801 Spandau Ballet in Concert

First  viewed :  14  February  1987

This  one  brings  the  "dole  era"  to  an  end; I  watched  this  on  the  Saturday  night,  knowing  I'd  be  starting  work  on  the  Monday.

This  was  a  concert  recording  from  the   The  Tube  team ,  catching  the  band  right  at  the  end  of  their  halcyon  period,  while  they  were  touring  their  last  successful  album  Through  The  Barricades .  As  readers  of  my  other  blogs  will  know , I  was  very  disappointed  by  the  band's  shift  away  from  electronic  dance  music  after  the  first  album  and  hadn't  really  been  a  fan  since  but  some  vestigial  affection  remained. That  was  rewarded  as  the  band  closed  the  set  with  a  scintillating  extended  version  of  their  debut  single  "To  Cut  A  Long  Story  Short "  which  sent  me  to  bed  happy  ( and  a  little  apprehensive  of  course ). 

800 L.A. Law

First  viewed :  1987

I  only  saw  brief  snatches  of  this  so  I'm  not  qualified  to  say  much  about  it. The  US  legal  soap  was  noted  for  its  high  gloss  production  values   which  fix  it  firmly  in  the  eighties  although  it  did  run  on  until  1994. It  had  an  ensemble  cast  although  the  two  main  stars  were  undoubtedly  stuffed  shirt  Harry  Hamlin  and  Susan  Dey  from  The  Partridge  Family  although  neither  of   them  were  with  the  show  for  the  duration. The  character  I  tended  to  notice  most  was  Benny , the  simpleminded  office  messenger  played  by  Larry  Drake   and   I  wondered  if  he  was    inspired  by  his  Crossroads  namesake.

799 Crossroads

First  viewed : Uncertain

Not  one  to  admit  you  ever  watched, but  I  did  take  in  a  few  episodes  of  the  downmarket  soap  in  its  twilight,  mainly  to  see  Gregory's  Girl  star  Dee  Hepburn.

Crossroads   was  ATV's   attempt   to  match  Coronation  Street  with  a  soap  set   in  a  motel  on  the  outskirts  of  Birmingham. It  quickly  became  a  byword  for  low  production  values  with  low-flying  boom  mikes  and  silent  telephones  being  answered   and  was  never  seen  as  anything  more  than  a  poor  relation , bumped  around  the  schedules  by  ATV's  rivals. However  it  clung  gamely  on  to  its  audience  for  more  than   two  decades.

The  series  jumped  the  shark  in  1981  when  Noele  Gordon  , who  played  the  hatchet-faced  owner  Meg  Mortimer  was  sacked. It  was  a  major  media  event   and  made  the  front  page  of  The  Sun. I  recall   seeing  that  when  I  was  on  a  walking  holiday  in  the  Lakes  that  June.  She  was  replaced  by  the  more  glamorous  Gabrielle  Drake  but  the series  never  really  recovered  from  her  departure. Central  took  over  from  ATV  in  1982  and  were  less  committed  to  the  series,  regularly  axing  cast  favourites  like  the  Fred  West -anticipating  Benny, in  a  bid  to  kill  or  cure  the  series. It  eventually  came  to  an  end  in  1988. A   revival  featuring  a  handful  of  original  characters  lasted  eighteen  months  in  2001-03.

798 The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross

First  viewed : 6  February  1987

Another  piece  of  the  modern  world  falls  into  place  here  with  the  entrance  of  a  star  who's  still  pretty  much  at  the  top  of  his  game.

Jonathan  Ross  was  an  unknown  researcher  on  Channel  4  programmes  such  as  Loose  Talk  and  Solid  Soul .  Whilst  working  on  the  latter  he  met  Alan  Marke  and  they  came  up  with  the  idea  for  a  new  chat  show  shamelessly  based  on  Late  Night  with  Letterman  and  formed  a  production  company  Channel  X  to  produce  a  pilot. Though  not  the  original  plan, positive  feedback  for  the  lisping  Ross  as  host  led  to  him  fronting  the  show.

Ross  and  Marke  reportedly  told  Tom  Jones  it  wasn't  "a  plug  show". That's  a  bit  rich ; most  of  the  guests  had  a  record / book/ film  out  at  the  time  which  got  mentioned  but  it  generally  did  try  to  lure  the  guests  out  of  their  comfort  zone  or  zoom  in  on  an  unusual  side  line.

