Child Of The 1980's

When I was growing up there were two big electronic toys that I really wanted to own. The first was the awesome programmable Big Trak, and the second was the slightly less educational, but just as fun, Starbird.

Starbird was a space ship toy which looked the business. It was sleek and groovy looking, just like one of the ships from Star Wars, and it could be pulled apart and converted into a smaller mini space ship as well. Best of all those was the fact that it made sound effects!

After switching Starbird on it would start to make a futuristic sounding engine noise. Tip the nose of the ship upwards though and the noise changed to sound like it was accelerating to climb higher, whilst tipping the nose down made it sound like it was decelerating. OK, this was all a bit nonsensical for a space ship, but it sounded cool.

Even better though was the little button on the top that fired the Starbird laser cannons. As well as playing a laser blast sound, some little lights under the lasers came on as well.

As if that wasn’t cool enough, the Starbird even went through a little revamp and was re-released as the Starbird Avenger. This had all the same functions as the original, but could also send and receive infra-red. It came with a reflective target which you could then practice shooting at, in a similar manner to the way Laser Tag worked.

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The cartoons of Hanna Barbera had a distinct influence on me as I was growing up, though I have to say mainly through their older work. I loved Scooby Doo (before it was ruined by the addition of he-who-shall-not-be-named), Top Cat and The Flintstones, and I was also very keen on most of their shorter cartoons, featuring characters such as Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound.

Most of these cartoons had been made in the Sixties, but they were still regularly being shown on kids TV as I was growing up, such was their enduring appeal. What better then than a cartoon that brought many of these great characters together?

The result was Yogi’s Treasure Hunt, which featured Yogi, Boo Boo, Top Cat, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, Snagglepuss and more. It also featured my favourite ever cartoon villains Dastardly and Muttley from Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines (better known, albeit wrongly, as Stop the Pigeon due to the theme song).

A quick aside about Wacky Races. Dastardly and Muttley always tried to prevent the other competitors in the race from winning by planting traps on the course for them. However, given that the courses didn’t appear to be lap based in any way, this meant Dastardly and Muttley always had to get in front of the pack to set their surprises. This being the case, and if they really wanted to win, they must have had the fastest car on the track, so why bother with the traps?

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The British are well known for having more than their fair share of eccentric characters, and there can be no better example of this than the legend that was Jimmy Savile. At the time of his death I was unable to update this site, but I felt I couldn’t let the passing of this icon from my childhood pass without writing something.

James Wilson Vincent Savile was born in Leeds in 1926 and very nearly died from pneumonia at just 5 months old. As a teenager he worked in a coal mine and we were nearly robbed of him again, as an explosion in the mine left him with spinal injuries so great that he was told he would never walk again.

In the early 1940’s Jimmy started working in dance halls, playing records and, self proclaiming himself the world’s first disc jockey, as he used a twin record deck and microphone set up to entertain the attendant dancers.

He then did a stint as a professional sportsman, competing as a cyclist in the Tour of Britain and also becoming a wrestler! Yes, it’s true!

In the late 1950’s he finally moved into radio, first at Radio Luxembourg and then at Radio 1, and in the early 1960’s entered the world of television. In 1964 he was the first ever presenter of Top of the Pops, and he also had the honour of being the very last presenter of this show too, when it finally came to a close in 2006.

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..it would be so nice, as Madonna might sing.

Things are going to quiet around this neck of the Internet for a couple of weeks as I’m currently off on my hols. New posts when I get back!

Perhaps you’re sat reading this blog at this very moment with a mug of tea or coffee nearby. Take a quick glance at it. Is the mug looking a bit worse for wear? Chipped at the top but you still keep using it out of habit?

Maybe it’s time for a new receptacle for your choice of brewed beverage, and what better than a mug that has a bit of an Eighties theme, given you’re sat reading an Eighties themed website at this very moment?

To the rescue come Hawkin’s Bazaar yet again. They are one of my favourite places for things that you thought were no longer available, and at the time of writing they have a number of retro TV mugs available at the offer price of 2 for £15 (or £10 each).

