TIM LEATHERBARROW : THE COVID CHIMPS - SEE , SPEAK, HEAR NO EVIL.

 

TIM LEATHERBARROW : BORIS JOHNSON AND THE COCAINE SNIFFER DOG AT NUMBER 10 AFTER THE CHRISTMAS PARTY.

 

Tim Leatherbarrow: The moment Oprah went “WHOOPPEE !”

 After the car crash interview with Meghan and Prince Harry one thing struck me how the mention of colour and the worlds ears prick and the utter in unrestrained joy “RACISM!  Now your talking , Oprah must have wet herself as the viewing figures shot up and her purse filled to capacity all because of that magic word.

Apparently just in case you hadn’t noticed . I hadn’t , Just thought she was an attractive slightly Latin bit of stuff, but as she’s informed us she’s black and us nasty Brits have abused her and her , at the time unborn child were made to suffer for it .

REMEMBER WHEN NORMAL PEOPLE WERE CLOWNS, JESTERS AND LAUGHED?

 As we all sitt huddled in our small empty rooms avoiding everybody so we wont get a virus pandemic named after a soft fizzy drink, in what is called in this day of 'buzz words ' and phrases ..SELF ISOLATION...It seems strange to be typing a blurb about ,clowns and jesters and people who make a fool of themselves for a living ,but actually its probably not such an odd subject in these days of ,maybe not black death and plague ,but a light fizzy lurgy.

Clowns ,jesters ,jokers have taken many forms through the years ,using their natural gifts to make themselves look silly for the amusement and entertainment of others. Physical comedy , written and drawn comedy ,like what i attempt to do and spoken comedy . As comedy evolved ,starting from bells and sticks annoying the king in his court right up until these days where theyve evolved into clowns and very unfunny jesters called politicians and they arent funny, but frightening as these clowns and buffoons have our life and our survival balanced on their ridiculous views and opinions, at this moment as a worldwide pandemic is at our facemasks they tell us to stay away from everywhere and everybody and not to worry, if it wasnt so unfunny ,it would be hilarious.

Once people were funny and entertained with funny songs and bright colours and called jesters ,annoying people with bells and generally annoying stuff...Physical humour humour has always been beloved ,flips and pratfalls ,even up to our fairly recent times with comedians with funny songs and physical stuff which saw them through their career in variety halls throughout the land. Then some moved into films years later ,all the silent stars and later characters like Jerry Lewis and our own Norman Wisdom. I saw him getting slung all over the stage of the Liverpool Empire years ago ,an aging fellah landing in a full side ways splits from about 10 feet up. I remember biting my lip and wiping tears of laughter from my eyes ,i was amazed. I had trained in Karate for years ,stretching and straining to do the splits ...unsuccessfully!....All i got was clicking hips and knees.

Looking incredibly daft5 and stupid has always been a good way of getting a laugh. Combined with bright ghastly colours and ill fitting shoes and cloths , false red noses?...What the red nose secret is ,i'm not too sure ,outside its connection to way too much to drink, which i do understand !....Also things like big shoes ,huge braces and baggy loud check suits ,which probably scare as many people as crease them up laughing

In our enlightened times ,sadly silly humour where once that word was a compliment is now sneered upon by our liberally sensitive pains in the arse that be, anything that passes the 'not offensive to any sex ,race ,colour ,gender ,breed of dog etc, etc, ism, ist, etc, etc #themtoo,etc,etc is ok and the rule of thumb is the 'Beeb'or Channel 4 will show the days clowns ,jesters , i think i prefer the guy with the bells and the stick.

Lest we forget the shining light of clowns and jesters ,the cartoonist!...Life was portrayed and much laughter ensued from a simple gag, strip or editorial cartoon....The power ,in megaton-gags was amazing ,humour in whatever form has it ,but the cartoons have gone and humour has been shackled ,but hope is out there....I was never a fan ,but i saw RICKY GERVAIS wipe the floor with Hollywood ,big corporations and preaching gobshite actors and actoresses.....One man with well observed well written material shut up millions of woke peddaling  smug tweets and rants ofn social media (gawd bless it!)...As this is what has destroyed humour and entertainment and removed our clowns ,jesters and chance to enjoy and laugh.

BEFORE I WIN THE WAR CAN I HAVE A STARBUCKS ?

The problem with the world is basically that everybody hates .....Everybody !....Esspecially people from anywhere else . As the world got bigger ,everywhere else got further, from neighbouring caves ,to huts, to villages ,to towns and cities ,to countries and other side of the planet and back again! These 'set too's' were instigated by whoever was in charge , wether he was the biggest caveman to the mightiest king to the weediest ,slimiest of politicians who rule today and decide we indulge in a 'set too' or as we know it now ..WAR !

To fight a good war you had to frighten the other army with your manpower. This army as it was now called , consisted of the king who picked the fight for the fun and honour of battle ,or land and riches. His army would be poor innocent farmers who had not known they even had a king except for the 'tithes' they had to pay . The old fashioned word for tax....Before it was on line , inland revenue @screwublind.com.

These poor put upon farmers and peasants ,now given the title of soldiers would march onto a feild armed with clubs and sharp sticks and knock seven lumps out of the other sides farmers and peasants armed with clubs and sharp sticks. After a few hours ,in them days, the field was littered with dead and mangled farmers and peasants whose day had been totally ruined. The kings and princes basked in the glory of the battle even though, quite possibly they'd had nothing to do with it and rode away unscathed ,but filled with the thrill of a massacre well done.

As with anything ,with practise the chaos of war became the art of war. New weapons were invented and  slashing and stabbing was perfected wit swords ,spears and even long range forms of entering the human body by way of the long bow was formulated for killing at a distance. Then those sneaky orientals in China invented a powder which caused huge explosions and then the shit and the rest of the enemys innards hit the wall of the besieged fortress. Cannons followed which could fire balls of iron then eventually a hand version called a rifle then a handgun was made. Except for those very odd sorts ,the Japanese , the sword died a death. Honour was a big thing in war and seemed to die off with the loss of the sword . The Japs become insanely honourable and would rip their insides out if their honour was 'damaged' or lost in anyway. If their lord lost or cocked up they would commit Seppuku, or as we'd say "Harry Carry!"

The armies got bigger and bigger all armed with rifles and by the time of the Napoleonic wars , tens of thousands of men would be on the march. If everybody hated the enemy they  hated their own men ,'the common squadie!'...They were treated like dirt and discipline was horrendous. Even The Good ol' Duke of Wellington refferred to his own men as 'filthy scum!' 

War was a thing of lovlieness now as the uniforms were lovely bright colours with feathers in lovely tall hats ,the condition of the uniform ,brass buttons n' all was more important than the maintainance of the weapons. Even in the mile long straight lines of men who could only fire once before a complicated reload ,maybe two shots a minute, they had unarmed men marching beating drums and blowing brass instruments, and men carrying the flag , which the enemy would home right in on . I can understand anyone keeping clear of the standard bearer.

