-owned Sunday newspaper in the UK.

Digital Economy act - the aftermath

2010-04-11T20:12:00.004+01:00

So, the Digital Economy Bill is now the Digital Economy Act, and is part of the law of the land. What difference will it make? The main change is that more ordinary people will get wise to encryption and VPNs. Only the record industry and the technical dunderheads in favour of the bill - step forward Parliament's top Roy Cropper lookalike Stephen Timms (look at the picture, Hayley's on the front bench too) who doesn't understand IP addresses, but still feel happy to legislate on them - could have thought it would solve the problem of illegal downloading. Everything will just go further underground, and the futile attempts to pin blame on anyone will just end up costing a fortune. It's like trying to build a defence against a nuclear warhead from plywood. Have I changed my tune? Not really. Fighting the Bill and following the progress of the truncated travesty of a debate was necessary, worthwhile and, let's be frank, a big old shitload of fun. And it led thousands of technically-literate and music-loving youngsters to watch BBC Parliament for hours on end, which can only be a good thing for the future of democracy and political engagement. For every one who thought "What the fuck are those old fuckers playing at? Include me out", another will have thought "What the fuck are those old fuckers playing at? Let's get involved". Right, I'm off to download MP3s of Stephen Timms' Parliamentary speeches. Illegally. Go me.

Waveney campaign blog gets underway

2010-04-10T14:49:00.001+01:00

Righty-ho, I've started that blog about my NOTA Protest Vote Party campaign here in sunny Waveney.

Book review: 65 - My Life So Far by Jonathan King

2010-04-09T21:44:00.004+01:00

Having failed to get a review published in any of the periodicals to which I contribute, here's my honest appraisal of 65 - My Life So Far, the autobiography of music mogul and self-styled vile pervert Jonathan King.

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Show business autobiographies are usually more telling in what they omit rather than what they include. One major personality signed a friend's copy of his memoirs with “Try and believe at least some of it”. Very few who tell their life story in a book, ghosted or otherwise, present a balanced and fair picture of the subject, perhaps unsurprising in a business fuelled by ego. Bob Monkhouse's excellent Crying With Laughter is one of the very rare exceptions.

As, oddly, is 65: My Life So Far by Jonathan King, the pop world's equivalent of a disgraced bishop. King is a pariah. His records (and those of Gary Glitter) are noticeably absent from the airwaves, while those of convicted murderer Phil Spector are not. Meanwhile there's an unspoken ban on him appearing on television or radio.

So, he says, he has nothing to lose by telling the truth. However, truth is problematic, as any historian knows. An individual will remember an event one way, another individual will remember it another way. Neither version is contradictory, but there is conflict. So when King says we're getting the truth, what we're getting is King's truth. However, when read with this caveat in mind, there's a lot of value in 65 My Life So Far.

King is excellent when talking about other people and events that he witnessed as a pop personality, which account for 430-odd pages of the 583 on offer (It could be cut by about a third without losing much, and, at this length, the absence of an index is almost a criminal act in itself). Propelled into the charts while still a Cambridge undergraduate, he soon transferred to the business side of music and was on the inside track from the 1960s to the 1990s, ultimately running the Brit awards and the Eurovision Song Contest. It's tempting to assume at times that he's building up his part (he invented this, established that, saved the other from disaster, etc), but the cuttings support his claims. Moreover, he avoided drink and drugs, so his memory of it is unfogged.

He adds credence to the rumours about John Lennon's alleged bisexuality, but that's far less interesting than the stories of wheeling and dealing to get hits made and into the charts. It's also good to read more about Decca chairman Sir Edward Lewis, one of the most fascinating if underwritten figures of the music industry, who regarded King almost as an adopted son.

Perhaps the most telling story in this part of 65: My Life So Far is King's recollection of watching the Apollo 11 moonshot on TV. While others marvelled at the scientific achievement, King's main concern was, rather egotistically, with the copy of his song Everyone's Gone to the Moon that had, through various connections, been placed on the rocket. As Neil Armstrong said “A giant step for mankind”, King was to be found shouting “Enough of these platitudes for God's sake. Play my fucking record!” at the screen.

The last 150 pages deal with King's life since his arrest in 2000. The trial is covered in depth, with some details that contemporary press reports omitted to mention. One of his accusers claimed that he had been 15 when King made an advance on him, pinpointing it at the time of a particular record of King's. King denied ever meeting the lad, but also proved that the record in question had been made 4 years later, when the accuser was 19. Even if a reader isn't persuaded by King's protestations of innocence, as he hopes they might be, there's enough here to bring into question the ethics of those who brought King to book. The apparent pincer movement of police and media, with Max Clifford looming large; and the willingness to move minor details like dates around worked against him, he suggests. It may be that a trial free of these influences would have reached the same conclusions, but nobody will ever have the chance to know.

The relative values at work in the King case are interesting. King is an outcast, while Bill Wyman – who had a well-documented sexual relationship with an underage girl – is welcomed as a guest on The One Show. Is it because Wyman was a Rolling Stone, the epitome of supposed bad boy rock and roll hedonist cool, while King was a naff pop troubadour? Maybe his worst offences were merely those of making daft records and looking a bit too pleased with himself for a bit too long.