Crisscross Shadows

 Before I talk about this months book, I have some minor obscure news regarding The Children's Channel.

I've finally found the name of the music that went with the opening credits of Stories without words eastern European cartoon block.

It's one of those classical songs that you hear from time to time either in cartoons or used as filler, but I never knew the name of this legendary work. Now I can safely say the used Mendelssohn's Fruhlingslied as a signature tune. You can listen to it here.

Crisscross shadow.

We have a new book up for you, this time it's The Crisscross Shadow in both its UK and Original incarnations. 

It's one of those revised editions, where the revised edit is like a cut for TV experience. You lose the Hardys receiving an invisible Ink threat. Quite a bit from the hand egg and lacrosse games. And finally the Sleuth's mechanical problems are removed entirely in the revised edit.

The story itself concerns the boys receiving a visit from a strange salesman, selling Indian leather goods and winds up nicking a photo of Fenton Hardy. He gets off due to a crooked lawyer pal and the boys try to track him down via the leather goods. It leads to a remote Indian tribe called the Ramapans* and their legend of the crisscross shadow ,where the deeds to their land is hidden.

It's also the story where Chet's grandad gets his Indian name of Eat-a-whole-moose.

Not a bad tale overall and, like I say, its one of the later canon issues that have a few revisions to update them, but are not that dissimilar. You can read both remake and original stories, here.

*Note both Ramapan and Pashunk tribes mentioned here in the book are fictional.

Updates of a sort

 Finally have a few bits on from last weeks, excitement when I found a tape of some obscure Mario game show. 

The tape has predictably calmed down and turned into a Olacak A Kadar a Turkish comedy show. The Travel Channel tape largely contained something from Cirque Du Soleil, and "Gostbastes" did indeed contain Ghostbusters, but mainly it's quite a bit of the Montreux Rock Festival from 1988.

Nothing really to write home about, though its hosted by Ooh Gary Davies, with a bit with Steve Winwood in an interview. Your acts are;

The Sisters of Mercy, Lucretia

Double, Gliding 

Then Jericho, 

Londonbeat,

Sabrina and yes it is Boys Boys Boys.

Mica Paris (Sadly interrupted)

Blue Mercedes

And that is as far as I've got, though looking online there's live bits of Run DMC too, so this is cool.

Anyway, along with the usual guitar bands there is a DX7 there and an Oberheim is used at one point. Whether its live, I have my doubts. There is a bit of Yazz and Coldcut from the top of the pops earlier. There is a black dude on stage to perform the jazz scat samples that Matt and co have sourced for their track.

Memory has it there is either an Orbital or 808 State clip of them performing in front of a big modular synth set up, which is totally fake of course.

I wouldn't mind seeing the top of the pops, where they played the Plasitkman mix of Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode, when it was at no.1 for the fourth week, also but I reckon that is memory holed into oblivion.

 

Süper Mario

 Do you like Mario? Of course you do, but would you like it even better if he was: 

A, Turkish,

 and B, an obscure TV programme you could play along on your touch tone phone in order to... well I don't know Turkish at all, so there may not be any point to this all.

Bonus background on this, for a while, we've been bringing back a bunch of tapes thrown in the recycling bin at work, tossed during lockdown. They are from, I'm guessing, a Turkish house clearance, as they are all from Star TV from back in the 90's, with a few home broadcasts thrown in (some Top of The Pops and Sabrina Live at Montreaux festival is on the one pictured below along with..).

Gost Bastes 

I've dug out my old Video grabber and along with OBS, am currently going through these tapes and grabbing anything interesting and obscure on the way. Hence our current find of Super Mario.

SO WHAT IS IT.

Remember those times on Going Live where you would play a game using a touch tone phone. Those with the highest score would win, it was normally something like, Top Banana or such, but there were other games as well.  Well Süper Mario is exactly like that but drawn out into a whole show.

You essentially play Mario World, until all your lives are lost, the first Yoshi's Island bit via an old Touch Tone Phone, indeed most of this are just long beeps as you try to jump and fail. The host, Gül Ozan, gives words of encouragement and when its game over, a cheeky wave. but apart from that, well your guess is as good as mine. Those with the highest score after all this get.. well I don't know.

There doesn't seem to be much more to add, except that it's up at Archive.org as its too big for my paeon Youtube account, without splitting it down.

Süper Mario

With that all I have to do is give you a wave good bye.

Travel Channel tape

 Currently going through this tape, which contains part of a Panorama (I think) Documentary on X ray damage, and the Hugh Grant / Robin Williams film, 9 months, on Sky with bonus Kleenex sponsorship. We've come to a part where the film has ended and were in entirely unknown territory. 

Like the Power Rangers tape which contained some Mr Masturbator (Motivator) keep fit bits and some CITV stuff, we're now into some Travel Channel stuff from I'm guessing 1996 or so. There's some ads from one of those CD box sets (70's music rather then the more usual Classical Collections), trails for Birds of A Feather on SelecTV, and a healthy dose of Technical Difficulties complete with a channel logo and easy listening muzak.

