Ghosts of Christmas Presents – 1985

2023 has been a year, hasn’t it? I’m going to be posting some of these reminiscing blog things up until Christmas, maybe after, depending on how good/bad my memory is.

Christmas meant a lot to me back then. A lot more than it does now. Maybe for the social element where I met parts of my family I would never normally see. Maybe because I got stuff? Maybe because I finally managed to meet the actual genuine Santa Claus himself…

People often wonder why my eyes are so bad. It’s probably because I grew up having to look at that wallpaper.

Let’s go back to 1985, and one of the first Christmases I have memory of. I was, and still am, a big fan of snooker. I watch it whenever it’s on the box, and even back then, I remembered some of the names, and I must have been capitaved by that year’s World Championship where Dennis Taylor narrowly beat Steve Davis on the black ball. Possibly

It would come as no surprise that I’d eventually want a snooker table of my own. Imagine my delight when Santa somehow managed to squeeze an entire table down the chimney without managing to disturb the gas fire. He even took the time to spot the balls and rack the reds up! Christmases were so magical back then.

I was good at snooker as a kid. With eyes like that, I could line up a shot on the yellow and the green at the same time.

This was the first major present I remember. There was the Fisher Price record player the year before, but getting a blog out of that would have been a struggle, seeing as I was 5.

There are many photos of me playing on this snooker table. I loved it. There’s even more than one embarrassing photo where I’m actually wearing a waistcoat thing, just like a snooker player. I don’t think this has even been scanned in, thankfully. Now, for those of you paying attention to the above photo, the cushions were simple strips of black foam.

One day, I broke it. I wanted it to be like the snooker tables on the telly. In my infinite wisdom, I peeled the cushions off off, to reveal the lovely green, fully solid, plastic cushions. Instead of the ball bouncing cleanly, it just made a “thunk” sound and stopped there. A makeshift solution was found by Daddykins – he rushed out and bought some foam draught excluder from the nearby hardware shop. Sadly, the adhesive would weaken over time, cause it to droop, or come off entirely.

Due to its size, I was only allowed it in the centre of the front room during “snooker season”, whatever that was, meaning it lived behind the sofa, making it impossible to play.

Over the years, the cloth had started to degrade, the plasic balls went missing or got chipped, and although I do remember it getting set up in the kitchen for a short amount of time. as I remember programming a pretty crude scoring system for it on my ZX Spectrum. Ahhh, happy days!

It was, indeed, a Grand National.

As you saw previously, today (or Saturday 14th April, as I didn’t get this out on time) was the day of the Grand National. The annual horse race where animal rights activists scream at their tellies, and the glue factories rub their hands with glee. I posted that previous message, went to do something…. and entirely forgot to make a note of which horses I’d put a bet on. D’oh. Normally, I’d sake a screenshot, or save the results page on Evernote, but I literally got gripped by an episode of Tipping Point that was reaching its conclusion on one of the satellite channels. Oops.

12 O’Clock game, and I left the house to meet up with Accomplice for our “yearly” excursion to watch The Grand National in other locations than our front rooms. I have a 31-year tradition where I will not miss the race. No matter where I am, I will watch it under any circumstances. The closest I came to missing it was when I was in Edinburgh, exactly 11 years ago today… I ended up perched in the doorway of a betting shop, on my tiptoes, then rushing back to the hotel to watch the replay in the room.

pic

Then there was last year, at the Speccy meetup in Manchester. I watched the whole race from a queue at a bar in Manchester. Still didn’t miss it!

Accomplice is well aware of my little “traditions”, and is willing to take part in this one when possible, despite the fact he follows horse racing about as much as I follow the life and times of a sewing machine. Yeah, not very much, then

As it was only early, and with it not physically being possible to spend 5 mours in Newcastle, we headed off to the Metrocentre first. Of course, I have two stops which have pretty much became a religion now… the sweet shop in the yellow sector to stock up on cherry lips, and the American sweet shop in “The Village” to stock up on “Wild Cherry” Pepsi. You can’t get that over here, not the full sugar variety anyway. For some reason, over here, the government have one of those “things” against sugar, which I’ve yet to understand. I mean, they introduce “sugar tax”, in order to “save our health”…. and then lead us blindly into World War III by bombing Syr…. oooh, sorry, I almost came over all political there for a second… Let’s get back on topic.

