Other TV – Dirty Feed

Extra Credit

Published 21st July 2026

In a world where television isn’t always all I want it to be, it’s delightful when something feels 100% entirely right.

So it was on Sunday night, where the BBC broadcast its closing montage for the World Cup. BBC Sport always do these wonderfully – I have a soft spot for the one made for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and yes, the music there was the obvious choice – but I fancy this is one of the very best they’ve ever done. Every time I watch it, I spot something new.

When the planes appear at 29 seconds and the lyrics kick in, I get goosebumps.

But here’s the thing I truly love about these montages: those credits. Endless names thrown onto the screen. Well-known faces, or the very definition of a backroom boy or girl. Each of them important, each of them making the output just that little bit better.

When the BBC is currently asking “What has the BBC ever done for me?”, those credits are a reminder that in order to do those things, it takes people. It doesn’t all happen automatically, and you can’t do it with just a couple of harried producers in a room. To make tournaments like this happen to the quality which audiences expect takes not just a team, but teams of teams.

Which is as it should be. The thing which makes television worthwhile is because it is people speaking to other people. It’s the entire point of the endeavour.

Anything else is meaningless.

“One of the Rudest Images Ever Shown on British Television”

Published 20th July 2026

Other TV

It’s weird, the things you remember from when you were a teenager.

For instance, I used to devour TV reviews published in newspapers, whether I watched the shows in question or not. There are so many which stuck in my head, which I’ve never been able to trace again. I recall a particularly mean-spirited review of the final episode of Cheers, where some misery guts said that they couldn’t think of anything worse than being in a pub “where everybody knows your name”. Not even I would write something like that, and I hate everybody and everything.

Then there was the review of Hale & Pace, where someone bitterly complained that because the duo laughed during one sketch and the production didn’t bother to re-record it, this showed a dreadful lack of professionalism. I really wish I could find this one in particular, so I could teach the writer what comedy is.

But there’s one review which I have managed to track down. Unfortunately, it’s fairly obvious why this one stuck in my head as a teenager. It was about an episode of Timewatch, which apparently contained an extremely rude piece of footage indeed. This review turned out to be easy to find, thanks to good old Newspapers.com.

Jay Rayner, The Observer, 20th June 1999:

“About 10 minutes into tonight’s¹ edition of Timewatch: Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle (BBC2, 9.40pm), a history of the pornography industry, there is a loving shot of pigs snuffling happily in their sties. If ever you doubted that Scandinavian attitudes to sexual relations are really any different to our own, the pig shot will sort you out. In 1933 Denmark became the first country in the world to legalise bestiality ‘as long as the animal wasn’t harmed’.

There are many – probably including a few pigs – who will find the connection being made here between the mainstream pornography industry and bestiality disturbing. Nevertheless, the connection exists. It is, after all, hardly surprising that the country which was minded to legalise bestiality back in the Thirties was also going to be the first to legalise hardcore pornography in 1969. In Scandinavia sex before marriage had been a part of the culture since pre-Christian times. Were they really now going to get their knickers in a twist over photographs of people having sex when they’d all been getting their knickers off for years?

As one of the commentators in this extraordinary film explains, the Danish parliament, reacting to the prevalent attitudes in Danish society, saw a distinction between what was a crime and what was a sin. You might not fancy your neighbours pig, but did that mean you should criminalise your neighbour for wanting to have carnal knowledge of it? You might not want to look at pornography yourself, but was it a crime for your neighbour to do so in private? Whether the legislators envisaged the worldwide industry that pornography has become is another question. Watching this edition of Timewatch you can’t help but feel that there was something oddly innocent about all that shagging back in the Sixties. Incidentally, this programme probably includes one of the rudest images ever shown on British television. Mind you, you’ll need a video of it and a pause button to find it.”

No doubt I would have loved to have seen this episode of Timewatch back in 1999, but suddenly feigning an interest in Timewatch as a teenager the week they do an episode about porn would have been extremely suspicious. Almost as suspicious as being interested in the serious dramatic reckonings of Baywatch. I never managed to record that either.

So what that rudest image actually was, I never had any idea. At least until now, when I finally got a chance to watch the damn thing, and scoured it for hidden filth.

The sequence in question is of a printing press, churning out hardcore magazines. Parts of the footage are censored, as they were clearly too obscene to let pass on the Beeb. But one photograph in those magazines, for whatever reason, was allowed to air intact.

So I can exclusively reveal: the image Jay Rayner is talking about is of two ladies who have just received a facial, and are grinning inanely about it.

