>Are they trying to be funny or something, or have they just not heard it?
>
Actually it is policy at Radio Times for the producer of the show to submit his/her own suggestion for the show's description. It's the same with for continuity announcers.

>Actually it is policy at Radio Times for the producer of the show to submit his/her own suggestion for the show's
>description. It's the same with for continuity announcers.

Yes indeed... NB my occasional plaints on this forum about the excoriating badness of some of the descriptions aren't aimed at the people who write them -- who have their own jobs to do -- but at the fact that a supposedly quality mass-circulation mag like the RT is too cheap to pay anyone to sub the listings properly.

Some people have made very good creative use of the listings spot over the years... the Not The Nine O'Clock News synopses were legendarily weird, and there was a good one for the telly version of The Mary Whitehouse experience -- a couple of lines about a recent sighting of a rare bird, then "...Tony Soper is there with his binoculars. Unfortunately, he hasn't got a television series. We have. Sorry Tony." Chris Morris always messed about with the listing when he was doing the old R1 Music Show: "Chris and Peter Baynham gargle bats" sticks in the mind, as does "...including the new ecclesiastical quiz show, Beat the Bishop." Best of all was towards the end of the run, when the series was practically falling apart: he sent in a listing saying something like "Chris Morris: editing tapes to get them past the censors, then switching them for the unedited versions before they go out to prove who's the boss." And they printed it.

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Like we care.

There's something in one of the Young Ones articles on the site about RT editing down a humorous capsule description, thus removing the joke. I think we've reprinted a good nonsensical capsule for 'Sick' there too.

Alexei Sayle used to have fake letters of complaint as capsules for his 'Stuff' series, always followed by 'Alexei Says "Who gives a damn what you think"'.