So today it's memories of Sooty and Sweep. I was always a fan of the duo until they tried to spice it up by introducing a girlfriend for Sooty called Soo who spoke in a very high pitched and condescending way and Butch who was a rough tough cockney style bulldog.
Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that Soo and Butch could speak whereas Sooty could only be understood by the puppeteer and Sweep just squeaked.
Sooty and Sweep were first thrust on an unsuspecting public in 1955. Presumably the creator Harry Corbett (no relation to Ronnie Corbett and completely different from Harry H Corbett from Steptoe and Son) needed something to stick his arm up. In fact Harry had his arm up Sooty from 1955 until 1976 before retiring and being replaced by his son Matthew.
I took inspiration from Sooty for one dastardly day in my working life. I was Safety Sam the police badger who was released on the world for fetes and various other bits and pieces. The idea was Safety Sam didn't speak and a song was written about him. It was imaginatively entitled The Safety Sam Song and was designed to ensure children stayed safe.
So over a two day period at the Royal Norfolk Show we had schoolchildren set-up to sing the song on the hour, every hour during the day while Safety Sam, looking and acting like a moron, danced along. Well Safety Sam was a naughty Badger. Sometime during the day he bought a water pistol and during one of the solo parts of the song nasty old Safety Sam squirted nice singing schoolgirl with water and that's the fate that often met Harry C at the hands of Sooty, either that or a custard pie.
The Sooty franchise then went out of the Corbett family, but Sooty still exists. Sadly Safety Sam went to the great Badger home in the sky many moons ago.
Incidentally Sweep came along in 1957, Soo in 1964 and Butch, well who knows when Butch came along? I always thought that Harry Corbett looked as if he was one step away from a heart attack. He certainly didn't appear to like being drenched by a water pistol although of course it was all of his own making. Indeed Harry did have a heart attack in 1975 and died in 1989. It all seems such a short time ago and it's hard to realise that Matthew Corbett (whose real name is actually Peter) is now 73.
Personally I got quite upset when I found that there isn't just one Sooty but a whole pile of the little blighters. Disillusionment set in after finding that out.
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There was a nice article in the Observer newspaper on Sunday about Radio Two DJ Ken Bruce. His morning show is now the most listened to radio show in the UK and it's not difficult to work out why. There are DJs I love and there are DJs I hate. By and large I dislike celebrity DJs who know nothing about the music they are playing and are just there because they are "a name." The exception to this is Michael Ball who just oozes genuine niceness and seems to be a genuinely warm human being. I say seems to be because I've never met him but if he fancies a pint at any time he only has to give me a ring!
But back to Ken. Like eight million others I love his show. I get right royally p---d off when he goes on holiday and his place is taken by Gary Davis. I find so many DJs so ordinary (people like Davis, Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw and many others who just seem to come from the DJ cloning factory). So what makes Ken Bruce special?
1/ He has a wonderful Scottish voice that is calming and comforting
2/ He has a wonderful sense of the ridiculous and sense of humour
3/ His show is fun
4/ He seems to genuinely care about his listeners (like Michael Ball)
5/ His show is original (similar to that of Terry Wogan in the past)
6/ He plays some unusual music (I have heard both Harry Chapin and Barclay James Harvest played on his show)
7/ He has popmaster - the annoyingly addictive pop quiz.
There are plenty more reasons to listen to his show and it isn't surprising that it's now the most popular in the country (cue pay rise negotiations).
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Do you know how Charing Cross in London got its name? Well cousin Belinda was awash with enthusiasm at telling me this one over a milky coffee and cheese scone. It's quite romantic actually.
The word Charing is derived from an old English word meaning a river bend, obviously in this case on the River Thames. The cross part refers to the Eleanor Cross made towards the end of the 13th century on the order of King Edward I as a memorial to his wife Eleanor of Castile. Apparently when she died he accompanied her body back to London and at each place they stopped he erected a cross.
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On a visit to Wymondham yesterday I noticed there is a defibrillator on the wall of the public toilets. A very good idea. But there is a problem with this and virtually every other defib. In order to get to it you need a code. Nowhere on the machine does the code appear. Obviously this is to stop the machine being opened and the defib being trashed.
But who has the code to open it? There is no indication of where this can be found. I guess you would ring 999 but that all takes precious time that could prove fatal if someone close by has suffered a heart attack.