Channel  4  didn't  seem  to  have  total  confidence  in  the  new  show  and  the  first  few  episodes  went  out  at  half  past  midnight  on  a  Friday  before  a  good  response  and  the  willingness  of  more  high  profile  guests  to  appear  led  to  a  more  civilised  10.30 pm  slot. I  came  in  at  Episode  5  attracted  by  the  appearance  of   the  American  actor  Brian  Dennehy  whom  I  admired  for  a  while. The  eccentric  nature  of  the  show  was  well  illustrated  by  the  shift  from  a  serious  interview  with  Dennehy  about  his  new  film  Belly  of  an  Architect   ( not  that  great  actually  unless  you're  a  fan  of  director  Peter  Greenaway ) to  one  with  Maria  Whittaker ,  a low-rent  Samantha  Fox  , with  whom  Jonathan  performed  a  parody  of  a  scene  from  recent  wank-fest  9 1/2  Weeks.  Also  on  that  show  were  modern  soul  group  Hot  House  featuring  the   pre-fame  Heather  Small.

I'd  never  even  heard  of  Letterman  and  found  the  show  a  very  refreshing  antidote  to  the  likes  of  Wogan  and  Harty.  The  moments  I  particularly  recall  are  :

• The  illusionist  who  seemingly  swallowed  a  length  of  string  and  then  pulled  it  out  of  his  stomach  ( don't  try  that  at  home  kids  ! )
• Sarah  Miles  being  quizzed  about  the  drinking  her  own  urine  story
•  Bonkers  American  actor  Crispin  Glover  bringing  along  what  looked  like  an  acidhead's  school  project  model  and  talking  us  through  it
• Bernard  Manning's  spoof  ad  for  his  Smiths  tribute  LP

Besides  launching  Ross   himself  as  a  major  star, the  show  is  also  remembered  for  re-vitalising  a  couple  of  music  careers. Tom  Jones  had  long  been  written  off  as  a  corny  cabaret  act  and  his  recent  musical- advertising    hit  A  Boy  From  Nowhere  was  his  first  for  a  decade. As  they  didn't  want  him  to  perform  that  Jones  suggested  he  did  the  Prince  song  Kiss,  which  he  had  recently  worked  into  his  live  set , instead.  The  response  was  tremendous  and  Jones  made  a  second  appearance  a  few  weeks  later  where  the  other  guests   - Terry  Gilliam. Dawn  French  and  Corrine  Drewery - played  along  with  an  extended  gag  about  his  supposed  reluctance  to  perform. Overnight  he  was  transformed  into  an  icon  of  ironic  cool,  a  status  he's  more  or  less  maintained  to  the  present  day. Though  not  quite  as  spectacularly, Donny  Osmond  also  did  himself  no  harm  on  the  show  with  his  dry  humour  and  willingness  to  send  himself  up  with  the  aid  of   Billy  Bragg  and  Hank  Wangford   on  a   version  of  Puppy  Love.

There  was  actually  less  of  The  Last  Resort   with  Jonathan  Ross   than  people  remember,  fewer  than  three  dozen  shows , most  of  them  in  1987. Having  made  his  mark,  Ross  moved  on  quickly  to  other  vehicles ,showing  a  fleet-footedness  that  has  served  him  well  over  the  years. The  legacy  of  the   programme  endures.   

797 The Wind and the Bomb

First  viewed  :  4  February  1987

This  was  a  short  documentary  about  the  making  of  the  film  version  of  Raymond  Briggs'  cheery  graphic  novel   about  an  old  couple  trying  to  survive  a  nuclear  attack  by  following  the   government  manual   with  predictably  disappointing  results. I  haven't  seen  the  film  so  I  can't  comment too  much  but  I  gather  it  was  a  bit  one  note i.e  how  moronic  to  believe  what  the  government  tell  you.

796 Up Line

First  viewed : 4  February  1987

I  can't  find  much  trace  of  this  black  comic  drama  from  Channel  Four  which  is  a  shame  because  it  was  excellent.

