Newsflash – Uproar with Aunty Mabel

As a devotee of Cbeebies and their bizarre choice of programming over the last nine years I must just share with you my amazement, nay total astonishment about recent events in the somnambulent televisual feast that is known as Come Outside.

Now for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of this extravaganza I will explain.  You may recall, those of you who have the great good fortune to have parents who enjoyed classic British comedy programmes, a jewel in the crown of light entertainment known as Open All Hours.  It starred Ronnie Barker as a skinflint corner shop owner, David Jason as his errand boy and a lady whose name escapes me who was red haired and extremely buxom and who was the love interest, known as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel.

Now, Nurse Gladys has in recent years metamorphosed from buxom nymphette and top totty to being Aunty Mabel, star of the ravishing childrens’ programme Come Outside.  Aunty Mabel is as mad as a hat, wears very sensible shoes and lives in a small bungalow with a dog called Pippin.  In her spare time, despite the comfort of her footwear and her unassumingly beige life we are led to believe, and indeed to see that in her spare time she is the pilot of a small, spotty plane which she and Pippin fly round the country.  Aunty Mabel has all sorts of fascinating adventures with Pippin in her plane.  Sometimes she finds out how to make teapots.  Sometimes she finds out how to make crisps.  Today, when Oscar was watching it, she was doing something unspeakable with petunias, hanging baskets and vast acres of snails.  She often sings songs to the crisps and the tea pots, and today was no exception as she clutched a snail in her paw and crooned at it, before setting it down, stunned and upset, amongst its snail relatives.

As she was heading back across the lawn to her cottage, she spied another dog gambolling up the front path to check out Pippin’s new kennel.  Apparently, and this is where I was reeling, positively reeling I tell you, Pippin has a boyfriend and this is he/it.  I was so stunned I nearly dropped my Tuc biscuit, and I totally forgot to pay attention to the name of Pippin’s boyfriend.

I am shocked because a) I have spent the last nine years thinking that Pippin was a boy (which in these days of Queer as Folk, he may well be and never let it be said that I am homophobic against gay dog love.  I am not, I just default to heterosexuality in the main) b) Pippin must be extremely old by now and far too sensible for this type of malarkey unless statistics about dog sexuality are currently running true to statistics about human sexuality and the reasons why the twenty somethings are having such a shocking time is because the sixty somethings are having all the hot sex; and c) Aunty Mabel was flirting with him outrageously.  She winked at him as he came up the path, and she turned gaily on her heel in a frankly risque manner as she minced off to mind her petunias.

My world has been turned upside down.  You potter along for nine years safe in the knowledge that some things, such as Aunty Mabel and her doings are somehow sacrosanct, much like taking comfort in the fact that no matter how bad your hair is, you can always stand next to Amy Winehouse and be confident in the wedding photos, and then something like this happens. 

And on that bombshell…