Photo clippage #29

One of these men has worked tirelessly to make the world a better place through inspiring musical statements, mammoth live events and humanising the otherwise brutal image of the UK record industry. The other one is Bob Geldof.

If you want to help...

John Rivers gets in touch with Creamguide to say:

"When giving to charity this week, think not only of Children in Need, but that there are other charities and in fact people worthy of your good nature.

Cheryl Baker, for example."

Strait jacket required

It's been a while since the self-styled Bunty Bagshaw got herself in the papers for another "indiscreet remark". Well, all of a few weeks or so.

You'll probably have read how, the other day, she regaled listeners with the contention that, when out driving late one night, she'd almost run over a black person because "he was hard to see in the dark".

Cue a load of media twittering about how the woman is demented and can't be allowed on air and shouldn't be making "that kind of offensive remark". That "kind"? Is there some other kind of racist remark that isn't offensive?

Like each and every time before, however, she's escaped reparation to blithely sail forever onwards like some giant weather balloon floating into a dusk of indignity.

And just what was she doing motoring around after sundown when she presents a radio show that begins at 6am?

Anyway, in the annals of celebrity racialism her bleating is surely up there with Eric Clapton's "I'm with Enoch" recitation and that time when Phil Collins arrived on stage at the MOBO Awards, surveyed the audience and announced "It's suddenly got very dark in here."

Inevitable further Channel 4 anniversary waffle

(advance apologies for sounding like a particularly smug version of the Guardian's Media Monkey)

Last night's special event at the British Film Institute in London to mark the launch of Maggie Brown's history of Channel 4 was a disappointingly low-key affair. No Jeremy Isaacs or Michael Grade; no Muriel Gray or Roger Bolton; not even Cecil Korer looked in. Instead it was just Dick Fiddy on the microphone, followed by an appallingly vague and haphazard introduction from Luke Johnson, and then the author herself speaking from a lectern for an hour or so, mostly with her head buried in a pile of notes.

She promised a dozen or so clips which duly appeared but quickly turned from the exceptionally interesting to the all-too predictable.

First came footage of Isaacs and a woman publicist at some advertising conference in early 1982, awkwardly doing their best to sell the channel via a bit of heavily-scripted cross-talk and forced banter (to no audible response from their audience whatsoever). Next, some of The Friday Alternative advocating the end of the House Of Lords with primitive Paintbox graphics and a picture of Guy Fawkes.

It was followed by an extract from TV-am in early 1985 with Frostie ribbing Isaacs about their respective channels' dodgy early days, Isaacs refusing to name his favourite programme and proudly defining Channel 4 as the place to "have a jolly good argument", plus, for no reason at all, Peter Jay perched at one end of the sofa looking on and saying absolutely nothing. This was the best clip of the night.

Some Network 7 came next, and it had really weathered well. Sharp, witty, exciting: it was miles better than almost every current affairs or youth programme on telly today. But from here things started to go wrong. After Dark followed, but the most obvious clip imaginable: Oliver Reed falling over things and kissing feminists. Everyone in the world must have seen this footage by now; was there nothing else in the archive?

Then came a bit of GBH - the same bit that appeared in the Channel 4 At 25 documentary. Then a boring few minutes of Faking It, a bit of Queer Of Folk taped off the TV, not one but two extracts from Big Brother... Dammit, this was the pedigree of your Sky One talking heads show, not the BFI!

Anyway, Maggie Brown was refreshingly upfront about how shit C4 was in the early days, how Michael Grade loved throwing money at big set-piece drama, and how Michael Jackson just threw money around full stop. Then it all ended very suddenly with no questions or discussion, and the audience dissolved as rapidly as it had materialised.

Not the most accomplished or definitive of histories, then, but at least someone's first generation off-air recordings of Good Morning Britain haven't entirely gone to waste.

For Pete's sake

The Radio Times has, as usual, failed to resist the urge to go overboard on Dr Who and has put next Friday's Children In Need vignette on its cover. Is a five-minute non-canonical* skit really the most important thing on television next week?

