Farewell Humph

[Humphrey Lyttelton, Britain's greatest jazz musician, died this weekend]

The Queen was having her lunch when Humph saved my bacon. It was on June 7th 1977, in the middle of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. In London a million people lined the pavements to see the gold state coach make its way to St Paul’s. In every village and town, streets were filled with tables and smiles. The whole country dressed in red white and blue for what was probably our last great national celebration. It’s funny how you can remember what you were doing during momentous events. I was in a television studio with Humphrey Lyttelton.

I was just 25, and I’d been given the task of directing the BBC’s Jubilee coverage: not the actual state occasion, but all the other bits that didn’t have the royal family in them. On the big day, our main role was to keep the nation amused while the Queen was lunching in the Guildhall.

According to the royal schedule, we had an hour and a half to fill – that’s an eternity for a live entertainment show. So we built a giant fairground of nostalgia, with stalls, sideshows and cafes lined with memorabilia and celebrity guests. It was called the Nationwide Jubilee Fair and in the middle was a bandstand, where we installed that great British institution, Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band. Having given Humph a brief to “keep it jolly”, we knew we could rely on a few pieces of traditional jazz to get the national foot tapping.

As we waited to start our party, we watched the Queen going on an unplanned walkabout outside St Paul’s. It was making her late for lunch. We knew we had to finish our bit at 2.30 because at precisely that moment an extra 500 million viewers from all over the Commonwealth would be joining to watch the Queen’s speech in the Guildhall. It would be one of the biggest live audiences in the history of television. So my producer and I set about cutting out chunks of script to shorten the show.

We went on air twelve minutes late. Apart from Humph there were lots of bands, celebrities and people talking with moist eyes about the past. Somehow we managed to reach our finale dead on time at 2.25. I was keeping an eye on the Guildhall so that I could organize a smooth handover, but for some reason all the cameras were pointing at the ground. “They’re cutting it fine,” I thought, as Frank Bough announced the final song.

“Standby Guildhall” I shouted above the din. No response. I called the control room at St Paul’s. An engineer told me they were still at lunch. “They can’t be”, I said. “We’re on our last item”. “Sorry mate, can’t help you”.

I frantically searched for the bits of script we’d cut out. They were all crumpled up on the floor. In front of me I could see the line “Cue Applause, Cue the Queen” which I’d written at the end of the script as a private joke. In desperation I grabbed a pencil and tore a little piece off the corner of the page. I scribbled three words on it, threw it at a runner, and waited.

At the end of the song, the applause was deafening. Humph was bowing as the note was handed to him. It read “Keep Going Humph.” He paused for a second, smiled, put his trumpet to his lips, and nodded at the band. Then, with that extraordinary intuition which all jazz musicians share, they started to play on together. And on, and on.

So it was that at half past two, 500 million people who’d tuned in for their Queen, instead, for reasons never explained, found themselves watching this wonderful, funny, giant of a man doing what he loved best: impromptu, unrehearsed, celebratory jamming. For twelve glorious minutes he entertained the world until the Queen finished her petits fours. I’m sure they loved every second of it.

Thank you, Humph, we’ll miss you.

John Prescott's Dark Secret

[Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott confessed today that he used to be a bulimia nervosa sufferer.]

Well, we didn’t see that one coming. John Prescott a secret victim of bulimia? It sounds like a cheap gag from a standup comic. Oh, and Gordon Brown has laughing sickness. But in his memoirs Prezza reveals how he would happily down a whole tin of Carnation condensed milk, or eat his way through the entire menu of Mr Chu’s in Hull. He’d make himself vomit after his binges, a classic sign of the disease which sadly afflicts thousands of girls in their late teens. Mr Prescott blames it on stress. He went to see a consultant who asked him “about my childhood, early sexual experiences, that sort of stuff, which I don’t think had anything to do with it.” Mr Prescott claims “I was just under pressure and seeking relief in eating too much, then sicking it up – that’s all there was to it.”

Although I have no reason to doubt the diagnosis, I’m not sure I entirely buy the source of his affliction. One of the principal causes of bulimia is low self-esteem. Can it be true that the ebullient Mr Prescott had actually discovered what to the rest of the world was blindingly obvious: he was a terrible minister? He’d punched a farmer, had dubious dealings over the super casinos, played away from home with his secretary and his housing and transport policies had failed. You could accuse Prescott of a lot of things, but being good at his job was not one of them. Faced with the realization of such inadequacies, any man would have turned to the bottle – or in his case, the tin.

I wonder if bulimia will soon join the list of celebrity must-have diseases, like depression. Depression is one of those catchy words, like rehab or charity, which is part of a new media shorthand designed to raise public sympathy. It’s a key weapon in the arsenal of the publicity machine: we all like a good victim, so coming out and admitting depression can excuse the most appalling behaviour. The list of celebrity sufferers is growing: George Michael, Kylie Minogue, Melvyn Bragg, Bill Oddie, Ruby Wax, Russell Grant, even Jordan has jumped on the bandwagon. There’s a danger that the sheer number of breast beaters may dilute what is actually a very serious illness. However one consequence of this self-exposure is that at last the public is beginning to accept the importance of “therapy”.

In Britain, especially here in the North, there’s still a stigma attached to the word. People still equate “therapy” with “loony bin”: it’s not something that’s talked about in polite circles. I had dinner last week with a friend who’s just split from his wife. His distress was obvious. It’s affecting his work and he’s drinking too much. When I suggested he should see a therapist, he looked at me with his proud Yorkshire face and said “Don’t be daft, I’ve not gone mad.”

When my first marriage ended I went to see someone called Trevor. He was very nice, but wore grey plastic shoes (funny how you remember such details in times of crisis). At the end of the first session, he charged me £75 and told me to come back twice a week for the next year. I never went again.

When my second marriage was failing, I was living in L.A., where going to a therapist is like going to the gym. I don’t know if I was actually depressed, but I was certainly pretty glum. So, overcoming my northern phobia, I trotted off to see a man with a moustache and Gucci shoes. He asked me the same questions that Mr Prescott’s consultant asked him, and fortunately I didn’t write them off as “stuff”. A year and a hundred sessions later I’d found the failings in me (which were substantial), and began the process of sorting my life out. My shrink even found me a divorce lawyer from among his clients. Mind you, I could have bought a lot of cans of Carnation for the price.

Mark Speight

[Television Presenter Mark Speight's body was found this morning on Paddington Station]

Mark Speight was a real television talent. I first came across him in the mid-nineties when I was looking for a host for our new children’s series Scratchy and Co. Although we’d won the Saturday morning children’s slot against fierce opposition from other production companies, we knew it was something of a poisoned chalice. At that time ITV was being hammered in the ratings by the BBC’s juggernaut Live and Kicking. The opposition had huge resources, a big live studio full of children and celebrities and an apparently unlimited budget. We had just enough money to pay for some cartoons, one presenter and a child.

We had this idea of creating a show around an impossibly jolly, manic host called Scratchy and gave the child, whom we called Reg, a deep, grown-up voice. The idea was that Reg, played by a seven-year-old boy called Elliot, would represent sanity in Scratchy’s mad world of mayhem. They both wore enormous suits and crazy rubber wigs. Scratchy’s suit was blue with white clouds whilst Reg was dressed in sober black. They “lived” together in a lop-sided house. Later we added a penguin called Sedgely and a football called Fathead. Don’t ask me why. You can do almost anything you want in Children’s TV.

Mark was a perfect choice for Scratchy. He had a wonderfully dangerous quality about him, and he could switch his mind into child mode as soon as the red light came on. The children’s audience warmed to him from the first episode. By the second season, we were matching the BBC, and the show lasted for three gloriously insane years. We even won an RTS award, though it was scarcely high culture. Mark went on to even greater success with his later programmes encouraging kids to explore their imagination through art. On the screen Mark never grew up. Which makes the circumstances of his own personal tragedy and death all the more upsetting.

I don’t begrudge our television presenters one penny of their salaries: their career life expectancy is surprisingly short, and I can’t imagine the stress of being forever in the public eye. The moment you’re hired, you are always looking over your shoulder at the next young thing coming up on the inside track. And, thanks to the insatiable tabloids, your private life ceases to be your own. Television presenters remain public property for the rest of their lives. Once you’ve been marked out as “onscreen talent”, it’s almost impossible to be taken seriously again in the world of production or journalism. Look at how few news reporters who try their hand at newsreading make the return journey to serious journalism. The moment they’ve kicked their legs about for Children In Need they get put in the box marked “Talent”.

The day we hired Mark, we also took on a presenter for a second ITV’s children’s offering called Massive. She was a very young and green Essex girl called Denise van Outen. Later she was poached by The Big Breakfast and she probably begins her CV there. But it’s one thing to make your mark on television for a few years and quite another to make a lifetime’s career out of it. I’m delighted that Denise has carved herself a proper vocation on the stage, though to me she remains one of Britain’s most relaxed and natural television hosts.

That’s why whenever some young thing asks me for advice on how to get on the telly (and my intray is full of them) my first suggestion is, “Don’t”. As a producer I know the casting of the presenter is the most important choice I have to make, for that person’s image defines my show. But once fashions change, and the series reaches its inevitable end, I’m already off looking for the next big thing, leaving the “star” to file away the newspaper cuttings and ring his agent.

