Liz Barker

Yesterday, Kaleidoscope – The Classic Television Organisation, held their Blue Peter Goes Gold event at The David Lean Room, BAFTA in London’s Piccadilly.

We were there, and – courtesy of Michael Hoskin – here are pictures from the day.

As ever for a Kaleidoscope do, there was a slightly shambolic air – David Hamilton MC-ing for no obvious reason, a chaotic tea break wherein paying and unpaying attendees mingled freely with BP presenters and the odd mis-cued clip. But, to be honest, that added to the charm of what turned out to be a pleasingly low-key gathering.

And you couldn’t fault the clip packages: Kevin Whately, Sally James and a comically misplaced Ray Burdis’ audition tapes; Simon Groom struggling with a homemade Dalek, a real Dalek and the BP dog (“Give over Goldie, shut up!”); and a fantastic outtake with Konnie Huq clocking off from night shift working as a nurse declaring, “Right, I’m off to shag a doctor!”

Renny Rye, Edward Barnes and Biddy Baxter (Darrol Blake, not pictured)

Tina Heath, Matt Baker and Simon Thomas waiting in the wings to join the charity auction

Panel of the day was probably the first, featuring BP designer (and latterday TV director) Darrol Blake, director Renny Rye and masterminds Edward Barnes and Biddy Baxter. Biddy, in particular, produced impressively quick-witted and great value for money. When asked what the Blue Peter team had made of Magpie, she replied: “Well, of course, we were very flattered”.

Anita West

Sarah Greene

The afternoon saw Peter Duncan, Simon Groom, Tina Heath, Anita West and Sarah Greene take to the stage. When pressured, Peter admitted that, yes, he would return to the show if the BBC’s ever came a-calling (while also admitting how unlikely such a thing would be).

Tina Heath

Simon Groom

Finally, the latterday dreamteam of Richard Marson, Liz Barker, Matt Baker and Simon Thomas had their turn. Another interesting panel, Marson revealed his thoughts about Blue Peter since he left.  He said the last season’s shows were disappointing to many, but seemed fairly optimistic about the current season and praised the new presenters.

All in all, a fascinating and jolly event, perfectly in keeping with the subject matter. Thanks go to Kaleidoscope. Until next time… Goodbye!

Yep, to celebrate BP‘s 50th, we staged our first ever giveway. All you had to do was answer this teaser. 

Who’s the Blue Peter presenter sat with Margaret Thatcher?

Easy, right? Here’s that picture again, minus pixelation.

Margaret Thatcher and... Caron Keating!

Congrats to Nigel Fishwick, David Cobley and Rod Begbie. I’ve mailed you all asking for your postal address.

Now, Caron meets Thatch, let’s all relive that moment…

Robin Ince meets Richard Bacon

This is a grab from tonight’s episode of Richard and Judy’s New Position, on Watch. Robin Ince! Richard Bacon! Together at last!

In fact, R&J are saluting Blue Peter‘s birthday by welcoming Bacon in to the studio along with three gold badge winners (Lee Benson, Johnny Lynch, Sarah Frith).

Plus there’s the presentation of a BP-themed birthday cake and some patented sofa chat.

And in return for publishing grabs, I have to tell you this: Richard and Judy’s New Position airs on Tuesdays at 8pm, exclusively on Watch. (SKY 109 / Virgin 124) To find out more go to www.justwatch.co.uk.

A blazer glory

Will there be a cake for the pets too?

A dip into its present incarnation reveals a programme peppered with anxiety masquerading as hyperbolic shouting. Too many faces have been too rapidly replaced; too many motifs have been too forcibly mangled. This elegiac tribute rightly acknowledged its heritage as an indispensable institution. But Blue Peter, at the moment, is neither of those things. There’s virtually nothing within the fabric of the show to distinguish it from any other kids’ entertainment series. And it’s certainly no longer an institution.

Matriach of Studio One and supply teacher to the nation

Does this matter? As long as people have eyes to see there’ll be someone watching the BBC’s longest-running children’s franchise. And there have been serious wobbles before, characterised by the same hasty shedding of personnel (the late ’70s) and unfocused makeovers (the early ’90s).

