Still true to Blue Peter

For animals, getting booked by BBC1's Blue Peter has always been a mixed blessing. The original 1962 Petra died of respiratory problems within a week of making her debut (she became a Blue Pet-ra, I suppose), a 100-year-old tortoise was trodden on by Mark Curry seconds after arriving in the studio, and the parrot famously never made it onto air at all, having picked up some foul language from the cameramen during rehearsals.

By way of revenge for the animal kingdom, I propose that there should now be a Blue Peter crocodile, so that if allegations of improper behaviour are levelled at a presenter, he can be made to face the alligators, armed only with a penknife. If the croc wins, we'll be able to watch an educational report ("what our innards look like"), while if the presenter prevails, we'll see a handicrafts display instead ("making your own crocodile-skin handbag"); but either way, it will be the most exciting live edition since the defecating elephant.

When I last watched Blue Peter, about five years ago, the dumbest animals in the studio were the two-legged presenters, so I was agreeably surprised yesterday afternoon by how much smarter the current bunch appear to be. Unlike the presenters during my own childhood (who always behaved like uncles and aunts), the present crop all look like members of girl and boy bands, but their "wicked" (I think that's the word) appearance didn't prevent them from hosting a programme that was both authoritative and educational.

Looking back, I realise that the schoolmasterly tones of Chris Trace and Valerie Singleton in the Sixties actually did me no good at all, because I cannot remember anything they taught me, nor did I ever pick up any useful tips from Percy Thrower in the garden (which is why I am known locally as Incapability-Brown). And as for Biddy Baxter's-legendary boast that every child who ever wrote in received an official BBC reply, that was clearly nonsense too, because I once wrote in suggesting 101 things to do with Lesley Judd's used bras, and all I ever received was a visit from the police and a caution. So how do you explain that away, eh Biddy?

In the best traditions of the Shavian sugar-coated pill (as devised by George Bernard Shave himself), televisual sweeteners were offered to viewers to help the pedagogical medicine go down, medicine go down, in the most delightful way. So one minute a bunch of happening, get-on-down teens were free-styling with their balls to rap music, then the next, Matt Baker and Liz Barker had plunged us into a potted biography of Henry Ford, to celebrate the centenary of his first motor factory. There was a visit to the Blue Peter garden, too, but it appeared to have been grassed over and transformed into a small cricket pitch, on which Phil Tufnell was displaying his googlies to a mesmerised group of small boys. Poor old Percy would be turning in his grave if he knew, which would actually be rather a useful thing to do, because it aerates the soil. How very typical of the man.

In my day, the fashionable streetwise kids were all on Magpie, while the Blue Peter children were pale, studious, plug-ugly, bottle-bottom-glasses types, of the sort who would also appear on Ask The Family. But the nine young viewers who had just been selected as judges for the programme's forthcoming book award seemed surprisingly normal, although as most kids nowadays only ever read Harry Potter, I shouldn't think there will be much doubt as to who this year's winner will be.

Just as I was lamenting the absence of a latter-day devil-may-care John Noakes, Simon Thomas suddenly appeared, jumping out of an aeroplane at 12,000 feet, then visiting the Aerokart near Paris, where a vertical wind tunnel allows skydivers to perfect their technique at ground level. A giant propeller in the basement generates a rush of air powerful enough to hold several men aloft, and Simon seemed mightily impressed by it. No wonder, because it is undoubtedly the biggest fan he'll ever have.

Like George Washington's axe, Blue Peter has had so many new heads and handles during its 45-year existence that one sometimes wonders if anything of the original still remains. Yet the hornpipe ("Barnacle Bill" by Ashwell Pope) and the ship logo are still there, and so is a desire to interest young minds in the glories of the world around them, which is why this is still the single greatest children's TV programme yet devised. It is still live as well (as the brief audio drop-out near the start reminded us), and they're still driving cars into the studio, just as they have done for decades. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if past presenters could sue the BBC for brain damage caused by the enforced inhalation of carbon monoxide fumes, but I suppose they are all too brain-damaged to be able to think of such a lucrative scam.