Age Shall Not Wither Them

Muka finally went blind last night. At 3am we heard the howling and found her butting the side of the open kitchen door. I put on all the lights, but still she couldn’t see her way out. She howled her fear until I stroked her brow and put my face next to hers. She laid her head on my neck and licked my ear, then, her big cow eyes unblinking, I gently led her step by step to the safety of her own bed.

Muka is a survivor. Joanna found her 13 years ago in a Los Angeles dog pound. She’d been rescued from the notorious South Central neighbourhood. Muka’s twin sister had already been put down, and it was her turn for execution that very afternoon. For months Jo nurtured her as the fur, destroyed by mange, slowly grew back on the enormous bat-like ears. Muka – quarter Staffordshire, quarter Lab, the rest anyone’s guess – has been at the centre of my life since Jo and I met. As her pack grew, she welcomed newcomers: Poncho the cat, and Truffle, our one-year old cocker. She is flatulent and seventeen and we all adore her.

Muka’s degeneration has been sudden. Last summer she was racing with Truffle across the fields behind the house. Now she trips over flowerpots as she shuffles her arthritic body round the garden.

We all have to accept the inevitability of old age, but it’s the speed of decay that I can’t get used to. My mother is 87. She’s independent, has her own house and car (she even recently got a speeding ticket), goes on international holidays and still teaches painting. Strong as an ox, she spent last weekend helping me plant my potatoes. Her mind is full of a lifetime’s experience and judgment.

Mum and I talked about the inevitable last week, sitting with a large gin and tonic, and Muka, big ears listening for the drop of crisps, at our feet. We weren’t being gloomy, just practical (she’s been showing me her funeral plot and where she keeps her Will every year since 1989). Her five brothers and sisters lasted into their nineties. She lost a brother last year, and her sister’s funeral was on Friday. Most of her friends have already gone. Mortality stares at us, and yet, to me, Mum hasn’t changed since she was sixty: opinionated, annoying, and utterly resilient. It’s her independence that impresses me most. An independence you see in so many of our elderly. And which, in a way, is their greatest threat.

For my generation tends to let our parents get on with things on their own. The disintegration of ‘family’, which began in the fifties, has now virtually stripped the word of any social meaning and left separate generations walled up in self-contained units, only opening their doors at Christmas and Easter.

Sure, society makes the odd gesture, probably to assuage communal guilt. Everyone over sixty got a free local bus pass this week (but no national train pass); there’s a winter fuel allowance, which against the rocketing cost of fuel is worth a fraction of what it used to be. Yet my mother, with a tiny state pension her only reward for a lifetime of national insurance and tax, instead of relaxing and enjoying her independence worries about every penny spent as if she were still in the days of rationing. How obscene that we, living under a supposedly Socialist government, charge our old people Council Tax. Especially as, thanks to the fragmentation of society that we have engineered, most of these old people now live alone.

It’s time Britain undertook a proper review of how we treat the aged. For when my own light begins to fade, I want to live my last days in a society which looks after its elderly at least as well as its dogs.

The Great Cock-up

It was shambolic, embarrassing and a national disgrace. However Chief Executive William M Walsh (“Willie” to his friends, or “Wally” to his customers) passed it off as “not BA’s finest hour”.

This has got to be the most inept understatement in the history of PR. The last four days have been disastrous for the company that used to call itself “The World’s Favourite Airline”. British Airways wisely dropped that epithet as its popularity plummeted in line with its declining service. I wish they’d drop the “British” as well. I can’t imagine many experienced travellers fly BA by choice. Of the dozens of BA flights I’ve taken in the last year, only one touched down on time. On that occasion, the pilot seemed so surprised by this unusual turn of events, he positively crowed as he announced the good news before landing. Only to return sheepishly to the microphone a few moments later to inform us that, because no domestic gates were available, we were trekking to an international one and would have to wait for a pair of steps and a bus. Last year British Airways was forced to admit that 23 out of every 1000 bags it handled went missing. That’s without the 15,000 stuck inside Terminal 5.

On Friday, Mr Walsh said he had no intention of resigning. I’m pleased about that, because it gives the board the opportunity to sack him. If I were his Chairman, I’d make Wally earn out his notice period in the bowels of Terminal 5 personally loading each of the missing bags into the boot of his company limousine and delivering them with a handwritten note of apology. After all, he did say “the buck stops with me”. Not the big bucks, I bet – his contract is bound to guarantee him an enormous payoff.

What amazes me is that, with so much at stake, the new system at Terminal 5 wasn’t properly tested. I work in an industry where there are no second chances. The launch of a new television programme is a do or die event. Particularly live television.

The first one I ever worked on was called The Great Debate, a live programme about Europe hosted by Robin Day. It was in 1972, the year before we joined the EEC, and as a student I’d managed to get a holiday job as a “runner”. I had two key roles: running for the tea, and then, on the big night, running the result of the vote to Mr Day himself. All round the country people sat in BBC studios waiting to vote and, most exciting of all, the result was going to be generated by a computer, the first time such a thing had been used on TV. After two hours of the most mind-numbingly boring debate, the votes were fed into a machine the size of a lorry and I positioned myself by the printer waiting for the outcome.

Robin promised the viewers that, owing to this miraculous new technology, we would have the result in less than a minute. The seconds passed. Nothing happened. I stared at the printer, willing it into life. Five minutes, still nothing. After a quarter of an hour, Robin Day asked the voters for a show of hands.

Finally, the computer spluttered out: “?”

Thousands of pounds worth of technology, days of rehearsals, all for one solitary question mark. My job was not to comment but to run, so I dutifully rushed the “result” to Mr Day. That’s when BBC1 viewers heard the immortal line: “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Great Debate has turned into The Great Cock-up”.

The computer, of course, was fired on the spot. Not so Wally Walsh, I suspect. He’ll be uttering phrases like “British Airways needs to deliver” till the next great cock-up. And, as usual, only the passengers will suffer. As well as Britain’s reputation.

With One Word I Was Married

I could never live in New York. It’s a great place to stay for a few days (or, as we did last week, for a few hours on our way home from LA), but the extremes of temperature would soon drive me into airconditioned madness. The winters are freezing and the summers are like a permanent steambath.

Joanna and I weren’t exactly prepared for the icy blasts down 5th Avenue. We only had clothes for 75-degree California, so we looked incongruous dressed in layers of t-shirts while everyone else wore overcoats.

My first trip to New York was a result of young love. In my first year at university I'd fallen for a girl called Mary and, having pledged eternal devotion, my world fell apart when she won a scholarship for a year at a New York university. Mary-less, I pined for about six months until my mother, despairing of all my moping, lent me some money to fly over and spend the summer vacation with my beloved in New York.

So, with clean socks and underwear, I set off promising my worried mother to contact her as soon as I arrived.

New York in June was in the nineties, both in temperature and humidity. It was pouring with hot rain and the moment I stepped off the plane I was bathed in a thick mask of perspiration. Mary was sharing an apartment on the Upper East Side with a neurotic actress, three cats and no airconditioning. It was hell, but somehow through the jetlag, despite the sweaty nights in a single bed, we seemed to be getting on OK.

So I dutifully sent my mother a telegram (it was 1972, well before the days of International Subscriber Trunk Dialling or the fax machine). Mum had given me strict instructions to report three key facts: Had I arrived? Where was I off to? and How were things with Mary? The trouble was, telegrams were charged by the word, and I could only afford twelve.

It took me two and a half hours to squeeze the facts into the limit, and I even managed to include a reference to the weather. Triumphantly I telephoned the result through to Western Union:

EMBRACED BY NEW YORK AND MARY IN POURING RAIN FLORIDA NEXT STOP.

It wasn't until I returned to England two months later that I discovered the havoc my telegram had wreaked back home. Western Union had only got one word wrong, but it almost gave my mother a coronary:

EMBRACED BY NEW YORK AND MARRIED IN POURING RAIN FLORIDA NEXT STOP.

She was devastated. I was her only son, and now I had married without even telling or inviting her. And we were off on honeymoon to Florida. Nevertheless, to Mum’s eternal credit, she went to St Nicholas’s Cathedral to light a candle for our future happiness.

The next time she heard from me was a month later. I sent a postcard from San Francisco saying I had run out of funds and was living on MacDonalds. By then I was marching behind Jane Fonda in support of McGovern against the evil Nixon. He lost by a landslide. But we were young, idealistic: and, in those days, very thin.

Speaking of which, I offer you all an apology. In my New Year’s Day blog, I swore I would lose 21 lbs by Easter. Of course I hadn’t reckoned on Easter being so absurdly early. Well, that’s my excuse and, yes, I failed. My cause wasn’t helped by the last three weeks in LA. My mother brought me up to eat everything on my plate, which is a really bad idea in the land of the giant portion.

On Easter Day I confess I was just 10 lbs lighter, and I have a feeling that Keith Hann, who took the challenge with me, will be gloating in his column tomorrow. My cheque book awaits the bad news.