The 'war to end all wars' came with world war 1...By then although calvalry units were still thought to be wonderful and lots of old style techniques and stratedgies were used ,the invention of repeater rifles then the machine gun ,wiped out millions as soldiers spent 5 years in mud and blood. Then everyone went home to wait for the next 'set too!', which wasn't that long in coming ,gave the next generation long enough to get to the right age to be called up so they could get into what was imaginatly called 'world war 2!' The pains in the arse ,the Germans who started the first war , decided theyd come off with a bad deal after their defeat , so the nutjobs in the Nazi party who ran the place thought Germany needed more territory and invaded everywhere and, thus was six years of  world wide fighting ,with the UK as the only one holding out and making an effort, we were kicked out of France and Europe was overun and we ended up in North Africa. Our supplies were coming from the US,Across the Atlantic ,German U-Boats allowing ,which they didn't . 

America didn't want to get involved ,but a good European war is great for curing a depression, so all of a sudden everybodies got a job and for protecting convoys and lend leasing second hand old boats getting all British bases and colonies around the world and a debt ,i think we paid of ,two weeks ago ,last Thursday, The Americans loved the war. Until those crazy Japs bombed Pearl harbour and all of a sudden there they were , as we all know ,"Pullin' our goddamn limey asses outta the fire!" 

The Americans came out on the winning side and so Hollywood has been celebrating that ever since....Since then theyve utilised their massive funds ,equipment and manpower to do ,well not much, Korea , Vietnam ,Afghanistan , etc ....Even invaded Haiti , a tiny island for 'Operation uphold democracy', a good American military title. 23,000 men attacked the island , 100 Haitians were killed and...One American!

Kids used to play war in the play ground at school ,blasting with pretend machine guns , until they discovered sitting playing computer games....Although weve had armies ,navies ,airforces , nuclear weapons , we are now using spy satelittes and drones to guide missile strikes ,so the missiles and drones are controlled by soldiers with starbucks coffee mugs playing computer games in the pentagon....Kids are the fighting forces of the future!

GAWD!....WOT A PERFORMANCE !

"WOT A PERFORMANCE!".....A phrase that covers a myriad of sins and events. You might think of it as to do with show biz and the theatre ,but its life as a whole ,in fact anything you care to get involved in , work , personal home life or even your sex life ,christ thats often a 'performance' as is the relationship between the stars of the show ,men and women!

Porn is an interesting show of the performance between men and women and the multitude of  variations on that performance !....Somebody pointed out that watching porn would give youngsters the wrong idea not so much about sex, but about the long convoluted performance involved in getting a plumber or a telly repair man ,or a variety of household repair services, as in these performances the repairman is always there right away and forms the basis for these well thought out ,well written dramatic performances!?

Mucky stuff aside we ,of course have the traditional treading of the boards in the theatre ,with proper performers of the thespian variety called acto(oo)rs. Funny ,as i wrote the extended version of the word actors ,i can hear that  perfomance enhancing explosion ,Brian Blessed saying it . Unlike the mucky stars the thespians dont project bodily fluids ,but project their voice richocetting around the hall cluttered with their audience trying to understand what the hell Billy Shakespeare was raving about when he wrote this play that nobody can mention the name of ,but its ok to write on the poster advertising the performance.

Performances are for the arty farty sorts , And for their benefit music was invented to be performed and acted and opera was born which made less sense then Shakespeare ,as it was shrieking fat ladies singing in Italian then the show finished?

Then they performed dance in the form of Ballet , fellahs with big lumps in their skin tight trousers and women with very odd circular dresses called tu tu's bouncing around on their toes with the other leg up behind them pointing at the ceiling, and performing all this body twisting, knotting and mutilation....And all to music!

As i said the arty farty sorts go to watch actors, dancers and singers perform at performances, whereas us lower class ignorant ,unwashed go to watch entertainers at shows ! Performers of various types ,in fact a variety of different performances gave the name to the halls , and the form of entertainment of the working classes ...Variety !

Variety was a form of entertainment to do just that, entertain......Shakespeare ,the theatre ,ballet and opera where a million miles away....Comedians were invented on the creaking boards of tatty cluttered halls around the country ,jokes ,funny songs, dances ,etc ,were performed without change throughout a comedians career as there wasn't TV or radio once upon a time and as they were on the road most of the time ,people rarely saw them more than once , this was the glory years for the performers ,a bit of a drought for the comedy gag writers tho'!

When radio hit the airwaves the variety acts carried on , but some broke through onto the radio and the comedy writer was born and the performers in some cases became household names ,Hancock ,et al!....The variety halls were still doing great business until the telly came and done for them and radio. But for us boozy brits ,there was always the working mans clubs where comedians and musicians had to serve their hard apprenticeship performing for peanuts and lucky to escape with their lives from legendary comedian venues like the Glasgow Empire.

In the days were the club entertainers were musicians and comedians ,many still play the clubs ,but the clubs are closing and places to perform are thin on the ground. Bands played halls all round the cities and country ,pubs and universities ,crammed into transit vans and performing gig after gig. now every kid who wants to be a 'pop star' ,not a musician or really a performer , just a celebrity perform to themselves in their computer in their bedrooms for Simon Cowell for the X-Factor.

The big bands who survive still sell out massive arenas ,sadly great venues like most city theatres never get used...Would've loved to have seen the Beatles or the Who in the Liverpool Empire for instance. A strange thing is happening where the smaller theatres have 'Tribute bands' playing ,once their performances were teeth grindingly awful ,but nowadays some are superb and they sound great ,they are cheaper and play in the small local theatres as their inspirations may well have done once upon a smashed guitar ago!

The comedians from the clubs are sneered attoday as ok in the 'context of their times?'....Meaning they were "ok then!", but shite now . Our new comedy performers aren't called comedians , 'Stand ups!'...Ex students who try a stint at a 'comedy club'. Then if they get through they join the smug , self satisfied clique of gobshite 'stand ups' ,who sit down on a million panel shows on sky 'Dave' channel and others. night after night ,then 'lve at the Apollo. Then a tour of arena venues to push their new DVD. They would never do a working mans club were the audience are old enough to drink.

The world of variety is almost gone , but the only man who fought to help them ,never pushing his DVD, i don't think he ever made one was the comic genius KEN DODD. He vowed he would play every old variety hall all round the country ,which he did until the day he died and performed no more.

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE WAS WHEN THE CAVEMEN STARTED 'GRUNTING UP' THE WOMEN!

