One Night In Burnley

It's not the place I would have chosen to watch United in the Champions League Final but hey, why not? When it was announced a fortnight ago that Eddie Izzard would be doing a "secret" late night gig at Burnley Mechanics, for £20, well, I'd be an idiot to knock it back. As the gig started at 10:30 we'd be able to watch the match somewhere beforehand.


And so we headed down the M65 and reached Burnley and the venue - not what I'd expected. Next to the Town Hall, it looked a bit quaint, and we were shocked to be able to park for free right outside. We were running a bit late and listening to Five Live on the way we heard Barcelona had scored already in the first half. Not good. So after picking the tickets up from the box office we sidled into the venue's bar "The Press Room" which was quiet and happened to have the match on.


Not much I can say about it really. After ten minutes and the first goal we weren't in the game, and when it went to 2-0 the game was truly up. Even the goal scoring might of Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov couldn't come up with any answers. This was not to be a repeat of 1999. Barcelona controlled the match and were the better team. They deserved it, United didn't really turn up, and it wasn't a classic match in any way. Barcelona did enough to win, and no more - let's face it, it wasn't needed. No doubt we can cue the Scousers who had disappeared from the face of the Earth two weeks ago, who'll crawl out from underneath their rocks to start making jokes, strangely forgetting that they have won nothing this year and are living in the past again (well, it's nicer for them there). Still, 25 games unbeaten in the Champions League is nothing to be ashamed about.


Enough of the football, what about the gig? Well, this small venue played host to the ever excellent Mr Izzard, honing material for his big tour later in the year with late night gigs whilst campaigning for the forthcoming European Elections next week. What was planned to be an hour long gig became a hilarious 105 minute trek through the weird and wonderful mind of Eddie. Coming onstage at 10:45 to a capacity audience, the off-duty transvestite (for it was a casual shirt and jeans combo tonight) regaled the crowd with a journey through the history of the world, the birth of language, religion and with sidesteps along the way covering:

• jazz chickens,
• PTSD squirrels,
• what Einstein would think about Apple Mac download time estimates,
• beekeepers,
• balloon cats,
• stoned assassins (or "assashins") assembling Dysons instead of rifles,
• why there can be no Dinosaur's Got Talent,
• the non-existence of God and if he did exist he would live in fog,
• why Noah's Ark wouldn't work,
• how do Giraffes warn other Giraffes about approaching tigers (they cough apparently),
• the Bayeux Tapestry and why the weavers were the equivalent of papparazzi nowadays,
• if Rod Hull and Emu did Hamlet,

and much much more.

We staggered out at half past midnight (and this was a truncated set!!), grinning inanely after witnessing a comic genius back at the top of his game. See him later this year if you can.

A night of two halves really.

Bye Bye Barcodes, Bye Bye.

Sunday, 24th May 2009.

There are some fat crying Geordies on the telly.

Yep, a glorious day draws to a close as Newcastle United Football Club get relegated from the Premiership after 16 seasons. That's funny. Funnier is seeing Alan Shearer's face after the final whistle. As a Manchester United fan it's been bloody satisfying to see one of our most hated figures take the manager's job and not make any difference at all to their league position. So much for the new Geordie Messiah. It's great to see a club which has been so badly managed at board level over the years take the plunge into the old Division 2. Serves them right for not giving Sam Allardyce time to turn things round at the start of the season.

West Brom are down of course, so bye to the Tesco carrier bags, replaced by Wolves (hurrah). Middlesbrough are down also, but nobody really cares about them, not even their quiet fans. Hull & Sunderland survive. So only one North East club in the Prem next year, which is nice.

Now just look at his face again.

Sheffield Belongs To Us - Saint Etienne Live at The Leadmill

"Rainy city, Sheffield, Thursday"...

... to paraphrase "Mario's Cafe" from the Saint Etienne album "So Tough".

It seemed like madness to travel from Blackpool all the way over the Pennines to Sheffield for a gig on a "school night", but this was Saint Etienne, who I've not seen live since the Summer of 2005 in Manchester. And they were performing their 1991 debut album "Foxbase Alpha" in it's entirety. It's not that far...