So, The Metrocentre was plundered for its sugary goodness, and we headed into Newcastle city centre, for a brief look around. Now, Maplin was one of the stops that we usually make. Of course, due to their recent difficulties and imminent disappearance from the high street, they’re having a sale. I managed to pick up a USB3 powered hub, and two 11-watt PL-S fluorescent light bulbs. These are the type that my desk lamp takes, and considering LEDs are taking over, I thought getting a stash of these would be a good idea.

Once again, back to the main subject, the Grand National. Race time ticked ever nearer. My feet were sweatier than a yoga instructor’s jockstrap. It was time to find a comfy seat for the race.

Our first, and what I thought would be our only port of call, was “the Gate”. A strange complex, where every unit is either a bar, a restaurant, or a casino. It has a Wetherspoons, going by the name “the Keel Row”, or something like that. We went in, and it was heaving. It always is, due to the footy. Accomplice said we’d never find a seat. He vacated the premises, while I found a table. I did! A perfectly vacated table, with nobody on it. I plonked my arse down, and waited. I thought Accomplice was right behind me……. nothing. I tried to call him, only to encounter one major issue with “The Gate” – there’s no mobile signal in it. At least not on Vodafone. Gaaaaaah.

I left the vacant table, ran outside to see him standing by the escalators. I gestured for him to get inside, as I hurried to by newly vacated table…. only to find it occupied, along with all of the others. I know I don’t swear on here, but as Daddykins, and my aunty and uncle probably haven’t read this for years, I think I can safely say, in capitals… FOR FUCK’S FUCKING SAKE.

So, what now? Granted, there were many pubs in Newcastle. The chance of getting a seat in any of them were NIL. Absolute zero. Zip. Nada. Could this be the year that I actually miss the Grand National?

We head down… the road that I can’t remember the name of, but it’s the one with all of the charity shops on, and also “richer Sounds” – a TV / Hi-fi shop. It was 5PM at this point, and the race was due off at 5:15. Hurrah! They had it on *every* telly in the shop! But it’s a really small shop. How could we pad out time enough to pretend we’re looking for something, without buying it? They have a demo room! Brilliant! We sat on the couch, and I could still see a telly with the National on! Everything was starting to go great… until the shutters started to come down. Oh.

We were once again on the streets. Would we find somewhere in time? There wasn’t long to go at this point. Thankfullyy, there’s a betting shop over the road. I don’t think I’ve ever fully stepped foot in one in my entire life, but something seemed odd. It was empty, and, literally, a few minuted from the start of the big race, they were showing a generic jumps race from Newcastle. I asked the lady who was more than willing to throw a betting slip down our throats , if they were showing the Grand National. Accomplice thought this was the most amusing part of the day. Therefore, I must explain my reasonaing. Flashback to Edinburgh. I watched the race from a betting shop that I couldn’t even get into. It was crowded. Here we are, seconds before the race, and they’re showing no buildup, nobody is in to watch it, nothing to say that the world’s greatest steeplechase was just about to start.

It was an innocent enough question. I wanted to see the race. If they weren’t showing it, we would still have enough time. What if Ladbrokes had lost the rights to show it? There was still a Yates’s a few hundred yards away I could run to. In almost 40 years of life, this was the deppest I’d ever been into a bookies. There was bought to be the odd stupid question.

The Newcastle race faded out of view, and they did indeed dut to Aintree. It became clear, as I settled into my position that eye contact in here was really something that should be vaoided. Granted, I’ve got eyes like 20-past-12 anyway, so that’s not difficult, but there was one bloke in front of me, juggling mobile phones he’d just bought, trying in vain to insert the SIM cards.

The TVs switched over, and the live coverage began. Phew. I peered over the edge of the mobile phone guy, still avoiding eye contact, not just with him, but everyone in there..

The Canal Turn came. A shout from behind announced that I’d a certain horse won, then someone would be able to pay their gas bill. A depressing thought, but at least the weather is getting warmer now so they won’t freeze to death.

The rest of the race completed, Tiger Roll crossed the line first, and the place cleared. Had I won? I still couldn’ t remember what I’d put on.

