JAN MOIR: Tom bullied by Jerry – and Andy Pandy, a onesie clad maniac. How DID my technology survive with out set off warnings!

Yes, I did always wonder what had happened to Natasha ‘Spangles’ Kaplinsky after her winning turn on the very first series of Strictly Come Dancing back in 2004.

Now, here she is, president of the British Board of Film Classification, if you please – the film industry body that decides who sees what in the UK.

This week, these censors have taken it upon themselves to slap a ‘discrimination’ trigger warning on the musical movie Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

The warning is not due to pagan scenes of witchcraft or unnecessary brutality to Toto the little doggie, so cruelly misnamed ‘Dodo’ by Glinda (Grande) – when she’s supposed to be the good witch.

No, it is because bad witch Elphaba (Erivo) is mocked for having green skin, a dermatological disorder known in the entertainment industry as Incredible Hulk Kermititis.

You will have seen it on many showbiz occasions, on both big and small screens. Sometimes it is only a passing condition, such as when Rebekah Vardy watches Coleen Rooney triumphing in I’m A Celeb and her face turns a pulsating emulsion known as Envy Emerald.

Or like the time Angela Rayner walked up Downing Street in her viridescent Me + Em trouser suit after the election, convulsing the nation into a contagion of involuntary accessorisation. Remember how we all turned a matching shade of puke at this fashion abomination?

But deciding that Wicked is wicked? Isn’t this taking greenism a shade too far? Natasha and the BBFC even expanded on the Wicked warning on its official website, stating that coddled little British kiddies must be forewarned: ‘A green-skinned woman is mocked, bullied and humiliated.’

Well, she would be, Natasha – her complexion is the colour of pea soup. Elphaba is as green as artificial grass, she’s as putrid as a geyser of vomit, she is a boiled Brussels sprout-made-flesh. Everything about her is entirely unnatural.

And that is because she is a celluloid and fictional construct; a one-off, green-for-go traffic light signalling a single woman of singular colour.

She is a make-believe witch with no tribe nor constituency of her own; no little green children ripe for bullying by the non-greens, no female solidarity with anyone except, possibly, Marge Simpson – but even Marge is a pale imitation somewhere over the citrus rainbow.

Yet Natasha and the censors have decided that – even though no one else on the blue planet is actually, physically, naturally green – this green-colour discrimination must be given a red flag. Confusing but also depressing.

For this is an alarmist form of nannying that sees the possibility of racism everywhere. A suffocating morality that is not only terrified to offend, but also refuses to credit children and young people with the ability to watch and judge right from wrong for themselves.

Think about it. How on earth did my generation survive the cruel entertainments fed to us without Natasha and her barmy army of nannies alerting us to the hidden dangers?

Tom & Jerry would have come with a trigger warning: ‘A large cat is mocked, bullied and humiliated by a small mouse.’

The Wombles would have been dismissed as wombling-free health hazards, indulging in incorrect recycling practices. Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb – aka The Trumpton Massive – would have been cancelled due to appalling lack of hiring diversity at the fire station.

Meanwhile, Bagpuss was a victim of ageism, The Clangers made a mockery of those who suffered from ill-fitting false teeth, and many of us are still scarred by the horrors of The Singing Ringing Tree, the Daleks, and the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Nor, may I add, were we protected from wanton displays of sexual deviance. Regard the polyamory exhibited every teatime at the end of Andy Pandy, when the sex-mad, onesie-clad maniac climbed into the laundry hamper with his ‘best friends’ Looby Loo and Teddy – the latter as naked as a Chippendale except for his saucy bow tie. What a tart.

If you think about it, the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz starring Judy Garland had many moments which would not escape the attentions of Natasha’s wagging finger today.

Yet, while there were bad examples and scary moments a-plenty in the Oscar-winning classic, there were also many lessons for children to learn. Chiefly that good always triumphs over evil. Follow your own path and help others along the way. Above all, beware any women with green skin and a black, pointy hat (broom optional).

It’s all such a sad joke. I remember a time when Spangles Kaplinsky’s skimpy cha-cha-cha outfits on Strictly should have come with a trigger warning of their own. Now, here she is, rubber-stamping emotionally manipulative censorship that is riddled with cheap assumptions and doesn’t respect young people.

No, we are not in Kansas any more. But if you are going to act as the nation’s conscience, then you have to do better than mere oppression and joylessness.

