Mysteries To Wake Up To

This morning, my pre-caffeinated brain was informed by Channel 7 that they would soon be screening Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which comes to us "from the creator of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

No doubt this piece of news would - if they weren't dead - surprise both Ian Fleming, who wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Roald Dahl, who didn't. Okay, he helped adapt Fleming's book for the big screen, but couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be said to have created Chitty. He wasn't even involved in the screenplay adaptation of Willy Wonka, and hated the 1971 film.

Chitty through and through is classic Fleming, from the gadgets and spy games to the bizarre villains and women with names like Truly Scrumptious.

Truly Scrumptious. Does that even sound like Dahl to you? The Childcatcher, oh, that's got Dahl's fingerprints all over him all right. But Truly Scrumptious... No, sorry. That should be the giveaway.

I don't care if this is 7's idea of a promotional tie-in. Credit where credit is due: Chitty is the creation of Ian "James Bond" Fleming, which ought to be a selling point in itself. Obviously, 7 haven't got the rights to James and the Giant Peach or Matilda, to name a couple of films adapted from books Dahl actually wrote, or they wouldn't be desperately promoting Chitty on such a flimsy basis.

And this is the sort of ethical outrage that wakes me up in the mornings.