Like me, Grange Hill the BBC’s school-based childrens series, turns thirty this year, unlike me it is being killed off by BBC bosses who have decided that it is no longer relavant to today’s youth. Rather peculiar that, given the fact that kids, do indeed still go to school.

The fact of the matter is, of course, the fact that Grange Hill (like Top of the Pops before it) has been deliberately strangled by bad writing, and a production team who you can just smell are milky-white and middle-class.

I guess I was lucky to grow up in the eighties where it wasn’t felt necessary to patronise the viewer, like so much of today’s BBC output does. Eastenders in the eighties was full of grit and realism and colour. Today it is a tragi-comic farce of poor writing, terrible character development and atrocious continuity.

So no, I won’t be watching today’s final episode of Grange Hill.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of dumbing down – can anyone tell me why the BBC news appears to be aimed at mentally disabled, Daily Mail readers?

Here for old times sake is the origianl opening credits. I always liked the bit with the sausage.