Travel Channel is no more now, just like Bravo and the aforementioned SelecTV. It lasted to the middle of the year where an update from SKY put it out to pasture. It was a go to in the past year as they used to show Andrew Zimmern  shows at 9pm. If for some reason you wanted to see Bizarre foods America or the World versions of said shows, this was your go to. 

Not bad shows either, mostly keeping watch to see what he would actually eat, mostly offal with the occasional ethnic niche treat. Can remember him eating Shaved Ice in Hawaii, and visiting the ever present Nouvelle Cuisine ponce, straight out of somewhere like Seattle or Brooklyn for the win.

But most of the time its somewhere deep in the country, eating roadkill or freshly hunted stuff with the local backwoodsmen or at a local fair. 

Am I sad to see Travel go, kinda. It was OK and apart from that never really had anything to interest me. Maybe an update when I've finished the whole tape.

3 Stories.

Apologies for this in advance. When I post race stuff all the mentals come out of the woodwork. I'm still haunted by the boat missing cunt on one of my Steve Lawrence posts several years on. Anyway, on with the show.

Story 1.

Bum riots.

I fully understand the rationale behind the riots. I fully understand that you do not kneel on a guy for 8 minutes for essentially having a counterfeit note. I also fully understand the US Cops are full on Robocop mentalists.

I don't understand burning and looting your own communities, often of black run small businesses down because free stuffs yo. Worse every day I log into the twatter its an avalanche of bad take after bad take. 

White people need to bend the knee.

ACAB / Shut down the police.

Anti fa are anti fascist. Rather than the problem to the solution. Seriously only Metokur and Sargon on facebook are keeping me sane here. Largely because Metokur just wants the world to burn.

I've seen white lives matter trend and its largely KPop weirdos, a real case of cancer begetting cancer.

And I've seen the UK protests turn ugly from a largely legitimate peaceful protest. Going to watch to see if there's a spike in SARS 2 electric boogaloo cases in the coming weeks, in said communities.

Story 2.

Our Maddie.

This one is sort of linked to work, but its also to do with the ongoing Maddie McCann case.

It's news now because they've picked up a German nonce because he may have something to do with her disappearance.  (I'm waiting for some actual evidence before I'm rushing in. Habeas Corpus yo.)

Context: They had a little girl who wanted me to help her on with her coat at a place I work at. Her mum was getting her phone fixed out the front, apparently they can come to you to fix it now. I helped her on with it and she started to follow me around (she's about 3 I'd say).  Luckily her mum had finished getting her phone fixed and she could see her come up. So she went back.

Did a double take this morning, going over it in my head, if she went missing, I'd be the last person she saw, not a good look for an autard like me. The press would have a field day too. I'd never hurt anyone but they are not to know that.

Story 3.

Books and that.

The copyright cunts are bitching at archive.org for their inspired massive lending library scheme. Worse they're trying to get it taken down for good. This means no wayback machine, no prelinger archives and a whole lot more. You can read more here.

Personally as most of the books there are out of print or mostly difficult to get I see no problem with their lending library scheme. You don't see anyone protest about this though.

DJ Kat show and a doppleganger

Haven't had much to write about old cable stuff lately. Was reminded of Rod Hulls daughter Catrina Hylton Hull, from a twitter post and now can't remember if we ever wrote about the DJ Kat show.

I hate to be one of those people who keep repeating themselves but there is a good write up on IMDB for those wondering what it was.

Read that, good, here is a few more supplementary facts for you, though facts maybe just random memories and stuff.

Along with ITV they used to show the Super Mario Bros Super show here and quite a few obscure cartoon slots back in the day.  Think Mrs Pepperpot aka Spoon Obasan and the Sylvanian Families along with a few guest spots such as cookery with Lesley Waters.

Sadly as I never taped nothing back in the day, I have sketchy memories of this as well as a few clips on line from people such as Sid N's Youtube Channel (a nice bit of anime for you to prove we're not lying to you.)

Also another mystery has presented itself to me not related to this. I have a double playing acid on IFM live fest. Me with hardware, except its not me and of course didn't stick around to see who it was, have decided to keep tracks on their archive . org profile to see if they upload the set where not me is playing live.  

Ayia napa

Back home now, and still feel under the weather.  Cyprus is hella nice, but coming back in at 12 midnight is hell. Especially trying to sleep on the plane and being moaned at by some waste of tits, because you're too tall for the seats and you keep knocking the back of her seat.

Anyway we'll do TV this week because its easier and Greek television is piss poor.  First time I've actually had to watch it as last time we didn't have a television until the last day, and all I can remember of that was Mr Magoo and the watchword from the previous hotel that Greek telly sucks.

