"Happy to Sign This!"

The author was delighted not only to see a copy of this edition again, but also to learn that the entire series is now on YouTube.

Which may be the closest this saga ever gets to a nice, neat ending.

Just Ask For International Broadcasts Of South By South East

You remember that thing that sort of took over this blog for a period of several years where I was looking for (and eventualy found) the missing Children's ITV serial The Diamond Brothers: South by South East, don't you? Yes? Marvellous. If not, go here, go to the oldest post and work your way forwards from there. I promise you it's worth your while.

Anyway, I have some newly unearthed information on international broadcasts which you may as well have, as these airings would have used the original version of episode 3, and anything that could possibly help me find it is worth a try.

American viewers would have seen the show on the Disney Channel weekly from 7 April to 12 May 1993; the broadcast of episode 1 was preceded by a showing of Just Ask for Diamond, under its international title of Diamond's Edge.

The other thing is a bit more esoteric, but an Indian viewer got in touch to say they recall the show being broadcast on Saturday afternoons on a channel called StarPlus; they can't recall the exact year, but it may have been somewhere between 1992 and 1994. Anyone able to point me in the direction of some archive Indian TV listings?

Caption Captured

Okay, if you're reading this, by this point I'm going to assume you know the whole deal this blog has with the 1991 TV series The Diamond Brothers: South by South East at this point. If not, why not start at the beginning, then come back here? I'll wait.

Welcome back. Anyway, the exciting news here is that I have been made aware of the existence of another off-air recording of the sole UK broadcast in 1991, this one the property of Paul TG of theTimeVault podcast. And this one has slightly more of the transmission error that afflicted episode 3.

Paul shared a few videos with me on Twitter, confirming what I already believed to be the case: the 9 April interrupted broadcast cut off just after the Diamond Brothers leave the guest house, and the following week's one-third-episode began over the long panning shot of the railings. Most thrillingly of all, though, he shared with me the caption added to the beginning of the 16 April portion of episode 3:

See here for the crucial video of the beginning of "Episode Three Cont..."; Paul also shared with me videos of the end of the 16 April recommencement and the point at which his recording of the 9th April cuts off, which are nice to have but I don't think show anything that isn't on the existing YouTube upload of Neil James' copy. (Paul did mention that his original VHS recording captured the whole breakdown, including the entirety of Tommy Boyd and Neil Buchanan's dead air, but unfortunately the person who transferred it to DVD for him cut it out and the original tape is long since broken!)

Anyway, this is going to be tremendously useful when I finally get round to writing my episode guide on the show (still pending my finding out what the cast list for episode 3 should have read, so do get in touch if you have any thoughts on that).

Just Ask For A Massive Headache Related To 30-Year-Old Television Listings

So, last week I wrote about a little mystery: How did ITV cope with Children's ITV lasting seven and a half minutes longer than usual on 16 April 1991, owing to a transmission error the previous week stopping them from finishing broadcast of episode 3 of The Diamond Brothers: South By South East? And looking at the TV listings for episode 1, and then episode 3, seemed like it had the answer:

Comparing those two, I came to a conclusion that, in my defence, wasn't entirely unreasonable: ITV just scrapped the cartoon at 5pm to account for the extra running time.

Just Ask For The ITV Schedule For 16 April 1991

15/01/23 Update! Please see here for a version of this piece that, er, isn't totally wrong after the third paragraph.

So, I'm once again talking about a subject which has become what this blog has become best known for over the last few years: the deeply obscure Children's ITV serial The Diamond Brothers: South By South East. If you are new to the blog, you may wish to acquaint yourself with the whole saga before reading on.

But the most important thing to know here is: On 9 April 1991, ITV attempted to broadcast episode 3, but partway through there was a technical fault they couldn't fix. One week later, on 16 April, they picked up episode 3 from where they left off, then showed episode 4. This resulted in a fair amount of oddities, which you can read about on the link above, but one thing I still didn't know even after the series resurfaced was where exactly the cut-off was, as when Neil James -- who provided me with his copy -- was recording the series back in 1991, he managed to pretty successfully splice the end of the 9 April interrupted transmission and the 16 April chunk.

