Do readjust your set

Digi-Cream Times is moving. It's got a new home, and a new name: TV Cream Towers.

Ever since the Digi-Cream Times mailout died an unloved death in the summer, the moniker has clung to this blog like Sarah Kennedy to a Daily Mail editorial: neither parties making much sense to the general public, and neither benefiting from an association with the other.

Unlike Sarah Kennedy, however, this blog has not been having problems with lecherous cats, or the road layout at Vauxhall Cross, or immigrants, or anti-hunt protestors, or single parents, or failing to spot black people when it's dark. It's simply swapping one bit of software, Blogger, for another, Wordpress.

All the stuff on here, including the archives, has survived the journey. And the new blog has a new look and some snazzy new gimmicks.

Best of all, to fully explain what has happened and help you remember the new URL, no lesser a group than The King's Singers have recorded a special musical aide memoire.

Take it away, chaps!

What an honour.

See you on the new blog...

If it's music you're after...

Advance notice of a new TV Cream pet project, which you'll be able to hear from 1st November. Yup, a good two years or so after everyone else started, the very first TVC podcast is on its way.

US election clippage: part one

To help hurry along the fortnight until polling day in the United States, here's the first in a thankfully short series of clips from ancient American election programmes.

First up, an extract from CBS's results night coverage of 1972. And what a ragged, amateurish affair it all is. The theme tune is frankly bizarre, resembling some atonal noodlings, possibly composed by Stockhausen or John Cage. Then, before we get to anything by way of news, comes the information that "this broadcast is sponsored by the Ford Motor company, and 6,283 Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers - the goal, no unhappy owners."

Cut to Walter Kronkite, who looks shifty and ill-informed. "Some or all of the polls have closed." Make your mind up, Walt!

Then there's an opt-out to a Virginia local network. The studio's props and graphics are of an appalling low-fi quality. In the conversational area, two people sit on chairs underneath a giant eagle. "We're going to have very mixed coat-tails tonight," one mutters.

Compare this to the giant, multi-coloured, multi-gadgeted affair we had over here for the general election of 1970. Sure, Bob McKenzie had to get a workman to paint extra numbers on his swingometer, but at least he had a wall big enough to paint on in the first place.

What are you sayin'? What are you playin'?

With the future of genuine digital radio stations in doubt (as opposed to all those 'pretend' ones that you can get through your telly or online), it's time for someone to step in and make sure there's more than simply Planet Rock listed in Radio Times.

Inevitably that someone looks like being the BBC, but that's all to the good, for there are plenty of opportunities for the corporation to launch cheap but effective channels quickly and professionally, thereby saving the medium from ever-dwindling pointlessness:

Radio 1 + 15
An exact, as it happens, unexpurgated repeat of what was being broadcast on Radio 1 15 years ago to the day.

Radio 1 + 15 + 1
An exact, as it happens, unexpurgated repeat of what was being broadcast on Radio 1 15 years ago to the day delayed by one hour and with new, live running commentary from relevant DJs, producers and guests.

Simon Says
Great music, great guests and lots of gossip from the country's premier uni-monikered Etienne elite. Provisional schedule:
6am Simon Groom
9am Simon Mayo
12pm Simon Potter
2pm Simon Bates
6pm Simon Dee
10pm Simon Amstell
1am Simon Parkin

Order! Order!
A companion service to BBC Parliament, broadcasting live debates from the Palace of Westminster interspersed with memorable reports, interviews and rolling news coverage from the last 70 years. Launch highlights include A Day In The Life Of Scud FM; Michael Heseltine with a minute-by-minute account of the time he waved a giant mace on the floor of the Commons; a full replay of the 1981 Crosby by-election results programme; and Round Robin: a retrospective on Robin Day's time hosting The World At One.

How We Used To Live
Old people remember the war in calm, reassuring voices.

I'm Backing Britain
A rousing, morale-boosting endeavour to see the country through the recession. Run by the Central Office of Information, this station will provide round-the-clock advice, tips, instructions and the very latest from the nerve centre of the government's recently-formed National Economic Council. Presenters, including Michael Aspel, Cliff Michelmore, Angela Rippon and Suggs, will work six-hour shifts until the crisis is over.

On The Mike
24-hour coverage of Michael Palin as he lives his life.

Digi-Crisis Times: part 2

With things continuing to get worse, it's become clear that not only is the government part-nationalising certain TV programmes, it's also part-nationalising certain TV banks.

