So we start with those two quizzes from my TV Heaven and Hell writing as promised yesterday. Who remembers Double Your Money and Take Your Pick (the original and not the Ant and Dec/Alan Carr new version)?
Well here's what I had to say about them:
Why is it that hideous title music always stays in the mind. I seem to remember the words for the opening song on Double Your Money went something like: "Double your money and try to get rich/Double your money without any hitch/Double your money it's your lucky day/Double your money and take it away."
Double Your Money was revived a few years ago by Ant and Dec but it had none of the power of the original - or perhaps once again that's me viewing it through the eyes of a young child when the world was new and quite an exciting place to inhabit.
I seem to remember that Double Your Money consisted of contestants being asked a series of questions on a chosen subject by quizmaster Hughie Green. The first question was worth £1, the second £2 and so on. Most were limited to six questions and a maximum take home of £32. But hold on here we are talking about the 1950s so £32 would probably be the equivalent of something like £1.7 million today (actually probably about £500 - editor's note)..
The £1 question was always an hilariously funny one (Actually occasionally it bordered on the vaguely amusing). It wasn't possible to get it wrong. Obviously the jolly crew who wrote the questions ran out of merry £1 japes because I remember an appeal going out for people to send in their own for a prize (I have long since forgotten exactly what this was). My grandfather took up the challenge with the belt busting gardening question: "Is blue cabbage, green grocery." I might only have been a handful of years old at the time but it certainly didn't have me clutching my sides in mirth. Obviously the DYM jolly japesters agreed as it never appeared on the show!
Each show a contestant returned to go even further than the £32. They were placed in a sealed off box that looked as if it had been put together from an MFI kit. They wore a set of huge headphones through which they received the question. On their first visit they got multiple questions to take their total to £64 and then £125. Which just illustrates that the name of the show was wrong. If it truly had been Double Your Money it would have gone up through £64 to £128 to £256 to £512 to £1,024. In reality it was £64, £125, £250, £500 and £1000. Today I expect it would be charged with something or other under the trades description act. That's if Health and Safety didn't get the show first for the MFI box.
Contestants could of course stick at any time. To win the top prize of £1,000 would take four additional visits at the end of the show. The tension was intense I can tell you. I remember one contestant vividly as Hughie Green took the p--s out of his name - never did really find out why. It was I believe Kerr but he was referred to at different times by various alternatives such as Carr or Care (absolutely side-splitting). I'm sure this guy answered questions on spelling and got the £1,000.
I had a Double Your Money game where I regularly won £1,000 simply because I soon got to know all the answers. That's probably where my interest in taking part in quizzes came from. I realised that by amassing thousands of useless facts you could appear to be intelligent!!!!!
The show was compered by Hughie Green - a very strange man who reminded me in character of Richard Nixon and I'm not sure if that's an insult to Green or Nixon. Apparently Green's genial persona only worked as long as the cameras were running "and I mean that sincerely folks."
Double Your Money ran from 1952 until 1968. Green was a tremendously genial host (on screen that is) with more facial contortions than was really good for him. He was "ably" assisted for much of the time by Monica Rose, a chirpy 4ft 9in cockney type who had originally been a contestant and who was destroyed by fame in as much as she tragically took her own life in 1994.
As for Green. Well I always had the idea that he was Canadian, but the internet has actually confirmed he was born in London but did serve in the Royal Canadian Airforce and became a Canadian citizen after the Second World War. He was later called a number of names of which dysfunctional seems to be one of the more modest. His final claim to fame before his death in 1997 was being exposed as the father of Paula Yates (but we won't go into that here).
Double Your Money actually started life on the legendary Radio Luxemburg. I say legendary because it's the only radio station in the history of broadcasting that virtually everyone of a certain age turned into but nobody heard. Anybody of that certain age will remember tuning in the dial of their transistor radio (and how trendy were they? So trendy that nowadays you can get retro digital radios that look like old trannies but play like modern machines) to attempt to get Luxemburg which seemed to come and go in a hiss of static that sent people mad holding them up in the air and moving them round the room in an attempt to get improved reception. Come on hold up your hands. If you are now over 50 you will have experienced this. I once had a request played on Radio Luxemburg by DJ "Baby" Bob Stewart (who is probably now "Granddad" Bob Stewart). I only caught a quarter of it thanks to the reception. Today's youngsters have no concept of the fun of having to stand on a chair with a radio above their heads (cue health and safety again).
