The late Muammar Gaddafi

It's not been very edifying. Even TalkSport radio's Drive Time show, not hitherto noted as a hotbed of liberalism, was thundering against the lack of taste displayed by television news programmes which showed footage of the last moments of Colonel Gaddafi's life.

The worst, though, passed them by: the closing credits to BBC1's This Week showed the footage accompanied by the Adam and the Ants classic Dog Eat Dog. They did manage to find the apposite lyric ('What's a warrior without his pride?'), and there was the excuse that Adam was in the studio on other business, but it was unpleasant to say the least. It really shouldn't be the BBC's role to glory quite so openly in someone's death.

Elsewhere the Corporation's Kevin Connolly wondered whether Gaddafi is the last of the buffoon dictators. And he, quite rightly, points out that amongst Gaddafi's absurdities was his fondness for dressing as 'a white-suited comic-operetta Latin American admiral, dripping with braid':
Heaven forfend that such self-indulgence might be seen in the mature democracy that is today's Britain:

LitFests

I spent a couple of days this week in Leeds at the Morley Literature Festival, where I was appearing with Pauline Black and Ian Clayton to discuss political pop music in the 1980s, and then doing a talk about Terry Nation.

And very agreeable it all was. Friendly atmosphere, great setting (one of those fabulous mid-Victorian town halls), and organised with an unintrusive efficiency. This latter came courtesy of the festival director, Jenny Harris, to whom I'm grateful for the invitation.

It was the first time I'd dared venture into such an event since a disastrous appearance at the Oxford Literary Festival back in 2005 or so. I think I've got that one out of my system now.

Quote for the Week 7

'Ooh, la, la, la, la, hey banana!
Don't you slip on the skin.
Ooh, la, la, la, la, hey banana!
Womble up the litter and put it in the bin.'
- The Wombles, 'Banana Rock' (1975)

Some wise Mike Batt lyrics chosen in honour of what's starting to look like an increasingly accident-prone government. And here's one of the Wombles of Westminster yesterday:

And so we say farewell to conference season

The second half of September and into the start of October used to be one of my favoutite times of the year. This was party conference season and I could, and did, happily watch every minute on television. Even the Conservative conference had political debates that would occasionally sprawl off in odd and unpredictable directions and embarrass the leadership.

But this was thirty years ago. Hard to care so much these days, when all the conferences are little more than a succession of identikit politicians trying to slip a speech - honed and buffed beyond individuality - in between the video presentations.

So what did we learn from this year's conference? Well, nothing. Obviously.

But what will we take away from them, what will linger in the memory? Precious little. Maybe the fact that a section of the Labour conference booed the name of the party's former leader Tony Blair, leaving Ed Miliband looking bewildered and unable to think of a response. Maybe the fact that David Cameron's speech didn't even manage to attract enough people to fill the hall.

But if we're honest, the only thing that's going to be truly difficult to forget is Sarah Teather's stand-up comedy routine at the Lib dem conference, of which this is but a brief glimpse. A mercifully brief glimpse.

Visiting Chichester

I've been this week to the University of Chichester, where I was giving a couple of talks, one on the early days of Doctor Who and the other on the 1970s. And I had a hugely entertaining time. I like the atmosphere of the university a great deal, and indeed of Chichester itself (apart from anything else, there are some great Peter Blake works in the gallery there).

Above all, I like the faculty. And I'm particularly grateful to Dr Hugo Frey, the head of the history department, who extended the invitation to me and whose unstinting hospitality is much appreciated.

Pinteresque

I don't often go to the theatre, but today I went to the Print Room in Westbourne Grove to see a production of two short pieces by Harold Pinter: Victoria Station and One for the Road. And a very fine production it is too, moving seamlessly from the comedy of the former into the political menace and suppressed sexual violence of the latter.

The reason for this rare venture into theatre was that a few weeks ago the director, Jeff James, was kind enough to invite me along to an early rehearsal to talk with the cast about the 1980s (when the two pieces were written and originally performed). I don't think I had anything to add, but I enjoyed the experience, and I was hugely impressed by the production.

It transfers to the Young Vic for a run from 6 to 15 October.

Mr Street-Porter

Back in 2003, when I was researching a book about Biba, I wrote to Janet Street-Porter, thinking that she might have something intelligent to say about a shop she used to frequent. She didn't, of course, but she did at least write back, even if she did talk patronising rubbish. And even if she did address me as Ms Turner.

I had little time or respect for her before, but I'm afraid that I had even less after that.

Anyway, Mr Street-Porter was on Question Time last night, denouncing a mooted proposal to raise the speed limit on motorways to 80 mph as a 'crowd-pleasing, cheap policy'. Is that really a problem? Crowd-pleasing policies don't seem to me necessarily a bad thing in a democracy. Particularly if they're cheap.

In memory of: David Croft

The news of the death of David Croft reminds me of a story I took from his autobiography, You Have Been Watching, for use in my book, The Man Who Invented the Daleks:

In the mid-1970s, David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, then riding high with their sitcom Are You Being Served?, approached the head of comedy at the BBC with an idea that, said Croft, 'was so hot that I didn't want to tell him what it was', for fear of word getting out and the idea being plagiarised. 'To his eternal credit, he didn't protest or ask for a script. He told me to go ahead and do it.'

The resulting pilot, Come Back Mrs Noah, starring Mollie Sugden as a Yorkshire houswife sent into space in the year 2050, resulted in a short series. It was a resounding flop, commercially and artistically, but its very existence demonstrated the freedoms accorded to those with a proven track record.

