Diversity

That's a word that probably doesn't figure highly in writer's minds, but is way up there in the lexicon of BBC Buzzwords. So is worth mentioning for that alone.

Essentially the BBC want to see more minorities on screen. I couldn't agree more. Though I'd rather see the diversity in the ranks of writers, producers and directors first. Otherwise you have a lot of 'whitebread writing street' scenes, to use a shorthand.

I don't have a lot of time for quotas. And throwing minorities into a show just to make up the numbers rather than actually investigating the issues and stories which can be dramatically portrayed to give everyone a better understanding of that minority seems like a waste of time.

There is the argument that you integrate the minority character and make them just like any other, and that is fine. But minorities are different. That's is why they are labelled minorities. And before any dipshit BNP wally dives in, I'm talking about celebrating and sharing those differences. I love that different groups of people feel and act differently depending on their cultural background. And as a writer I want to understand why. So I can write it. Those small differences are interesting to me.

If I were writing a movie about the Williams Sisters or Tiger Woods or Shilpa Shetty or I should be so lucky - Nelson Mandella or Martin Luther King I would want to get behind the minds. What shaped and influenced them and why whitebread like me still actually thinks in terms of minorities? Or maybe I don't?

Diversity - Good! Diversity for the sake of it - Not as good.

Jasper Carrott sitcom about a one legged black lesbian miner - or something like that - not good at all.