Tobacco brand names displayed on the shop fronts of newsagents and corner shops

[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.
...

[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...

[George 1978]

I briefly mentioned Bill Oddie's passing as a footnote in Ronnie le Drew's obituary thread, and as Heather mentioned in that thread, why don't I do one for Oddie? And so, here it is. Bill Oddie, comedian, actor, and birdwatcher has died at the age of 85.

I suppose growing up in the 1980s...

[George 1978]

I always think of her as a female version of Rod Stewart because of her slightly deep and gruff voice, and just like pop stars of her genre, one never thinks of them as growing old.

I know that Bobby Davro did a parody of her for one of his TVS specials in the late 1980s.

[George 1978]

That could easily be arranged, Heather... ...

[George 1978]

I feel sorry for puppeteers when the puppet that they happen to be working with often gets more prominence on TV shows rather than they do (David Claridge who graduated from Mooncat to Roland Rat is a fine example of this), not to mention having to crouch down behind a desk so that they cannot be seen;...