ROVER - Obviously for British kids with OCD

Selling

Oh jheezus please somebody gimme a job that doesn't involve this.

Eye Bus

From Ask a Policeman

This is Butter

Just screwing around:

Kool UK Komik Artifakt

I stopped in to say "yo" to Bill at Frankenstein Comics and while I was there I spotted this hardbound volume:



It turned out to be several dozen UK weekly Spiderman weekly comics, originally valued at 5p each. I never knew this behavior was possible, but Bill assured me it was commonplace among misguided collectors from Old Blighty (owing to the binding doing nothing to enhance value) to take collections to the Binder and have it done - like Dickens or something- "taking my penny dreadfuls to the Binder's mum!".

His assertion was that this particular binding was only average and that he had seen other UK bound comics that had embossing and gold leaf.



Where the book had fallen open to, there was a back page ad for free badges for eating "Supermousse" which got you Pop Star badges and "Fudge" which got you free footballer badges.



Lo and behold, who was one of the free Pop Star badges? Why Gary Glitter - egregious child molester - ew! He supposedly gets out of 'Nam jail next month.....



No Supermousse for me or any of my readers, Gary!

All photos were phonecammed- sorry for any blurry

WDIWLN?: Carry On Camping

What Did I Watch Last Night?

It's hot, yeah? We were knackered and wanted to watch something, but there was nowt on telly. I have certain TV viewing cues ( such as watching Enchanted Cottage, Angel Face or The Uninvited on a gray, cold, day - I know - not completely connected , but they're cues, not discipline) and the insularity of the AC against the mercury made me want to watch Carry on Camping. High Stupidity- Tanya Gold puts it well in her Guardian commentary:
"The Carry On films are not funny. They are parables about failure. The typical Carry On hero is an everyman who lives a life of misery, unrequited lust and boredom."

In looking it up, I was astounded to find that Sid James,

(who pretty much looked just like this at the time)
the male lead in the film (if there in fact can be one in this ensemble cast comedy) was actually on the eve of commencing an affair (or "tappin' that") with Barbara Windsor, the effervescent coquette usually found in a state of denouement as illustrated in the YouTube clip below:



Barbara was married to a gangster, Ronnie Knight, at the time, a real badass- who after a while had had enough and buried an axe in Sid's floor.
Way to send a message, Ronnie!


Ronnie and Babs

The question is: What was her motivation? Did her undercarriage crave hidden smoky aged baccala? Was she losing her sight, as well as sense of touch? Was Ronnie refusing to bury his axe in her floor, if you catch my drift?

Or are the British just sometimes insane, (let's face it - we Americans are) like the time Ian Fleming claimed Sid was his #1 choice to play James Bond:
"The screen test, included as an extra on the forthcoming DVD box-set of Bless This House, shows James brandishing a Walther PPK as he confronts the film's villain at the movie's climax. Apparently due to budgetary constraints, the other characters in the scene are played by James's regular Carry On co-stars. Barbara Windsor is Honey Ryder, a role that would eventually be taken by Ursula Andress. Kenneth Williams cameos as M, while Charles Hawtrey brings a silky menace to the character of Dr No."

Not kidding- Sid James as James Bond - full article here

So, uh, since I don't know where to go with this, go watch Carry On Camping, and revel in it's idiocy while reminding yourself it was the highest grossing film in the UK that year.

I will leave you with the Smiths album cover that infuriated Morrisey and Marr, but features Charles Hawtrey, who played Mr Muggins:


ooh! OOH! but now I don't want to stop, because I have a theory that J.K. Rowling saw this film as a youth, and got the name "Harry Potter" and the word "Muggle" from a scene in it where Mr. Muggins insinuates himself into the Potters tent and the introductions Go something like:
"I'm Harriet Potter and this is my husband Peter"
"Pleased to meet you I'm Mr. Muggins"
combining that with the fact that Hawtrey ( a raging drunk in real life, by the way) is Harry Potter-esque in his appearance.
Burned into her unconscious as a Dickensian situational semantic tool, no? If it happened.

So now I'll close with: J.K. baby! Get in touch and confirm/deny! Yeah!

Pop Gear

Let me start by saying that I went through all my old vids and maybe only one or two weren't on YouTube already.

Having said that, I recently watched Pop Gear again. This movie has some phenomenally oddball performances. Annnnnd....90% of them were in fact on YouTube. So- I gleaned 'em and here's a bunch well worth a look.

It's introduced by Jimmy Savile - possibly king of the jerkoffs. (Okay, okay, great guy etc., etc.- but hey I ain't English!)

HOWEVER- first up is something from that film that wasn't on YouTube: the gold pants dance sequence - if you like gold pants like I do, then this video is for you. You're welcome for the upload, massive fan base!



Comes next, (as my son used to say when he was a baby) is the Honeycombs singing Have I the Right, which is notable for two reasons:
The friggin' mentally-challenged-cousin-type on rhythm guitar, and the fact that the drummer, I'm pretty sure, is a dude in drag....



Tommy Quickly gives a performance of Humpty Dumpty that can only be described as excruciating. I want to punch his face off every time I see it. If I didn't have such a nice TV, I might punch it. This video infuriates me so.......

I'm punching you in my mind Tommy Quickly! In fact, I'm punching punching itself!!



UPDATE could this be another version of a sort of cultural idiom? Help me, massive fan base!!!


The Four Pennies doing Where Did you Sleep Last Night ain't no Leadbelly, but their interpretation is such a screamingly loud (for the era) go at it, sort of an end-of-folk-Dylan-at-Isle-of-Wight event, that it's quite enjoyable.



Billie Davis singing Whatcha Gonna Do? is like watching a live Thunderbirds character singing. Exquisite. Dee-lish. Helium-y. Puppet - puppet - puppet.



Steve Winwood in the Spencer Davis Group stands as exemplar of some of the great performances from this film (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, et al) so I'm including it.



Last is the creepy butt dance being done by the Roger Daltrey clone in this performance of Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens (whatta name!) The Butt dance is mesmerizing in a scoliosis/back brace/uncontrolled intestinal problem kinda way. The performance is good tho.


All the great performances, with the exception of Matt Munro, a super boring lounge singer, will be watched over and over by me.

Wanna buy it?
Go Here:

Bend Me, Shape Me, Already!!

So, I'm over looking at The Perfect American, in awe of the whole scene, the style the volume, the insanity, and it led me to dailymotion (this appears to be mrjyn's upload site of choice) where I found these. I've already blogged about this chicken-and-egg conundrum (my feeling is that it's an American song turned English)

Lastly, check out Freddie Mercury on bass in the American Version!!!!!


This guy scootaway - the original uploader - must wonder the same thing I suppose.

As a bonus, here's the theme song from Scream and Scream Again - an awesome movie, by Amen Corner:



Sorry, last thing I'll say about it......

5 Punches - #1

From '53:

The UK is another dimension

Here' a curious little chicken/egg phenomena: Bend Me, Shape Me, - a massive hit by The American Breed in the US when I was a little kid, but at presumably the same time a hit in England by another group, Amen Corner. The weird part is that the vibe is completely different for each song. When I was in the UK I saw they were always doing this - a commercial (an advert) for "Hits of the 60's" would come on, and it would be all, "King of the Road by Rory Flanksbury! - Streets of Laredo by Rupert Clive! Devil in a Blue Dress by Larry Lawrence and the Lads! - AND MORE!!" It was like (sometimes) the US didn't exist, then next minute life would be a hailstorm of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Elvis memorabilia


- Giva lissen.

PS: Listen to just the left track of the American version, and Voila' You've got Karaoke....