Just at the point in proceedings when salutations like this seek, and usually fail, to persuade you the subject in question is healthier than ever, in stepped Janet Ellis. Seconds before the closing credits rolled, she insisted: “The modern child still finds the sense of discovery in things that Blue Peter reflects, and I think that’s an extraordinary ability”.

Her pedigree urged the viewer to treat her views with hushed authority. But though her argument in itself was sound, the preceding 59 minutes of television seemed concerned with something else entirely – namely, the eulogising of faces and places long gone. Blue Peter at 50 was a totaliser-sized doff of the hat to how we used to live, but with scarcely a polite nod to where we go from here.

A snake does a piss; Konnie makes sure we all know

The celebration of memory is a tricky one to pull off. You need poise, intelligence and a killer cast list. What you don’t need is clutter, waffle and people who had nothing to do with the matter in hand.

At least this enterprise made sure it had the right tools to finish the job. No diversions into unrelated anecdotes. No tangential clips. And, mercifully, only a few contributions from celebrity viewers.

Nobody needs to be told what to think about the history of Blue Peter. All that’s required are the people who were there, both then (in the form of highlights from the archive) and now (contemporary interviews). Both were on offer here in plentiful abundance, and to the exclusion of almost everything else. Including any or all sense of chronology.

Biddy in action: "Apply your mind & stop panicking"

When, a minute in, the programme lurched forwards 30 years, then back 10, then forward 25, before any mention had been made of how Blue Peter even began, at least one viewer felt a palpable queasiness that was more than just motion sickness.

Surely this wasn’t just going to be another exercise in nostalgia-by-numbers? Was it all going to be just pissing elephants, lifeboats and Mark Curry mishandling Lego?

Such concerns were misplaced. Yes, there was no order to the thing. Sure, it was as scattershot as it was selective. But with such rich pickings up for grabs, it was impossible to feel discomfited for that long.

For the old Blue Peter magic soon began to work. Incidents and epiphanies shuttled past, triggering emotions long buried. Even the very look of the old show, the bareness of the set, the colour of the cooking utensils, the sound of a dog barking from across a cavernous studio floor… these revealed themselves to have immense associative power. This was the stuff teatime dreams were made of.

Pete nobly steers the subject away from Shep - again

If you surrendered yourself and your 21st century scruples, and weren’t bothered by quirks of editing or narration that went nowhere (asking questions – “What made it so special?” – that were never answered), few faults could be found.

Almost every presenter had been rounded up; many were reunited for collective reminiscences both ribald (Duncan/Greene/Groom) and crotchety (Singleton/Purves/Noakes).

These were great fun and could have formed an entire programme in themselves.

Peter Duncan recalled blithely dishing out badges to plumbers and builders. Peter Purves earned the right to become the next prime minister when he berated John Noakes for droning on about Shep.

"Our fans? I can see four, Miles"

Anthea Turner summed up her entire existence in a flash when she casually declared her house possessed “a craft cupboard”. And Lesley Judd struck the most wistful note when she concluded: “I lived an entire life in seven years”.

A hand of forgiveness was even extended to the Cheech and Chong of BP folklore, Richard Bacon and Stuart Miles, who were allowed a few moments’ air time to ruminate awkwardly in the Blue Peter garden. This wasn’t a tribute about to bury any less than dignified episodes in a subterranean time capsule. Well, apart from Michael Sundin.

No, Bacon’s sacking was covered, as was the bogus telephone call from a competition entrant, as was the rigging of the cat-naming public vote. Richard Marson, on whose watch the latter two occurred, pleaded that a “mistake is very different from a wilful mindset where you think the audience don’t matter”.

Richard Marson: "It wasn't me, guv!"

This sounded like a dash of whitewashing. Few could ever accuse anybody who either appeared on or worked for Blue Peter of not acknowledging the audience. Marson’s error was thinking they mattered too much, to the extent of wilfully misleading them for fear of acknowledging that things go wrong on live television.

As the clips confirmed, up until a year or so ago Blue Peter had nothing to fear. It had adapted itself to a multi-channel, interactive world. It had found a fresh way to serve up that familiar rich mix of fun and education.

And it had enjoyed a run of presenters remarkable for consistency of entertainment and capability. It’s telling that, of the show’s two best ever hosts to date, one hails from the last decade (Matt Baker – the other being Sarah Greene). 

Just another day at the office for Matt Baker

Yet when the only real reason for something to exist is for the sake of it, that’s no sane reason at all.