Tibetan Wedding

I was seven when the Dalai Lama fled to India. With 50,000 Chinese troops surrounding Lhasa, where, as now, unarmed people were in the streets demanding freedom, the 23 year old leader slipped out of the Norbulinka Palace and began his two week icy trek to the Indian border. It was March 17th 1959 – exactly 49 years tomorrow. In exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala he has since watched the systematic destruction of his people’s way of life.

It is significant that he took with him not an army, but an opera company. The Tibetans carried to safety trunkloads of costumes, scripts and musical instruments. For the Dalai Lama knew that the Chinese would wield their brute power by attempting to stamp out Tibet’s culture and religion, and he wanted to ensure that a vital part of Tibetan life, the community opera, would survive.

In Dharamsala, he established a small dance and drama school, now called the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. I know that little dance and drama school well, set in the village of McLeod Ganj overlooking the main town. In fact, I was married there.

Last year I wrote about my drive across Saudi Arabia to India with my girlfriend Jilly. During our year in India we drove south to Mysore, where a large Tibetan community was based. We’d heard that an opera was to be staged using the original instruments and costumes brought over during the exodus. What we hadn’t expected was the scale. Three days before curtain up, in a huge clearing, thousands of Tibetan families had arrived with tents to claim their spaces. It resembled a giant Glastonbury, with little cafes and stalls, and by the time the opera started, there must have been tens of thousands in the arena.

It was like a continuous Ring Cycle without the intervals. With fantastic colourful costumes and masks, the opera told of heroes and Gods, dragons and evil forces. With an orchestra of drums, cymbals and deep rasping horns, and a chorus of girls with high-pitched reedy voices, it was a cross between Glyndebourne and pantomime. From toddlers to the ancient, the crowd sat transfixed. Tibetan Opera dates back 600 years. It’s a unique form of folk art handed down by successive generations. It was part of the rich culture which the Dalai Lama was trying to preserve, the “genocide” of which he accused the Chinese this weekend.

After the performance, we became friends with several of the cast and, perceiving that we were in the throes of young love, they asked if we were going to get married. We explained that it was tricky as Jilly was still married to someone else. Apparently that made no difference in Tibet. We were in love, so we should marry.

So it was that a month later, we sat next to a photograph of the Dalai Lama in the Dance and Drama School, swathed in little silk scarves (the Tibetan traditional gift of greeting), and exchanged silver rings made by the Dalai Lama’s own jeweller.

The ceremony was simple. Did anyone in the village think these two shouldn’t be married? They all shook their heads. Then applause, the ceremony was over, and a test of virility followed: I was handed an enormous three-pint jug of sour Tibetan rice beer to down in one. Next everyone had to perform a song. I was far too drunk to remember what or how I sang, but I do recall standing with my bride looking out over the Himalayas as the sun set thinking that somehow, someday, the international community had to put pressure on China to cease its brutal repression and grant Tibet some form of autonomy.

I hope the current events, just two weeks before the Olympic torch arrives in Beijing, will mark the beginning of that process.

Hot Air from BA

This is my third letter from America. We’ve now flown from LA to New York to pitch our ideas to MTV. The flight takes five hours to cover the 2,500 miles and our tickets on JetBlue cost $350 each. We’ve just found out that, because of the change of itinerary, British Airways won’t transfer our London Heathrow to Newcastle booking, so we have to buy new tickets for the short 50 minute, 250-mile hop. Cost: $450 dollars each.

Letter from Hollywood

Yesterday evening we had dinner with a celebrity handbag designer called Nancy. She does wonderful things with leather: Angelina Jolie has just bought seven bags and now Nancy’s making her one to hold nappies and baby bottles, which she’s calling The Nanny. When news gets out, Nancy’s company Jamah could become world famous.

In Hollywood fame and fortune can arrive overnight, but the real challenge is stopping them leaving again in the morning. It’s a city of promises, many of them broken. Last week I recounted how we finally got into production with Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct. What I didn’t add was how that series nearly ruined me.

It started so well. We found a film-loving American billionaire to back us with thirty million pounds. Or that’s what the contract said.

We hired two enormous stages at Pinewood and filled them with spaceships, aliens, actors and crew. After a few weeks of filming, the flow of cheques from America slowed down. So, courtesy of Lloyds Bank, Newcastle, I ran up a modest overdraft to cover what I assumed was a technical delay – after all, we had a firm contract. Within a month, I was one and a half million pounds in debt, and the funding dried up completely.

I don’t know who was more suicidal: me facing bankruptcy, Gerry losing his reputation, or the lovely bank manager in Grey Street who had allowed an unsecured overdraft to get out of control.

So I threatened to sue the billionaire. He responded by sending in the heavies: eleven black-suited lawyers flew into London. They claimed their client knew nothing about the series, that a rogue underling had signed our contract without authority and moreover that, as this underling had used a limited liability subsidiary to do the deal, there was nothing we could do about it. It was the end.

I was summoned to meet the executioners. I left Gerry sitting gloomily in the production office, surrounded by Thunderbird models, waiting for the axe to fall.

Suddenly I had an idea. I’d read somewhere that in the States you can “pierce the corporate veil of limited liability” by proving that a director of one company had control over its subsidiary.

I ran to my office and frantically searched through my files. Eventually, tucked away in a drawer, I found a solitary fax from the underling, complaining about the colour we’d painted the scenery. He said it looked too gloomy, and asked us to brighten it up.

I shoved the fax into my pocket along with a few personal letters, including a note from my girlfriend reminding me to pick up the dry cleaning.

The meeting was brief. There was no discussion: they were pulling the plug. The suits closed their briefcases and prepared to leave. It was time to play my only card.

“But Mr X was not only a director of your client’s corporation, he also had influence over our production,” I said.

“Nonsense”, they snapped, “he had nothing to do with the filming.”

“Right down to the minutest details”, I went on, “like the colour of the scenery”. I slowly pulled out the fax from the pile of personal correspondence and began to read.

Just then, a curious thing happened. The lawyers opened their briefcases again.

“Mr Gutteridge, we’d like to take a ten minute break.”

Three hours later, they came back into the room with a cheque for three million pounds and a commitment for the remaining twenty-seven.

So if I tell you that earlier today I had a meeting with a nice man called Mort who says he’s going to pay for our new television series and turn it into a worldwide hit, you’ll understand I’m taking it with a pinch of salt. But Joanna and I, and Nancy the celebrity bagmaker, did split a bottle of champagne over dinner. Just in case.

The Hard Sell

Warning. Those of you prone to jealousy should turn away. As I write, I’m trying to stay cool as the California sun beats down on my computer. Remember warm air? We last experienced it in Northumberland in April 2007. For an hour or two.

I’m over here talking to broadcasters about one of the ideas we’ve been developing in our Byker office over the last few months. I’m pleased to say it’s getting a pretty good reception. When I say “good”, it means that they’ve politely sat through the DVD I’ve played them, rather than brusquely cutting me off with “Not for us, Tom. Anything else?” It means they quite like it, not that I can go out and buy a mansion in Beverly Hills. There’s a long, precarious path from pitching to production, about as arduous as the route to the pitching stage from the first glimmer of an idea.

At least this week’s experience is going more smoothly than my first terrifying pitch in the US years ago. Gerry Anderson (yes, Mr Thunderbird) and I wanted to make a sci-fi drama series called Space Precinct. Trouble was, it was going to cost around $36 million dollars and we didn’t have any money. So when a man rang me and asked if I’d like to go to New Orleans to take part in a “pitching seminar” at a convention of broadcasters I leapt at the chance of exciting a few buyers with our idea. As I walked towards the conference theatre, I heard a low roar not unlike a hundred thousand Romans preparing for the entry of the gladiators. The vast room was packed. What I hadn’t appreciated was that this was a pitching contest, a sport akin to bear baiting.

Four of us were given five minutes each to present our ideas, and then we were to be cross-examined, X-Factor style, by a group of judges each of whom made Simon Cowell look like a pussy cat. I was last to go. The previous entrant, a sweet French documentary producer called Natalie with a perfectly decent if rather Gallic idea, was already in tears. The other two sat red-faced and depressed, head in hands, two years’ development work torn apart in just ten minutes.

Chief inquisitor was Greg “Mr Nasty” Dyke, who was then head of London Weekend Television. Now Greg and I have a bit of a history. We were at university together and, I’m pleased to say, we are still quite good friends. But our relationship had hit a bit of a rocky patch after I’d competed against his company for the London television licence. Even though he won the bid, it took him years to forgive me. So that day he decided to take sweet revenge.

I played the showreel, which had cost months of preparation and not a little cash. Greg went straight for the jugular. “I can’t think of a network in Europe that would take it”. The other judges took his lead. My show was dead in the water.

Just then, an extraordinary thing happened. From the middle of the audience a man in an expensive suit stood up. “My name is Kloiber. I represent RTL 2”. It was Germany’s most important buyer.

“I would like to buy this series”.

There was a stunned silence. Then laughter. Surely he was joking? But with a wonderful Germanic wave of the hand, Herr Kloiber continued. “I would like to offer $100,000 per episode for a seven year licence”. Then wild applause, and a man from Tokyo stood up and made an offer for Japan. Within five minutes I had raised enough money to get the show into production.

