Good things come to those who accidentally stumble across them

Would you die in a jousting match for your true love?
I thought of this when I was listening to the BBC the other night, not because there was anything related on the radio, but because I suddenly realized that I would contemplate defending the BBC's honour to the death. Not literally obviously, but the BBC's Radio 4 and Radio five live are both absolutely incredible. They are like night-time companions gently lulling you to sleep and telling you that although everything is going to hell pretty fast outside, they are going to soften the blow. God bless em both. Give me a pike and I will ride out to challenge anyone who dares to smear their name.
Hang on- this was about the BBC, what did the true love thing have to do with it? oh right- I was thinking of this recently because of all the trailers for the film 'Tristan and Isolde' on TV. It is a kind of Romeo and Juliet story for those who havent seen it a million times in a million different versions. It looks interesting, but I'll wait for it on DVD. It looks like one of those films in which a woman's honour is eventually challenged-usually with some silly remark along the lines of 'she aint all that'- and her indignant boyfriend grabs a sword and challenges the other guy to a duel or maybe a jousting match- you know, with the long pikes like in A knight's tale. Of course this presents a lot of problems if the girl was trouble all along anyway- imagine getting a pike in the chest over a girl who was screwing you over all along. Boy, will you look foolish afterwards.
There's virtually nothing on TV these days which makes it much easier for me to read, but I was shocked-shocked!- when ITV brought Melvyn Bragg's twelve books that changed the world because that was not something I expected from ITV. He started off with Isaac Newton's Principa mathematica a revolutionary piece of work that earned him kudos but didnt exactly cause a stampede of female admirers. ("Mr Newton, your calculations on the earth's orbit were absolutely amazing! Want to get it on?") I can see him sitting at his desk working feverishly on the book and a friend stops by:
Friend: Hey Isaac what are you doing?
Newton: Nothing much, just working on a book.
Friend: You aren't writing some book that will totally change the world and explain the motion of the planets and introduce universal laws of motion which will then make you a legend for the rest of eternity?
Newton: Me? Nooooo...
Also they had Marie Stopes Married Love which had another revolutionary idea: that married women should have sex for pleasure and not just for procreation. If you thought people would have trouble understanding Newton, Mrs Stopes really let the cat out among the pigeons. The official reaction from most of the world- and I quote it here- was "women should do what???" but people eventually got with the program and for that we should thank Mrs Stopes, one of the original feminists.
The more curious choice was the first football rulebook in the late nineteenth century which created football as we know it. before that, it was a mix of football and rugby. In the first official game, you weren't even allowed to kick towards your opponent's goal so the game not suprisingly ended 0-0. There's another three next Sunday. ITV, you just might actually become respectable.