PIK 1+2 are your main channels. Dull news programmes with bits of Euronews plugged in in Greek. There is a few other bits such as Sigma and Extra which seems to show only old Greek shows from the sixties and that, like a Greek Talking Pictures TV.  Also ANT1 which seems to have Greek wheel of fortune and nothing else memorable.

Russia had the bulk of the channels with T virus returning and a few others that we couldn't get such as whatever Service 65534 was and TV Coran which turned out to be a Muslim Channel.

In fact with Russia Toady Docs, including a Russian Blaire White look alike (a trans bloke called Dmitry) and something which seemed to be nothing but stand up.

My favourite had to be a weird children's sketch show on CTC / STS  called Yeralash which I took to be of Soviet Vintage (apparently was) until I clocked that one of the kids was wearing a Turtles T Shirt. 

I will detail some of the sketches I saw below.

A variation of the old who calls their parrot Jesus joke as two kids break into a house and help themselves to grub (another clue that this is not soviet era.) only to confront the parrot who calls for a dog to chase them out.

Two kids fake a bomb threat at the school, and clear everyone out. Feeling their joke has gone too far they say its a joke but their fake bomb turns out to be a real bomb and they get blown up. The Hardy boys did a variation of this to keep Chief Collig away in the original Tower Treasure.

A kid hides out in a jewellers shop and bothers the owner. Yeah not sure what went on here.

Finally my favourite is one where a kid bothers a pretty teacher. She goes to the park where he turns into a cuckoo.

The last strand is Arabic stuff on MBC. This is kind of like Film 4 but with obscure films subbed into Arabic.  So if you want Need for Speed or The Iron Lady at weird hours or more main stream the Tim Burton Alice films this is your go to place.

MBC 2 seems to show nothing but bastard Friends subbed in Arabic which is hell and MBC 3 is your kids show with what looks like Hodja from street racing as its branding. We saw some of that Yugioh! on bikes and around 3 am. Not the most easiest time to watch something dubbed in arabic you have a passing knowledge of.

Finally there is some bollywood stuff and a few home shopping channels that seem to only have weight loss and a lame looking tip o magic style floor sweeper.

Edit updated with a few infos and photos and added Prime Tel which seems to show nothing but football (mostly La Liga) as well as being a mobile and internet provider.

Necro Edit. I now own some copies of Yerelasch on video, tossed out from at the bootsale along with some other early soviet cartoons. 

Last Christmas

Hello this is the annual television round up of the year, a mix of hell and heaven and in the wider context of it all, a few words before going in.

A lot of things shut up shop this year.  Fabric discontinued their metal box compilations (more tomorrow) Solid steel closed after 30 years, Mark Kermodes' film review channel is now mothballed and A Dose of Buckley my near namesake on YT posted its last worst off before signing off. Oh and Terra Battle shut down its European wing and I can't be bothered to download the APK and make a US account.

So you'll need some good TV to give you a lift.

Christmas Tapes at The BBC.

The best laugh I've had on the BBC in ages.  They were sort of the precursor to Youtube Poop and a blooper reel, if you've ever seen the Rainbow twangers sketch, complete with ebaumsworld logo plastered over it, this is were it originates (well LWT really.)

Sentence mixing, nerdy clips, shots at management and a Dalek that says bollocks, something that could have been easily shown on BBC 2 instead of  BBC 4.

Dynasties.

A long form look at an animal in its environment, includes Chimps, Tiger, Wild Dog and Penguins.  Worth it just to see them struggle day to day, oh and scientists carving steps for penguins so they don't freeze.

The Undiscovered Kenneth Williams.

Victor Lewis Smith's masterful look at our Ken and bringing out some rare and unbroadcast material from the really quite unhappy bunny.  Not a lot from Carry on, but plenty from his diaries and a few college clips.  Also The Undiscovered Peter Sellers and a Stanley Baxter one to come.

Manson The Lost Tapes.

A look at Sharon Tate and the La Bianca murders, with generous helpings of home film shot by his extended family of onlookers.  Quite creepy in places, it boils down to Sex, Drugs and Mind Control. oh and Mansons shitty rock put out by one of the Beach Boys.  Stand out Yewtree revelation is that Manson had butt sex with a 14 year old.  So a massive nonce as well as mass murderer by proxy.
Possibly not on Youtube but if you see it for download any where then grab it.  Also as its ITV and hippies, there's quite a lot of tit and bum as well as willies too.

Digitiser The Show.

We'll add this here as its quite possibly the best thing, I've on the platform in ages.  It has Chris Gannon which I like, as well as Mr Biffo himself, his  rival as they bring to life the teletext series, into some fever dream of a show,  There are all the characters you remember, Mr T and his bins, The Mans Daddy, Chart Cat and Zombie Dave. There is always something in every show that will crack me up, whether it being lobbed up in a minute, Rampage remakes, or just the fact that it feels like a show from the 90's TV but from some obscure channel (ITV brown) at an odd time.

