The Birthday Thread

[George 1978]

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...

[George 1978]

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...

[George 1978]

I know that there has been controversy of sports shirts for kids having alcohol brands on them (as well as sponsoring them) but it does sound scanalous for tobacco brands to do the same thing....

[George 1978]

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...

[George 1978]

You should have visited Cardiff like I did the year before last. Not a single person over there spoke Welsh.

A giant chess set in the garden - wow! I can imagine doing a monochrome version of Twister or something on it, doing some sort of Yoga excercise while using the black squares....

[George 1978]

Fast forward 38 years to 2026 and one person has died and 207 people are ill from a salmonella outbreak in the UK. I refer to my "I'll never eat another boiled egg again" comment that I made above about the news after I had watched an ITN bulletin back in 1988. Did Edwina Currie have a valid...

[George 1978]

I didn't know that he was still on TV in the 2000s - I assume that he looked rather older by then and not much like how he looked 20 years earlier. He doesn't look like a Nigel (but then again the newly-returned Reform MP in Clacton doesn't look like one either...) Lambert also appeared in an Acykbourn-themed...

[George 1978]

Quoting myself yet again, I have just found that the actor's name was Nigel Lambert. Ironically, he was still alive when I originally quoted that, but he had passed away around a month later in September 2024. I believe that he was also in that mid 1980s Country Manor advert where, in a sub-Ayckbourn...

[George 1978]

I was a bit concerned that it might have had Jimmy Savile in it, considering that "As It Happens" was one of his catchphrases. I don't remember it, but then again we didn't have Channel 4 on in the house in those days apart for series on Sunday lunchtimes for shows such as The Waltons; Little...

[George 1978]

I always refer to user names with a capital letter, even if the name is seen on screen starting with a small letter, Batman. It used to drive me mad when kids at school used to write "george" or even "gorge" with a small g rather than "George" in Christmas cards at the...

[George 1978]

And there's more... (sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Jimmy Cricket also did one series of Border TV's Joke Machine (Stu Francis, The Krankies and Basil Brush did the other three). He also did a series for BBC Radio 2 called Jimmy's Cricket Team which was heard on Saturday afternoons.
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[George 1978]

Ladies and gentlemen, c'mere... (That just happens to be "Northern Irish" for Come Here, by the way)...

As I try to put a (Northern) Ireland accent on while I am writing this, I am very sorry to say that one of Northern Ireland's finest comedians and entertainers after Dennis...