A way once upon a few million aeons ago when Homo's erectus had become his sapien !....(Have you ever had a sapien?)...Language was a series of snorts and grunts . It could be argued that the method of communication  has regressed to that level again. Language , with waving arms made a form of understanding possible. Various items and instructions adopted their own grunt and snort, for example "Grunt ,snort ,growl ,bark, snarl !!" could be translated as "Hey ,woman!...Pass me that bone i want to smash that lizards head in for dinner !" Repetition of the man of the caves house orders over time became understood by the cave wife and thus was planted the seeds of language. So it is a scientific , anthropological fact that man invented language, although it was up to the female to make sense of the grunting , no change there then!

At first every cave had its own language and when lone cave men got together in communities and had to communicate with each other , community languages evolved, although accents evolved from various caves. Fred Flintstone , Barney Rubble , and bill ughrock  would have the equivalent of scouse, Geordie and Brummie accents as they lived far apart ,100's of feet. 

With the development of language romance evolved and women instead of being sex objects quite got to like being 'Grunted up!'...The prehistoric version of being 'chatted up!' As some smoothie cavemen were better than others at 'copping off!'...This started the the male to smarten themselves up, like cleaning themselves after ' dropping their guts!'....Even the women started prettifying themselves , scraping mud out of their hair and things ,this led to a massive growth in the population and like all good diseases the human race spread .

All over the place human settlements sprung up and not wandering about they developed their own languages . But they still werent very bright as they would be told things and promptly forget them. This led to the discovery of scraping symbols in the mud to remind them of whatever gossip or dirty joke they'd heard. Put 2 scribbles together and you have twice the information , almost a prehistoric graphic novel!

3 scribbles ,4 scribbles ,100's of scribbles and mankind was on his way inventing thinking and stuff like philosophy which was no good to anyone but involved lots of reading writing and thinking and led to science ,maths, history ,etc, (History was dead easy in them days ,as there wasnt much of it!)

As with language which was totally different wherever you went , the drawings that evolved from illustrations to a mish mash of squiggly lines or single squiggly lines from left to right ,from right to let ,from top to bottom ,from bottom to top ,from front to back ,from back to front....This variety of writing is probably more complex to understand than spoken language.

The spoken language spawned the theatre and stories and poetry written mixed it all up to into a stew we call 'the arts' with the creation of very odd well spoken characters called actors!...Who once spoke very well and were understood by one and all ,whereas nowadays we have film stars who speak the language of the 'Blockbuster action film' ,where the writing isnt important ,but action and heroes who speak with gutteral throat ripping grunts ,much like once long ago in the prehistoric times.

As the spoken language has regressed as 'street talk' has taken over and where once gentile local accents from areas all around our green n' pleasant land have been replaced by a horrible 'street speak' which has distorted accents like the Liverpool scouse accent which has gelled into a horrible scallification of a once decent accent. Evolution of the language ?

The written word was the tool of language and communication and a side effect was good spelling and punctuation.Then with the invention of the phone the spoken language returned in all its glory. Now in these days of 'Unsocial media' ,where texting has taken over the spoken language taking us

 back to a preemptive written word, Where the writing is worse than god knows when, spelling ,punctuation has gone and that preemptive text curse , what is the f'in' point of that ?

 I passed a school playground the other day and it was dead quiet ,with texting, i remember the playground full of bad language and various games had their own language ,again mainly obscene ,but always remember the swapping of picture cards, the "Got, not got !" language. Bad language or swearing is a wonderful new thing ,i have heard Gaelic and Welsh spoken and our very own 'F' word, "bollocks n' bastards " popping up , The English language was the one that invented swearing on top of everything else and for that we should be proud!  

DID YOU KNOW FRIDAY WOULDNT GO NEAR ROBINSON CRUSOE ,BECAUSE HE HAD SHOCKIN' WIND!

 "No man is an island!".....So they do say ,never quite sure what it means ,but i'm sure its true ....Living alone may be considered as living as an island , shipwrecked aboard the desolate beach that is your life, trying to survive and stop yourself going insane with loneliness. But desert islands as we all now them dont have, tellies,  local ASDA superstores and local boozers.....On my lonely little island in Warrington i haven't seen a single palm tree and havent tasted coconut milk since my days in India !....And that definitly wasn't a lonely deserted island in a painted ocean!

 The old literary classics used to like desert islands as many of those adventures were of our jolly jack tars sailing the oceans fighting everybody and if they didnt have anyone to fight , a good mutiny ,so a fight amongst themselves ensued ,but at the end it would result in some or one getting washed up on a tropical beach .....Palm trees waving, the sort of place we'd pay a fortune to go to nowadays....Never ended up on some rocky barren lump in the north Atlantic, or the Isle of man, or someplace. No , it was barefoot in the sandy beaches eating coconuts and fruit.....Just as well Robinson Crusoe was alone for most of the time and Friday kept out of his way as he must've been farting his brains away with shockin' wind with all that fruit ,veg n' roughage ,i know thats what it does to my guts !

As everybody knows desert island jokes were a staple of the cartoonist . A little lump of sand with a single palm tree with a few coconuts under the leaves and a bearded ragged man sitting against the palm tree , and lest we forget there was always the bottle with his note begging for help bunged in it thrown on the waves to be picked up by a would be rescuer who would spot an empty bottle floating in the Pacific ocean 200 years later!.....

We thought as the Earth was the only place in the universe that had water ,our human cartoonists would be the only life form in the universe to draw desert island cartoons ,but with the discovery that the universe is saturated with water ....Desert island cartoons could be drawn and published right across the cosmos.

Human suffering has always been popular for the cartoonist from some poor soul lost in the middle of the ocean , to the poor soul lost in the desert gasping for a drink of water, deserts and oasis' were another staple in the cartoonists diet, but nowadays nobody is shipwrecked or lost in the desert and lost souls in offices with IN  and OUT  trays have gone with computers, etc , have all these poor lost lonely souls disappeared or is it the cartoonist whose disappeared?.....

WWW. SOCIALMEDIA.@LOADOBOLLOX.MYARSE.COM

TWITTER - TWITTIFACTION

AHH HIS FIRST TEXT TO WWW.MUMMY@DADDY.COM

THEN N' NOW !

It's ironical in a way that the most unsociable activity that the wonder of modern technology has given us is given the name social. Every person on the planet give or take a few odd sorts who haven't got a phone spends their days gazing and tapping text on their little flat screen to send messages or see if theyve recieved messages from someone ,anyone' it doesnt matter. There seems to be an excited urgency if you recieve a message on the phone through ,google ,Twitter ,Facebook ,etc ,etc...They are a lot more important than the people who are actually with you wherever you may be.

