Ian Jones

I went to see Short Cuts at the cinema in 1993 and I'm pretty sure it was the first time in my life I'd seen that particular piece of female anatomy.

I still have a soft spot for A View to a Kill, not just because it was the first 007 film I saw. It's also the last time we see Bond as an establishment gentleman who can move effortlessly between high society and low pantomime while having fun: a portrayal that's hugely enjoyable and which I miss.

Paris! Jimmy was in raptures about it. I thought it looked ace when I saw it on TV-am on our tiny black-and-white (!) family television set and even more ace in the cinema. A car gets its top sliced off and then its back sliced off but IT KEEPS ON GOING!!

It was in this week 40 years ago that I went to the Curzon cinema in Loughborough to watch A View to a Kill: my very first James Bond film. I went largely on the recommendation of Jimmy Greaves, who had reviewed it on TV-am and shown a clip of what he hailed as "the best car chase I have EVER seen!"

I'm guessing Traitors-style pop are songs from the past 40 years slowed down to a quarter of their speed and half-sung/half-whispered by a breathy woman?

Cliff Richard sings about God on Top of the Pops.

Hmm - I get the funny feeling this "you", of whom Cliff sings repeatedly and enthusiastically, is not a real person. #totp

Another story from the Loughborough Echo, this time dated 9 August 1985, about the town's less than successful contribution to Live Aid.

Sally had another go a few weeks later, but again failed to check what else was happening that day.

A report in the Loughborough Echo from 19 July 1985, detailing the town's attempt to take part in Live Aid. £20 was raised.

40 years ago today, my hometown does its bit for Live Aid. Sally should probably have checked Radio Times.

I hope they found whoever pulled the plug on The Who’s set… and gave them a medal. #HereAllWeek #LiveAid

Were you still up for Su Pollard and Duncan Goodhew? #LiveAid

*checks weather forecast* Looks like I might be able to use my oven on Tuesday, the first time this month! After that - who knows? Maybe I can risk heating a sausage in August.

Glad we don't have to do THAT any more! Anyway, here's that first listing in @radiotimes.bsky.social

I thought I'd mentioned it before - though admittedly it's not the most obvious thing to drop into a conversation!

The end credit from the first edition of Tomorrow's World, showing the name of my great uncle - and the programme's creator - Glyn Jones.

60 years ago this evening, a TV programme created by my great uncle Glyn was launched on BBC1.

Its name was coined by Glyn's wife, Daphne, when someone from Radio Times rang them at home in a flap, desperate to know how to bill the show in the next issue: "Tell them to call it Tomorrow's World."

These "secret sets" by musicians at Glastonbury don't seem very secret to me. I'm reading about them everywhere.

It beats me how any fan can enjoy watching Bond films on ITV. They're invariably cut to ribbons, the commercial breaks are shoehorned into the most inappropriate places, and there's usually a problem with the quality of the sound or picture.

I'm sorry to say I also saw Bennett do his naked-save-for-leaf business, but on a different programme: Brandreth's teatime quizzer The Railway Carriage Game!

A section of the credit sequence from a 1980 episode of All Creatures Great and Small, informing viewers that Tristan Farnon is played by "Peter Davison".

A section of the credit sequence from a 1980 episode of All Creatures Great and Small, informing viewers that Elijah Hamson is played by "Peter Davidson".

This episode of All Creatures Great & Small has thoroughly scrambled my already over-heated brain.

It's May 1993. Noel Edmonds and then-BBC1 controller Alan Yentob blur fantasy and reality by holding up an edition of the fictional Crinkley Bottom Observer which announces the real news that Noel and the BBC have signed a new deal.

May 1993: a time when Alan Yentob was almost as well-known as Noel Edmonds (though neither were as well-known as Mr Blobby).

Ah yes, of course: the thing that caused the world the most distress and hardship in 2020 was the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Start of episode: "We really need to pick up the pace and not spend so much money."
One minute later: "We've treated ourselves to a luxury trip to the middle of nowhere."
End of episode: "We're gutted we finished so far behind the others."
#RaceAcrossTheWorld

At this rate, the presenter of the BBC's News at Ten will have to begin by saying "Good morning".

"And while the votes continue to be counted, for your enjoyment, we present a musical montage depicting life... in each of the 26 Swiss cantons."

Is every single resident of Switzerland contractually obliged to appear in this Eurovision semi-final? Get a bloody move on. Some of us have got work tomorrow.

One of the fiftysomethings in tonight's Race Across the World said, referring to trains in China, "at least they're not as bad as British Rail" - which made me wonder how many people still use British Rail to mean the UK's rail network, even after all this time.

Colleagues would look on askance as several times a day I stood by my desk - or other people's desks - holding the base of a phone as high in the air as I could manage while dangling the entire cord and handset above the floor, in the hope gravity would unspool the problem.

A shot from a 1992 edition of The South Bank Show on Pet Shop Boys, showing a desk in the Smash Hits office with an evocatively tangled telephone cord.

This shot of the office of Smash Hits, from the 1992 South Bank Show on Pet Shop Boys, has stirred some potent workplace memories: not because of the magazine or the PSBs, but because of that monstrously tangled telephone cord. I grappled with dozens of these coiled horrors in my younger days.

One thing they need to restore to the Bond films: 007 donning disguises. I've just watched Octopussy and it must hold the record for the most instances of this: he's a horse trainer, a South American colonel, a crocodile, a dead body in a body bag, a gorilla, a circus knife thrower and a clown.

My least five favourite James Bond films.

You're made of stronger stuff than me. Not sure I'd willing choose to sit through any of my bottom five.

Recorded at 10am (!) on the previous Saturday, according to KW's diaries ("I am to play some old Lord in a minute spot").

Must have been tough to be funny at that hour of day - though I guess it was because cast members typically had other work in the theatre in the afternoon and evening.