The problem

• Watching too much television
• 'Just see what's on now'
• Teletext now+next useful, but not enough
• Ended up ringing TV guide by hand
• Still awkward to program VCR

Actually, I think the original motivation was not having a TV guide to hand and wanting to know what was on for the next week. A search for 'UK TV listings' found Ananova.

• First version: wget | grep | perl | lpr
• But...