Photo clippage #53

Meet Pudsey Bear mark 1. Save for this photo, he seems to have been airbrushed out of history – perhaps wisely.

Presumably Michael Grade arrived at the Beeb, took one look at this scruffy unkempt ragamuffin and demanded a makeover. And then he ordered a new Pudsey as well.

Hello, we’re Mike Moran and Lynsey De Paul

…and we’ve just got one thing to say about the current health of the economy and the public’s opinion of elected politicians. Take it away Ronnie!

Photo clippage #52

Science!

Photo clippage #51

It’s 14th January 1976, and the country’s streets and fields are in a shocking state. The call goes out for a) a glamorous songstress who’s been around a bit and b) a pint-sized reassuring funnyman who can fit in a metal dustcart. Cilla and Arthur Askey are not available, so…

Photo clippage #50

To celebrate reaching a half-century of graphical archivery, here’s that official new Countryfile presenting line-up in full:

Photo clippage #49

Here are three folk clearly up to something agreeable…but what?

Yorkshire TV studios: photo clippage special

A chevron-sized salute to those in or around its soon-to-be-emptied environs…

1) It’s May 1978, and a waspishly-posed Ted unveils The Gentle Secs, ahead of the very first edition of 3-2-1. Six swivel chairs was clearly a talking point in those penny-pinching pay policy days, though it’s a shame they couldn’t find half a dozen of the same model. The Secs, that is.

2) Richard Whiteley demonstrates the art of a good local newsreader, but more importantly the art of a good local newsreaders’s desk; to wit: modest glass of water; carefully-folded glasses; trimphone; stick microphone on specially mounted chipboard; stapled running order; rollerball pen (possibly); and a mystery object discreetly tucked away under a folder A3 document for viewers to speculate about while doing the pots.

3) More 3-2-1 photo opportunage. This time Cap’n Ted’s gone on a day trip up the river (with comically over-sized cap, naturally), along with six barely-dressed ladies (Secs status unclear) and, apropos a spot of girth and merriment, Harry Secombe.

4) A visitor turns up outside the studio in 1986: it’s the People’s Princess! And Diana Spencer.

5) The dog days of John Major’s administration: canvassing for pretend votes in the living room of Betty Eggleton and Seth Armstrong.

6) Richard Whiteley’s warm-up essays a few gags about federalism. Not sure what’s on the YTV display stand behind him – Pete Postlethwaite in another heartwarming tale of a man overcoming the odds to become a shining example of human decency? Co-starring Su Pollard, by the looks of it.

Photo clippage #48

It’s the 1990s, which means Danny Baker is arriving at or is leaving or has just resigned from another radio station. But wait; who’s that bursting through the door in time for another “tsk, look at us?!” photo opportunity? It’s Chris Evans, on his way from, or to, a job at a different radio station, or possibly the same one, for his first or last programme until the next one. But wherever they are on your radio, you can be sure it ain’t no country show.

Photo clippage: Lime Grove special

Apropos nothing, a few snapshots of the erstwhile home of Nationwide, Tonight, 24 Hours, Breakfast Time and The Dimbleby Talk-In.

1) It’s 11th January 1954, and the Beeb’s new weatherman George Cowling makes his first appearance from Lime Grove. “He has been introduced in an effort to brighten presentation of the weather news.”

2) Forward 15 years or so. It’s the 1960s, which must mean a PR stunt involving a Magic Bus ride from outside Lime Grove with passengers The Who, a baby elephant called Eli, and two girls called Nicola Austine and Toni Lee:

3) April 1958: David is joined on the set of Zoo Quest by a youthful jumped-up self-preening squawker with a propensity for mouthing off. And Cocky the parrot. And Prince Charles.

4) Continuity announcer Sylvia Peters steps from a Heinkel bubble car on a chilly day in February 1957, to be greeted by Old Man Truscott, the Lime Grove commissionaire:

5) Richard Dimbleby, David Butler and co rehearse for their 1955 General Election results programme, replete with Puzzle Trail-style map of the realm:

The First Division of Television Furniture

One of the many many highlights of BBC4’s recent Nationwide documentary was the sight of Michael Barratt blithely doing a bit to camera while a pot plant grew out of his desk.

This instantly confirmed the admission of Mike’s office suite (telephone, ashtray and customised wall of monitors included) to that uber-exclusive inventory: the First Division of Television Furniture.

But does it command enough upholstered clout to outrank any of the Division’s current top five?

1) The BBC Weathermen Daytime Desktop Conversation Area

Perma-feature of the mid-to-late 1980s, never without an in-season bouquet, that tantalisingly-unexplained ‘box of tricks’ at the forecaster’s fingers, and a view across London allowing details of the climate to be followed niftily by an avuncular ‘…as you can see behind me’.

2) The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop Presentation Pod

Vaguely space age-esque circular plaything covered in crap but boasting space for Edmonds to rakishly put his feet up. “People are always asking me, how do you get inside it?” fibbed Noel every week. He revealed the answer on the last edition. A nation shrugged.

