W Is For... Words
Contrary to what is popularly believed among the retro-hip community, not all French pop songs are works of unrestrained genius. In the early 1980s, the nation that had once gifted the world with Jacques Dutronc and "Before the Revolution" saw fit to torture its economic allies with one of the most stunningly undiluted pieces of electro-schmaltz ever to traverse the pop charts. "Words... don't come easy to me" (how obviously true) sang FR David as a sinus-clearing "Blankety Blank" style squiggly synthesiser gurgled away in the background. Posing in front of a neon pink backdrop in his white suit, mirror shades and Richard Clayderman haircut, Mr (Father?) David seemed blissfully unaware that his follow-up 'Tunes' would sink without trace, and that his album would be awarded the coveted '0 out of 10' mark by "Smash Hits". This is one Gallic pop sensation who won't be resurfacing with a psych-hop makeover.

S Is For... Special Discretion Required
You could be forgiven for believing that it is only in recent years, with "Dope Night" and Michael Grade being dubbed "Britain's pornographer-in-chief" by the tabloids, that Channel 4 has been pushing at the boundaries of taste and decency. You could be forgiven, but you'd still be wrong. Back in 1986, the fledgeling station opted to experiment with a system that would allow them to show violent and sexually explicit films on the condition that a Red Triangle was present in the corner of the screen, to 'warn' children and viewers of a nervous disposition not to watch. Unfortunately, the Red Triangle served only to encourage people to watch such films as "Themroc" (French anarchist roasts policemen on a spit) and "Throw Out Your Books, Go Into The Street" (Swedish Teens with Tomorrow People haircuts run amok), and after a few months the practice ceased. Bang go our chances of seeing "The Wizard of Gore", then...

U Is For... Up In The Sky
Sometimes, you can't help wondering just what potent mind-altering substances are being made available to the people who design TV station idents. BBC2 are bad enough, with their endless procession of animated 2's flying biplanes and jumping up and down shouting 'WA-HOO' a la Damon Albarn etc, but even these seem almost mild when compared to a sanity-ravaging example served up by ITV in the late 1980s. Rather than opt for a simple photo of Ted Roach and Tosh Lines to back announcements that "The Bill" would follow shortly, someone somewhere decided that an image of Sgt Bob Cryer superimposed in front of rolling clouds would be far better suited to the job. Such was the normality-shattering effect of this caption card that a planned follow-up featuring Reg Hollis soaring through the ocean depths had to be abandoned on the grounds of its potential effects on public mental health.

A Is For... Airfix
Meanwhile, over at Anglia TV in the early 1970s, there may well have been certain other substances in the air. Reflecting the moods of a time when people would quite happily listen to Pink Floyd playing BBC Schools' Radio incidental music for half an hour (i.e. 'Atom Heart Mother'), their station ident involved nothing more than a model knight on horseback rotating endlessly to the strains of stirring classical music. As this lasted for roughly the same length as Oliver Stone's "JFK", the quaint little film did at least give viewers sufficient time and warning to change the channel before "Sale of the Century" started.