Apart from that valediction from Janet, not a breath was spared on the consideration of Blue Peter‘s current form, let along its future.

If the show is to have a future worthy of its past, it needs to pay more attention to the values on display during this superb, evocative excavation. Otherwise, while the idea of “Blue Peter at 100″ sounds tantalising, the reality of watching a second half-century of clips is bone-chilling. 

In the words of Biddy Baxter: just apply your mind and stop panicking.

A musical shipwreck?

As the BBC’s – ahem – flagship children’s programme readies for its 50th birthday celebrations, Michael Hoskin, from cult TV website TV Cream, is asking a pertinent question. Has the theme tune been ‘broken’?

The show returned to our screens last month after its traditional summer break, and sporting an updated version of the famous signature tune – ‘Barnacle Bill’. Nothing odd in that… except is that tune actually still ‘Barnacle Bill’? Or is it now the equally nautical ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’?

On September 24, Hoskin dropped a line to the show’s editor, Tim Levell, to ask. Levell replied: “We intended to use Barnacle Bill (which is a sailor’s hornpipe of course). What do you think the difference is?”

Hoskin replied (and this is where it gets good)…

Hi Tim,

Many thanks for your reply. It’s difficult to describe the difference in words, but basically Barnacle Bill goes:

“Tiddle Im Pom Pom, dada dada dada daaa [rest]

Tiddle Im Pom Pom dada dada dada daaa…

Dada dada dada dada dada dada dada daaa [rest],

Tiddle Im Pom Pommy Tiddle Im Pom,

Tiddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Tiddle Iddle Iddle Lum,

Tiddle Im Pom Pommy Tiddle Im Pom

Tiddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Um,

Tiddle Im Pom Pommy Tiddle Im Pom

Tiddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Um

Pom Iddle Iddle Um, Pom Pom!”

but the sailor’s hornpipe that is now used goes:

“Tiddle Im Pom Pom, diddle diddle diddle diddle Tiddle Im Pom Pom, diddle diddle diddle diddle

Tiddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle Iddle, Iddle Iddle Iddle, Tiddle Im Pom Pom!”

and is altogether more hectic. It is the tune that is usually played in the Last Night of the Proms.

I’m not the only one who has noticed it, as the dropping of Barnacle Bill has also been mentioned on the Blue Peter entry for Wikipedia (admittedly not always accurate!):

I don’t expect my email makes sense, but listen to the new theme compared to any of the others and you should be able to tell the difference.

Then, on October 5, Levell came back with this…

Hi Michael – belated reply but thanks for this – we are looking in to this and if necessary/appropriate will get it changed back to ‘Barnacle Bill’ – best, Tim

So what do you think? Here’s a montage of previous BP themes…

And here’s the latest version…

Joel Defries, Andy Akinwolere and Helen Skelton

And it’s Joel Defries who – along with fellow newbie Helen Skelton – will join Andy Akinwolere when the show returns on 23 September.

The 23-year-old says: “Being the presenter of Blue Peter is one of the finest jobs in the world. I wake up every day thinking I can’t believe this is happening. I have never been so happy and can’t wait to see what other adventures Blue Peter has lined up for me.

You can read full details on the BBC press site. And there’s more about Joel courtesy of Wikipedia.

Even if you haven’t watched Blue Peter for decades, you’ll know the format of the traditional Christmas show - lighting the final candle on the advent crown, cards from viewers, presents for the pets (although the tradition of giving the presenters presents too seemed to die out sometime in the ’70, soon after Peter Purves received some Whistle Testcassettes), a last-minute make, the Christmas crib and the unforgettable climax with the team joined by hundreds of kids and the Chalk Farm band of the Salvation Army to croon a carol. Predictable, maybe, but always delivered with such affection and sparkle that – certainly for me – it’s a top piece of life-affirming family telly to really kick off the festive season.

This was especially the case during the show’s imperial phase earlier this decade, and was testament to Blue Peter‘s ability to stick with the show’s traditions but make them relevant and enjoyable for new generations.

There’s been a lot of changes to the programme this year, some of them for obvious reasons, but also due to a CBBC policy to aim purely at the under-12s with teenagers directed towards the new BBC Switch. The relaunch in September was a rather radical affair which certainly in the first few weeks had some teething problems, but with familiar staples such as the expedition and the appeal remaining in place, I’d assumed, and hoped, the Christmas show, which went out yesterday, would remain broadly similar.

