Too much telly, but it's OK, it's box sets of things I liked!

This year I've watched more TV than I have in years due to the lockdowns.

And I've bought more DVD box sets of the shows I loved to watch in times gone by, Why?

Well, it's probably because I don't enjoy a lot of today's telly. It's either too dark (in mood), unfunny (I don't like political humour and there's too much of it these days for my liking), and there are too many game shows and reality shows for my liking.

Which leaves me watching a lot of documentaries or re-runs.

I was thinking about the box sets I've bought over the years and find myself re-watching. Shows like 'The West Wing,' Michael Palin's 'Around The World In Eighty Days,' and shows like, 'Ballykisangel.'

I have to say I like to buy DVD box sets, as most programmes I used to watch, I never saw all of them. I've not been good at being in front of the telly at the same time every week, so I like being able to watch when I like.

I suppose that's why Netflix and Prime are so popular - TV on demand.

But getting back to my DVD Boxsets, over this last year I've bought loads of them. shows that I loved over the years. Some have been as good to watch again now as they were the first time around, some not so.

Remember 'Howard's Way' from the 1980s? I only ever saw the first series, but for some reason, I loved it, even though it was a bit corny. So I bought the complete box set - £30. 13 episodes in each series and there were 6 series - hours of entertainment for the price of going out for something to eat!

Debz bought some box sets from work - shows like '24' and 'ER', as well as a few films.

I bought 'Lovejoy,' 'Sharpe,' 'Miami Vice,' 'Magnum PI,' 'Quantum Leap,' 'Born & Bred,' 'Monarch Of The Glen,' 'Land Of The Giants,' 'Sunday Night At The London Palladium,' 'Some Mothers Do Have 'em,' 'Frasier,' 'The Avengers (John Steed and Emma Peel years),' 'McCloud' and more.

We've topped them up by rewatching boxsets of shows like, 'Minder,' 'The Darling Buds of May,' 'Friday Night Lights,' 'Man In A Suitcase,' 'Inspector Morse,' 'Lewis,' 'Jeeves & Wooster' and more.

You may notice there's a lot of what I call 'Sunday Night Telly,' easy-going stuff that doesn't tax you too much. I think I inherited my likes from sitting in front of the telly with my Mum and Dad when I was at home.

Yes, I may have spent a few quid on box sets - most were second hand from Ebay or Facebook Marketplace which meant they weren't too expensive. I'll tell you this though, for us it's been really enjoyable watching programmes we knew we were going to like.

It means that although we've watched a lot of telly, we've sidestepped the soaps, not got involved in the talent shows and managed to avoid 'Naked Ambition,' Dinner Date,' 'Pointless' and programmes of that ilk - and we've avoided the news at all costs as well.

For the most part, it's kept us sane, and calmer than we otherwise might have been!

I'm not saying that the stuff we've avoided isn't worth watching - it's just not our taste. We'd rather watch the shows above and a few documentaries. What we've watched may have bored you to tears, but as I said we've enjoyed it.

That's what we've been watching - what's graced your screens? 

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The Music Of My Life #6

I was staying with my sister on a fairground at Crowthorne and on the Saturday afternoon, I was walking across the ground and from David Traylen's Octopus I heard a song that was stunning. It turned out to be T. Rex's 'Jeepster.'

I went over to David and he had the album Electric Warrior (Can't remember whether it was a cassette or LP). He played it all and I knew that when I got home that was going to be one for the collection,

It's an album I've loved ever since. But the song started it all off for me.

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James' Top 10s and where the idea came from...

 A while back, I read both of DJ, Chris Evans’ books. I have to say they were both really good reads.

And to start each chapter, he did a list - 10 things - Basic things about him – 10 things about his Dad – Resounding things he remembered from school – that kind of thing.

I really enjoyed reading them, so I think I’m going to nick his idea and also some of his subjects and try to come up with a Top 10 list each week.

And I’m going to start it off as he did with 10 basic things about me.

10. Born 29^th July 19609. In Leigh-on-Sea, near Southend, in the county of Essex

8. Mum Pearl was born in a Travelling Showman's family in 1925

7. Dad Bill was born in a Travelling Showman's family in 1923

6. I have a brother, Bill (b 08-11-1950) and two sisters, Pearl (b 25-09-1948) and Anita (although we’ve always called her by her second name, Debra, (b 07-03-1962)

5. My schools were all in Somerset, (3 in Burnham on Sea, 1 in Bath (although at the time it was in Avon, and 1 in Taunton)

4. At the age of 10, I needed glasses and much to my mum’s horror wanted the cheapest national health round specs because John Lennon wore them at the time. The frame though was metallic light blue. I was really disappointed when everyone, when they saw me used to say, “The Milky Bars are on me!”

3. On a school trip at the end of Summer Term in 1974, I had a bad fall on Brean Down which resulted in me Fracturing my collarbone, dislocating my elbow, breaking my wrist and two fingers. It hurt like buggery and resulted in me not being allowed to play sport for a year!

2. Although I went to two public schools, I left without any qualifications as I didn’t take any ‘O’ Levels because my Dad was taken seriously ill just before the exams and I stayed at home to run the family business instead.

1.You may not know this, but I’ve always loved music!

 

More next time...

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How many ad jingles can you remember?

 

I’m a member of a lot of retro and nostalgia groups online. And the other day, someone started a thread about the advertising jingles that were on the television when we were kids.