Ah, such sweet memories, I think the sun has gone to my head. That’s the sort of thing that can happen in America. But for a show conceived in Byker?

Well, let’s see.

Another Angle on the Dead Judge

A friend of mine has sent me an extract from Hugh Massingberd's autobiography "Daydream Believer" which augments and corroborates my earlier recollection about the day on the BBC's Nationwide when a lady dressed as a judge fainted in front of millions of viewers. He writes of a genealogist friend called Patrick Montague-Smith who

"appeared on the television magazine programme Nationwide to discuss forms of address. The production team had hit on the wheeze of lining up a collection of suitably robed and ermined 'extras' for Patrick and the presenter to hail. Unfortunately, just as the two of them approached a heavily bewigged lady judge, this worthy began to sway alarmingly and then fell down in a faint at Patrick's feet. The learned genealogist blinked and glanced at the presenter, who anxiously motioned him forward. Without a word, Patrick and the presenter then proceeded to step gingerly over the prostrate female form before continuing their discourse on the finer points of etiquette."

Which makes my error, as the director of the said disaster, even more execrable.

Dancing on Thin Ice

In my day the Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spinning wheel. Last week at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, the evil Carabosse wheeled on an eight foot high cactus to ensnare the princess. It was part of choreographer Ashley Page’s ongoing quest to popularize the classics, and confuse countless little girls in the process. In the interval I heard “Mummy, what were Red Riding Hood and Snow White doing in the forest? And why was the Prince rolling around on top of that blue man?”

Poor Sleeping Beauty has been interfered with countless times since Petipa first choreographed her in 1890. I confess I’ve been a culprit too. After my first venture into ice ballet with Torvill and Dean’s Fire and Ice, ITV asked me to film Sleeping Beauty with Robin Cousins. And before you ask, no, Robin was the Prince. The Princess was an American figure skater with a weight problem. Except that I didn’t know about it until after I cast her.

Now it’s one thing for a ballet company to advertise Sleeping Beauty and wait for a few punters to show up; it’s quite another to expect nine million viewers to sit through three hours of Tchaikovsky. So I got together with one of the UK’s foremost conductors, Bramwell Tovey, who at that time was Music Director at Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, and together we cut out the boring bits. As a result, we lost the entire first act, and started off with the best tune, which is normally in Act 2.

Bramwell and I performed this act of desecration one Saturday afternoon in my living room, with Tchaikovsky’s score spread over the carpet, a large pair of scissors, some sellotape and several bottles of red wine. We even used a few bits from Nutcracker to paper over the gaps. The result was like Sleeping Beauty on Acid, an all-action version with plenty of space for triple axles and other gymnastics. Then, armed with one of America’s top choreographers, Lar Lubovitch, we set off for Norwich to shoot it in an aircraft hangar large enough for a castle, a village, an enchanted forest – and a spinning wheel.

Now last week’s Princess Aurora (played by Japanese dancer Tomomi Sato) was so tiny, slight and young-looking, the Prince could have been arrested for child abduction. When our Princess arrived in Norwich she looked a couple of stone overweight and the costume lady threw a fit. According to her agent, our star had boyfriend problems which had led to a compulsion for Mars Bars, but we were assured she would shed the weight before filming. As the deadline loomed and the enormous set neared completion, the costume lady came to me in tears saying she was running out of elasticated fabric. Then, as if by magic, the waistline receded, to be replaced by another problem. Our star had become close with one of the skaters. He was called John Thomas, which just about says it all. Princess Aurora came onto the set so exhausted every morning that she could scarcely put her skates on.

Then the snows came. February storms engulfed Norfolk and with the temperature outside at minus six, we had a power cut and the ice melted. By the end of the shoot, Cousins and the team were skating through a swamp and the spinning wheel bobbed about like a boat. When skaters fell over, their costumes were covered in slushy mud. That’s the glamour of television for you.

So it was a delight to see the Scottish Ballet’s efforts this week. All in all, theirs was a splendid camp romp, but you’ve got to feel for any dancer trying to cope with the Theatre Royal’s tiny stage. The orchestra filled half the stalls and when the whole company came on, I’m not sure they didn’t outnumber the audience. I don’t know what the public subsidy per seat is for the Scottish Ballet. I just hope it’s Scottish taxpayers who are paying for our gratification.

Love Conquers All -- Even Divorce

As the McCartney/Mills divorce hearing drags into a second week, you can’t help but wish that the two of them would just step outside, grab a couple of green teas in Starbucks, and sort it out between them.

Of course that’s hardly likely. Once divorce reaches the courts, both partners are usually so blind to common sense that they stand and fight over the tiniest of details. I know, to my own shame and cost.

I used McCartney’s divorce firm, Payne Hicks Beach, in all three of my own settlements. They’re great solicitors (they represented Prince Charles), but boy do those bills hurt. Whoever said that in divorce no one wins but the lawyers certainly hit the nail on the proverbial head. Having accumulated a mountain of incendiary letters with claim and counter claim, my first wife and I one day woke up to the absurdity of decimating the family’s assets in this way. So we literally went for a coffee, found a sheet of paper, and agreed the whole thing in twenty minutes. As a result, she and I remain the best of friends and neither of us felt shortchanged.

By contrast my most recent experience involved four sets of lawyers in two continents and lasted two bitter years, twice the length of the marriage. Because I was living in California I fought for and won the right to have the hearing in Los Angeles, in the very same Superior Court where poor Britney Spears has been having her custody battles.

Unlike Britain, divorce in California isn’t about blame or apportionment; it’s based on the simple principle that marriage is an equal partnership. Everything earned by either party during the marriage is deemed “community property” and therefore jointly owned by both sides. On the other hand, any assets that predated the marriage are the property of the person who owned them before the knot was tied. This applies to everything from the CD collection to the toaster.

Now that’s clean, clear and very fair. It doesn’t matter that one party earns a million dollars a month and the other stays at home and buys shoes, the consequence of getting married is that what’s ours is ours and what was yours stays yours. This is based on quite an idealistic view of the institution of marriage. If two hearts become one, you can hardly complain if the proceeds of that relationship are split down the middle.

By contrast, our British system is antiquated, arbitrary and unfair, and has become a gold digger’s charter, creating a strong disincentive for a man with any saved cash or property to get married at all.

Even under the Californian system, the division of chattels was stressful. I had to go to court to win custody of my own dog. One national tabloid reported the story with the headline “Woof Justice For Tess”.

Tess was a delightful but not terribly bright cocker spaniel. In the heat of divorce she became a symbol of our utter irrationality. After months of haggling, my ex-wife and I were still about $100,000 apart. So, in order to get the matter settled and to avoid the astronomical costs of a court hearing, I offered her a choice: an extra $100,000 or the dog. It seemed to me a no-brainer, and I expected to walk away with the most expensive pooch in the world. Instead, the wife chose the dog, and I kept the hundred grand. Later I happily spent four hundred pounds of it on Truffle, another lovely spaniel who’s infinitely brighter and symbol of an altogether more successful relationship.

Indeed, walking with Joanna through Paris on our fourth Valentine’s Day, I now wonder what the fuss was all about. Love certainly conquers all, and I sincerely hope that by this time next year Paul and Heather will have found theirs and put memories of this degrading nightmare behind them.

Crowd Control

Watching Clinton and Obama slugging it out over the weekend it’s pretty clear that it matters not what they say, but how they say it. Their policies are pretty much identical, but Obama’s ability to whip up a crowd is awe-inspiring. Provided it’s the right crowd. Obama has the edge with affluent intellectuals, but is failing to convince the white working-class. Meanwhile they’re both adjusting their rhetoric to avoid alienating entrenched minority groups. These days politics is all about compromise.

I first discovered the power of the pressure group when I was invited to the annual general meeting of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. They wanted me accept the rather dubious accolade of “Programme of the Year” for Challenge Anneka. I’d decided to go along after receiving a personal note from Mary Whitehouse saying she considered it “good wholesome entertainment”.

The ceremony was held in one of those dusty London gentlemen’s clubs, full of toad in the hole and prejudice. As I had no idea what to expect, I wrote no acceptance speech, but thought I could wing it with a few thanks to my mother and the crew. However, when I arrived, Mrs Whitehouse shook me warmly by the hand and said she’d be grateful if I could keep my remarks to fifteen minutes because the Home Secretary would be speaking after me and he had to get back to a cabinet meeting.

So, grabbing a sheet of club notepaper and a stiff gin and tonic, I set about penning a few notes. The membership arrived with hats, Harris Tweed and sherry. I was glad I wore my suit. I appeared to be about half the age of the youngest there, apart from two scruffy 20-year-olds whom I assumed were media students.

After the preliminaries I was ushered to the stage where a large phallic silver object awaited me. As I surveyed the assembly, I was amazed that this little group of women’s institute and bowls club stereotypes had managed to become such a thorn in the side of the BBC. I began by thanking them, then said how pleased I was that the BBC had placed the show on Saturday nights because it could be enjoyed by the whole family.