And no wonder, what with the finance industry in such a parlous condition. If TV banks, a mainstream primetime once-weekly example to the country, are seen to be tottering, then not even an on-screen intervention from Richard Madeley ("I think we need to all calm down a bit, just calm down, right?") can save us.

Topping the list of casualties has to be:

1) The one in Joint Account. This is bound to be in trouble, what with it being a product of the 1980s and having John Bird on the books. The latter's liquid lunches and agreeably distracted manner would have had the firm up against the wall sooner, were it not for Hannah Gordon's level-headed approach to dividend portfolios and nice dresses.

2) The one off of Dad's Army, where Captain Mainwaring worked before the inception of the Home Guard. This seemed like a tiny bank even then, where old women came in to make deposits of three pennies a month, and would surely have been taken over by now or been gobbled up by a demutualised building society with someone like Iain Cuthbertson in charge.

3) The one in The Sweeney. Actually, there were two: the National Mercian Bank, which got held up by some "bastards", and the National Anglian Bank, which was broken into not once but twice. Both of these establishments are surely likely to be barking at the porcelain by now.

4) And, er, that's it. There must be more who need a bit of a bail-out. Didn't In Loving Memory have a doddery local branch of some kind? And every single person in every single institution in Capital City must be out on their arse. Although that's no bad thing.

Photo clippage #43

What glittering occasion could possibly have brought these three stars together?

Digi-Crisis Times

In the flurry of excitement earlier this week accompanying the launch of the government's economic rescue plan, one piece of small print was overlooked. Besides part-nationalising leading UK banks, Gordon Brown is also part-nationalising leading UK television programmes.

The following changes are to be implemented over the next few weeks to ensure confidence remains high in the country's TV favourites.

1) STRICTLY COME DANCING
Craig Revel Horwood to be replaced by Vince Cable ("Your dancing is less like Fred Astaire and more like Fred Flintstone"). Scoring system to be replaced with portfolio of Union Jacks (i.e. "I'll give that five flags out of five - well done!")

2) CASUALTY
Role of Charlie Fairhead to be played by Dr Liam Fox. Hospital to be renamed The Albion. 10% of all patients to be MPs with genuine medical complaints.

3) THE X FACTOR
Louis Walsh to be replaced with Kenneth Clarke ("I think you're a really pretty group of girls and I would like to see you step out in style to True Blue next week!") Themes for future editions to include: Britain; British landmarks; British politicians; British trade and industry; why Britain is the best.

4) THE ONE SHOW
Ken Livingstone to replace Adrian Chiles. Edwina Currie to replace the other one. Programme will come live from the back of a flat-bed truck travelling around the country, visiting struggling businesses and banks to cheer up employees and rally morale with singalongs and quirky tales of the lighter side of life.

5) THE BILL
10% of all crimes to be real ones. Sir Ian Blair to become new boss of Sun Hill. Each edition to feature a cameo from a former Home Secretary, dispensing words of wisdom and calm. Confirmed so far: Douglas Hurd, Charles Clarke, Merlyn Rees, Leon Brittan (to be renamed Leon Britain until the crisis ends).

6) EASTENDERS
Residents to launch an I'm Backing Britain campaign, culminating in a street party in Albert Square with characters dressed as Arthur Askey, a Flump, Busby the British Telecom bird, Fred from the Homepride adverts, the Blitz, 1966, and a stiff upper lip. Mick Jagger to make a guest appearance with Dot Cotton during a 'guess the weight of the cake' scene.

Competition tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime

Courtesy of blog denizen John Rivers and the good people of Harper Collins, TV Cream has five copies of Lord Denis Norden's new autobiography, Clips From A Life, to give away.






















It's a fine tome, expertly showcasing the man's anecdote-hewn approach to life. There's a predictably detailed glossary and index at the back, and photos including a publicity poster for Looks Familiar done up to look like a musical hall handbill proclaiming 'By Popular Demand Switched From Matinee To After News At Ten!'

To win a copy, here's the question:

What year was the first It'll Be Alright On The Night broadcast?

Send your answer to digicreamguide@tvcream.co.uk - the first five correct ones will win the book.

Correspondence on this subject, as they say, is now closed.

THE WINNERS
Stuart Allen
Gavin Culloty
Chris Oakley
Sam Randall
David Smith

Thanks to everyone who took part.

Photo clippage #42

"Have you *seen* the latest viewing figures?!"

For imediate distributon no Embargo

A press release arrives at TV Cream from drownedinmedia.com, bearing news that "legendary Broadcaster [sic] and five times Sony Award winning DJ, David 'Kid' Jensen, celebrates a milestone in British Broadcasting [sic] this year with an amazing 40 years service in the industry."

