Welcome to Big Biba

I see from Amazon that the new edition of Welcome to Big Biba, the book that I produced with Steve Thomas, is scheduled for publication on 24 August. That's one of the good things about Amazon: it tells you things that your publisher doesn't.

Quote for the Week

'Nobody will ever clean up the Met. Nothing will ever change.'
Former Metropolitan Police officer Berger in Peter Flannery's Our Friends in the North, broadcast in 1996 and set in 1966.

Don't Forget the Diver

I've just added a couple more extracts from The Man Who Invented the Daleks to my website.

This takes me up to Chapter 3 and still there's no sign of the Daleks themselves. The first of the new extracts talks about the wartime radio hits Band Waggon and ITMA, while the second does at least feature Terry Nation, but only in the context of his working relationship with Tony Hancock.

I'm aware that most readers of the book are going to be those interested in Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and telefantasy generally, but part of the appeal of Terry Nation's career was that it covered so much ground. And those early days of radio comedy, and its gradual eclipse by television, are an endlessly fascinating area. For me, at least. But I'd hope that they're of interest to others as well.

Because this is the world that people like Nation and Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner came from - like almost everyone else in the country, they listened to the likes of ITMA when they were children. And although they may not be heard much anymore, those shows shaped a generation.

Crying Wolf

A fortnight into the Great Phone-Hacking Scandal of 2011, and I can't help feeling that Ed Miliband is still missing his moment.

Obviously he's managed to raise his profile and improve his reputation. He's done enough to ensure that there won't be any whispering about leadership challenges during the autumn conference season. But there's still no distance between him and the bad bits of the New Labour legacy. Indeed the clumsy contributions of his mentor, Gordon Brown, last week only served to remind us all of the continuities with the past.

We've had a whole fortnight of righteous indignation, and I'm not convinced that Miliband has read the public mood properly.

As far as I can tell, there was genuine revulsion in the first couple of days, when the stories of hacking into the phones of murder victims and dead soldiers first emerged. But the closure of the News of the World changed things. Now it feels like the public are simply enjoying a great soap opera - the tone is mostly one of gleeful fascination with the decline of Rupert Murdoch and his associates. I'm not sure that there's the political anger in the country that Miliband seems to assume. It may yet come, but there will need to be further revelations to relight that fire.

And there will be more revelations. There's a long way to go. Things will calm down after Murdoch's appearance before the select committee this afternoon and the Commons debate tomorrow, but this is a story that's going to run and run. My suspicion is that Miliband would have done better to have kept some of his powder dry for the battles to come - he's in danger of looking like the boy who cried 'wolf'.

This was a good time for a little humility, to prepare the ground for relaunching the Labour Party as an alternative government. Just to concentrate on attacking David Cameron isn't sufficient. Let's hope that the parliamentary closed season will give time for a more considered approach.

Of Babies and Bathwater

When the leaderships of all the major political parties decide to agree on something, it generally means that they're up to no good. The British system isn't very good at consensus and - with the exception of bombing other countries - unanimity is normally reserved for responding to a media moral panic. The result is all too often an attack on civil liberties and/or badly formulated policy.

It's not very inspiring, therefore, to learn that the Coalition government is planning to line up with the opposition tomorrow in a debate about News Corporation and BSkyB. David Cameron may have been left in a no-win situation, with little alternative but to share a voting lobby with Ed Miliband, but even so it doesn't augur well.

Nor does the fact that both men are said to have expressed their sympathies with Gordon Brown, who has complained about being the target of intrusive investigations by the Sunday Times and the Sun. Presumably their concern is intended to be seen as outrage at the unwarranted coverage of the medical condition of Brown's child, but that wasn't his only beef. He also objected to the use of private investigators - 'known criminals' - using underhand means to look into his financial affairs.

Whether or not Brown's allegations are accurate, you can see why Cameron and Miliband might similarly object to such practices. But the electorate should be suspicious of a political class that rushes to such single-minded condemnation.

The press are perfectly entitled to investigate the finances of those who hold such high office. Our complaint shouldn't be that journalists seek such information, but that they don't do so nearly often enough.

We all assume that the Daily Telegraph strayed into some slightly dubious territory when revealing the expenses claims of MPs, and most of us seemed perfectly comfortable with that. There were, though, those who weren't comfortable. And now they're trying to find some common ground on which they can join forces and demand changes in media behaviour. The cases of murder victims, dead soldiers and politicians' children shouldn't be allowed to serve as cover for gagging the press.