Vic and Bobs Big Night Out.

Forgot to add this thougn I still have to watch half of the episodes.  So far I've seen the man with the long stick, George Ezra and a heater fire, ghost busters and Mulligan and O'Hare.  No one spoiled their view mind, which was all right.

Miranda awards for TV hell.

Not a lot here that sticks out here in my mind.  There was the John Le Carre Remake that felt like a long good punch up, no for my award this year its the Cheddar Man Documentary that is total bollocks. Oh and a mixed bag Dr Who.

Cheddar Man is the blackest Briton ever recovered from Cheddar Gorge.  A blue eyed Thuderf00t look a like with burnt cork skin, blue eyes and weird skin.  I have no doubt in the genetics of  Cheddar Man, apparently he came originally from what is now Spain, but the show itself was a mess.  Also can remember the article in New Scientist pouring cold water on the genetic theory of colour.  I don't care if he's black to be honest its a shit documentary at best.

Edit. Dr Who goes here as well, not because it's terrible, in fact I liked Demons of The Punjab and the Rosa Parks episode despite what sounds like that whore Paloma Faith giving it a US ending (we shall overcome surely), nor is it the Dr Herself now.  I've grown on Jodie Whittaker, and knew they'd do her proud thanks to Missy as a female Master.  No its the return of politics which is bollocks as usual.  The spider episode with Not Trump as president shooting a big spider in homage to Resident Evil.  Or the Pkunk or whatever it was eating a medi ship alive, terrible episodes.  Which means that good episodes like the parallel world one with the Frog as ruler was few and far between,

Oh yeah them mentioning Raze and them playing shitty grime can do one as well.

Club History Part 2.

This is the final part of this BBC4, 3 part series looking into the birth of dance and its continued degeneracy at the hands of American club culture.  I signed off last time with the words fuck my life, or something similar.  Yeah that was pretty prophetic to say the least.

It starts off OK with a look at DJing with DJ Greg Credit to the Edit Wilson explaining the basics of beatmatching and a classic clip of him doing the same on the tube.  Works up through hip hop exploring the whole two turntables mixer style and lands firmly in Ibiza some time in the mid 80's.

Alfredo playing various tracks from the broadest beats around to a mega diverse crowd, something to get the crowd moving no matter who they are.  Its a leftfield choice but also quite a good pick,  I would have gone with Ron Hardy at the Muzic box here, but its how house and acid was seen outside the states.  Later on its Danny Rampling transporting these sounds back to Shoom and dear old Oakie at Spectrum and later mixing the Happy Mondays album Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches, bringing in the rock kids to the clubs, See also Stone Roses Fools Gold.

Its still bearable at this point, it talks to Normal Cook aka Pizzaman  Fatboy Slim, about DJing and such and the crowds, and Tiesto's "single handed" creation of trance as a gay form of techno. But mainly its about crowd adulation, playing the same style for 8 hours, making cash before burning out and coming back with a more varied sound.   TBH this is still the best thing he ever did.

From then on its down hill all the way with the rise of the mega club and the mega DJ and the whole EDM Degeneracy.  You get a bit of David Guetta, with some Kelly Rowland crossover that finally got the Yanks to play dance on the radio opening the doors for Black eyed Peas and all the other stuff that makes me weep.

Worse we have Steve Aoki a dude that's taken to DJing while prancing about like a little twat. No actual mixing here just poncing about and lobbing cake at the audience when he plays specific tones in his pre mixed sets.  The audience lap it up like Pavlov's Dicks that they are, and I couldn't shift the whole Brasseye  Drugs episode they must have something wrong with their Shatners Bassoons.

It then calmed the fuck down with a few bits and pieces from underground DJs the Black Madonna and Midland (me neither). I have just googled Mike Read's Stalker and her and have been pissing myself laughing as its an uncanny resemblance.

In retrospect if you can ignore the last 30 minutes of this its all you  need to know about DJing plus all the real heroes here are limited to a few sound bites such as Jeff Mills and Nina Kraviz which is a shame as her and Helena Hauff are probably the vanguard of what I call real DJing and welcome female perspective to boot.

Haiti talk.

First up some sad news, looks like the only decent news channel has gone HD only which means no more SD France 24 or France van cat as its known on pain of death. Wiki reckons its up in the high 800s now along with all the Asian networks so will have a look. If not it looks like I'm going to have to default to the terrible Russia Toady or TFTWorld.

Feature Presentation. Haiti:

We attended a talk on the Cacti of Haiti on Wednesday in the welcoming dank basement of Keston Community centre, its been hot as hell here, so it being in the cool is the one benefit of the heat. Our guest speaker was Paul Hoxey who undertook the trip along with some people from the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens (which  I've been to).

Something of an unknown quotient, Haiti is the perpetually disaster prone, french half of Hispaniola along with the Dominican Republic its Spanish counterpart and Cuba, they are some of the oldest and largest bits of the Caribbean.

