https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ vBulletin Forums en Fri, 18 Sep 2026 06:12:07 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/everything-else/member-s-lounge/310803-the-birthday-thread Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:46:11 GMT It will be my birthday on Sunday 30th August - I have been a bit anxious due to recent things in my life, but I am going away for a few days and making the most of the August Bank Holiday weekend. If anyone would like to wish me a Happy Birthday, then this is the thread to do just that!
If anyone would like to wish me a Happy Birthday, then this is the thread to do just that!]]> George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/everything-else/member-s-lounge/310803-the-birthday-thread https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310762-rip-dolly-parton Tue, 25 Aug 2026 21:18:21 GMT Two years ago this week (which makes this even more apt), I actually went to see the musical Here You Come Again, not in my own neck-of-the-woods where they were there in June, but as it was my birthday, I saw it on holiday at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff (aka the Donald Gordon Theatre,... Two years ago this week (which makes this even more apt), I actually went to see the musical Here You Come Again, not in my own neck-of-the-woods where they were there in June, but as it was my birthday, I saw it on holiday at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff (aka the Donald Gordon Theatre, of course). With a copy of a programme both written in English and Welsh, a pink mug and burgundy fridge magnet, I enjoyed a couple of hours of great entertainment as I have previously mentioned in the Watching Musicals at the Theatre thread, and it was influenced by a certain A-list star. Sadly, it had some controversy when co-star Stevie Webb was on the receiving end of homophobic abuse when the show toured in Manchester and London. However, the brilliant Tricia Paoluccio appeared as our featured person that I am paying tribute to here. It didn't feel anything like Stars in their Eyes but an almost accurate portrayal of the American singer and actress, Dolly Parton, who has died at the age of 80.

I first heard of our hero's passing tonight when I was listening to the radio station Gold UK on the DAB radio while in the bath, and as the station referred to her as "remembering the life of... Dolly Parton". Nine-to-Five was played on the radio as a tribute, and the station just after 9.00 pm, I knew that she had left us. Appropriately enough, and ironically, when the curtain went up for Act Two in Here You Come Again in Cardiff which was just after 9.00 pm (yes, please note the time), the same song Nine-to-Five was played. Parton was such an icon, a very positive icon; not just a stereotypical gay icon as lots of people assume, but a general icon in American and world entertainment; she had a positive attitude towards gay and lesbian organisations and did not have a homophobic bone in her body which makes what had recently happened last year to Stevie Webb so ironic. I believe that she was a huge fan of the Pride events just like I am. I think of her as someone who was certainly in our hearts and minds back, and I remember her prominence as I grew up during the 1980s; the American comedy programme Nine-to-Five, (or even 9-to-5) was seen in post-News at Ten slots in various ITV regions in around 1982-1983 and was a sideline to her music career. (No doubt that I won't be working "nine-to-five" writing this obituary!)

The song Nine-to-Five had all the charm of Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter, with keys being pressed to the music, and a vision of busy secretaries doing the job, working for their boss and getting the post (or mail) out on time. Meanwhile, back at the old place where I used to live growing up in 1988 when we were having the painter and decorator in, we had the "wireless" (radio, to you) on. When Parton's Jolene was playing on a local radio station, the decorator had admitted that it was his wife's name! According to the Everyhit website, it seemed that it was the only hit of Parton's that made it into the Top 40. Nine-to-Five did make it but towards the lower part of the Top 75 in around 1982 which I am surprised myself as to how familiar it was as a tune around the world. A year later, Islands in the Stream was another Parton song, duetted with the late Kenny Rogers, written by the Bee Gees (Barry, Maurice and Robin), and named after Ernest Hemingway's 1970 novel, which was published nine years after his death. One can hear the Bee Gees' familiar trademarked harmony in that song if one listens very carefully.

Sadly, it's a case of Goodbye Dolly rather than Hello Dolly, as well as a case of Here She Can't Come Again, any more... Rest in peace - she was a lovely lady.

