An amazing evening chatting to @benaaronovitch.bsky.social at the @britishlibrary.bsky.social — a big thank you to everyone who came, the amazing organisers and team at the library, and to @pddoling.bsky.social for this photo! Let’s do it again sometime. 😁

Yesterday’s Word Count = 519 UP POMPEII (1969) W: Talbot Rothwell Rothwell wrote for the Carry On films and Frankie Howard starred in the London stage version of A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. I think the lineage is clear. youtu.be/brsmsh-6SSo?...

Emergency Research - Norwegian - I need a Norwegian title for an imaginary painting in the style of Odd Nerdrum - called something like - 'The Longing' encapsulated loneliness and despair.

Yesterday’s Word Count = 650 THE LIVER BIRDS (1969) w: Carla Lane & Myra Taylor Forget the Beetles, for most of my childhood – this was Liverpool. youtu.be/5VFYuOJJdjE?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 823 ON THE BUSES (1969) w: Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe I never watched any of this series, I don’t know why, but the characters particularly the Inspector with his Hitler moustache was deeply embedded in playground culture. youtu.be/YdspW_vfA5s?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 670 DAD’S ARMY (1968) w: Jimmy Perry & David Croft Who do you think you are kidding mister Hitler if you think old England’s done? youtu.be/bF6qElf9GJ8?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 629 TILL DEATH US DO PART (1966) w: Johnny Speight Alf Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell) was one of those characters I knew mainly from playground retellings – much like Monty Python and, later on, Blackadder. youtu.be/5KIPwyro8P4?...

Stone and Sly Paperback Release day - Hooray! Be the envy of everyone else on your bus/train/tandem! geni.us/StoneAndSky www.benaaronovitch.com

Next Monday 30th March I’ll be chatting to the legend that is @benaaronovitch.bsky.social at the legendary @britishlibrary.bsky.social in legendary London Town. You won’t be able to move for legends. So grab your tickets now! events.bl.uk/events/ben-a...?

Yesterday’s Word Count = 865 I thought I’d shift over to the sitcoms from the days when event TV was four people on a sofa. STEPTOE AND SON (1962) w: Ray Galton & Alan Simpson Rag and bone men with horse drawn carts were a thing when I was young. youtu.be/GxEOjWWmbDs?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 886 PIE IN THE SKY (1994) I wanted to do Bird of Prey but I couldn’t find the title sequence. Still…pie! youtu.be/_5gN8vaCngA?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 1,069 THE PARADISE CLUB (1989) My favourite bit is the reverse bank job… youtu.be/auQI7l4dLjc?...

ROMFORD RESEARCH: was the ATIK ROMFORD called that in 2019/20?

Yesterday’s Word Count = 594 THE RUTH RENDELL MYSTERIES (1987) Welcome to Kings Markham – twinned with Cabot’s Cove and Midsommer. youtu.be/ycWk09S05Ew?...

Yesterday's Word Count = 557 STAR COPS (1987) Chris Boucher was robbed – that’s all I’m going to say about this… youtu.be/1bskD5Lddfo?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 539 DEAD HEAD (1986) The 1970s had nothing on the 1980s when it came to grimdark paranoia. Sorry about the video quality. youtu.be/ubYQUmfu2kQ?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 715 ROBIN OF SHERWOOD (1984) Written by Richard Carpenter for that actual middle ages feel. Nicholas Grace is brilliant and at no point does Ray Winstone call anyone a slag. youtu.be/CWVBgHwkSUY?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 763 WIDOWS (1983) I remember watching this series and thinking – yeah that’s television, that’s what we want. Lynda Le Plante would go on to change TV again with PRIME SUSPECT… youtu.be/S8x9B_YDl4g?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 774 SECRET ARMY (1977) One of the most subtly chilling title sequences ever made. youtu.be/si5UcTgE0h8?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 889 TAGGART (1983) Is this not a banging title song – listen to the end credits…. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k6R...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 616 TRIANGLE (1981) The 80s quest to find a successor to THE BROTHERS set in the glamorous world of North Sea ferries. And will somebody please get that poor bloody actress a blanket! youtu.be/_-gmAloZDE8?...

Words = 886 THE GENTLE TOUCH (1980) One of the first wave of female led 1980s detective shows along with JULIET BRAVO which came out the same year. Gill Gascoine was the slick Londoner to Stephanie Turner’s gritty Northerner. youtu.be/lyE_KxIH-Io?... JULIET BRAVO (1980) youtu.be/8itOH87uZYI?...

And yes - I'm in the emergency research stage of the novel writing process :) Nearly finished.

Medical Research - what is the name for the boot thing that is often used instead of a plaster cast for lower limb fractures. UK terminology preferred?

