As kids we were allowed to watch only the BBC because my parents insisted commercial TV would rot our brains.
My how they would have railed against YouTube.
They later admitted they also didn’t want us watching the adverts and then plaguing them for new stuff - a futile ploy. There remains to this day, huge gaps for me in the cultural history my friends share.
Being a Swap Shop viewer has left me bereft of memories of The Phantom Flan Flinger and Spit the Dog of Tiswas.
However, it was Blue Peter and not Magpie which instilled in me the belief anything is possible with a coat hanger and a washing-up bottle.
As children we watched Dennis Potter serials and David Attenborough in the World About Us and sadly also Benny Hill sexually harassing women and the sickenly racist Black and White Minstrel show.
The BBC was outstanding in parts, entertaining and educational while being elitist and regressive in others.
Like the NHS, the BBC is flawed and always will be but we need it more than ever.
The BBC is not impartial - we saw that in Scotland’s independence referendum and in it’s pro-Israeli stance on the Middle East - but largely it tries to be.
For the most part it is a trusted international brand, subject to vigorous editorial standards which it meets more often than not.
It is a home of verified fact, a safe haven from the fake news platforms of social media, which funnel viewers into rabbit holes of malignant propaganda.
Wholesale viewing of poison has brought us the horrors of the anti-vaccination movement and alt-right populism, so never underestimate the power of what we choose to watch.
The BBC helped legitimise the populism of Nigel Farage on Question Time and moulded Johnson into a benign jester in Have I Got News For You but it has mainly been a force for good in our democracy.
However, when my blind pensioner mother has to stump up the licence fee, I recognise there is a conversation to be had about who has to pay and how much.
When the broadcaster’s stars are raking in millions while the poor face criminal convictions for failing to pay their TV licence, then there is a problem.
But righting the injustices inherent in the licence fee system is a responsibility of the government to fix rather than use as a Trojan horse to abolish the BBC.
This public broadcaster must be wrestled from the clutches of the likes of Nadine Dorries, a culture secretary who thinks quality programming is being filmed eating an ostrich’s anus on I’m a Celebrity...Get me Out of Here.
She was first to be voted off I’m a Celebrity but the electorate returned her to slosh around in the maggot bath of the Tory government.
If only there was as much passion to vote in an election as there is in a reality TV show.
The right has, for decades, waged war on the BBC and would relish a British public restricted to a diet of channels shaped by private interest.
The Tories which met with Rupert Murdoch underlings 206 times in the last two years covet the political might of right wing US channels like Fox News.
For 43 pence a day, the BBC gives us an array of channels stretching the globe, a myriad of radio stations and digital platforms and a film and production arm respected across the world.
Dorries claims she is on the side for the “hard-working families” shackled to the licence fee, while being the same woman who votes for every fall of the axe of austerity.
As Johnson’s obsequious puppet, she is cynically attempting to distract from the PM and Partygate but, if we protect it, the BBC will be here long after she is gone.
In the meantime, if there is a Blue Peter badge for being a lying brown noser, pin it on Dorries and, if she is on your telly, take the pleasure of switching her off.
Lob 'Novaxx' out of France
Just when the Novak Djokovic circus left Australia, we have the prospect of it hitting France.
The tennis number one may not be allowed to defend his French Open title in May after the French government ruled all athletes will have to be vaccinated in order to compete in the country.
Prepare for mammy Djokovic to be bemoaning the “torture” her son must endure.
The thought of him being fed dry croissants and weak espresso by disgruntled French immigration, is too great a horror to bear. Djokovic arrived back in Belgrade, Serbia, after being deported from Australia following the cancellation of his visa.
Having been a poster boy for anti-vaxxers in Australia, his toxicity will now fuel the movement in France and across Europe. Djokovic could solve the crisis by being responsible and getting vaccinated but clearly he is enjoying the notoriety and martyrdom.
French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to “p*** off” the anti-vaccination movement and should use those words to send Djokovic packing.
Britney sister's Toxic book move
In a truly mercenary move, Britney Spear’s sister Jamie Lynn has put her name to a tell-all book on the star.
This is a girl who has lived a lavish life thanks to her sister yet she wants to exploit her further with her book, Things I Should Have Said.
The first thing Jamie Lynn should have said is no to a publishing deal and be grateful in dignified silence for the privilege her sister’s efforts gave her.
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