Asked why so few new series had been commissioned, Ms Home said: “These are back by popular demand You don’t get rid of your bankers.”. Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a previously unknown ancient civilisation, about 3,500 years old. This is the first discovery of ancient urban civilisation on this scale for more than a century. They have found well over 1,000 jade and bronze items including some of the world’s strangest sculptures, ET-style masks with eyes on stalks and heads with giant ears.
Archaeologists are stunned by the discovery and baffled as to the identity of the ancient people who created this glittering lost culture. There’s a kind of feeling that today’s children are only interested in soundbites and quick fixes, that they could sit down and concentrate on a story was very cheering.”The BBC’s decision to go back to basics includes Sir Arthur Quiller Couch’s children’s story True Tilda, in which 10-year-old Morgan Bell becomes a circus girl.Old favourites continuing include Blue Peter, Byker Grove, Newsround, Grange Hill and Record Breakers.

We did a couple of shows last year which were computery and electronic and they were not particularly popular, and there’s a show on ITV called Bad Influence, again to do with new technology, and that wasn’t very successful.”In a way, that restores my faith, in as much as The Demon Headmaster and The Queen’s Nose couldn’t be more traditional in terms of children’s books, yet there’s a real appetite for them. “One of the things which was proven last year with the success of The Demon Headmaster and The Queen’s Nose is the way today’s children are deeply traditional and enjoy good stories well told,” she said.”It surprised all of us. The classic children’s storytelling programme Jackanory – suspended by the BBC last year – is to return as “heritage” repeats. Jackanory Gold, with stories told by Dame Judi Dench, Bernard Cribbins and the late Kenneth Williams, will be part of this autumn’s schedule on Children’s BBC, it was revealed yesterday. Stories are still important to modern children, Anna Home, head of BBC Children’s Programmes, said.
Last year, when production of the story-telling programme ceased after 29 years, the BBC said stories from books had “a limited appeal” as modern children were more interested in youth soaps such as Byker Grove and magazine shows such as Live and Kicking.However, Ms Home laid emphasis on the classic drama in yesterday’s autumn schedule.A Sunday tea-time dramatisation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper stars Keith Michell playing Henry VIII for the fifth time in his career.Launching the BBC’s autumn children’s season, Ms Home said there would also be new series of old favourites The Queen’s Nose, telling the adventures of feisty Harmony Parker, and The Demon Headmaster, the baddie who wants to take over the world. There are obvious risks.”Other policing trends praised in the report include the targeting of prolific offenders in operations such as the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Bumblebee, more proactive policing, and assigning responsibility for most investigations to local units.Publication of the report came as Met officers arrested 329 people in London under the Bumblebee initiative.

In a series of dawn raids police recovered a substantial quantity of stolen goods along with two pistols, CS gas canisters and drugs.About 1,700 officers took part, searching 600 addresses. Ian Johnston, an assistant commissioner, said that since Bumblebee was launched in June 1993 about 34,000 people had been arrested for burglary. Residential burglaries had fallen by 5 per cent in the past year while the detection rate was up 24 per cent.. Many have received specialist training in informant handling.Detective Superintendent Alan Shannon, head of crime management with the force, said intelligence-led policing including the cultivation of informants and the targeting of persistent offenders by surveillance squads had been crucial to the force’s success.Kate Flannery, a member of the commission’s senior management, said: “Some chief officers are still a little wary of allowing inexperienced officers to try to control informants. Every suspect interviewed is also approached as a possible source of information on other crimes and criminals. Prison visits are seen as a prime opportunity to recruit informants.The commission found that the number of registered informants had tripled to 900 since 1993, even though those people who had ceased to be active were more systematically weeded from the register. It estimates that the intelligence provided led to an average of two arrests a day in 1995.Around two-thirds of Hertfordshire’s informants are run by uniformed officers, a rarity before 1993.