Anne Robinson and Essex Girls
By accident yesterday, I watched a few seconds of the Weakest Link. Anne Robinson was introducing one of the contestants, who was a vicar from Billericay. So was he a Billericay Vickie? She asked him, if Essex Girls prayed round their handbags.
There is a very inappropriate joke linking Robert Maxwell and Essex Girls. As Anne has sometimes been known to defend the odious Bouncing Czech, she ought to mind what she says about females from Essex.
Tony Hancock and Guy the Gorilla
I’ve just watched a documentary on BBC2 called The Unknown Hancock. Note that they used just Hancock, as he is one of the few people known by just his surname to most people.
One thing that he used to do was visit Guy the Gorilla in his cage in the London Zoo. At the time Guy was kept by himself in an iron cage, which today would be considered unsuitable for great apes. Despite this he was considered to be a gentle soul and not in the least bit dangerous.
I mention this because the documentary would have been watched intently by C, who was one of Tony Hancock‘s biggest fans.
By now she would be telling me this tale of one of her clients.
He was obviously not a nice man, as regularly he was sent to jail for a couple of years. On release, he would go straight round to the London Zoo and visit Guy in his cage and say something like.
Hello Guy! I’m back out now. But you’re still inside!
There probably has never been such an iconic animal in the London Zoo as Guy.
QVC
Is there anything more banal than this?
I’ve never actually watched it in seriously, but it was on in a pub I had a drink in one afternoon and the punters were just making fun of the channel, the presenters and the expensive tat they were selling. I should return to that pub.
But according to an article in The Times today, one in four homes have ordered something from the channel. All it proves it that there are one or probably a lot more born every minute.
But then I’m a man and I don’t understand shopping. And especially junk American television programmes and channels!
Islington to the M25 By Public Transport
I had to go back to Suffolk to pick some bits and pieces up and thought that the easiest way to do this was to get to Cockfosters Station, which is just a few minutes from Junction 24 on the M25.
So I took the 141 bus to Manor House taking a few pictures and a video on the way, where I got the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters.
The journey from the Balls Pond Road took just 35 minutes and that included a delay of two minutes at Arnos Grove station, where they changed drivers. I could even have got a bus to the M25 from Cockfosters.
As I was running early, I did make a detour at Southgate Station to take a few pictures.
The station has been sympathetically restored and still contains many of the Art Deco features. It is still very much as it was, when I used to use it to go to Minchenden Grammar School in the early 1950s and late 1960s.
I also seem to remember reading somewhere, that the ticket barriers can be removed, so that the station can be used for period film and TV productions. Parts of the film, The End of the Affair were shot in the station.
I just think that Southgate Station sums up everything that was so good about the designs of London Transport before the Second World War. It was designed as a bus/tube interchange and still fulfils that function, with style and panache.
Southgate Station was one of the buildings created by the archtect, Charles Holden. If he had been of any other nationality, than British, he would be one of the most famous architects in the world. But he was a modest man, who twice declined a knighthood. On the other hand, his buildings speak eloquently of the quality and beauty of his work.
Jazz At the New Merlin’s Cave
I took a 38 bus this lunchtime to go and have lunch with a friend and passed along Rosebery Avenue from Saddlers Wells Theatre to the main sorting Office at Mount Pleasant.
When we lived in the Barbican in the 1970s, sometimes C and I would go for a drink with the children at a jazz pub called New Merlin’s Cave to see John Chilton’s Feetwarmers and sometimes George Melly at Sunday lunchtimes. The pub was to the north side of the bus route.
I looked up the pub on the Internet and found this history.
Did those who were children in the 1970s suffer from being in a jazz club with all that booze and cigarette smoke?
Sadly the New Merlin’s Cave is no more!
Ingrid Pitt
Ingrid Pitt, one of the stars of British horror films died a few months ago. So it is rather fitting that the Rio cinema in Dalston is showing some of her films.
Rio Cinema, Dalston
In some ways the biggest story about Ingrid Pitt, is that she survived a Nazi concentration camp. A documentary and perhaps a longer film is being made.
Opera Just Got Interesting
I read in the Sunday Times, that the Royal Opera House is going to stage an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith. Apparently, there will be a lot of sex, swearing and partially, if not fully exposed bosoms. The BBC says it will be one of the arts highlights of the year.
This is the final paragraph from the article in The Sunday Times.
In recent years members of the Covent Garden audience have tut-tutted over naked breasts in Verdi’s Rigoletto. When Anna Nicole opens next month they may not know what hit them.
Black Swan
There was a pub in a 1950s British comedy called the Black Swan. It was always called the Mucky Duck.
Was it Hancock?
Not sure I can go to see the new film and keep a straight face.
The King’s Speech
I went to see this film last night and it is one not to be missed.
The publicity described Lionel Logue as a controversial speech therapist, but although I know little about the field, a lot of what he said to the King would now be considered main stream. For instance, in the film, Logue suggests that the King’s problems are routed in how he was treated as a child. This would be something that would be accepted by many people today.
I have only the vaguest memories of George VI, as he died when I was six. I have read an excellent biography, which I seem to remember doesn’t mention Logue at all. I think, when the history o the British monarchy is written in a couple of hundred years time, George VI will be ranked as one of our best. Especially, as he overcame his difficulties to be a much-needed wartime inspiration. We probably wouldn’t be here now, if his dreadful brother had been king at the time.
Beckham Makes It to North Korea
Pehaps the most surprising news over Christmas, was the news that Bend It Like Beckham was shown, albeit heavily edited, on North Korean television.
What odds would you get on David himself going to North Korea this year?
Not very good, I suspect!
The Anonymous Widower 