NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY FAMILIAR

EVERYONE’S a TV critic. Take Tommy Sheridan. You may remember him from such hits as Defamation Street (like Corry, but with fewer yuks) and Celebrity Big Brother. These days, he is content to limit his involvement with TV to watching it, and on Thursday night Mr T Sheridan of Glasgow was distinctly unimpressed with the make-up of the panel on BBC1’s Question Time.
Given it was St Andrew’s Day, Mr Sheridan thought there would be someone from the SNP on the panel. But it was not to be. For the programme from Scarborough, QT went with a Labour MP, a Tory minister, a journalist, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, and the new leader of Ukip, Henry Bolton. Tommy’s take on this? “A ******* disgrace.” You’ll never get on Feedback with that language, young man.
At least QT was freshly baked. It emerged this week that half the programmes on the new, £32 million a year, BBC Scotland channel will be repeats. Cue outrage, none of it (as yet) coming from Mr T Sheridan of Glasgow. For now, you’ll have to do with the Taxpayers’ Alliance, a body that has turned knicker-twisting into an Olympic sport.
“Licence fee payers spend a significant amount on the BBC and expect that, in return, that money will be spent on producing high-quality programmes,” said the TA.
The TA might reckon it knows the price of everything, but it seems rather hazy on the economics of TV.  To put that £32 million into perspective, it is less than a third of what was spent on the first series of The Crown. 
Still, nothing rouses the ire of viewers like a continuity announcer uttering those not so magnificent seven little words: “And now a chance to see again…” For some viewers, having to watch repeats is like still eating mince pies in February. What was a treat first time around becomes less so with each outing, till you get to the point when if you never saw another mince pie again it would be too soon.
Then again, repeats ain’t what they used to be. In the not so golden olden days of three channels and limited hours of transmission, repeats truly were a blight on the schedules. If a family tuned in to BBC1 in one evening in 1975, say, only to find their favourite show had been replaced by a repeat – sorry, a “classic programme” – they would have to fall on the mercy of BBC2 or ITV. If they, too, were showing repeats, the nuclear option would come into play. That’s right, they would have to talk to each other. Families in 1975 were no keener on doing this than families in 2017.
But in this multi-channel, multi-platform age, we no longer have to suffer such horrors. Repeat on BBC1? Cue up the viewing guide and take your pick from hundreds of other options, including channels which dedicate themselves to showing reams of repeats.
There is money in repeats in the same way there is money in nostalgia in general. Old TV shows are like old jumpers, they’re cosy, comfy, and they just about still fit regardless of how thick the waist has become. Not every show, of course. A desire to watch Love Thy Neighbour or Mind Your Language again ought to be an act punishable by at least a five-stretch. But the good stuff, the Columbos, the Lovejoys, the Beiderbeckes, bring ‘em on.
Instead of seeing BBC Scotland’s 40:60 split between new and old programmes as simply a necessity given the budget, we might want to regard it as a potential virtue. Classic sporting events, drama, comedy: what would you like to see again? We are not talking the obvious retreads here, such as Dr Finlay’s Casebook or the entire Scotland v Holland World Cup match of 1978. You can unearth most of that on YouTube. But there must be nuggets still in the archive waiting to be unearthed, particularly in documentaries.
That said, the focus for the new channel, which all going to plan will  launch in the autumn of next year, should be on the new content it brings to screens. Even though new drama and comedy will make up a tiny part of the schedule, these are the elements that will bring viewers in and keep them there long after the novelty of a new 9pm national and international news programme has worn off.
Whatever makes it on to our screens, it is surely a cause for cheer that we are arguing about content on a new channel for Scotland, on air for 12 hours a day from midday to midnight, rather than if there should be a Scottish Six. If there is one repeat we can do without it is re-running the old, cringe-laden debate about whether Scotland has it in her to start and maintain a new broadcast venture.

MARKLE SPARKLES ON WALKABOUT

TO borrow a catchphrase from one TV golden oldie, didn’t they do well?  Though it was their first walkabout as soon-to-be-weds, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle behaved as if to the meet and greet born as they arrived at a World Aids Day charity fair in Nottingham.
The hundreds who turned out to see them gave Ms Markle in particular five stars. “She seems really full of life and down to Earth,” said one woman who met the former actress. I particularly liked the moment someone in the crowd handed her a packet of Haribo. Nothing says “Welcome to Britain” like tooth decay.
Much has been made in the past week about the 36-year-old’s record of activism, speaking out on topics such as race, period poverty, and Brexit. All that will change, said one former royal press secretary, Dickie Arbiter. “Now she has come into the royal family, she will have to be politically neutral.”
Looking at her confidence in front of the crowds, I rather think Ms Markle will have her own thoughts about that. Hang on to your wedding hats.

WATCH OUT: FURRY THIEVES AT WORK

WHERE have you stored your Christmas cake for this year? Mine is still on a shelf in M&S, together with the other stuff I’ll be buying rather than making. Carol Spurling’s is sealed in a box and hidden upstairs, and no wonder.
Mrs Spurling of Chelmsford, Essex, had just come home from buying the raisins to make her own cake. Distracted for few minutes, she returned to find the dried fruit gone and her Old English sheepdogs, Gabby and Teddy, looking sheepish. Knowing that raisins are poisonous to dogs, Mrs Spurling raced them to the vet for treatment. All was well, save for the £1600 bill. Ouch.
Who among us dog lovers could cast the first bag of raisins here? I still burn with shame remembering the way one of my hounds fell upon a neighbour’s Sainsbury’s bag and snaffled two sirloin steaks. There were hamburgers there too, but oh no, it had to be the dear stuff, which then had to be replaced. At far less than £1600, mind. And by the look on her face she really did enjoy them. In short, it was worth the beamer.