TV21

The first time I saw anything by Gerry Anderson was when Granada TV repeated Space 1999 and Thunderbirds during weekend lunchtimes in the early 1980s. I was growing up in one of those much-joked about homes where ITV was almost never watched; Gerry Anderson was one of the few exceptions.
I had heard about his illness with Alzheimer's a while back, and he died yesterday.

The great irony in Gerry Anderson's story is that he had no real desire to work in televison puppetry, yet he made his name there by being so good at it. When he came to making the live action series that he would have preferred, posterity hasn't been as kind. The obituaries I've so far read have dwelled on the puppet shows like Captain Scarlet and - inevitably - Thunderbirds, rather than what came afterwards. Although Space 1999 was designed by committee (and it shows), U.F.O. remains my favourite Anderson series.

He could be frustrating from time to time. I remember a few years ago when another company had the rights to Thunderbirds and based an awful cinema film on it. But rather than complain about how some of his best known characters had been made to look like spare pricks at a wedding, Gerry Anderson chose to complain that the cars were wrong.

Much British television - especially of the 1960s and 1970s - lacks visual flair, but the Anderson series do much to put that right. To hell with aerodynamics - for 50 minutes each week, Thunderbird 2 could actually fly, and I'll always be thankful for that.

"Asteroid" by Pete Moore

Dodging adverts on telly is childs’ play, and it has been fairly easy ever since video cassette recorders came in.  Every time someone asks me if I’ve seen the one with the meerkats, or the opera singer, or the gorilla playing Phil Collins’ drumkit, I can honestly answer “no”.  I’m of the belief that if I want something, I’d go out and buy it (budget permitting) – or, at least, that’s what I’ve convinced myself.

Of course, if you were brought up to think that ITV was a bit common then the job was already done for you by the BBC channels, and still is.

Radio’s even easier, especially since the mergers and takeovers in UK commercial radio have led to so many similar channels that I would never want to listen to anyway.  Capital (no prizes for guessing its comedy name) is a London station that is spreading itself over the Earth’s surface like a fungus from outer space.  Its rivals are much the same.

The one place where consumerism has me captive is at the pictures.  It’s rather tricky to blunder through a darkened cinema, looking for a free seat, when the adverts and trailers have nearly finished but the film has yet to start.  The timing isn’t easy either if in a multiplex, especially when my home town boasts Europe’s tallest cinema and I have to go up several floors from the box office to the screen.

I should have known we were in trouble when Pearl and Dean were sidelined from view.  It’s still a very important advertising carrier for many British cinemas, but in the 1970s, with a (Britpop-era) revival in the mid-1990s, it was a very visible presence on screen.

If you’re too young, or too foreign, or suffering from memory loss, this lot:

The jokes about the adverts they used to carry have gone way beyond observational comedy and into folklore.  The generic series of still photographs of people enjoying a meal that would lead to a clumsily inserted caption advertising a Chinese or Indian restaurant “just minutes from this cinema”.  The pornographic enjoyment of the sort of hotdogs that could only ever be bought in fairgrounds or, unsurprisingly, at the pictures during the interval.  (Yes, you read me correctly.  Films were often run with an INTERVAL.)

All this may sound daft, and like some logical extension of a Donald McGill seaside postcard, but it was pretty harmless and sufficiently clumsy and unconvincing to not really jar with the film itself.  Star Wars, or the latest Disney feature, was at a good arm’s length from it all.  And the Pearl and Dean brand itself was not obtrusive – the jingle above (all 18 seconds of it) was out of the way in a flash.

Now, regardless as to whichever film I see, I’m confronted with endless presence of these bastards:

So imagine the scene; I’m settling into my seat to watch some realist drama about a  Parisian child protection unit, or something, and two oversized sweeties come on to plug the latest Big Momma’s House sequel for what seems like an age.

They are like some CGI version of the Chuckle Brothers, there to shatter the illusion of any film that comes within their range (and it’s a very big range) and I really do wish they’d fuck off.

Strangely, I don’t mind the Orange film spoofs.  But despite the message behind them, people still don’t switch their bastard phones off.

The Hairy Cornflake

I've been meaning to post this for some time but this week's British visit by Aung San Suu Kyi has finally prompted me.