You know, those little songs that even 30 or 40 years later you still remember.

Try these out for size:

“Only the crumbliest flake is chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before”

“She flies like a bird in the sky ....”

“For mash get Smash...”

“A finger of fudge is just enough...”

“Do the shake and Vac and put the freshness back”

Just hearing those words brings the pictures from the adverts back into mind. Each advert was like a little story. In fact, I’d as far as to say, they were as good as watching the programmes at the time.

How many of these adverts from the 80s do you remember?

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Feel free to leave a link in the replies for your favourite add - there are 1000s on YOUTUBE!

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Why can't people be more caring?

It was in the July of 1984, when I was walking back onto the fairground at Caversham with a pile of records I'd just bought from 'Pop Records' in Reading, that, after taking a look at what I'd bought, Georgie Traylen said that I was born too late. He felt that I should have been born 20 years earlier. The records I'd bought had all been made in the late 50s and 60s. He reckoned that I was an old man in a young man's body. And I think he may have been right.

A couple of nights ago I was watching something on the television and someone said that if you have a yearning for nostalgia, you are inherently sad. Again, I think the speaker may have been right.

I make no bones about the fact that I'm a nostalgic man. I'm also one that feels at odds with the world I'm surrounded by.

A world in which people won’t stay at home in a lockdown because they don’t want to. Where people don’t care about the greater good. Where they’re so selfish they only care about themselves.

And where, whilst the first lockdown was on, were rioting on the streets, taking their kids to the beach and then moaning when it was time to take them back to school. Were going to parties and meeting up with friends.

And not only that, even before the nastiness was coming to the fore. Our world becoming more spiteful.

We have a world in which politicians are wished dead. Where Vegan extremists (for crying out loud, even the name make me grimace) target meat-eaters. Where people stabbing each other on the streets is deemed as part of life living in a major city.

Where liberal parents no longer keep their children in check and don't expect them to behave with respect for others. Where even worse, they have children and decide that they aren't a boy or a girl, they're gender-neutral.

Seriously, what kind of world are we leaving to children of the future?

I could cite many more examples of things that are happening today that make me yearn for a time when things such as respect, discipline, caring and so on were more to the forefront.

Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps the world in which I grew up listening to the songs of innocent love, has coloured my vision along the way.

Perhaps I'm just sick of the nastiness and hatred that spreads across the planet.

My mum and dad always taught me to be nice to people, to always treat people as I'd like to be treated. To see the best in people.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a mouth on me and can be scathing at times. If I'm asked a question, I've been known to say exactly what I think and it's not always complimentary. But at the same time, I'm not malicious, but I won't lie and blow smoke up your backside either.

I'll rant and I'll moan about things. That's me.

But I honestly can't think of a time when I've been downright nasty to someone.

So yes, I'm probably sad at the way the world is going. Perhaps that's why I look back at times gone by with rose-tinted glasses. Because it seemed a much simpler time for me. It may not have been, but that's how it seemed.

However, don't think that because I'm sad at how things are going in the world, or that I'm unhappy because I'm not. Of course, things could be better as they could be for anyone.

But I've had a wake-up call in my health and am happy to be here with a future still to look forward to.

 I just wish that people could be nicer to each other though.

 Have a great day!

 

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The Music of My Life #5

I was about 11 years old and I had some money for Christmas, so I went down Jotchams record shop in Burnham and had a look around, not knowing what to get and I came across this.

My brother had the single 'Ask The Lonely' and the 'B' side was a song called 'Where Did You Go' which I loved.

As soon as I saw it was on the tracklisting, I didn't hesitate and scampered off home with the newest acquisition in my hands.

Even today, that song is still my favourite Four Tops song.

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Freeview Play and a whole new world of rather sedenatary lockdown TV...

 

We have been devotees of Netflix and Amazon Prime for a few years now but have always been a bit blase about Freeview.

That's probably because we've gotten so used to watching 'on-demand' that we can't be doing with watching programmes when they're 'on'.

However, there are a lot of programmes that are on the Freeview channels that we want to watch but are on at inconvenient times for us.

We were talking about it the other day and thought about buying a new TV that had Freeview Play so that we could record the programmes we'd like to see but I didn't want to spend £300+ on a new TV when ours is perfectly fine.

We were in our local supermarket the other day and I needed to buy some contact glue, however, they've changed everything around in the store and so I couldn't find any.

What I did find, however, was a set-top hard disc recorder for well over a third of the price of a new TV,  And with a second lockdown starting this week, I decided to splash out and buy one.

And it's like a whole new world of programmes I like, have now become available. As you can see from the photo, my interests include re-runs of old telly series and food programmes! I've already got 36 different shows recorded and none of them are the big hitter shows - you won't find Coronation Street or Eastenders on it. You won't find Pointless and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and most definitely won't see X factor and I'm a Celebrity type show there either.

What you will find is plenty of documentaries like The South Bank Show or Daytime telly such as Antiques Road Trip and American Pickers.

There will be plenty of music-based shows - already recorded are Frank Sinatra's Main Event, The Sammy Davis Jr Story and Long Hot Summers ( The style Council story).

Add a healthy dose of shows like Who Do You Think You Are, How Do They Do That?  Heir Hunters and a few Murder and Crime documentaries and it's the perfect mix of shows for us.

I think that just about proves how boring we are!

And whilst we're on this next lockdown, I think I'll be spending more time in front of that box in the corner than I normally would.

What are your lockdown plans?

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