...but you wouldn't know from the lack of celebration about the fact. Oh well. Anyone else read the C4 retrospective at http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/ ? Some great stuff there, especially the piece on sports coverage.

So, if you had to choose, what would be your personal favourite C4 show?

Wasn't "Watch" on Channel Four? I guess a lot of the shows I love from C4 were due to their impeccable buying of US shows, like "Homicide", "Roseanne" and "My So-Called Life". But theri policy of shwoing excellent documentaries continues; the "Young, Nazi and Proud" docu this week was devastating.

Do you mean "Watch" as in the schools' programme with Toni Arthur and 'Prima Ballerina' as the theme tune? If so, I can confirm that it was in fact on BBC2. But I digress...

I agree that C4's documentaries remain, on the whole, of a very high standard indeed. I have particularly strong memories of "Hardcore", a genuinely shocking documentary from a couple of years ago about how women are abused - mentally rather than physically - by the porn industry. Uncomfortable but necessary viewing, and it really did make the viewer think twice about a couple of preconceptions. On a much lighter note, I adored the recent "The Luckiest Nut In The World", a light-hearted song and dance animation with serious points to make about American trade dominance on the global market. You can find my review of that at http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/

That said, there have also been a far greater number of crass and tacky 'documentaries' on the channel lately, with little point to make bar tabloidy sensationalisation, and offering nothing to anyone with a genuine interest in the subject. "When Kenny Everett Met Freddie Mercury" in particular left me feeling very annoyed indeed. Compare these shows with Michael Grade's comments in his autobiography about rejecting 'crass' documentaries while he was at C4, and you can see that some downhill sliding has definitely taken place.

I have memories of watching The Paul Hogan Show in my brother's bedroom on his black and white portable. I liked 'World of Animation' which showed cartoons of fish coming out of the sea and killing the people in a harbour town and a very funny one which had a boy removing a newspaper from a sleeping tramp (replacing it with Playboy) and someone removing a dagger from a murder victim, cleaning it up with a cloth and placing it back in. Another one was a comedy show with Hale and Pace done entirely in black and white and made to look like an episode of 'Ready Steady Go'. The only sketch I remember was a conversation between John, Paul and Ringo.

RINGO They call me Ringo because I wear lots of rings.

PAUL Bloody hell if we were all called after what we wear lots of then we'd be Shirtso, Trouserso and Underpantso.

And yes they did have The Two Rons doing a "Da Do Run Ron" routine. Don't forget The Comic Strip. "100 Pints of larger!" "Everybody loves The Eagles!" I also liked 'Who Dares Wins'. Whilst popping to the toilet at work I was remembering that love song that Phillip Pope did:

and I said to myself
You bloody cow!
You bloody cow!
COW!
WHAT A COW!

JIMMY MULVILLE: Phil are you alright.

PHILLIP POPE: Oh yes I've written a song dedicated to a certain special someone.

He has now pulled out a handgun and everyone tries to stop him.

After that routine the programme was abandoned and was replaced by a documentary on albatrosses and how they like to dress in lingerie in pubs. Another funny sketch was a parody of old government information films in black and white.

"Watch out for that chippan. No not that chippan (Julia gets whacked on the face) this chippan."

Films were somewhat interesting on four. On Christmas you would get 2:00am showings of Marx Brothers films. Also early Film on Four was more varied. One week you would get something like 'Life Is Sweet' by Mike Leigh and the next would be 'A Zed And Two Noughts' by Peter Greenaway. Not a Stella Artois horse in sight. On the documentary about ten years of 4 Jeremy Issacs talked about how a lot of people in his business would see films like Jubilee in London and say " This is great, if only we could show it on the television. But we can't." Jeremey Issac wanted four to be the kind of channel that would show those films on television.

Does anyone remember a video review show in which the screen was divided into an image of six television screens and the two presenters appeared on screens that created an image of a Christian cross? I do remember them both slagging off Howard The Duck and praising Pinocchio.

Dick Spanner on Network 7 was good and so was the original Chart Show. The original logo and fanfare was better. Victor Lewis Smith used the Hamlet Cigar advert version on his latenight discussion programme on Channel 5.

Hale And Pace singing 'Da Doo Ron Ron' - this was probably the opening titles of "The Management", an actually rather good C4 sitcom vehicle for the Two Rons from 1988. I wish they'd repeat those, as they would certainly show up Hale and Pace's later lesser work for what it really was.

Hale And Pace singing 'Da Doo Ron Ron' - this was probably the opening titles of "The Management", an actually rather good C4 sitcom vehicle for the Two Rons from 1988. I wish they'd repeat those, as they would certainly show up Hale and Pace's later lesser work for what it really was.