At least it begs the blog-friendly question: just what will be Pete's first words as he arrives in the TARDIS? Bookies - the kind that always get quoted in the press but are never conveniently named because they don't exist - are predicting one of the following:

1) "I don't believe it - Turlough?"
2) "You've had this place redecorated. Don't like it."
3) "Am I...late for something?"
4) "Why Kamelion, how nice to see you!"
5) "That's the trouble with regeneration: you never quite know what you're going to get."

Money is also being accepted on two possible alternatives:

a) Tennant: "An apple a day..." Davidson: "...keeps the Doctor away?"
b) Tennant: "Well blow me, it's Freddie Flintoff!"

*This is true. No Children In Need Dr Who pantomimes are part of the canon, because otherwise the Raston Warriot Robot would still be stalking the galaxy and Colin Baker would be due to land in Albert Square in a decade or so's time. Oh, and according to the Five Doctors, Peter Davidson would still be Lord High Chief Prime Minister of Gallifrey or something.

Four score: slight return

It's the last blog entry on Channel 4's birthday*.

By way of a follow-up to that 1992 list of the station's supposed 50 most significant programmes, here's what might pass for a similiar inventory today. First up, those worth keeping from Broadcast's original rundown, and a word or two of justification:

After Dark (What closedown?)
Alter Image (your archetypal Isaacs-era impenetrable nonsense)
As It Happens (Paddy Haycocks, a microphone, and the city of London)
The Bandung File (textbook mid-80s multiculturalism)
Brookside (up to 1994, that is)
Chateauvallon ("Everyone's here. Even the Regional Prefect!")
Countdown ("It says here, 'Man And Vorderman'")
Diverse Reports (aka Thatcher's Britain)
Drop The Dead Donkey ("Bloody bastard John bloody Major!")
GBH ("This body leaves in two minutes: be on it!")
The Last Resort ("Maybe if I sleep with you after the show?")
Manhattan Cable (for inventing YouTube, at the same time as Clive James)
Max Headroom ("on drums: the Pope")
The Media Show (bring it back now!)
The Nation's Health (worthiness personified)
Network 7 (for-the-hell-of-it personified)
One Summer (a one-off one-off)
Saturday Night Live ("Please welcome...The Style Council!")
Traffik (at last, a bit of money)
Treasure Hunt ("Erm, I think you might find *this* book will be of some use to you...")
The Tube (for putting an entire ITV regional building on telly)
A Very British Coup (for being better and more expensive than Traffik)
Whose Line Is It Anyway? ("I'd like you to read them in the style of...a man with only 20 seconds to live")

Which totals 23. To bring it up to 50, how about...

The Big Breakfast ("That was funnier than you'll ever know")
Big Brother (up to 2002)
The Channel 4 Daily (missed out by Broadcast, for some reason...)
A Dance To The Music Of Time (even more money than Traffik)
Derren Brown Plays Russian Roulette Live (proper 'storm over...' tabloid-bothering business)
Desmond's (textbook mid-90s multiculturalism)
Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (well, William G. Stewart has to get a mention somewhere)
The Double Life Of Jonathan King (Jon Ronson's finest hour)
Father Ted (C4's last great sitcom)
Four Goes To Glyndebourne/Glastonbury (double-bill from 1993)
The Government Inspector (best drama for ages)
Grand Designs (kept C4 in pocket for ages)
Hearts And Minds (Dr Who and Jimmy McGovern: together at last)
Hollyoaks (up to 2001, that is)
Monarchy with David Starkey (grown-up telly)
The 1900 House (grown-up reality telly)
Right To Reply (again - why wasn't this in Broadcast's list?)
Richard And Judy (proper C4 'stars')
So Graham Norton (ditto)
Teachers (paved the way for all 3,598,219 episodes of Shameless)
That Peter Kay Thing (paved the way for all 3,598,219 repeats of Phoenix Nights)
Time Team (as recommended by Andrew Collins)
Top Ten (as patronised by Andrew Collins)
Watercolour Challenge (Hannah Gordon + daytime telly = genius)
Wise Up (for slagging off Rick Adams, at the very least)
The Word ("Come on Terry, keep it together!"
You Are What You Eat (epitome of C4's mother-knows-best TV)

*Until the next one.

Photo clippage #28

"You say it's your birthday?"