The Time Bubble

Recap: Jason has been invited to the BBC to pitch his programme ideas. He's just arrived and been shown into the meeting room where Geoff is waiting... Jason: Good evening! Geoff: Good evening? It's 11am! Jason: Ah, sorry about that - I thought I'd come in character, you see. I was playing the role of one of my favourite characters, Lord Bicester. He always greets people by saying that, morning, noon and night. Geoff: Hilarious, I'm sure. Perhaps it'll grow on me. Would you care for some coffee and biscuits? Jason: Have you got any sausages? Pork Pies, anything like that? It's nearly lunchtime after all. Can you organise a buffet? Geoff: I beg your pardon? Jason: I was told you could have anything you wanted in the BBC? Sorry, I was in character again. That was Bloaticus. He eats a lot. I am actually a bit hungry though. Had a few beers last night, need to soak it up a bit. You know how it is. Geoff: I don't actually. I tend to keep my drinki...

To make a change from the recent discussions, I thought it was high time I did something more light-hearted on here, so I'm introducing a new fictitious segment to the blog which I'm calling "The Monday Sketch". This will give me a chance to play with some ideas that have been knocking around in my mind, as well as a chance to re-introduce some of my old characters you may remember from the past. Picture the scene: Two busy BBC executives are sat in their office, trying to make plans for the new Autumn season on BBC1. We'll call them Phil and Geoff. Phil is a young, excitable man, fresh from an assignment on BBC3 and looking to liven up BBC1. Geoff, his manager, is old school, a grizzled veteran who likes to stick with tried and trusted ideas. Geoff: So, Saturday nights on BBC1. We've got Doctor Who , Strictly and Casualty . That still means we've got a half hour slot to fill before the News and Match Of The Day . What else can we put on? Phil: W...

I may have to rename this blog and my twitter account Bicester Banger soon, such has been the huge response to my recent excursion to Shropshire in my newly found role of sausage taster. In the meantime, in an attempt to come up with an amusing title for this blog entry you can see that I've come up with Bangers 'n' Cash - this is in recognition that I was delighted today to receive my first offer of a paid interview for my story - I won't say who from or how much as that would be inappropriate, however, it's very pleasing for me that all the time I have invested into my writing career is finally beginning to come to fruition. Speaking of inappropriate things, I went all through the alphabet thinking of words that rhymed with "Mash" whilst looking for my blog title, which produced some amusing combinations! I shan't lower the tone but I have been trying to think of a title for my going around the world eating a sausage in every country TV idea, but...

It's impossible not to get nostalgic about things as one gets older. Time moves on, the world changes, people are replaced by other people and things are replaced by other things. Nostalgia is not always a good thing. Wistfully looking back on supposedly happy childhood things can have a way of coming back and biting you in the arse. All I can say is I am so glad that my sister's and mine letter to Jim'll Fix It were never answered. 3 things this week gave me food for thought. Firstly, that great institution, Ceefax, disappeared from our TV screens after 34 years. I am sure I don't need to explain what Ceefax is to anyone, but I can tell you a little about my relationship with it. It started in 1974 but I didn't become aware of it for a while after this, until the daytime TV schedules, mostly BBC2 started showing "pages from Ceefax". Now it's hard to explain how exciting this seemed to a young lad back in the late 1970s, but innovations such as dig...

Now for those of you who might get a little way through this blog and get bored because you think I am just rambling on about old TV shows, I recommend staying with it, as I'm building up to something - and all the funny bits are at the end, but you have to read the whole article to follow the flow! As you may have heard, two old black and white episodes of Doctor Who have been discovered. This means there are now 106 episodes still missing from the 60's, out of 253 made during that period. Thankfully these all still exist in audio format. Why? Because geeky fans in the 60s held up tape recorders to their TV sets to record them. Before you say that's sad, well I was not alive in the 60s, but I can imagine it was the sort of thing that I would have done. Doctor Who is by no means the only programme this affects, only a handful of episodes exist from many other shows of the period e.g. Till Death Us Do Part and Z Cars. It's not just the BBC that's affected, some...