Hi to Patty O’Heater, Rex Bob Lowenstein and in fact everyone who has stumbled upon these furthermost reaches of the blogsphere. (Be aware that if you go much further out you’ll fall off the edge…). You are all people with discerning taste/too much time on your hands. I seem to have run out of no-prizes so instead here is a limited-edition, non-perishable, hand-crafted, priceless  xmas present (below in the “comments” area).

My computer is getting old. I’m driven to distraction by a message on startup saying that I didn’t shut it down right the last time I used it. Look Bill, I tried to, but clicking “shut down” just doesn’t make it shut down !!!

Anyway I understand that new ones actually fit on your desk these days and you don’t even have to type cd\whatever after you’ve slotted your floppy disk into the A drive……….

So I’ve junked my desktop and in 5 minutes my antique laptop goes the same way. (But I’ve kept a Sinclair ZX80 and pre-Windows Amstrad 8086 for nostalgic reasons.) Hooray!! For the first time in 30 years I now don’t have a working computer at home !! I just hope Santa got my letter……………….

I wish you a Merry Xmas too.

Twenty years ago (good grief!) Syd Meats appeared regularly with the anarchic Boothby Graffoe on Radio Lincoln. Syd’s speciality was comic songs, often only written a few days earlier concerning topical news items. “Snails” was always a favourite of mine. I posted an audio clip featuring it last year. (Incidentally, according to WordPress statistics that, along with my post concerning A.P.Dangerfield remain the least-ever viewed items here!!!!). Nevertheless, as I continue to champion things that amuse ME and not the world at large, I proudly present another (better???) version of this legendary moment in the history of Radio Lincoln…..

Syd Meats – Snails

PS: If you’re wondering what on earth the song is about. 20 years ago there was a news item that the EEC were going to re-classify as Fish (for beaurocratic reasons no doubt) that French delicacy Snails, much to Syd’s chagrin. I’ve no idea if they ever actually did or not though…………………

Recently listening to one of my old mix tapes even I had to pause and think who recorded the first three tracks. So here’s a tiny prize-free quiz. Can you answer these simple questions (without Googling) about these great tunes.

1) TRACK ONE
a) Who is singing this?
b) What is the title of the song?
c) What is the other title of the song?
d) Who sang the original version of the song?

2) TRACK TWO
a) Who is singing this?
b) Who is the singer’s sister?
c) Who is the singer’s father?
d) What colour socks am I currently wearing?

3) TRACK THREE
a) Who is singing this?
b) How many of them are there?
c) Who sang the original version of half of the song?
d) Who sang the original version of the other half of the song?

I’m finally getting around to watching this DVD. A cult film based on the Italian fumetto (comicbook) it was made in 1967 and received limited showings in the UK around 1968. At the time I suppose it was quite a novelty that the hero was actually a villain.

Diabolik was a leather-suited, athletic master criminal and, as played by John Phillip Law, a rather intense character with a haunted look. At first it was just the authorities who persued him. Once other criminals decided to deal with him (for upsetting the status quo) his days were numbered. Until then he enjoyed a fab “hideout” cavern that was like something out of a James Bond film. He drove a black E Type Jaguar and his gorgeous girlfriend Eva drove a matching white one.

PS: The audio soundtrack with sounds like this (which doesn’t seem to be currently available) was an early work of Ennio Morricone who would later be involved in the music for spaghetti westerns like “The good,the bad and the ugly” and many many more films in Italy and the USA.

Why can’t we have Peace all the time ?

You know how it is. You wait ages for a bus and then two come along together. I’d been looking for this record for years. Well, more truthfully, It had been somewhere in the back of my mind for years that if I ever found myself standing in front of another copy I’d buy it.
So, inevitably, as soon as a kind soul sent me an mp3 file of this “classic” someone else alerted me to a copy for sale on eBay. As expected with the synchronicity of these things, although the mp3 file had come from another country the eBayer selling said record lived only a few miles away from me. This single may even be the same copy I bought new in 1972 and “lost” in 1973 !!

So I can finally play the “b” side again for the first time in 36 years. Was it worth the wait ? I guess not. 

Katina – Don’t stick stickers on my paper knickers (version) Cactus CT4 B side

He’s an alien ex-alcoholic fighting crime and booze in the furthest reaches of Canada. Having accidentally caused the death of his family whilst on a drunken bender he rocketed to Earth to forget. But was he really the ideal role model to extol the dangers of alcoholism to the Inuit/Eskimos in 1973 ?

ITEM: I’ve never seen “Star Wars”. I managed to avoid the first film in 1977 and since then I’ve studiously avoided all sequels, prequels, TV showings, cartoons, books and comics bearing the logo “Star Wars”. Its odd (considering what a voracious reader of Science Fiction I used to be) that films and TV shows in that format rarely attract my interest. I found Star Trek to be ludicrous. Kirk’s “Captain Slog”, where he loves and leaves a succession of alien princesses. The squeaky clean future of the “Next Generation”. Plots forever left hanging in “Time Tunnel” “Lost in Space” and “Land of the Giants”. Did they ever get home? Our own cash-strapped, unintentionally-funny “Blakes 7″ and “Dr Who”. 100s of bad US TV shows from “Incredible Hulk”, “Lexx” and “Sliders” to “Buck Rodgers” and “Flash Gordon”. I watch them for five minutes and then my interest fades…..

As my TV has been taken over by “Emmernation Strictly Come X Factor Dale Street” I go and sit in a corner and read a comic until its all over. But I thought I’d give a few new TV shows the benefit of the doubt. The first episode of the american version of “Life on Mars” was pointless. The original UK version did it all so much better. The latest incarnation of “Stargate” actually made me laugh out loud. A stereotypical overweight “computer geek” teenager is brought in as a technical expert just because he’s good at role-playing games on his PC. Yeah, right. I’m still undecided about “Flash Forward”. Can they maintain the mystery for 24 weeks? I’m pretty sure the reason for all the blackouts will turn out to be…..no, perhaps I’d better not say……….Hopefully the plot won’t fizzle out like “Lost”.

There have been a few TV shows with a science fiction theme that have held my interest :-

“Seven Days” had an almost-believable (and unreliable) method of time travel based on something recovered from the Roswell alien crash site. “The Sarah Jane Adventures” and “Torchwood” were superior spin-off series from “Dr Who”. “Randall and Hopkirk (deceased)” featured a white-suited Kenneth Cope as a ghost only his partner could see.  “Goodnight Sweetheart” saw time travel used as a handy means of being unfaithful to your wife without her being able to find you out. It also explored what would happen if you made a financial investment/bought property 50 years ago and then immediately returned to the present to find yourself rich !!

And not forgetting “Primeval”, “UFO”, “The Prisoner”, “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and of course “The Avengers” which were all entertaining in their own different ways.

PS: I’ve never had a SatNav device either. Here’s poor old Batman back in the “Golden Age” lost and having to ask directions. A different world !!