Well, Thursday the 14th May arrived, and it was time for the off. Celia was up for the drive and had got directions preset on the iPhone. Tanked up with petrol & cheeseburgers we set off down the M55.

In theory, as long as we headed towards the M60 and Oldham, we'd be on the right route. Typically we miss the turning and have to head towards Warrington in order to turn round and get back on the right part of the M60. Doh. Some 25 minutes later and we're back on course for East of Manchester and the delights of the A57...


... Snake Pass. The main route from Lancashire & Greater Manchester to Yorkshire and specifically Sheffield is over this winding road across the picturesque Pennines. Never been along this route before and it's got at times some breathtaking scenery. Bizarrely on the way along you pass signs for two towns which have become televisual landmarks over the years - namely Holmfirth on the left, which can be seen in "Last Of The Summer Wine", and on the right Hadfield which doubles for Royston Vasey in "The League Of Gentlemen". Alas, no time to visit today, we've a gig to get to.

Predictably for May, the weather turned dreadful and we only avoided some of the rain because the route taken took us above the clouds raing down on the ground below. Weird. Also predictable was that the route on the iPhone would get a bit confusing and bore no resemblance to the road we were travelling on. So we end up following signs for Sheffield along the M1...


Luckily, this route more or less took us directly to our destination, the Leadmill in Sheffield. Another brilliant drive from Celia. I'd never been to Sheffield before, let alone this venue, but it was easy to find with good nearby parking.


The venue itself is lovely - nice big bar area cum dancefloor, with a nice sized stage area next door. When we arrived the support act Go Kart Mozart were already underway. I knew nothing about them apart from that the singer was the legendary cult figure Lawrence (from Felt). (Shrugs shoulders in an Alan Partridge way). They were quite good, and had a fair sized audience, but there was enough space for us to squeeze down to the front for the main attraction.

A boffin in a white lab coat pottered around on stage whilst roadies finetuned equipment, a person I later find was Gerald, Saint Etienne's unsung backroom musical genius. Then the radio transmission that is "This is Radio Etienne" blares through the PA and the band come on stage. This time out it's just Sarah, Pete & Bob, with Debsy on additional vocals and the odd bit of guitar. No "band" as such compared to previous tours, this was mostly programmed & sequenced as befitting the original album's cut and paste nature.


The main part of the gig was the album "Foxbase Alpha" played start to finish for the first time, tying in with the reissue of a deluxe version in the shops. The first thing noticeable about the arrangement of the songs was that they all had, how shall we say, a bit more bollocks. The bass has been bumped up and everysong was a bit more danceable that the original recordings. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" sounded as fresh as ever, even with Sarah singing in the place of original vocalist Moira Lambert. Sarah went on to hand out sweets rather appropriately during "Wilson", and during the two instrumentals on the album "Stoned to Say The Least" and "Etienne Gonna Die", she sat and played cards with Debsy at the side of the stage. Amusingly Sarah didn't bother to learn the spoen world part of "Girl VII" instead reading from a clipboard.


Great use was made of projections on the backdrop and on the video screens dotted around the venue, with what looked like clips of cult 70s scary kids drama "Children Of The Stones" during the penultimate track "London Belongs To Me", strangely sounding unfinished on record but played live sounding amazing.


With an extended "Dilworth's Theme" ending the set, Sarah promised to be back in 5 minutes; then the band left the stage to be replaced by a Daffy Duck cartoon... which is original. The rest of the show was deliberately up to date dance tunes, beginning with "This Is Tomorrow" from "London Conversations", running through the likes of the underrated "Burnt Out Car", a fantastic version of "Sylvie" which was channeling Pet Shop Boys' "Suburbia" in places, "Like a Motorway" (after witnessing Debsy's percussion during that song I felt the need to shout "I need more cowbell" at her - which made her laugh if nobody else did), and of course the obligatory fantastic "He's On The Phone" at the end, which meant lots of dancing from the appreciative crowd and mucho feather boa action from Crackers.

