Over twenty years, I acted frequently as a television drama producer and script editor for the BBC in London, Birmingham and Bristol, for Channel 4 and for a number of independent production houses on works as distinct as Solid Geometry and Minder. In between times, I wrote about the medium for Time Out, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Broadcast, The Listener and other titles. Over nearly four decades, I have amassed a library (running to tens of thousands of items) of recorded programmes of all kinds as well as dozens of books about broadcasting. As you may surmise, I can lay claim to that most pertinent of conditions for the indexer: an anal complex.