As the years have gone on and the social media has taken us over ,the streets are full of people shuffling down the streets and crossing main roads totally concenterating on who likes their latest facebook message instead of the double decker bus trundling inexorably towards them. I remember getting knocked into in Liverpool a few years ago by people on their phones ,texting and getting a little irritated, but a few weeks later i was working in Macau and the streets were filled in the densely populated islands and everyone was on phones . I had been doing some boxing training and just as well as you had to be light on your toes, esspecially when it was raining as they'd have their umbrellas in one hand and be texting with the other , as they were short and looking down i nearly lost my eyes a few times getting cuts on my forehead from the umbrella spokes. Apparently they'd tried to have texting lanes with symbols of people texting on lamposts ,but nobody saw them as they were looking down. When they tried putting them on the ground they were blocked by the phones

I was caricaturing people by request , but as i'd go to their table i'd get a quick glance before their head would drop 90 degrees from a sociable vertical to a social media stare as the caricaturist was forgotten for the joys of social cyberspace. I drew a guy as a black circle with ears i explained it was the view from the top of his head which was all i had to work with. Families would eat and every single one was away somewhere far away on their phone to people far from their loving family and friends who likewise were in contact with other vitally important people on the network....Insane media.  

I'm not the best when it comes to spelling and punctuation ,but typing on the lap top has done me no favours, but i do try. I try and write relatively normally ,but refuse to go into text speak and refuse point blank to join the LOL brigade.

It amazes me how people get so upset when they havent got their phones ,kids and adults behaviour is identical . The most important item in any house is the chargers ,of which there are a number scattered about the house. The phone is now becoming the only bit of technology that people can work. I wonder will anybody have the scientific knowhow to invent anything new other than phone APPS and hi-tech things like SELFIE STICKS ?

The TWITTER phenomena is something that totally pisses me off, every body has an opinion ,but as soon as JEREMY CLARKSON screws up on a question on 'WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE' or The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES has something to spout they and 50 billion others have to have their limited character say. All the news programmes and newspapers now see fit to broadcast and print these twits tweets , i don't think i've ever read one i liked , a few words in amongst a heap of twitter symbols and twitter addresses. At least an e-mail is a sort of traditional letter(ish) ! 

Anyhow i cant waste all day writing this crap....Ive got to go onto FACEBOOK to tell everyone what i had for my breakfast !

IS IT U.S. OR T.H.E.M.....FRIENDLY FIRE,COWBOYS, TRUMPS APPLE PIE N' LAND OF THE FREE

Ahhh our cousins across the pond !.....Americans , or as we affectionatly refer to them 'The Yanks !'

They are an odd bunch . Relatively speaking only a few years ago a huge lump of land virtually covering one side of the planet Earth was discovered. It was over the far side , the back side ,the arse end of the planet ,if you like and as its turned out it's just as well. Millions of years ago the Earths land mass wass virtually that!....one huge land mass, we were all loving neighbours, borrowing animal skins and dinosaur recipes from each other.

Geological forces being what they are caused earthquakes and faults as the ill fitting land mass fidgetted and squirmed like a partner sharing your bed and like many partners started to drift apart and the bit that became north and south America inch by inch ground across to the other side of the planet leaving a huge 'pond' in it's wake the awesome Atlantic ocean.

For much of the time it was occupied by buffaloes and grizzly bears with a few rattle snakes thrown in and the Indians , or in these enlightened times the NATIVE AMERICANS,which is ironic as they are treated as a totally alien race. The irony is ironic as the yanks really do not have a sense of irony.

The problem started as everybody on the planet who was pissed off with their shitty lot in life were encouraged to seek their fortune in the open land of the free , then way out west gold was discovered and everybody ploughed west to seek their fortune. Facing it has to be said terrible hardships and suffering and as every schoolboy knows indian fights and the 6th cavalry coming to save the settlers ,who as every good settler learned ....Had their wagon train in a circle !

This is what became American history ...THE WILD WEST. Where uneducated dirt farmers ,outlaws ,gamblers ,killers, etc lived in poverty in the shanty towns like ,TOMBSTONE,DEADWOOD, DODGE CITY ,etc...Says it all really....Lots of not so much historical fact as legends built up all just waiting for the invention of film a few years later. They had nothing really to film about so the cowboy was created and the cowboy became the the American psyche , to this day.

Like the famous 6th cavalry storming over the hills to fight off the nasty indians the Americans are the 6th cavalry. I might be wrong , but their first attempt at 'WAR' Outside the American war of independance when , basically all they had to do was fend of a relatively small body of men who'd sailed for months to man small garrissons about the place, by dirty fighting ....Spilling our tea supplies into the sea !!!!!????.....Aw c'mon !.....Then it took over 10 years and we were fighting in colonies all round the place....Their first attempt at a real war was jumping in half way through the first world war and we had to supply rifles.
The next time was 'The big 'un!' ...Round 2 ! WORLD WAR 2.
Funnily enough they weren't happy about jumping in that one either, but the cowboys over the pond , aside from being tough ,hard drinking hombres ,are hard nosed business men and quite happy to enjoy the increase in work and labour after their depression when we Brits needed their help and they did for a hefty price, happy days in good ol u.s. of A !
Then one sunny morning those nasty Japs bombed an American base in a place nobody'd heard of , PEARL HARBOUR !
Well!....."Godamn it too hell !....Those 'sons o' bitches.....!" and the good ol US of A joined in to fight for 'TRUTH ,JUSTICE N' THE AMERICAN(ooops!....That was later!) WAY!....Only 3 years late , but the numbers tilted the scales. Generals with jodpers and cowboy holsters with pearl handled revolvers leading the charge....Definitley military quantity over military quality !....And more important HOLLYWOOD got an endless supply of films to keep 'em going for years and it had to as this was the nearest the American military ever got to a victory !...Actually if the Japs'd 've attacked Australia and NewZealand they'd've won, we wouldn't have had our cousins in 'it' with us, quite simply we would've gotten battered .
In the years after they charged into Korea , Vietnam and recently into the middle East in the rather vague 'WAR AGAINST TERROR'....Hasn't done the world much good, esspecially us ,their allies who they very kindly blow us to bits with their affectionattly dubbed FRIENDLY FIRE' !??? ,but lots of action heroes have made the American soldiers in to pumped up , snarling ,cigar chomping navy seals, who're 'dead'ard!' as the yanks hate us as our special forces the S.A.S. are better than theirs ,so STALLONE, ARNIE, etc make films about special force ,'black ops' rescuing prisoners kept in these sites of defeat !
Money is the fuel that powers the land of the yank. Fair enough ,it is everywhere ,but not to the extent it does there. Politicians aren't there for their policies its the money and funds they have. Which has an effect on the quality of people running the self styled most powerful nation on earth! The beloved Kennedys made their money as gangsters ,bootlegging....And one their days off , filled their boots with famous sexy film stars. Nixon, a gifted politician ,which meant he was bent n' twisted ,bugging everybody ,breaking just a few laws; Carter ,a peanut farmer who i think was related to the Waltons in the little house on the prairey ,eating a diet of 'mom's apple pie!' ; Ford, who must've had money as he had no brain; Reagan ,a senile ex hollywood actor ; Clinton ,who blew his saxaphone while his secratary blew his horn: Bush ,who couldnt string a sentence together ,but managed to  put them n' us into war all over the Middle East.....And the TRUMPMEISTER !.....The richest , most extreme person to rule , crazy enough to be the ideal American president !