And then that was it. They were gone. I smiled nicely at the security bloke who kindly nipped up on stage to get Debsy's setlist for me. Time to get back to the car and the drive back over the Pennines home (a bit scary but another fab adrenaline rush drive from Celia). A great venue and a great gig from a band who've proved that you can dip into the nostalgia whilst still looking forward. They'll never be a mainstream successful band, as they missed that boat back in 1995, but they'll always have a loyal following. Comfortably cult.

More rambling about music

Last week I looked at the top 40 singles chart online, and was shocked to realise that I didn't actually know over half of the songs featured... and you know, I didn't care.

This is a bit of a shock as once upon a time I was legendary known amongst friends and colleagues as someone who'd disappear every Monday lunchtime and an hour later reappear with the latest new releases, a person who'd know what the latest musical trend was, a guy with his finger on the pulse of the musical zeitgeist (if you will). No longer it seems. When did this change happen?

Many factors really. There comes a time when you've bought enough records, especially when you can't face getting rid of most of them. So pure logistical space factors come into play. Downloading has also been a factor - I spent the best part of 13 years supporting the record industry so felt it was time to take a bit back, mostly via illegal downloading. If I liked the tune that much I'd actually buy the physical item, but there was none of this "buying blind" as in the 90s. I stopped listening to the likes of Radio One, mainly as I hated the DJ's that were on during the times I could listen. "Top Of The Pops" got shunted around the schedules until it's eventual demise, and this show wasn't a weekly fixture in my viewing habits. Same goes for the unlamented CD:UK. And of course, during the last 5 years, gigs have become so expensive that whereas once I'd do about 12 gigs a year plus a festival, it dwindled to about two. I stopped buying the NME as it had become a pale shadow of it's former self, becoming quite unreadable.

But I'm not going to go off on a grumpy old man-esque rant about today's music being rubbish, because whilst it might be true (ooh challenging) I'm no longer in a position to chase fashion - there's simply not enough time. If I'm perfectly honest I'm quite happy to follow the artists I've liked over the last 30 or so years on this planet. and if something comes along that sounds okay, I'll give it a go. It's not about getting old really, it's finding the time.

Nowadays, I'll get my music info from blogs, and the NME news pages. I may stumble across some video that I like on the SKY music channels every now and again, and I'll always give time to listen to new stuff by established artists. And if I'm going to spend £30 plus on a ticket for a gig I want to make sure that I'm going to enjoy it. The gigs that tickets have been purchased for this year are a veritable nostalgia-fest when you look at them listed:

Saint Etienne
Pet Shop Boys
Blur
Kraftwerk
U2
Orbital
Simple Minds & OMD.

Most of these have new material to perform or have recently reformed. The key link though throughout is that I'm guaranteed to be entertained. Not much risk, but hey, I'll leave that to ver kids.

This doesn't mean I'm oblivious to new stuff. I'm quite partial to the latest Bat For Lashes single, Lily Allen's album is quite good, and I'm probably going to buy the Little Boots album, as it's a) got Phil Oakey of the Human League on it, and b) Victoria Hesketh's a Blackpool girl so you've got to show local support. and c) it sounds good.


And that's what counts at the end of the day.

Pet Shop Boys Pie-Chart

The shelves are emptying...

Lad mag update...

Following my previous two fantastic articles (if I do say so myself, no other sod will) ("Men's Mag vs Lad's Mag:Round" and "We want to get Loaded" ) there's been further movements in the magazine market, much down to equal measures of changing tastes and the economy going tits up.

Two of the better men's magazines have gone to the wall. Style mag ARENA finally got killed off after 22 years back in March, and the UK print edition of Maxim has closed down after 13 years on the shelves. It's particularly ironic in the case of the latter as the magazine was showing signs of being quite readable following it's resurrection from the immature mess it became in 2006. However, sales were down 41.4% year on year in the second half of 2008 to 45,951, a far cry from Maxim's circulation peak in 2000, when sales were 328,000 copies a month - though the market-leader rival FHM was then selling around 700,000. It was especially noticeable in the latter issues that they couldn't get any reasonably famous model/actresses/singers/tv presenters to model for them anymore. Maybe they weren't trying, I don't know, and the intention was to run the title into the ground.