Thanks to many problems such as natural disasters and poverty / aid cycle, Haiti can be thought of as an African nation in the heart of the Caribbean.

Most of the trees have been cut down for charcoal production leaving the cacti behind in big stands across the island.  Thanks to aid most people live on a subsistence level, leaving Haiti as a gibocracy if you will not growing stuff if you give it for free.  There is litter and pigs roaming free in the major cities and yet it can be stunning with plenty of beaches.  The upside to this is its poorly explored with only Charles Plumier visiting in 1700's and Ekman in the 1920's contributing a lot to their flora. 

Its a stunning talk with a focus on cacti, there's a new Cereus that Plumier found and has only been described now, along with a few Melocacti and Pilosocereus.  There is some ruined forts that were built to fight the french and the spot where Columbus landed in 1492.  It has great potential, stunning beaches and the people seem resourceful, its just a shame that its held back by aid culture and handouts.

Police, beauty and K9

Fans of strange TV rejoice, as Propeller tv have picked up Police Beauty and K9 for showing.  Saw this while having nothing to watch on a Thursday and periodically come back to it as its mesmerisingly awful.  

Reminiscent of NHKWorld  a news channel that was a weird mix of News and safe space, this evokes the same feeling as bugger all really happens.  Set in Beijing its an all female dog patrol unit that never fights any crime.  There is You You who is  pretty and I think owns the big Lab Cherry there is also Ni Na who owns a Springer Spaniel (a Howl) but in English her name is the sound of a police siren makes (we don't have much onomatopoeia but we are proud of this).  Oh and did we say that nothing happens.

Tuesday after world cup is case in point, a woman threatens to kill herself because her cat Little Emperor has gone missing after her derpy boyfriend let it out after a row they had. (and they are all its here all critters seem to be genderless but I digress)  The team are mobilised and You You says that her dog can sniff it out, cue brave doggo sniffing out embarrassed kitteh hiding out in a stairwell.  The woman does not kill herself and a lecture is given to them about considering Little Emperors feelings when next they have a barney.

Oh and the voice acting in this is wonderful the boyfriend  comes across as retarded and the girlfriend haughty. If you've ever seen telenovela dubbed you'll know the level of voice acting here.

Back to the show and our girls stop to pick up a run over mutt they spot on the ring road out of town and take it back to their local neighbourhood vets.  In the only piece of drama, their superiour and the vet decide on a name for our injured pupper. 

How about Wonder squeaks one guy.  no it was found on the fifth ring road out of town so why don't we call it fifth ring.  I'm guessing its better in Chinese but our hapless doggo is named fifth ring and the rest of the show is his battle to regain the use of his back legs.

The ending theme is the sort of thing that would grace a romance anime and fits in with the strange incidental music as a whole.

A word of warning there seems to be no English subs up on Youtube at the moment though Propeller are showing it with English Subs and dubs.  Which is how I've been shitposting about it here.

Yesasia have Mandarin TV Box sets for sale if you speak chinese though as noted the whole series seems to be up on Youtube.

Anyway UK viewers its on Sky 185 at 8:45 PM weeknights.

 

Tossa De Mar

We're back, and we feel like hell, as usual as two weeks of sleeplessness and such claw their way back.

We stayed at the Golden Bahia a few ways off the main drag.  A few niggles here and their as their Wi-fi is patchy at best which means you'll need to either be up early or ideally have a Spanish sim to get 4g.  Also worse was the food not in quality or taste but availability as often when you went up you would find half of the things you wanted were unavailable.

Apart from that the weather wasn't the best for the first week either. Changeable is the watchword here with a few torrential downpours and storms over the mountains to really throw a few fucks into your day.  Not enough to piss you off, unless your'e the sort of scum that lays around the pool all day and gives the English a bad name, then quite frankly you deserve all you get.

We will get the TV done in the first post and then dedicate the second post to Pinya De Rosa garden in Blanes.  The third part is going to be about wildlife which will kill the month off nicely.

First of all some bits and pieces that got away.  A photo of a Michael Jackson impersonator called Garth Field, cue much Lasaga jokes  sadly deleted from my camera with no way to get it back.  A woman I saw on CGTN called Li Ke, which if I still did Youtube Vids would definitely have incorporated at the end with subscribe.  Allo Allo on Ocho, this came on a 7 pm so was at same time dinner started so didn't get the all important question every Allo Allo fan asks.  What does Officer Good Moaning Crabtree sound like... well... we never saw him in a scene so couldn't tell you.  Can say this that most of the people are pretty accurate and at least sound like their original actors (except Herr Flick), double thumbs up to all the seiyuu you did well.

Finally Pudsey dubbed in Spanish even though we took a photo of it trailed we fell asleep and missed it. I suspect it would still be horrible though maybe Paul Rose would get his wish and Pudsey will sound like Ray Winstone.

