I owe it to the nation to root out this filth

The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold

Sunday 12 November 1995 00:02 GMT
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ANOTHER hectic week. Playboy TV has taken to the air, joining Television X and The Adult Channel in contributing to the general slough of filth into which this once-great nation is fast sinking.

As a distinguished Clean-Up TV campaigner from way back, as well as being Director of YouKayTeeVee, I had been asked by fellow crusaders to be an "expert witness". Unpleasant though this assignment sounded, I felt duty bound to oblige. For how can one condemn the prurient and gratuitous use of ladies' breasts peeking enticingly out of breathtakingly low-cut rubber bustiers, there to be massaged all over with the finest Eastern oils prior to acts of animal depravity, if one has not subjected oneself to such tedious horrors?

Under the Daily Mail's aegis, I checked in under the assumed name "Val S. Arnold", to a single room at a Holiday Inn with full shower facilities. I arrived with a case of what I believe are known as "video cassettes", each containing a lewd selection of soft-porn output. Drawing the curtains and fixing the "Do Not Disturb" sign firmly to my door. I settled into my armchair, gritting my teeth in preparation for the gruesome task ahead.

The first film opened healthily enough. A smartly dressed foreign businessman - he had a strong look of the young Michael Portillo to him but I dismissed the idea as preposterous - was pictured entering a lift on the ground floor of a high-rise block. On the second floor, in stepped a uniformed lady police officer. I was immediately reassured. Surely, with the strong arm of the law in evidence nothing untoward could occur?

How very wrong I proved to be. Somewhere between the second and third floors, the policewoman began to undo the buttons of her uniform. Lifts can prove immensely sticky in humid weather, and I myself have often found cause to loosen a necktie under similar conditions, so I thought little of it. But by the fourth floor, the policewoman had removed her jacket and was starting on her shirt. Meanwhile the Portillo character was following suit, beginning with his neatly pressed grey trousers.

Frankly, I was flabbergasted, so much so that I pressed "fast-forward" and watched in mounting horror as by floor 6 the policewoman had undressed to a brassiere, suspenders and red stockings and by floor 8 the gentleman - I use the term lightly - was clad in nothing but a leather posing-pouch, and the two were panting like underfed hounds. Now, I have travelled in many a lift - last time I ascended with Lord Wyatt, if memory serves - but the idea that the two of us would have indulged in any horseplay in such inappropriate surroundings is quite absurd.

I fast-forwarded again, hoping that the couple might be interrupted by the lift stopping on floor 13. Then someone of the moral probity of Sir Robert Mark might step in and give the policewoman her marching orders. But no! By floor 16, the man had removed the policewoman's brassiere, and by floor 17, his hands were searching her with a feverish intensity, suggesting he had lost something of importance, like a cufflink.

This is not the place to describe what was happening by the time they passed floor 23. Suffice it to say that it filled me with such feelings of disgust that I felt duty bound to press the "freeze-frame" button on the video control. As chance would have it, I bumped into Portillo on Wednesday last, but I never mentioned the obvious facial similarities I had witnessed a few days before. However, I did draw attention to the bulbous leather pouch in which he now keeps his contact lenses. "Actually, I was given it a long time ago. I forget where," he muttered, before darting off to an important engagement.

A grim day's viewing indeed, leaving me a sworn enemy of soft-core porn on British television. Nevertheless, if it must be broadcast, far better that it should be done by a company with a reputation for good taste. And that is why I am proud to announce that YouKayTeeVee will soon be broadcasting our very own adult channel, with a strong emphasis on education and human relationships. I do hope you'll join me, Wallace Arnold, in tuning into TVTITS 24 hours a day from next February.

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