I'm going to say nice things about Dave Lee Travis.

Like any of the veteran presenters who still had programmes on Radio One when the BBC had its Night Of The Long Knives in the mid-1990s, he was painted as an anachronism, the very sort of creature that Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse set out to mock with their Smashey'n'Nicey sketches.

The reality is rather grubbier. Workplaces aren't supposed to be run on a basis of whose face fits, and the BBC is no exception. Take a look at this. If I worked in a place like that, I'd think it ugly too.

The own goal in the remodelling of the station, regardless as to its musical intentions, is that the replacements were no better. Travis may have had a few gimmicks but he had a deep-rooted love of music that showed through - much of it period stuff, admittedly - whenever he was given a bit of freedom on air. I have never once thought this about Chris Moyles.

The other side to this is that I have come to have a bit of respect for old school entertainers. Dave Lee Travis, when he first heard that his old programme on the BBC World Service was a boon to Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under arrest, was quite public in his surprise. He doesn't "do" politics, and never has. My teenage self would have taken this as evidence that he was part of the establishment, a puppet of The Man. Thirty years of Bono later, I've come to admire any public figure whose beliefs are their own and who has the self control not to beat others over the head with them.

Going on at this rate, it'll be Terry Wogan next.

Mr Eurovision Song Contest Man

I've posted here before about Engelbert Humperdinck, of all people, and here we are again.

If you look at UK chart statistics over the last 30 years, there's a definite trend where mainstream pop music and the Eurovision Song Contest part company, until the point where Eurovision doesn't appear to matter at all.  Imagine a world where the X Factor winner is watched by millions on a Saturday night, but barely anyone buys their record - that's exactly the way that the Eurovision Song Contest worked for years in the UK.

 My memories of the Eurovision Song Contest, as a youngster, were Brotherhood Of Man onwards, where Britain's entry was a tailor-made act for the competition, rather than an established, popular act.  Although this sometimes won the competition, it could sometimes be seen as the British not taking the thing seriously, and the lack of points on the night was deserved.  There have been attempts to reverse the trend - involving Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jonathon King, for instance.  This year, a veteran UK singer with a wide appeal abroad has been entered.  I've listened to the song - it's the sort of slug-paced ballad I'd expect from the Spanish entry.  There are other, livelier entrants and I don't expect the British one to win.

Of course, the golden age of Eurovision for my parents' generation would have put Engelbert Humperdinck up for the contest when he was still having regular hit singles.  What I never realised about 60s and early 70s Eurovision is that the British entries - Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Cliff Richard, and so on - weren't just bankable pop stars, but they actually had their own television series at the time.  Eurovision is a deal between broadcasters, not record companies.  We're talking about the BBC here, not ITV in any shape or form - so other possibilities would have included Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield or even Scott Walker, but not, say,  Tom Jones.

By the mid 1970s, the idea of a popular musical act having their own television programme in the UK was on the wane.  The only ones I can remember having that sort of primetime slot as a kid were Shirley Bassey (who could have made sense in a Eurovision context, given the right song) and The Black and White Minstrels (the mind boggles), which might explain the switch to the tailor-made acts like Bucks Fizz.

Or there's always this bloke:

We don't need no education

The chorus from "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2" was always bait to my mother, as though the double negative somehow undermined the message.

I'm in education myself - I'm an engineering lecturer at the University of Plopsaland. Among the students I dealt with this week are two that I will call X and Y, however mathematically clichéd that seems.

Student X is from the Home Counties of England - the largely rather affluent region that surrounds, but does not include, London. X has been an award-winning student since enrolling here. X has a family background that includes other successful career engineers.

Student Y is from some shit-hole just off the motorway.

Student X gave a presentation this week based on a lab experiment done earlier in the trimester. My colleague and I struggled to find anything wrong with the presentation at all. It was one of those rare pieces of work that are worth 100%, or something very close to that.

On the same day, the last day of any teaching before the second trimester exams start, student Y handed in a withdrawal notice. After struggles with attendance and coursework deadlines, Y has decided to throw in the towel, despite being able to salvage whatever he/she can from the second trimester exams and the August resits.

Student X is almost certain to graduate with a decent class of degree with very real career prospects. But it's student Y who really needs it.