Hendon progressing well for @777group as high reach sitting on engineered platform . Temporary works carried out correctly # temporary works pic.twitter.com/lByNjSeb9y
I was discussing 70's TV over lunch yesterday and the subject of favourite characters from the 1970's TV came up. A fine subject for a Saturday list, don't you think? On making the list, I realised that all the characters who made the list are what we may call "interesting". I don't really like the one dimensional hero characters. These aren't characters I necessarily like. They are characters who I think make great TV.
1. Jack Regan - The Sweeney. I think we all believed that policemen were like Jack Regan in the 1970's. Regan's life revolved around "booze, birds and motors". At the time he seemd to me to be a heroic figure, but watching reruns, with more life experience, he's quite a tragic character. Having said that, if I wanted any copper in the country to catch the nasty characters who burgled my studio I'd want Regan to!
2. Fletcher - Porridge - Fletch was the other end of the scale. He was the unreformed old lag. He was the one who was always trying to beat the system. He was someone who, if he'd come from a different background, may have been a philiospher or a politician. Completely amoral in some ways, but totally moral in other ways. I don't think anyone really wanted to be Fletcher, but we all hoped that if we found ourselves in prison, we'd have Fletcher as a room mate.
3. Rigsby - Rising Damp - Rigsby - a tragic figure, in truth I probably didn't get him at the time and found his obsession with Frances De La Tour a bit creepy. In the early episodes, his clumsy attempts to belittle Phillip, a student who claimed to be son of an African chief backfired in the heat of Phillips superior intelligence. Rigsby is pretty much what most of us expected small time landlords to be like. Seedy, penny pinching and devious. Sadly, my experience of the rental sector as a tenant didn't overturn this opinion. The series would have just been so boring without Rigsby.
4. Alf Garnett- Till Death Us Do Part - A figure who straddlled the 60's and 70's. Garnett was a charicature of a East End working class bigot, struggling to cope with the massive changes in our society. Racist, sexist and ignorant. His wife was the "silly moo". Black people were derided, his son in law was a scouse git. The genius of the writing was that it was able to show just how ridiculous such views were. What Johnny Speight perhaps didn't anticipate when he wrote it was how many people would empathise with Garnett and his hatred of how Britain was changing. Alf Garnett was in many ways UKIP before UKIP existed. Anthing that takes the mickey out of such views and such people is fine by me.
5. Col Paul Foster - UFO - Interceptor pilot, part time moonbase commander, skydiver pilot, investigator. If ever there was a character on TV I felt empathy with, it was Paul Foster. He starts as a military test pilot, getting accidently shot down by SHADO (the anti Alien organisation), sets out to investigate and expose them. He is then recruited and becomes a senior figure. In one episode, he befriends an alien, but cannot prevent SHADO killing him. This makes him become rather cynical. As a teenager, I was obsesed with aliens and conspiracies. I believed that there were organisations such as SHADO, operating secretly. As I grew up, like Foster I've become more cynical. I now believe that as a race, we are far too greedy and stupid to pull off such conspiracies.
6. Stan Ogden - Coronation Street - Stan wasand remains a real hero of mine. Serially unlucky, lazy, uncommunicative, and the script often hinted at his infidelity. He was a serial disappointment to Hilda, his wife. But she loved him. Perhaps the best period was when Eddie Yeats, a scouse binman became the Ogdens lodger. The dialog was witty and gritty. In many ways Yeats was a surrogate son. As Ogden grew old, Yeats stepped up and looked after him. What I loved about Stan was he was a very believable figure and for all his failings, he had a lot of love. He just had demons as well. These days, it seems there is no warmth in soap stars and few are truly believable working class characters, surviving on the edge.
7. Bet Lynch - Coronation Street- Another epic character from Coronation Street. Bet Lynch was what we all wanted our barmaids to be like in the 1970's bold and brassy and not prepared to take any nonsense from anyone. It seemed that every pub had a Bet Lynch. In those days, you'd walk in the pub and your pint would be on the bar by the time you got there. That is how it should be.
8. Mrs Slocombe - Are You Being Served? - She was the archetypal batty auntie character. (I won't say which of my aunties!). She is the pivot around the humour. You never quite new if she was serious or not. The victim of much sexist innudendo and resentment. It seemed to me that she was a bit of a victim of bullying, but very resilient, in many ways having created her own parallel universe. One of the things which most amused me (given that my mums family origniated from Oldham) was how she'd affect a posh accent that gave way to the northern twang when she got cross. As such I felt great affection for her. I once told my mum that Mrs Slocombe reminded me of her, she went absolutley nuts.
9. Frank Spencer - Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - A true comedic genius character. Michael Crawford was immense in this role. This was absolute must see TV. Some of the stunts were awesome, most notably the scene on the roller skates. Truly brilliant.
