What better way to celebrate than by creating something? Not a land fit for heroes, but a channel fit for Arthur Askey and Edmundo Ros And thus heavy fighting gave way to light entertainment. Fifty magnificent years of melody, you might say, if you were a sloganising sort of person.What intrigues me, however, is the logic of the timing. Nineteen forty- five, eh? The war in Europe had just ended, the war in Japan was about to end, and a half-century of nuclear terror was about to begin, although no one knew it. First there was a “salacious” novel, called An American Playground. Worse, it was followed by a little self-publishing project: The Pornographer’s Handbook: How to Exploit Women, Dupe Men and Make Lots of Money.Talk about running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.How fitting that the easy-listening music of James Last and Mantovani should be all the rage in the clubs just in time for the 50th anniversary of the BBC Light Programme, which falls today. Time itself has had to admit that Rimm has a bit of a track-record as an author.

So much so that its author, an undergraduate called Marty Rimm, has come in for a bit of unexpected personal attention himself.Inevitably, it emerges that his hands are far from clean. More liberal commentators, meanwhile, have taken to warning of a sinister conspiracy whereby governments have stirred up a bogus moral panic so that they can start regulating a system that might otherwise be buzzing with dangerous political subversion.Fanciful though all this might seem, the attack on the original research has been extraordinarily thorough. The impressive pyramid of foil-wrapped chocolates that the butler carries across the room at a nod from His Eccellente was only constructed with the help of liberal quantities of glue. So that’s why I haven’t been able to do it at home.Is “cyberspace” overflowing with pornography? Time magazine recently ran an alarming and lengthy cover story warning the parents of America and the world to be on their guard against all manner of carnal horrors, based on a research report from Carnegie Mellon university in the States.Naturally, there was a backlash from those fighting to keep the Net free and uncensored, but it’s a losing battle now that libel lawyers have discovered its potential as ready supply of pocket money. They even have a nickname for him: “Ambroglio”.This is as nothing, however, compared to Mr Abineri’s shocking revelation of jiggery-pokery on set.

The ad’s butler, John Abineri, has been telling the advertising magazine Campaign that he is now so famous in Italy that everywhere he goes, fans try to mob him. It is Salman Rushdie.The infamous Ferrero Rocher ad may not currently be seen on our screens, but fans of the ambassador and his cocktail party are still eager for tit-bits about it.We are not alone in our obsession with this magnificent piece of Eurocrap. If you spot a large garden gnome, complete with beard and sleepy eyes, miraculously come to life and start complaining about the iniquities of the literary world, relax. Guests at a garden party start, for some reason, on the right. The most important ones can be found two-thirds of the way down, talking to some big noise in broadcasting.5 After 10 o’clock, be wary of the canapes It is the height of folly to eat anything you can’t see.6.

If there’s a terrible crush but no bar in the garden at all, you have crashed the Spectator party by mistake.4 Guests at a house party circulate clockwise from the left. So here are a handful of tips for successful negotiation of the greensward:1. On no account should you plunge straight through the crowd like a bowling ball through skittles. You will wind up at the end of the garden among the furtive adulterers and the sheepish reefer addict.2.