3) The Dave Allen Anecdote High Chair And Retractable Side Table

Uncomfortable-looking contraption from which its occupant dispensed pointed blarney and acidic blather, usually involving as many equally terse arm gestures as possible. Accompanying left-hand add-on accessory served as holding pen for important visual aids and safety blankets.

4) The Channel 4 Daily Newsreader Bureau

Thunderously po-faced look-how-serious-we-are arrangement of dull and joyless colours and items organised for maximum potency to remind the viewing several of how fucking ghastly the world is first thing in the morning. Available in London, Washington and Tokyo varieties.

5) The Turnabout Swimming Pool

Never knowingly used, referred to, advertised, entered, drained, chlorinated, defumigated, sifted, salinated, polluted or covered out-of-season to avoid falling leaves. But it was still genius.

Insert snow pun here

Getting to see snow when it’s not Christmas is one thing; getting to see snow on TV when it’s not a Christmas special is quite another emphatically more ace thing.

Here are three instances when a bit of the white stuff creeps into a series for no other reason except by virtue of being there, but somehow ends up managing to make everything feel a whole lot more magical. And if not magical, it just makes everything feel a whole lot more.

1) Revelation of the Daleks, 1985 (episode 1)

Dr Blue. "Come on Peri, button up!"

Dr Who steps out of the TARDIS to discover a landscape that throws his tasteless garb into even more sharp, painful relief than the combined efforts of half a dozen mid-80s BBC studio lighting rigs.

The snow is the only good thing about Revelation of the Daleks. It makes the planet look properly alien, creates a tangible atmosphere – a first for the Colin Baker era – and forces Peri to cover up. Because, not to be prudish or anything, there’s only so much John Nathan-Turner titillation you can stand, and having Nicola Bryant contrive to totter about in tiny contrived costumes had, by this point, long ceased to feel charmingly contrived.

What, though, is Colin Baker purporting to wear in these scenes? Apparently nobody on the production team knew it was going to snow on location, and they all woke up on the first day of filming to find the place blanketed in white stuff. Which means Colin’s turquoise smock was, presumably, the nearest thing to hand when the call went out for Giant Cape With Exotic Trimmings As Close As Possible To The Curtains That Used To Hang Behind Parky In The 1970s Except Blue To Make It Even More Tasteless When Combined With The Doctor’s Totally Tasteless Dressing Gown.

Nicola and Colin comfort a Dr Who fan found on set

Episode one also includes a memorable encounter with a mysterious bubble-faced freak who is discovered, along with – by this point in Dr Who’s history – the show’s remaining dwindling credibility, in a heap in the dirt on the ground.

However because this character has traces of substance and depth, rather than mere superficial shock value and the vague appearance of meaning, he is left to die and the storyline hurries on towards an ending which involves Colin Baker being symbolically and appropriately crushed by a titanic statue of his own face.

The snow is never seen again.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 1979 (episode 1)

Sir Alec and Michael stop for a spot of Witchcraft

Professor Marcus and the Valeyard are on their way to meet Shelley who is going to tell them “a story – and it’s all about spies”. They suspect they might be being followed, and so decide to pull over into a lay-by to check all is well.

For no reason at all – and hence all the better for it – it is snowing, and the pair of them fall to nattering about moles, lamplighters and “our American cousins” in an icy near-darkness.

It’s one of the rawest scenes in the entire serial. You rarely ever get a sense of total, bone-chilling, all-pervasive cold in a television programme. But you do here. It bleeds from the screen. Our heroes are bedecked in layer upon layer of clothing, and barely move for fear, presumably, of having to joust with the British weather.

"There are three of them - and Alleline". "Yes".

Sir Alec looks especially pinched. He is swaddled in what appears to be an early prototype of Colin Baker’s cape, albeit in a more subtle shade of black. The Smiley persona (smouldering immobility, twinkle-eyed curiosity, a profound sadness) is already fully formed.

At one point Michael Jayston has to get out of the car to pretend to check under the bonnet, just in case anybody is spying on the spies. The action moves outside, and you get to see a blizzard in progress.

The snow, like everything in Britain in the late-70s, looks dirty and unbecoming.

The Simpsons: Bart Gets An ‘F’ (1990)

You seem star-shaped

In this case the snow isn’t quite so peripheral to the plot as the previous two examples, but it’s not falling because it’s Christmas, or to prove any point.

It arrives out of nowhere in the third part of the episode, supposedly because Bart prayed for it, to test the tyke’s devotion to his schoolwork while allowing everyone else in Springfield to have the time of their lives.

This sequence is one of the best in the show’s history, thanks to the way it manages to capture that feeling of unconfined exhiliration that a spot of unexpected snowfall prompts in all of us. Everyone rushes out into the streets, old and young, and starts pissing about. Even Mr Burns.