But now we must leave Double Your Money to the quiz show graveyard and move on to what was almost its companion programme.
Take Your Pick
If Double Your Money had Hughie Green, Take Your Pick had Michael Miles. For one show this quiz attracted an astonishing 23 million people. It started a 12 year run in 1955 and sadly I have no memory of the theme tune (which is probably a good thing, otherwise I might become type-cast). And Yes Take Your Pick also saw its debut on Radio Luxemburg (it's interesting to mentally picture contestants opening boxes on the radio).
The quiz was the brainchild of Miles who came from New Zealand and started with the ridiculous Yes/No interlude which consisted of contestants trying not to say yes or no whilst being pumped with questions from Miles. Obviously the contestants would be well prepared for this and determined to go for the full minute. So on they came:
Miles: What's your name
Contestant: Fred Snot
Miles: Did you say Fred Snot
Contestant: Yes
Not only did the luckless contestant suffer the ignominy of lasting about two seconds, they also got subjected to the sound of a gong that heralded the fact that they were officially stupid. The funny thing was they always looked surprised.
Sometimes they got quite a way before Miles grilled them and hit a nerve.
Miles: So what is your favourite hobby
Male Contestant: Dressing up in women's clothes
Miles: Isn't that rather strange.
Male Contestant (in indignant voice): NO it's not
(obviously the above examples are purely made up for effect so please don't sue me).
I believe the man in charge of the gong was Bob Danvers-Walker who had a double barrelled name in the days before they were fashionable. I believe he did voice overs for the legendary Pathe News.
Suddenly children in school and office workers were all playing the 60 minute yes/no interlude. It was probably the pre-cursor of Mallett's mallet (more of which later) but slightly less violent. Successful yes/no contestants returned in the second half of the show to play the actual quiz. To call it a quiz is probably a misnomer. There were only three questions to answer and I seem to remember they weren't MENSA standard. Get them wrong and off you go without so much as a gong. Get them right and you had the chance to open one of the 10 boxes. Only a few people got a question wrong.
So a box was chosen and then Miles would try to offer to buy them back with various amounts of cash. The boxes contained either one of three booby prizes, six other prizes (which I believe were shown at the beginning of the programme) or a star prize. I still remember the vicious laughs of the audience when a box was opened to reveal a stick of celery or some other equally useless prize. Also the joy on the contestant's faces when Miles uttered those immortal words "You have won tonight's star prize". The whole show was given a touch of class by the smooth voice overs from Bob Danvers-Walker. One wag on being subjected to some quite strong pressure from Miles to "Take the Money" replied with something like "I wouldn't take the money even if you offered £200 (a large sum of money in those days)." to which Miles offered £200 and the contestant immediately replied "I'll take the money." Ha ha ever been had?
In addition the audience was roped in to holler either "Take the Money" or "Open the Box". If you are really lucky you can still hear these shouts today. They turned the show into more of a gladiatorial fight. There was also the added excitement of Box 13. Each week one box was linked with Box 13. If this box was picked by the contestant their options were increased to "taking the money," "opening their original box which could contain anything from a major to a booby prize" or "opening Box 13" (which spookily could contain anything from a major to a booby prize)! I never saw the point in choosing Box 13.
Sadly Michael Miles died at the early age of 52. There were rumours of alcohol abuse, but in reality he suffered from epilepsy. He appears to have been a much nicer character in real life than Hughie Green who regularly referred to him as "my dad."
Take Your Pick does have the distinction of being the first British television quiz show to offer money as prizes.
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Now here's one that the non Norfolk people amongst you will have to practice.
As mentioned before the usual Norfolk greeting is
"Are yeah alright" and "alright" has to be pronounced ooooorright in a long drawn out manner.
The answer to "Are yeah alright?" seems to always be "not too bad." Now I find this confusing because not too bad must mean "bad" or "not too good."
