Radiotimes

2019's been a ropy old year one way or another so, by way of reaching for a comfort blanket, I've got my Christmas Radio Times so I can plan ahead. And pretty grim reading it is, too. A lot of the same old crap with the word "Christmas" slapped on the front. Discovery is bringing us "A Christmas Hitler," Discovery Science "My Christmas Tapeworm And Me" and the History Channel "Ancient Festive Aliens: The Wishbone Enigma."  We've seen all the Christmas editions of "Porridge," "Only Fools and Horses," "Last of the Summer Wine," "Gavin and Stacey," "Are You Being Served," and "Keeping Up Appearances" because UK Gold has been playing them on relay since October.

And then, of course, there's the Christmas Channel, which has been The Christmas Channel since the end of August and will remain so until mid-January when it becomes The Valentine Channel, rebranding at the start of March as The Easter Channel until, some time in May, it reverts to its official brand title The Films So Cloyingly Awful You Couldn't Sit Through A Whole One Without Gagging Channel. 

On Sky Arts "The Christmas Motion Picture Show" looked promising but turns out to be the artist's lived experience after a week eating nothing but turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, mince pies and Terry's Chocolate Oranges played out through the medium of Abstract Expressionism.

So that'll be me and the cat playing charades again. Here she is last year. The film was "The Big Sleep."

Have a cool Yule y'all.

On the tenth day of Chrimbo…

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…

Tickets to see Mrs Threadgold and her Brownies in their adaptation of "Moomins Winter Follies."

Never again.

Chrimbo singalong

It's been a rough old year for many of us.

Pull up a glass of sherry and pour yourself some turkey gravy as we sing along to those carols we loved as children.

Season's greetings to you and yours. Play nice and stay safe.

Tuesday singalong

Curtain calls

There's a rich seam of drivel to be mined from the conversations people have at the end of the day when they're too tired to talk but still insist on having conversations. Actually, this is a good description of virtually any conversation between myself and The Small Object of Desire at any time of day or night but we could just be tired.

Anyway, this is how we became entertained by a children's television series called "Bladderpuss," the everyday adventures of a cat full of piss.

Love is…

Love is…

Explaining "The Double Deckers" to a loved one while she is having a shower.

And doing the little dance.

Coffee break

Watching the detectives

We've been watching a lot of Scandinavian police procedurals lately...

Saturday singalong

You all know the words...

Twisted sister

Never mind the woman or the dog, look at the songs. Can you imagine going the twist to any of them?



"The Yellow Rose of Texas"
"Tea For Two"
and best of all: "The Indian Love Call."

Nelson Eddie: you've gotta dig that pussycat!

So long Eddie

R.I.P. Eddie Braben

The passing of one of my heroes. An utter genius of a writer, a great artist and craftsman. We're the better for having had him round.

How could you improve Morecambe and Wise? Well, you could get them to drop the Abbott and Costello personae they often adopted in the fifties and sixties. Then you could write for deep-seated warmth of their friendship. And then you could add the daftnesses of childhood. And you get this:



Here he is talking to Miranda Hart about the experience:



(It wasn't until I read his obituary in "The Independent" that I knew about his head-butting Billy Cotton for not letting him follow Morecambe & Wise over to Thames when they left the BBC.)

It's a shame I don't have any links to clips of any of his radio shows. Mad compendia of music hall malarkey, gorms and grotesques, with Alison Steadman as Miss Tasker ("Shy of men. Always have been...") driven wild by men's thighs and the odd lurch into Comic Cuts surrealism that would lead Eli Woods to cry: "I've done some rubbish in my time, but..." And we'd laugh. Because it was warm and daft and funny.

Thank you sir.

Meanwhile, in the Danube Delta...

Those of us dwelling in the ignorances of the Western World would think that Romanian television consists entirely of repeats of "Beetroot World with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej."

How wrong could we be?

Making plans for Nigels

It's that time of year again...



(Apologies for C4's advertising)

Trying not to write about work...

For some reason I've had this earworm for the past few weeks...

Animated hormones

One of the papers this weekend ran yet another "Is Jessica Rabbit the sexiest cartoon character…" article, which is becoming almost a greater cliché than the Flintstones MILF debate. Wilma vs. Betty has become a tad tired but still goes a-rumbling on (if you need to know: Wilma, because I've got a thing about redheads). Even some twenty-somethings at work have this argument (outside Game of Thrones seasons). It's odd that we have these reactions to what are, after all, just drawings. One of my friends at school fell in love with the black lady in the Tom and Jerry cartoons because he reckoned she had a lovely singing voice and thick ankles.

I'm above this sort of nonsense, of course.

The gentler sex

Some of you may wonder what things are like the other side of the hills. Let this be a warning...

Do you want dandelion & burdock with that?

By the merest chance I heard the very last edition of "ITMA" being played on Radio 4 Extra the other day (Radio 4 Extra is what we have to call Radio 7 these days now we have to pretend that the BBC doesn't have more than 6 radio stations so as not to upset the Daily Mail). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it; ITMA generally being something I admire for its craft and delivery but don't much laugh at. I'll have to hunt down some more of the later editions.

Bill Oddie was acting as Comedy Controller for a couple of hours and was working to a thesis that though he loved radio programmes like this at the time they've not aged all that well because a lot of the material would have worked better as television programmes because the performers were, essentially, variety artistes and actors doing variety acts. There's a lot to be said for this argument, particularly as his next exhibit was "Archie's the Lad!" with ventriloquist Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews.

But there's also a lot to be said for the counter-argument that there's a lot of television that should have stayed on the radio. And not just because Peter Brough's lips moved. The Telly Goons are a prized part of my childhood memory but they were only ever a nineteenth-rate version of the colour and invention of the real thing on the radio. Similarly: Jimmy Clitheroe's knees. How scary were they at Saturday tea time?

And there's no way, shape or form that Round the Horne could ever have been on the television and kept much of its magic.

I'll be coming back to that...

Lazy Sunday afternoon

The answers to last year's quiz

1. It takes two ticks from the grand A6 or whichever one suits you; the A53 or the A54 or the A5002.
2. Second-rate Les in his Burberry fez

We had thousands of answers on a postcard from the four corners of the editor's typewriter and the first one pulled out of George Osborne's hat was from Mrs. Edna Poskitt of Cheshire, who writes:

"We always listen to your programme while we're sat around the kitchen table worming my granny. Me and my family would love it if you could say hello to Auntie Norman and if you would play something by One Direction."

Well, just for you, Mrs. Poskitt, here's a linotype of Dame Nellie Melba singing "Hey Little Hen."

One from The Lads From The Wirral...

Half a cool Yule, people.