“Written by Barry Bigot, Age 42”

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 a ten ton truck crushes both of us. 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 broken on our Bebo page 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.

Today, a page from The Hale & Pace Book of Writes and Rons (by Gareth Hale and Norman Pace, Arrow Books 1988).

Admittedly, Gareth and Norman are hardly seen as watermarks of 1980s alternative comedy, and the book doesn’t often do much to change our minds about thinking that, but it certainly does have a few nice moments. And admit it, if you’re old enough to remember them on Saturday Live/Friday Night Live/underrated C4 sitcom-cum-variety-show The Management, they seemed groundbreakingly original at one point. In fact, maybe they’ve still got it. Maybe, just maybe, they both had minor reconstructive plastic surgery, moved to the USA, and became Tim & Eric.

Or not.

A page (or two) from a different book tomorrow. Until then, why not take time to have a look at the TV-related book that all the hipsters are calling 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.

As for the competition to win a FREE COPY, it’s now over. Congratulations to Yvonne Jarman from Hertfordshire, who will soon be the lucky recipient of a copy of the book.