Beano #651, January 8, 1955

The Good Old Days (22nd February 1977). Barry Cryer and Bernard Cribbins take to the stage at the City Varieties, Leeds.

This is quite the Radio 2 lineup - Ray Moore, David Jacobs, John Dunn; programmes on Gracie Fields, Mantovani, jazz; a lot of comedy, and of all people ex-copper John Stalker doing the breakfast show.

Really fun thread and piece at the end!

Think if you give a Liz Truss venture half a million, it's not even a case that you need to be taxed more, but you should be made a ward of the state and your assets seized for your own safety.

This turns up quite often on Radio Paradise and I’m always blown away by it. Glorious stuff.

They should bring back the Jenny Laird Award and add it to the Oscars while they’re at it.

Any reference to ‘noodles’ makes me think of the lyric ‘oodles and oodles of noodles / but no soup’, heard on a song from a 70s or 80s Radio 2 show my dad had taped. I’ve only just tracked it down: No Soup by The Charioteers. youtu.be/hSQIZlbyNN4

This classic paperback edition of Nineteen-Eighty Four is the first edition I read.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Josephine Buchan on Pebble Mill At One "promise(d) you earlier some spooky music", and it's slithery music too as a profusely sweating Roy Jay makes his final TV appearance performing Spookin' Down The Street, which appears never to have been released.

Whatever you possibly think this could be, it’s even better. All in the delivery.

Good, gnarly Guardian Prize Crossword by Imogen today - slow start but I got there in the end www.theguardian.com/crosswords/p...

Found this one trickier than normal. Great fun.

No-one noticed the text scratched into the welding mask when this was first broadcast on the BBC, back in 1979, did they?

windows 11 update: for the first time in my life, simply right clicking a file has a load time. unreal

This is a delightful thing of beauty and I’ve already had hours of pleasure scrolling around it.

The Imitation Game. Not just a bad film, but an actively disgraceful one that laid waste to Andrew Hodges’ brilliant biography of Turing and picked up a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for doing so. Pig-ignorant, stupid movie that reduces the net amount of knowledge in the world.

My favourite Clue joke of Graeme's is when they did alternate opening lines to Lady Chatterley's Lover. "But your lordship, you told me I could help myself to the game bird on the kitchen table!" One of many times you could hear Barry Cryer saying "thats it!" knowing it couldn't be bettered!

Those of us who grew up listening to Radio 2 have a great but odd canon of modern popular music in our heads, and the track list here is a really good selection from it. I do very much miss the old Radio 2.

Today’s Guardian cryptic by Soup has a charming theme that British comedy fans will like. Lots of Good Clues www.theguardian.com/crosswords/c...

1983: Brian Sewell sets a new record for short-lived newspaper TV critics.

More excruciating than when I accidentally said I didn’t love <person I was on a date with> and then accidentally made a pass at the waiter.

You may laugh, but the Macbeths are a much better role model for a marriage than Romeo and Juliet. They discuss their problems (killing the king of Scotland), share their hobbies (killing the king of Scotland), and resolve their conflicts (by killing the king of Scotland).

Radio Paradise plays Queen’s ‘39, the best ever skiffle tune about special relativity

Duty Free was never the critics' favourite but YTV, once the ratings started to roll in, weren't too bothered ...

Everyone rightly loves The Sunday Times Magazine's 'A Life in the Day of Tom Baker'. If you've not read it, it's below and you're in for a treat. However, I got to wondering when that day actually might of been. Come with me down a rabbit hole... (1/9) #DoctorWho

Lovejoy It's me, an antique I'm in a home yeah Solid go-o-old underneath of the leadpaint

Joyce Grenfell, Actress, Writer, Singer, #BornOnThisDay in 1910, in Knightsbridge, London 📸 Sasha (1928)

Feb 1970: The New English Encyclopedia ad from Purnell «When the girl with the shortest skirt in the room says "What is a quasar?" do you speak up or shut up?»

Last of the oil tail lamps -York station Sept 1990

I find it very telling that even these guys can't bring it upon themselves to argue that things are going brilliantly actually, just over whose fault it is

Indeed! People keep talking about 'oh, the soft left this', 'oh, his rivals in Downing Street that'. No, it's not the soft left on the backbenches or the Blairites in the Cabinet or No 10. It's the 'alliance of MPs who can count and would like to remain MPs'.

Was cutting up a 1960s Woman’s Realm magazine for collage material & found this unabashedly insatiable size queen penguin

we gotta open the schools…or close down the schools. not sure. yikes

Beano #696, November 19, 1955

That splendid sign-off of the Queen Mother’s – “Tinkety tonk old fruit, & down with the Nazis” – celebrates its 85th anniversary today

Remembering Denis Norden, born this day in 1922.

"average New Labour minister causes 3 scandals" factoid actualy just statistical error. average minister causes 0 scandals. Scandals Peter, who lives in cave & causes over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

I think there are four basic grids that crosswords tend to be based on. I don't know if they have names, but this is what I call them:

Feb 1980: Pub Pentathlon ad from The St. Julian's Hotel (+Pool; Skittles; Darts; Space Invaders; and Shoveha'-penny) «Are you a Pub Superstar?»

In The Uses Of Literacy, Richard Hoggart talks about the elderly women of his youth who could use words like ‘sorrow’ and ‘misery’ and really mean them. Violet Carson’s amazing performances in early Coronation Street are a comic memorial to that generation.

Congratulations on the Liberal Democrats on taking over the White House

"Do you think your Catholic upbringing has had an enduring impact on your beliefs?" "Oh as bisexual, atheist, British unionist I think I've escaped their influ..." "What about guitars in church?" "The Power of Christ compels you! The Power of Christ compels you!"

One of those sitcom clips that really catches the mood of an era.

The Beano Book 1968

Leeds, 1954, photo by Marc Riboud. Young French photographer on his first assignment for Picture Post.

this also raises the frankly wonderful prospect of some Uruk Hai running a nice little boulangerie deep in the bowels of Isengard

Coronation Street - written by HV. Kershaw (27th January 1961). Eileen Derbyshire debuts as Miss Nugent.

ripping the LaserDisc for Beastmaster II and it contains one of my favorite bits of distracting dubbing in history