However, the Twitter account Glad You Remember noted that they had a memory of where it might have happened from watching the original broadcast. If you go and look episode 3 up on YouTube, then the line they cite happens about 16 minutes in. Early on in the next scene, at just after 16:30, there is a sudden jump which, once you're looking out for it, doesn't look like tape damage, but a different recording cutting in. So I am happy to consider that particular matter closed: that is indeed where the transmission fault happened. (A previous post on the matter noted that the 16 April recommencement had a hastily added title card reading "EPISODE 3 CONT."; this is not on the extant copy, but it's easy to imagine it appearing during the long pan across the railings at the top of the scene.)

But then, on 16 April, airing that missing section would have resulted in the Diamond Brothers' timeslot being seven and a half minutes longer than usual. Can we work out exactly how they would have coped with that?

Best of 2022

It was exactly one year ago today that my round-up of everything vaguely readable posted to this blog in 2021 was posted, meaning that that post technically qualifies for inclusion in this, my round-up of everything vaguely readable posted to this blog in 2022. That's some Inception-level stuff there.

But also, that post effectively served as a round-up to a story that had taken over the blog in 2021, having spent the previous three years as an occasional running thread: my quest to track down The Diamond Brothers: South by South East, a television series that, despite being written and directed by a hugely successful and prolific novelist and featuring an all-star cast, had fallen into such obscurity as a result of airing exactly once and never being repeated or released on home media that not so much as a single still image from it was available online at the time. And obviously the big story of the blog this year is that, in March, thanks to the hard work of Neil James and Simon Drake, I was finally able to see it for myself, and discovered a new mystery: what the cast list for episode 3 should have been, given that it was affected by a transmission error that, in short, meant it was broadcast without any end credits.

I had a follow-up on that enigma in April, where I'd been able to fill in most of the cast list but still had a few gaps left. And before I write any more, I want to find out if I can get the missing names at the very least (as well as a few other things, such as where exactly episode 3 cut off during its failed transmission). And this is where you come in. Possibly.

Just Ask For The Guest Cast For Episode 3 Of South By South East

As you may recall, when I last left you on the subject of The Diamond Brothers, I had finally managed to see their 1991 TV series for myself -- but that threw up a brand new mystery. I'd already known that episode 3 had been interrupted by a technical fault, but getting to see the show added something significant: the net effect of that fault, and the way ITV dealt with it, meant that any actor who was only in the affected episode was not credited onscreen at all. So I had seven characters in search of an actor.

I included screenshots of all seven in that post, and after spreading it far and wide, I'm happy to report that four have been identified. So where are we now?

I Shall Just Ask For South By South East No More

It was over four years ago now that I used the blog to ask a question that had been puzzling me for over a decade before that: Why was the television adaptation of the third Diamond Brothers novel by Anthony Horowitz so obscure that no visual record of it existed?

I'd hoped I could find some listings, maybe some continuity relating to it. I didn't know how likely it was that I'd be able to see all six episodes in their entirety, but as the saga went on and on, turning up more and more mysteries in its wake -- most notably the question of whether the series was an adaptation of the book or the book was a novelisation of the series -- I grew more and more confident that there was a copy out there I'd be able to see some day.

And then, in December 2021, Neil James got in touch to let me know that in his attic he had a VHS recording he'd made of the original (and only) CITV broadcasts from April 1991. Retrieving it, he found out we were in business -- it was in pretty good condition for an off-air recording that was approaching its 31st birthday. All he needed to do was digitise it, and I suggested Simon Drake, who had previously provided me with a digital copy of the extended VHS cut of the 1988 movie that preceded the television series, might be able to help out.

We then discovered a truly bizarre coincidence. Although he didn't know he was interested in the Diamond Brothers, Neil already knew Simon. In fact, the day before, they'd been to the cinema together... which certainly made things much simpler.

The VHS was digitised. Simon smoothed out some picture and audio glitches. Yesterday, he sent over copies of all six episodes, and at last I was able to see this TV series I'd been banging on about for so long, and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to Neil and Simon for making that possible.

And in the process, some mysteries were solved, but a few more cropped up. I am working on a longer piece, which I plan to take the form of a comprehensive episode guide, but let's tackle some of the questions we can now answer, and the new ones that we can't just yet.