Never let it be said I don’t answer the real TV mysteries around here.

Broadcast on the 26th June 1999. ↩

Compliance.

Published 8th May 2026

Internet / Other TV

In my day job, working in linear television, I have to deal quite a lot with compliance. On occasion, I even have had to issue my own official content warnings for various TV programmes.

It can, on occasion, be an exasperating experience. Of course, viewers need warning about certain kinds of content. But when a continuity announcement spends more time warning the viewer about potentially offensive content than setting up the actual programme, it can be a little annoying.

At times, I perhaps feel like “legacy” media needs to get with the times. Just a little.

* * *

Tonight, I posted a short Bluesky thread about Confessions of a Driving Instructor. As part of that thread, I posted an image of Lynda Bellingham with her left tit out.

Bluesky immediately labelled this as “explicit sexual images”. I am not exaggerating here. That is literally and actually the exact phrase they used. The BBC gets endlessly criticised for compliance culture… and yet Bluesky thinks an errant nipple is an “explicit sexual image”.

I have nothing to say, except: perhaps people should stop leaping on the BBC for every single damn silly thing, and consider what happens online. Just occasionally.

Keep ‘Em Peeled

Published 5th May 2026

Other TV

As long-time readers of this site will know, I have a fascination with television pilots. Let’s be specific about what I mean, here: a true pilot isn’t just the first episode of a TV show. It’s something made separately from the rest of the series, as a first attempt at an idea. I find those first attempts endlessly interesting.

These pilots make their way to an audience in many different ways. Sometimes, as with Hi-de-Hi!, they are literally transmitted as a one-off show, well before the rest of the series.¹ Others, like Yes Minister, are broadcast as part of the first series of the programme, sometimes with a few extra edits before transmission. There are ones which were transmitted purely by mistake, as per Absolutely Fabulous. And sometimes, like Drop the Dead Donkey, they were never transmitted at all, and instead became available on DVD years down the line.

And then there’s the truly interesting ones, where the pilot of a show has never been officially shown or released. One such example is Colin’s Sandwich, which I have a copy of here, but have shamefully never got around to writing about.² Sometimes, we don’t even know if these pilots still exist or not. I talk about one of the Knightmare pilots here, but it’s never leaked in all the years that the show has had an ongoing and active fandom, which makes me suspicious.

Tracking these things down – or at least attempting to – is half the fun. But once, just once, I didn’t have to make any effort in order to see an obscure pilot.

It was piped directly to me, unbidden.

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The pilot of Hi-de-Hi aired on New Years Day 1980; it was then repeated on the 19th February 1981, just before the new series of six more episodes. ↩
Friend of the site Billy Smart has written a little about the Colin’s Sandwich pilot here. ↩

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channel 5, pilots

Zodiac and Co.

Published 26th October 2025

Other TV / TV Comedy

This week, I have watched two things from 1977. One was The Spy Who Loved Me. The other was a mostly-forgotten BBC South West regional programme called Zodiac and Co. You will be unsurprised to hear I have more to say about one of those things than the other.

Zodiac and Co., best described as an astrological What’s My Line?, was presented by Jan Leeming. Her fantastic autobiography¹, Addicted to Love (Robson Books, 2003) gives a good account of the series:

“I’d been approached by Bryan Skilton, a colleague from my BBC Bristol days, and asked to front a new series of programmes to be recorded in Plymouth. Zodiac and Co.² had an interesting format. Very often with a new idea, a series will have a local showing. Then, if it is successful, it might go nationwide. This was the hope with Zodiac. However, to begin with, it was only for transmission in the West Country and our guests had to either live in the area or have an association with it.

The programme comprised a team of an astrologer, a graphologist, and a palmist. Julia Parker, whom I knew well from Women Only, was our astrologist. In advance of the programme, she would be given the guest’s birth date, time and place; Albert Hughes, the graphologist, would receive a sample of handwriting, and Lori Reid, our palmist, got a palm print. The three team members would have to reduce their deductions to one and a half minutes on camera, in which they delivered their findings about the guest. The guest would remain in a room hidden away from the panel, but a camera would record their reactions, which were shown to the audience at home. After the prognostications, the guest would join me and the team to discuss the findings.”

All very interesting. Not least because Jan Leeming has just taught me the word “prognostications”.

But there’s a particular reason why the show is of interest to us here, and it’s related to the one complete edition of the programme available on YouTube. For those of you who want to experience the complete programme as you might have done back in 1977, I’ll only give away the identity of the guest in the second half of the show after the cut.

