We’re not big fans of the BBC, which is why we’re joining the queue to belatedly knock EastEnders, which as far as soaps go, should be set on Mars, because the likelihood of bumping into any credible Black people there is just as remote.
Growing up in East London you had to run the gauntlet of National Front skinheads posing as West Ham fans as you made my way to Upton Park tube on a Saturday. There’s a slight reversal now as West Ham fans now have to run the gauntlet of Indians, Pakistanis and Blacks to get to the game.
Forget your apples and pears and leaving your back door open, its all changed you old gits unless of course you live in Albert Square on planet BBC and light years away from reality of the title. Even Alf Garnett has more in common with today's East End and he's a Right-wing 60s throwback. 
Dyke was right, the BBC is hideously white and their soaps wash even whiter. Funny how there's no evidence of race in EastEnders, even Rudi Walker’s hat doesn't sit right. As minority families go, the Ferreiras, the Truman’s and dustbin-boy make you want to the RSPCA to put down the politically correct Oxbridge brigade of writers who deliver this tripe four times a week.
Those merchant bankers are in a right two-and-eight struggling to drag it out the canal they should've left Dirty Den in.
I’m probably the biggest Black TV fan in Britain and yes, it chills me to see Ainsley roll his eyes and wiggle his fingers minstrel style. It annoys me that with so much talent out there they can’t find a Black writer to stand tall in a writer’s meeting and say ‘No!’ these poor Black caricatures wouldn’t do that. Surely Rudi Walker who survived ITV’s Love They Neighbour in the 70s could say something, and maybe does? But it’s obvious no one is listening and even fewer watching.
Someone I know, who isn’t Black was joined EastEnders having in their own words, ‘never really watched it’ by virtue of knowing someone who knew someone. 
I hope it sounds like sour grapes, because I used to enjoy that and a few other BBC shows and I’m disappointed that my licence fee is going towards paying people who couldn’t careless.
I bumped into Paulette Randal the other day she of the Talawah Theatre Company who’s been charged with bringing credibility to another BBC mistake, Black sitcom the Crouches. A white bloke, Ian Patterson, ironically conceived the series about a hapless stereotypical Black South London family. He brought us the drunken unemployed Scotsman Rab.C.Nesbit, but found himself way out of his depth and drowning in darker waters south of the river.
So Randall, who says she stakes her reputation on everything she does, has the helm. And let’s hope that in this comedy series she’s not scooped the poison chalice from the palace and season two of the Crouches does prove to be the brew that is true.
But my point is there's a lesson to be learned in getting in the right people, and I’m saying that even before I’ve requested the Crouches preview tapes.
We’re not biased or anything, but come on, if Black people make up some eight percent of Britain’s population or thereabouts, give us something to believe in. Get some Black folks in there. And no, Angelica Bell (CBBC), Darren Jordan and Moira ‘what’s that on my head’ Stuart (BBC News) and the housewives taste bud tickling eye-roller Ainsley (Ready Steady Cook) are not enough.BH