Category: Creativity

The first tv commercials

Backside et moi, we were 12 sixty years ago when ITV first appeared, gracing our 12″ b & w telly.

I recall ads for the TV Times – a household must now, with two national channels!

Otherwise which brands stick in the furthest recesses of the old memory? Cigarettes. ‘You’re never alone with a Strand.’ Was that on the box? ‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!’ That was. Hamlet cigars. Black Magic chocs. And probably some more when I’ve had a couple of pints.

What do you remember? 😏

Deadly designer

Danish telly eventually offers interesting stuff. Today it was the tale of Hardy Amies of whom it has often been said. And it’s true. But did you know he was an SOE hitman in WWII? OK, you did. But did you know I worked with him on his interior decor range in the 70s? No, you didn’t.

He was an ultra polite, rather uptight man who seemed, if anything, not superior but guarded, for all his talent. With a fascinating cv – see wiki.

I’m a catfish

In webspeak, that is. Old Backside and I, his ever-controlling head prefect, are conning you all into buying our ginormous pile of ordure; leading you up the proverbial garden path, as it were; painting a portrait which might not be a reflection of reality.

I recall that some years ago I appeared at the Big House purporting to be a young ballet dancer learning flamenco in Iberia; family in Surrey, etc., etc. and quite a few correspondents chose to befriend me. It was frighteningly simple to become a persona. When I owned up, some were less than complimentary; others disappointed.

Here on the chariot we are so few that it’s had to imagine any of is a simulacrum, to use an old word. But maybe we have the odd catfish lurking in the shadows? I wonder.

Not so blamelesss

The fragrant Valerie Hobson has always been cast as a victim, the ever-loyal wife of the errant politician, John Profumo. And good-time-girl Christine Keeler has been presumed guilty of being a conduit for state secrets between Profumo and Ivanov, a Russian spook.

But soft! See today’s Indy. It was Valerie who allowed Ivanov access to the study where secrets lay open to view.

Fascinating innit, when the evidence is finally revealed.

Almost Family – A Short Story

Then he lost a leg.

By this time he’d become accustomed to this. It had ceased to embarrass him but it had caused a bit of hysteria from the crowds intent on their Christmas shopping, because he looked so human, he supposed. He’d stepped awkwardly on the edge of the kerb and it just parted company with the knee joint. He picked it up and stuffed it into his rucksack, and hailed a passing taxi home.

Continue reading “Almost Family – A Short Story”

Time and place

Originally I wrote this as a joke back back in the seventies, I had no idea that is might turn out still to be a bit closer to the truth than I had imagined, all these years later

“The time has come to end it all”
he said on looking down.
I’ll leap from this ledge fifty one floors up
Then blackness all around”
In passing by the thirteenth floor
A man leapt into space
A man of dark and flowing locks
A beard upon his face
A man who falling caught him up
And caught him by the ears
And yelled “This is a hijack man
Fly me to Algiers”