Neil  Pearson  played  Nick  Target,  the  straight  guy  in  a  struggling  alternative  comedy  trio  with  girlfriend  Patti  (  a  slimline  Caroline  Quentin )  and  her  brother  Victor  ( Paul  Bown ). At  an  audition  for  a  commercial,   he  meets  Tommy  ( Charles  Lawson )  who  draws  him  into  pyramid  selling , which  has  a  frightening  effect  on  Nick's  personality. Hugh  Laurie  and  Nigel  Terry  are  among  the  bad  guys  as  the  organisation  is  revealed  to  be  a  Scientology-like  cult.
As  a  satire  on  both  yuppie  values  and  the  New  Age  spiritualism  that  was  supposedly  replacing  them,  it  was  spot  on .      

795 We Can Keep You Forever

First  viewed :  21  January  1987

This  was  a  one-off  documentary  about   the  thorny  issue  of  whether  or  not  there  were  still  prisoners  of  war  being  held  in  South  East  Asia.  The  programme  focused  mainly  on  Laos  where  a  number  of  pilots  flying  aid  to  anti-communist  forces  in  the  so-called  "Secret  War"  were  shot  down  and  captured  by  the  Viet  Cong's  allies,  the  Pathet  Lao. Most  of  the  M.I.A.s  unaccounted  for  seemed  to  be  in  this  category. The  accumulation  of  evidence  seemed  to  be  quite  strong  and  even  Henry  Kissinger  , interviewed  for  the  programme, was  careful  not  to  entirely  dismiss  the  possibility  of  surviving  prisoners. The  programme  included  an  interview  with  a  real-life  Rambo  figure  planning  incursions  into  remote  areas  of  Laos  from  Thailand  with  the  aid  of  motley  remnants  of  the  anti -communist  force.

794 The World According To Smith and Jones

First  viewed : 11  January  1987

This  was  all  a   bit  strange. Between  Seasons  3 and  4  of  Alas  Smith  and  Jones,  Mel  and  Griff  popped  over  to  ITV  to  make  a  comedy  series  for  the  Sunday  night  slot  usually  occupied  by  Spitting  Image. It  took  the  form  of  the  duo  sitting  behind  a  desk  a  la  The  Two  Ronnies  and  presenting  a  mock-history  of  the  world  through  the  use  of  old  film  clips. It's  probably best  remembered  for  Griff  finding  some  anonymous  fat  guy  among  the  footage  and  claiming  it  to  be  one  of  Mel's  ancestors - not  exactly  high  brow  comedy. The  critics  reviled  it; I  thought  it  was  quite  well  put  together  and  harmless  wind-down  entertainment.

For  some  reason  ITV  stopped  the 12-part  series  after  episode  6 ( almost  certainly  the  last  thing  I  watched  on  the  night  before  I  started  work )  and  presented  the  rest  as  a  new  series  the  following  year. In  between, the new  season  of  Alas  Smith  and  Jones  was   broadcast  on  BBC 2  and  the  first  episode  saw  Mel  and  Griff  ripping  into  the  series  themselves. Perhaps  it  was  a  necessary  penance  as  the  Beeb  had  seriously  contemplated  cutting  them  adrift  for  their  temporary  desertion  but  it  was  odd  to  say  the  least.   

793 Rockcliffe's Babies

First  viewed : 9  January  1987

More  than  any  other  programme, this  reminds  me  of  those  first  few  weeks  of  1987  before  I  entered  the  world  of  work. More  specifically,  it  reminds  me  of  Fridays  and  a  brief  adventure  which  didn't  seem   all  that  significant  at  the time  but  had  two  big  pointers  for  the  future. In  September  1986,  I  went  to  an  Enrolment  Day  at  Rochdale  College   looking  for  something  that  might  improve  my  employability  and  signed  up  for  a  course  in  Public  Administration  there. On  the  first   morning  the  tutor  asked  us  to  list  our  qualifications  and  shortly  afterwards,  he  pulled  me  out, said  it  wasn't  the  right  course  for  me  and  he'd  arranged for  me  to  attend  a  more  advanced  course  at  Bolton  Institute  of  Higher  Education. This  turned  out  to  be  the  second  year  of  the   qualification  course  for  the  Institute  of  Chartered  Secretaries  and  Administrators,  of  which  I  wasn't  a  student  member  nor  did  I  have  a  sponsoring  authority  so  I  don't  know  what  he  had  arranged  with  regard  to  the  fees. Anyway,  I  started  attending  the  course  and  no  one  challenged  my  place  or  chased  me  for  money. Not  only  did  it  get  me  more  acquainted  with  my  future  place  of  abode, the  course  also  had  a  financial  accounting  module  which  gave  me  a  bit  of  a  head  start  when  studying  the  subject  for  real  12  months  later. Rockliffe's  Babies  was  the  viewing  highlight  of  the  evenings  after  my  last  few  attendances  there.  

