Quote of the day

"I was so angry in 1973 ... when the miners' union and the government were locked in mortal combat and the economy of the country was going into the ground, that ... I really got frightened, I thought the process of government was completely buggered by inter-party squabbling. So I went to the BBC and said, 'Can I do a little Clangers film about the election?' It's basically about the narrator, that's me, being the interlocutor as well, telling the Clangers that they've got to vote, either for the Froglet or for the Soup Dragon. And they refused point blank to have anything to do with it. It was a sort of tiny morality play really. It only lasted three to four minutes and I made it complete in three days."

A children's TV animation tackling current political hot potatoes? They certainly don't make 'em like they used to...

Oliver Postgate - creator of 'Bagpuss' and 'Ivor The Engine' as well as 'The Clangers' - seems to have been a fascinating person, growing up in "an impeccably socialist-academic milieu" and basing the voice of Professor Yaffle, the woodpecker in 'Bagpuss', on that of philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell, whom he once met.

RIP.