Russell Harty and Grace Jones: My Fault

So Fabio Capello appears to have survived his first weekend with the British press.

Apart from photos of him holding a wooden spoon (!) in his “favourite” Rome restaurant and dancing in a tutu, England’s new manager is still “Fab” in the tabloids. I’ll give it a fortnight.

The first time I came across the tabloid press was when, at the age of 19 at York University, I made a little student film called Corridor. It cost just £200, funded partly by the Arts Council, but mostly by a whip-round in the Students Union bar.

It was a typically self-indulgent piece of undergraduate nonsense: a lonely student walks down a corridor in a hall of residence and the camera reveals various cameos behind the doors. As he passes the bathroom, we see a buxom blonde trying to persuade a nervous nerd to join her in the bath. It was supposed to be funny: no naughty bits were shown, and the entire scene lasted about ten seconds.

The few days before the premiere (it was being shown in a double bill with Barbarella), I received a call from a freelance journalist who seemed to be interested in my creative achievement. I spouted on about alienation in student life.

I heard nothing more until the following Sunday, when I had a call from my mother in Tynemouth. Anxious relatives were telephoning her from all over the country. For emblazoned across an entire page of the Sunday Mirror was the headline “Students In Sex Film Shocker”.

All next week I received hate mail from Christian fundamentalists. At least the premiere was packed – albeit with a strange collection of men with raincoats. They were very disappointed.

I used this experience later in life when I was the producer of the Russell Harty chatshows. The series had been put in a slot on BBC2 normally reserved for arts programmes. Three weeks into the run, with the audience figures languishing at about a million, I booked Grace Jones.

It was my fault she hit him. I’d never produced a chatshow before, so I decided to ring the changes by arranging the guests on either side of Russell, rather than using the traditional formation of host on one side and guests lined up down the other. As a result, when he finished talking to Grace, who I think had arrived from another planet, Russell turned to the next guest and in doing so, faced away from her. “Don’t you turn your back on me!” she screamed, and bonked him on the head.

It was only a gentle tap, but two minutes later, the BBC press office rang. At the end of the show, the street outside the theatre was full of flashbulbs. The next day we were on every front page. The following week we had three million viewers.

So I decided then and there to forge an alliance with the devil.

Hercules the Bear had gone missing off a Scottish island. When he was found, I brought him to London to wrestle with Russell. Then we had the newsreader Jan Leeming singing (if you could call it that). Each time we tipped off the papers and staged the “event” a few hours ahead of the live show so we could hit the deadlines, and the front pages.

The tabloids and I were, literally, joined at the hype. After a few weeks the ratings hit six million.

A few weeks ago in my Journal column I casually mentioned that I had had a meeting with Peaches Geldof. The following weekend one national paper had blown up the story into two full pages about how we were bringing The Tube back to Newcastle. How they made that connection, I’ve no idea. It would be nice, but it’s not true: we just had a meeting. But it’s good to know they read The Journal.

So “ello” Fab. Welcome to our crazy world. Just be wary of ageing blonde TV presenters and fake sheikhs.

Baked Potatoes and Peterborough

I'm somewhere near Doncaster, on my weekly train to London, finishing my scrambled eggs. Breakfasts on the train haven't been the same since they took Robson's Craster kippers off the menu.

Soon I'll be looking sympathetically on the poor people boarding at Peterborough and wondering what on earth made them live in such a dull flatland of a region. Because the geography of a region is directly reflected in the creativity and sense of humour of its inhabitants, I'll be basking in the superior glow of someone who knows just how lucky he is to be returning to Northumberland tonight.

Last week's London trip brought a meeting with Peaches Geldof to talk about a new TV programme idea, then an afternoon at ITV, trying to persuade them to buy a new gameshow. It took us six weeks to plan the pitch, and precisely half an hour for them to turn it down. So Jo and I took solace in the ultimate home of comfort food, The Ivy.

I have a friend who flies up from his home in Provence twice a year just to join me at The Ivy for their French roast chicken. I was there during the famous Ivy lock-in, when the police refused to let us leave because the IRA had planted a bomb in the next street. The owners opened champagne and all the celebrities danced on the tables singing hits from the shows. I've only once had an unhappy evening there, which was with my ex-wife on our first and last wedding anniversary. Julie Andrews, sitting at the next table, complained to the manager because we were rowing so loudly.

Last week's experience was much more pleasant, though the only star sighting was Andrew Lloyd Webber holding court with his Connie/Maria girl.

Later, I thought I caught sight of the back of Monty Don's head. A year ago I wouldn't have blinked, because to me gardening was as dull as a London football derby. When I was young, my parents had an allotment. There, in sub-zero temperatures, they would prise frozen sprouts from their stalks on Christmas Eve. Why they couldn't go to Walter Willson's like everyone else was beyond me. But now, having relocated from Southern California (which grows only dry, fire-ready scrubland) and Hampstead (where an allotment is called a patio), I have my very own vegetable garden and I've discovered the meaning of fresh. We now have enough potatoes to last us through till Christmas Day.

But only just. Jo, who as a Californian is enduring her first Northumbrian autumn, offered to help me with the harvest.

"Just brush off some of this soil before we bag them", I said, doing my Monty Don impression. Twenty minutes later, I walked into the kitchen to find the sink completely full of drowning King Edwards.

To say that there was a strain in Anglo-American relations would be an understatement. I know little enough about gardening, but on Gardeners World I had distinctly heard Monty say "lift and dry potatoes and store in paper sacks in a cool, dry, dark place".

"They're supposed to be dry", I hollered, and stormed out to the spinach to cool off.

Half an hour passed, and I went back inside. There on the kitchen table was a huge mound of potatoes and Jo meticulously drying each one -- with her hair dryer.