[Welcome to Part 2 of my TV-themed autobiography - the first part, Science fiction, proved wildly unpopular (far as I can tell only one person looked at it, and even they didn't read it all); but if I'd been worried about audience figures I'd never have written The Extinct Song, or anything else. Anyway, this is another monster essay, and I'm breaking it down into 4 sections if anyone feels like taking a swing...]

Comedy is, sadly, the world's most disposable art form. That's not to say it isn't as valid as any other, just that its effects are fleeting and subjective - something either makes you laugh, or it doesn't. And even if it does make you laugh, then chances are it won't continue to make you laugh for any great length of time. Comedy, more than any other endeavour, is desperately dependent upon the continual output of new material.

Which brings us to TV. In my youth, TV comedy was the big thing - far ahead of documentary, drama or sport. Some comedy shows were national institutions - the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show was as much a part of Xmas Day festivities as the tree and the turkey (audiences of over 20 million were routine). Saturday evenings were structured around The Two Ronnies, Sundays similarly around Til Death Us Do Part. Comedy ruled, and we lapped it up - uncritically - by the bucketful.

There's nothing I like better than closing loopholes. My favourite example is the 25-year gap between my buying the book of David Hamilton's Bilitis and finally getting to see the film from which it derives (expect a review of the latter to appear sometime under the 'lesbian movies' heading). You see, when it comes to erotica and porn - and many other things - I am extremely patient, as the following tales will further attest...

Well, here's an oddity. I was blissfully unaware of Mr Sigler's existence until an acquaintance of the SO, hearing of my twin obsessions with (American) football and sci-fi [see blog posts passim], kindly presented me with a copy of this. Mr Sigler, if the internet is anything to go by, evidently has legions of adoring fans he describes (or perhaps they describe themselves) as 'junkies'; which I mention only because it forms the basis of an otherwise incomprehensible in-joke that features in the book.

The Rookie is published by something called Dark Overlord Media, and shows evidence of either self-publishing or a vanity press, since the text is littered with typos, occasional grammar lapses and at least one repeated sentence. So, what's it all about? Well basically, it's Any Given Sunday set in the future. And outer space. [Whoah-oh, Whoah-oh-oh-oh-oh, Spoilers follows...]

(image via rspb.org)

Birds are the unquestioned (by me, at least) acme of nature, and the unquestioned acme of birds are the raptors. Birds of prey are gorgeous, spectacular killing (or scavenging) machines - self-aware fighter aircraft, honed by evolution from seriously accomplished ancestral stock. They are, essentially, predatory dinosaurs with air combat capability and proportionately bigger brains - no wonder we've spent so many centuries trying to exterminate them.

The health of an ecosystem is measured by its top predators, and over much of England that means raptors. There was a time, not so very long ago - when I was a very small child, in fact - that this country very nearly lost all its birds of prey. Relentless persecution from the unholy alliance of farmers and gamekeepers had reduced populations to relict status, or even - in the case of the Red Kite - to zero. Then came DDT, and a steady build-up of toxins through the natural food chain that threatened to take out what little remained. It took years of conservation, legislation and re-education to first stem, then reverse the tide - and right in the forefront of that recovery was the Kestrel.