It's not clear why it's been sent round today, given the actual anniversary is "on the 26th November". Still, it's always good to have a reason for looking back at Dave's life and "the bands he's met along the way".

One of them appears to be somebody called "Gary Newman". Apparently this person achieved great success and had a number of hit records. Ditto "Marc Bowlan".

The press release also mentions a few "legendary broadcasters" Dave has worked with down the years, "such as the late and great Kenny Everet". There's also a list of the Kid's "contemporaries still working in radio today", including "Emperor Roscoe". Sybil seems to be doing alright for herself, then.

Finally we're treated to a couple of anecdotes from the man himself, including one concerning a guitarist called "Jimmy Hendrix". There's also a rundown of some of Dave's TV work, which makes no mention of The Roxy whatsoever, but does acknowledge "the first 3 annual Brit Awards (known as the British Rock and Pop Awards)".

ENDS

Notes to the Editor:

For more information about this blog post please contact Some Bloke In The Street Who Can't Be Arsed And Who Doesn't Know How To Write The Names Of Famous People Let Alone Cross-Check Them On A Computer.

S for Rantzen

Chris Hughes has unearthed striking proof of the existence of The Second Book of Jigsaw Puzzles (Jigsaw as in the Clive Doig-devised alphabetorium of antics) .

It's a Cockney A-Z, complete with definitions, which apparently appeared in said book and which recently turned up online.

It's hard to believe some of these are still in common usage. 'S for Rantzen'? Most people under 20 won't have a clue who that is. Ditto 'I for The Engine'. Kids under 10 will never have heard of an envelope. And words such as mutton and zephyr have recently been given Grade II listed status.

Anyway, it's good to know that somewhere out there must be a copy of The Second Book Of Jigsaw Puzzles, hopefully with a fully-illustrated story explaining how Jig was 'born'.

But just what did this particular whim have to do with the desk of Doig?

A for 'Orses .................. ('ay for 'orses)
B for Mutton .................. (Beef or Mutton)
C for Miles ................... (See for Miles)
D for Ential .................. (Differential)
E for Brick ................... ('eave a Brick)
F for Vescence ................ (Effervescence)
G for Get It .................. (Gee, forget it!)
H for Bless You ............... (Aitsshfa! A Sneeze)
I for The Engine .............. (Ivor the Engine)
J for Oranges ................. (Jaffa Oranges)
K for Restaurant .............. (Cafe or Restaurant)
L for Leather ................. ('ell for Leather)
M for Sis' .................... (Emphasis)
N for Lope .................... (Envelope)
O for The Wings Of A Dove ..... (O! for the Wings of a Dove!)
P for Relief .................. (?!?!)
Q for A Bus ................... (Queue for a Bus)
R for Mo' ..................... ('alf a Mo')
S for Rantzen ................. (Esther Rantzen)
T for Two ..................... (Tea for Two)
U for Me ...................... (You for Me)
V for La France ............... (Vive la France)
W for The Winnings ............ (Double you for the Winnings)
X for Breakfast ............... (Eggs for Breakfast)
Y for Husband ................. (Wife or Husband)
Z for Wind .................... (Zephyr Wind)

Meet the man who's bored everyone

Michael Parkinson has launched his own website.

For a man who hitherto never wasted any promotional opportunity to remind you he's a journalist and NOT A TV PERSONALITY, the OMB (Ol' Miserable Bastard) appears to be loosening the strings of his pomposity corset. For this site is nothing if not personality-led.

There's a big photo of the man, seemingly biting on his own finger. We're invited to "meet the man who's met everyone" - not the sort of claim you'd expect from a lowly journalist of the old school.

We're also asked to buy a CD entitled Michael Parkinson: My Life In Music. For anyone who *still* hasn't heard of Jamie Cullum or Michael Buble, or rather who *still* hasn't heard of how Parky discovered them all by himself (when his producer put their CDs in his journalistic hands), the first 100 preorders of this disc are signed by OMB himself.

At the bottom of the homepage there's a plug for the pub owned by Michael and his son, the one that Terry Wogan is barred from for post-8am news comedic monologue purposes. Oh, and did you know that Parky has a book coming out, all about his life, called 'Parky'? Being a journalist he has written it all by himself and will be "trailing around the length and breadth of the country" for some signing sessions. If you feel like that, mate, don't bother, it's really no trouble.