Best of 2021

In a way, there were two types of post on this blog last year: one about an extremely obscure CITV series from 1991 that was never repeated or released on home video, and everything else. So when making a list of the best posts, I sort of have to split it in two... but let's begin with a full recap of the remarkable story of The Diamond Brothers: South by South East.

Nog een Artikel met een slecht vertaalde Nederlandse Titel

Last time on the blog, my attempts to track down the obscure 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series brought the attention of Netherlands-based reader David; as the show was a British-Dutch co-production, he was able to provide me with a large number of contemporary pieces about the show's broadcast in the Netherlands from Dutch newspapers. David had a few more notes to give me after reading my resulting piece, which I think deserve a post of their own.

Vraag Gewoon Nog een Keer om Diamant

Last time on my epic quest for the never-repeated, never-released-on-home-video Diamond Brothers TV series from 1991, blog reader Giles Leigh had tracked down a whole bunch of newspaper and magazine clippings pertaining to the series' broadcast in the Netherlands. Bearing in mind I knew the show had been a co-production with a Dutch filming company, allowing for filming on location in Amsterdam, this is possibly something I should have thought to look into before. Ahem.

Anyway, another blog reader, Netherlands-based David, has now been in touch with another selection of clippings from various Dutch newspapers covering the series' broadcast there; I am tremendously grateful to him for sharing this veritable treasure trove, and for helping out with the translations. Pictured above is the first of these, taken from the 8th April 1991 edition of the Leidsche Courant and featuring, unless I'm mistaken, a never-before-seen publicity still of Colin Dale and Dursley McLinden.

Vraag Gewoon om Diamant

Last time on my quest for the missing 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, I mentioned I had some information I'd been sent by Giles Leigh about the show's broadcast in the Netherlands. Bearing in mind I already knew the show was a co-production with a Dutch film company, perhaps this is something I should've thought to look into myself before now. But anyway, since that last post was already earth-shattering enough, I decided to leave what Giles had sent me for another day and another post to avoid it all being a bit too much. And here we are.

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial, Only It Turns Out It's a Bit More Complicated Than That

When we last left my ongoing quest for the missing 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, I was still reeling from a startling revelation: the TV series was not actually an adaptation of the third Diamond Brothers book, but rather the book was a novelisation of the series. Not only that, but it appeared one of the reasons why nobody had ever realised this in the time since the series fell into obscurity and the book became the far better-known version was because when Walker Books reprinted South by South East in 1997, several sections of the text were significantly rewritten, removing or changing sections from the 1991 version of the book. I strongly suspected that the material only found in the earlier Lion Books printing that coincided with the broadcast of the TV series was originally in the show, was faithfully novelised by Anthony Horowitz when he did the book, but then removed when he did his rewrite a few years later. But without access to the TV episodes, I had no way of knowing for sure.

Except, of course, that the title sequence for the series is on YouTube. Jamie, who uploaded the only footage of the series publicly available, does have access to the full series, but as he is not the license holder he can't upload anything else (so please, please don't pester him about it, least of all on my account -- he's not deliberately withholding the episodes, he just can't share them for legal reasons; he is working on a documentary about the tragically short life of Dursley McLinden, for which he tracked the episodes down in the first place, and may be able to include some more footage from the series in that). But it occurred to me that surely it would be OK to ask him a few questions about the material that's only in the 1991 version of the book and check to see if it was in the TV series?

And it was, and I can tell you that Jamie delivered in spades; I am enormously grateful to him for taking the time to do this. So let's take a second look at the differences between the '91 and '97 versions of the book, with the tremendously helpful addition of the perspective of someone who's seen the TV series. (I would recommend you read my first comparison of the two different editions, linked to above, if you haven't already before going on to this one.)

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial (Definitely)

You know, when I first started writing about a series of comedy detective novels originally published in the late 80s and early 90s, and the obscure television series they spawned, I didn't really expect them to end up becoming such a big part of the blog. But they have, as the story behind them has grown progressively more and more complicated and the number of mysteries they've thrown up has increased. So before we dive into the latest of those, perhaps a recap of the story so far would be useful.

I first inquired about the 1991 TV series The Diamond Brothers: South by South East in December 2017. At that time, I believed the TV series was an adaptation of the third book, and there was one big mystery, and one little one:

• The TV series was extremely obscure, to the point that not so much as a single still image from it could be found on the internet.
• The book was published on 14 March 1991, and the TV series began broadcasting just twelve days later, on the 26th.