 It  concerned  seven  young  plain  clothes  constables  working  for  a  London  crime  squad  under  hard  task  master  Sergeant  Rockliffe  ( Ian  Hogg )  on  a  tough  manor  known  as  "The  Dragon"  hence  the  theme  tune  of  stroppy  kids  chanting  about  social  deprivation. They  comprised  two  sensible  girls  Jan  and  Karen  ( Alphonsia  Emmanuel  and  Susannah  Shelling ) , poncey  graduate  David  ( Bill  Champion ),  headstrong,  accident-prone  Scouser  Gerry  ( Joe  McGann ), lazy  Welshman  Paul ( Martyn  Ellis ). slow-witted  yokel  Keith  ( John  Blakey )  and  street  smart  Steve  ( Brett  Fancy ). The  latter  character  dates  the  show  more  than  anything  else . Though  an  effective  copper  and  good  team  player,  Steve  was  also  an  overt  racist  with  links  to  far  right  groups  and  it's  inconceivable  now  that  any  such  character  would  be  allowed  to  go  through  two  seasons  without  being  made  to  account  for  such  transgressions.

Though  the  setting  was  grim  and  bleak, there  was  a  lot  of  humour  in the  show  in  the  banter  between  the  seven  fledglings  and  with  their  mentor. I  think  it's  probably  the  cop  show  that's  come  closest  to  recapturing  the  essence  of  The  Sweeney. On  the  downside,  Hogg's  mannered  style  of  acting  was  an  acquired  taste  that  I  never  really  savoured   and  the  whole  series  was  shot  on  VT  which  didn't  do  it  any  favours.

The  programme   ran  for  two  seasons  before  mutating  into  something  else  which  I'll  cover  as  a  separate  show. Apart  from  Shelling  whose  career  seems  to  have  ground  to   halt  a  decade  ago  they're  all  still  acting  but  none  have  become  stars, McGann  having  probably  the  highest  profile  now. For  Champion, Ellis  and  Blakey  as  well  as  Shelling  this  was  definitely  the  highpoint  of  their  careers.

792 Home and Away

First  viewed : 7  January  1987

This  was  nothing  to  do  with  Australian  soap  operas  but  a  one-off  documentary  about  two  female  footballers,  Kerry  Davis  and  Rose  Reilly. At  the  time,  the  women's  game  seemed  to  be  defined  by  the  Not  The  Nine  O  Clock  News  sketch  with  Smith  and  Jones  as  two  pervs  sitting  through  a  really  inept  display  for  the  shirt-swapping  at  the  end. That  may  have  been  an  exaggeration  but  there  was  certainly  no  money  in  it  so  Kerry  from  Crewe  and  Rose  from  Kilmarnock  had  to  up  sticks  and  sign  semi-professionally  for  Italian  clubs, Lazio  and  AC  Milan  respectively. Rose  had  actually  been  playing  in  Italy  for  over  a  decade   but  Kerry  hadn't  taken  any  Italian  lessons  beforehand  and  was  struggling  to  settle. I  remember  doing  a  radio  interview  and  tetchily  asking  them "Do  you  not  think  I  would  speak  Italian  if  I  could ?" The  programme  climaxed  with  a  game  between  the  two  sides ; I  can't  recall  who  came  out  on  top.

Despite  her  issues  Kerry  did  play  for  four  seasons  in  Italy  for  Lazio  and  Napoli   before  returning  to  the  UK  and  is  remembered  as  a  top  England  international  as  the  women's  game  rose  in  status. Rose  played  on  until  she  was  forty  and  appeared   for  both  Scotland  and  Italy , winning  the  women's  world  cup  with  the  latter  in  1984.

