swiftly brush under the wine-splashed carpet". The producer wrote later to the British television trade magazine Broadcast: In his column in the Daily Mirror, Victor Lewis-Smith boasted of his hoax call: "The show was taken off air not by C4, but by... little-old-wine-drinking-me, sitting at home, far from the TV studio.... Once connected, I shouted: 'Michael Grade is furious about this. Take the bloody programme off... now! The lawyer Geoffrey Robertson wrote: "The Broadcasting Standards Council condemned the makers of After Dark for not blacking out Oliver Reed's crude and boorish behaviour...when this behaviour was actually proving the point in a discussion of 'men and violence. Channel 4's Deputy Programme Director, John Willis, wrote an internal memo: "Oliver Reed got drunk and a hoaxer caused the programme briefly to be taken off air. I view the latter with a great deal more seriousness than the former... 1,000 calls from an audience estimated at just 300,000. Remarkable." Gordon Winter and Peter Hain A week later the programme discussed "The Cost of a Free Press" with, among others, Duncan Campbell, Anthony Howard and Lord Lambton. In the course of the programme, Gordon Winter said "I was a chief witness against Peter Hain, and then BOSS ordered me to do a maverick witness to get him off in order to beat up Jeremy Thorpe. Peter Hain – of course he was set up by the South Africans – of course he was." Peter Hain had himself appeared on the very first After Dark programme several years earlier (see here). Prisons: No Way Out On 29 February 1991, a discussion about prison reform featured a "rare live appearance by socialite writer Taki Theodoracopolous, who (admitted) he deserved his prison sentence for cocaine possession. Another striking guest (was) Tony Lambrianou, who served 15 years for his part in the murder of Jack The Hat McVitie." The Sunday Times wrote "Taki was reluctant to appear...nervous about what consorting with criminals would do to his image. Funny really, when the only person he hit it off with on the show was the long-term criminal Tony Lambrianou". The Gulf The discussion on 2 March 1991 featured the only live TV appearance by Adnan Khashoggi, together with a confrontation between Lord Weidenfeld and David Mellor's friend Mona Bauwens (daughter of a senior PLO figure). Also on the programme Chris Cowley, implicated in the Iraqi supergun affair and former Conservative