Over the next few years, the response I got was more than I could possibly have hoped for. Steve Williams submitted Radio Times listings that provided the first photographic evidence of the series' existence. I was sent an extensive second-hand account of the original broadcast. My own research turned up a promotional poster. It turned out the series might have been released on VHS in Spain. Someone who was an extra on the production for one day even got in touch. Finally, in May 2021, footage of the series actually emerged on YouTube in the form of the original opening titles. Bearing in mind that back in 2017, I semi-seriously floated the theory that the series might actually have been some sort of elaborate hoax, I was pretty happy with all that had come to light -- short of the actual full episodes turning up, I'd done about as well as I could.

But then, only a few weeks later, I was sent something that cast a new light on the second mystery (the TV series' extremely close proximity to the release of the original book). Christian-Bernard Gauci informed me he owned an edition of the book from 1991 which he, and I, quite reasonably assumed was a TV tie-in edition:

But as I thought about this, something seemed off. If there was a TV tie-in edition, surely it would've had to have been published more or less at exactly the same time as the original book? Wouldn't it have been a bit odd to have the book published with two different covers at the same time? And then a staggering possibility hit me: This wasn't a TV tie-in edition of the book. It was the only edition of the book published in 1991. Because, contrary to what everywhere (including the first page of later editions of the books) that mentions it says, the TV series wasn't actually an adaptation of the book, but the book was a novelisation of the TV series.

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial of the Book (Maybe)

So far this year, my never-ending quest for the 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series had had two big breakthroughs: the sleeve for a Spanish VHS release surfaced in March, and then the actual title sequence followed suit in May. Short of the actual full episodes turning up, I thought maybe we'd had all the discoveries we were ever going to have.

I was wrong, for today Christian-Bernard Gauci got in touch to tell me he owned a TV tie-in edition of the book. Thanks to him, I am able to shed a little more light on this lost series. More pictures and my "analysis" follow under the cut.

Just Ask For South By South East And You Shall Receive

Over three years ago, I first wrote about the long-missing 1991 CITV Diamond Brothers series, and its total obscurity to the point I voiced a theory I had held for many years before starting this blog: the series never actually existed and was actually some sort of elaborate hoax.

Since then, I've managed to establish its existence with pages from the Radio Times, a thorough second-hand account from someone who watched it, a promotional poster, and the sleeve for a Spanish VHS release. But even the briefest of actual footage from the production has escaped us.

Until now.

Solo Pide Un Diamante

Much thanks to commentator chyneeze for letting me know about this. Regular readers of the blog will no doubt be more than aware of my ongoing quest for the 1991 CITV Diamond Brothers series... a series that is deeply obscure because it was never repeated or released on home media.

Except it seems it might, in fact, have received a VHS release.

In Spanish.

Just Ask For South By South East Baby One More Time

Long-term readers of the blog will no doubt be familiar by now with my ongoing quest to track down the 1991 CITV Diamond Brothers series. Here's the latest discovery: a rather nice promotional poster, tracked down here (follow the link for a bigger, better-quality version).

Just Ask For South By South East... Yet Again

You know, it's really quite difficult to find pictures to illustrate an article about a television series from which no footage or still pictures are known to exist.

Way, way back in the mists of time of, erm, six months ago, I went on the trail of an incredibly obscure CITV series based on Anthony Horowitz's Diamond Brothers books, and was soon able to confirm that it did actually exist.

A few months later, on the Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan, I am one of the several people coming up with several thousand ridiculous ideas for episodes of Red Dwarf that are mostly puns on titles of existing episodes. The Diamond Brothers film and television series somehow come up in the course of that, and it turns out forum member bloodteller knows someone who saw it and has quite a lot of interesting information about it! Thanks to them for giving me permission to reproduce what they wrote here (here's a link to their original post).

Just Ask For South By South East... Again

Earlier this month, I went looking for an obscure television series. In fact, it was so obscure, I wasn't absolutely certain it existed. Thanks to the excellent Steve Williams, who dug out his old Radio Times, we now at the very least have definitive proof that it did:

Steve also uploaded the mag's brief interview with Jenny Agutter and the original listing, which makes him even more excellent than previously described: