So you know exactly how we play the game – I ask you a question and you get a chance to double your money. Hughie Green, Most Sincerely starring Trevor Eve & Mark Benton & Emma Stansfield & Kim Thomson et al, BBC 2008
Perhaps a little side-piece on all the female contestants you’ve been screwing. ibid. Noel Botham to Hughie Green
What do you imagine Jess Yates has that I haven’t? ibid. Green to television guy
I might have a fourteen-year-old daughter! ibid. Hughie to Mrs Yates
For one week only we broadcast from a nuclear submarine base. ibid. Hughie to Isaacs
Talent rises from the murkiest swamps and quagmires. ibid. Hughie Green to children’s television guy
Freedom from strikes, better management, and from us all – guts. ibid. Hughie’s political rant
Hello and welcome to The Tube. ibid. Hughie sees Paula’s show
Paula’s New Boomtown Rugrat. ibid. newspaper article
It was her request that you not be there. ibid. Hughie’s daughter to Hughie, re mother’s funeral
In your day you never talked about it to the press. ibid. friend in pub to Hughie
When I die I hope the press have a field day. Let it all come out. I don’t care. ibid. Hughie to Botham and friend in pub
Doctor: Smoking. Drinking. Amphetamines. Stress ...
Hughie: All these things maketh the man. ibid.
Two days after Hughie Green’s funeral, the News of the World ran a story by Noel Botham, claiming that Paula Yates was Hughie’s daughter. Seven months later a DNA test confirmed this to be true. In September 2000 Paula Yates was found dead in her home. She was forty-one years old. ibid. caption
Noel Botham, a former journalist and restaurateur, stunned the congregation when he announced that one of Britain’s most famous celebrities was actually Hughie’s love child.
The following Sunday, in the News of the World, Botham identified the child as Paula Yates, the vivacious and irreverent presenter of shows such as The Tube.
[Linda] Plentl can still recall feeling shocked when she heard Botham’s bombshell. ‘My father never mentioned that man by name. Not once. That’s why, when the funeral took place, I couldn’t believe someone I’d never heard of was reading the eulogy.
‘His revelation sent a shock wave through the congregation. We were given no warning and my brain just froze. I stared at the priest in absolute horror.’
For a long time, Plentl thought that Botham had acted off his own bat. But recently, she has begun to wonder if her father had orchestrated the announcement.
‘I have come to imagine that this may now be possible. I don’t think my father would have deliberately set out to hurt us, but he wouldn’t have cared about us being hurt. He would have regarded that as collateral damage.’
The revelation that Yates was Green’s love child – her mother was Helene Thornton, a former showgirl – sparked a tabloid feeding frenzy. The Telegraph online article 29th November 2011, ‘The Life and Many Loves of Hughie Green’
The art of television commentary is to say as little as possible, and when you do speak to be as helpful as you can. Harry Carpenter
A novel aspect of the coronation was that it was televised ... Twenty million people managed to watch. Andrew Marr, Diamond Queen III, BBC 2012
The Queen was having to deal with the new medium of television. ibid.
During World War II, labor leader John L Lewis called a coal miners’ strike just before Christmas. NBC opened its radio newscast with the words, ‘John L Lewis just shot Santa Claus’. In the next hour, thirty thousand calls inundated the network’s switchboards. A Texas boy despaired and downed a bottle of castor oil. So frightening was the reaction that NBC hurriedly staged an ‘interview with Santa Claus’ to reassure Americans that the jolly old elf was still alive. Tom Flynn, The Trouble with Christmas
Reason #1: To Teach and Perpetrate the Santa Claus Myth, Parents Must Lie to Their Children. Reason #2: The Santa Claus Myth Exploits Characteristic Weakness in Young Children’s Thinking, Perhaps Obstructing Their Passage to Later Stages of Cognitive Development. Reason #3: To Buoy Belief, Adults Stage Elaborate Deceptions, Laying Traps for the Child’s Developing Intellect. Reason #4: The Myth Encourages Lazy Parenting and Promotes Unhealthy Fear. Reason #5: The Number of Characteristics that Santa Claus Shares with God and Jesus Verges on the Blasphemous. ibid.
What price are we paying for lying to children about Santa Claus? It may be steeper than we think. Because the myth panders to childhood credulity, some have implicated it in the rising incidence of scientific illiteracy among the young. Because it encourages children to build their world views on authority, not on independent thinking, others have related it to the abysmal judgment supposedly displayed by young adults. Can parents honestly be surprised when children do not consult them before experimenting with sex, drugs, crime, or destructive relationships – so soon after their parents have made it clear that children cannot trust them to provide accurate knowledge of the world? A Christian parent put the issue clearly in a letter to the editor:
‘Certainly we can’t get away with lies for seven to ten years and then expect children to ‘outgrow’ Santa ... then suddenly expect them to believe us when we mention high intensity moral issues.
