I love writing, but some things just work better on the radio... Even, oddly, when they're about pictures...

Today is the 63rd anniversary of the London premiere of Dr. No, which means (well, obviously) it’s time to tell you a ridiculous shaggy dog story about the theft of not one but two portraits of the Duke of Wellington

Quite pleased with this one. A nice little story:

Very few people left now who did anything of note on-screen on TW3... Maybe only Millicent Martin?

A new bit of bloggage, rounding up some Star Flight bits and pieces. notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2025/09/flig...

The very first episode of 'Joe 90' was released 57 years ago today. Your week won't get any better than this, trust me.

Hang on, he's married to a woman called Gail!!?? #Strictly #StrictlyComeDancing

22 years ago today since the recommissioning of #DoctorWho was announced. Read how it happened in my book The Long Game... tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/the-...

It's exactly 22 years ago today since the recommissioning of #DoctorWho was announced. But how did we get from the TV Movie in 1996 to this point...? My book The Long Game tells the story of those seven years: tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/the-...

"One million years old, you say...?"

It is *very* disorienting to me that the Bunty Annual lasted long enough to have a feature about Miley Cyrus in the last one.

I'll be chatting to @bbcnorfolk.bsky.social 3:35pm today, about 'An Afternoon of (Very) Old Radio' Hunstanton (Wed) + Attleborough (Thu), part of @creativeartseast.bsky.social's Arts for Health All welcome, inc those with dementia + other health challenges. www.creativeartseast.co.uk/events/an-af...

I'm not saying we're short on awards, but we appear to be displaying a leftover one from an event where we used to give them out to other people...

A little bit of Star Flight chat from the team and BBC Audiobooks editor Michael Stevens in this!

Update - we are now told the driver has "acquired" the swan.

Now a train announcement I have never heard before as we sit still just after Shoreham. "Ladies and gentlemen, apologies for the delay... I can see the driver walking down the track trying to wave a swan away..."

Someone in this carriage is playing loudly on his phone... a local cup draw on Sussex. "...29, which is Three Bridges..."

I'm no driver, but I'm sure that can't be allowed...?

Dawn mist.

On the huh.

Dead Dalek.

62 years ago today, the very first filming for Doctor Who took place at Ealing Studios. Read about the show's origins and early months in Pull to Open: The Inside Story of How the BBC Created and Launched Doctor Who, available now from tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com

Obviously as a staff member it is not appropriate for me to comment on this. But it is an interesting read.

A shoutout to anyone heading to the BFI Southbank for this Saturday's Doctor Who screening, the BFI Shop now carries all our titles. Check them out.

Sixty-two years ago this morning, the very first live-action shots for Doctor Who were filmed at Ealing Film Studios.

Brand new on Dirty Feed: to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fawlty Towers, here's a look at all the various parodies of the show over the years. "Yes madam, I am frightfully tall." www.dirtyfeed.org/2025/09/herr...

To anyone who feels that kids these days are exposed to too much screen violence at a young age, this is an episode of Swap Shop that ended with John Craven dying and Noel Edmonds covering his corpse. #SwapShop

One for the #DoctorWho fans - the windows in memory of Donald Wilson's parents at Dunblane Cathedral.

OTD in early British television On Friday 16 September 1938 a television OB unit was among newsreel cameras at Heston Aerodrome to provide live coverage of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s return from meeting Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/otd-in-early...

This is good news. The TV Times is now included in the British Newspaper Archive. www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/tv-ti...

Helpful...

Absolute shameless breaking news clickbait from another Reach plc title. It’s Christmas Day. MAKE SURE YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT OUT IN THREE MONTHS TIME.

A new blog post, jabbering on about writing, in the light of my big news... notanovelistyet.blogspot.com/2025/09/taki...

With Halloween a mere 46 days away, here is a look at the British comics equivalent of The Munsters and The Addams Family. cwickham.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-...

One of the things about writing for BBC Audiobooks is that, for administrative reasons, you end up with a profile page on the Penguin website. So I can say, "Oh yeah, I'm a Penguin author..." www.penguin.co.uk/authors/3068...

We’re pleased to announce that Richard Marson’s long-awaited history of BBC Children’s TV will be published on November 17 in trade paperback and a collector’s hardback, limited to 300 copies. Order Box of Delights: The Story of BBC Children’s Television now from tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com

The Radio Times have finally started billing it as "BBC One" rather than "BBC1" after holding out for 28 years

Everywhere was full of damn tourists.

Happy 45th birthday to us... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Two years today since the final TQ. Time flies. For ages afterwards I'd every-so-often suddenly think, "I haven't set up anything for TQ this week!" before realising of course that I no longer needed to.

I don't remember if I saw this at the time, but it's a clip I have long loved and have always kept in mind while working in even my little area of broadcasting - that there is something comforting and appealing in giving the impression we all live in a big house together with a transmitter on top.

On the blog: The tale of how Lynda La Plante once caused a character's first name to disappear completely from a script - yet it stayed in the end credits. Oh, and her story about refusing to let Freddie Mercury into her flat to play the piano: mikewhalleyblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/t...

Two new BBC Doctor Who audio stories coming in 2026 cultbox.co.uk/news/audio-n...

Hot hot hot!

The listing's up on Amazon, so "glad I can finally talk about this," as they say. After all these years, I have actually managed to sell a professional piece of fiction. And of all the things I've tried, what is it...? Coming soon, from BBC Audiobooks...

The ITV strike had been going for a month by the time Nationwide's John Stapleton and the TV editor of the Daily Mail updated viewers with few other options on the state of arbitration today in 1979.

The listing's up on Amazon, so "glad I can finally talk about this," as they say. After all these years, I have actually managed to sell a professional piece of fiction. And of all the things I've tried, what is it...? Coming soon, from BBC Audiobooks...

Brand new on Dirty Feed: today is the 50th anniversary of the studio recording of Fawlty Towers, "Gourmet Night". That episode's famous ending is pictured here. But it wasn't the originally intended finale. Instead, things were going to get rather more peculiar... www.dirtyfeed.org/2025/09/luck...

58 years ago today we discovered we weren’t alone in the universe. Six *actual* flying saucers landed across southern England along a ley line, providing CONCLUSIVE PROOF at long last. Well... 🧵

When I was at Anglia TV about 25 yrs ago, a girl in our office sent out a team email that said, “It’s been a crap Monday, who wants to come to my flat for a smoke?” Sadly she sent it to everyone in ITV. Melvyn was one of the first to reply with “That sounds lovely but sadly I’m filming in Newcastle”