1. Daisy Donovan is so bloody thick that she often conducts her ‘Angel Of Delight’ interviews with Big Ben clearly in shot. Thus, it is very easy to work out how long the excruciating sessions actually took. In some cases (Roy Hattersley and Robin Day are two obvious examples), barrel-scraping pieces barely totalling two minutes of material are culled from about 80 minutes of rushes.

2. In the second series, Donovan interviewed Virginia Bottomley MP. After a particularly feeble, sub-Chris Morris analogy (‘If you seized power, would the leopard come out of the box?’, or some such shit), Bottomley laughed and remarked ‘Your metaphors are quite wonderful!’ Donovan then momentarily slipped out of character and giggled a gushing ‘Thank you!’ before continuing. Now, this kind of thing has presumably happened to Chris Morris, right? But the difference is, CHRIS MORRIS WOULD HAVE THE SENSE TO CUT IT OUT. In rare circumstances, he’d perhaps be persuaded to present them as out-takes in their own right (e.g., the ‘Why are talking strangely?’ response he once got to a Feedback Report), but he’d still edit out any fawning gratitude. Donovan, however, has so little material (not to mention modesty) that every useable scrap of her interviews must be broadcast. The fact that nearly everybody picks up on her double entendres and, assuming them to be deliberate, accepts them with good humour (Roy Hattersley and Robin Day are two obvious examples) doesn’t seem to change matters.

3. On 19/10/99, the day the third series started, Iain Lee was rushed to hospital with a suspected stomach ulcer. (We say ‘rushed’, but it’s likely that - upon seeing who their patient was - the paramedics deliberately took the scenic route.) Fearing the worst, the producers commissioned a re-written script designed to be performed by an alternate cast, and a topical trailer - aired earlier in the evening - was delivered by Donovan alone. Although Lee was given the all-clear and discharged in time for the recording, he didn’t have time to attend the rehearsal, resulting in him making even more fluffs than usual.