Author: Alan Ashworth

AT the beginning of 1968, teatime television was turned on its head by a comedy phenomenon which had hordes of schoolchildren, myself included, racing home desperate not to miss a … Continue readingMonty Python’s Dad

FOLLOWING my parade of screen lovelies chronicled here and here, this is a selection of actresses suggested by you, the readers. First we visit The Avengers, the slightly camp, always entertaining British espionage series which … Continue readingThe fairest of them all? Part 3

IF, LIKE me, you have read every line of PG Wodehouse’s 90-odd books – at least half a dozen times each in the case of the Jeeves novels – your … Continue readingWodehouse, plus sex and violence

RETURNING to my personal parade of screen beauties which began last week brings me to two movie versions of the 1934 James M Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. The story concerns … Continue readingThe fairest of them all? Part 2

WHO could forget the scene in Dr No when a white-bikini-clad Ursula Andress emerges from the Caribbean watched by Sean Connery as James Bond? I certainly never have, and neither did those … Continue readingWho is the fairest of them all?

MY Uncle Tom was a gifted raconteur, talented pianist and all-round good egg. He was also, to my knowledge, the only former public schoolboy and university graduate to make a … Continue readingA Bachelor of Hauling Coal

IN the 1990s I would race home from work in the early hours of Saturday to watch a video recording of that night’s Fantasy Football League on BBC2. Irreverent, often filthy and … Continue readingFantasy Football League, then and now