Ear-bashing Auntie: Narked by 'Newsnight' or euphoric about 'EastEnders'? The BBC Information Office is there to listen. Nick Cohen reports

'THE golden rule is you don't touch Star Trek. Whatever else happens in the land, you just don't touch it,' explained Ed Harris, manager of the Duty Office at BBC Television Centre in west London, when the credits for Star Trek: The Next Generation began to roll last Wednesday evening.

As the man in charge of the office which logs 1,000 complaints and requests for information a day from viewers, Ed has developed an acute sensitivity to what will provoke outrage. Star Trek is up there with the best of them.

To his despair, just after he explained his golden rule, BBC management broke it. At 6.50pm, an announcer came on to explain that Star Trek was being taken off the air and would not return until autumn. With looks of patience and foreboding, Ed's team of information officers picked up the buzzing phones and began to field the calls from truculent 'Trekkies'. The room was filled with the sound of muttered 'Yeses', 'Oh dears' and 'I knows' as the BBC information office tried to explain that what with Wimbledon, the World Cup and the summer holidays, a postponement was probably a good idea.

The duty officers work in a small room, sandwiched between the Chinese section and the Drama Department. With their accumulated knowledge of viewers likes and dislikes, they could tell John Birt (if he cared to ask) more about what his producers should be doing than the small army of management consultants he has employed at public expense. The reaction to the programmes of the past two weeks, for example, indicated that the BBC should not: cancel Vera Lynn's D-Day concert; allow Ann Leslie of the Daily Mail to appear on television; broadcast the 'mindless extrapolations' of Peter Snow during Euro or any other elections; or send Jimmy 'the idiot' Hill and John 'patronising to short people' Motson to the World Cup.

Star Trek apart, last week (between the Euro elections and the start of the World Cup) was comparatively quiet. The election coverage produced 106 calls (many about bias - against all three parties - and many about the proliferation of punditry). A viewer from Norfolk bellowed about the failure to show the results from each count live and concentrate instead on Peter Snow and the assembled talking heads in the studio. 'I suggest that in future you all shut up, stop pontificating and just give the results,' he suggested.

Others were concerned with the example politicians set. Jack Straw, the mild Labour campaign manager who could pass as a bank clerk in any situation, was condemned for his raffish behaviour at the party's victory celebrations. 'It was wrong to show (him) drinking champagne on the 1pm news,' said a lady viewer from Hayes.

But the real political excitement was caused by last Monday's debate on Panorama, when the three Labour leadership candidates were questioned by a panel of journalists. The politicians were probably happy that Ms Leslie's questions allowed them to present themselves in the best possible light.

The viewers, however, were less enthusiastic. 'Snobbish', 'patronising', 'offensive', 'lowering the level of the debate', were some of the insults thrown at Ms Leslie and faithfully logged.

On Tuesday another burst of anger was expected. Ed Harris was worried about the start of a lesbian storyline on EastEnders - Della and Binnie kissed that evening and were sharing a bed by Thursday. In the event there was a handful of complaints, but some praise too - including, inevitably, a call from a London vicar lauding the 'very positive display of lesbian sexuality'.

This, said Ed, was par for the course. Often 'pretty raunchy sex scenes' provoke no reaction until the Sun writes about them the next day and invents claims that there has been a storm of protest. 'Then a load of people phone up to complain.' By midweek, the complaints were down to a trickle. One woman 'abhorred the sound of howling wolf' on a 6.30pm trailer for the Late Show, and said she would prefer not to hear it so early in the evening. But the duty officers were not complacent. The looming threat of the World Cup meant that there would be no summer break.

There is a view, put about by this newspaper's columnist Alan Watkins among others, that people are bigoted and vituperative when they talk about their politics, but informed and lucid when they talk about their sport. Alas, the BBC information office log shows this not to be true.

The FA Cup Final provided an ominous precursor for the information officers. There were 182 complaints, nearly all unflattering. Of Jimmy Hill: 'Why do we have to listen to Jimmy Hill?'; 'Jimmy Hill is an idiot'; 'he's well past his best'; 'he hasn't got a clue, he should be pensioned off'; 'I would like Jimmy Hill's money to sit there and talk such utter rubbish' and many, many more. Of John Motson: 'he ruins every game of football with his drivel'; 'talks a load of rubbish'; 'please get him to shut up'; and (after continually referring to the diminutive stature of the Chelsea players) 'John Motson is very patronising to short people.' Alan Hansen was luckier. Just one caller phoned in to say that he was 'hopelessly inept.'

Every conversation ends with the duty officer saying that complaints will be passed on to the programme editor. This is true. The information officers are not flak-catchers who listen to and then ignore the angry and the disappointed. A log of each day's calls is sent to all senior managers. Young producers who are making their first programme have been known to get friends to advance their careers by phoning in and praising their work.

Two-thirds of the calls, however, are not complaints but requests for information. Where can I get tickets for the Gardeners' World exhibition? Was that Vivaldi playing as background music on 40 Minutes? Can you put me in touch with a cot death health group/Star Trek fan club/crafts council? In the office files is a complete schedule of what was shown on the BBC - rather than what the Radio Times said was going to be on before last- minute changes in programming. The police use it to check the alibis of suspects who say they were at home watching Neighbours, for example, when the crime took place. Anything and everything to do with a programme can be found out and passed on free of charge. This is a genuine public service.

On Wednesday evening, the corporate ethos was pushed to its limit when a caller asked how she could get in touch with Doris Stokes, the (dead) medium. The information officer did not crack under pressure and gave her the number of the National Spiritualist Association. Mention of the spiritualist caused a gleeful Ed to remember his favourite phone call taken just after Dame Peggy Ashcroft died.

'Hello,' said the viewer, 'I've been speaking to Peggy Ashcroft.'

'But she's dead,' replied the baffled duty officer.

'I know that, I'm a medium. She asked me to tell you how much she's looking forward to her tribute.'

The barrage of complaints appears to produce no psychological damage. The duty officers - who are recruited from within the BBC - say that you either break down in tears after the first day or learn to accept and enjoy the job.

Ed loves it and can give a running commentary on the complaint potential of each programme, interspersed with mock prayers that Newsnight won't do 'anything naughty' and allow everyone to have a quiet evening.

'Mind you,' he added. 'I always pretend to be unemployed at parties. If I say what I do, I'm surrounded by people asking 'why is there so much rubbish on the box'.'

(Photograph omitted)