Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Life on Mars

Ok, so Its really time to mention this amazing TV show, especially as the new series is about to start (as mentioned below)

Life On Mars

This is a great show, first class acting, excellent storylines, humour and genuine thriller story lines. It also has some killer lines, and it is so full of all those great 70's icons, fashions, scenery & cars, all those things that this blog has been about. Set in 1972 it tells the story of DI Sam Tyler, who after an accident ends up in a coma, that sends him back the the 1970's. In the past he teams up cops in his precinct but 30 years ago, and spends his time cracking cases and banging heads with Gene Hunt - a cop straight from The Sweeney book of crime stoppers. With a whole cast of characters and a backdrop of northern grit, the whole lot just stinks of classy research and writing. Don't miss it.

Here is a box....

Just seen the advert promo for the new series of that nostagia maniacs delight, the very wonderful "Life On Mars" and it features a cunning little play on the wonderful old show Camberwick Green "

Take a look at the trailer HERE

Here you go....click this and I dare you not to raise a smile:

Here is a box... (98k sound file)

"Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside. Can you guess what is in it today ?"

Click on the link above and delve into a box of delights, those old shows from when you were a kid, when kids Tv wasn't about fashion, lots of noise or trying to sell you something!...(God I am turning into an old man!)

see also Trumpton, and Chigley the stuff of legends

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Cadbury's Seville Orange

I know more fans are out there, so where do you get this stuff from now??? I've seen re-issues of "Old Jamaica", but this was the top treat chocolate for me. Lumps of candies orange peel in (I think) dark Cadburys chocolate. I e mailed Cadbury's once and they said they have no intention of bringing it back....what a bunch of bastards!!!

I can't even find a picture of the wrapper, and I'm starting to believe I dreamt it all. The closest I have come is some company in Seattle making it, and I know Thorntons do one too, but its not the same dammit!

If you know of any information about this, I'd appreciate some assistance.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Brut 33, Blue Stratos and Denim

The 3 staples of 70's schoolboy hygiene: Brut 33, Denim and Blue Stratos!!

Brut was your first inroads into fragrances for men, the one you first splashed all over...literally all over! Advertised by Henry Cooper at first then, my hero, Barry Sheen (a real ladies man he was too) it was the every day choice for teenage boys in the seventies. Morning regime...alarm goes off, out of bed, into bathroom, brush teeth, spray liberally with Brut, get dressed, breakfast then school.



Denim came along a little bit later in my memory, and became the middle of the road choice, the one for family 'get togethers' where you wanted to appear grown up, but had no one to really impress...also good for after games lessons and that 5 second run through shower. This became a staple gift from aunties across the country as of Christmas '79.






Then came Blue Stratos!.......Blue Stratos was the Daddy of them all:

"Blue Stratos is one of the famous masculine fragrances, a classic which features as a landmark FOUGERE fragrance in the industry 'bible' the H&R Genealogy of masculine fragrances. The Fougere fragrance concept is based upon the interplay between lavender and oak moss. Originally this perfume accord was intended to serve as a contribution to feminine fragrance creations. However, over time it came to be used more and more as an ingredient in masculine creations and is acknowledged to have underwritten many key developments within masculine fragrance, including the Blue Stratos fragrance in 1976"

This was the one you kept for the REALLY SPECIAL occasions..you saved it for the school Christmas disco, or for when you had double English sat next to that girl in 4R you fancied...or most of all for that crucial first date!

I bought all of these on line last year for a few fragrance nostalgia moments, and in fact I have requested some Brut for my up and coming birthday along with a couple of Bond (Connery) DVDs. They still smell good, and fragrances like no other part of our senses are finely tuned for nostalgia.

Other contenders we all remember are Burley, Old Spice, Hi Karate and even Mandate (hehehe what a hidden meaning that one has!) but none really broke the top three hold on our teenage years. It's time for a return to old values, and its a time for a return to old smells too!

Skateboards

I was a skateboarder...old school, the class of '77!

I have no idea how it all started, but I do remember that summer, and all of a sudden, where I lived, single roller skates were changing hands for astronomical prices and then being hurried off into a thousand garden sheds for the fabrication of a new fangled skateboard!! My first one was in about October of '77, I bought a skate from a double dealing bastard who showed me the goods, took my cash then fucked off to swap the wheels over before completing the deal...what a shit, I was 11 for gods sake!! Anyway, I cut (hacked) a deck from plywood in my dads shed, and hey presto I was doing wheelies and 360's til the sun set.

Come that Christmas and EVERYONE had a skateboard! They were selling them in all the shops, even in petrol stations, and they even opened a proper skateboard shop in Cardiff. I can remember queues around the corner, and it was where we could go and stare at all those bits and pieces we couldnt afford, Kryptonic wheels, Gull wing trucks...oh the bliss and the pain of it. Those wheels were £30 each and that was then!! My first "real" skateboard in total cost no more than about a tenner.

Then it was the helmet, the elbow pads, the knee pads...the gloves, and then it died! Too expensive I always reckoned, the kids were priced out of the market, I could only afford to buy grip tape with my pocket money! There was no way we could climb to the higher echelons of skateboard fashion, I never even met someone who had those fancy pieces on their board, we were street skaters, couldn't afford to be fashion victims in this scene.

I have searched in vain for a picture of the board I had then, white fibreglass with a red logo, clear piss coloured wheels which I loaded with grease to make them smoother, but I could never make it fast enough. Next thing I picked up a guitar and anything vaguely to do with the great outdoors, exercise and fashion disappeared from the horizon for the remainder of my childhood...and come to think of it...my life!

I think my dad might still have that old board stashed away in the garage, might just drag it out for one last "walk the dog" before I die???...then again maybe some things are best left to the past?

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Space 1999

Just been watching an episode of Space 1999 on ITV 4...hooray for digital freeview tv!

Think I have mentioned elsewhere in this humble blog about the Space 1999 issue and only getting to see it once in a blue moon here in Wales...or did I dream that? Anyway, it is still looking good, the sets are so very 1970's that you cannot help but feel a nostalgic twinge. It stands up well, the acting is pretty good, and the overall feel is excellent, not as corny or cheesy as the original Star Trek, and right up there with the later space shows like "Buck Rogers" and "Battlestar Galactica" (tho 1999 didn't have anything like Erin Gray - Col. Wilma Deering) A classic still!!!

Find out more here

Useless/useful trivia moment....Catherine Schell who played "beautiful Psychon alien Maya" was also Lady Litton in the brilliant "Return of The Pink Panther" and as Bond girl "Nancy" in the George Lazenby James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (just an excuse to put a pretty lady in my blog for a change)


Monday, January 22, 2007

Flashback

Sorry about the relatively unseasonal posting here, but I had to add this little gem to the christmas music list. A real slice of soul-lessness from one of my favourite all time bands The Eagles. This one came out just as they were falling apart from their coke fuelled late 70's success/excess. Even the cover says it all. Anyway, I liked the B-side.

Saturday, January 06, 2007