At that moment, I heard a low rumble. The bowls club was clearing its collective throat. Then I heard a shrill “Hear, Hear” from the back.

“Using the power of television for public good…” I went on, and the crumbly audience began to sit forward in their seats expectantly. The hastily scribbled notes now discarded, I got into my stride, and rambled on about the rebirth of family entertainment. The rumble had now become a roar. At the end of every sentence there was round of applause. I was playing the crowd like a Pentecostal preacher. Or a politician.

When it was Michael Howard’s turn, the congregation was already warmed up. But no sooner had he reached the end of his first paragraph, as if on cue the two “students” stood up and began to heckle. Instantly things turned nasty. Within a nano-second, the entire audience starting hissing, burly bouncers had seized the “intruders”, and a photographer was recording the event in time for the newspaper deadlines. In fifteen seconds it was over, and to this day I can’t decide if the whole thing wasn’t a sinister set-up.

Of course, this is what most of politics is all about these days: harnessing prejudice. Which explains the total panic amongst right wing republicans when they realized that John McCain might not be using quite the right words in his speeches. At least now, whoever wins the nomination, the democrats are going to be offering America something new, and there’s a real revival in public interest as a result. Which is more than can be said for our politics over here.

Lunch with The Tap Dancing Millionaire

It’s just a month since my New Year’s resolution, and things aren’t going at all well. Keith Hann, my adversary in the battle of the diets, has gloatingly emailed me that he’s down to 14 stone 9 pounds. This puts me five pounds behind, and that’s not counting a wonderful dinner at Seaham Hall on Saturday night. As it was my suggestion that we undertake this ludicrous challenge, it’s particularly galling, particularly as Hann’s email arrived in the middle of a rather hearty lunch with my old friend Richard Stilgoe.

Stilgoe, he of the witty songs, has done incredibly well since I was his producer on Nationwide. He and I collaborated on all those musical sketches, like the barber shop quartet, where he played all four characters simultaneously and one Stilgoe shaved another’s beard off. We also made a little DIY series called Oddjob, with helpful hints for the hopelessly inept. I still have a couple of copies of the book of the series with my name on the cover, which Joanna thinks is a huge joke because she knows just how unhandy I really am, whereas Richard built his own house. Later we made a couple of comedy series together, including A Kick Up The Eighties, the programme that discovered Tracey Ullman and Rik Mayall.

Despite having a name that is an anagram of Giscard O’Hitler, Richard is one of the world’s really nice chaps, and he finally struck gold when Andrew Lloyd Webber hired him to write lyrics for Cats. He went on to pen the whole of Starlight Express, and nearly half of Phantom of the Opera. Yet, despite the massive royalty cheques which flow in to this day, and which could have seen him with more Ferraris and bling than the whole of Darras Hall, he has chosen to keep his feet on the ground and gives most of his wealth to various worthy charities. Well, I say his feet are on the ground: they haven’t been since January 1st, and this is where I got really depressed.

Apparently Richard’s new year’s resolution was to take up tap dancing. In contrast to my own utter lack of resolve, Richard has really gone for it, and now he’s paddling and rolling and shim-sham-shimmying like a true pro.

The thought of Richard, who’s 65 this year, queuing up for tap classes with all the lissom young dancers at the Pineapple Dance Studios really makes me smile. I can’t imagine him in a leotard (I’ve only ever seen him in a sports jacket and tie). He told me that even though he’s three times the age of most people there he’s very comfortable in his tap shoes, and only slightly disconcerted by the overtures of some of the men.

I’ve been to Pineapple Dance Studios many times, holding auditions for the various dance shows I produced in the 80’s, like The Hot Shoe Show with Wayne Sleep and Bonnie Langford. Surrounded by the slender and bendy, at first I used to hold my tummy in: then I decided looking like Orson Welles made me more glamorous, so I let it all hang out. Dance auditions are the cruelest sport. The bright young things arrive full of hope, having spent an hour or more travelling in from the suburbs. As a producer, it takes you on average 12 seconds to make a decision. “Thank you so much, next please”. Twenty at a time.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to uncover Hann’s secret diet. Forget the fitness regime and slimming aids, he’s using the new “No-D” diet. He’s given up dinner. No wonder he’s winning the contest, the poor chap must be starving. No chance I’m going to follow his lead, living with Joanna, who is an excellent cook. Besides, I’m dutifully doing what The Journal commands, and Eating Local. In fact, I’m eating for the whole of Tynedale. So if I lose the diet challenge on Easter Day, I can now blame the Journal's Editor. Anyway, I’m fighting back. Inspired by Stilgoe’s hoofing, I’ve hit the Matfen Hall gym big time. No photos please, and I’m certainly not releasing a slimming video.

Conference phobia and the Carlisle Switcher

I find conferences a pain in the neck. Literally.

Once I walk into a room with people wearing name badges, for some reason I turn into an insecure wreck. I convince myself I’ve forgotten the names of people I’ve spent my whole career working with, and consequently look down at every single name. Or, if I do recognize someone, I’m fearful that some dreadful catastrophe has befallen them since we last met. So instead of saying “How’s business?” I study their badge to check they haven’t been sacked.

It’s quite a knack greeting someone who knows you well whilst surreptitiously gazing at their chest. Especially when they’re female. And as I’ve now reached the age when I can’t read with my normal glasses on, I have to bend my neck even further in order to peer over the top of the frames. Worst of all are women who tie their badges to their handbags where they hang with the names annoyingly facing inwards. You have to pretend to tie a shoelace in order to see them. Conference phobia even extends to meetings with relatively close friends. I panic that I've confused them with someone else, then, having established their identity beyond all reasonable doubt, I don't mention their wives or children in case since I last saw them they've got divorced, or one of their offspring has been smitten with some fatal illness. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with all this.

So imagine how thrilled I was last week to discover I’d signed up for two conferences. One was on the future of television in the regions, and the other was on training needs of the media industry in the North. Now those of you who survived the last sentence and aren’t currently in the middle someone else's more entertaining blog, will be reassured to know that these subjects aren’t quite as tedious as they sound. Last week Mike Neville, the North East's most famous local television host, who only fairly recently retired after presenting the local news here for about a hundred years, emailed me to say he looks forward to my column (finally, fan mail), and when I emailed back to say I was off to a conference about regional production he said “It’s going to be a pretty short conference, then”.

Mike and I come from a tradition of regional television: not only programmes made for the North East, but also network television made here for the rest of the country. We first worked together when I was a trainee on Look North. I was only allowed on camera once, reporting on the 1974 sugar shortage. Mike introduced my piece by saying “Now Mrs Gutteridge in Tynemouth, you must be very proud. Here’s your son on television”. That was one way of cutting me down to size.

Later, when I was a director on Nationwide, I enjoyed working with Mike because he was the presenter who could hold things together in times of crisis. With that show, just staying on air was pretty touch and go. One of my biggest nightmares was a man we dubbed ‘The Carlisle Switcher’. For some reason the circuits (the lines carrying the signal) from all the regions north of Manchester had to be routed through a switching centre in Carlisle. One night we knew The Carlisle Switcher was on shift because in the middle of an interview on abortion with a bishop in Glasgow, the picture (but not the sound) suddenly cut to the Newcastle studio. There lounged a floor manager smoking a cigarette, his feet on the desk, reading a copy of The Sun.

In those days, regional television programmes were properly funded and an important part of our television culture. It’s ironic that the conference on Tuesday coincided with the funeral of one of the North East’s best regional producers, Harry Green.

How things have changed since Harry was making shows. Next year, ITV is axing its last regional timeslots which have been filled with fine programmes like Grundy’s Northern Pride. Instead, our local producers will have to compete with thousands of others for network timeslots. Just how our regional voice will be maintained is an important cultural and commercial issue for the region. Hence the conference. One of the people there I recognized without his badge was the director general of the BBC. He’s moving five departments to Manchester and, as we nibbled our sandwiches at lunchtime, you could hear the massive construction site for the new “Media City” outside. Sadly nothing at all is planned for the North East. Maybe we need another conference to discuss it.

Crash Landing

Senior First Officer John Coward must have the least appropriate name for a hero. With nerves of steel he guided his 777 onto the Heathrow grass, rather than parking it somewhere in the middle of Hounslow. Quite what he must have felt when the engines lost power in his final approach can scarcely be imagined.

It was hardly life threatening, but I once piloted a television programme that lost power and crash landed in front of six million viewers.

The programme was Panorama, in the days when it was presented live in the studio by David Dimbleby. One week, when I was in the director’s chair, the show looked as though it would be an extremely easy ride. With no studio guests, David had to walk across the studio, sit down at a desk, and introduce two films. We even had some standby films lined up in case anything went wrong.

With the thirty or so television monitors making the studio control room glow like the deck of a jumbo jet, the show took off with its portentous opening music. David went into the first link. “Good Evening. Tonight on Panorama…”

Just as he reached the word “Tonight”, all the screens in the control room suddenly went blank. All except four. Every single piece of film had disappeared, but there were four separate camera shots of David.

In vain, I gazed at the empty screens, willing the films to reappear. The technical crew were screaming into telephones. Oblivious to the approaching catastrophe, Dimbleby kept going.

