Voting early

Relive the days of those Newsround Extra election specials! Read more

School’s out forever

It won’t surprise many to read that two days shy of its 30th birthday Grange Hill has been axed. Increasingly out of place on BBC1 – in fact, the last series didn’t even graduate from the CBBC channel to terrestrial – it’s perhaps a mercy killing, what with the revamped “The Grange” media centre-led series currently in production at Lime Pictures, awkwardly shoe-horning primary school kids into the format. Read more

The advent frown

Everyone must have a piece of Christmas television that’s become a tradition in their house - The Snowman, The Queen, Top of the Pops. For me, it’s always been the Christmas edition of Blue Peter. Read more

“The wife gave me cabbage and bean tartlets last night…”

“… Yet another reason to despise Jamie Oliver.”

Just finished watching the first two episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures (now confirmed for Monday 24 September at 5pm on BBC1), and I feel a little bit exhilarated. With 25 minute episodes this does indeed feel rather like old schoolWho. Not a huge deal of plot, but lots of exciting moments and archetypical flourishes (unseen baddies monitoring our heroes via CCTV and cackling evilly). And it moves like the clappers.  Read more

School’s out forever?

It was a regular part of the “new season” trails, that first look at the upcoming term in Grange Hill. I’ve vague memories of one with the kids mucking about on a bus, which revealed Gonch had grown up a helluva lot during the holidays. Why this reverie? Because it’s something that didn’t happen this year. Read more

“This time we’ll kill Sarah Jane Smith properly!”

“Sonic lipstick”, a giant fold-out computer called Mr Smith, SJ whizzing around in a Nissan Figaro, a craze for fizzy drinks sweeping the nation… the preview disc for The Sarah Jane Adventures has hit my desk, and it looks awfully good. Read more