Maxim continues online, whilst Brits will be able to buy the successful US print edition instead, which sells an impressive 2.5m copies a month.

FHM has recently cleaned up its act, cut out the tits and remains the country's bestselling men's magazine, at the last count selling over 272, 000 per issue, which whilst well down on the previous peaks, is still an impressive figure, especially if you compare it to the women's magazine sales figures. The likes of Men's Health, the fitness mag go from strength to strength. And Nuts, Zoo and Loaded (15 years old this month folks) are still fighting amongst themselves for an ever decreasing readership and advertising revenue.

What does this all show then? Are men no longer reading mags? Maybe, but there seems to be a shift towards online readership rather than print. And there's enough breasts to be found online to satisfy any bloke.

So, everything I said in my previous articles seems to be spot on...

Up Yours Scousers

Another year, another Manchester United league title. Yawn.

Except it wasn't a yawn. This season it was a battle, and one of the prizes not directly reflected by gongs and silverware was the chance to equal Liverpool's long held record of 18 League titles. And that record has gone. Voom. We've equalled it now, and have every chance of going on next season to surpass it.

"Errr, but you haven't won the European Cup 5 times, la" your average knuckle-dragging Scouser would retort, quietly fuming that their club's not won the league now since before the KLF split up. Well that could disappear in time, as we've done it three times and are on course to retain the trophy next week should we beat Barcalona in Rome.

It was inconceivable to any Liverpool fan back in 1994 when United had won their first league title in years that they wouldn't do it again and that within 15 years their hated rivals would equal their tally. But it's happened.

Manchester United's draw with Arsenal at Old Trafford today wrapped up our 11th Premier League and 18th English league title. Liverpool pushed United hard this season, and have been probably the closest they're ever going to get to challenging us. But not good enough. Sir Alex Ferguson's team this season (and I mean team - this has been a real collective effort with the rotation system working effectively for once) have excelled, winning four trophies (Community Shield, League Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and now the League), still up for the European Cup, and only the FA Cup being a bit of a misjudgment by the wizard. Player of the Season? Can't do it, it's been an team performance. If I had to pick one on pain of death it would be Darren Fletcher if only for the improvement in his game this season and the injustice that was the sending off which means he misses the dream European Final.

Roll on Rome and the potential of us retaining the trophy...

The Great British Record Buying Experience

Ahh, remember buying the latest singles from Woolies on a Saturday afternoon?

Nope, this isn’t going to be another “wasn’t Woolworths great once” article following it’s sad but long overdue demise earlier this year, though that article will probably come in due course. No, instead I’m looking back to the days when you could buy a record - a single, on vinyl, on the high street, like, in a shop. I’m writing about the great British record buying experience!

No, really, it’s going to be good. Honest.

Young readers may be excused for thinking this is foolish talk and your writer has gone mad. But no, once upon a time, you could buy the latest top 40 singles on your average high street record or department store. Back in the day when I was a nipper, it was all vinyl. Seven inch singles mostly, with the odd twelve incher (ooh err, missus). It didn’t use to be record emporiums you’d go to for these shiny black discs – I bought my first single ever, the glorious “Knowing Me Knowing You” by Abba, from a box on the counter of our local television rental shop (“Focus” if I remember rightly).

In the 1970’s, even a small town like Fleetwood had many outlets for records – the aforementioned TV shop, high street colossus Woolworths who had the Top 50 (imagine that!) and another small shop which I think was owned by a bloke called Steve Price, which always sold loads of New Wave coloured vinyl stuff and second hand discs around about 1979. Even the bloody Co-Op had a selection of discs, granted most of them were on the dreaded "Music For Pleasure" label but a record's a record. But the shop that most punters went to was the Record Centre, tucked away on Poulton Road, an always shabby shop which sold loads of albums, the top 40 singles (which were always positioned directly above the counter and it would be pot luck if the proprietor gave you a single with a picture sleeve or not) and the necessary diamond stylus and dust bug for your deck. They also sold hi-fi’s but these never seemed to shift. Many a Saturday afternoon would be spent rummaging through their ex-chart singles looking for that elusive “Hungry Like The Wolf” picture sleeve, though mostly it'd be Shakatak or the Barron Knights you'd find instead.