“Our first film tonight…”

We had just ten seconds before David reached the end of his script. I braced myself for the inevitable.

“Here’s his report”, he announced. Then silence.

It took a few seconds for David to realize we weren’t going to cut away from him. Then he apologised to the viewers, and paused. I rang the telephone on his desk. The scene has been replayed many times on Auntie’s Bloomers Indeed, if you turn up the volume you can just about make out my voice at the end of the line.

“Er, David, we have a problem”.

“I can see that. Shall we go to the next film?”

“Er….there is no next film. And no standby.”

“So, what would you like me to do?”

“Just… keep talking”.

Which he did, for eight gruesome minutes. He talked about the studio, the cameramen, what he was going to have for supper after the show. In front of six million transfixed viewers.

It was a performance worthy of the adlib king Mike Neville during some of the many glorious breakdowns on Look North. But that was local news, and this was the BBC’s current affairs flagship.

Then, suddenly, the screens bounced back into life and I rang the studio phone again to put David out of his misery.

We did eventually find the cause. During the afternoon a fluorescent light bulb had gone out at the back of the control room and someone had rung up the engineering department to have it changed. Just as we went on air, a man in a brown coat arrived clutching a spare, found a switch marked “Power”, turned it off, changed the bulb, and exactly eight minutes later turned it back on again.

I do hope for Boeing’s sake something as simple as that lies behind the 777 problem. Because right now I wouldn’t live in West London if you paid me a fortune. It was bad enough living in Putney for 14 years, right under the flight path, with conversations drowned out every sixty seconds. We all used to fear that one day a plane would come down on top of us.

And yet the Government is seriously thinking of allowing Heathrow to expand and blight the lives of Londoners even further. Instead they should shut the whole thing down and build a decent airport in the middle of the Thames Estuary. Provided Boeing makes sure their planes can float.

The Night I Got Drunk With David Hasselhoff

Tomorrow night has been rescheduled.

I’m not referring to the resurrection of ITV’s News at Ten, with Trevor McDonald cryogenically preserved in his chair still clutching his cheery “And Finally” stories. No, tomorrow tonight at ten o’clock I had been looking forward to watching Sky One’s coverage of the Golden Globes.

Jo and I are suckers for celebrity awards. She provides the fashion commentary and tells me who everyone is (I have no capacity for facial recognition, which is a bit of a hindrance for a former chatshow producer). I sound off about the movies that should have won, and then Jo puts me right. Over a bottle of red and a mound of tortilla chips, nothing could be finer.

Instead, this year’s ceremony was cancelled because of the writers' strike and replaced by a press conference. By tomorrow morning we’ll know the winners, so Jo and I will be debating the results over breakfast.

My office is piled high with DVDs because by noon tomorrow I’m supposed to vote for the BAFTA shortlist. Like many voting members, I don’t get out to the cinema as much as I should -- our local cinema in Hexham is not the most comfortable way of spending two hours. I really miss the Everyman in Hampstead, where they serve you drinks and food inside the auditorium, and you sit on plush two-seater sofas. So instead the studios send me every film to watch in the comfort of my own living room. Because they only arrive in December, and also because I can only do things against an absurd deadline, this means that for the last few weeks I’ve been watching two a night.

Normally the awards season, which begins with the Golden Globes and ends with the Oscars next month, has one or two certain winners. This year, for the first time I can recall, it’s a really tough choice.

Personally I hope Atonement wins director Joe Wright a gong if only for his six minute long single shot of Redcar transformed into Dunkirk. I want to meet Mr Wright one day to ask him about the single chorister in the bandstand who's singing the wrong words to Abide With Me (or maybe he's the only Welshman), and whether he considered going for a retake, but I do think the shot, and the film, was one of my movie highlights of the year.

But it’s up against very stiff competition like American Gangster, Michael Clayton, and No Country for Old Men. There’s talk of glory for Daniel Day Lewis for his soulless oil man in There Will Be Blood (though am I the only one who thought the film far too long and self-indulgent?) but for me the real stars this season have been the women, particularly Ellen Page in Juno, Julie Christie in Away From Her and, above all, Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. Juno had the year's best screenplay by far, but I guess it'll be considered a little too lightweight for the big prizes.

Whoever and whatever wins tonight, I’ll miss seeing the ridiculous frocks and borrowed diamonds, the rehearsed smiles, bland interviews, and above all the terrible speeches.

I know how easy it is to get carried away in acceptance speeches. I was once up for an International Emmy in New York. I’d made a film with David Jason called The Bullion Boys which had been nominated for Best Drama. It was produced and directed by Christopher Morahan, who'd won many awards for Jewel In The Crown.

We knew we hadn’t won from the moment we arrived because my co-producer Richard Broke was in a wheelchair, and there was no ramp onto the stage: a bit of a give-away. So Chris, Richard and I spent the evening getting blind drunk, and everyone at the table cheered as I tore up my acceptance speech into little pieces.

Just as we opened our eighth bottle of champagne, I thought I heard my name being called out. Then I saw my face on the television monitors. We had won. Chris and I managed to stagger through the minefield of tables to reach the front and received the award from David Hasselhoff (a man who knows a bit about the effects of drink).

I don’t remember much about what followed except that, with every word of my acceptance speech forgotten, I launched into a diatribe against the Academy for its lack of disabled facilities for our co-producer. The result, in politically correct America, was a three-minute standing ovation, as Richard wheeled himself to the centre of the hall to share our moment of glory. I was last seen at 1am pushing him down the middle of 6th Avenue, with taxis swerving to avoid us.

I think it was probably the best moment of my life. And it shows how drunkenness and spontaneity (but mainly drunkenness) can beat a professionally written script any day. I just hope the writers' strike is over before the Oscars.

Michael Grade and the White Chocolate Cake

In last week’s Journal column, I inserted a postscript claiming I would shed 21lbs by Easter.

It was a private thought. Frankly, I rather hoped it would pass unnoticed. You know how New Year’s resolutions go: they sound impressive, then, after a while you fail and everyone forgets.

But not this year. How was I to know that another overweight Journal columnist would challenge my resolve and reputation?

Keith Hann wants a fight. He says we should donate £10 for each pound the other loses to a charity of the winner’s choosing.

The last time time I lost weight publicly was the result of one of those wagers you make late at night in a bar when you’re not thinking straight.

I was at a conference with Michael Grade, then boss of Channel Four, and BBC1 supremo Jonathan Powell. It must have been late because the three of us were complaining about the disastrous effect too many pints could have on middle-aged waistlines. It was clearly a topic that touched a nerve, because we kept ordering rounds to debate it further. As the clock struck two I heard Michael saying, “So we’re agreed. Six weeks to lose a stone, and whoever fails pays each of the others one hundred quid.”

I thought no more about it until the following week, when I had a call from Grade’s assistant.

“Michael’s organized the weigh-in tomorrow morning in the canteen. He’ll see you there at eight and asks if you could bring some scales.”

Imagine the bizarre scene. Three executives in suits, one clutching a set of bathroom scales, each wondering if the other two are really serious. When Jonathan and I arrived, Michael had already ordered us full English breakfasts, with double fried bread.

“Shouldn’t we do the weigh-in first?” I suggested.

“Don’t be an idiot, these sausages must weigh half a pound each. Eat.”

So after the fry-up, as the canteen began filling with bemused staff, we stood in the middle of the room, took off our jackets, and, like championship boxers, berated each other as the scales groaned.

There’s nothing more boring than a man on a diet. I know that compulsive preoccupation and overwhelming feeling of anxiety which causes every conversation to begin: “Lost another pound this morning”.

I decided on a guerilla campaign. I sent a large slice of white chocolate gateau to each of my competitor’s offices, with instructions to their assistants to present them at 4pm precisely. I then waited for the phone calls. Jonathan's was first.

“You bastard,” he screamed, and slammed down the phone.

But from Michael I heard nothing. So I decided to get some intelligence on how he was doing. I rang Bill Cotton, and he told me that Grade had been his lunch guest the previous Sunday. Bill gave me the entire menu, including the bread and butter pudding, of which Michael had seconds. I sent the menu to Michael with a calorific conversion.

“You may as well write out the cheque now”, I crowed.

But, as with most diets, once metabolism slows down, so does weight loss. As the deadline approached, I’m ashamed to admit I rang my Harley Street doctor. He prescribed a couple of hefty looking diuretics, to be taken the night before the weigh-out.

“Don’t expect to get much sleep”, he warned. He was right.

The following morning back in the canteen none of us had so much as a cup of coffee before stepping gingerly onto the scales. The whoops of victory could be heard for miles. As we celebrated with bacon sandwiches, Michael handed me a box – containing the untouched but now rancid chocolate cake.

Later he took me aside. “Tom, don’t tell Jonathan, but I did have a secret weapon. My doctor gave me a diuretic the night before. Sorry.”

So, Mr Hann, bring it on. I shall probably lose friends and dinner invites, but I look forward to your cheque on Easter Day. And a really big chocolate cake.

Torvill and Dean's buttocks

I’m glad to see people started watching television again this Christmas. Perhaps it’s because there’s a nationwide shortage of Nintendo Wiis.

