One of the challenges of returning to my parents’ for the weekend (as I write, the bank holiday is looming) is the inevitable evening trawl for something watchable on television via such channels as Drama or ITV3.

I’m in the grip of politics fever. I can hardly concentrate; I want to know what is happening. Less than one week to go to the general election in the UK, and the two main political parties are neck and neck.

Last week I spent three wonderful and intellectually stimulating days at the Forgotten Television Drama conference;

The promenade at Scarborough. A ghostly and malevolent female figure appears by the seafront, cloaked in a sari. The apparition of mysterious brine accompanies her presence and the art-deco seafront is covered in mysterious shells.

I’m in the grip of politics fever. I can hardly concentrate; I want to know what is happening. Less than one week to go to the general election in the UK, and the two main political parties are neck and neck.

So, the other night, I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour just channel surfing—not watching anything in particular, just scrolling through the channel guide.  If I actually surfed and had been surfing out on a beach somewhere, I might have just been getting started at that point.

Dear Britain, On behalf of Australia, I’m really sorry about Neighbours. Honestly, we had no idea that a little soapie based in a fictional place outside Melbourne would go for so long.

As March wore on and the end of term approached, I was preparing a ‘taster’ teaching session for an upcoming post-applicant day. This is an open day for prospective university students who have already applied and been offered a place. The aim is to give them a flavour of what the teaching on the course will be like, and so staff like myself offer an hour long seminar.

Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted In my brain still remains Within the sound of silence   Simon And Garfunkel – Sounds Of Silence      Listen.

Easter being the time of resurrection, I spent part of the break uploading to YouTube some of the programmes I produced for Channel 4 in the 1980s and 1990s. So there is now a Large Door channelfor our moribund independent production company, with a selection from the hundred or so programmes we produced.