Sorry Steve - I read your remark as saying The Unthanks had 'sold out' which would be as silly as saying my deep green mate who lives off grid in Otley and is as committed to sustainability as they come, and is now running a small business on low margins putting retrofit interior insulation into people's houses has sold out.

I read your comment on the other thread about people being pushed too far by their managers. When that happens they don't usually marry them.

Al - the idea that BBC producers choose people of lesser talent deliberately, and get away with it because it's public funds is beneath you. They just have a different opinion to you, (which happens to be in tune with a majority view - they're very careful in their research) and that's what happens in a free society. If your chums were in the right pace at the right time - who knows. But most of us are in that soup, and it's not the end of the world. Some of us go on to make political campaigning films about peak oil, and write musicals, and get asked to start up new schools of ecological design by major universities - which wouldn't have happened if we'd been successful enough to get onto Later. You see? No point in being bitter. Seize the day and have fun

Tom