791 Sporting Triangles

First  viewed : 7  January  1987

This  was  ITV's  belated  attempt  to  match  BBC  One's  long-running  A  Question  of  Sport.  The  teams  of   sporting  celebrities  had  to  navigate  their  way  around  a  Trivial  Pursuits-style  board  answering  questions  relating  to  their  own  sport  or  others,  depending  where  they  landed.  Like  its  rival  Sporting  Triangles  started  with  two  teams  of  three  under  resident  captains  Jimmy  Greaves  and  Tessa  Sanderson. It  switched  to  three  teams  of  two  when  Emlyn  Hughes  was  poached  from  AQOS . Andy  Gray  began  his  TV  career  here  as  an  alternative  captain, the  shows  featuring  three  out  of  the  four  in  random  combinations. Nick  Owen  was  quizmaster  for  the  first  two  seasons  then  was  replaced  by  Andy  Craig  until  the  show  was  axed  in  1990.

I  checked  out  the  first  episode  with  its  strong  line  up  of  guests  ( Bryan  Robson, Dennis  Taylor, Seb  Coe  and  Lloyd  Honeyghan )  but  didn't  watch  much  of  it  after  that. That's  not  because  I  thought  it  was  atrocious  but   I'm  not  a  general  sports  fan  and  didn't   have  the  appetite  for  two  sports  quiz  programmes  a  week.

790 Alfred Hitchcock Presents

First  viewed : 6  January  1987

Alfred  Hitchcock  Presents  was  a  re-boot  of  an  American  TV  classic  from  the  fifties  and  early  sixties   whereby  the  great  film  director  would  play  on  his  reputation  as  the  master  of  suspense  with  a  campy  monologue  and  epilogue  bookending  a  short  drama. Hitchcock  himself  only  directed  a  handful  of  them  but  it  was  an  extremely  popular  series.

Twenty  years  after  it  finished , NBC  decided  to  revive  it  with  re-filmed  versions  of   previous  episodes  and  some  entirely  new  stories. Of  course  Hitchcock  had  been  dead  for  five  years  by  then  but  they  colorised   his  contributions  and  re-used  them, fitting  the  most  apposite    they  could  find  to  the  new  stories  and  hoping  for  the  best.  It  ran  for  four  years.

ITV  ( or  at  least  Granada )  broadcast  it  very  late  at  night  and  the  only  one  I  recall  watching  is  The  Creeper  ( one  of  the  re-filmed  stories )   because  it  starred  Karen  Allen. She  played  Jackie  Foster, a  paranoid  yuppie  woman  who  is  plagued  by  a  stalker  and  ends  up  garotted  by  someone  she  actually  does  trust.

789 Inspector Morse

First  viewed  :  January  1987

I  wasn't  a  great  fan  of  this  when  it  started  and  I  think  I  saw  most  of  it  through  repeats  in the  nineties. I  thought if  John  Thaw  wanted  to  do  another  police  detective  series  then  it  should  be  as  Jack  Regan, older  and  possibly  wiser  but  still  in  and  around  "the  manor " ,not  poncing  around  Oxford  listening  to  classical  music in  a  fancy  old  Jaguar. I  found  his  attempt  at  an  upper  class  accent  particularly  aggravating.

The  series  was  liberally  based  on  the  novels  by  Colin  Dexter; the  Lewis  character  as  played  by  Kevin  Whately  was  completely  different  from  the  man  described  in  the  books. There  were  originally  seven  seasons  of  3-5  episodes  between  1987  and  1993  then  Thaw  went off  to do  Cavanagh  Q.C.  probably  to  the  relief   of  Dexter  who  was  struggling  to  keep  pace  with  the  series. Thereafter,  there  was  one  episode  per  year  until  the  character  was  killed  off  in  2000. There  have  been  two  spin-off  series  Lewis  ( which  may  have  just  finished ) and  Endeavour ( ongoing ),

Although  I  did  get  to  like  it, I  don't  completely  endorse  it. For  all  its  high  production  values, I don't  think  it  always  justified  its  two  hour  length. There  are  only  two  episodes  ( both  from  the  1992  season ) where  I  can  recall  the  plot  in  detail, the  infamous  rave  story  directed  by  Danny  Boyle  where  Morse  investigates  the  suicide  of  his  neice  and  has  to  brush  up  on  what  these  young  people  are  getting  off  on  and  the  one  where  an  old  flame  of  Morse   helps  arrange  her  dying  partner's  suicide  to  frame  his  son-in-law  whose infidelity  caused  his  daughter's  death.