If you ventured further afield into Cleveleys, there was the ever-reliable Cobweb record shop, part of an empire stretching over Poulton, Cleveleys and St Annes, which was worth a look for the punk badges and Adam and the Ants seven inches. And what's more you could stare in wonder at these new fangled things called videos… wow, movies in your own home… but that’s another blog. Big town Blackpool had yer actual Woolies & WH Smith, the basement in Binns, Boots department store and mysterious places like Ray's Melody Inn which were frequented by serious older punters who intimidated you at the age of 10. No HMV, Our Price or Virgin back then.

In the early 80's there was a decent shop above the Hounds Hill branch of Milletts, which was a weird concept – wandering round tents and camping gear in order to get to buy “New Years Day” by U2, now that's high concept. That’s when I could afford to buy a new record – usually it was back to scouring through the cheap ex-chart racks or the local newsagents for their selection of ex-juke box records.

The floodgates burst around about 1983 when Ames Records opened on Bank Hey Street, swiftly changing to Virgin in 1985 before transforming into Our Price for the rest of the late 80's to 90's. Then a little branch of HMV opened – I could never afford the records but it was just wonderful to browse, and see & hear the records I could only read about in Smash Hits.

However going back in time to Fleetwood 1980, the new kid on the block arrived in the form of “Soundtrack” records, a small modern store which had loadsa new singles, up to date and always with freebies like poster sleeves and badges. More to the point some new releases were cheap! On my meagre budget this was great. In years to come, long after the shop’s demise I would come to understand how they managed to make the shop such an Aladdin’s Cave of vinyl delights, when I came to understand the concept of the chart-return shop…

These were the shops to hunt down. In 1988, once I’d finished sixth form, even before getting a job, I’d take my cash down to any of the Cobweb stores or the bizarrely named Sandy Mountain’s Sinfonia record shop on Cookson Street in Blackpool on a Friday afternoon and take advantage of the cheap new releases. These CD singles and 12 inches were cheap because the record company reps would target these shops, giving them the latest singles at cut down prices in order to get them into the charts for Sunday. So I’d get the latest Mondays single for £1.99 whereas poor old Record Centre or even HMV couldn’t compete, having to charge full whack. Now the downside in buying records so cheap was that you’d also end up buying some right shit along the way for 99p – Climie Fisher anyone?

I was getting a bit savvy and realised that new record deliveries were on Monday, so it would be best to get down there on a Monday lunch for the latest releases, and more important, the limited editions. Yep, I’m a mug for a special edition. Fine Young Cannibals in a tin? Yes please. Chris Rea Car shaped CD box? Why not. Voice Of The Beehive honey filled PVC sleeve? Oh go on. Any old bollocks I’d probably buy if I had enough money left. It was amusing buying from Sinfonia as owner Sandy was a full on Christian and would take offence at certain records and try not to sell them you. He nearly didn't stock Happy Monday's "Hallelujah" for some reason.

If you wanted your actual proper bosh bosh dance stuff, then a trip down to murky South Shore on the number 11 bus was in order, with a visit to Melody House on Bond Street. This was at one time predominantly a video & record shop, but when acid house arrived in 1988, underwent a bit of transformation into the place to come for dance vinyl. You’d get there and there would be about eight punters around the counter, getting the guy behind the counter to “put this one on mate” whilst you tried valiantly to get served (and usually ignored). Customer service wasn’t the watchword there. Meanwhile the rest of the shop gathered dust.

