Get Up and Go! / Mooncat & Co

Even the most experienced of us find the simplest aspects of life a strange affair, so, combined with the number of us humans rushing around from place to place, navigating our way through this tumultuous landscape could easily appear impossible to someone looking in from the outside.

Just take the number of shops down your local high street, every single one of them has a purpose and it’s a function we’ve learned over time e.g. you know to buy your eggs from one shop and your electric drill from another shop. However, we’re certainly not born with this knowledge and, with our minds as blank canvasses, we have to gradually piece together how the fabric of the world is woven together, otherwise we’ll try and drill holes with eggs.

For an alien visitor, matters are more complex. There’s no prior experience to draw upon, so the habits, cultures and emotions of Earth’s inhabitants must result in an exponential sense of bewilderment – just imagine trying to explain the phenomena whereby a sock always goes missing in the wash.

In fact, a popular exercise set by school teachers is for their pupils to describe an activity in extreme detail for an alien who has descended from the skies. Whilst this is restricted purely to the imagination, occasionally an alien does come down to Earth and their curiosity is more than eager to Get Up and Go!

I Brightened Up the Modern World with Retro TV Presenters

Political uncertainty, the threat of terrorism and gloomy economic prospects aren't exactly making Britain a very fun place to live in 2017; it's at times like this that I find myself getting all nostalgic for simpler times when it seemed like all I had to worry about was what was going to be on TV that week.

And, in particular, I really miss the TV presenters from way back in the day. With their cheery smiles, regional accents and retrospectively hideous suits/blouses, you were guaranteed a regular dose of security and comfort every time you turned the TV on.

Whilst reminiscing about this bygone era, I suddenly had a brainwave. Why not use these delightful TV presenters of yesteryear to bring a bit more charm and security to these trepidatious times we live in. And that's why I brightened up the modern world with retro TV presenters.

Zokko!

Back in the late 1960s, the mere concept of an electronic comic was laughable. In the 21st century, of course, we’re blessed with tablets which can quite easily hold an e-comic. In those swinging sixties, however, I guess the best you could hope for would be a piece of thick plastic with line drawings on and illuminated by a smattering of red LEDs.

Actually, that sounds like a magnificently retro helping of comicabilia and something that I would snap up at auction in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, with just one page, it’s not a comic. And it never existed…

That there television, though, it’s electronic, right? In amongst all the telly waves and cathode rays there’s definitely an electrical source as I’ve seen the plug. This certainly opens up the possibility of somehow getting a comic on TV and satisfying not only the criteria of being a comic, but also shifting from one section to another without endless stacks of unwieldy plastic and the emotionless red glow of an LED. And a TV version is exactly what you’ll find in Zokko!

Third Time Lucky

It's always tempting to revisit past romantic relationships as the potential thrills are already established in our minds. We know exactly what we're going to get, what's going to get nibbled and the best excuse for getting the hell out of there at 3am in the morning. However, our fiery lust is usually extinguished long before we reach the, as I like to call it, trouser slipping off stage.

And the reason for this is that we know EXACTLY what we're going to get: all the arguments, all the emotional heartbreak and all the threats of legal action over who gets to keep the Annie Hall DVD.

That's why, when you bump into an old flame, there's that little voice at the back of your brain which keeps repeating "Never go back! Never go back!" and, as it echoes around your skull, you decide that, yeah, probably best to invest your romantic riches in a commodity which isn't going to crash and burn yet again.

Not everyone adheres to this sound logic, though, as humans are a foolhardy bunch - just look at the continued existence of Ant and Dec on our screens - and this why we're occasionally prone to throwing caution to the wind. It's these flaws, coupled with the potential for conflict as two lovers reconvene, that sounds like the perfect scenario for a good old situation comedy.

And, as luck would have it, there's one in the form of Third Time Lucky.

David Claridge: Who Is the Man Behind Roland Rat?

A defining figure of British TV in the 1980s, Roland Rat first appeared on TV-am in April 1983 and soon become a phenomenal success taking in several TV series, records and more merchandise than Errol the Hamster could shake a leek at. Naturally, being a puppet, Roland was an inanimate object brought to life by a human and, in this instance, it was David Claridge.

But who is David Claridge? Well, uh, it's a difficult to say, but he's certainly enigmatic...

You see, despite being behind such a massive cultural event, Claridge managed to keep well and truly beneath the radar. Claridge, of course, isn't completely immune from Google and there are certainly a few whispers and titbits about him floating around online. Sure, there's a brief CV of his achievements to be found over here, but it misses many interesting facts and trivia about this intriguing man and his achievements.

Therefore, I decided it was time that I collated together everything I could find in order to give the world a better understanding of the life and times of such an intriguing individual.

Bringing Teletext Back to Life - Vol. 1

Back in March, I picked up a load of old VHS tapes which managed to yield a whole host of archive gems. However, in amongst the curios there was a lot of less interesting material - namely films. Whilst, yes, there were some fine films in there (a lot of Bond), they're all readily available in the modern age, so don't really fall under my remit of forgotten or rarely seen TV.

However, the thought of simply skipping tapes which went way back to 1983 seemed a bit of a shame. Whilst I had no use for them, surely someone else would, right? And, thankfully, yes, there's a wonderful man known only by his full name of Jason Robertson who is one of the authorities on retrieving teletext from old VHS and Betamax tapes.

New Book Is Now Out!

Yes, at long last, my first print book 'The Curiosities of British Children's TV' is now available to buy over at Amazon! Essentially, it's a compilation of the first two e-books I wrote on the hidden gems and oddities of British children's TV, but with more insights and interviews. Oh, and just to add that extra bonus, there's five new articles on some shows which I think you're going to really love!

The full list of shows covered are:

Archive Tape Digging: May 2017

This month proved to be a fantastic month for the archive tape digging activities of Curious British Telly. At the start of the month, I received an email from someone who had been enjoying the various features of the blog and just happened to have a collection of VHS tapes going back to the early 1980s. And would I be interested in them?

Suffice to say, I was soon on my way to Manchester to delve through this exceptionally kind donation of around two to three hundred tapes. Thankfully, I'm not starting to associate certain case designs with their year of manufacture (cool, I know) and this helped me speed through them fairly quickly and pick up some remarkably old tapes.

Archive Tape Digging: April 2017

Another month, another mountain of tapes for me to sift through with all the fervour of a gold prospector in the Old West. I'm never going to make my fortune with old cases full of magnetic tape, but there's always the chance I'll uncover an episode of Conjugal Rites or maybe even Standing Room Only if I'm really lucky. One thing that I can almost guarantee to uncover is turn of the century WWF, but this falls far, far outside of this blog's remit. Anyway, I received three loads of VHS tapes in April, totalling around 200 tapes.