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It really is worth reading, by the way. Anecdotes like this are typical, regarding her attack by strangers at TV Centre in 1987:

“There was a lot of discussion about security at the BBC. Actually in my opinion it was a joke. At the front of Television Centre it is like Fort Knox… but at the back of the building it was a leaky sieve. All my assailants had to do was shin over the iron railings and get in through the scene dock, or the Outside Broadcast Bay, where the cars were constantly coming and going.” ↩
You will be unsurprised to hear that this programme has many permutations when it comes to the title. Despite the logo of the programme itself not including the full stop, I’ve decided to go with the format that Jan herself uses here, which was also mostly used in contemporary publications. ↩

SWTV

Published 14th September 2024

Film / Other TV

What is the single most arousing image during the climax of Carry on Girls, at the beauty contest?

Carry on Girls: Margaret Nolan in a very revealing green swimsuit

No, not you, Margaret Nolan, put ’em away. We’re far more interested in the following:

Carry on Girls: The audience of the beauty contest, with a red and cream camera on the right

That’s a very interesting looking television camera there. If only we could get a better view.

Carry on Girls: A detailed shot of the red and cream camera

Blimey, I didn’t realise Carry On Girls strayed that far into hardcore pornography.

You will note the large SWTV letters on the side of the camera. This is the only mention of the TV company covering the beauty contest in the film; there’s no reference to them in the dialogue.¹ But the name seems clearly chosen in order to avoid bringing to mind any specific ITV franchise. If it had been STV, you might have been tempted to think of Scottish or Southern Television; WTV would have brought to mind Westward. SWTV is safely unlike any existing company in terms of name, while still fitting the idea that they serve an area which contains a seaside resort.

But enough about fantasy ITV franchises. The real question for today is: does this scene in Carry on Girls use a real camera of some description, or is it a custom-made prop?

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We only get a mention of the “fellow from the television studios”, which is slightly awkward. ↩

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carry on

Light-Hearted & Fun

Published 20th August 2024

Music / Other TV / TV Comedy

One of the great things about library music is the unexpected links it can create across some of my favourite comedy.

For instance, take the Carlin release Light-Hearted & Fun from 1989.¹ Every single track on that album was written by Andrew J. Hall. So, there’s the vaguely terrifying “Clowns”:

Which was, of course, used in Alexei Sayle’s Stuff and Monsieur Aubergine, first broadcast on the 3rd October 1991:

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The Warners site gives the release date as 1990, but every other source I’ve seen says 1989. ↩

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the fast show

Fanny, I Want Fanny

Published 2nd July 2023

Other TV

Writing Dirty Feed can lead you down some strange avenues, and making some strange comparisons. Right now, I’m reading about Chris Morris and Fanny Cradock. What the hell do that pair have in common, beyond being “broadcasters” in the most general possible sense?

Answer: both were perfectly happy for the legend to be printed, rather than the truth. Which means disentangling lies told about them, either disseminated by themselves or by others, can initially seem like an exercise in futility. After all, if they didn’t care, surely nobody else should be bothered either.

But such defeatist talk gets us nowhere. So let’s take a look at this Guardian piece from 2006, “Secret drugs menu of TV chef Fanny”. There are a number of rather dubious claims in that article, but I want to focus on one which we can easily investigate:

“Her last public appearance before she died at 85 in 1995 was on the Parkinson Show alongside Danny La Rue who was dressed in drag as Shirley Bassey. Fanny had no idea at first that ‘the woman’ was actually a man, and when she found out she stormed out of the studio.”

This sounds like it should be a huge, classic TV moment, which is well-known about. Sure enough, it was picked up by The Times in November 2007:

“Fanny Cradock, the original TV chef, never presented a show again after she upset viewers by criticising the cooking of a housewife. She stormed off a Parkinson show when she found that Danny Da Rue, her fellow guest, was a man dressed as a woman.”

And in case you wondered why I’m talking about this now, this anecdote is still being told rather more recently. In March 2018, The Mirror gave us “The red-hot private life of temperamental TV chef Fanny Cradock”:

“Consigned to chat shows, her last was on Parkinson when she stormed out after realising Danny La Rue was a man in drag.”

From this, it starts making its way into various blog posts. There’s UCBloggers in November 2020, “Fanny Cradock: Britain’s First Celebrity Chef”:

“She made her last TV appearance on the Parkinson show, but she stormed off set in horror as she realised that the woman on the show alongside her was in fact Danny La Rue in drag.”