But no. In fact, all the familiar Christmas traditions were junked to make way for a new format. The edition instead was a Christmas party for some of the young carers the appeal would be helping. It wasn’t a bad show by any means – it was nice to see BP on a large scale in TV Centre Studio 1 again after months of squatting on a tiny fixed set, the kids seemed to enjoy it, and it helped promote the appeal further – but it wasn’t the Christmas show. Hence, to round it off, rather than the Salvation Army, the musical item was Santa Claus is Coming to Town performed by… Booty Luv.

Before the Daily Mail gets wind of this, the reason for the change was not “political correctness”, as with cracker-pulling contests and Konnie visiting a Christmas tree farm, it was packed with Christmassy stuff. But not the traditional Christmas fare, and I find that hugely disappointing. Of course they have to move with the times, but to completely abandon a much-loved format after nearly 50 years seems rather unnecessary, as it was still massively enjoyable. 

Biddy Baxter famously demanded the programme be “a rock” in viewers’ lives, always familiar during turbulent times, so I don’t know how children react to these bewildering and, really, largely pointless changes.

To use a crap analogy, I wouldn’t like it if you gave me pizza for Christmas dinner rather than turkey. Christmas has been officially ruined.

Sure, many hundreds have embodied everything that, by whatever measure of success is in fashion at the time, could be said to represent new, exciting and entertaining TV. Most of them did it by simply not trying to be children’s presenters, or drifting into children’s television by accident, or labouring long to give the appearance of not resenting drifting into children’s television by accident.

Most of them used to be a good few dozen years older than the people they were supposed to be entertaining to boot. Age, experience and a rumpled jacket were once the touchstones of the crystal bucket as well as the blackboard.

But all along, up to and including the present day, only a handful have really ever succeeded, not by doing, but by simply being. Who have impressed not by seeking to be impressionable, or even by being impressive, but by appearing not to try. Who somehow match up perfectly with those unspoken assumptions somewhere in the back of your mind that dictate what you should want to see from a children’s presenter. And who don’t always come sporting rumpled jackets.

Johnny Ball was one. So was Fred Harris. And it’s fair to say that, during his time on Blue Peter, Matt Baker has been another of those people who seemed to possess the secret of contemporary children’s telly. What’s more, he’s just shown himself to know precisely the right moment to take his leave and pack up his magic for another time and place.

Today’s edition, a shameless clip show subtitled “Matt Baker: Mover and Shaker”, offered by way of a parting salute a montage of every trick in the conjuror’s book. We saw the man twirling and hollering his way through enough flannel to fill several wardrobes – the same ones, presumably, which Matt had spent seven years emptying in order to arm himself with a canon of costume changes, a plethora of powdered wigs and a fair legion of false moustaches.

We saw him toe-tapping his way around the world and back again. We saw him turn his tonsils to Presley, old-time music hall, Hollywood song and dance, and Billy Joel. A downright spectacular version of Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) was followed by a frankly disturbing performance of I Enjoy Being a Girl, which in turn gave way to a wonderful rendition of New York New York (So Good They Named it Twice) with Matt shimmying and shrugging his way around the strangely oblivious titular city streets.

Heaven knows on what premise most of these glossy production numbers were originally staged. Most times there probably wasn’t one. But that in itself stands as testament to the rude health of Blue Peter‘s recent history, where no longer have things needed to be universally weighed down by the urgency of requiring a purpose or proving a point. The worthy has mixed with the whimsical, neither grating against the other thanks to ability of its ranks of presenters to switch and judge contrasting moods perfectly.

Matt was always the undisputed master of such a technique, and while this particular selection of highlights was only one slice of the man’s endeavours aboard the good ship, here was proof enough of his instinctive feel for all the tenets of textbook children’s TV: the lightness of touch, the self-deprecation, the elder brother-style banter, the passion for silliness, the respect for the sublime.

