News about Anna Ford

The other day I had my TV aerial removed. The builders were on the roof anyway. So, as I have often wondered if some violent wind would one day rip the wobbly antenna down, taking the chimney with it, I asked them to do this simple job. Many of my neighbours in our Neville Chamberlain-era road have done the same. It symbolises the end of an important part of my life and of the life of the nation. TV watching, once universal and communal, is fading away, supplanted by phone and laptop.

CRAIG BROWN: Soon after the death of Princess Diana, a friend's child asked me earnestly: 'But what was Lady Di called before she died?'These days, many under the age of 40 are similarly baffled by the idea that there was once a time when there was nothing to watch: 'But what was on television before they invented breakfast television?' They find it difficult to believe that, although not all that long ago, you could turn on the TV in the morning and be confronted with nothing but a test card made up of vertical and horizontal lines.

We have to face it. PETER HITCHENS: We have to face it. Doctor Who was a dismal failure at alerting us of the dangers to come. William Hartnell was a student at the University of On my college days, he ventured into the future and discovered the Daleks, who could not even scale stairs and had no sense of humor. However, he did not find comprehensive schools, and in my opinion, much more frightening than any Dalek. We may not have made the mistake if he had done so.