Paul Burrell In His Own Words (C4); X Rated; The Scenes They Tried To Ban (five): HIS time as a jungle celebrity showed royal butler Paul Burrell's limited vocabulary, mainly a chorus of "ooohs" and "aarghs" as he ate live bugs or plunged his hand into a nest of snakes.

But he had plenty to say in In His Own Words, reading extracts from his autobiography as photos and film of the royals appeared on screen.

As a servant, he's terribly indiscreet, feeding us tasty titbits about his employers' behaviour, leaving us in no doubt that he liked Diana, not Charles. This "boy from a Northern pit village" - he likes to remind us of his humble roots - sees the Princess as "one of the most inspirational women of our time".

His does his bit for royal PR by revealing the Queen's sense of humour and love of corgis. He and his wife received a royal telegram from the dogs on their wedding day, complete with paw prints.

Once upon a time the royals were off-limit to the press, just like the mucky scenes discussed - with illustrations, of course - in the second part of X Rated. The British, it was suggested, want a nanny. "They need someone to slap their wrists," said one participant. And they're more than willing to pay a woman in Soho to administer the punishment, I wanted to add.

Britain had one of the first, and still has one of the toughest, censorship systems, although it's more lenient than in 1931 when they were cutting out "indecorous bathroom scenes, degrading exhibitions of animal passion, passionate and unrestrained embraces, and lecherous old men" (which would have ruined my chances of a film career).

We heard a marvellous story of a police raid on a cinema showing Andy Warhol's Flesh. The chain-smoking censor, John Trevelyan, arrived on the scene in his pyjamas to see what was going on.

Actor Malcolm McDowell, whose films If, Clockwork Orange and Caligula had the X factor, was put out by Mary Whitehouse and the Festival of Light trying to ban films. "She should have been strung up, dear old soul that she was," he suggested.

But even he worried about the motivation of the "crazy Italian director" of Caligula, explaining: "I remember saying to him at one point, 'Why does the army have to be naked?'."

Published: 17/12/2004