In a rare moment of organisation I purchased a family Wii back in November. As a result, for the last five days the television hasn’t had a look in, so I haven’t been able to share the nation’s preoccupation with the new love scandal in Albert Square, or see Kylie turned into an echo in Doctor Who. While record numbers were tuning into BBC1, we had family tennis tournaments, boxing championships, and, the ultimate theatre of war called Guitar Hero. My children now have photographs of their seriously overweight dad clutching a plastic imitation guitar doing his best Clapton impersonation. It’s not a pretty sight.

Television is a great national festive pastime, like gluttony and queuing at the Boxing Day sales. I made a Christmas special exactly 21 years ago. It took me six months to make and cost three million dollars, which probably makes it the most expensive hour of television ever made. Called Fire and Ice, it starred the skaters Torvill & Dean, and it has gone into television legend, largely because London Weekend Television lost so much money on it.

It started out as a bold idea by John Birt, the director of programmes. Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean were our golden couple at the 1984 Winter Olympics, so John decided to give the nation a Christmas treat and commissioned an ice ballet for them. It was going to be sold around the world, and a deal was already in place for America – hence the enormous budget. I was asked to write and direct it, and Carl Davis composed the music.

It was a dream job: the entire thing had to be written, rehearsed and filmed abroad, for Chris and Jayne were on a world tour. So Carl and I traipsed round the world like ice groupies, writing and composing scenes as we went. Then with an international company of skaters we rehearsed for three months in a German ski resort.

Eventually we built the world’s largest ice rink in a huge gymnasium near Stuttgart. One hundred and thirty British technicians came across the Channel in a fleet of trucks. Half the show was shot on a massive “Fire” set, with thirty foot high flames, then we shot all the scenes in the “Ice” kingdom.

Everything went fine until the final day of shooting when John Birt arrived with the money men. During the break John came over and tapped me on the shoulder. His face was white.

“Tom, we have a problem”, he said. “Apparently you can’t show buttocks in America”.

Now the entire plot revolved around the “Fire” Prince falling in love with the “Ice” princess, and the Fire people wore very little. Christopher Dean in particular sported a rather fetching thong.

“Can’t you shoot them from the front?” John suggested. I explained that this was a somewhat impractical solution as ice skaters generally spend their time spinning round in little circles, and therefore Dean’s buttocks would be revealed to the camera approximately twenty times a second. “I suppose you can’t fix it in post-production?”, he asked in desperation.

That’s why despite receiving lots of international awards, to this day Fire and Ice has never been shown in America. And that’s also why London Weekend Television has given up commissioning expensive Christmas specials.

As I write this, sitting in my office beneath a framed photograph of me with Chris and Jayne on the infamous ice set, my eldest son has just come in clutching last night’s evidence of Dad playing Clapton.

OK, I give in. The two photographs say it all. 21 years of Christmases have taken their toll. My New Year’s resolution is staring me in the face. I’m losing 21 pounds by Easter. Promise.

Christmas with Mr Grumpy

I would have composed a witty description of our Christmas lunch, but I see that Mr Keith Hann, who joined us for the celebrations, has already published one on his blog.

If he thinks my cooking is that good, he mustn't get out a lot. Which his blog seems to suggest is true.

However, the meal added about six pounds to both our waistlines. Hence the next couple of contributions. Not that I'm obsessed by my size, or anything.

Jools Holland and the Real X-Factor: the day I discovered Joss Stone

I think the seats in Newcastle’s City Hall have got smaller since I was last there. I don’t remember my knees scrunching up against the row in front when I sat watching people with infinitely more talent than me taking their applause on the stage.

But then, apart from Thursday, when I went there to see Jools Holland, the last time I was in the City Hall was at my school speech day, and I was about half my current size.

I remember the feeling of envy when I saw the prizes handed out to my betters. I was given the wooden spoon called the Fifth Form Reading Prize. I can still remember all the words of the poem which clinched it for me: "Do You Remember an Inn, Miranda?”. At Christmas parties, when the festive spirits take over, I am inclined to launch into it -- until Joanna rushes over and throttles me.

Oh I know what it’s like to be second rate. Watching television on Saturday night, hearing the appalling cliché: “only one couple will be crowned champions (sic), the other will go home empty-handed”, my heart went out to Matt Di Angelo, bravely showing his rehearsed “well done, Alesha” expression. And the previous weekend I felt quite sorry for that strange Welsh singer Rhydian who now has to go back to Powys empty-handed. The painful sound of applause for someone else still ringing in his ears.

It’s extraordinary how worked up we get over television programmes like The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. In fact, they’re not about winners at all. Who else but a group of D-List losers would have the time to go on Strictly Come Dancing? Alesha Dixon was in a group called Mis-Teeq which had a few minor hits several years ago. She recorded a solo album last year that hasn’t even been released. Rhydian is a second-grade baritone with unusual hair and a gift for reducing middle-aged women to tears with songs from Phantom of the Opera.

Really talented performers don’t need The X Factor to get their break. They get themselves into bands, perform in clubs and are discovered by an A&R talent scout from a record company. So I’m a little underwhelmed by these kinds of shows, even though in the past I have produced them myself.

Finding a gold nugget in the drift mine of wannabes is well nigh impossible. In four series of Star for a Night, presented by Jane MacDonald (her own celebrity a product of television rather than talent), we found only one true gem. In an audition room in Bristol I spotted a shy 13-year-old girl with a beautiful face and long blonde hair called Joss Stoker. I remember she had a tendency to sing sharp (I used a harmonizer to correct her final performance) but the voice made your jaw drop. It was the voice of an old blues singer. She’s now called Joss Stone.

But unlike the winners of The X Factor, pre-sold to the Cowell money-making machine, Joss’s stardom isn’t derived from one television vote. She made it through hard work and dedication.

Watching real talent on stage makes your heart surge and brings grown men to tears. Or overgrown men, like me. Which leads me back to last Thursday.

I wasn’t in that cramped City Hall seat for long. The years peeled back as the entire audience got on its feet for two magical hours. Afterwards Jools told me this was his favourite gig. Not just because of his happy times here with The Tube, but because of the wonderful atmosphere in that old, faded hall.

How Jools managed to perform at all on Thursday is beyond me. His father died last week. His Christmas plans have been cancelled because of the funeral. Yet he brought two thousand people the best possible present. Thank you, Jools, and to all of you, a very Merry Christmas.

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.

Death of Jeremy Clarkson (almost)

Lord Goldsmith's proposal last week that the words of our national anthem should be changed to make it more “inclusive” has led to a spate of suggestions for national anthem replacements on the Downing Street e-petition website.

Although there is predictable support for Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem there are some radical proposals, including a spirited campaign for the theme from The Archers. At least we’ll all remember the words: “Rum te tum te tum te dum”.

The e-petition site is supposed to be a way of connecting our government with its electorate. I see that a few thousand people have signed an e-petition calling for the upgrading of the A1 north of Morpeth and a few more want the widening of the Western by-pass.

However you question the site’s value to the democratic process when you see that the sixth most popular proposal is “Make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister”. Why 26,000 people would waste their time voting for a man who single-handedly killed the jeans industry is beyond me.

Ten years ago, I very nearly killed Jeremy Clarkson. I’d created a television series called Robot Wars and Jeremy was the first presenter.

I knew the robots were dangerous. They had real axes, saws and other weapons of mass destruction and they were given names like “Panic Attack”, ”Razer” (sic!), and “Chaos”. Because members of the public had built them from second hand wheelchair motors and radio-controlled toy cars, they were notoriously unreliable. So, in order to stop stray robots running into the audience, we put up some Perspex screens round the stage.

I asked Jeremy to host the first series because his support for motorized metal mayhem was pretty close to the Robot Wars ethos. So he stood high above the carnage on a rostrum, making facetious comments about the little boxes below, which had taken grown men months to build, and less than two minutes to destroy.

The first day of shooting went fairly well, despite the fact that a lot of the robots had technical problems and we had to pull them onto the stage with fishing wire.

The second morning, just as we were getting into our stride, disaster struck. A robot being driven by a tearful eight year old was being carefully carved into tiny pieces by one of the house robots. Suddenly a circular metal blade (from a robot appropriately called “Dead Metal”) flew into the air at more than 200 miles an hour and embedded itself deep in a solid concrete wall just behind where Jeremy was standing.

When we studied the recording in slow motion, we found that the blade, rotating at a more than 6000 rpm, had missed the Clarkson scalp by less than two inches. With only a slight adjustment to the trajectory, the person now being proposed as our country’s leader would have been decapitated.

Of course within minutes the entire show had been shut down and it took a week for us to find enough bulletproof Perspex to seal off the auditorium from danger. The rest is history, except that Jeremy wisely decided his life was more valuable than our second series, and went back to abusing Skodas.

Clarkson’s profile has grown over the years, but somehow I can’t see his fan club getting far with their campaign. In fact, I doubt that Downing Street takes any notice of its e-petition site at all, certainly not enough to listen to a few thousand people trying to get the North East a decent motorway to link it with the rest of the world.

