Tuesday 6 November 2007

Thanks to...



A big thanks to all of you who made it possible (in no particular order):

James Herring for keeping my identity hush-hush, Steven D Wright for all his indiscreet emails (don't worry I won't show anyone), Fiona Lennon for the iced skinny lattes, James Silver for his great advice, Rowena Gray for being a saint, Michael Gove for staying stum (thank you!), Kevin L for encouraging me during my darkest days, Lucy Lumsden for first rejecting it as a sitcom, Addison for coming up with his own storylines, David Flynn for sorting out the 'Itchy Reality' t-shirts in Edinburgh, Marty Durkin for all those inspiring rants, Andrew O'Connor for teaching me how to play poker, Jemima K for always fighting my corner, Murray for keeping me sane, Martin Davidson for being totally straight with me, Ro Newell for the birthday cake, Will Self for never knowing who I was (and not caring!), Dan Mazer for being a top man, Kufena for offering to sleep with me if I went on Screenwipe, Helena Peacock for the rollerskating lessons, Graham Smith for being a great sub-editor, Jo Shinner for the Anthea insights, Bear for being a pussy, Dan McGolpin for getting drunk to celebrate his mention, David Glover for the NASA contacts, Stuart Murphy for agreeing to play the villain, Rob Thirkell for lending me his signed McGee book, Camila Lewis for having the bottle to wear her old Word outfit in a Brighton hotel room, Danielle Lux for the Pret muffins, Kleiny for keeping me in on the loop, Nigella for taking it on the chin, Charlotte Black for the inside scoop on the "E4 years", Neale Simpson for getting me into Soho House, Ben Gale for showing me his REAL bathroom, Hannah Barnes for the gym story, Wayne Garvie for the anecdotes about Fincham, Gary Reich for the encouragement, Lambert for sexing it up just for me (thanks man, I owe you), Adam Freeland for never pandering to me, Peter for the MGEITF invite, Jon Ronson for his patience, Chris Curtis at Broadcast for being the first hack to support me, the constant smirking from Peter Salmon that kept me going during the early days, Robert Popper for taking the first hits (sorry mate), Mahoney for putting up with my kinky boot fetish, Steve Gowans for our early conversation about myspace, Dom W for giving me her opinions whether I liked them or not, Elaine Bedell for feeding me home-made hummus when the going got tough, Dan Chambers for all the proof reading (slap on back well deserved), Jay Hunt for flirting with me without realising who I was, Dan Hine for the late-night emails, Sue Murphy for the corduroy fashion advice, Yentob for the Groucho cocktails and gossip (I owe you big man), Julian B for his words of wisdom, Riley Anderson for never doubting me, Hincksy for letting me beat him at squash (and the pic of his car), Grimsdale for passing on his literary agent's details, Ben Silverman for being so Hollywood, Jana Bennett for blanking me (twice), Henrietta for introducing me to Dave Gravy, Ralph Lee for asking nasty questions, Simon Shaps for not being in it (no matter how hard he tried), Daisy Donovan for the coffee and salad, Grace Dent for worrying on my behalf, Peter Moore for his (very) dry anonymous comments, Duncan G for his invaluable help with the meaningless commissioning jargon, Claire Grimmond for the long lunches, Remy for being robust but charming, The Wolfster for giving me Murdoch's feedback on the blog, Daisy Goodwin for the encouragement (and help with Mexico), Suzanne Gilfillan for the watch, Tara Conlan for being an absolute star, Lisa O for laughing out loud at her cameo, Holly Pye for the access, Julia Wrigley for spending more time on the blog than on facebook, Andy Mac for thinking I worked at Tiger Aspect, Stephen McCrum for being very bitter, Peter Dale for finally understanding what email is for, Liz Warner for the DVDs, Charlie Brooker for snubbing me, Anna Blue for the cough medicine, Richard Bacon for the story about Ant & Dec, Simon Dickson for using the word 'organic' a record number of times in one pitch meeting, Jay Rayner for worrying that I was going through a midlife crisis and blowing the biggest break of my career, Danny Fenton for the beers and scoop on Jez, Reemah S for brainstorming buzzwords with me, Meredith for the sushi and bitching, Claudia Emery for being so supportive (will you marry me?), Helen Veale for the cycling maps, Lorraine H for inspiring me to write my favourite post, Roy Ackerman & Amanda C for the 'early years' stuff, Helen Bullough for forwarding those emails, Andy Newman for being my ultimate Libertine, Peter F for having a good sense of humour, Ben Frow for the anecdotes (I miss you- please come home), Dawn Porter for supporting me in the press despite the conflict of interest and DC for pretending not to read it. You're a legend. Thank you all and goodnight x

