Not Old... Retro's Babe of the Day: Erin Gray

Biddy biddy biddy. Yep, September 1980 brought delights to young kids in the form of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century on ITV, and a sudden interest in Saturday night sci-fi from older lads and dads. What? You think they were all watching for Twiki and a Aldi version of Lee Majors in the title role? Nope, Colonel Wilma Deering was the main interest, spandex leggings, silly helmets and all. And quite right. Didn't appreciate her at the time but it's amazing what you notice on the re-runs when you are older. Yes you realize it was actually a load of old crap but there's benefits. Such as Ms Gray. Yeah there was the scheming sex vamp Princess Ardala (right) played by Pamela Hensley but that was all a bit obvious. Wilma was where it was at. We all love an ice queen. And she's the reason why I remember the show fondly. Oh alright, and Twiki.

Blackpool's Comedy Carpet

The Comedy Carpet, situated on Blackpool's promenade in front of the famous tower, is according to Gordon Young, it's creator, "a celebration of comedy on an extraordinary scale...referring to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, the carpet gives visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases dating from the early days of variety to the present." Quite. It sounded a bit shit when first mooted and quite frankly, another waste of money by the Council but credit due, when you see it, either by day or night, it's quite a breathtaking, striking piece of art. And very amusing.

It's not a carpet as such. That would be crazy! Imagine the fluff and grit. And the hoovering of course. No, it's actually an intricately tiled area on the newly created Tower Headland, which, as you can see, you can walk on. To be honest, there's so much going on there that you could probably visit it several times and see something new on each occasion. It's quite gratifying as well that it's not just playing up to the idea of comedy in seaside resorts being just typical end of pier raucous Summer Season stuff, or old 50's comedians pedaling the same old gags. No, this truly does what it says on the tin. Ken Dodd next to Reeves and Mortimer, Python sharing space with Les Dawson, Carry On quotes mixed with Porridge. It's not often you find Chris Morris and Norman wisdom together is it? It treats funny then the same as funny now, with no boundaries, no distinctions.

Of course, one thing that, in years to come, will bind together visitors with a collective sense of non-plussedness is that there's no context given for the quotes. Unless you buy the guide book that is. You either know where it's from or you don't. Give it a few years and reading the carpet will be like watching Arthur Atkinson on "The Fast Show" doing his stupid catchphrases and not knowing what the hell the audience are laughing at. Which is funny in itself. I suppose "Where's Me Washboard?" isn't that far away from the Boosh doing a crimp about tasty soup. If you think about it, there are teenagers out there who think the "Father Ted" Christmas Special is just something that's always shown each yule, like we used to think about Morecambe and Wise specials. Brrrrr. Scary.

"I can't see any Horne and Corden quotes"

Of course it's highly ironic that the Council spend £2.6m on this, then realise it's too close to the trams and vandalize it on "Health and Safety" grounds without permission from the artists who created it in the first place, and who pointed out this design flaw at an early stage only to be told to "Carry on Regardless" by the same Council.

Top experts carefully remove the highly unsafe stones using delicate equipment

"Well done lads. now let's see if we can find another cock-up to fix." Anybody would think that someone on the council is deliberately trying to make work for certain building contractors who may or may not be rewarding them for doing so. I wouldn't think that of course.

The new improved Blackpool Council Version which now doesn't credit some of the comedians or writers, the artists themselves or Ken Dodd who formally opened it. Another winner.

Blackpool Borough Council - I bet any member couldn't find their own arse with both hands.

Despite this, it's still great. You can find more info on the map here: http://comedycarpet.co.uk/ and here's some of my pics of Gordon Young's brilliant designs...

 

Bring Back Alcopops!

Ahhh. Whatever happened to good old fashioned alcopop drinks? Hooch, Metz, Red Square, etc. Massive in the 90's, gone now, much like Heather Small's hair. Written out of history. I bloody loved them. The weirder, the better. I only mention it as I stumbled across this ad in an old magazine for one of my faves, Wild Brew, as seen in the advert above, and to your right. This contained guarana, so it was basically a vodka and Red Bull variation, just much better. By the way, what ever happened to those Cadbury's Boost bars, with the green wrapper that contained guarana? They were great. But I digress, and so soon as well. It apparently got banned because of a "marijuana type-leaf" on the bottle. Lame.

Of course, the one everybody remembers is Martini Metz, the schnapps drink. Bloody great that was. Just that sodding "Beware the Judderman, when the moon is fat" advert that freaked most people out. What were the marketing bods thinking here? And of course the later advert with a pre-Boosh Julian Barratt as a barman wearing an eyepatch banging on about the medical condition known "as a judder". I never felt the judder, but then again I was probably too pissed on disco vomit pop.

Nearly all of them went eventually, leaving the pathetic selection we've got today. Smirnoff Ice is possibly the classiest we get. All the others seemed to be aimed at people who live on council estates. WKD... I ask you.  Bloody hell. Of course the reason they were pulled was because it encouraged under aged drinkers, and the removal of such temptation from the shelves would help curb that worrying trend. Yeah, that worked didn't it?

Beware the Judderman...

Back To The Sweet Shop - No.2: Pink Panther Candy Bar

Anything with the Pink Panther on it was cool. Plus it had his groovy car! Cool! And look - PP was clearly a smoker! Err...not cool. This was EXTRAORDINARILY sweet which surely would rot your teeth in an instant. Well, if you ate enough, which I could have done had I had the funds. 2p was a lot! And you don't care about teeth when you're a kid. Yeah, that will come back to haunt you later. Created by "NESTLE'S" - before they got up themselves and became just "Nestle" and in turn, evil. 

Cheap crappy sweets, you can't beat them. Of course the Pink Panther name lives on today with the cheap crappy pink wafer biscuits, which are also unbeatable.

The rinky-dink Pink Panther - a gentleman, a scholar and an acrobat.

Before They Were Famous - Pet Shop Boys

From THE SMASH HITS YEARBOOK 1983... an article about t-shirts. But can you spot the SMASH HITS writer who's part of an electronic duo, alongside his bandmate who just happened to be hanging around on the day of the photoshoot?

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, a pre-fame Pet Shop Boys.