And there’s Retro Vixen in March 2023, “A Look Back at Fanny Cradock”:

“In one of her final TV appearances, she appeared as a guest on Parkinson alongside Danny La Rue. When she realised that Danny was a man dressed up as a woman, she stormed off set.”

Of course, it’s inevitably made it onto Wikipedia, directly citing The Guardian as a source:

“Fanny appeared alone on Wogan, Parkinson and TV-am. When she appeared on the television chat show Parkinson with Danny La Rue and it was revealed to her that La Rue was actually a female impersonator, she stormed off the set.”

And bringing us right up to date, the tale even makes it into the book Camp!: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World, published in May 2023:

“Fanny and Johnnie retired to the south coast and became chat show regulars, with Fanny making her final television appearance in 1995 aged eighty-five on the Parkinson show, alongside the fabulous drag queen Danny La Rue, who happened to be dressed as Shirley Bassey. When Fanny realised that La Rue was a female impersonator she stormed out – a shame, I’m sure if she’d hung around she would have benefited enormously from his makeup tips.”

Yes, yes, very amusing. Just one problem. This anecdote is bollocks.

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best of

BBC100: Paul Daniels Live at Hallowe’en (1987)

Published 20th April 2023

Other TV

For more on this BBC100 series of posts, read this introduction.

BBC 100 logo, with Paul Daniels, Debbie McGee, and an owl

“Tonight is Halloween when strange things can happen, and even here live on BBC1, all is not what it seems.”

And with those foreboding words on Halloween night 1987, the BBC1 globe transformed into a pumpkin, and one of the most remarkable pieces of television ever transmitted began. Because this was the night that Paul Daniels was killed, live before the nation. Nobody who saw it would ever forget it.

Oh, the show starts simply enough, if atypically. The Paul Daniels Magic Show had been running since 1979 on the BBC. But instead of the usual bright, light entertainment studio, we’re greeted with a horse and carriage moving through the smoky blackness. Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee exit the carriage, in what only can be described as gothic evening dress. And after a mild levitation trick outside the main entrance, they enter a grand mansion, where we will be spending the next 40 minutes.

Yet once the show gets going, most of the programme isn’t that much different to a normal episode of Paul Daniels. Paul tells us a story about a Houdini seance, which is an excuse for some messing around with props. Eugene Berger makes two lovely appearances and does some close-up magic. Perhaps the most intriguing section is an extended setup involving a battery powered video camera, television, a representative from Panasonic… and, of course, a ghost. But even this isn’t really outside the bounds of the kind of thing his show usually does; three years earlier, he’d done a “disappearing camera trick” which is really in the same, erm, spirit.

But this is all a lead-up to the final six or so minutes. After some short film of a Houdini escape, Daniels is revealed standing in front of a huge iron maiden, the famous medieval torture device. This is to be an escape trick. “The spikes themselves – there’s 110 of them – and they’re all metal”, Daniels says, matter-of-factly. As he gets get securely fixed into the contraption, he asks Debbie to leave the room entirely. “We have people here from all walks of life. If anything at all goes wrong, don’t move from your seats unless instructed to do so.” A screen is placed in front of the iron maiden, and the escape attempt starts.

Unfortunately, something goes hideously wrong. After a few seconds, the absurdly heavy door slams shut. There is a nasty pause, and no sign of Daniels. The picture fades to black. “Ladies and gentlemen”, an unknown voice intones, “Please leave the room in an orderly fashion.” And the end credits roll, to silence. Paul didn’t complete his escape, and is now rather intimate with those solid, 110 spikes he was boasting about just a few moments ago.

Except, of course, he wasn’t. The lack of escape was the trick; a macabre piece of black theatre, perfect for Halloween. It was, however, not a piece of theatre that some viewers appreciated. Indeed, outrage was so strong that Paul ended up sending in a letter to The Times explaining himself. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, and one which not only talks about the specifics of his Halloween show, but also talks in philosophical terms about the problems faced by all television across the decades:

“In television we are, for the most part, in a no-win situation. If we continue to turn out the same format, week in week out, we are heavily criticised along the lines of “same old faces, same old scripts”, “very boring” etc, and yet when someone decides to change the format and step outside the “norm” the criticisms still come.”

As for the show itself, he provides a robust defence:

“Please remember the following facts. You were warned in the final announcement before the show started that all is not as it seems. You received definite instructions to switch off before the final trick happened if you were of a nervous disposition (If you ignored that warning that is your fault not mine). Didn’t you think it amazing that within two or three seconds of the trick ending, the BBC had on standby all the credits on a black background instead of our normal credit sequence…?”

Indeed the thing that strikes me most about the programme is how utterly fair it is on the audience. The continuity announcement all but tells you what is due to happen, if you interpret it correctly. Daniels does indeed warn you before the final trick takes place. (“I have to warn you – this can go wrong. That is not a joke. Switch off if you are of a nervous disposition…”) This is not a programme which pulls a nasty stunt with no warning. It gives you all the information you need, and then does things so perfectly that it still ends up as a shocking piece of television.

Then there’s the final moment, after those silent end credits roll. Paul Daniels himself pops back up, and does a short piece to camera. But it’s no naff “Here I am, don’t worry, I’m fine!” moment. (At least, not yet – the production did have to do one of those to be transmitted after the subsequent programme of the evening, which is a bit of a shame.) Instead, it’s altogether more subtle:

“Well, what you have just been watching was a live magic show. But this, outside here, was recorded yesterday, and all I can say is: I hope that the last illusion goes well tomorrow…”

And Daniels winks to camera. And not only is it a great joke, but it’s the utmost in treating the audience with respect. It relies on people understanding the difference between the live parts of a programme, and pre-recorded inserts in the same show. Clearly, some people didn’t get it. But I’ll choose programmes which overestimate their audience to ones which underestimate them, and maybe we could do with a bit more of the former today.

The show started something of a trend for the BBC to mess with its audience during Halloween. Five years later, the infamous Ghostwatch aired; a drama presented as a live broadcast which slowly becomes haunted itself, ending in a national mass seance. And in 2018, Inside No. 9 produced “Dead Line”, a hoax which many had thought the BBC was incapable of still doing. What other show has not only featured a fake channel breakdown, but our friendly continuity announcer being killed live on air?

But Paul Daniels was first. And for my money, best. He could have settled for doing a spooky version of his normal show, with a few pumpkins dotted around. It still would have been great fun: even his standard shows were superb TV. Instead, he pushed the boundaries of television as far as they could possibly go. All under the innocuous guise of light entertainment.

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bbc100

The Laughing Vulcan

Published 15th July 2022

Other TV

It’s funny how an anecdote can be mostly correct, and yet give entirely the wrong impression of an event.

So it is with this story from Cliff Bole, the most prolific director of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with a full 25 episodes to his name. Recently, I was reading this interview with Bole on the official Star Trek site. And something stood out to me as an obvious little mystery.

How much interaction did you have with Gene Roddenberry?

Initially, quite a bit. We met two or three times a week, creatively. He gave his input and, of course, I gave my input. I had quite a bit of Roddenberry, and with Rick and the rest of the group. Roddenberry was totally committed to it. I did one episode with a Spock-like character in it, and this character laughed. Roddenberry saw the dailies and said, “That was the biggest mistake you ever made.” I said, “Well, I was only following the script, because it was written.” Vulcans don’t laugh or smile, but it got by everybody. This laugh was kind of a broad laugh, but it was written. Anyway, we did a retake of it and it was fine, and it never happened again, I can assure you. But that was Roddenberry who picked it out.

All very interesting. Of course, Bole didn’t actually give us any of the useful information in order to identify the scene, like the name of the episode or anything. We’re forced to do the donkeywork for ourselves.

Luckily, it doesn’t end up being too difficult. Bole clearly says this happened at the beginning of his time on TNG: all we have to do is find which of his early episodes had a Vulcan in it. This turns out to be “Conspiracy” (TX: 9/5/88)¹, late in Season 1, and the third episode Bole directed.

Ah, yes, the notorious “Conspiracy”, where Picard and gang foil a parasitic invasion of Starfleet. It’s one of my favourite kinds of Star Trek, alongside episodes like DS9’s “Valiant” (TX: 6/5/98) and especially Voyager’s “Course: Oblivion” (TX: 3/3/99), where being doom-laden and unpleasant is a huge part of the point. Cue much discussion of packing head moulds with real meat and blowing them up.

But we’re interested in a different kind of transgression. “Conspiracy” features a Vulcan named Savar, played by Henry Darrow. At no point in the episode does he laugh, but that’s as expected: according to Bole, the moment was reshot due to Roddenberry’s objections. But remember: Bole does claim that the laughing moment was in the original script.

And here’s where we get lucky. Brilliantly, every single script for TNG is available online. And I really do mean script, not transcript. These are the actual drafts used for production, stage directions and all.

So, does a Vulcan laugh in the script for “Conspiracy”, or is it all a load of rubbish?²