Hollywood’s in a grump over Trump

Alec Baldwin and Sharon Stone (pictured) have been out on the stump this week, separately making the same political claims – that their fellow Americans are ‘ignorant’ and ‘uneducated’ in voting for Donald Trump.

Such arrogance perfectly illustrates the disconnect at the heart of American life – the Hollywood elites who think they know best sneering at the voters who were scorned, marginalised and overlooked by a Democrat party so desperate to stay in power they foisted senile Joe Biden and then the misdial of Kamala Harris upon the electorate.

Now both sides have the President they deserve. 

Popcorn at the ready… I almost agree with Hugh

At last, an issue on which Hugh Grant and I can agree. We are both upset at the closure of our local cinema, the Fulham Road Picturehouse.

‘It is strangely unbearable,’ said Grant, who lives near the south-west London institution, a listed art deco building which has been there for 94 years.

It closed its doors for the last time in July, part of a national downward trend of dwindling cinema audiences.

How can the Picturehouses of today compete with the luxury of streaming services which offer Hollywood releases in the comfort of your own home?

But that is not the only problem. Once upon a time, even in post-Netflix days, I still loved the communal experience of watching a film in the convivial atmosphere of a darkened cinema. Now I can hardly bear it.

It’s not, to paraphrase the Hollywood diva Norma Desmond, that the pictures got small – more that the sense of entitlement of those sharing these public spaces got so big. The noise, the chewing, the talking; the flashing phones and message texting; the slurping and guzzling of wines and beers – when did everyone start behaving so badly?

The general annoyance and stress of it all is just too much, as is the lack of respect and consideration for others. Am I sounding as moany as Hugh? Dear God, a thousand apologies – but for once he almost has a point.

Gregg Wallace steps away from MasterChef under a cloud of misconduct allegations. As some would say, after doubling the cooking time for a recalcitrant turkey, why the hell did it take so long? 

What fresh hell is this? Recipe books have been replaced by TikTok tutorials, because the youth have the attention span of gnats and think deglazing a ham is what happens when Helena Bonham Carter takes her make up off. 

Listen, kids. If you haven’t got the patience to sit down, read a recipe, learn the techniques and cook something from scratch, then you shouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen. And no, I’m not impressed by your butter board, your KitKat cheesecake or – utter shudder – your moronic cloud bread. 

So who did help Al-Fayed cover his tracks?

Mohamed Al Fayed died last year, but the case against him is far from buried. This week the Metropolitan Police has opened a new criminal investigation into his alleged predatory behaviour.

This follows a BBC documentary which suggested the Egyptian-born billionaire conducted widespread sexual abuse for many years at Harrods. Since the broadcast in September, more than 90 more women have come forward, claiming to be victims, too.

Al Fayed cannot face justice so the police will now focus on those who may have helped him in his endeavours. Good. If the allegations are true, a network of greasy aides must have turned a blind eye to the suffering and humiliation of these women, facilitating the violence and then covering up the abuse on behalf of their boss.

Who are these sickening loyalists? Security men who ushered the girls into Al Fayed’s seedy presence, secretaries who mopped up the tears afterwards, medics who conducted examinations on innocent young women to check them for sexual diseases?

If so, let us hope they all have their day in court. Charges against them could range from trafficking, aiding and abetting, lack of assent, coercion, procurement, abduction, assisting an offender, making false statements and generally being terrible human beings. The horror of Harrods is far from over.

This Morning has broken 

What next for beleaguered ITV show This Morning? It has lost its spark along with long-standing presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, editor Martin Frizell and many, many viewers in less than a year.

Ignominy and diminution must be the answer. For in showbusiness nothing lasts for ever – unless it happens to be Holly Willoughby’s tungsten-tipped career. Only Holly managed to extract herself from the This Morning carnage and scandal mangle with any degree of elan.

And I admire her for it. Escaping the taint of Schofield’s toxicity took the kind of pitiless smarts that only the true diva deploys to survive. Holly was back on the red carpet this week, which can only mean one thing – she’s got a new gig coming up. You Bet!, a reboot of the 1980s game show which she will present with Stephen Mulhern, starts on ITV next Saturday.

Cue her glamazon appearance at the premiere of Robbie Williams’ bizarre new biopic, Better Man, in which the former Take That member is played by a CGI chimpanzee. This is apparently a deep and meaningful comment on how he saw himself as a ‘performing monkey’ in his pop heyday. ‘I know exactly how that feels,’ is what Holly didn’t say.