This might be too much like half-forgotten schoolwork for comfort and, as in all first episodes, there was a lot of indigestible introduction.

Real ale fans are just like train-spotters, only drunk.

These are abysmal numbers, suggesting a deeply pessimistic consumer in the first half of September.

The prefect evening...lying down on the couch beside the bookcase and reading himself sleepy...Jim lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other's presence.

The reruns have done better than those first few episodes did. So I'm really not that worried about it because the numbers have stayed up.

I've said to them they've done great but we should have done in the first half what we did in the second half.