I'm breaking into the service, am I?
Playing the little bill.
8.45 Friday.
The Janitor's attendance list has also been removed.
Nothing to tell us who was duty officer that night.
As a good socialist, I'm going where the money is.
As a good capitalist, I'm sticking with the revolution because if you can't beat it, spy on it.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 8.45 Friday.
10.30 Friday. A fascinating insight into the life of an orchestra.
People don't realize that an orchestra plays together as a inviting machine.
A conductor can get up there and do all the wrong things, but in some fantastic way, the orchestra's together.
And this is 90 people.
The rewards are that you are working with some of the finest and most professional musicians in the world who can turn their hand to all types of music.
A four-part series following an orchestra at work and on tour in Night Music, 10.30 Friday.
And good evening.
Those who caught back chat two weeks ago will be aware of a fluttering in the Dovecot caused by the D-Generation and in particular, one of its sketches touching on matters religious.
We return to the fray this week because the mailman hath cometh again with more comments on the D-Generation, the young ones,
and indeed the ABC's whole strategy of trying to put something on our television service that young people might want to watch.
Susan Daniels of Geraldton, Western Australia, weighs in first.
I would like to protest at the number and degeneracy of programs for youth, that ill-used word beloved of social engineers these days.
I refer to The Edge of the Wedge, Dancing Days, Beatbox, which is a little more than filth, The D-Generation, and The Young Ones.
These five shows, not so much Dancing Days, which was just tedious, are subversive and regressive.
I can't get over the fact that there are five of them in one week.
I would also like to take you up on the bonging on in the D-Generation, boring old drug jokes for kids who were babes in nappies when they were funny.
I wait and hope in vain for the fetid tide to turn.
It is shows like the infamous five aforementioned that foster a life-be-out-of-it mentality.
I hope you can see your way clear to showing how green was my valley again, and faulty towers.
We never get sick of them.
Claire Coonle of Penguin Tasmania finds the D-Generation extremely offensive.
How revolting to see a scene depicting sewage flowing into a room and people standing in it,
although one easily associates the ABC with that after seeing some of the programs screened recently.
For example, the Cutting Room series.
Please be advised that not all people watching television have corrupt minds and no taste.
I'm wearing this new safety bra.
It gives support in all the right places.
The people cross your soul bra because heavy pedals don't get to heaven.
But back to the first point raised by Susan Daniels of Geraldton,
who's objecting to the ABC's attempt to screen programs young people can relate to.
Year 8 student Daniel Boyer of Hobart and Mrs. Wopstra of Blackmans Bay Tasmania are fans of the D-Generation
and are delighted that satirical programs on the ABC did not end with Australia Your Standing in It and the Gillies Report.
Please keep this fresh wind blowing in the ABC.
I don't think it's true that this program is mainly enjoyed by young people, whatever that means.
In our home, the whole family, parents and two teenage boys enjoy it together.
Thank you.
One person's feet are tied as another's fresh wind it seems.
Similarly, Alan Chung of Shepperton is enchanted to find the D-Generation outrageous, disrespectful, irreligious, irresponsible
and how are we ever able to telecast it in Queensland?
You'll probably find legal action being taken against you by me for damage to my rib cage and diaphragm from laughing.
What a bloody ripper.
I'm interested to know what feedback you get.
I bet the mailbag will be full.
Mind you, if there are complaints, tell them not to be silly buggers,
but to get off their bums and change channels if they don't like it.
Now the D-Generation and the Young Ones team up at present on our Mid-Evening Thursday Night line-up.
It's the second time around for the Young Ones, first carefully hidden from the eyes of the younger young by the ABC,
are being screened at 11 at night.
I became aware of it when my 10 and 13 year old sons threatened me with dire penalties if I didn't video it for them.
It's enormously appreciated, it seems, by young people.
The ABC's older viewers, by and large, seem to have problems with it.
Another half hour, just a little more time, OK?
Seven of these bricks explode!
That's pretty good.
Listen everybody, I've stewed up some lentils and seaweed as a sort of last positive action.
Hey Rick, man, what are you doing with my crucifix, man?
I'm testing.
Yeah, look, I really think I should lay this one on you, man.
It's a really negative way to kill yourself, you know, like...
I've tried it hundreds of times.
There's no way you can hammer in the last nail.
Margaret Atkinson of Kingston, Tasmania, caught the program for the first time recently,
and is shocked at what the ABC sees fit to present to a young audience.
In an age of increasing and apparently uncontrollable violence,
you portrayed acts of aggression as normal, even as funny.
I thought the episode of breaking a beer bottle over someone's head as a means of attracting their attention
was quite unacceptable as a humorous act.
Hey, Bibby, I don't want to get specific, but when you knock that ball down, this house is going to collapse.
And like this guy Doom Bay and my passport collection...
We got a letter from the council!
Yeah, what letter? Clarity, Bibby, and elucidate!
Oh, fine, great, yeah.
Why don't you sit in the supper, man, yeah?
Billion, you might have washed your hand!
One of the youngsters was shown contemplating suicide and digging his grave
to the complete indifference of his flatmates.
A few weeks ago, you showed a horrifying and thought-provoking program on juvenile suicide.
Now you've undone any good you might have fostered.
The whole show seemed stunted, both mentally and physically.
Why did you have to introduce a violent, aggressive dwarf into it?
I suppose the only saving grace is that most unemployed, unhappy and lonely youngsters
wouldn't be seen dead watching ABC TV and will have missed the program anyway.
I suppose it would have to be said that the Young Ones is an acquired taste for the over-forties.
Again, its target audience has other views.
Youth programming, according to this week's Mail to Back Chat, is wasted on the young and the old,
and I'm sure we'll be hearing more on this topic.
Actually, Back Chat should be weighing into this debate
because the D-Generation and the Young Ones are both half-hour programs
and we're squeezed out of Thursday nights at the moment.
Just a closing thought. Good night.
Already this year on The Investigators, I've looked at the pros and cons of negative-I and generators,
and at the question of keeping small children safe in aeroplanes.