10. Huggy Bear - Starsky and Hutch - Although a supporting character in the main premise, I loved Huggy Bear. His whole way of talking was just different. His lifestyle seemed to hint at a whole different side of America that we never saw in US shows. Starsky and Hutch was probably the biggest show of the 1970's, but for me Huggy Bear was the only interesting character. He is described in wikipedia as "street-wise, ethically ambiguous, "jive-talking" Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), who often dressed in a flashy manner and operated his own bar". In other words a far more interesting character than the fairly one dimensional stars
Last year the UK voted to leave the EU. No one knew what we were voting for, just what we were voting against. Many promises were made by the Brexit campaigners, the biggest one being the £350 Million a week for the NHS. Brexiteers campaigned for years for a referendum and in the light of the result, many have stated "the people have spoken" implying that referenda are the way to decide such things. They say that the "will of the people must be respected". But not enough to give them a say on the deal that is actually agreed. To me it is perfectly logical that Theresa May negotiates a new deal and then says to the British people "This is the best deal we could negotiate, do you want us to implement it?" Unlike the previous referendum, we'd know exactly what we were voting for. If the Brexiteers are right and the will of the people is that we go for it, then fine. But what if Theresa May negotiates a rotten deal that is not in the interests of the people. What if the deal will mean that the economy will struggle and rather than raising our living standards they drop, causing a drop in tax take and a funding crisis for the NHS. Since the vote, the pound has slumped and inflation is starting to rise. By the time May has finished her negotiations, the picture will be far clearer. Theresa May has put hard line Brexiteers in charge of the process. These guys have a blank sheet to get the nest deal they can. Surely every Brexiteer must believe that a second vote would be a formality with a great deal on the table? If they do they should have no issue and if they don't they are being cowardly and dishonest. It would give the Brexiteer ministers a huge incentive to do a good job. For me that sort of incentive is most sensible.
A wealthy man died and went to heaven. He was met at the
Pearly Gates by Saint Peter who led him down the streets of gold. They passed
mansion after mansion until they came to the very end of the street. Saint
Peter stopped the rich man in front of a little shack. “This belongs to you,”
said Saint Peter. Why do I get this ugly thing when there
are so many mansions I could live in?” the man demanded. “We did the best we
could with the money you gave us!” Saint Peter replied.
Did you know that in this month in 1962, 55 years ago, The USA exchanged Pilot Gary Power for Russian spy Rudolph Abel? It was the height of the cold war. John F. Kennedy was president of the USA and Kryschev was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR. Whatever you may have thought about Kennedy, with his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, there was no doubt at all that he was a serious politician. There was no doubt that he was a US patriot and a serious politician.
Fast forward to today. the 45th President, Donald Trump has been in the job less than a month. He seems to have avery different sort of relationship with Russia. His pick for National Security secretary has just "resigned" for all manner of dodgy shenanigans with the the Russians. Trump was warned by his cheif attourney (remember her, the one he sacked because he didn't like her now vindicated view that his actions were not lawful).
When Trump took over and started posting executive orders by the dozen, a friend on Facebook asked why Obama hadnt. I think we know now, don't we?
The door has closed,
I look down on the tears and pain,
The shock and despair of those I love,
Adios Amigos, until we meet again,
In a better place.
Copyright Roger Tichborne 2017
(Rog note: I recently had a dream that I had a near death experience. Well I hope it was a dream. It made me feel slightly uneasy. I wrote this to encapsulate the emotions I was feeling. In case you were wondering)
There was an amazing exchange of tweets today, which totally summed up why Thameslink Railway is such a mess. If there is a point to be made, the management of Thameslink Railway will miss it. There really isn't anything much else to say, except enjoy!
@bookiesnacksize Tables are being retrofitted into the 700's. ^Amy
38 years ago today, a very important event happened in my life. In all honesty, I didn't realise how important. I was 16 years old and at Orange Hill School. I'd decided to form a band and having bought a guitar, written a few songs and had a few practices with my mates in my bedroom, I'd driven my parents completely mad. They ran a crash repair business in Mill Hill called Mac Metals. A couple of years earlier they'd acquired the freehold to the site of their business, to protect their investment in the business. Part of the plot of land was a derelict caretakers cottage. My Dad had a brainwave and asked me if we fancied using it as a rehearsal space. As this meant that we had a base for shenanigans of all sorts, I jumped at the chance. The only problem was that we didnt have any equipment. So I came up with a cunning plan. There were two other bands at the school, who between them had a bass amplifier, a PA and a drum kit. My Dad had asked for a couple of quid a week in cash. So I said that we could form a coop and if they each chipped in a quid a week and left the gear there, they could have one rehearsal a week. So we got a free rehearsal and they got a place to play. We decided that we'd rehearse twice a week.