It's not beyond the wit of politicians to find a way of curbing immoral excesses and intrusions into private lives without preventing investigative journalism. But it may well be beyond their will.

Ed Miliband's Clause IV moment

Along with everyone else who follows the Westminster soap opera, I've been deeply unconvinced over the last nine months by Labour's new leading man. Ed Miliband was - to be generous - only the third best candidate in the leadership election last year, and he's been going downhill ever since he won.

For far too much of the time he's looked solemn beyond his years, akin to the 12-year-old Jesus discussing theology with the elders in the Temple: 'all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers'. Except that what would have been considered precocious wisdom in a schoolboy looks like immaturity in a man in his forties.

But the News of the World story this week has caused him to up his game considerably. He was impressive at prime minister's questions and he's kept the pressure on David Cameron for the last couple of days.

And yet I can't help feeling that he's not making full use of the opportunity. Cameron's press conference this morning showed again what a competent operator he is. Miliband can damage him with the Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks connexions, but at this stage of the parliament, such wounds aren't going to be fatal. And possibly they're not going to be very long lasting.

Miliband should really go beyond simple attack mode and seize the moment to make a decisive break with the excesses of New Labour's past. During Tony Blair's period in office the press, politicians and financial institutions displayed a contempt for morality, and even legality, as they reached new levels of arrogant, irresponsible behaviour that have brought all into disrepute and sent some to jail. The gap between rulers and ruled became uncomfortably and dangerously wide, and , while the Labour government may not have caused all the problems, it certainly did nothing to solve them, and its negligence (at best) made them worse.

Of course Miliband was involved in that government. But only in a junior capacity. He's young enough that he can present himself as a fresh start, but to do so he has to wash his hands publicly of the past. Just as Blair jettisoned Labour history with the rewrite of Clause IV, so Miliband can now shed the embarrassing and unpopular parts of New Labour history. One of the things that most irritated the electorate about Blair was his refusal to apologise - there would be something rather refreshing if Miliband were now to say sorry for the things that went wrong.

Above all, he'd look much more secure on the moral high ground if he could present himself as a repentant sinner.

Times Literary Review

I'm very grateful to Frances Wilson for a kind review of my Terry Nation book in the Times Literary Supplement. I've never been in the TLS before and it's rather exciting. The relevant bit - which I shall be quoting for some years to come - is this: 'Turner is an excellent cultural critic.' I like that.

I note as well that Paul Mount's review in Starburst magazine is now available online.

The Avengers at 50

I spent last weekend at the very lovely University of Chichester for a convention to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Avengers. I was there under the excuse of my book about Terry Nation, who wrote half a dozen episodes of the show and was story editor for the last season, and I'd like to thank Dr Adam Locks and Michael Holley and their team for inviting me and for organizing such a fabulous event.

It was a wonderful weekend, full of very nice people and an impressive line-up of guests, including (from left to right) four of the great television writers: Richard Bates, Brian Clemens, Terrance Dicks and Richard Harris.

Terry Nation in the Western Mail

There's a fine, lengthy feature in today's Western Mail about Terry Nation, written by David Owens. My thanks to him - I really enjoyed our talk, and it resulted in a very nice piece.

Terry Nation - Top Ten Comedians (part 2)

Following last week's post, here are the top five comedians for whom Nation wrote:

1. Tony Hancock
Britain's greatest ever comedian was in need of something close to a miracle by 1963. One by one, he'd jettisoned his sidekicks - Kenneth Williams, Bill Kerr, Sid James - and now he'd left behind the BBC and his writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Nation wrote four episodes of his ITV series, Hancock, and went on tour with him. Some of the material is much better than is generally credited, but it wasn't enough to save the downward spiral of Hancock's career. 'A gentleman never loses his temper. It's a question of good breeding, and you cannot whack good breeding.'

2. Frankie Howerd
'Everybody wrote for Frankie Howerd,' commented Alan Simpson, and one of Nation's earliest jobs - together with his original writing partner, Dick Barry - was contributing material for The Frankie Howerd Show on radio in 1955. With John Junkin he also wrote the 1958 series Fine Goings On. But the best material came with the 1973 movie The House in Nightmare Park, co-written with Clive Exton - 'the film received the first unanimously good press I'd had for a picture in a long, long time,' noted Howerd.