TATTY BYE ,DODDY (R.I.P.)

The king of comedy has popped his tickling sticks and gone to play possibly the only venue he has never played......KEN DODD  is dead !

They say you should never meet your heroes as you will undoubtedly be dissappointed as they'll never be what you wished and imagined them to be, even if your not sure what that is.

I met Ken Dodd on a train to London when he made a trip down to THE CARTOONIST CLUB OF GREAT BRITAIN for there once legendary AGM/CHRISTMAS piss ups. He'd been voted 'Jester of the year' an award given to celebrities who'd been a major target of the cartoonists that year. Doddy'd been getting it for his slight problems with the tax man. Totally happy to be the subject of all this stick he quite happily came down to the long lost CARTOONIST PUB and unlike most other recipients of that great honour who arrived said "Ta lots" and pissed off ....He stayed the whole day ,laughing, joking ,talking, even being collared 'to get the ale in!' And letting rip with his acceptance speech in true Doddy style....It was wonderful. 

I travelled with him at his insistance and we talked all the way ,what impressed me most was ,he was a nice bloke easy to talk to, but unlike most celebrities he was a listener and fascinated in me being a cartoonist.

He was pestered by well meaning fans constantly ,but he made time and a quip for them all . It was possibly one of the nicest days in my life. I met a personal hero and he was more than i expected or imagined as all the cartoonists who were there that day will probably testify .

Well the angels in heaven should be ok for laughs and jam butties!

WHEN ME MAM SAW ME GUZZLING GUINNESS DRAWING CARICATURES SHE KNEW I WAS A PROFFESSIONAL CARTOONIST!

What did my ol' mam do to encourage my  slide from grace into the dark dingy world of the cartoonist?.....In the beginning ,quite frankly ,not a lot !

My dad was the fellah. He used to be a graphic artist in the days when adverts were ink drawings and he was superb with ink . As an artist he was great , a damn site better than i ever grew to be . In his days in some intelligence unit in the RAF after the war he travelled all around Western and Eastern Europe and had beautiful ink drawings of buildings and churches and cathedrals which he gave to a thouroughly unimpressed young son. 

I remember he arranged for comics to be delivered to the house in the days of paper boys in the 60's and on a Tuesday evenin ,i was breathless with excitment waiting for the VALIENT, the LION, and esspecially the TV21 to thud to the mat along with the good old LIVERPOOL ECHO. Then one day he came home with a big bundle ...Only 4 years supply of the VICTOR comic, spent the next couple of weeks lying on my belly on the floor transfixed with the 'TOUGH OF THE TRACK'; 'BRADDOCK OF THE BOMBERS'; KILLER KENNEDY'....And on it went, jeez!..I was a 'pig in shite!'...Some of his co-workers in FORDS heard about the comic mad son and gave me dad bundles of comics ,ah happy days. I think my mum liked it as i was the quietest she'd ever known me to be .

I discovered the cartoonist RIGBY  in the SUN newspaper with his hidden little boy and bird in every drawing , dad'd help me to find them ,he helped me put a RIGBY scrapbook together. BILL TIDY used to draw the weeks news on GRANADA REPORTS  on a Friday teatime, me n' dad loved it as he zoomed through his drawings as he talked through the events of the week in minutes flat . Thats when i went from drawing spitfires and Lancasters as well as spaceships to silly squiggly cartoon characters. Dad even brought a few MAD  magazines from the lads at the factory. And i discovered DON MARTIN, ARAGONES, DRUCKER, et al !

These were the glory days when every newspaper and magazine had cartoons. Dad encouraged me to draw 'gags' as i made him laugh and he used to have some good ideas and he encouraged me to send stuff off and when i got stuff published  he encouraged me to hawk my stuff around FLEET ST !...Not the most fun packed experiance if your not used to rejection, but that was one way of getting used to it.

The potential cartooning genius had become a compulsive doodler while still at school , people still remember pictures i did of teachers in between Thunderbirds and Interceptors from UFO And Eagles from SPACE 1999. This period of honing my skills unfortunatly coincided with an intensive supposed period of study ,so maybe not too suprisingly my reports and exam results left something to be desired ,culminating in me getting my arse kicked out of a bloody good school. I could've salvaged something and done art, but chose Biology instead , no i don't know why !

Not too suprisingly dad was dissapointed ,but mum was raging mad !....Did some 'normal ' jobs and got stuff published  so eased the parental disgust over the years, but my teens and the following years got me lots of trouble and sackings from jobs . MAGGIE THATCHER started the govt enterprise scheme and i became my own boss as i'd started the live caricature work and i was doing studio work before the computers screwed it all up. Mum had eased up on me and was quite proud when customers were telling her how good 'her Tim' was !

Her brothers in Ireland working on farms and building considered drawing and esspecially drawing cartoons as nothing like a job and i was dismissed as a lazy waste of time much to my mums pain. But i started doing well, i had a daily newspaper strip and started on a range of greetings cards and for a few years was raking it in. I was on more money than 'the workers' who were knocking me ,i even bought the family home off my mother much to her disbelieving joy.

I think the main moment for my mum when she was proudest and able to show me off was one day in the RATHDRUM CARTOON FESTIVAL during the late 90's, she'd fought in my corner when anybody put me down ,apparently, but she came into the village and i was sitting there with the other lads drinking and banging out the caricatures to a long queue of people and spreading joy and wonderment to the visitors as we do. My uncle the builder couldnt believe his eyes and his ears after mum put him right on a few things. After that mum didn't have to put up with her lad getting stick. Ever since that day ,i think she was shocked and suprised and realised that i wasn't quite the useless deadbeat she suspected i was and ever since shes backed and supported me through the ,has to be said 'drought -ridden years we all suffer through. 

She says she always had faith i would be ok and successful, but i remember it slightly different, when she saw i was giving it a go she thought 'just maybe!', but she wouldn't stand for anyone putting me down and when i was earning and she saw us hammering out work and even doing jobs abroad she was amazed and suddenly proud..I'd won her over, eventually !

WATCH ODD PEOPLE....AS THE MOST EVIL DEADLY PEOPLE IN HISTORY WERE TOTAL WEIRDO BARNPOTS !

T

kim jong un the new nutter on the block!

Throughout history the world has been run by kings ,emperors, Fakirs ,etc ,all living in the lap of luxury ,but when they got bored called up the starving subjects to march across countries to invade somebody and have a good war.