Ho humnnnnnnn

Nevertheless what I did see here was quite interesting. Apart from an influx of Jurassic Park due to the new film out, and more trails like the above (sin tetas no hay pariaso  (no paradise without tits) and whatever homo zapping was) and throw in a lot of news and world cup fever.  So Trump vs Kim Wilde and the like and a lot of football in various variations, including five aside (Futsal), women's football, under 19's and blind football (and no thats not a joke).  Oh yeah we found your porn channel hiding out on Rac105 (amended to Racist of course) that has a range of strippers and hardcore pron badly edited to be softcore. TBH I've seen better editing in YTP.

Kids channels have either Paw Patrol or some sort of Ladybird super hero which looked piss poor.
I did get to see a bit of Doraemon, more by luck than judgement and spent an enjoyable night time trying to decipher who did it in Detective Conan dubbed into Catalan.

English has the good the bad and the ugly, this includes the good France 24 and Euronews, the bad of course is Russia's Toady and the BBC Worst (World) Service, not exactly ugly was CGTN, which offers a Chinese version of the kind of safe space documentary that NHK used to do before they went all HD and we couldn't get it no more.
Russia had 1TVRUS which of course in a tribute to Resident Evil was named T virus. Its still not great and worse the only other channel was a christian channel, poor ruskies.

Germany did well with a full range of ZDF, RTL and VOX to entertain them with.  Kika is pretty good with some loaf character dressed as Sailor Moon or Robert Smith from the Cure (Harry Potter)

Sailor Loaf

I AM HEAVEN AND I NEED TO BE SLICED.

Also well done for having a few good BBC docs here, I clocked Dan Snow and the ever fit Dr Alice Roberts presenting something around 6 AM.

Tune in next time when I'll give you a low down on Pinya De Rosa.

Digitiser 25

This year sees the 25th anniversary of the birth of Teletext. I've written before on how I came about this, or at least sure I have anyway.  For the uninitiated Teletext was kinda like a text based internet on your TV, supplying you with information and even rudimentary games and stuff. 
It had a comic strip Turner the Worm which I liked, a music page, a sci fi page and best of all Digitiser a gaming page. 

Coming off from writing a terrible school zine and finding someone doing it with similar tastes in humour on the TV(though mine was more non PC and such) was a revelation.  We only really found out about it due to Super Play magazine championing it along with Fast Show quotes and such. 

Used to watch it while having lunch, which meant channel 4 and having to put up with Channel 4 schools programmes (no hardship, would like to know if any of them survived, specifically the Northern Irish one which went on about the little Whammy) and Friends which is fuck awful.

The best of all was one day they had the Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, to date the only opera I can stomach.

If you want to relive the first four or so days and such, here are the links to each day.

Monday New years day.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday final Day.

This time of year.

You all know what time it is, its that time of year here where we take stock over xmas and round up the good and bad. 

First of all lets sit back with a traditional pantomime from ITV circa 2000.

Comedy royalty here with Julian Clary and Julie Walters and Morwenna Banks, who of course is better known for being the voice of Red the Pirate from DQ8.

We'll put on some  classic songs maybe some Mariah Carey or Paul McCartney having a wonderful Christmas time.  You do know that All I want for Xmas is the cut off point for good Christmas music, nothing new compares to the oldies.  Me personally I still lament the passing of Marc Lamarrs Christmas show on Radio 2, if only to hear Santa Claus Is Smoking Reefer.

We, of course, will leave a carrot out for Santa and a mice pie for his reindeer.  Maybe there will be a Christmas TV special, is it Morecambe and Wise, or the Two Ronnies or if we really hate ourselves a Mrs Browns Boys.  No its much better, the latest Christmas Wrapping by Matthew Harris with his traditional look at the odd idents from the BBC and such.  A shame that it contains Clean Bandit but we can't have everything. 

We settle down with a glass of nig nog and hang up our stockings for Old Saint Nick to fill (he's such a perv) before turning in.  All in all its been an excellent Christmas Eve.

Rebirth and The Littlest Hobo.

The weirdest thing happened this week. a workmate posting on Facebook of all places has sparked off something I'd long forgotten.  Its not TCC related but its to do with the Littlest Hobo who's show was serialised on the BBC in the mid 80's.  The thing is I barely remember it, I know that there was a kid in it and a dog and maybe a van.  But the most striking thing I can remember is that they had a tyre shaped gold UFO / robot. You want to know how sketchy my memory of this is, I originally thought it had the head of Crow from MST3K, but probably didn't.  I do know that the kid and the dog had to keep it safe and had to keep moving hence the title. bout the same era as Mysterious Cities of Gold and the Anime Belle and Sebastian so 85 -86 then.

Found it is Benji, Zax and the Alien prince. and yes the robot is both a mix of crow and floating yellow tyre.  Also that theme tune is rad as hell.