That was the old days, of course, when broadcasting executives were allowed to trust their instincts.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

All the talk leading up to Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour conference was about how much the party ought to apologize for the mistakes of the last government.

Miliband did apologize. For Labour's policy in the 1980s. The party shouldn't have opposed the reforms of Margaret Thatcher in terms of council house sales, cuts in income tax and trade union legislation. This came after his opening words, which had invoked the memory of the 1985 Bournemouth conference, when the then leader, Neil Kinnock, had attacked the left-wing council in Liverpool.

It was all a bit odd, this harking back a quarter of a century to a time when Miliband himself was still looking at his A-level options. Apart from anything else, wasn't this what the whole of New Labour had been about? The very existence of Tony Blair was an apology for the 1980s Labour Party.

Presumably we're supposed to take from this that, although he accepts some elements of the Thatcherite legacy, he's rejecting the political morality of the era: the veneration of big business and the City.

It's not very convincing, though it may yet become so. Because there's so little to underpin it.

The policies that have emerged so far this week have been busily ceding ground to the Conservatives. Miliband says that Labour would have a maximum of £6,000 a year student tuition fees: so he accepts the idea of doubling fees from the level at which a Labour government left them, but not a tripling. And if the current government doesn't reduce the deficit, then the next Labour government will. Meanwhile Ed Balls calls for a 'temporary' cut in VAT, thereby accepting in principle the level of 20 per cent introduced by the Coalition.

The Labour Party is looking dangerously as though its policy pitch is that they're just like the Tories, only not quite as much. Ho hum.

And still Miliband doesn't look strong enough to deliver a line like 'I'm my own man' without sounding like a studious teenager, anxious to be taken seriously.

Quote for the Week 6

'Looking somewhat like a baby Harold Wilson, but speaking with the authority and cadence of a baby Churchill, he electrified the conference with a stern summons to revive pure Conservatism.'
Fred Emery of The Times on the 16-year-old William Hague appearing at the 1977 Conservative Party conference. Remembered in honour of the 16-year-old Rory Weal who today similarly excited delegates to the Labour Party conference.

Terry Nation - the story continues

It having been a few months since The Man Who Invented the Daleks was published, it was a very pleasant surprise to find it had attracted another review, this time by David Crozier in the Ham & High, the best local paper I know. The high place it holds in my estimation hasn't been harmed by Mr Crozier's kind words:

'Written with both wit and wonder ... this is a wonderful book, not just the details of one man's life and career, but a splendid rollercoaster ride throughsome of the best TV series since, well since the invention of television.'

Whilst on the subject of Terry Nation, I've also added a couple more extracts from the book to my website. And I'm much looking forward to a visit to the Morley Literature Festival in a fortnight's time, when I shall be talking about Nation.

Yesterday's Papers - Cassandra on capital punishment

Watching Question Time on BBC1 last night, as the execution of Troy Davies was being discussed and Conservative MP Priti Patel called for a return to capital punishment, I was reminded of one of the best columns written by William Connor, better known as Cassandra.
The piece was published in the Daily Mirror on 13 July 1955, the day that Ruth Ellis was executed for killing her lover, and opens:

It's a fine day for haymaking. A fine day for fishing. A fine day for lolling in the sunshine. And if you feel that way - and I mourn to say that millions of you do - it's a fine day for a hanging.

IF YOU READ THIS BEFORE NINE O'CLOCK THIS MORNING, the last dreadful and obscene preparations for hanging Ruth Ellis will be moving up to their fierce and sickening climax. The public hangman and his assistant will have been slipped into the prison at about four o'clock yesterday afternoon.

There, from what is grotesquely called 'some vantage point' and unobserved by Ruth Ellis, they will have spied upon her when she was at exercise 'to form an impression of the physique of the prisoner'.

A bag of sand will have been filled to the same weight as the condemned woman and it will have been left hanging overnight to stretch the rope.

IF YOU READ THIS AT NINE O'CLOCK, then - short of a miracle - you and I and every man and woman in the land with head to think and heart to feel will, in full responsibility, blot this woman out.

The hands that place the white hood over her head will not be our hands. But the guilt - and guilt there is in all this abominable business - will belong to us as much as to the wretched executioner paid and trained to do the job in accordance with the savage public will.

IF YOU READ THIS AFTER NINE O'CLOCK, the murderess, Ruth Ellis, will have gone.

The one thing that brings stature and dignity to mankind and raises us above the beast of the field will have been denied to her - pity and the hope of ultimate redemption.

The medical officer will go to the pit under the trap door to see that life is extinct. Then in the barbarous wickedness of this ceremony, rejected by nearly all civilized peoples, the body will be left to hang for one hour.

IF YOU READ THESE WORDS OF MINE AT MIDDAY the grave will have been dug while there are no prisoners around and the Chaplain will have read the burial service after he and all of us have come so freshly from disobeying the Sixth Commandment which says 'Thou shalt not kill'.

The secrecy of it all shows that if compassion is not in us, then at least we still retain the dregs of shame. The medieval notice of execution will have been posted on the prison gates and the usual squalid handful of louts and rubbernecks who attend these legalized killings will have had their own private obscene delights.

Taken from Paul Hamlyn (ed.), Cassandra: At His Finest and Funniest (Paul Hamlyn, London, 1967) - my apologies for the infringement of copyright.