A delightful trawl through the less-repeated end of Christmas television. I'll have to seek out that Shoestring episode now.

"I'm completely bloody sick of this!" #UniversityChallenge

Count Dracula - the BBC gets Bram Stoker right for the first and only time, as the vanilla of writer Gerald Savory collides beautifully with the LSD and Daddies Sauce of director Philip Saville. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Today at the Allied Carpets sale, I bought a cow that took up exactly the same amount of space as Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills combined. They had a great deal on REM-size ruminants.

Persevering with Oppenheimer but Tom Conti as Einstein is throwing me. Although I'd love to see Alan Ayckbourn's The Einstein Conquests.

Russel Harty Goes Upstairs, Downstairs (known colloquially as "Russell Harty Fucke Uppe An Interviewe"): a Boxing Day treat nobody asked for, as Harty attempts to chat to the UD cast both in and out of character at the same time. It gets confusing. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Finally got time to dig into @whenisbirths.bsky.social new book and it doesn't disappoint. I had absolutely no idea about the Eurythmics/Throbbing Gristle crossover.

Breaking new ground in TV drama with the first ever unadapted adaptation.

Listing Dangerously at Christmas 2: Eclectic Toodle-oo. Vaulting ambition from Tommy Steele, panto history from Ken Campbell, stern goodwill from Mr T, political insurrection from Gavin Richards and extreme awkwardness from Russell Harty. Oh, and Derek Griffiths. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Nice to see Kazimir Malevich in gainful employment at the US Department of Justice.

Today's upon-waking mash-up: Happy Xmas (War is Over) and Gordon Giltrap's Heartsong.

One Chunk Leads To Another heralded as film of the year. A film I have absolutely no desire to see, despite it being "based on" the book that got me into Thomas Pynchon.

Festive ready meals are starting to sound like 18th century book titles. "Beef & Turkey Wellington Goujons in Sourdough Breadcrumbs. To which is added, New England Cranberry Sauce, a Sage & Onion Poultice & Crispy Lardons. Together with, an assortment of Flaked Bread Sauce, Dutch Gravy Foams &c &c."

Woke up with these lines in my head. "I'm dancing at this party, letting it all hang out. I'm looking for some peanuts but there's none about." Yeats. The master.

Just realised that tonight marks the 45th anniversary of a particularly rain-sodden outdoor after-school carol concert where, in an awkward pause between Away in a Manger and In the Bleak Midwinter, a parent loudly admonished his child, "This is *much* more important than Battlestar Galactica!"

Festive Watchdog on just now. Not a single soft toy whose head detaches to reveal a four inch metal spike. Is there any evidence that actually happened on the old show? I have memories, but I can't be sure they're not of parody sketches.

The Other One - the brilliant but overlooked middle entry in the Esmonde/Larbey trilogy of sitcoms, between The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles, all starring Richard Briers as a dysfunctional character exhibiting varying degrees of chirpiness and arseholery. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Oh God, American reaction YouTubers have discovered the existence of Heil Honey, I'm Home!

1981 - next week's big finale may go down in TV history, but penultimate Blake's 7 episode Warlord deserves to go down in production design history, thanks to the wardrobe department and some mad mise-en-scene from director's director Viktors Ritelis. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

You wait three decades for a piece of online advertising to be even halfway relevant to you, and it turns out to be the most niche thing imaginable.

Soap Aid - the last and, well, probably not the most of the big African charity concerts, with the casts of Brookside, Corrie, EastEnders, Emmerdale and, oh yes, Albion Market doing the now-standard stadium gig and single package. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Part One of the Christmas Listing Dangerously Selection Box is out, and we're hitting all the festive "B"s. Beckett! Blackeyes! Bolam! Briers! Burke! Brookside! Benji! Bob Monkhouse! Blake's 7! "What about Malcolm Bradbury?" "I'm aware of his work." open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

1974: on the opening night of Lindsay Kemp's Flowers, one of the production's naked male dancers has an unplanned encounter with Blue Peter's Biddy Baxter.