It was during the mid nineties when the Britpop era began in earnest that I frequented the independent shops less and less. Woolies had finally got it’s act together, and HMV, Our Price were competing price wise (and you could rely on them having the stock on the shelves). Little did I know that this would be a watershed point in the record buying experience...

To be continued...

The day after Friday

“S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y… night!”, as the Bay City Rollers used to “sing”. They were of course referring to the night of the week when they’d go out dancing, drinking and pulling birds in bad pullovers and flares, and I’m going to take a journey back in the Tardis to one of those nights late in the Seventies. If you’re now over 30 years of age, commiserations, but don't despair; we're going to have a wallow in kiddie nostalgia and fly back to the best night of the week for telly.

Now to get yourself in the mindset for this, hark back to your childhood. It’s anywhere between 1978 & 1981, and it’s November, December or even January, therefore it’s getting dark about 4pm. You’ve either been playing out all afternoon on your Grifter, or been dragged round the town shops with the family… and you’re back indoors. Grab a glass of Vimto and switch on the telly.

You’d only have the 3 channels back then. Four if you count a fuzzy HTV Wales signal. Saturday afternoon was dead if you didn’t like sport, as BBC 1 had a pre-perv Frank Bough on Grandstand all afternoon & ITV had Dickie Davies on the low rent “World Of Sport” at the same time. It seemed to me at that age that the only sport they ever seemed to show was the 3:15 from Haymarket. But round about half three most of the horse racing had finished so things got a little more watchable... maybe a bit of snooker or darts.

"Dickie Davies shortly after some ceiling painting"

You've switched on and the telly's warmed up. Now if you’re lucky, you’ve missed the never entertaining kids show “Play Away” with Brian Cant & Floella Benjamin on BBC2 – how this ever passed muster as suitable for public consumption I’ll never know - what should be on your screen are some overweight middle aged blokes pretending to have a fight urged on by old biddies in the audience. Yes I’m referring to “Wrestling” on “World Of Sport”, featuring the likes of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks (cos there’s nothing scarier than a giant haystack), Jim “Not the ears” Breaks and pretend Samurai Kendo Nagasaki… it was just panto with violence. Never before was such a pile of shite watched by so many people.

"A man called Shirley and a large pile of horsefood earlier today."

So why did so many people tune in? Well, there was sod all else to do until the football results came in at 4:45. Hard to think in these times of Jeff Stelling’s Soccer Staurday, but back then the only option would be to listen to the radio to get updates on the scores. Otherwise you have to endure the wrestling and wait for the moment at around twenty to five when commentator Kent Walton signed off with “Have a good week… till next week!”. At which point you’d switch over to BBC 1 to see the results coming in live on the Grandstand teleprinter (which was just a camera pointed at a printer reeling off the results as they came in) . Special attention was given to score draws as these of course were important for your parents if they did the Pools Coupon. Some lunatics may have stuck with Dickie Davies over on ITV for the results but they were always a bit slow – BBC was where it was at.

"It was fever pitch in the Grandstand studio."

And then the full classified results would be read out, from the Football League Division One to Scottish League Division Two, in that sedate hypnotic manner by the legendary i.e. old Len Martin. Dividend forecast – low, with 24 score draws and ten no score draws. God knows what it all meant, all I knew was my Grandad exclaiming that it'd be pointless checking the coupon that week (blimey, I remember the bloke coming round every Thursday to collect the pools coupons and money from my Nan).

"Stop making me wait. I don't care about Wigan vs Sale."

We’d then get the local sports news, being in the North West it would be read by the illustrious likes of John Mundy or David Davies (who went on to work for the FA in the 90s trivia fans), towards the end of which after the rugby results were being read out they’d put a caption up telling you which games were on “Match Of The Day” later that evening.. at which point I’d be getting a bit nervous in my tummy as my personal highlight of the week would be coming up next… the latest episode of “Doctor Who” with Tom Baker.

Sometimes they’d leave you dangling with a 10 minute filler of Tom & Jerry beforehand… the swines. But as soon as that BBC1 globe came up I’d be on tenterhooks… that would be me gone for 25 minutes (funny thing is that nothing’s changed 30 years on…)

"Now & then. Ooh, I need a wee..."