These are no ordinary mugs though, as not only do they have pictures of some classic children’s TV characters, they also talk when you drink from them!

There’s one for Rat fans featuring Roland Rat Superstar, another of the Wombles from Wimbledon Common, one for Bagpuss and last but not least a whistling Clangers mug.

This entry is about the Eighties band, not the dessert, so apologies to fans of milk based jelly-like puddings…

Whilst writing about the dessert Blancmange the other day I was reminded of the band Blancmange, and it occurred to me that whilst I remembered them being a band, I couldn’t actually remember any of the songs they did.

So a quick Internet search later and I bring to you Living On The Ceiling, a song I definitely remember and I hope you will too. If you’re not sure you do, then check out the video clip at the end of this post.

Blancmange themselves were a two piece outfit consisting of singer Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, the synthesiser guy. They formed in 1979 and were fairly successful during the early Eighties, with them calling it a day in 1987. The pair did some solo work after that, but they recently reformed, and their fourth album, Blanc Burn, was released in March 2011.

Living on the Ceiling is a catchy song (probably why I remember it), with some interesting lyrics (I’m up the bloody wall!) and a mix of good old Eighties synthesiser and the sort of middle Eastern music you always associate with busy marketplaces and belly dancers. Oh, and surprise, surprise, the video itself contains a lot of middle Eastern style imagery to boot.

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This entry is about the foodstuff, not the Eighties band, so apologies to fans of synthpop…

Can you remember the last time you ate Blancmange? I certainly can’t, and to be honest I can say I’m not really too sad about that either.

For me, Blancmange was one of those desserts that I secretly dreaded my Mother setting on the table at dinner time. I admit I ate it, because it was that or nothing, but I never would say I really enjoyed it.

Basically a mixture of milk, sugar and gelatin or corn starch to make it set, it had a bit of a bland taste in it’s natural state, but when made in it’s pink (presumably strawberry flavoured) or yellow (banana) varieties it really didn’t taste that much better. Even chocolate blancmange didn’t taste that great either, which coming from someone who enjoys most chocolate based desserts shows quite how little I liked it.

The closest I get to eating Blancmange now I suppose is in Trifle, which funnily enough is something I actually like a lot. Technically it’s a custard layer in Trifle, but it is sort of Blancemange-y, and is my least favourite part of the Trifle ensemble. The way I see it, that’s why you have the jelly and cream layers!

Of course, maybe Blancmange is still out there and doing alright for itself, but it’s now just taken on some fancier sounding names like Panna Cotta so you eat it without realising it…

The Whizzkid’s Handbook, written by Peter Eldin, was a book intended as a sort of guide to surviving school life. It basically consisted of a host of tricks, dodges, hints and tips to allow you to keep one step ahead of your teachers at all times, and (probably correctly) assumed that every school boy or girl in the country secretly wanted to be Dennis the Menace or Minnie the Minx.

Whilst the majority of entries in the book would probably have had you sent to the headmasters office quicker than a very quick thing, they were certainly all amusing to read and at the very least wish you had the guts to do at school for real.

The kind of things you might find included tips like how to fake an illness to get a day off school, excuses for why you hadn’t done your homework, ways of out smarting the school bully and so on.

There were also some rather amusing fake educational entries, with my favourite being the entry on why fire engines are red, which went something like this:-

• Fire engines have six wheels and six firemen
• Six plus six is twelve
• Twelve inches make a ruler
• Queen Elizabeth was a ruler
• Elizabeth knighted Drake
• Drake sailed the seven seas
• In the seas there are fish
• Fish have fins
• Fins live in Finland
• Finland is next to Russia
• The Russian flag is red
• And that’s why fire engines are red!

OK, some dodgy logic, and sadly no longer true thanks to the Russian flag bit at the very least, but once you’d memorised all that it was one of those great ways of impressing your mates in the school playground.

The book proved incredibly popular, so much so that there were two further volumes published.