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My photos today are of yesterday's visit to Cromer. Now local people will always ask Cromer or Sheringham as if you have to have a preference. People I know are pretty much divided between the two. If I had to chose I would probably go 51% Cromer and 49% Sheringham. But that's mainly because I have lived in Cromer but never Sheringham. They are both nice although I'm always taken by a quote from Winston Churchill on the floor of the prom prom prom tidlly om pom pom stating that he wasn't enjoying himself on a stay in Cromer.
We have found a nice new cafe just off the main street. It's called the Art cafe and has paintings and photographs for sale as well as food. It was a good visit yesterday. Firstly we met and had a chat with Nanette Olson who lives fairly close to us in Hethersett. Nanette has had a fascinating career as a beauty queen of some repute, as a model and as the wife of a distinguished American airman who was killed in a plane crash many years ago.
I have spoken to Nanette a number of times at great length on the phone but never met her. Ironically she once tried to get her son Tony to deliver a book she had written about her husband for me to read. I never received it as Tony delivered it to the wrong road and it's now become a standing joke with us that one day I will actually get to see it. There's some interesting footage of Nanette on You Tube when she was known by her maiden name Nanette Slack.
And whilst I'm on the subject of books, I have heard back from my publishers Pen and Sword and am already to send them my manuscript within the next couple of weeks. Isn't that exciting? Well it is for me anyway. At least they are still interested in the saga.
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You come across some strange people on public transport. I really shouldn't be using them to poke fun at but sometimes you just can't help it.
Down in Cornwall a few weeks ago, a guy got on the bus. He seemed rather confused and so the driver asked him where he was going. I didn't catch the reply (this was in Plymouth so it probably wouldn't have meant anything anyway).
A couple of stops further on the passenger got up very agitated "you're goin in the wrong direction. I need to go to the bloody dentist," he shouted.
Now at Sheringham, a man loaded down with shopping, took forever to get on the bus. He then spent some time looking for his bus pass (why do people leave this until they are on the bus rather than have it in their hands when they get on?). He then stood and had a discussion with the driver about how he renewed his pass.
Eventually after about a decade he sat down and immediately put on a bike helmet. At Cromer he stood up, took off his helmet and then blocked everyone from getting off the bus by talking at length with the driver about bus timetables.
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I hope you like the cartoon included with today's pick n mix. It tickled my fancy but is something I have discussed with friends before.
Care homes or Residential Homes are full of nostalgia. Very often the residents are entertained by singers and in the past it's always been songs from the war.
Now when we end up in one with our Zimmerframes what will we be singing.
Yes Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody and a touch of American Pie as suggested by the cartoon.
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I've quite enjoyed the detective series Van Der Valk set in Amsterdam. I remember the original series which I believe featured Barry Foster. That's always confusing for me as I live very close to Barry Foster in Hethersett. That's Barry Foster the painter and decorator and luminary of the annual village pantomime.
My only problem is why have they cast somebody with a London accent in the role of a Dutch policeman? Wouldn't it have been better to have had somebody with an authentic Dutch accent i.e an actor from Holland. Norwich City goalkeeper Tim Krul would have been authentic. I wonder if he can act! But I suppose you could argue that to be truly authentic it should be in the Dutch language anyway and then nobody would understand the plot. In English around 30% can probably understand the plot.
Many years ago when I was with the Police I tried to learn Dutch. I couldn't get the guttural sound at all and found out that everyone in Holland speaks perfect English anyhow.
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Where the hell is Bogota? That was the question on my mind when I woke up yesterday morning. Of course it's the capital of Columbia. I have never been there and probably never will, so why did it come into my dream.
It was a strange dream. I was waiting for a train but couldn't get on it until a friend got back from Bogota and he was late. I have talked about my strange dreams in the past but this one was particularly weird.
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Yesterday I set-up a new Facebook site for the Friends of Hethersett Library to give us a vehicle for promoting talks and events.
If you live in or around Hethersett you might be interested in our next event which will be a talk on October 12th by local author Ray Rumsby about his new novel The Prentice Boy. We usually charge a £5 admission charge which includes light refreshments at the end of the talk which starts at 5 pm.
And that's my pick n mix for Tuesday.