There hasn’t really been a Blue Peter presenter like him – ever. Those who went before who encapsulated some of the same spirit, the same breathless enthusiasm, the same idea of living life for its own sake, were all too old to ever appear anything more than zany uncles with a tendency to never know when to shut up. Or that’s how it felt at the time. For like policemen, Blue Peter presenters never used to seem as young as they do now. But unlike policeman, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If there’s one thing above all else worth garlanding as a tribute to Matt’s time on the show, it is the way he helped it to lose its fusty, mildly patronising air, of the kind produced every time your unwelcome snobby cousin turned up in your bedroom when the relatives stopped by for Sunday tea. And this, in turn, has seeped out through the rest of the schedules, arguably helping to make Children’s BBC, since the turn of the century, better than it has ever been.

The fact that practitioners of today’s children’s telly hail mostly from the generation who were watching the stuff as kids 10 years or so ago is no longer something that can be mustered by way of abuse. Nowadays it’s a mark of success. It will be impossible for anyone to follow Matt Baker onto Blue Peter and match his dazzling tenure, but at least his legacy survives him within the fabric of the show itself and the ever-colourful, ever-cheerful world through which he moved. Or rather, hoofed.

Matt was in tears making this announcement on the programme, which illustrates how much being a BP host means to him. It was a genuinely touching moment that emphasises his charm. If he’s not the best presenter this show’s ever had, he’s certainly in the top five, such is his warmth, likeability and respect for the audience – the sort of qualities the programme itself, at its best, also thrives upon.

It’s this absolute respect for the audience that sets Blue Peter apart from 99% of adult TV, let alone children’s TV. Everyone sniggers at the departure of Richard Bacon, and Lorraine Heggessey’s on-screen announcement, but people forget that the following show saw the team address the issue on air and give him a proper send-off, and since then he’s been shown in clips as any other former presenter would. Compare this to something like The Big Breakfast or SM:TV Live, where departing presenters would just get chucked out of the back door and never referred to again, no matter how ridiculous it looked.

So maybe it’s been pompous and safe at times, but that fact remains that there are few shows as adept as Blue Peterat knowing and caring about its audience. And few hosts were as adept at it as Matt Baker. Still, there’s a vacancy on Saturday mornings, isn’t there?

Blue Peter‘s on top form at the moment, and it knows it. It hasn’t carried itself with so much self-assurance for ages. Over the past few years a subtle yet significant overhaul of more or less everything from the design to the running order has worked wonders. BP‘s now the best children’s show on TV. A large part of this brilliance flows direct from its breezy self-confidence – itself buoyed by the obvious fact that everyone who works on Blue Peter is clearly having a great time. This isn’t a self-indulgent display, though, which ignores or prevents the viewer from joining in. What really seals the programme’s class is the way it pulls off that rare feat of never appearing to talk down or up to any of its viewers. Through a cunning mix of presentation, content and tone BP has ended up creating and sustaining a relationship with an ageless audience. Everyone’s welcome in their studio nowadays.

And that’s quite an achievement for a brand that’s heading towards its half-century, and which a few years back was lumbering into a dreadful rut of ultra-smug presenters talking to each other about themselves, and who all seemed to blatantly treat the show as a stepping stone to somewhere warm, better paid and pre-recorded. The current team boast a rare sense of camaraderie and completeness that’s rooted in a mix of maturity and irreverence. This lot know when there’s a danger of going too far and ending up appearing either too proprietorial or pathetically unfunny.

In today’s show there was the usual combination of the genuinely intriguing and the plain daft, presided over by three of the four current line-up: Simon Thomas, Liz Barker and, best of all, Matt Baker. Matt secured his place as one of the finest BP presenters of all time last summer, when – as part of the decision to run the show all year round for the first time – the programme did several seaside roadshows. Though he’d already shown himself impressive enough as the obligatory multi-skilled Blue Peter host/interviewer/reporter, something happened during this tour that took Matt onto a new level of genius. It was the combined impact of ripping off Dom Joly, dressing up as Ali G to do a rap about Rhyl and deciding to conduct a radio interview using only the names of Steps songs which finally rocketed him up there amongst the historicBP greats. But then as now it needs the combination of his personality with that of the others to make the show properly hang together.

Matt was on first today, making a big deal of running into the studio through the famous giant back doors, carrying a strange baton-shaped object. He was much too excited by this to sufficiently explain what he was doing and why, so he quickly passed it to Simon, who in turn handed it onto Liz. This display of elementary relay practice allowed it to become clear that it was the official Commonwealth Games baton they were holding; but exactly why they were pissing about with it would have to wait till “later on”, because there was important business at the Totaliser.