In other news it seems that Roland the bastards have forced the take down of Rebirth 303, one of the first ever 303 emulation software and such.  Only reminded me of it as I have a  copy and an old laptop and wondered if I could install it and make the bassline from Drake's Passionfruit in it. 

It seems that the new Roland Rental thing and re issue of its classic line of hardware drum machines was the catalyst for its  take down.

VHS Mess

Been messing around with a new TV grabber from Lidl's of all places.  It comes with a few things such as all the plugs you'll need to connect it.  It should, if we get it to output sound correctly, be a good alternative to me sticking the phone in front of the screen and hoping that the footage grabbed comes out clear and not shaky. 

You get Power DVD with this too and its a bit rubbish, thinking that the home taped Benny Hill special is copyright (I guess it is but we want ad breaks and trails for the channel including the terrible one of Rory Bremmer and Richard Whiteley).  Virtual Dub is the best I have with the sound screwed up but the oddest is capturing through VLC. 

We have a weird sine wave feedback tone and some echo too, given the credits for  this is strange enough. Here's a reversed clip to give you an idea what to expect.

I'll play around with it some more and give a few direct clip uploads to Youtube if I  remember.

Pirate Material.

Looks like the BBC has finally woken up to the fact that not every Pirate radio broadcasted from a fucking ship in the channel, back in the 60's.  Because its the Beeb there's quite a bit of grim from the streets perspective and the Tories are cunts too for good measure (it's the 80's so bonus Thatcher too). 

For some reason its a rather Soul orientated affair, rather than focus on house and drum and bass, so if that's your bag its pretty good.   It focuses on LWR and the Pirate era of Kiss FM (Think Norman J, Trevor Nelson and Judge Jules you'll not go far wrong) and if you listened in the 90's well fuck you  there's a token bit of Jungle and Rinse FM at the end. If you think I'm being dismissive, its because I feel  that my music is often overlooked.  Its why I liked the Agony and The Ecstasy, if  you manage to view that then think of this as a companion piece, filling the gaps and some backstory as well.

The elephant in the room is the Conservative government, and watching this, you get the feeling  that  had Labour got in, it would have turned out differently.  Michael Foot and his government of 83, you kinda get the feeling that the whole greed culture and entrepreneur mentality would have just died on the vine.  With nothing to kick back against, you would have seen a very different 80's.

To me pirate was essential growing up, can remember listening to Fantasy FM and Pulse back in  the day.  A memory of me playing Gauntlet 2 on NES while Hardfloor played on the radio.  Steve Jackson playing disco on a Saturday Morning at Kiss and the 2 Colin's Faver and Dale playing techno late at night driving back from somewhere (Index The Sign still cool).  To recap there's clip from Trevor Nelson in the show saying that Kiss FM died for him back when it became a legal station, for me that's 1997 and its all down hill from  there.

Agony and The Ecstasy

Not a lot to say about this except that Sky Arts have a big documentary about rave culture and such. Called Agony & The Ecstasy how the U.K imported house and acid and made it our own.

Part one is beginnings with Norman Jay and a whole host of pioneers of the UK Rave scene such as Fabio and Grooverider, Orbital, Danny Rampling banging on about Ibiza and someone who looked a whole lot like dear old Babs Windsor.

Part 2 is more political looking at the fall of the illegal rave and the whole Criminal Justice Act brought in to stop peoples right to party.  Some epic scenery chewing there from Goldie as a judge and we have our first look at dear old Oakie (Paul Oakenfold) who in hindsight looks thick as mince.

Part 3 is the rise of the superstar DJ and there is definitely a saucer of milk required for some of the catty comments put out there for most modern posers.  To be honest I think the same way, didn't realise that the whole repackage shit from Ibiza we had going on.  We essentially sold America back shit Europop after they turned their backs on the whole culture and that. 

A few sticking points there is not one mention of Ron Hardy here, a few shout outs to Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles R.I.P but nothing about Ron.   Ibiza gets a mention as well as sound systems but apart from this nothing about Italo Disco and the whole selling back of Disco to America to make house.  Also precious little yanks in this only Roger Sanchez and The Black Madonna make it.  Fucking hate EDM, seriously this is what killed Kiss FM chasing the youth market


Third part is overtly political too which I really don't like, we are not punk we don't do politics much on a whole.  Apart from that you can laugh at how old everyone looks which is nice as they say.

Easter with the Barkley's

Happy Easter. As you can't quite tell we are down at my aunts place and have to slum it on an old laptop which is far from ideal.  Hope that you all have a nice day and have plenty of chocolate eggs and stuff as its the one day God throws down a Phoenix Down to revive his misbegotten son from the grave. 

I don't do religion so have spent it walking along the pier and looking at dogs.  Honestly there are hundreds of dogs here, including a few designer mongrels and the customary Labrador too.

