Sabotage

Dear Daniel,

Watching television here in the UK, I keep picking out a theme. It's not the continued and evermore geriatric throes of reality shows. It's not the so-called revival of variety (as is variety was about expensive lighting and the forced editing of faux-dramatic backstories). It is the fact that everybody working in television is currently our age. It's a unique experience. Never before have the entertainment of the nation and my personal memories come together in so striking a sense. It's like a personal invite to an eclipse.

A case in point: some clever clogs at ITV4 has decided to promote their very very oldschool season of cop shows like the Sweeney and the Professionals by cutting the footage along to Sabotage and creating a gag that only people of a certain age will get. And that age is our age. It's been said before that TV is a joke. Well, now we're in on it.

Dear James,

So what's your beef? Finally a song with distorted bass and one chord gets used as backing music. Isn't this a good thing? How long before they get to use the "I've got this fucking thorn in my side" line in an advert for Dempsey and Makepeace? And how long before the classic metal of the early eighties gets its payday on ITV4?