[Roger Slater]

It's on BBC America, and the only "research" I did was to notice a press release for the show on the BBC website. I incorrectly assumed that ITV was part of the BBC. Oops.

[Roger Slater]

Here's a revision trying to save the entry:

Though I am from the USA
(and mighty proud to be!)
I will not hesitate to say
I love the BBC.

I am a realist. I know
my life is small and shabby.
But once a week it isn't so!
I'm Lord of Downton Abbey!

Or maybe I'm the butler there,
a footman, a solicitor?
It doesn't matter. I don't care,
so long as I'm a visitor.

I'm ushered in. I say, "How kind!
I'd love a spot of tea!"
What's that you're saying? Never mind . . .
I meant the ITV.

or for last stanza:


I'm ushered in. I say, "Why, cheers!
I'd love a spot of tea!"
Then Carson looks at me and sneers,
"The show's on ITV."

[John Whitworth]

The show's on ITV is a more idiomatic final line. Historically, when I was young there was only BBC. Then there was ITV (Independent Television) with advertisements. That was the way it was for a long time. Now everybdy has seventy channels. I think six are BBC, the rest are other things. Of course the BBC includes the Radio also which is probably more important, particularly the sainted Radio 4, the only solid reason in my book for retaining the BBC at all. I just thought you'd like to know that.

We all pay £150 each for a Licence. This money goes direct to the BBC. These days it is easy to evade this, and the young mostly do, or so I gather. We oldies pay, kicking and screaming. Governments deny this is a tax, but it obviously is.

There is another reason for liking the BBC. He is an old guy called David Attenborough and he makes the best naure programmes ever in the whole wide world.

[Adrian Fry]

John, I agree with you about Radio 4. For me, it is now the saving grace of the BBC. Attenborough aside, BBC television no longer produces anything but pap.

[John Whitworth]

The BBC has recently started buying foreign thrillers, most famously from Denmark, but also from France,Belgium (I joke not!) Norway and Sweden. All very watchable and so much better than the Beeb stuff which is either costume drama (popular but not my cupof tea) or preachy lefty pap about as thrilling as cold toast.

However, the Beeb's days are numbered in its present form, since the money from the licence can only go down. In m opinion most of its supporters are talking about something they remember rather than what we now have. But I would miss Radio 4. Radio 3, the classical music channel, they have ruined with chirpy, chatty rubbish in between the music, as if it were Housewives' Choice.My, how that reference dates me. I shall be talking of Workers' Playtime and Wilfred Pickles next.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I'm ushered in. I say, "Why, cheers!
I'd love a spot of tea!"
Then Carson looks at me and sneers,
"The show's on ITV."

That final stanza truly sticks the landing.

[Roger Slater]

Thanks, Chris. You didn't just point out my mistake, but a direction for fixing it. I'm not optimistic about winning, but the poem is now funnier than it would have been had the show indeed been on the BBC.

[Adrian Fry]

John, I think you are so right when you say that the defenders of the BBC are talking about something they remember, not what exists today. I made a mental list of the best programmes I've ever seen on TV - from The Clangers to The Singing Detective - only to find they are all from 30 years ago or more. There might be a poem in this train of thought. . .

[John Whitworth]

There might, Adrian. There might.

[Graham King]

The Inner Circle pull together,
Golden handshakes given -
New harsher climate hope to weather,
Unexposed… unshriven.
Savile was this iceberg’s tip.
Each feels the bitter chill
Now public outrage takes a grip;
Gropes weren’t so cheap a thrill.
Some heads may roll… while others stroll
Nonchalant in their park
Of fond delusions. There’s a toll:
Kids not safe after dark.
The Beeb has boobed and effed it up -
Trusted, a traitor proved;
On trial in our living rooms,
Convicted, stands reproved.

(I submitted 2 other entries, similarly negative. I may be persuaded to post them. Are all such comp entries meant to be humorous? I find it hard to be so about the aspects of the BBC that irk me. It had a glorious heyday, such as anything involving Oliver Postgate.)