]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310762-rip-dolly-parton https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/toys-games/other-nostalgic-stuff/310713-tobacco-brand-names-displayed-on-the-shop-fronts-of-newsagents-and-corner-shops Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:55:46 GMT I was watching the August 1985 edition of Crimewatch UK on YouTube and I was reminded about the murder reconstruction of Roy Page in Bristol and the fact that he owned a newsagent; his shop was more like a corner shop rather than just a newsagent, and his shop had a golden Benson and Hedges logo on... I was watching the August 1985 edition of Crimewatch UK on YouTube and I was reminded about the murder reconstruction of Roy Page in Bristol and the fact that he owned a newsagent; his shop was more like a corner shop rather than just a newsagent, and his shop had a golden Benson and Hedges logo on the front of it where one would see a shop logo and the letters "R AND G (or whatever the other initials were) PAGE" in white letters on a black background next to it. Another shop had a John Player Special logo on it with identification next to it. The prominence of tobacco advertising as late as the 1980s being so much that brand names were listed in lieu of actual shop names and logos seem fascinating back then; they almost gave an illusion that they just sold those brands of cigarettes, or indeed, it gave an illusion that the shop owner was some insider working for a tobacco company and having the name of JPS is some sort of sponsorship or something.

It's also amazing that the shops in question would sell items for all the family and even children went in to order sweets and soft drinks (not quite tobacco or alcohol even if they are bad for them) but the shop front gives an adult-only illusion and a smokers-only biased illusion, giving tobacco brands more prominence outside an owner's shop, and I assume that the shopkeepers smoke and didn't pay too much attention to the health risks and lung cancer dangers either. Obviously, they sold tobacco otherwise they wouldn't have it displayed on the front. It made me assume that shopkeepers used to get commission for promoting these brands on the front of their shops as a way of earning extra money, even though the product was obviously unhealthy to even over 18s. It seemed the norm back then, just like the associations with pubs and drinking alcohol.

When did newsagents and corner shops had to stop displaying tobacco logos on the front? The 1990s or 2000s perhaps when tobacco advertising completely outlawed in the UK? I know that I haven't seen this on the front of shops for a couple of decades, and these days, Premier seems to be the name on almost half of corner shops and general stores which seemed to succeed Happy Shopper and before that Peacock. I know that billboard (you know, Clear Channel, JCDecaux, More O'Ferrall and those companies) had ceased to accept tobacco advertising in early 2005, around the same time that the now King Charles III had married Camilla. Lambert and Butler did a celebratory farewell advert around that time, and it was the very last one for tobacco which I can remember on a billboard in public. I believe that shopkeepers had to change their signs around the turn of the millennium, almost certainly around the time when magazines (and sometimes tabloid newspapers) had to stop publishing the ones for cigarettes, and the ones which had the white band at the bottom which usually said: "Low To Middle Tar; SMOKING KILLS; Government Health Officers", or similar words to that effect which seems to have first appeared from around 1971 onwards.

I wonder whether as youngsters, entering a newsagent with a huge Silk Cut logo on the front sign next to the owners' name which was tiny in comparison, and asking for a bottle of pop (with the deposit on the bottle, no doubt if returned), or a Mars Bar, when the entrance to the shop in question feels so adult-only on the front? All I can say that I am not sure when the tobacco names disappeared on the front of shops, but whenever it did, it was a day of common sense.
]]> Other nostalgic stuff George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/toys-games/other-nostalgic-stuff/310713-tobacco-brand-names-displayed-on-the-shop-fronts-of-newsagents-and-corner-shops https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/tv-movies/movies/310712-possibly-terrible-usa-80s-romcom Sat, 22 Aug 2026 20:31:48 GMT
Man: loser. Woman: less of a loser. Builds the confidence of loser. They get together...possibly.

Neither played by stars you can name. Never in anything big again or before. But the lady, blonde and thin and quirky, may have been. She looks like Rosanna Arquette and Phoebe from FRIENDS merged. THERE MAY HAVE BEEN SOMETHING MAGICAL ABOUT HER. Maybe an angel? No. It's not SPLASH. if you are thinking in that level of success you've missed the plot. This film was famous for five seconds.


The guy looks like a chunkier version of the straight act in the tv show PERFECT STRANGERS. Mark Linn-Baker. But uglier. Also like Robert Wuhl. He has horrible long curling hair, light brown and a constant sad, resigned face on him. That smile that is really a frown.

It's an odd coupling because the woman is a bit more good looking. It probably all takes place in New York. I cannot recall a single scene from the film. I may have not even seen the film!

But the idea that this average looking, chunky guy could get an ounce of love in his awful life, obsesses me.

I must exorcise this engram. My own personal view of the spacetime continuum depends on it.]]> Movies albie https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/tv-movies/movies/310712-possibly-terrible-usa-80s-romcom