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Short & Sweet.


I like a TV listing that cuts to the chase.


There’s no pussyfooting about there, if you pardon the pun. Anyone foolish enough to be looking for something to watch before six this morning would have been under no illusions as to what was on Channel 4 after reading that in the Radio Times. The previous sentence was longer than Id hoped, but I don’t have the same capacity for economy as the world's first listings magazine.

I’m surprised that Small Animal Hospital could stretch out the subject of an ill cat for a - get this - 45-minute television programme, though admittedly, that running time would have included adverts. I guess the show’s producers have to pad things out, now that Rolf Harris isn't available (assuming it’s related to the Animal Hospital of-similar-name).

Radio Times’ brusqueness today was in stark contrast to the most convoluted newspaper headline of all time, which - though it featured in the local press seventeen years ago - has stuck in my mind ever since. The article was about the band Fog Donkey playing Plinston Hall, and was neatly summarised as 'Fog Has Plinty to Bray About'. If you held the page up to your ear, you could actually hear the words creak.

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