As you can’t have failed to notice if you’re following me on other social media, I’m now unemployed. Again. I’ve been out of work since the 2nd of January, and already it’s driving me insane. I’ve already reached the point where I simply can’t be bothered getting out of bed. Many hours since that fateful day, have been spent underneath the covers. I simply don’t see the point of getting up.

A text discussion with Jamie S about my situation suggested I actually get up on Saturday morning, and do something. I’d planned to actually go to Durham with Andy the Iridium Fan, but I ended up possibly having to help my dad fit his new “rotator”, which is basically one of these things. I’d still planned to do something on the morning, even if it was just a small walk about on my own. I’ve got some new radio shows to listen to, but more on those later. If I can be bothered.

Anyway, up came the sun, and eventually, up came my eyelids… at 12PM. Bugger. So much for getting up early.

Yes, you may notice that I sleep upside-down on the bed, my feet are where my head should be. this is so I can watch telly in bed. I’m also sharing my bed with many CD wallets at the moment. I need to correct this, but I’m quite content at only sleeping on part of a single bed. S-s-s-single bed. Obscure 70s record reference there…

Anyway, we had to to get some cable. 3 core cable, and 25 metres of it. This would mean stepping out of the house. No sooner had I taken 6 steps outside of the house, this happened…

Yyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuup, that’s shite. SIX STEPS. SIX OF THEM. FFS. Today might as well just have been written off completely.

We ended up in Charlie Dickens, a local hardware shop, and while Daddykins perused the staggering amount of cables they had on offer…

… I considered buying yet more plastic storage boxed to put my stuff in. I didn’t bother, deciding that it’s cheaper to use my ample bedroom floor space as a rather unorthodox shelf.

We returned back to Mercuryvapour Towers. While Daddykins went upstairs to tug on his cable, I checked the video recorder to see what goodies it had lined up for me. See, “Childrens ITV” were running a “Best of” to celebrate its 30th birthday, showing for probably the first time since they were originally aired, some of the classic shows I grew up with as a child.

And, thanks to a technical malfunction on behalf of the video recorder, not a single one of them had been recorded. Oh joy. Still, I was just in time to watch possibly the best three shows of the day, namely “Finders Keepers”, “Fun House”, and of course, the irreplaceable “Knightmare”.

It’s quite amazing how some of the shows had aged. I loved “Finders Keepers” at the time, but watching it again some 20 years later and with my childhood disappearing into the distance long ago, it just wasn’t the same. The set no longer looked amazing, the “quiz” element seemed tacked-on and pointless, and the rest of it just seemed so… meh. They used pretty much the same graphics as were used in Supermarket Sweep. I wouldn’t have noticed it at the time.

And so, onto Fun House. Now, unfortunately, for some unknown reason, they picked one of the later episodes, after Pat Sharp ditched his mullet. This seemed an odd decision, as the mullet was just as much part of the show as the go-karts, gunge, and the cock-a-doodle-doo sound when the team picked up the “Power-Prize”. I can only assume this is down to the amount of episodes still remaining. Kids shows, especially gameshow types, are pretty much worthless with very little resale value, and it probably was the case that the videotape used actually cost more than the programme cost to make, so many shows of this genre were destroyed as the tapes were re-used. Runaround is a perfect example of this. 100 episodes recorded, only 4 remain.

Anwyay, back to Fun House. again, I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t the same. I spent most of the time thinking that Health and Safety wouldn’t allow it to even go ahead these days. Especially near the end where one of the red contestants lost control of the go-kart and went hurtling into the side of the set. Even I thought it looked painful. Also, how long would it have taken for an episode to be actually filmed? It must have taken them a while to move the “games” out of the way and clear the mess up once it had all been done. I’m aware of the rubber matting, yes, but it still would have taken time.

(UPDATE: A quick rummage on Youtube found this episode from the first series, so you can, once again, bask in the glory of the mullet…)

And as that show disappeared into the ether, there was only one more I wanted to watch. Knightmare. This was probably my favourite show when growing up. State of the art then, it was bound to look horribly dated in the 21st century. It’s only just occured to me that the ep they showed was from 1993. therefore it’s 20 years old. It’s the same age as Doom. £D rendering was in its infancy, and boy, didn’t it show it! This was also a later episode, so it featured the “Eye-shield”. this was one of the parts of the show that ruined it for me. It allowed the creators to expand on locations, by inserting recorded sections of the “dungeoneer” walking around, with the view being provided to the other contestants by this “eye Shield”. For me, it didn’t work, as they added filters to the video to make it look computerised, though you could tell it was just a bloke walking around a ruined castle with a camera. Sigh.

They could never do a new version of Knightmare. It wouldn’t be the same. Most kids have more technology in their pockets than what was used in the entirety of the show’s run. there’s another episode of it on tomorrow, though it’s really quite obvious what’s going to happen in it.

After that was Fraggle Rock. Now I didn’t stay about to watch this, I left it to record, so I don’t have much to say. What I do know, however, is this was another show that fell victim to the tape wiping policies at the time (or at least, the master tapes have never been located), and only 12 of the 96 UK episodes are known to exist. Such a shame. The USA version is, I believe, complete, but it’s just not the same without Fulton Mackay. (UPDATE: It was indeed the US version they showed. The reason for this is because they showed an episode from when CITV was formed, in 1983, and the UK version didn’t begin until January 1984)

Anyway, that’s enough waffling about old telly shows. I’m sure you’re more interested in hearing about what I did for the rest of the day. Well, I slept some more. I’d planned to get some walking done around the time sunset comes, in the vain hope of getting some shots with the camera. Unfortunatelty, it became just that bit too cloudy, so I removed my shoes, and went back to bed. Jamie S mentioned getting an endomondo track of any walking I’d done, and I’m happy to report I did this, though a track of me walking to the offy and back isn’t the most thrilling map skills you’ve ever seen.

So, it’s now 22:30. I’ll probably round off the day with a couple of games of snooker (via Virtual Pool 4), and I’ll add some photos to the new gallery. More on this in the next posting, along with those radio shows I mentioned. I just feel I’ve babbled enough for tonight!