But here’s a solution. Instead of wasting valuable time on the government’s site, people who want us to have a road infrastructure for the 21st century might do a lot worse than to send a petition to Jeremy Clarkson himself. After all, with six million adoring Top Gear fans, he’s probably got more clout than the real prime minister.

The End of the Railway Line

Today I'm taking my final dose of GNER. There are just six days until National Express takes over the East Coast franchise.

I've grown accustomed to the faces of GNER, that is, to the cheery smiles of Eunice, Lianne, Daniel and all the other crew who have looked after me this past year. I'm sincerely grateful for their tolerance, good humour and impeccable service.

I guess you have to keep a sense of humour if you spend all day in a swaying metal tube trying not to spill coffee over bored businessmen, families with screaming children, drunks and assorted misfits like me.

I've loved hearing the crew stories: about bowls of steaming hot soup accidentally tipped into pompous laps; the dangers of silver-serving miniature sweetcorn to ladies with cleavages; the occasional shriek from the disabled toilet after someone forgets to press the "Lock" button. I like the story about the train driver who, bored by the endless straight track, is trying to perfect the theme from Laurel and Hardy on the train horns. I particularly love travelling back on the 8pm because there's a real party atmosphere in the restaurant car by the time it reaches York where all the dull people get off.

If anyone deserves a grant from One North East, it is these Newcastle-based train crews. They really are the true ambassadors of the North, for they are the first experience which most visitors have of the region. In fact, thinking about it, One North East could do a lot worse with its millions than to plough a few bob into the on-board train experience. Because the image we present to the people who come to visit us is key to the commercial success of the region as a whole.

Now despite what you might hear, people in the South no lnger think we're all about cloth caps and pigeons. When I announced to my friends in London that I was relocating back up here they all said the same thing: "Great place to party".

If I were a businessman with young children I'd be wary of moving my family to a city whose principal claim to fame is being Party Capital of Europe. A city that from teatime on Friday transforms itself into Club 18-30. Where you have to run a gauntlet of drunken yobbery just walking from the station to the car park. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a party pooper. I'd rather live in a vibrant city than in boring Orpington or Watford.

If we really want to attract investment to the region, we need to present another face. The North East needs a PR makeover. Evidently, thanks to the Passionate People, Passionate Places campaign, bed and breakfasts have enjoyed a bumper year. The North East is the place to come for the weekend. Now there's a bigger task: to persuade people to stay for life.

To get the level of investment that our local economy needs, we need to demonstrate to opinion formers that the North East can be lived in. and for that to happen, image is everything. Starting with the train service.

Not that the region has to change: far from it. We have wonderful scenery, great local food, an enterprise culture, comparatively cheap housing, some very fine schools, development grants, the Sage - there's a lot to boast about. No, we just need to work out how to tell people about it.

Meanwhile, a warning to National Express. When you take over our railway next week and start repainting all the carriages, please don't mess up the spirit of our special ambassadors, the train crews. Daniel tells me they are getting new ties and shiny name badges, but for the time being they have to cut to cut the GNER labels off their shirts and trousers. Let's not cut out the fun as well.

The Day I (Almost) Killed a Judge

Following the extraordinary claim last week that a 23 year old was solely to blame for the Inland Revenue Lost Property Disaster, I tried to remember the biggest mistake I ever made at that age. I think it was the day someboy fell down dead on one of my television programmes.

I was working at the BBC and I'd just been made the Director of Nationwide, the television series that used to go around the country finding skateboarding ducks and other oddities of life. Twenty-three was absurdly young to be doing that job, as the show was live, incredibly complex and, as a result, fraught with the ever-present possibility of catastrophe.

We were doing an item about female judges, and how you should address them in court. Don't ask me why, it was the kind of thing which Nationwide did on a soft news day. You frequently see similarly desperate items on The One Show.

Five actors were in the studio dressed up as dignitaries, and Bob Wellings, the presenter, was walking down the line talking about how they should be addressed. Until he got to Lady Judge number three. Suddenly I became aware (as did the viewers) that the beautifully framed two-shot was becoming a single. Her ladyship was gently gliding out of the frame onto the floor.

Bob looked down. The actress had, apparently, dropped down dead.

Now this wasn't something that any of my four-week stint at BBC Director Training had prepared me for. I'd learned all about focus pulling and camera scripting and how to say "Cut to Camera Seven" in a loud imperious voice. But what to do when you lose a contributor? That certainly wasn't in the manual.

My first thought was: maybe nobody noticed? The second was: the show must go on. There wasn't time for a third thought, for the impetuosity of youth made me whisper into Bob's earpiece: "Carry on, Bob, let's have the next judge."

I zoomed the camera in to avoid any dead people messing up the shot, and Bob sighed, looked down sadly at the recumbent woman and, with a wonderfully polite "Pardon Me, Madam", carefully stepped over the body and got on with the job.

My goodness, the phone calls of complaint blocked the BBC switchboard for hours. Fortunately, the lady in question wasn't dead, but had just fainted under the studio lights, and the BBC put out an apology later in the evening. But I tell you, that sick feeling I had in my stomach knowing I'd cocked up in full view of seven million people remains with me to this day.

So my thoughts go out to the poor young fellow holed up in some Tyneside hotel hiding from the paparazzi, having been made scapegoat for the most extraordinaty piece of bureaucratic mismanagement for decades. I mean, honestly, either the chap had the power to download and send out the intimate personal details of half the population, or he hadn't. If he had this authority, then he can't have been a "junior official", and the Prime Minister was lying. If he didn't, and he just acted on his own initiative, then the system which allowed him to do so is not just flawed, it's utterly inept, and the thought that similar 23 year olds might be able to jeopardize the security of an entire population issued with ID cards is just ludicrous.

When I first saw the news story about all this, I had the strangest sensation. I can only liken it to the one I had three Saturdays ago in St James's Park, when Portsmouth took three goals in the first quarter of an hour. All 50,000 of us Newcastle United supporters were, simply, stunned. it was the same feeling millions of us felt last Wednesday during the England football game. I can only describe it as a sense of unreality caused by watching something incredibly important to us but entirely out of our control being messed up by pure incompetence. And Mr Brown has the effrontery to blame this one on a 23 year old? Come on, pull the other one.

[Note: I've updated the dead judge story in my February 24th 2008 blog]

A Drama in Pakistan

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my trip to India in 1979. I was driving in a camper van across Saudi Arabia with a girlfriend pretending to be my sister, risking flogging or decapitation in an effort to get to India. Yesterday I read the story of a Saudi woman sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in a vehicle driven by an unrelated man.

Our story continued in the relative haven of Dubai. We had to get to Pakistan on the other side of the Gulf, so we bribed a Chinese sea captain to winch the van with a rickety crane onto the deck of his ancient wooden dhow. With heavy heart Jilly and I watched all our worldly goods disappear over the horizon. We flew to Karachi, half expecting never to see the van again.

Karachi harbour was bedlam. As far as the eye could see, there was a sea of little boats jostling to reach the shore, and no sign of ours. After six tense days, just as we'd given up hope, we finally saw it -- the van's blue and white roof at the end of the queue at least a mile away. We ran to a man in uniform to ask how soon we would be able to unload it.

"Around seven weeks", he said.

We nearly died. It contained all our possessions, and we had no means of support in a country thousands of miles from home. The officer shrugged his shoulders. In desperation I wrote the number of our youth hostel on the back of my BBC identity card. He glanced at it, and then did a double take.

"BBC? You know Mark Tully?"

"Well, not personally, but..."

Now if you've ever wondered how Moses managed to part the Red Sea, there, in Karachi harbour, I witnessed it with my own eyes. Hundreds of dhows were unceremoniously pushed aside as a large armed patrol boat carved a passage through and led our very scared Chinese captain to shore.

As we were reunited with the van and resumed our journey, it occured to me what an extraordinary legacy we'd left in Pakistan. Even though the British had been gone for 35 years, we still had the influence to overturn the rule book. But we also left behind an unbalanced structure which enables the military to ride roughshod over democratic principles to this day.

Cut to 2006. I very nearly sold a series to a big American network. They loved the idea, but somehow it was too near the knuckle. It was called "If You Were President", and the idea was simple. You took a disaster scenario, a potential doomsday situation, and you asked viewers what they would do if they were President of the United States.

In order to find topics for the series, I enlisted the help of a man who assesses worldwide risks for major corporations. I wanted a list of the ten biggest threats facing the West. and guess what was number one, way ahead of Californian earthquakes, Global Warming and the collapse of the sub-prime lending market?

"In Pakistan President Musharraf is replaced by a weak civilian government unable to contain the Taliban. That regime is quickly overthrown by religious extremists who immediately turn round the nuclear missiles currently pointing at Delhi and Mumbai and aim them straight at Tel Aviv."

How would the President of the United States react? Sadly the series was never made.

So, as the crisis in Pakistan continues to deepen I'm aware we're not just watching the saga of yet another dictator resisting democracy in a remote land. I don't know if Britain still has influence in Pakistan. But if we do, I hope for once our politicians, hitherto not too adept at dealing with Asian dictatorships, use, that power wisely. This is one bit of foreign policy we can't afford to get wrong.