Let's not forget the glories of Bill Harston's 'Play Chess', but remember the sadness behind it.

When Harston reached the triumph of the 1980 BAFTAs - 'Play Chess' won "Best Series To Impress On Children The Repetitive Futility Of Adult Life" - it seemed he could do no wrong. Yet next year the award went to 'King Of The Rocket Men', despite the fact that the both series had run the same shows in both years. Harston felt tarnished, chess lost its grip on his life, and soon all children's Tv was just rubbishy cartoons anyway.

And another one -- whatever happened to Jules Gibbons? She was the games reviewer on a BBC2 show about computers called "The Net", which was made by BBC Education around 1995 and was usually hilarious because of its clearly ridiculously high budget. Her part of the programme was great because she clearly didn't give a shit about computer games and was being utterly, totally indulged -- a typical 'review' would involve her running around for three minutes with loads of scary posterisation effects, ranting about her "switch" and the importance of "fresh cows". She would then conclude with some comment like "I'm not sure how many marks out of ten I would give this game, but it would be somewhere between six... and nine." The whole thing was either genius or absolute crap. I'm not sure I want to know which.

James, have you seen 'Bits' on C4? You'll love it.

>James, have you seen 'Bits' on C4? You'll love it.

The thing with the multiple Emilies that's on in the middle of the night? I did catch some of it once. The resemblance is there, I will grant you... but... to my mind nobody can ever hold a candle to Jules. Perhaps I was at a funny age.

The best thing about Bits is, you watch it whilst extremely drunk on a Friday night, and then a repeat of the exact same show whilst hung-over on Sunday morning, and cannot recollect ever having seen it before. The very fact that it is mad women talking a little bit about how X-Box will beat Playstation 2, but mainly about how many letters they have had from men asking to see their breasts and how 'bits' rhymes with 'tits' every single week makes this state of affairs even more preposterous. Channel 4's other foray into 'the computer age', "DotComedy" was the worst thing ever on television.

But as far as "where are they now" icons of 80s television are concerned, I simply can't help but wonder what happened to one Christopher Lillicrap. And Toni Arthur for that matter.

The best thing about Bits is, you watch it whilst extremely drunk on a Friday night, and then a repeat of the exact same show whilst hung-over on Sunday morning, and cannot recollect ever having seen it before. The very fact that it is mad women talking a little bit about how X-Box will beat Playstation 2, but mainly about how many letters they have had from men asking to see their breasts and how 'bits' rhymes with 'tits' every single week makes this state of affairs even more preposterous. Channel 4's other foray into 'the computer age', "DotComedy" was the worst thing ever on television.

But as far as "where are they now" icons of 80s television are concerned, I simply can't help but wonder what happened to one Christopher Lillicrap. And Toni Arthur for that matter.

"Perhaps I was at a funny age."

Well, I'm 27, but I find 'Bits' fascinating. I don't own a PlayStation or anything, but I never really notice that aspect of the show.

I don't write letters to them, I respect them too much.

Christopher Lillicrap went bankrupt or something.


Don't know what happened to Toni Arthur, but recently I've discovered her little-known late-1960s career as a Sandy Denny-esque folk singer. Good stuff...

The only reason I can see to watch bits is the fact that Bouff appears to have only one nipple. On the left-hand side.

No, really.

Is that our (the viewers') left or Bouff's own left?

I will watch for this.

I feel rather guilty now for being in possession of the full compliment of nipples.

Bouff's own left.

It's only noticable on OBs - probably because Glasgie is so f-ing cold - but it had some members of my household 3 inches from the screen going "Oh yeah... only one. How did you notice that one, subbes?" at me.

...I have my methods.

Toni Arthur is now involved in some very responsible eco-organization.