Yesterday’s Word Count = 811 PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1978) I remember this confused the hell out of teenaged me. Now, of course, I think it’s another Potter mantlepiece. youtu.be/xhL0AIKf9js?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 823 ROCK FOLLIES (1976) Oooooh Rula Lenska, be still my twelve year old heart. youtu.be/XEU80AJ6gvo?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 529 I CLAUDIUS (1976) This was a mantlepiece. Also Patrick Stewart is in it – was he in everything made in the 1970s and 80s? I couldn’t find the titles so here is the theme tune. youtu.be/71s_Y37_KYo?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 832 THE LEGEND OF ROBIN HOOD (1975) I had completely forgotten that Paul Darrow played the sheriff… And Ford Prefect is Prince John! youtu.be/dewd4E10BbQ?...

Research question. March 2020. What video filters were available on Zoom?

Yesterday’s Word Count = 668 MOONBASE 3 (1973) Oh god, this is a nostalgia rabbit hole. I just remember bits of this mixed in my mind with episodes of Doctor Who. Fear not Star Cops will be along soon enough. youtu.be/Zz3U9QbrcDA?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 672 ARTHUR OF THE BRITONS (1972) I love the dark ages when men were men and extras were expensive. youtu.be/q3MhU_skRHw?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 814 DOOMWATCH (1970) We’re all doooomed I tell you, doomed! Ah the 1970s – apocalypses and dystopias were so much better back then. youtu.be/d5OUi50bC-s?...

This is brilliant - the avatars of him and his first GF turn up in the scene and he just tells his younger self to go away.

I'm practising my German by watching Kacken an der Havel without the English Subtitles.... Occasionally I go back a bit and turn the subtitles on. Definitely think Tobi and Vanni should visit the town at some point. PS. it's on NETFLIX in the UK.

Yesterday’s Word Count = 660 WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN (1976) Continuing my voyage around mostly forgotten British TV series of the last century. youtu.be/jKUHsy0D_ho?... They didn’t have the title sequence so here’s episode one.

Yesterday’s Word Count = 505 Barely scrapped over the Greene threshold but still...a quota is a quota :) RANDALL AND HOPKIRK (DECEASED) (1969) Oh listen to that classic Ted Astley title music – up there with the persuaders and Joe90. youtu.be/rDyPTSdMmdY?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 863 1990 (1977) A dystopian look at the future of Britain that managed to miss every single political development of the 1980s. youtu.be/y-7z6QF4Mi4?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 637 LOVEJOY (1986) What Ian MacShane was doing before he started swearing all the time. youtu.be/W14NO9uCaP0?...

Definitely

Yesterday’s Word Count = 672 THE FALL GUY (1982) When me and the Evil Monster Boy went to see the recent film version he refused to believe this was a TV series until they played the theme song at the end. youtu.be/dj9ev40C30M?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 874 BERGERAC (1981) Also from the fecund mind of Robert “sorry was that your Krynoid” Banks Stewart. youtu.be/tpC4Vijy-uw?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 562 SHOESTRING (1979) Going west now with Trevor Eve. Bristol is a woefully underused location although Casualty was filmed there when I wrote for it. youtu.be/H-I1QqM29pg?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 527 HAZELL (1978) My favourite episode was HAZELL AND THE DEPTFORD VIRGIN which was basically THE MALTESE FALCON in SAAAARF LONDON. youtu.be/yk3tbUIoG_Q?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 1,059 Z-CARS (1963) Let’s hear it for series creator Troy Kennedy Martin who also wrote The Italian Job, Kelly’s Heroes, Red Heat and Edge of Darkness. youtu.be/wL1HnDGTAK8?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 1,057 ALIEN NATION (the TV series) (1989) Before Farscape there was this theme song… youtu.be/sxbtRx1mMWM?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 611 STARSKY & HUTCH (1975) This and the Streets of San Fransisco. youtu.be/gsJ4pALlbEM?...

Yesterday’s Word Count = 602 THE ROCKFORD FILES (1974) I’d never heard of an answer phone before this. youtu.be/W1zYNrsx9Pw?...

Yesterday's Word Count = 663 HAWAII FIVE OH (1968) OK Let’s talk about the Americans… Starting with this…after me…Dum de dum dum DUM DUM… youtu.be/AepyGm9Me6w?...

Yesterday's Word Count = 984 Oh bugger I've run out of nostalgia - hmnnn. I must delve deeper and more greedily....

Yesterday's Word Count = 1.077 THE OWL SERVICE (1969) Buy a cottage in Wales and come home to an involuntary role in a retelling of the Mabinogion. youtu.be/bIUtvIfe6L8?... Come to think of it I wonder why nobody did an adaptation of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and the Moon of Gomrath.