Leading article: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
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Your support makes all the difference.That's the view, at least, of Joyce Watts, a retired teacher from Kent who proposed the motion at the PAT's annual conference. Ms Watts has a particular problem with the language used on TV shows like Dick and Dom in da Bungalow and The Saturday Show, watched by her seven grandchildren. She objects to the fact "all the words run into one and cannot be understood". She also complains about the fact that, instead of saying "yes" and "no", presenters say "yeah" and "nah".
But Ms Watts has surely chosen to tackle this problem a little too late in the day. "Yeahhhhh" was Roland Rat's catchphrase two decades ago. And the man who first put that children's favourite on TV went on to become director general of the BBC.
The motion was seconded by Peter Morris, a secondary school teacher from Wales, who lamented the fact that children's TV personalities are more likely to sound like Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses than Dixon of Dock Green.
But the whole point of Saturday morning TV is that it is not designed for adults; indeed, it would be failing in its duty if it did not upset a few grown-up reactionaries. And if the schedulers were to show Blue Peter re-runs on Saturday mornings, children might get restless. And which parent, enjoying a well-deserved Saturday morning lie-in, would want that? All things considered, it's probably better to keep the little darlings "in da Bungalow" for a couple of hours a week.
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