3. Eric Sykes
Sykes was one of the finest comedy scriptwriters in his own right, but sometimes took on more work than he could handle. So it was that Nation and John Junkin were drafted in to script his 1961 radio sitcom It's a Fair Cop. Little has survived of the show, but it was an impressive cast: Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler and Dick Emery.

4. Spike Milligan
Milligan gave Nation his first break, welcoming him into the chaotic but star-studded writing agency, Associated London Scripts. Nation, Junkin and Dave Freeman contributed sketches for the groundbreaking 1956 television show, The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d - the first attempt to transfer the humour of the Goons from radio to the screen. Nation was later to acknowledge the debt he owed Milligan by letting him use the Daleks in a sketch for Q6 in 1975 - much against the normal practice of not letting the Daleks be seen in a comedy show.

5. Elsie and Doris Waters
The same team of Nation, Junkin and Freeman also wrote two seasons of the radio show, Floggit's, in 1956-57, starring Elsie and Doris Waters in the regular characters as Gert and Daisy. They're not as well remembered as they should be, but the Waters sisters were among the most innovative acts of the mid-20th century, with a fast-talking but gentle style of observational comedy. In Floggit's they were supported by one of the great casts: Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Connor, Ronnie Barker, Joan Sims, Ron Moody and Anthony Newley (though the latter two were dropped from the second season, allegedly because they were outshining the stars).

Daleks in the media

My thanks to Paul Mount for a nice review of my Terry Nation book in Starburst.

And I ought to mention a piece I wrote for The Guardian last week about Daleks.

Terry Nation - Top Ten Comedians (part 1)

Before turning to science fiction and action adventure shows, Terry Nation cut his teeth writing comedy. And in those early years he wrote for some of the best comics of the 20th century. So in tribute to that work, here's the first half of a countdown of the top ten comedians who spoke his words:

6. Sid James
The 1961 movie What a Whopper was conceived as a vehicle for the country's hottest pop star, Adam Faith, who had made the classic Beat Girl the previous year. What a Whopper wasn't a classic, but it was Nation's first solo onscreen credit as writer, and it did feature a fabulous cast, including Wilfred Brambell, Clive Dunn, Charles Hawtrey, Spike Milligan and Freddie Frinton. And, of course, Sid James, playing a hotel-owner who supplemented his income by poaching salmon.

7. Bob Hope
As a child in Cardiff in the war years, Nation had fallen in love with the likes of Bob Hope and Jack Benny, whose work was broadcast in Britain on AFN radio. Decades later, living now in Hollywood, he collaborated with Andrew J. Fenady on a television movie, A Masterpiece of Murder (1986), starring Don Ameche and Bob Hope. It wasn't up to much, but the idea of writing gags for one of his lifelong heroes provided its own satisfaction for Nation.

8. Ted Ray
Another person heavily influenced by American comedians, Ted Ray drew inspiration from Jack Benny in particular. Along with the likes of Bob Monkhouse, he represented a new style of wise-cracking sophistication in post-war British comedy, most notably in his radio show Ray's a Laugh. Nation and his partner John Junkin wrote for him both on radio - Variety Playhouse in 1957 - and on television, with two series of The Ted Ray Show. A sample line: 'It was a beautiful British summer's night - you could hear the owls coughing with bronchitis.'

9. Jimmy Logan
Most often seen these days in screenings of a couple of the later Carry On films, Logan was in his heyday the biggest live draw in Glasgow. His transfer to television on The Jimmy Logan Show - for which Nation and Junkin wrote nine shows - was, according to Logan, a complete disaster. 'It took me at least two years to re-establish my credibility outside Scotland,' he claimed.

10. Terry Scott
The man who would come to epitomize the suburban domestic sitcom with Happy Ever After and Terry and June appeared in several of Nation's early pieces, including All My Eye and Kitty Bluett (a 1955 radio series written with Dick Barry), What a Whopper and the 1959 movie And the Same to You, for which Nation and Junkin contributed some additional material, and which also starred Sid James and William Hartnell. Unusually, since Nation got on well with most of his collaborators, there was no love lost between him and Scott. 'I hated him,' Nation later reflected. 'It was mutual, we've always hated each other.'