‘Simply being honest with our children, in my opinion, would outweigh anything Santa ever brought.’ ibid.
Tonight we bring you this week’s edition of the popular panel game What on Earth was That? Left, Right and Centre 1959 starring Ian Carmichael & Alastair Sim & Patricia Bredin & Richard Wattis & Eric Barker & Moyra Fraser & Jack Hedley & Gordon Harker & William Kendall & George Benson, et al, director Sindey Gilliat, television
[gets into bed] Dougal: Did you ever want to get into television yourself, Ted?
Ted: Ah no I wouldn’t be interested in that kind of thing really. ibid.
Tom: Father, I’ve killed a man.
Ted: Well, Tom, I’ll have to talk to you about that later. I’m doing an interview for television. ibid.
Ted, Biker Grove! Father Ted: The Plague s2e6, Dougal and Ted watch television, Channel 4 1996
There really is nothing like the buzz of live TV whether you’re watching it or making it. But when things wrong live on tele there is no Take Two. When Live TV Goes Horribly Wrong, Channel 5 2017
Lorraine [fire alarms and messages] … The Time The Place [claims of racism from audience members about black bloke modelling dress] … National Lottery [invasion by Fathers For Justice] … Dancing on Ice [professional falls and dislocates shoulder] … Big Brother’s Bit on the Side [backside of dress splits] … Little Cousin, Italy [two young ladies fight] … The Wright Stuff [cameraman falls + windowcleaner + fire cracker] … Weather Australia [pelican attacks presenter + flying weatherman faints in plane] … Channel 9 I-Phone Report [phone smashes on pavement] … Greek News 2010 [nude man wearing groinal sock] … Indian TV Channel 9 News [falls down sewer] … That Was the Week that Was [author attacks Bernard Levin] … Loose Women [argument over presenter mocking cancer sufferer] … TV7 Italy [earthquake] … drunk Serge Gainsborough: ‘I want to fuck her’ to Whitney Houston … Charlie Drake knocked unconscious then thrown through window … Tour de France crashes … Jockey’s trousers … One Porsche parked on top of other … Australian 9 News: South Wins [man strips] … Cruffs [owner falls + dog poops] … David Dimbleby’s silence … Eurovision [presenter’s coat caught in wires + voter doesn’t have votes + phone dysfunction + sisters argue and walk off stage + bloke jumps on stage and joins song] … Fame: The Musical (Ireland) [wrong winner announced] … PNS [trick goes wrong: spiked hand] … Shopping channel [sneeze + squirting cream + set collapse + bendy ladder collapse + presenter falls etc.] … Greek custard pie protest … Dennis Skinner loses temper … Fighting politicians … etc. ibid.
Television: the small screen, the idiot box, boy do we love watching the tele especially when it doesn’t quite do to plan. When TV Goes Horribly Wrong, Channel 5 2018
Bobby Davro, Public Enemy Number 1: put in stocks, stocks fall over … Richard Hammond’s accident on Top Gear … The X-Factor: disastrous presenting skills … Cheryl Crow’s miming disaster … Bananarama’s performance on The Tube … Owen Paul’s misses cue to backing track on Pebble Mill … Top of the Pops miming … Divas not heard on GMTV… Jemini out of tune on Eurovision … Australia’s Next Top Model: wrong winner given … Miss Universe 2015: wrong winner … Duff Interviews with: Meg Ryan (Parkinson 2003), Tarantino (Channel 4 News 2013), Robert Downey junior (Channel 4 News 2015), Samuel L Jackson (KTLA5 2014) … John Sweeney on Panorama … Fight on the X-Factor … Fight on Jordanian current affair programme 2014 … WGN Morning News disaster … Gordon Brown describes woman of racism captured on microphone … Prince Charles insults press guy … The Six O’Clock News gay presenters … Going Live swearing … Shaun Ryder swears on various TV programmes … Bad interviews: David Cassidy, Oliver Reed, George Best … This Morning shows live vasectomy … Space Shuttle explosion … Tommy Cooper collapses on stage … Dr Who After Party: One Direction delayed telephone interview … BBC broadcasts clips of children’s television outtakes instead of Obama interview outside Number Ten … Duff continuity announcers … Anthea Turner amid explosion … Jeremy Corbyn reads out autocue instructions at Party conference … BBC weather fails to forecast hurricane … ibid.
Remember the Joe Pyne Show from the sixties? Evocateur: The Morton Downie jr Show, Downie, CNN 2015
Certain things really burn my bunns … The morality of this country is on a low ebb and it’s getting lower. ibid. 1987
Why don’t you shut up! … What you’re doing is spilling garbage. ibid.
I thought anyone who had breasts was a feminist. ibid.