788 Carrot Confidential

First  viewed : 3  January  1987

Jasper  was  back  with  a  new  vehicle, four  years  after  Carrott's  Lib  finished.

Carrott  Confidential  was  on  a  bit  earlier  on  a  Saturday  evening  than  Carrott's  Lib  so  the  content  was  toned  down  a  bit  and  he  didn't  have  as  strong  a  team  around  him. I  think  Steve  Punt  and  Hugh  Dennis  have  improved  over  the  years  but  they  were  awful  at  this  point, their  solo  slot  the  equivalent  of  Ronnie  Corbett's  armchair  turn  in  The  Two  Ronnies.

Carrott  Confidential  also  had  less  political  content  although  Jasper  did  come  a  cropper  when  he  made  an  offhand  remark  about  Denzil  Davies  MP, seemingly  selected  at  random, being  drunk   in  the  Commons. Before  the  following  week's  programme, the  Beeb  had  to  broadcast  a  grovelling  apology  to  Davies  for  the  offence  caused.

Carrott  Confidential   ran  for   two  seasons  before  another  re-boot  as  Canned  Carrott  in  1990. 

787 Name That Tune

First  viewed  : Uncertain

This  had  been  running  since  1976  with  Tom O' Connor  as  the  first  host   and  it's  quite  likely  that  I'd  caught  some  of  it  before  1986  but  that's  when  it  started  preceding  Coronation  Street  with  irritating  song-and-dance  man  Lionel  Blair  ( who  succeeded  O' Connor  in  1983 ) as  host.

I  now  look  back  in  wonder  at  my  naivete  in  pondering  how  a  contestant  in  the  final  round  could  identify  a  song  like  Let  Me  Be  The  One  ( The  Shadows' long-forgotten  Eurovision  entry  in  1975 )  from  one  note  on  the  piano.  Now  it's  perfectly  obvious   that  the  tune  was  selected  from  a  narrow  range  of  songs   to  which  the  contestants  had  prior  exposure  before  the  show  went  on  air.

The  show  was  axed  in  1988  with  a  revival  hosted  by  Jools  Holland  on  Channel  5  in  1997-98.

786 EastEnders

First  viewed  :  25  December  1986

When  this  started  in  February  1985,  I  instantly  took  against  the  idea  of  the  BBC  having  a  twice  weekly  soap. The  idea  of  a  public  service  broadcaster  spending  the  licence  fee  on  a  product  already  well   supplied  by  the  commercial  channels  seemed   like  a  capitulation  to  Thatcherite  philistinism. I  also  suspected  that  it  in  part  stemmed  from  Southerners'  resentment  that  the  nation's favourite  soap  was  firmly  embedded  in  the  industrial  north. I  made  a  deliberate  point  of  not  watching  it  and  hoped  it  would  soon  fall  flat  on  its  face.

Initially  it  looked  like  my  hopes  would  be  realised. Only  one  person, a  Londoner  of  course,  in  my  hall  of  residence  seemed  interested  in  it. However  when  I  came  back  to university  in  the  autumn,  I  realised  everything  had  changed . The   father  of   young  Michelle's  baby  had  become  a  hot  topic  among  my  peers  and  the  soap's  stars  were  now  all  over  the  tabloids. The  following  year  they  all  started  crashing  the  charts  with  terrible  records, none  more  so  than  Nick  Berry's  Every  Loser  Wins, the  worst  number  one  of  all  time.

The  first  time  I  caught  a  snatch  was  the  tail  end  of  the  Christmas  Day  episode  in  1986  because  I'd  come  down  for  Only  Fools  and  Horses. It  was  the  one  where  "Dirty"  Den  Watts  ( Leslie  Grantham )   tells  his  wife  Ange  he's  divorcing  her. Grantham  is  a  particular  bugbear  for  me. One, he's  a  bloody  awful  actor  with  only  two  expressions- sneering  psychopath  or  bug-eyed  maniac. Two  he's  a  fully  fledged  murderer  that  I  don't  particularly  want  to  support  through  the  licence  fee. I  just  don't  get  how  the  people  that  holler  for  racists  and  sex  offenders  to  be  banished  from  our  screens  are  content  that  he  still  has  an  acting  career.

