“Hislop Wore a Pair of Brown Trousers for the Verdict.”

With the OTT Book now on sale, what better time to take a look at some other wonderful telly-related books from the ages? We’ll be posting one (or two) page (or pages) from a different book each and every day until we forget to, we’ve covered all the TV-tie-in books in our collection, or tomorrow. Place your bets.

As pretty much all the books in question have long since been deleted by their publishers, there shouldn’t be any legal difficulty there, we hope. Unlike all those superinjunctions that we've blown wide open in the scribbles on our pencil case which luckily no-one has noticed yet for some reason. In any case, we’re putting these scans online under the banner of ‘BrokenTV’, and no-one else. Just in case anyone starts waving their lawyers around. Oh, speaking of which…

Today, in the penultimate delve into the BrokenTV bookcase, Have I Got News For You: The Shameless Cash-In Book (by Angus Deayton, Ian Hislop, Paul Merton, Colin Swash and Harry Thompson with additional material by Mark Burton and John O’Farrell, BBC Books 1994).

Imperial phase HIGNFY, with good captain The Late Harry Thompson at the helm (try to ignore that he also produced Monkey Dust and several episodes of The 11 O’clock Show, try to think of him this way). Loads of great stuff in here, including transcripts of best bits from the series up to that point (Angus: “I made Thatcher ______ boasts Nigel.” Paul: “Is it ‘swallow’?” [Panel incapable of making any further suggestions]), photos of “Have I Got News For You: Around The World”, which takes in international versions of the successful format (Iraq, where “one team supports Saddam, while the other violently opposes his enemies”, or Ireland, where each panellist carries a pig under their arm), a look at genuine tabloid stories where disgruntled editors have tried to smear the programme, and A Trainspotter’s Guide to HIGNFY (where we learn that the top performing guest on the show at that point was David Thomas, who’d answered 84.61% of questions correctly. Richard Ingrams finished bottom of the ‘News Cretins’ table, getting just 19.67% correct).

All that, and blimey, loads more, including “Tub of Lard In Vice Shame Shock”.

The pages we’ve chosen from the book? Well, as you can see, we’ve gone for a reminder that Ian Hislop was once the sharpest and most entertaining satirist on television. We know, astonishing, isn’t it?

A page (or two) from a different book tomorrow and then NEVER AGAIN. Until then, why not take time to have a look at the television-related book that all the secretly deviant librarians are referring to as OTTTBBOTBTVWNNNTTAN (Off The Telly: The Best Bits of the British TV Website 1999-2009)? Available from Lulu.com in paperback for just £16.99 (that's just £0.00005 per word!), or £3.99 for the PDF ebook version, with any profits going to Alzheimer's charities.

Go on, what else are you going to spend your money on? A… thing for your… ah, we got nothing.