ALthough they were probably nuts ,many were actual warriors and would show their regal gob on the battlefield which ,in those long gone times actually inspired their men to fight....Can you imagine any of our leaders on the battlefield filling us with inspiration nowadays.

last century we had The Duke of Wellington fighting a clever little odd bod called Napolean ,known in legend as a dwarf with his hand inside his jacket all the time, but he ,apparently was perfectly normal sized and normal and very clever ,The Frogs (now with them farting about over Brexit ,400 men to go from Vauxhall and owning companies over her, we don't have to be nice to them ! anymore)....Well they worshipped their emperor. And probably with good reason , but then we had Waterloo....That shut les gobs!

The first world war didn't really have a central character, not until a greasy haired comb over with a snotty little moustache named ADOLPH HITLER decided to take over the world. His far right beliefs got rid of all kinds of races ,religions in the quest for land for the Germans and purity of race. Short arsed little runt who fancied himself as an artist ,but couldn't make it ,so years of war and destruction and  planned extermination of millions of men women and children just cos he got upset !

Mussollini was the dictator in charge in Italy ,a really odd baldy bulging eyed weirdo ,very animated and when he spoke you could probably hear it in England. He was jealous of Hitler and wanted the Italian military to show what they could do ,which to be honest wasn't much, aside from being beaten and surrendering in mind boggling numbers. Apparently very fond of the ladies, to show how stupid he was ,he built a series around a lake ,in fact they appear in the opening of the James Bond film, 'Quantum of Solace' in a car chase. Musso' ,as he was named in a cartoon strip named the longer tunnels after his favourite women and the shorter after the not so highly thought of ...If thats not living on the edge ,tell me what is .

Around the same time we made friends with one evil bastard JOSEPH STALIN...In charge of Russia ,he was a bear of a man who ruled with an iron paw. He and Hitler made a pact and would split what they could strip from countries they intended to over run ,but Hitler being a bad person betrayed him and invaded Russia and us Brits sent Russia as much aid as we could , the countries gradually starving but we sent supplies and lives on the Artic convoys to supply Stalin.

He shot himself in the foot as being totally ruthless and paranoid he shot a mass of his best generals , so when the Germans were at the gates of Moscow and fighting for Stalingrad it was the Russian winter that beat the Germans . Stalin ordered that anyone comes back from the front or escapes the Germans to be shot for cowardice....Alround sweet'eart he was !

But in more recent times our nutjobs are in the middle east and muslim lands . .SADDAM HUSSEIN was in charge in his lovely palaces with the goverment and military run by his mind boglingly rich family. In charge of Iraq . He fancied himself as a noble military leaderalways in military ftigues ,probably designer fitted and a beret. He was a hard leader and people were tortured and a harsh regime was ruled by his iron fist . When the good ol yanks and uk under our noble leader TONY BLAIR in vaded and got rid of poor old sad Saddam. His country decended into anarchy and chaos which it's never recovered , It seems the Muslim people are only content with an absolute bastard in charge ,as he ,like the military ,sunglass clad ,medal collecting leader in LIBYA , COLONEL GADDAFFI. He was an equal totally nuts bastard ruling with an iron fist , but he was  home for terrorists ,the Lockerbie bombing ; The SAS seige of the London Libyan embassy, etc . When he went the militant muslim chaos ensued

Iran was quite a trendy fashionable place when the SHAH ran the place ,but the extreme muslim faction under the evil eyed AYATOLLAH  moved in and strict muslim law was enforced, as well as a ruck of nuclear missiles so its believed .

And our latest totally bonkers leader of men is that hilarious KIM JONG UN in charge of NORTH KOREA who are happy to starve their people to pay for their military expansion and the nuclear missiles which are going to hit America ,"imminentally"!

Next weirdo ,with a funny hair cut, moustache, etc, just watch what you say , he could be running the worlds nuclear arsenal or concenteration camps before you know it !

TRUTH; THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH LIES CHEATING N' DECEIT !....IT'S TRUTH THATS THE ABSOLUTE BASTARD!

People of the utmost moral standing ,like priests n' politicians are always preaching in the religious anp political pious way how the most important thing in life is 'THE TRUTH!'....

Coming from priests is part of the job description.....But the truth in a politicians hands , it becomes an effective tool which can be used and twisted to fit the occassion for which the honest truth is needed. Both these sets of fine upstanding pillocks of the community are able and more than ready to preach on the importance of the truth and honesty to everybody ,but themselves. A dishonest politician , never ,true as the day is green ! And the catholic church and all the other holy mafias have lots of terrible secrets under their cassocks, togas and turbans.....The simple truth is it's a load of bollocks ,truly!

Wherever you go in your daily life you are surrounded by people trying to sell you things , preach to you ,get you to vote for their parties ,all these sources of the truth are from people , companies trying to entice you with what you , or they think you want to hear ,or see to entice you into doing what the truth will drive you to.

The world and life is filled with lies and deciet from every where and we all know it and really don't mind. We know about the church ,the greasy politicians ,salesmen and advertising ,the whole world is lies disguised as the truth  and we really don't mind .

You might be faced with obvious lies about something closer to home, a relationship or something ,for instance and can be upsetting, but when the truth comes out . ...? The 'TRUTH' really is the heavy artilliary and if you think about it , unless you've already been lied to and gone through suffering and pain over something and being a victim of lies and deceit , occassionally somebody'll come and tell you 'the truth' and , hopefully joy and happiness will prevail , but not often. When the Truth becomes an important factor in the equation it is going to cause ,mind numbing pain and ussually emotional disaster. If anything is going to flatten you it is the truth over something , very rarely is truth exclusively linked to joy and happiness ,when the truth is dragged to firing position and the bitter facts reveal the true story the explosive shells of explosive facts decimate your beliefs  and trust.

At the end of the day if the truth is harmless ,the subject isn't particually important ,so the truth would've been known from the beginning  Lies wont have you slashing your wrists ,popping pills and guzzling paint stripper, but the truth can, lies cover up the truth ,but the truth doesn't cover up the lies!......Basically don't tell me the truth .....Just tell me lies about  what i want to hear ! 

FATHERS : REMEMBER WHEN DADS LOOKED LIKE DADS , BEFORE THE CARDIGAN MARKET CRASHED !

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When i was a kid , my dad was the oldest man alive. He was that monsterous age of 30 when he took delivery me with a little help from me mam !....When i was 10 , he was 40....And still alive at that incredible age. It seems very strange now , i'm 57 not becoming a dad until i was in the last flagging days of my 30's. The daughter thinks i'm a miserable old fart ,but as to wether she thinks of me as the oldest miserable fart in the world i don't know, but i wouldn't be suprised.

