Faking It

Where are my headphones I asked?
You can track your order online - they replied
See tracking order above for details - thanks for that then!

As I've probably mentioned before I'm a bugger for a bargain - charity shops (mainly books), T K Maxx (best buy to date a leather jacket reduced from £450 to £47) and of course the online goldmine that is eBay.

A couple of years back I took a bid-based punt on two polo shirts - a Fred Perry and a Penguin 'Earl' - both of which were listed with crazy cheap 'Buy Now' prices. When they finally arrived from the far east, the trademark penguin logo had more lean than the Tower of Pizza, and the Fred Perry, despite making a claim of 100% cotton, crackled like a static storm everytime it was removed.

But, I bounced back and tried a couple more bargain buys (from other 'Bayers this time, and still a third of the high street price). Perfect. Two years on and these clone-clothes are washing and wearing like a dream. Since then I've knowingly bought Converse, a Limited Edition Bathing Ape edition Casio G-Shock watch and reproduction Seditionaries t-shirts. All of which are hooky but authentic enough to be believable and and well made enough to be durable (unlike the first two fake-offs).

However, I am a low-level fuss pot about sound quality, and recently snapped up a pair of Sennheiser PX200 headphones listed on eBay at half the RRP. The delivery seemed to be taking longer than expected, so a quick peep of the sellers feedback rating revealed a history of fakery, neutral feedback and partial refunds. Whoops.

I'll live with a fake that looks and wears like the real thing, but can knock-off headphones actually simulate the sound fidelity of real deal Sennheisers or will it just be dodgy market electronics re-badged and branded as something superior?

I'll let you know if they ever arrive..

Last of the Indie Vid Shops

For all the justified mumbles, grumbles and moans regarding the decline of local record shops - it's easy to overlook the disappearance of another small scale independent entertainment outlet. Video rental shops. The last of the indie vid's in our area shut up shop a couple of weeks ago, and until the closed sign was finally flipped forever it maintained all the required trappings and trimmings of a generic local video shop

The 'card-full-o'-signatures' loaner system (was there ever a name for that?)

A sticker claiming '6 (or 8) copies available' on recent releases - although all 6(or 8)copies were rarely available.

Poster splattered walls and windows.

Oddbod titles with one solo signature on the rental card 'Dunstan Checks In'

Faded Copies of Donnie Brasco or Devil's Advocate for sale (£5)in the ex-rentals bin

So are there any still standing near you, and what are the names please? Or do you have any cherished memories from the eighties rental boom and beyond (£50 deposit and £1 a night hire) when video shops spread across the UK faster than swine flu.

A couple video-rewinds of mine are...

The first wave saturation of video renters and bandwagon riders. Record shops, garages even a hardware shop (yes I was a member) were lending from their extensive overnight libraries.

In the splatter-friendly pre-certification days, a film chosen as suitable viewing for a former girlfriend and myself by her parents (while they went out for an evening) was the full strength, unedited version of 'Cannibal Holocaust'!?!?

We Have A Winner - Lewis Collins

Well done, full marks and five house points to Office Pest for correctly nailing our mystery man as French Crop cop Lewis Collins.

In a past life the C15 agent, had been a bass player for Mersey band The Mojo's, whose semi-hit 'Everything's Alright' was covered by Bowie on his album Pin Ups...

Top work OP - you've won a peep at the the early non car-crashing-glass-smashing Professionals titles

For my earth pounds Lewis Collins would have made the perfect follow on Bond from Roger Moore. An approach was made by the Bond production team - but....

"It would be nice to get back to the original Bond, not the character created by Sean Connery - but the one from the books. He's not over-handsome, over-tall. He's about my age and has got my attitudes... I was in Cubby Broccoli's office for five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds. I have heard since that he doesn't like me. That's unfair. He's expecting another Connery to walk through the door and there are few of them around. I think he's really shut the door on me. He found me too aggressive. I knew it all -- that kind of attitude. Two or three years ago that would be the case, purely because I was nervous and defensive. I felt they were playing the producer bit with fat cigars. When someone walks into their office for the most popular film job in the world, a little actor is bound to put on a few airs. If Cubby couldn't see I was being self-protective I don't have faith in his judgment."



He's even got a Myspace site you know..
Lewis Collins

Who's The (Not Quite So) Heavy-Hitting Celeb?

Strike a pose stage left

Strum a bass stage right

Any ideas? Couple o' clues...

He hit his peak in the seventies, but not as a musician.

Continental readers are unlikely to be as aware of his work.

Bowie covered one of his band's tunes.

"Librarians Are Often Sexy"

By day Batgirl really was Barbara Gordon - Gotham City Librarian !

That's a line from one of the few songs about Libraries - Cursor Miner's 'Library'. I hardly use my local Library any more, I work between Camomile Street and Barbican libraries but rarely visit either. I'm not sure why the visits dried up and dropped off as I've always been a terror for a loaner, but the availability of cheap/free hirers-keepers on the the internet has probably handbraked my buzz to borrow.

During the last year I've troubled the Library for just three items....

An OS map (Rye and Peasemarsh).

