Your Television is now a Radio

The Christmas book is decided. It is Ted Hughes' collected poems which as a bonus includes the privately printed extra poems from Birthday Letters. I had it in my hands yesterday but as the RRP is £40 and it is £28 on Amazon, I can wait. If it had been £28 yesterday it would now be in the house. The picture of Mr Hughes on the front is strange. At first I thought it was a powerful and contended image but the more I look at it, the more it seems that he is in the depths of despair, almost rendered static by the thought of something really bad. There is of course the question of when to get Three Tales by Steve Reich but the Ted Hughes is the focus at the moment, if you can possibly focus on 1300 pages.

It took me years to realise the author of that favourite Jackanory book - The Iron man - was also Ted Hughes. Bring back Jackanory I say. There is no programme on TV these days, which encourages children to tune in again to hear the end of a story. There has been a trend towards single one-offs where it does not matter if one episode is missed. Careful there Bob - sounding very middle-aged there. Time to go and do something else.