TVGrouting

The Curse of the Specialist

TV channel commissioners keep going back to producers who can deliver a certain type of show. The people who made Wife Swap will always be asked to  make different shows in the same vein, just as my company will always be near the front of the queue if a funny-blokes-sitting-in-chairs show is required. The difficult thing is breaking out of your area of specialism into another genre of programme. I can see that my great new idea for a classical music-based show is going to have to overcome a few hurdles; one being that I know nothing about classical music. But you have to keep pushing the edges to avoid being pigeon-holed; a lesson I think this tradesman could learn:

I haven't cheated this - there isn't a sign on the other side saying, "We also do Scotch Eggs and Gala Pies", he really is dedicated to Escalopes. His name is The King Escalope. I admire the fellow's dedication but I worry about his long-term future.

Things you can count on part 2

This item, spotted only a few hundred yards from the lost glove, is not an example of someone obeying an unwritten law. I'm not sure there is an official protocol about what to do if you find a tiny Christmas jumper in the street, but for me it's almost as uplifting as the glove story.  There must be a limit to the number of things you can put on a railing spike - a chop, the head of a traitor..that's all I've got.

Things You Can Count On

BBC3 are about to appoint a new controller. This is great news for whoever gets the job, but bad news for a lot of independent programme makers waiting for green lights on various projects, because there’s an unwritten law in television that new controllers never commission shows from pilots that their predecessors ordered. There are a few more unwritten laws in tv, e.g. that whoever you give a break to on the career ladder will, at some point, advise you not to give a break to another person. And another – the new host of any show will turn out to be just as much of a monster as the person they replaced.

Most unwritten laws in television tend to be bad, but that doesn’t apply to the laws of Life. For instance, yesterday I lost a glove. It fell out of my coat pocket at some point as I was cycling to work up Queens Gate towards Hyde Park. I didn’t discover it till much later and by then I was already late. At the end of the day, I decided to go back the way I came, in the hope I might spot this missing glove. It’s not the most fantastic glove ever but I have had the pair for 12 years and I am a bit sentimental about them.

Queens Gate is a huge long road and full of parked cars so there is no way you can scour the kerbside. But then I remembered the Unwritten Law – if you find an odd glove you stick it on a railing spike.

And there it was. It’s comforting to think that someone spotted my lone glove and, almost without thinking, positioned it in the accepted fashion, fingers pointing upwards, palm out, on a decently high railing. Faith in human nature restored; more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner; he that was lost is now found etc. A rather appropriate sentiment for Easter weekend. If I was a priest this would make a cracking sermon.