In the old days couples fell in love and 'courted!'....After a long time their engagement followed by years of innocent romance then marriage and eventually the happy couple would have the post marriage 'filling of the boots' and eventually the kids'd start tumbling out. 

In them far flung innocent times dads were a lot older and looked it and wore ties around the house, as well as puffing on ciggies as they slobbed on the couch puffing on their fags in cardigan n' slippers. Then in years later they'd evolve into grandads often swapping the ciggies for a constantly smoking pipe. My dad never got to that stage ,as after a brief sojurn at her Majesty's pleasure in Strangeways Prison in Manchester he started smoking 'Rollies'...Whereas ciggies ,smouldered ,rollies fizzled like fuse wire, ash tumbling onto his lap as he frantically rolled the next one. They used to say 'Rollies' were made from dog shit n' bus tickets !.....There was a bloody good reason for that !

The years passed on and the young lovers got younger and the period of courting got shorter and dissappeared as the 'filling of the boots ' phase came around much earlier and marriages had to be hurriedly arranged before the 'signs' of the forthcoming sprog became too apparent and shame was averted. Later in the marital evolution , the birth was before the wedding , couples getting younger and younger. Now the parents are about the age of what would've been an elder brother or sister.

When we were kids we were never in the house and dads were kept from daughters ,girl problems , but were given responsibility for the boys , who are just trouble. Dads were wise and knew everything as i wasn't bothered about learning and knowledge as i just wanted to be outside running around the streets.

When we got into trouble ,i'd get a good smack off me 'awl fellah!'...Didn't bother me and i looked foreward to the day when i'd have darling kids of my own i could kick the living daylight out of ,but we live in enlightened times and we're not allowed to raise our hands....Life can be so unfair!

Nowadays the computer generation is upon us and my generation have been left way behind by our housebound computer game ,playing ,texting kids. My daughter thinks i'm a brainless turd . If i ask her to give me a hand ,you can hear the sighs, tsks ,and various respiratory sounds of impatience , like the boiler of an average steam locomotive....This combined with almost impossible rolling of bulging eyeballs....Dads are firmly in their place . In our house it was ...

1) The Dog

2)the kid

3)the missus...

...........

............

.............

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4) Dad

Nowadays trendy young dads are equally gened up on computers and social media ,etc. In shopping malls families aren't a couple with screaming kids , but all quiet as they mooch around all texting, so all is peace n' quiet. So daddy isn't important at all, just supplying new computer games when needed. They look smart n' trendy with tight fitting jeans and trainers ,n' footy shirt. 

The days of proper dads and dads looking like proper dads may have changed with the changing social climate and the crash in the cardigan market, but one thing that never changes is mums n' wives get something special ,kids get their ,once upon a time toys, but all soft wear now ,but dads still get the SOCKS, SHIRTS N' AFTER SHAVE ..All the time ! ,

FARMING AND THE WONDERFUL VARIETY OF ANIMAL DROPPINGS AVAILIABLE !

IN A TIME BEFORE DELIAH SMITH !!!

In the good ol prehistoric primevil days 10,000,000 before they invented religion n' all the shit hit the fan for the rest of eternity...And the women looked like Raquel Welsh, the groups of cave persons....Youve got to be PC even in prehistoric references...Wandered the lands as hunters killing their food with sticks n' clubs which must've been awkward for capturing a Tyrannosaurus or hairy mammoth for tea!
As they ate nothing but raw meat before they learnt how to burn it with the invention of fire, they were full of proteins and  were more prone to cancer and dying as well as erectile dysfunction. One day some bearded wandering caveman looking for a dinosaur to scoff thought that a bit of Brontasaurus would taste a lot better with some chips, but he was knackered as chips are made from vegetables and vegetables hadn't been invented.
Meanwhile up in the smartarse part of the world ,in them days anyway in Egypt on the banks of the Nile there was lots of Egyptians living there and they ate fruits and berries and somebody thought that some of their food would be nice in a butty!...So they invented things like wheat and corn and invented bread and the sandwich.
Instead of wandering the land hunting they stayed by the river Nile were it wasn't all sand ,but mud and soil, they found by digging holes and putting funny coloured grass into the holes and discovered crops,i've no idea how they decided that it would be good to eat. Even more how wheat n cereal crops like they got aren't edible unless you treat and cook it into things like bread and porridge, how did the invent scottish breakfast cereal in Egypt?
They invented a sharp blade to carve trenches in the mud and called it a plough and people instead of wandering the land worked the land ,planting all kinds and vegetables were finally invented....Although they never invented the potato, the Irish did that and England invented the chip!
The hunter who run n' jumped about ,dying at an early age of bowel cancer, unable 'to get it up!' was replaced by a slower moving slightly stooped, bad tempered character with lots of muck in the grooves of their hand palms and under their jagged finger nails, chewing on bits of raw veg and later tobacco, which helped them develop the ability to spit huge globules of spit over equally vast distances with great accuracy! These very odd characters evolved into the modern farmer.
The hunters died out and the home loving farmers took root like their crops in little residences surrounded by fields full of crops , these places for farmers to live in were named 'farms!'
Over the centuries people still liked meat , they didn't become vegetarians , they liked their meat n' 2 veg ...This is probably a good thing ,apparently vegetables are good for you ,but in my own case ,although i've had very pleasant vegetable dinners , a veggie dinner gives me absolutly shockin' wind, i'm farting my brains out for a day or so. If the human race'd given up meat the planets greenhouse effect would've kicked in long long ago.
Animals moved into the farming routine and in some cases took over the routine of the farm . My family came from a dairy farm in the bogs of Ireland. Cows evolved so as to spend the day munching grass and to convert the grass via a line of stomachs to milk from ridiculousyhuge sack with 4 tits ,or udders, which allow them to be traditionally pulled by the farmers hands and a few buckets per cow a day, but now they are given a form of mechanical blow job...I'd imagine lifes not too bad for the cows. The bulls dont have it too bad either and are put into fields to 'fill their boots' with the lady cows, aside from 'spreading his seed ,a bull is used for his meat in another respect , mainly as food for us carnivourous blood dripping steak loving humans.
The wild boar has been replaced by the domesticated pig ,slopping about in his sty getting fat to be carved up for us carnivourous bacon butty loving humans !
Sheep are a strange creature whose fur has mutated so that us cold , trendy ,dapper humans can wear woolen socks ,suits ,sweaters to look dead smart and to block up the filter in your washing machine and spin dryer. When the sheep start losing their hair as all of us at a certain age the become lamb sunday dinners ,lovely ,but exspensive which i'm sure they'd be glad to know!
Horses have been tamed through the centuries ,from a form of transport ,the military had sleek stallion type horses to gallop around the land. Big hairy shire horse types were used to pull farm produce and were the workhorses, you dont really see them that much now ,the other sleek horses are for kids to ride as a hobby and as racehorses for the rich to gamble on and for those on benefits to help stay in the pub all the week, day n' night. Horses are bred n' trained on specific properties with stables and fields to leg around ,not really farms...My dad hated horses ,always said.."Bloody 'orses!..Dangerous both ends and bloody uncomfortable in the middle!"
Farmers are totally cold blooded when it comes to animals and their deaths. They devote their live 24/7 to maintaining the farm and keeping their stock healthy. My Granny would without a blink pick up a chicken in the yard and snap its neck and that was for dinner that day.
Farms have a variety of interesting smells, basically the smell of various animal shit!...I always quite liked cow muck ,not too pungent. Pigs are pungent ,but i got used to it and quite liked it, Horse shit ,just plain stinks!....May be good for the roses ,but not for me!

