Series or films that we watched when we were younger always make us wonder where the actors are nowadays and what they look like, especially if they are no longer in the public eye. One of my favourite comedy series from the 70s is the BBC’s “Fawlty Towers”, based on a real hotel owner in Cornwall, UK. Here’s what the cast looked like in their prime and how they look today in a cast reunion.
Many people, especially newcomers to the BBC Doctor Who saga, just think that the series began in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston staring as The Doctor. However, Doctor Who goes way back to 1963 and is a sci-fi series about a Timelord who, instead of dying, regenerates a new body; cue new actor.
There is a 50th Anniversary Special planned for the end of the year but this evening it was officially revealed by the BBC that the twelfth Doctor will be portrayed by the actor Peter Capaldi. According to the official Website, and I quote, “Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer says : “It’s an incendiary combination: one of the most talented actors of his generation is about to play the best part on television. Peter Capaldi is in the TARDIS!””
Then look no further than the Official BBC Doctor Who Site to fill you in on the past 50 years and an eternity of cult history. Enjoy!
Actually the question should be what was home taping as I doubt that people use cassette tapes any more. Whilst the advantages of technology in the music field cannot be denied, for those of us who are 40 and above, the old formats of video tapes, cassette tapes and vinyl records still hold great appeal, perhaps due to the many fond memories that they produce. Home Taping just means the recording of an original music source onto (analogue magnetic) cassette tape, much like you convert a music CD to an MP3 digital file in this modern age.
The logo above will be quite familiar to the aforementioned age group, especially if you’re from the UK. It originally was a black & white image (I just changed it to green as that is one of my favourite colours!) and was part of a campaign by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) who were very concerned that with the increase in home music centres with recording abilities and easy access to cassette tapes, there would soon be no music industry left as nobody would buy the originals any more. Hmmm, that sounds familiar right? This campaign then led to many other parodies such as the one I drummed up last night whilst commenting with a friend about the great hairstyles in the Eighties, the best decade by far in my opinion. You can see the results below:
What will probably be most fondly remembered from the era of home taping are the famous “Mix Tapes“. Whereas with original tapes or records you just had to make do with the producer’s mix selection, with Mix Tapes you could create your own playlists. ‘Yes but that’s what I do with the songs now on my iPod’ you youths may be saying. However, back in the 80s we didn’t have that luxury so we would sit for hours by the radio waiting for our favourite songs to come on and frantically hit the record button. Some people would just leave it on pause but I was slave to the old wives tale that leaving it on record-pause for too long would strain the tape so I would have to start the record process from scratch which always took a little longer. There was a whole art form to it too; stopping the recording just before the DJ started talking again or before the advertising jingle.
We were fortunate to have a home music centre from when I was born and when I was about 9 or 10 my dad gave me a SANYO Home Entertainment System of my own. It belonged to what is now the Panasonic family so was very good quality. It consisted of a modern (back in the 80s at least) combined tape recording deck, radio and record player so I used to borrow as many records as I could to then tape them and listen to them on my ridiculously sized imitation Walkman (the iPod of its day). My system was something as is pictured here and is taken from Bill Wellham’s BLOG as is his spot on description of these amazing systems: “The music centre was a combination of all three points on the audio triangle; radio, vinyl records and cassette tape. It is difficult for young people today to imagine how great these machines were when they first appeared. The loud speakers were separated on long wires. The sound quality was great. There was even the ability to record directly from radio or vinyl records, which lead to the first great wave of music piracy, with everyone taping friends’ records.”
The great thing about them was that they made great gifts and had the personal touch. Nowadays you can give someone a digital music voucher but in my opinion it just doesn’t feel as heartfelt or personal as giving someone your own mix tape, especially prepared for them with hours of work gone into it (you had to listen through each song completely and each tape was at least 60 minutes long) and your own handwriting on the cassette label and cover. It was a good way to discover new music too when swapping them with mates at school. By the way Lloyd Belton, you still haven’t given me back my BASF C-90 Mix Tape back yet; it’s now 23 years overdue!
There I go again talking in the present as if people still used them! With LPs from the 70s and early 80s, you could get away with using a C-60 tape (30 minutes each side) but then from the middle 80s onwards, the LPs seemed to have a longer playing time so the C-90 tapes (45 minutes a side) had to be used. Actually both presented you with a problem if you have slight OCD as I just couldn’t stand to leave too much blank space on any side of the tape. More often than not, especially when recording from a whole album, I would end up missing out a song or two or changing the order of the tracks, requiring extra skills with the stylus and placing it in the space between the tracks on the LP. There was of course the incredibly 2 hour long C-120 tapes but these were usually notoriously bad quality (OK for taping speech) and tended to snap quickly with frequent use as the tape stretched due to its thinness (logical when you think about it as they had to cram all that tape into the same casing after all). The best quality tape I ever used? I swear by TDK SA range. I still have a few even now and they sound as good as when I first recorded on them.
Well that’s enough musings for today. Hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to share your memories by commenting below. Cheers!
Seeing a friend’s post on Facebook this morning reminded me of this wonderful character: Morph. One of Scotland’s famous exports to the States, Glenn Gibson, made his own model of Morph, which then suddenly brought back loads of childhood memories of watching BBC afternoon TV with my grand-parents.
If you’re asking then then you’re more than likely under 35. Morph was a character made out of reddish plasticine and then animated using stop-film animation by the production company Aardman Animation, later famous for their “Wallace & Gromit” series. He appeared on the BBC children’s show “Take Hart” with the artist Tony Hart. He lived in an artist’s brush box and appeared for brief moments throughout the show, often interacting with Tony himself. The show first started in 1977 and later on other characters appeared, most notably his mischievous friend Chas (pictured below). They often changed themselves into different shapes or imitated other objects, hence the name Morph.
So who sent their photo into the show hoping to get it featured on “The Gallery”? In case you’re wondering, I did. Oh and the music that was played during the Gallery section was “Cavatina” by Stanley Myers.
If you’ve not heard of Mike Dawes then you’re either not really into guitar music, you don’t browse the Internet much (so how come you’re reading this?) or…. well those two reasons are bad enough! Anyway, the aforementioned talented musician sent me a copy of his debut CD and it arrived this morning, signed as well. This is a photo of my contained reaction:
I’d heard most of his songs before via the Internet but I think it’s important to support emerging artists, especially when the price is reasonable and the artist has a good rapport with their fans (as in Mike’s case).
Mike is a fingerstyle guitarist from the UK and before you start wondering if it’s worth visiting his Website (lazy moos that you are) at MIKE DAWES OFFICIAL SITE, I have left you a video of him performing his own unique version of Gotye’s hit “Somebody That I Used To Know”, which is the one taht first captivated my attention. Enjoy!