Stewart Lee ranted about modern TV and in particular the current state of Channel 4 (a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home) on his show a couple of weeks ago, and ever since I have been nostalgic for the days when I worked at C4 and we did good stuff.  Arts programmes about the arts, that made you think ; documentaries that changed the law , added to the gaiety of the nation, and that were fought over in court. 

Of course, it might  be that Channel 4 is just the same rag bag of good stuff and tripe that it always was and what I’m really nostalgic for is being 27 again.  But what the hell.  It’s my birthday and I’m allowed to have the odd madeleine moment about TV  programmes of the 1990s if I want. So, in the spirit of nostalgia, here’s a tribute to the only armadillo in history known to have introduced an arts programme (and subsequently to have died of a broken heart). 

I found this report on Ashworth Hospital , the home of Ian Brady. It’s worth reading in it’s entirety. It’s chilling and clinical in it’s blandness. A world of functionality and metal…….you can almost smell it. -”In Ashworth we Thrust”. It could be a line from Huxley’s Brave New World.

“Let the punishment fit the crime” , maybe…

” Among those asked to provide solutions was Security Design Associates (SDA), a division of Protec”.- Protec , even the names are like something out of a cheap SiFi film…..”a life for a life “…..but where’s the line drawn from punishment to torture…..’men and monsters’…….

…..and there but for the grace of God.

Ashworth Hospital : Intergrated Security Report.