Everyone's a critic - including my three-year-old

My love affair with CBeebies is all but over after my son Jackson recently announced, with all the world-weariness only a nearly-three can muster, 'not Story Makers AGAIN Mummy? It's BOOOOOOORING.' Boring is not a concept any toddler, even a TV critic manqué, should be able to get his precocious little head around, but it's true that a lot of the CBeebies output, once so fresh and charming, is now looking decidedly complacent.

Jackson's brief pre-nursery morning slot is, however, a success: currently occupied by Clifford the Big Red Dog (he's a big red dog called, er, Clifford), the Koala Brothers (marsupial siblings living in the desertified outback of Australia - confusing because without gum trees Koalas are just another statistic on the endangered-o-meter) and SMarteenies (art for infants that only full-time mums can aspire to reproduce, thus effectively providing a guilt trip first thing in the morning).

But CBeebies receives increasingly stiff competition from Funky Valley, Noddy or the very fabulous Peppa Pig over on Five's Milkshake, which, if you can stomach the pernicious amount of advertising aimed at small children, feels altogether zingier and more modern. And they're currently running Bagpuss.

Jackson's other slim TV viewing slot might fall anywhere between 5.30 and 7pm, when we like to cuddle up on the sofa and 'discuss' what we're watching. Since time immemorial this seems to have been occupied by the hitherto-beloved (now 'boring') Story Makers (night-time adventures in a library with a storyteller and furry sidekicks), Roly Mo (a mole that rolls and may or may not be related to a Fimble), 64 Zoo Lane (pint-sized insomniac Lucy stays up all night talking to her animal neighbours - an asbo waiting to happen), Andy Pandy (these days voiced by Tom Conti with definitive lugubriosity), plus the badly written and tackily illustrated CBeebies bedtime story, about a rabbit called Beebie, which is read by a 'celebrity' who is often Amanda Holden. All of which is followed by Story Makers. Again. Though at weekends obviously Jackson is allowed to stay up late and watch something by Quentin Tarantino.

The programme links are also recycled relentlessly. A couple of weeks ago one featuring a (frankly inedible) 'traffic light salad' (orange, beetroot, bleeeurgh...) ran on four consecutive nights in the same slot. Small children like repetition but here it looked like laziness, as if everyone at CBeebies had gone home and left the tape running. And there's nowhere near enough from that superstar among pre-schoolers (ex-Tweenie and Tikkabilla stalwart), Justin Fletcher.

There are also endless trails for programmes that my son would love to see, but can't. For instance, an all-new Bob the Builder is currently on at 8.45am, 12.45pm and 4.45pm, when Jackson is either at nursery, getting a Victorian dose of fresh air at the beach or doing improving hand-eye-co-ordination-type things with Lego. He's mystified as to why Bob is seemingly there and yet never quite there enough. It's tough to explain the arcane art of scheduling to the under-threes.

Often we do (as I suspect many Observer readers are likely to point out we should) turn off the television set and go and do something less boring instead - like logging on to the (excellent) CBeebies website, where there is, admittedly, more than enough building to keep my little Bob-junkie happy, 24/7.

But the news that there are to be no more Balamorys has also come as a bit of a blow, despite the fact that there are 50 (!) that haven't yet aired. I hope they're clever enough to wrap up all those tantalising loose ends because if the final episode doesn't feature the wedding of Miss Hoolie, in traditional green velour, and PC Plum, in uniform, followed by a nice reception at the Balamory nursery, then a permanent defection to Five appears inevitable.

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