I see there's another production of Die Fledermaus opening soon. Which is all well and good, but it does contribute to the continuing marginalisation of all the other Flederbobs. #JohannLiftsAFinger

He's done it again: the birth of telecommunications, as told through the lens of everyone's favourite "sod this for a lark, when does Roseanne start?" sitcom. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmyB...

That time in 1997 when Channel Four piloted five different late night topical discussion shows in consecutive weeks. The Will Self one was particularly embarrassing. Bragg won, of course. "Have you all got yer Sundays?"

Mark E Smith: the Next Generation.

By hiding his face behind the big yellow oval menu while ordering the mixed grill for 7/6?

Glad to see the pushback on Christmas Wrapping gathering pace. When did it start becoming an annually recurring thing? I remember hearing it on Muzak rotation in Friars Square Shopping Centre in about 1991.

Delighted to discover the existence of a snooker player called Wu Yize. One to file alongside Ol' Dirty Charlton and Ray Reardon the Chef.

Radio just played the once ubiquitous, now totally forgotten, I Love You Always Forever by Donna Lewis, and it's basically just a New Age cover of the theme from Pebble Mill.

The most unChristmassy Christmas objects of all: those grey funnels used to wrap Christmas trees.

Nancy Banks-Smith on the joy, or otherwise, of live TV.

I'm not sure an instrumental cover of Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl in the style of a coke-addled Paganini makes for the ideal lift repair report hold music.

Hands up who's looking forward to next year's Fifty Years of Paaaahnk celebrations.

Not to give the impression that me watching Say Nothing is a case of pearls before swine, but I couldn't help thinking how the bloke who plays the young Gerry Adams would make a cracking Ernie Bishop.

While looking for something else entirely I came across a book I strangely don't remember buying, a German coffee-table book of Matta paintings. It's the most beautiful thing.

I'd never have had Tom Stoppard down as a Zardoz fan.

I remember making jokes about The Point being listed in the early nineties. Always a fan of their staff's obligingly lax attitude to age restriction.

The new De La Soul album's a bit good, isn't it? www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxK7...

That "introduce yourself with the first five gigs you saw" thing is just an excuse for people to show off how recently they became old enough to go to gigs, isn't it?

El vino collapso, Getting out of the darkness, My light shines on, My light shines on, My light shines on.

Jack Shepherd. Utterly magnificent in some of the best TV plays ever made. And, for that matter, pretty damn good in some of the very worst.

Sudden memory of a Benny Hill Show where a lone audience member pissed themselves when Yaketty Sax got to the bit where it quotes Entrance of the Gladiators. Is that the lowbrow equivalent of slapping your thigh at a gag in As You Like It?

If we're to have more of these dramatisations of Great Moments in Rock, there should be one of the weekend when Captain Sensible was radicalised in the Crass commune.

The Galloping Gourmet - Graham Kerr triangulates a path between cosmopolitan sophisticate, down to earth bloke and "muggins here" culinary bluffer as he whips up full-fat continental treats and leaps over random bits of G-Plan. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

Separated at birth: Peter Sellers' I Haven't Told Her, She Hasn't Told Me (But We Know it Just the Same) and Bankrobber by The Clash.

I'm mildly obsessed with Venus Observed by Christopher Fry. Fry was the biggest name in British drama just after WWII, until John Osborne & the Royal Court tore theatre a new arsehole. So this is the Tales from Topographic Oceans to Osborne's Anarchy in the UK, to make a totally spurious comparison.

It's farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish Blakeys for Week 55 of Listing Dangerously. Also, Bill Maynard's on a bus, Pete Postlethwaite's in a caravan, Anthony Valentine's in Sydney, Orson Welles is in Norwich, and Simon Callow's in the pub, beating up squaddies. open.substack.com/pub/historyo...

I was reminded today of Varoomshka, the Guardian's 1970s satirical newspaper comic strip in monumentally dubious taste.