Thanks to the Everton football scandal I've been reminded of an old cartoon show on TCC called the Barkleys. 
A sort of dog sitcom cartoon thing that was probably based on an old US sitcom (that they stole from us).  Wiki says all in the family which is Til Death Us Do Part and now I really want to see an animated Alf Garnett. To be honest I kinda rememeber the Theme tune in at odd times that Arnie Barkley is the head of the Barkley House.  But apart from that nothing much else, I guess the licence was cheap along with Groovie Goulies? and whatever else Sky put out on a weekday morning (they had an Anime version of the Little Prince / Le Petit Prince too).

Sitcom Remakes

We've had a wave of remakes of beloved old sitcoms recently, Are you being served?, Porridge and a few origin stories for Keeping Up Appearances and Goodnight Sweetheart.  As well as a lost sitcom on BBC 4. 

Bear in mind that I love some of these shows, and the latter two were a part of me growing up even if I can't stand them now.  So I'm looking at these remakes with a certain eye.  This is going to be a review of sorts. although I missed the Goodnight Sweetheart reboot so wont cover it.

Are You Being Served?

They've shunted this to the late 80's and somehow drafted Mr Grainger back in even though he retired in the series a long time ago.  To be fair he reminds me of Mickey's Grandpa from the Mickeys Miniature grandpa comic strip in Viz though that would liven the show up if he was convinced he was 4 inches tall whenever anyone asked him to do anything, but I digress.  To be honest that's the least of their worries as its patchy as fuck, they have a black guy as a Mr Lucas replacement who works really well despite reigning in all borderline sexual harassment scenes with the Milflike Miss Brahms, but it took me almost the whole episode to work out what else was wrong with it.  Mr Humphries.

You may remember him as the slender, camp, purveyour of men's fashions, but he's much dumpier in the reboot, its jarring and worse reminds me of the excellent Suit You sketch from the Fast Show.
Boycey (Michael Challis) is spot on as Captain Peacock, and Sherrie Hewson is boss as Mrs Slocombe, notably excellent is Mr Rumbold complete with dolly bird secretary.  Like I say it doesn't come off and the humour is a bit too crude, pussy jokes aside.  For extra Viz references this feels like a Finbarr Saunders strip made flesh, all innuendo and no climax.  For bonus points they really do have a young Mr Grace in this, a Gordon Gecko grandson of the original but as I kept thinking it was Stephen Mulhern throughout  I can ignore him and say its good but not the original.

Porridge

Even though I love Ronnie Barker, I've never really watched the originals, I know Godber was his cellmate and Mchaie was the Scots jailer who caused him mischief, but that's that.  I largely got my Ronnie Barker fix through Open All Hours, or the much forgotten Clarence.   This updates the original with Fletch's grandson in jail for hacking, it reigns in the jock bashing of the original even though the screw is still Scottish (a Mr Meekie).  Weirdly I kept thinking they had teleported Harry Enfield from the 80's turns out its Kevin Bishop as Fletch instead.  The plot is some nonsense about changing the parole records of an old lag due out soon, with some heath robinson junk involving a pringles can and a smart phone.  Its not bad and as its an all new cast could easily be made to a full series.

Young Hyacinth.

Sounds like I missed a cracker with the Goodnight Sweetheart as I slept through an extended Gardener's World instead.  Sadly I was up and at 'em for this unfortunately.  Its cancer, fucking cancer, just her irritating voice was enough to keep me awake, the upper class twats she worked for and her daft bint sisters kept me shivering.  Clock watching, her dad's a pisshead on a bike and they live in a lock keepers cottage.  Fuck.  Hey Rose is still a tart, is that the joke, the whole joke, jesus fuck no. 

I kept wanting it to end, to put me out of my misery,  I got out 5 minutes before the end, but not before losing my will to live and sanity.

Alf Garnett Reboot.

This isn't part of Sitcom season as its a recreation of a wiped show from the archive using the original script, next Thursday they'll be doing a Hancocks Half Hour, which promises to be good. 

Johnny Speight was another genius in my book, you looked at Alf not as a role model but as a joke.  He had no power, not at home, not at anytime, he was a parody of the kind of bigots on the terrace and in the streets.You weren't there to agree with his views they were a piss take pure and simple.

This is a remake with Simon Day as Alf Garnett who is mainly spot on, and the script revolves him not having his dinner due to Else his wife burning it due to her going off to the Pictures with Rita and the Scouse Git.  Who ever it was playing Else got her spot on, close your eyes and its her, dead on.  Mike's chinese in this but that hardly matters as weirdly it works too.  The best thing about this is that though it's dated, it works.  They've got a script with bugger all racism in it which is a miracle, and only mildly sexist to boot, largely the phone box scene (told you its dated) where Alf has to phone up Rita in the chippy to order, and there is some young bird in there on the phone to her fella.

Won't spoil it for you but, this is the best thing of the current remakes, its filmed in front of a studio audience and best of all no canned laughter.