h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not a quiet day at home. When I was young children were given recorders to inflict on their parents but as this is the 21st Century, recorders are old-fashioned and so these days 6-year-olds are taught the ukulele instead, which is more useful if they later learn instruments like the guitar or banjo. So far my daughter has been taught one song, which consists of strumming without attempting to play any specific notes or chords, and singing the words:
The ukulele has a body, a neck and a head
But it has no arms and legs.
This was very sweet to begin with, but after two hours the song got somewhat annoying….

<BB<

Children in Need day. Although my daughter was able to wear spotty clothes, we couldn't find spotty clothes for my son anywhere, so in the end he drew and coloured in some circles on A4 paper, cut them out and just sellotaped them to himself. He also volunteered to help out at the school's after-school cake sale.
My daughter, meanwhile, has been given the class's cuddly toy dog called 'Fluffy' to look after for the weekend and write about where they go and what they do over the weekend in the Fluffy Diary. And I? Well, as it was Children in Need night without Terry Wogan, I recorded the first half of the broadcast and later fast-forwarded to the 'Doctor Who' bit, which is the only bit I usually watch.

<BB<

As we are looking after a school toy, first thing in the morning my daughter and I walked to the shops to buy bread and milk, with Fluffy being pushed by my daughter in her toy pram. I took a few photos as I don’t know whether or not the toy’s been to the local Co-Op. Around lunchtime, the inlaws arrived to celebrate my wife’s birthday, and we spent the afternoon in town where they had the Christmas celebration with a market and farm animals and people in costumes, so I photographed my daughter and Fluffy with Rocky Robin, Rudolph the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.

We had a nice dinner to celebrate my wife’s birthday and, after that, it was time for the Christmas parade – even though it was soaking wet – followed by the fireworks and Christmas lights switch on. This year my daughter enjoyed the fireworks (she’d found them a bit noisy in previous years).

<BB<

Sunday morning was spent with the inlaws – it was really nice to see people other than my immediate family and work colleagues, as all our plans to go out and visit people this month had gone out the window while my wife was unwell, but she's recovering now.

I spent the afternoon doing my children's homework with them. My 8-year-old son is learning about obtuse, acute and right angles while my 6-year-old daughter had maths division homework. She also has an ongoing project to 'decorate a bauble', which isn't due in yet. We started on it by painting it red. She also had Fluffy's diary to write, although I hadn't had a chance to print off the pictures we took to stick in it yet, but we decided which pictures we'd include.

I caught up with the household chores and actually had some free time! I finished writing the Christmas crossword, which this year has clues related to people who died in 2016. I didn't include Robert Vaughn in the end (but Vince Vaughn unexpectedly snuck in) and although the answer to the question 'What every child in the 1980s wanted for Christmas' is obviously 'Paul Daniels Magic Set', he isn't in the crossword either – nor even Ronnie Corbett, who I just couldn't get to fit anywhere. The thing with crossword writing is that often the words that fit choose themselves, and so you're left with gaps that only really random words like 'strobe' will fit, and then you're left wondering how on you can give that word a Christmas-related clue. This year one word appears in the crossword three times and the unlikeliest word is 'Loser'.

Still, it manages to include everything people traditionally associate with Christmas; Doctor Who, the Beatles and the Isle of Wight

<BB<

But Ronnie Corbett isn't that big!??!

I tried fitting him in, but each time I found nine boxes that I could put him in, a panel of small talking children turned up behind them…

<BB<

Division homework, did you say?

I recommend divisibility tests: A23502863

The big question is, are you going to re-write your trisecting toblerone entry, or just wait for toblerones to be so small you only get three pieces in a giant tube anyway?

<BB<

Monday was largely uneventful. I did have lunch with a work colleague; we've been trying to have lunch together for ages but she only works Mondays and Tuesdays and I sing Tuesday lunchtimes, and for the last few Mondays haven't worked out. She had a Christmas parcel present to pick up from Mothercare – it seems like years since I've been in Mothercare* but at one point it seemed like we owned half the Early Learning Centre catalogue
Makes me realise how the children have really grown.

<BB<

*Just remembered it was last December, the day after the Radio Times Christmas special went on sale. It usually has a special offer on getting a free colouring book – I think it was a Julia Donaldson one, but they have also had Raymond Brigg's 'Snowman' ones in the past – which you pick up from Mothercare.

On Tuesday at work we actually started Christmas songs in the choir – singing 'Happy Xmas (War is Over') by some bloke I've never heard of called John Lennon, and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', including an obscure verse. I think my ears are still playing me up because it sounded like we sing 'The kids and girls and boy land are desperate for a wee, they're going to the toilet up against the Christmas Tree'. This reminds me of Catalonian Christmas traditions, where their Nativity scenes include a 'Caganer' - someone doing a poo – and the children get presents from the Christmas Log or 'Tio de Nadal', which has to be hit with a stick until it poos children's presents out.

Anyway, after work I went home and my wife and children were still out as my children were having swimming lessons. I had the house to myself for a whole ten minutes – bliss! Sadly I knew it wouldn't be enough time to watch to watch the director's commentary for the special edition of 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day'. This is definitely the film with the most realistic car chase ever; the first time I saw it, during the LA River chase there was a huge 'BANG!' and I thought, 'These sound effects are really realistic' and then discovered that a drunk driver had crashed his car somewhat into the brick wall at the front of our house. (We lived opposite Sandown's Police Station at the time – which was still there and hadn't yet been turned into flats). Handy hint: if you want to get away with drunk driving, don't crash across the road from a police station…

<BB<

That happened to us once - we lived in a narrow street with tall houses and parking only along both sides of the road parallel to the pavements and were lucky to find a parking space near the house that evening. In the middle of the night the phone rang (we were on the 5th floor) to say that a drunk (in a VW bus) had somehow managed to drive into our parked car at a right angle (?!?!). The driver was not only drunk but didn't have a licence and had passed out at the wheel when the police came.