This arrangement lasted about six months. As with most bands, they split up. This arrangement bought us some breathing space and we were able to procure equipment of our own. The word also went around that we had our rehearsal space. Other bands approached me to rent the space. Our first two customers were The Polecats, who were in the charts with a cover of Bowie's "John I'm Only Dancoing" and Alan Warner, lead guitarist of sixties superstars The Foundations. I hadn't planned the studio as a business venture, but as I was at school it provided a handy source of spare cash. There are many stories of all manner of things which happened in the first few years. Some friends of mine had the idea of renting the spare bedrooms. Although the cottage was barely habitable, it was cheap and my Dad liked the idea of having an on site presence. They used the upstairs bedrooms and the kitchen and the front room became the studio. We agreed that we'd stop the music at 11pm.
Eddie Floyd
This was an extraordinarily creative period. We spent most of our free time writing music and putting bands together. The only bands who rented were good friends. However it became clear that the setup wasn't ideal. As my friends tired of constant noise, we realised that we needed a better studio space. Another local musician had heard of what we were doing and approached my Dad to rent a workshop he had spare. This became STN (Sod The Neighbours) studio. It operated between 1980 and 1985 from Bunns Lane. In 1985, they moved to Colindale, seeking "better premises". It meant we had a ready made studio to move into. I borrowed £3,000 to buy a PA and a drum kit. Amazingly the bank lost all of the details of the loan. Eventually I fessed up 18 months later, by which time we were making a healthy profit. At the time the studio was a partnership, jointly owned by the members of my band. I found that having a business venture was with a band was not ideal for a creative setup. Although we did great work building up the studio, I found that it wasn't condusive to a creative musical identity for the band. I think it is an important lesson to learn to focus. My partners had a very different vision for the studio to the one I had. It generated a nice amount of beer money, I felt that it could be a successful business. I discussed my ideas and one of my partners disagreed. We had always had a rule that we only did things by consensus, so we hit a bit of an impass. By this time we had two studios. We'd built a recording studio, on the site of a garage that had burnt down. It was a great space. We'd all worked on it every weekend for a year. I'd realised that there was a huge demand for such space and that there was an opportunity. In 1991, I got a redundancy payoff from an IT job I was doing. I used the opportunity to buy out my partners. A new partner joined, Ernie Ferebee. I had outlined my vision and Ernie bought into it. He had been living as the tenant in the Caretakers cottage since about 1988 and working as a bouncer in nightclubs. He had got married and was looking to start a family.
Modestep
The plan was simple. As units on the site became available, we'd take over the leases, do them up and grow the business. I estiamted that we'd need seven studios to make it worthwhile and viable. The plan was also to open a music shop, selling equipment. We reached this target in 1998. We also started operating a professional recording studio. It also became clear that we needed extra staff. Rehearsal studios work unsocial hours and Ernie had a family. We were lucky, a lot of very decent people were passing through the studio, many of whom wanted to work for us. By 2000, we had ten studios. What could possibly go wrong?
The Damned
Kate Nash
Sadly life will alway kick you when you think it is all going so well. In August 2000, Ernie was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. By Feb 2001, he had tragiclly died, leaving three children and a widow. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all was that Ernie had worked tirelessly and just when the work and investment was starting to pay off. Although I had no doubt that the studio was a very viable proposition, when you lose a key man, you have to take stock. My staff (we were now employing five people) were worried that I'd give up and walk away. They knew the huge contribution Ernie had made. What perhaps they didn't realise was that I'd not put the work and the years in to jack it in so easily. My mission became to realise the vision that Ernie and I had developed.
In the sixteen years since, we've gone from ten to twenty studios. We have built a new complex that is fit for the 21st century and we have a fantastic client list, including Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash, Eddie Floyd, The Damned, Modestep, London Grammar, Martin Fry, The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra and Morrissey to name just a few. We have approx 1,000 musicians a week pass through. It's been a fantastic journey. Here's to the next 38 years at Mill Hill Music Complex.
Saturday depending on the weather The order is: 1. Wealdstone, 2. Rayners Lane and 3. Edgware Town Saturday is supposed to be horrible pic.twitter.com/TU7bH85RaN
5. Great pic of the recreation of Barnes Wallace office at The RAF Museum
RAF Museum Hendon: Recreation of Barnes Wallis's office at the Vickers factory at Weybridge, just as it was before his retirement in 1971. pic.twitter.com/w9QGtLijwx
I've always told people that Mill Hill is the highest point in London. It is one of my favourite pub throw outs. After many years, one of my mates challenged me this week. He said " 'Ere Rog, as usual you are talking B@ll@x. I 'ad a shufti on wikipedia and you are a fraud ". You can imagine how I felt. My Dad had reliably informed me that Mill Hill was the highest point and I knew he knew his stuff. So I had a shufti at Wikipedia. Here is the list
Sure enough, at first glance my mate was right! I felt like a prize plum. But then I took another look. It seems my mate was a bit hasty! As far as I am concerned, and definately when my Dad would have ascertained the information, Highwood Hill, which is at number 5 and is in Mill Hill is the highest point WITH A LONDON POSTCODE! when my Dad was in the RAF flying from Hendon. So his honour remains intact! In future though, I will have to say that Mill Hill is the highest place with a London Postcode!