What followed Who was usually a blur for the next half an hour or so, whilst I processed the excitement I’d just witnessed. Fortunately you didn’t have to concentrate much on the likes of the Basil Brush show, Jim’ll Fix It or The Generation Game. Now some of you may be thinking here that it’s all a bit cosy BBC fodder, and you’d be right. Rarely did you turn over and watch something else on ITV. “Bruce’s Big Night”? 2 hours of shite.

"The Good, The Bad & The Ugly"

No, the BBC was where it was at on a Saturday. Looking back I couldn’t tell you anything about what I’d had for tea on any Saturday – not a thing. But ask me about the telly and I’m right on it.

After the general early evening fun you’d be subjected to the likes of an early evening drama – “Secret Army”, “Duchess Of Duke Street”, “All Creatures Great & Small” or “Juliet Bravo” – nothing too demanding, before the mid evening comedy would arrive in the form of “The Two Ronnies” or “Dick Emery”. Fifty or so mirthful minutes later, it’d be pyjama time. However if you were lucky like me you’d be still allowed to stay up after the news to watch Captain Dobie lambast “Starsky & Hutch” and give them 24 hours or they were off the case. Then “Match Of The Day”, and rounding the evening off, “Parkinson”, by which time I’d be in bed, missing the likes of Peter Ustinov & David Niven rambling on.

That was the formula:

Football results

Doctor Who

Light entertainment with a gonk or Larry Grayson

Early evening drama set in the past

Light entertainment smutty comedy show

American Import

News

Football

Parky

Late Night Horror film.

Simple. It worked, and people were happy. Nobody really bothered with ITV on a Autumn or Winter Saturday night for years. It was only round 1980-81 that they attempted to fight back, with a combination of low brow London Weekend Television fodder such as the crap comic escapades of Metal Mickey, sci-fi action with Buck Rogers, celebrity quiz shows like Punchlines or The Pyramid Game, Beadle-fest Game For A Laugh, Ted Rodgers’ inexplicable 3-2-1, Bodie & Doyle in The Professionals and the newly poached from the Beeb Football.

"You're watching ITV. Jesus."

Sounds pretty average now but in using the old formula, ITV ruled the roost for a couple of years, with the BBC making a slight return in the mid 80s with Doctor Who, Noel Edmonds’ Late Late Breakfast Show (before the murdering years), Allo Allo, Bob’s Full House & Russ Abbot. By which time the television landscape had changed anyway. The public could rent out decent movies on a Saturday on video, and a new fourth channel had established itself as an alternative (even though there was usually sod all on it). Viewing habits were changing.

Still, it wasn’t quite over for TV Saturdays though. During the nineties there was a minor renaissance when there was enough on the box if you weren’t going out for the night, and even if you were there were essential “getting ready” programmes to have on in the background. I remember sitting down for the footy results (as ever) followed by a bit of “TOTP2”, then maybe Lois & Clark (eye candy) or a perv over Baywatch if you were that way inclined followed by the trash that was Gladiators (switching over for Noel’s House Party afterwards) and of course, Blind Date – the ultimate “have on in the background whilst getting ready” show. The Lottery show would always ruin the mid evening – this was usually the point you’d go out. Otherwise that ever present staple of Casualty would follow, with a some one off drama nonsense or Parkinson (making a comeback) before Match Of The Day after ten, and then The Stand Up Show (usually on at the time at which you’d come in from the pub). After some bad film with Judd Nelson in it would be a repeat of TOTP from early in the week to round things off. All in all solid stuff.

These days we only get the mighty Jeff Stelling all afternoon, 13 weeks of Doctor Who a year to look forward to, and Harry Hill’s TV Burp. What a con. Don't get me started on Simon Cowell's shitefests. Is it too much to ask for one channel to put together a bunch of programmes that entertain me on a Saturday night without me having the need to keep flicking through the Sky channels like a masochistic epileptic with ADHD? Apparently.

"As good as it gets"