I have found that parking in a no-parking area is OK if it's right near the police station. They don't check up around there! (This advice to be followed, however, at your own risk. It worked in Mannheim for me, once)

I hope you don't mind if I don't try that out

<BB<

Today my son, who is studying the Second World War at school, went to school dressed as an evacuee. We dressed him in shorts, long socks (technically they were our daughter's grey stockings but we didn't tell him that), woollen pullover and cap, and equipped him with an Identity Card, label and gasmask box, with a 1940s lunch too. At school he was then sent off to spend the day at Manor Farm, which is a 600-year-old farm where the BBC had filmed 'Wartime Farm' a few years ago about a group of people re-enacting life in the 1940s. He really enjoyed the day, but you can't help but think of what it would be like to send your children off to somewhere strange and know you're not going to see them again for months or years, in the hope it will keep them safe.

Mind you many in the government in the 1940s were the class of people who have nannies raise their children for them and send their children off to boarding school so they don't get in the way of the social calendar...

<BB<

Mind you many in the government in the 1940s were the class of people who have nannies raise their children for them and send their children off to boarding school so they don't get in the way of the social calendar...
Nice post BB

And they were the class that sent their sons to war as officers, the casualty rate for officers was much higher and they lost more than their share of sons.

Yes BB there is a tiny but, there is an attitude amongst many military types call it duty.

The army it gets in the blood, a veteran (an officer) who as leader was first out of the landing craft on D Day and survived until VE day.

Biggest regret he left the army before Korea and wished he had gone, the madness gets in the blood.

He was once asked a Question - how many did you kill
Answer - Far too many!

Another largely uneventful day. In fact the only thing of note was that my father-in-law sent us an e-mail that contained his Christmas list. This list contained 'The Very Best of the Black & White Minstrels' on CD, which he described by saying that as a child, 'The Black and White Minstrels Show' was broadcast on ITV every Sunday Night and his parents had their LPs, and so as an innocent child he grew up hearing their music, even though he acknowledges that 'The Black and White Minstrel Show' obviously is no longer socially acceptable.

Items on his Christmas list in recent years have tended to reflect a desire to recapture his childhood, particularly his model railway. He has also started collecting a lot more music that he grew up with, but can we judge him for wanting to listen to songs he enjoyed without connotations as a child? I myself have to confess that my favourite Christmas songs album contains 'Another Rock & Roll Christmas' by Gary Glitter on it, which is a fun, catchy song. This album was released long before anyone realised that Gary Glitter was a paedophile. So does that mean it is no longer acceptable for me to listen to a song I enjoyed when I was young?

I'm still not going to buy him 'The Black and White Minstrels' CD though.

One final thought. Before the mid-1980s, British broadcasters including the BBC and various ITV companies didn’t keep the programmes they made as a matter of course, and would routinely wipe the master tapes if they felt there was no longer an export market. Famously, 97 episodes of 'Doctor Who' no longer exist, nor does most of Series 2 of 'Dad's Army', early radio 'The Goon Show' episodes, the first series of 'The Avengers', episodes of Python precursors 'At Last the 1948 Show' and 'Do Not Adjust Your Set', 'Adam Adamant Lives!', Spike Milligan's 'Q5', 'Target: Luna', the live broadcast of the BBC's and ITV's Apollo moon landing footage, most of 1960s' 'The Top of the Pops' including the only time the Beatles appeared on it (mind you, anything with Jim Saville on is probably best lost), 'Paul Temple', the UK's 'Fraggle Rock' openings and endings, 'The Quatermass Experiment' and 'A for Andromeda' to name a very small selection no longer exist.

But what does exist in the archives? Every single episode of 'The Black & White Minstrel Show', which can never be broadcast again. What does that tell you about the ?

<BB<

Many of the reels they did keep are in a poor chemical state in their Brentford archive, I understand, and may not be playable.

On Gary Glitter: his 'Gang Show' was the biggest Christmas gig of the 80s - I know lots of people who never missed it.

There are programmes on Channel 4 that make good use of the surviving reels of B&WM, showing clips to illustrate vox pops about programmes that thankfully wouldn't be made today, so it's not 'wasted', but it is a great shame that so much good stuff *was* lost...

Target Luna would have been something amazing to see, as would The Avengers etc...

That was a list of my favourite "mustn't miss" programmes - especially "At last the 1948 show" (I had a crush on Tim Brooke-Taylor when I was 14) and "Q5". I must have had a penchant for shows with numbers in the title.

According to Wiki, they have recovered nearly all of the 1948 show from David Frost's archives.

Preservation and restoration all costs money. I can understand that there's little motivation to spend money on restoring 'The Black & White Minstrel Show' when the company that does so won't get anything out of it.

It's funny how the context makes all the difference. 'The Black & White Minstrel Show' is considered backwards and offensive. The Star Trek episode 'Let that Be Your Last Battlefield' has identical makeup and is considered progressive.

Did it say what the condition of 'At Last the 1948 Show' is? Whether what they've had back is considered to be worth restoring and releasing? I've got the DVD they released umpteen years ago that had the few surviving compilation episodes on and would love to see more.
(I did manage to sneak the phrase 'the lovely Aimi MacDonald' into the Edited Guide in the entry on Cybernauts).

<BB<