Survivors DVD (series 2) - which didn't get watched, so extended to max of the loan period but still didn't get watched, by which time it would have been cheaper to buy new or used from Amazon - so I copied a couple of discs for consolation (still not watched to date).

Candidate's Oxengate album - got played once, but not copied, and I got whacked with a walloping 20p fine for late return.

And I wonder, if it's possible to sneak my Topsy and Tim's Weekend Book back in the rack at Hadleigh Library without being spotted - it's only 38 years overdue. Whoops!





Cursor Miner - Library

Where Have All Good Themes Gone?

Can you whistle or mentally cue up any recent TV theme tunes? I can do Eastenders and Have I Got News For You, but wouldn't know a post millenium motif or TV tune if I tripped over it (apart from QI, which is possibly the weediest opening anthem ever).

So what happened to big brassy small screen themes packed with action and splash - is it to do with budgets? It usually is. And where are the new names to replace Laurie Johnson, Ronnie Hazlehurst, John Barry or Barry Gray (the fun size John Barry). All of the above and and a handful of others wrote compositions so strong they were regularly released as singles or bundled up into budget compilations.

One often overlooked and underplayed obscurity is John Barry's theme to The Orson Welles Mysteries, which makes a perfect companion piece to his Persuaders theme.

You can download The Orson Welles Mysteries here

Or grab Geoff Love playing Your Top TV Themes here

But, if you fancy something cinematic why not try out this team up from Roman Empress and myself.

Hooray For Harold Lloyd

They don't show silent films on TV anymore. Which is a tragic shame, as I've been waiting decades for 'Hooray For Harold Lloyd' to be repeated. I've got about three hours worth on clunky ol' VHS but the video was 'lofted' a while ago - so that's that.

Laurel and Hardy always left me cold - those breathing spaces and built in silences allowing for audiences to guffaw themselves purple, just fell flat in the front room. And skits with stairs, pianos and tangling themselves into reef knots with each others jackets was just plain irritating.

No, Harold Lloyd was always the kiddie for me, with his energetic enthusiasm, unyeilding optimism, dynamic acrobatics (all performed with a thumb and several fingers missing), a kittenish eye for the girls and that fantastic haircut. Even the music in these made for TV comps was pitched perfectly in each scene.

Unfortunately these two clips, intact with the music have been dubbed in French so the broad Brooklyn accent supplying the narrative is gone.

'Hooray For Harold Lloyd' - Opening Titles


There was a scene in the closing credits of 'HFHL' of Harold stealthily blackflipping on a bridge and then leaping over a wobbly cyclist - I'd be eternally grateful if anyone could identify the films these scenes are from.

This is possibly the greatest of all Harold Lloyd's shorty films..

Harold Lloyd - 'Hey There'


Recommended Reading

The Harold Lloyd website

The definitive DVD box set - complete films, not the TV comps

Happy Shopper

Bennett Brothers Inc. BlueBook of Quality Merchandise 1970

I found these retrotastic scans as part of a set on Flickr recently, and after years of scouring, scanning and sifting - this the closest I've got to getting my mitts on a complete 1970s catalogue.

For something that seemed to achieve saturation on a massive scale during the seventies - it's almost impossible to uncover any 'vintage'catalogues. Boot sales, charity shops, libraries and ebay - I've tried them all, and not a sniff of these handbooks for home shoppers. It makes sense that'spring/summer' would have been lofted, boxed or binned when 'autumn/winter' arrived(with Christmas hampers and tinned hams at the back), but I'm boggled that so few of these scrapbooks of style have survived.

So, until I eventually track down one of these treats, I'll have to console myself with these catalogue scans and some sounds that may have been spun on a sterogram purchased in monthly payments.

It's All At the Co-Op Now - Alan Hawkshaw.mp3



Life of Leisure - Keith Mansfield.mp3

Where Are They Now? Pt 1 - Park keepers

"I don't care who you are - get off the grass!!...."

In an ongoing series documenting the disappeared - things that were everyday sights or common occurrences that seem to vanished for no obvious reason.

I'm going to start with Park Keepers.
They may still be around, and I'm just looking for the wrong thing - expecting to see a sour, dour middle aged military type (possibly with a moustache) purple faced and frowning around the grounds. But no, there's obviously Groundsmen (green polo shirts, badged and branded with the local council's snappy logo) shuddering around the boundaries on fun size tractors, who seem to be either straight from a Gillette ad' or dreadlocked friends of 'Swampy' - but no obvious leader of the pack.

There were two 'Parkies' at our local park Geoff (Mr Nice)who looked like Oscar Goldman and would let you sit in the office on cold days, and Bill (Mr Nasty) who would get on the 999 line every time the witches hat was liberated from it's pole, if someone had been spotted on the shed roof, cricket green or had 'French Bangers'

Do these sort of jobs still exist? - It makes perfect sense that there should still be a requirement for Park Keepers but I'm convinced I haven't spotted one in years. I heard recently about a local government scam called 'tarmacing' where at the end of the financial year roads are tarmaced to use up any spare left in the budgets, allowing for the same budget to be given for the following year. I hope 'Parkies' haven't been victims of 'tarmacing' and cutbacks.