• Chris Evans’s one-off revival of TFI Friday last week conjured up memories for survivors of the 90s, and not just of well-fuelled celebs beginning their weekends of excess by spouting bilge to the ginger binger – there was also the splendid synergy between the host’s radio gig (the Radio 1 breakfast show in those days) and TV show. Evans regularly plugged the TFI Friday revival to his Radio 2 audience (almost 10 million weekly listeners) in the runup, climaxing on Friday itself when Evans invited all his guests to come along. As for Channel 4, it will doubtless have been thrilled by receiving oodles of free advertising on the UK’s most-listened-to programme.
• When new culture secretary John Whittingdale appointed former Sky head of public affairs Ray Gallagher as his special policy adviser last week, it continued a long-running connection between the two – from 2006 to March 2015 Gallagher advised the DCMS select committee (including for its recent Future of the BBC report) that Whittingdale chaired. Nick Davies’s book Hacked Off mentions Gallagher’s mid-noughties committee appointment as a coup for Sky, but also notes another success of the broadcaster’s lobbying efforts back then – “when Whittingdale needed funds for his local cricket club, BSkyB made a donation of £3,000”.
• Financial records were shattered in the latest Lunch with the FT, a weekly institution that normally sees the masters of the universe who are the Pink ’Un’s typical guests making a point of settling for a glass of water and a sandwich or salad, adding up to under £100. Richard Desmond (right), in contrast, cost the paper £758.81, a total largely attributable to the £580 paid for a bottle of Chateau Palmer 1983. The mercurial mogul explains why he ordered it to his still-wincing interviewer in the last paragraph. “I asked my wife this morning, ‘shall I order my usual wine?’, says Desmond. “And she said ‘yes, you’re a billionaire. If you just order a glass of house red, people will think – what’s wrong with him?’.”
• While BBC2 has abolished its arts documentary strand The Culture Show, BBC1’s Imagine is still going to the amazement of some observers and returns next week with a lineup consisting of Frank Gehry, Jeff Koons, Toni Morrison, Ginger Baker and Richard Flanagan – only one woman, only one Brit, and an average age of 71-and-a-half that may be a best-ever figure for any such series. At 68, presenter Alan Yentob’s own age is unsurprisingly not too far away from that.
• In their online manifestos, the candidates to succeed John Whittingdale as chair of the Commons culture select committee (all Tory, white and male) have tried to portray themselves as renaissance men, all-rounders equipped for anything the DCMS can throw at them. These are Monkey’s favourite claims to arty, sporty or media hinterlands or commitments to suitable causes...
Damian Collins (ex-Saatchis): “In 2014 I introduced my private member’s bill on football governance at home...” (sic)
Damian Green (ex-journalist): “I am a season ticket holder at the club I have supported since I was nine” (too ashamed to name it, Damian?)
Jason McCartney (ex-ITV, BBC): “I love technology but just wish I had decent broadband speeds in my home village of Honley in Yorkshire.”
Jesse Norman (ex-don): “I taught myself to play the trumpet in my 40s and play in the parliamentary jazz band.”
Graham Stuart (publisher, but main claim is having chaired education committee): “My constituency borders Hull, City of Culture in 2017”.
• Alas for fans of BBC4’s Top of the Pops repeats, they’ve suddenly disappeared from the schedules due to industrial action – 35 years ago. A Musicians’ Union strike during the summer of 1980 over the disbanding of the venerable Top of the Pops orchestra forced it off air for 10 weeks (during which time Don McLean’s Crying became the lowest-selling No 1 single ever due to the absence of a television boost). BBC4 has dutifully complied with the enforced break, to the consternation of regular viewers, but will resume airing those shows, free of Jimmy Savile and DLT, in August.
