[James2001]

Now I've just remembered the ridiculous "made by the BBC, chosen by G.O.L.D" slogan they used for a while. Which also somehow was used before repeats of The New Statesman (with an announcement mentioning the show's name, so wasn't just a generic one played by accident), which wasn't a BBC programme...

[Tola]

Now I've just remembered the ridiculous "made by the BBC, chosen by G.O.L.D" slogan they used for a while. Which also somehow was used before repeats of The New Statesman (with an announcement mentioning the show's name, so wasn't just a generic one played by accident), which wasn't a BBC programme...

I remember that slogan was also used on some of the other UKTV channels when they adopted the "circle" logo/new branding around 2008-2009, though I can't remember when it was removed (presumably around 2010?).

[callumwatchestelly]

Now I've just remembered the ridiculous "made by the BBC, chosen by G.O.L.D" slogan they used for a while. Which also somehow was used before repeats of The New Statesman (with an announcement mentioning the show's name, so wasn't just a generic one played by accident), which wasn't a BBC programme...

Didn't they also use these for most the UKTV channels at this time? I'm pretty sure I can remember the phrase being used on Dave.

[JAS84]

Will the socials keep the same handles or all be prefixed "Uand" as like web urls the & is not a permitted character, but at least Bandq have the excuse of their brand pre-dating such considerations.

Though they don't even use it in their web address anyway - which is diy.com.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I remember back in the day there was some issue with Live and Kicking's email address, the & in live&kicking@bbc.co.uk worked for some mail clients/ISPs but not others so they had to change it.

[VMPhil]

I remember back in the day there was some issue with Live and Kicking's email address, the & in live&kicking@bbc.co.uk worked for some mail clients/ISPs but not others so they had to change it.

How did they announce that on air? "Live ampersand kicking at bbc dot co dot uk"?

I think the website in latter years was just bbc.co.uk / kicking

[fanoftv]

How did they announce that on air? "Live ampersand kicking at bbc dot co dot uk"?

I think the website in latter years was just bbc.co.uk / kicking

Looking at a clip from the final series in 2000, the email is still displayed as live&kicking@bbc.co.uk - maybe some people just couldn’t get through 🤷🏻‍♀️

youtu.be 

[Worzel]

Though they don't even use it in their web address anyway - which is diy.com.

B&Q's has always been diy.com as the URL bandq.co.uk was already in use by someone else when their web presence launched and there were issues using a URL with the '&' in the name (as referenced above).

They later registered both the .com and .co.uk when the domains became available and they just redirect to diy.com.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Interestingly here's a 1996 Genome listing giving live.and.kicking@bbc.co.uk as the address, whereas there are also 1995 and 1997 examples with the & character.

genome.ch.bbc.co.uk 

Broadcast - BBC Programme Index
Homepage Accessibility links Skip to content Accessibility Help BBC Account Noti…
  Source: genome.ch.bbc.co.uk

It's valid according to the RFCs, but standards didn't always mean so much back then. I wonder if one of the big providers or clients at the time was rejecting it?

(Apologies, this is somewhat off-topic)

[Neil Jones]

I suspect because ampersand is alternative for "and", it may be that email programs took it as being (to carry on with the example) live@bbc.co.uk and kicking@bbc.co.uk as opposed to live&kicking@bbc.co.uk.

Some characters cause issues today on certain platforms, Google apparently doesn't like it if you use + in an email, because it has an alternative use on that platform.