Anyway, the thing that really grates is the way he's snaffled up all the rights to his TV interviews and will be filtering them online through his very own smarmy pipette whenever he chooses.

What a selfless act of journalism: placing himself higher than his public, and refusing to let the clips stand on their own merits. Instead we're to be flattered with his own favourites and, presumably, all the ones that show him in a good light rather than his guests (or rather, show him in a better light).

Ah well, you're thinking, perhaps OMB will give readers a right to reply to all of this bollocks on his new blog. Wrong. It's called a blog, but it sure as hell isn't one. It's merely another megaphone for all things Parky, to which nobody is allowed to respond.

Among the titbits is news that he's about to become Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University. Can you guess, reader, which name looms largest among those he has chosen to receive honorary degrees? Billy Fucking Connolly. How we'll all look forward to hearing about Parky's hilarious encounter with "one of my favourite people" in front of a bunch of graduates who don't know who either of them are. Maybe the stage will be arranged in the style of his chat show, which as we now know went bankrupt because OMB wanted a pocket money rise from Michael Grade.

There is, however, a forum. Surely this is fizzing with activity, given Parky is "the man who's met everyone"? At the time of writing it boasts just six replies. Maybe that's because he's personally deleting any response that doesn't meet his exact journalistic standards of grammar and spelling. Or maybe nobody really gives a toss.

Thank fuck he's not on TV anymore.

P.S. How come he hasn't shelled out for michaelparkinson.com? It's available. After all Mike, michaelparkinson.tv can't help sounding a little, well, common...

An evil prick in glasses...and Simon Bates

It feels like there are a million things wrong with this clip, especially the opening 60 seconds or so. Ideally it ought to be prefaced with a short sequence involving somebody in suit and tie warning you about its content. And the fact it breaches almost every possible measure of taste, decency and factual accuracy the likes of which the Video Standards Council could only dream. "Have a listen to Jeff Wayne's new single..."

Photo clippage: party conference special

Now there's a title that's likely to get this blog's search queries shooting up.

1) Harold Wilson and Dick Crossman cook up another gimmick outside their guest house, 1960:




















2) Ted Heath provides the Not The Nine O'clock News scriptwriters with an easy win:
























3) Uncle Jim sews up the youth vote...























4) ...before toe-tapping his way around the Brighton Top Rank ballroom, 1977:























5) Edwina Currie brandishes a pair of handcuffs during a debate on law and order, 1981:

















6) The dream ticket, 1983:




















7) Michael Denzil Xavier "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA" Portillo, 1990:

"This is a lovely way to spend an evening..."

There's no way to embed this, unfortunately, but here's a chance to enjoy the sight of Petula Clark singing across a faux-dinner table at Peter Ustinov, some Generation Game business involving orange peelers, and a BBC1 programme that "will also be shown on BBC2 and ITV":

Details in RADIO TIMES.

This week's new Dr Who(s) revealed

It's the Dr Who silly season, with stupid stories being lobbed into the ether to keep the freaks in a heightened state of pre-coital craziness until Christmas.

There's the one about the TARDIS being turned gold for a special Children In Need sketch, by way of a tribute to the success of Britain's Olympic and Paralympic teams. But then there's Russell T Davies 'revealing' the 'identity' of the person he'd like to replace David Tennant.

It's clear his sole rationale here is to keep the words 'Russell' and 'Dr Who' attached to each other in the public consciousness for another few years or so, while he's elsewhere busy making another Manchester-based drama about 40-something gay men. But there are surely far more persuasive options that Russell *Tovey*:

1) RUSSELL GRANT
"Now onto Capricorn, this is you Rose..."























2) RUSSELL HARTY
"You are, are you not, a Mechanoid?" Anything's possible for those folks at The Mill.























3) RUSSELL WATSON
"Cassandra, I've just met a girl named Cassandra..."























4) RUSS CONWAY
"You think you're abominable? Wait till you hear this version of The Entertainer!"

No licence-dodgers, except one

Noel Edmonds was mouthing off in the press the other day, in an attempt to whip up interest in his wretched one-off Sky One show.

The self-styled Prime Minister-in-waiting (a bit like Hughie Green when he used Opportunity Knocks to try and take over the country in the late 1970s) moaned about, among other things, immigrants, people who knock astrologists, and the licence fee. "I'm so incensed by the idea that I'm guilty of something that I actually cancelled my licence fee a few months ago," Noel thundered, bizarrely. "They haven't found me, and nobody's come knocking on the door." Yes Noel, that's because you live in a palace behind Berlin Wall-style ramparts that make it impossible for anyone to knock on your door.