Love, Dominic Vallely xx

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

FINALLLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well done and thanks for the memories - do come back soon - maybe as Peter F or as Andy Z?

Sasha said...

Dom, you're a naughty boy and no mistake! And now my days will be empty without this to look forward to. A classic, pure class.

Anonymous said...

You are a bully and a coward.

The reason you've stopped doing the blog is that the buzz quickly went when people realised the writing was boring.

Instead of writing about other people you might take this opportunity to get a life of your own.

Anonymous said...

I had to type fcrhkqhe, which sounds like a gaelic curse, into the little box to get this published.

Thanks for the chuckles; I enjoyed reading this while posing outside Daveys with a laptop, watching all the scruffy little gits shuffling into the Media Centre in their cheap frayed jeans.

Anonymous said...

my my, some people really have lost their sense of humour whilst working in telly. don't take them too seriously dom - however - just as a precaution I would avoid all outings to the usual haunts of century, soho house or the groucho - maybe also contemplate plastic surgery - or emigrating to Canada?

Vladski said...

Err.. if you click on the link its says the blogger is NOT Dominic.

Its the TVC's last bit of cheek

Anonymous said...

the cheek ... i did initially think bloody hell quite some guts to come out like that, but obviously TVC has another one up his sleeve - the hunt to find the secret blogger continues

Anonymous said...

Your blog is / was hilarious. It's made me laugh so many times. Thank-you so much.

Whoever did the post at 1:26 PM is talking rubbish. I've enjoyed it so much.

Anonymous said...

I guess from today.. "My door is always closed"!

Thanks for the best ever insight into the student politics at Wood Lane ... from a fucking regional programme maker xx

Anonymous said...

so if its not dominic, who the hell is it? must be a channel4 insider I feel. but will we ever ever know? TVC please put us out of our misery.

Anonymous said...

Farewell TVC,

See you in 2008!

Zephirine said...

Many thanks for all the laughs... you've changed the landscape, you know - I was reading about the new BBC3 commissions this morning and my first thought was 'itchy reality?'

Sadly, I fear nothing will change in that strange organic-banana republic which is the BBC.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant. Oppressed freelancers of the TV world salute you.

Anonymous said...

Thank you most of all your insight into the bullying, cowardice, bandwagoneering, cost-cutting moronic decision making and dithering that is the world of commissioning.

If TV-land were Northern Rock, we'd all be homeless by now...

Anonymous said...

To all those 'you've been a vicious bully', 'disgrace', 'coward' posters here's a message - go fuck yourselves. Seriously, you cunts are exactly what this blog has lampooned so deftly over the past months. Here's a newsflash you humourless pricks - it's a JOKE...and it's ONLY TV...get a fucking life. if you didn't like it then stop logging on to be outraged - none of you dicks are important enough to warrant a mention anyway and I suspect that this is the real 'problem' you have with it.
Now fuck off back to bullying a PD into adding jeopardy into a scene where a bloke cooks an omelette...

P said...

I am going to miss reading this.

Anonymous said...

Singer Lily Allen, who sprang to popularity through social networking website MySpace, is getting her own talkshow on BBC3 in the UK, with the audience made up entirely of her online friends.

Is this a TVC spoof? Or the real TVC? Who knows ...

Anonymous said...

if i was this dominic vallely character I'd be soaking up the credit! better than thinking it was written by steven d wright anyway

Anonymous said...

Strange but true: Lily Allen is Henrietta Conrad's God-daughter. She did work experience at Princess, though she didn't get her hands quite as dirty as most...

BPP said...

I had no idea you'd got so big for your boots, quite frankly.

Cheerio.

Miranda Holmes said...

No I did not.

For the record.