The Wheel Help Appeal, raising money for old people, has been on the go for a few months now; but at times it’s felt the old Bring and Buy Sales haven’t delivered quite a dramatic and quick result as the production team had envisaged. It’s always a shame when, contrary to the presenters’ pleading, the next target on the Totaliser fails to light up. All the better, then, that today’s “spin” of the Wheel portended positively. “I’m kneeling because I’ve got a feeling,” chanted Simon, “that it’s going up!” Indeed, they reached the £300,000 mark, three fifths of the way to their grand total. Rather conveniently it meant they’d now raised enough to buy their first minibus, and so they played in a film of Liz going up to Glasgow to deliver said vehicle in person.

To be brutally honest, this appeal is rather unimaginative compared to some of BP‘s former fund-raising spectaculars. True, it was nice to see Liz revealing the first of the official Blue Peterminibuses to various old folk who’d previously had to contend with a clapped out wreck with doors falling off. But while she was – naturally – given the chance to take the new minibus on an inaugural drive (“I cannot wait to see their faces!”) her passengers weren’t that impressed. “Jean – it’s Liz from Blue Peter!” she whooped, but Jean was decidedly nonplussed. And though Liz was rightly mucking in and not just lazily observing everything, her cargo of elders didn’t come over as that bothered. So there was no big moment of heart-warming emotion, of the kind that would’ve rendered the motives behind the appeal utterly and irrevocably worthwhile. Still, in a way the underlying cause – promoting awareness and care of the elderly – is just as laudable for being so down to earth and everyday.

Back in the studio Matt was chuckling. “I saw the minibus on the M1 – I was very happy, I was blowing my horn and everything,” he cracked. “It was actually heading south, which was a bit of a worry, but anyway …” The rest of the show stuck to a comfortingly familiar formula. Next up was a musical interlude, featuring the cast of the musical version of Beauty and the Beast. Well, it is still the panto season, after all. It was all very professional and the costumes were impressive, but this was really just a harmless bridge from the serious topical part of the show to the more light-hearted entertainment based fare. This comprised Liz again – who’d got the short straw today it seemed – doing a bit of extended plugging for a new CBBC drama, The Story of Tracy Beaker. After a clip the lead actress Danielle Harmer and the original writer Jacqueline Wilson joined Liz for some questions from a bunch of kids. This was gentle promotion of the values of reading, and as the BP pets wandered in and out it was all very relaxed and amiable, if a little worthy. The kids seemed to be having a good time, though.

The pace picked up with the last item, as we joined Simon who was standing in front of some Commonwealth Games props. We returned to the subject of the top of the show – that mysterious baton – which was now being wielded by athlete Darren Campbell. It turned out it was all in aid of your classic BP competition: 50 lucky viewers could get a chance to join in the Queen’s Jubilee Baton relay, bisecting the country later in the year, carrying the baton through 500 towns and villages. The overall winner, however, could get to carry the baton into the Commonwealth Stadium in Manchester. This was much better - BP on a classically epic scale, with a typically educational entry question – how many countries are there in the Commonwealth? – and the stress on the amateur as well as the professional (“You don’t need to be a good runner to take part.”) A suitable climax then, and afterwards the team just fooled about a bit up to the end credits, running about the studio wailing, before promising no less a guest than Barry Davies on the next show.

It was exactly two years ago today that we saw the team, joined by erstwhile legendary former hosts, opening up the feted Blue Peter time capsules. And in a way, the one person who’s formalised the show’s success over the subsequent 24 months – editor Steve Hocking – has done so through a respect for the programme’s historical strengths, but also an awareness of its traditional weaknesses. He’s drawn on the best of what Blue Peter has achieved and represented over the decades (typified not least by the increasingly semi-regular appearances from past presenters) but rather than merely trying to restore former glories he and his team (hosts and crew alike) have reassembled a whole new template for BP‘s future. It’s one that’s totally convincing, thoroughly entertaining and, it seems (going by ratings of an average of a million per show) consistently popular. And consequently, while resembling mere worn out busywork for jobbing hacks and starlets a few years ago, Blue Peter is now a wholly necessary, obvious and fantastic part of the BBC.