Anyway, a few years ago when Noel was a nicer person and Deal Or No Deal had just started and people genuinely enjoyed his presence, he used to get in the papers every week for saying this kind of stuff. Albeit stuff of a far less offensive, more entertaining fashion.

Some of these escapades into print were used to fill up editions of the now defunct Digi-Cream Times mailout. Here were five of the best.

1) Noel gets into a fight with Mike Read
Edmonds crosses swords with his Saturday morning successor concerning the latter's participation in Channel Five's The Curse Of Noel Edmonds. Mike refuses to step outside, instead offering to write Noel an apologetic letter, though just as intriguing is the fact it all takes place at a party hosted by Anthea Turner.

2) Noel breaks the land speed record
Edmonds confesses he once drove a car at 186mph. It being Noel, there is some shameless innuendo worked into the tale, to the tune of an admission he once had sex in a Range Rover. "You can't say you love cars if you haven't ever made love in one," Noel hisses.

3) Noel falls out with Ricky Gervais
Gervais is supposed to be collecting some kind of Lifetime Achievement Award from Noel at an awards ceremony. But he refuses to accept the award off Edmonds, citing unhappiness at this clash of cultures (i.e. popular v. unpopular - Noel being the former, naturally). It is unclear whether Noel subsequently asked Gervais to step outside for a fistfight.

4) Noel advocates infidelity
One of a number of celebrities canvassed for their view on what they see themselves doing "when I'm 64", Noel testifies to wishing for a 64th birthday "spent in a hotel room bed, with someone else's husband banging on the door".

5) Noel gets a disease that gives him a Beadle hand
"It's a bit ridiculous, but I am in agony." The man does himself a mischief and makes it into the pages of the Daily Telegraph. "After 40 years in entertainment," Noel whines, "I can at last boast that I have suffered an industrial injury." The cause of this shocking turn of events? The Deal Or No Deal phone. "It's pretty heavy and I have to pick it up a dozen times a show. We shoot three shows a day and it got so painful that I could hardly pick the bleeding thing up. I didn't know what was wrong so I went to a consultant in Bristol last week and she diagnosed it as repetitive strain injury, rather like tennis elbow. She said she was a huge fan of the show and was sure that it must be from picking up the phone."

A citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot

Anyone who listens to Adam and Joe on 6 Music will know the name Chris Salt. He was the deserving winner of the recent Screen Test-esque competition in which members of the public were invited to create a video to accompany one of the pair's legendary Song Wars tracks.

Anyway, Chris has a number of Lego-based creations to his name, and here's one of the finest: a charming little salute to Dr Who with a suitably waspish pay-off.

"Please bring back club blue peeter it woz great"

This new book "by" Biddy Baxter comprising pieces of correspondence from the history of Blue Peter is a charming concept, but somewhat different in reality. Because it doesn't just contain letters to and from BP during Biddy's reign. It runs right up to the present day and the show's current unhappy Key Stage 2 variety show format.

As much it's nice to eavesdrop on a few exchanges about "club blue peeter" and sartorial gaffes, on reflection it feels too soon to be reading this kind of thing. It's nothing to do with Biddy. It's like rifling through someone's saved mails from the other week. A bit of distance - a bit of history - lends the older material far more sustained appeal and, yes, a dash of poignancy.

The book tries to please too many people and, perhaps, ends up satisfying none. The past and the present should've been kept separate.

This might have set a precedent, though, for opening up the inboxes of current BBC programmes. Why stop at Blue Peter? A collection of eccentric emails sent to The One Show, for instance, could make for a perfect stocking filler.

Christian soldiers onwards

Excuse the Daily Express-style headline, but apparently Glynn Christian has just been given a lifetime achievement award for...well, being Glynn Christian.

The erstwhile Breakfast Time chef was honoured for his career at the Great Taste Awards 2008. The accompanying press release reveals he first opened a delicatessen in 1974 and "38 years later, that deli still exists [all the more remarkable for it being, at the time of writing, only 34 years later], in the same position, boasting the same name" - yes, a bit like all those branches of Tesco and Sainsbury's that opened decades ago and which, for some reason, still boast those precise monikers today.

Anyhow, let's not forget that "1974 was an age when fine food was prawn cocktail, overcooked sirloin, black forest gateaux and Mateus Rosé, all finished with a coffee with thick cream floating on top."

Here's Glynn, back on breakfast television earlier this year, squashed between Francis Wilson and Sue Cook.