"As God is my witness, I can pass the fourth grade!"

The fact it’s from the second series, when some of the animation was still a bit dodgy and the characters’ voices not spot on, makes it even more hat-doffingly superb.

You’d never get something as fantastic as this turning up in The Simpsons nowadays.

For one thing the computer graphics, as opposed to cell animation, would make it look flat and joyless. The writers and producers would dismiss it as too trivial (where are the jokes, or the bits where Homer gets repeatedly injured, or the ubiquitous guest stars?) or too boring (it’s just people doing things of no consequence). Above all, the snow would have to have a reason, probably to send the family abroad (“The Simpsons are going to the Low Countries!”), rather than just being simply, beautifully, snow.

“Can you imagine it? A channel that shows nothing but films!”

It being precisely 20 years since Sky Television arrived in the UK, here’s a special photo clippage collection hailing from the station’s early what-would-the-neighbours-think era.

1) Down at Waterloo station, Frank Bough is on hand to greet commuters with a video wall that tries to make five channels look like fifty-five.

2) Back at HQ, Rupert perches on a draped box to join Andrew Neil in pushing the ‘Push This Button To Make TV Channel Start’ Button:

3) Rupert and Alan sign a 10-year lease for the Astra satellite (real size pictured):

4) Meet the team! Andrew, Peter, Alistair, Derek, Penny, Tony, Kay and Bob:

5) Forward a few years, and Sky is ready to be floated on the stock exchange. Sam Chisholm and Anna Walker threaten to be upstaged by what everyone’s really interested in…that’s right – the news that shares will be between 233p and 268p!

6) Jeremy Guscott and Roger Black receive their application forms for shares in British Sky Broadcasting Group plc. Well, that’s what it says here.

7) The Premier League arrives, in the shape of BSkyB cheerleader Liniette Bertelsen, in the capable hands of Messrs Salako, Le Saux, Mabbutt, Cundy and Merson:

Photo clippage #47

It’s July 1966, and ATV decides to throw a lunch for the England football team at its Borehamwood studios.  Bill Ward is your master of ceremonies; seated around the giant trestle table are Bobby Charlton, Mrs Charlton, Bobby Moore, Mrs Moore, Miss Tonia Ramsey daughter of Sir Alf, Sir Alf Ramsey, Mrs Ramsey, Mrs Geoff Hurst and Geoff Hurst.

The seven ages of Frostie

1) SATIRICAL FROST (1962-3)
Rushton, Percival, Martin, Frost and Kernan bring down the establishment with a long-player and cardboard cut-out versions of their heads.

2) SCHMOOZER FROST (1964-7)
If it’s Tuesday it must be “open-mouth” practice and champagne breakfast with Macca.

 

3) SERIOUS FROST (1968-9)
A side-parting, a smile and a trimphone send Enoch Powell sprawling.

 

4) SEVENTIES FROST (1970-4)
Passing through Heathrow with fiancee Diahann Carroll and Duke Ellington; sideburn outlook: fair to changeable.

 

5) SEVENTIES FROST II (1975-9)
Just time for a snifter in the Playboy Club; sideburn outlook: severe.

 

6) SUNRISE FROST (1980-4)
Our hero suddenly ages 30 years. Note Parky and Kee struggling – and failing – to adopt “relaxed man of the people” pose; Frostie can’t be arsed.

 

7) SERVILE FROST (1985-DATE)
Sir David is no longer one of us.

Woolworths photo clippage special

It’s all over for the nation’s favourite bargain bin-cum-high street emporium. Well, unless the government decides to buy Woolworths on behalf of the nation. In the meantime…

1) 15th February 1971. Lord Fiske, chairman of the Decimal Board, drops into a branch in the Strand to check the price of soap and other what-nots:

2) May 1979: firemen clear out the debris from the “restaurant area” of a branch in Manchester:

3) Tessa Hewitt and Gillian Duxbury unveil the 1980 Woolworths Collection: a “Vino-one-Shoulder swimsuit in body hugging in shimmering nylon and lycra in vino, black or mid-blue” and “a black/strawberry halter-neck swimsuit in body hugging nylon and lycrs featuring two dainty heart pendants suspended from the halter neckline, also available in pink, brown, beige and rust.”

4) Hitler does his worst.  A German V2 rocket lands on a branch in New Cross in November 1944, killing 160.

5) Breaktime:

Photo clippage #46

A pre pre-Christmas message from Rolf:

Photo clippage #45

Sir Jim’ll points at the credit roller for an edition of Top Of The Pops which boasts, among others, The Shadows, Beatles Band (single and album tracks), Sonny and Cher, and Horst Jankowski. Plus, down there at the bottom of the roller, Cecil Korer.

Photo clippage #44

It’s that man again. But for what wheeze is he trying to comandeer the resources of the nation?

Photo clippage #43

What glittering occasion could possibly have brought these three stars together?

Photo clippage #42

“Have you *seen* the latest viewing figures?!”