My mother has sent me a second email in as many weeks asking what I might like for Christmas. I’m having trouble focusing on what I might like; the things that spring to mind immediately are expensive 26″ flat screen televisions or pointless items of computing or musical equipment, but my mother isn’t asking for some fantasy wish list, she wants things that belong on a Christmas list and don’t empty the meagre Marsden cash reserves, which is fair enough.

The only thing I can think of is Fanny Cradock DVDs, but they don’t actually exist. While I was away in the USA, BBC Four screened a drama based on the life of Fanny Cradock, starring Julia Davis; thanks to the magic of BitTorrent I’ve been able to see it, and would describe it as “ok” – that’s the kind of perceptive comment that got me a gig with the Radio Times – but far more interesting were the two accompanying shows they broadcast on the same night; “Adventurous Cooking: Fish” from 1966, and “Fanny Cradock Invites You to a Wine and Cheese Party”, from 1970. I’ve gone on about Fanny Cradock in the past, so I won’t do it again, but I’ve watched each of these shows about a dozen times over the past two weeks with rapt, untrammelled pleasure. Jenny, sighing slightly as she caught me watching “Adventurous Cookery: Fish” for the umpteenth time at the weekend, said “it’s just her perfect, unscripted clauses you like, isn’t it,” and I must admit that it’s part of the appeal. I found myself rewinding last night, just to hear her hector me once again with the following:

All I’ve told you about cleaning mussels is completely authoritative, but if you find one which is closed – these are such paragons of virtue that there isn’t one – you reject it, I think. I cannot say for certain that this is so, but I always feel that if, after the proper cooking time, they haven’t opened, I’m just a shade uneasy about them. So, I may be an old woman over it, but, as a counsel of perfection, I think we’d better throw those out too when we encounter them, although we haven’t encountered any here.

I can’t believe some enterprising soul at the BBC can’t collect up some of these archive programmes and shove them out on DVD. Then at least I’d get a Christmas present this year. Ms Chris P, if you’re reading this, surely you can pull some strings?

I just hope UKTV Food rerun “Cradock Cooks For Christmas” in a couple of weeks time. They usually do, bless them.