The  more  attention  the  show  got,  the  more  resolved  I  became  never  to  watch  a  full  episode  of  it. This  became  more  difficult  when  my  sister  returned  home  in  1987 and  infected  Mum  with  the  virus. The  peril  increased  after  I  got  married  and  found  my  wife  was  a  fan. I  can  proudly  say  I  still   haven't  watched  an  episode  from  start  to  finish  but  I  have  come  dangerously  close. One  Sunday  afternoon,  I  came  home  drenched  and  exhausted  from  an  arduous  walk  and  sat   on  the  sofa   through  most  of  an  omnibus  edition  where  John  Junkin  played  a  former  boys  home  warden  who'd  mistreated  Billy  Mitchell. I  also  saw  a  fair  chunk  of  the  one  where  Martin  Kemp's  character   made  his  fiery  exit.  Fortunately,  my  wife  threw  it  off  some  time  in  the  mid-noughties  and  the  danger  has  passed. 

785 Court Report Australia

First  viewed : 18  December  1986

This  was  a  late  night  Channel  Four  programme  providing  a  speedy  dramatisation  of  recent  events  in  a  Sydney  courtroom  where  the  British  government  was  trying  to  prevent  the  publication  of  a  memoir  by  a  former  M15  officer  Peter  Wright. Wright  now  lived  in  Tasmania, but  dissatisfied  with  his  pension, he  decided  to  publish  his  account  despite  having  signed  a  lifelong  confidentiality  agreement  on  commencing  employment. The  British  government  brought  a  case  in  Australia  that  they  should  co-operate  in  suppressing  the  book  because  of  this  breach  of  contract.

The  Spycatcher  affair  became  a  cause  celebre  for  the  left  because  of  Wright's  claims  that  fellow  agents  were  active  in  a  plot  to  bring  down  Harold  Wilson's  Labour  government.  To them, that  was  obviously  the  reason  Thatcher  wanted  it  banned .Even  those  of  us  in  the  centre  were  enjoying  the  sight  of  Thatcher  not  getting  everything  her  own  way

The  Australian  court  case  which  the  UK  government  lost  is  remembered  for  two  main  reasons. One  is  that  defending  Wright  gave  a  big  public  platform  to  an  ambitious  young  lawyer  named  Malcolm  Turnbull  who  is  now  sitting  pretty  as  Australia's  Prime  Minister. The  proceedings  also  left  their  mark  when  the  UK  government's  fall  guy, the  Cabinet  Secretary  Sir  Robert  Armstrong, conceded  to  Turnbull  that  governments  sometimes  had  to  be  "economical  with  the  truth", a  phrase  that  is  now  in  every  day  use.

After  the  defeat  in  Sydney, imported  copies  winged  their  way  into  the  UK  and  Labour  MP  Dale  Campbell-Savours  started  reading  extracts  in  the  Commons  to  get  it  into  Hansard  but  the  government  fought  on   for  the  next  eighteen  months  to  stop  it  being  published  in  England . On  the  day  of  its  final  defeat  in  1988,  a  special  Panorama  programme  was   broadcast. It  revealed  the  outcome  of  their  own  investigation  into  Spycatcher  in  which  a  cornered  Wright  admitted  that  his  headline  claims  were  sensational  exaggerations  to  generate  sales. The  infamous  anti-Labour  plot  amounted  to  nothing  more  than  a  lunchtime  pub  conversation.

What  was  that  about  sound  and  fury  and  signifying  nothing. ?

784 Infected

First  viewed : 16  December  1986

I've   effectively  covered  this  here.

783 Fonda : The Man and his Movies

First  viewed  : 15  December  1986

This  was  a  late  night  repeat  of  a  tribute  documentary  made  in  the  wake  of  the  actor's  death  in  1982. It  was  narrated  by  Arthur  Hill  and  covered  both  his  career  and  his  personal  life  including  his  many  marriages  and  difficult  relationships  with  his  children. I  can't  really  think  of  anything  more  to  say  about  it; it  was  just  one  of  those  let's  not  go  to  bed  yet  viewings.    

782 Beadle's About

First  viewed :  Uncertain

This  was  never  the  coolest  show  to  admit  you  enjoyed  but  you'd  be  hard  pressed  not  to  find  something  amusing  in  Jeremy  Beadle's  pranks. Beadle's  About  was  basically  Game  for  A  Laugh  with  the  other  three  planks  jettisoned. Jeremy  had  a  studio  audience  but  the  bulk  of  the  show  was  replaying  the  set-ups  on  film. The  pranks  would  always  end  up  with  Jeremy  appearing  in  a  thin  disguise  and  the  victim  realising  he/she  had  been  had.  The  participants  would  then  be  invited  to  the  studio  for  Jeremy  to  have  a  final  word  with  after  the  film  had  been  run.

The  show  ran  for  ten  years  and  was  replaced  with  the  similar  It's  Beadle.

781 North and South

First  viewed : December  1986

This  epic  US  mini-series   about  the   American  Civil  War  was  based  on  a  set  of  novels  by  John  Jakes  and  was  a  worthy  successor  to  The  Thorn  Birds  in  the  trash  stakes. I  only  dipped  in  and  out  but  my  mum  and  sister  watched  it  throughout. The  latter  had  been  to  the  US  during  the  summer  and  seen  one  of  the  major  locations  used  in  the  series.

It  concerned  two  friends  Orry  ( Patrick  Swayze )  and  George  ( James  Read )  who  were  at  military  academy  together  but  then  find  themselves  on  opposite  sides  in  the  conflict  and  of  course  keep  bumping  into  each  other.  Orry's  simpering  love  interest  Madeline  was  played  by  English  actress  Lesley-Anne  Down; she  was  32  at  the  time  and  as  Upstairs  Downstairs   was  literally  half  a  lifetime  ago  for  me,   it  was  very  difficult  to  accept  her  as  an  ingenue  with  a  Southern  accent. Kirstie  Alley  was  also  in  it  as  George's  sister  Virgilia, an  anti-slavery  fanatic. Historical  figures  popped  up  regularly  with  Hal  Holbrook  playing  Lincoln.

The  cast  also  featured  many  Hollywood  vets  slumming  it  including  repeat  offenders  Jean  Simmonds  and  Robert  Mitchum   but  also  James  Stewart  and  Olivia  de Havilland.

There  was  a  shorter  second  series  made in  1994  but  if  it  was  shown  in   the  UK  I  never  saw  it.

  

780 40 Minutes

First  viewed : Uncertain

This  documentary  strand  on  BBC  Two  had  been  running  since  1981  so  I  think  I  must  have  caught  sight  of  it  before, but  the  first  programme  I  can  definitely  recall  is  a  two-parter  from  December  1986  entitled  The  Chosen  Few which  followed  the  fortunes  of  two  applicants  for  the  Civil  Service, an  opinionated  male  leftie  and  a  middle  of  the  road  public  school  girl. Given  I  was  job-hunting  at  the  time,  it  was  of  considerable  interest  although  I  never  applied  to join  the  Civil  Service  myself.

I  can't  remember  now  which  one  of  them  got  the  job. He  seemed  to  be  rubbing  the  panel  up  the  wrong  way  while  her  suggestion  of  a  buffer  state  between  Israel  and  its  hostile  neighbours  was  rightly  ridiculed. Perhaps  it  was  neither  of  them  as  there  were  other  candidates  in  the  field  who  weren't  filmed.

Raging  Belles   ( 09.03.1989 )

This  one  concentrated  on  the  female  wrestling  world   and  featured  two  contrasting  ladies  as  they  edged  towards  a  showdown  for  the  British   Ladies' Championship  Belt. One  was  a  peroxided  tub  of  lard  from  Liverpool  called  Klondyke  Kate  , who  wore  black  and  was  a  "heel",  in  the  Mick  McManus  mould, regularly  pausing  to  shout  abuse  at  the  spectators. If  I  remember  correctly, she  was  also  around  four  months  pregnant  at  the  time.  The  other , Vicky  Monroe, was  a  big  girl  but  quite  attractive  and  played  a  straight  bat. I  can't  actually  remember  who  won  the  Belt.