Hello Auntie...

I went on an official tour of BBC Television Centre yesterday.



Well, some it.

There are bits you don't get to see. You don't get to see the Blue Peter garden. Presumably in case you vandalise it, or dig up the time capsule or tell everyone about Petra. And you don't get to go inside the news studios, in case you are a lesbian and Nicholas Witchell has to sit on you. (This was the official reason given by the tour guides, Simon and Debbie *)

We start with the very low budget Walk of the Dead Entertainers...



Dame Thora, Arthur Lowe, Ernie Wise, Marti Caine, Jon Pertwee... Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly **

And then on inside, where no-one could accuse them of cashing in on recent remakes...



Actually, the last one is Gordon the Gopher. They keep him in a glass-fronted cage now. Perhaps they could do the same with Andi Peters.

We got to see TC1, which is a really big studio where they were rehearsing for Dance X, and TC8, where they were recording the Catherine Tate Christmas Special. In July. "Whadda f***in' liberty!!"

It's all a bit pedestrian. These days no-one really needs the whole "don't wear blue if you're a weather forecaster" thing explaining to them...



...but they do it anyway. And they let you read the news...



(Lisa Kaplinsky)

...of course they show you where Roy Castle did the tap dancing...



...and you get a good look at the Holby Plastic People (don't look if you are of a nervous disposition...)



Now... dinner time!

* Simon is what happens when you're no longer convincing sitting on a bar stool in the background of the Queen Vic, and Debbie is what happens when you're too old to present CBeebies.

** Well, it can only be a matter of time for one of them, and the Strictly Tragic Accident where the other gets a good kicking and falls forever into Len Goodman's handbag is not far off.