THE STRAIN OF BEING TOTALLY RELAXED AND THE WORLD ARM WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP..."LETS CALL IT A DRAW!"....

                                                                                                         

In my younger days of early Karate training ,like all youngsters i wanted to be tough n' hard and tensed muscles all the time and jaw ache from clenching my teeth. This was before i discovered the arts of relaxation after the science of pure bone idleness. I discovered Tai-Chi and the incredible speed and power that training slowly and gently with proper breathing can give you. This was a real eye opening moment ,the holy grail for a died in the wooly-bed blanket lazy bastard !

We used to go to boozers all over the place on our'jolly boys outings!' After a 'skinful' it was time to put the locals in their place. As the groups muscely little bugger i got pulled into the arm wrestling and grinding of teeth ,muscle popping grunting n' straining ensued. I didn't do too bad ,but the tendons in the wrist and in the crook of the arm got a good straining.

Managed to ease off all this silly stuff and recently i had an arm wrestle and relaxed myself instead of powering into it and "dang my thighs" if it didn't work !?....The secret to everything is relaxation, simple as that ,but it's hard to totally relax ,knackering stuff this relaxation, let me tell you !

Tim Leatherbarrow: THE TELEVISION HOW IT HAS PINNED US TO THE COUCH FOR YEARS EVEN IF ITS RUBBISH!

Tim Leatherbarrow: THE TELEVISION HOW IT HAS PINNED US TO THE COUCH FOR YEARS EVEN IF ITS RUBBISH!

THE TELEVISION HOW IT HAS PINNED US TO THE COUCH FOR YEARS EVEN IF ITS RUBBISH!

Being a child of the 60's.....i grew up straining my eyes at a tiny screen inside a huge 2ft wide box that was 4ft deep, due to thosemassive cathode ray tubes and glass tubes that took about 20 minutes to warm up once the set had been turned on. The actual act of turning on those early sets was a risky operation as the switches were mainly clunky knobs. The twisting of those clunky knobs was a hernia -producing task.

The on off was one huge clunk, but the channel selector was a  mass of clunks, well a few as there was only two channels , the good ol 'beeb' n' ITV. Later ,of course came the intellectual odd one ,BEEB2. In those old days the pictures were not so much black n' white, but grey n' grey. I seem to remember lots of cowboys and American detectives and British cops as in Z-Cars with its distinctive theme tune which they still play at the Everton ground at Goodison park.

Lots of Irwin Allen stuff  like 'Voyage to the bottom of the sea'; 'Lost in space', but we beat them when a certain white haired bad tempered time lord in a telephone box arrived quietly , but then exploded with the pepperpot Daleks! With its distorted blobby opening titles and etherial music with hissing and ashmatic wheezing was wonderful and at the time terrifying with the famous possible urban myth that people hid behind the settee when the good Doctor and various lousy special effected monsters were on. The fact that you could hide behind the settee shows how things have changed. The settee was in the middle of the room close up to the telly. Not over against the far wall where it doesn't matter how far away you are from the 76 inch flat screen telly on the far side of the room. Even if you could hide behind the settee the kids wouldn't ,they've been spoiled by wonderful realer than reality special CGI effects the wonderful fear the imagination could instill has dissappeared and gone.

Another favourite of mine which many dont remember was a telly version of the 'Dirty Dozen', but there was only four in 'Garrisons Gorillas!'....Always behind enemy lines in German uniforms blasting away with Schmeisser machine guns. I got the DVD's and like many revisits to your past , it never quite hits the hoped for nostalgic G-Spot. One that did ,i still love was the spy series with the meanest assassin of all, Edward Woodward as 'Callan', still brilliant.

Boyhood excitment peaked with Apollo 8 going around the back of the moon, then Apollo 11 landing on the moon. At this stage i was a space mad nut thanks to a certain Gerry Anderson and his puppet and string Supermarination series of Thunderbirds, Stingray,Superca,Fireball XL5 and my favourite the real life UFO.

The clunky knobs were replaced by swimming pool diving board-like press buttons and ,wonderful colour! In those long never to be forgotten days we used to go outside to play, but if there was a big film on ,like on a Saturday evening we'd go home to watch it ,as stuff didn't get repeated very often. so if you missed it ,you waited for years. I remember the excitment of the first Bond film on telly.

We never had BBC2 for a long time and on a Monday evening at 8 o'clock, ITV had news in 'World in Action ,whilst the 'BEEB' had Panorama, yet another news show, but on BEEB2 which we could hear, but not see they used to have 'The High Chaperal', or Alias Smith and Jones'. Then 'Oh joy be unrestrained we finally got BEEB2  with a picture so lots of cowies n' indians and no more news and current affairs.

As the years and tellys evolved the main drawback about colour telly was that colour telly was a lot clearer and the effects which were crappy in the days of black n' white were missed , but not with colour, remember the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who onwards for many years and the great soap 'Crossroads', a Birmimgham motel made of cardboard.

Then came the video and you could keep all the programmes in the growing heap of tapes that we all have and i'm afraid to admit still have. All the action and adventure dried up and replaced by soaps and game shows were ,if you were lucky you'd win a toaster. More channels flooded in with the onset of sky.

Nowadays the millions of channels we flick through with our very handy and looseable hand sized remote controls, have mainly repeats of stuff thats been on twice that same day. These days people dont want to be in a band or musicians playing gigs, etc, they just want to be pop stars ,so singing into their hairbrush is enough to get them onto the talent spotting shows that infest our telly weekend nights as in The X-Factor. The talent moved from singing to dancing to ice slating and everything is geared to 'the Celebrity!', a person whose just famous for being famous. The calendar doesn't chart the year anymore ,its what celebrity talent show is on ,Strictly Comes Dancing'; X-Factor and 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here!'

A very odd thing is the amount of adverts for training and sport training DVD's as we all need our core developed and a 6-pack ,by dancing to the instructions coming from your telly as you dance or shadow box on the mat in front of the set.....Very odd!

We're all spoiled for choice ,but unlike in the days of 2 channels were every day was different , now we have hundreds of channels all the same ,shite!