We left Newcastle behind, and I’d returned home to log into my setting account. Imagine my surprise when it said £15! YES!

OK, so my overall winnings came to only a fiver, but a win is a win.

It’s The Grand National! Again!

Ah yes, it seems a long time since I’ve posted about my favourite horse race of the year. I know I didn’t mention it last year, as I was in Manchester last year, and I couldn’t be bothered installing anything on my phone, or fiddling about, trying to remember my login details.

I have placed my bets, but for fear of fate biting me in the arse like it seems to do every year, I’ll not post on here. Let’s see if I make my tenner back, eh?

Being John McCririck for the day

Following on from my absolute disaster yesterday, I almost never put a bet on today. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

Still, if you want to flush a fiver down the toilet, without the effort of going upstairs, you can’t go wrong by putting a bet on these…

grandnational

Good luck! You’ll need it!

UPDATE: If you backed any of those, even each way, you’d have came out penniless. Oh well. Here endeth my Aintree updates. And now, back to stony silence for another several months while I think of something to post about.

Aintree pt2: Well that was a complete disaster…

I did intend to just post an update on the previous post, but I went on a bit longer than I intended.

As expected, my fiver went down the pan. Thankfully, my horse in the Topham chase made it all the way round, unlike two poor horses who may, or may not have left Aintree on the back of a dog food lorry. Admittedly, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the Grand National is based in France. Any horses that get put down can just get shipped off to the local butchers.

It did leave to one of those “Oops” moments on Channel 4 though. Naturally, the fall looked rather nasty when it happened, and so Channel 4 omitted Becher’s Brook during the in-depth replay that they have.

Someone in charge of the slo-mo tape machine must have got their fences mixed up though, as when they said “And onto Valentine’s”, they cut to a close-up of the fatal incident. Whoops.

Takes me back to memories of the 1989 Grand National, where the late Julian Wilson commented that they were omitting Bechers Brook due to a “dead horse”. Let’s hope they go and quickly do some training before tomorrow.

Usually, I don’t watch the Grand National itself while in the house. Last year, I was in a random pub in Manchester. Unfortunately, this year, it looks like that isn’t going to happen. I shall be watching the race in front of the telly, and I presume the laptop. I’ve yet to pick out my horsies. I’ll probably do that in the morning. I think I’ll just go for a random five.

Oh, and because it’s not exactly necessary, but I’ve already uploaded it, here’s the worst betting slip in history.

bets2

1980s ITV Athletics theme… (The Heat – Richard Myhill)

Some of you may remember this. Many of you won’t. I could probably copy and paste the following from many other articles I’ve written about my love of obscure themes, but I won’t.

Back in the days when ITV actually had some athletics coverage, they used a guitar/piano type theme, which as a kid, I adored. I instantly knew I was in for an afternoon / evening of… erm, athletics.

ITV revamped their coverage for the 1990 European Championships in Split, and this awesome theme was dropped. Unfortunately, no video exists of the introductions that use the theme on youtube, or anywhere else for that matter, except for a realplayer video I have. It’s 35 seconds long, and 655K in size. You can imagine the quality.

I’d never heard this music anywhere else (except in an advert played once on the radio when going down the A19 when I was about 7 or 8).

In a series of mind ramblings involving Shazam (that mobile phone app that attempts to guess which song you’re listening to), and its inability to name this particular track, I typed into Google, “ITV Athletics theme”. The first few results were for the newer theme (which I’ve already got), but one hit was from Amazon…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ITV-Athletics/dp/B002X3LOB6

I took one look at the ‘CD cover’, and the generic name / artist of this track, and thought “Yeah, Okay. This is going to be an awful re-recording of something”.

I pressed play on the sample. The wallet flew out of my pocket quicker than what a Shearas Punjabi Wrap flies out of my body the morning after a night out. It’s amazingly the very same track!

For anyone with access to Spotify, here’s the link to the full track:-
Spotify Link

For the record…
00:00-00:30 seconds was never played
00:30-01:00 was the main theme
01:00-01:10 was the bit Jim Rosenthal used to talk over.

NOTE: The timings above are entirely wrong, as I failed to notice a subtle edited loop in the original theme, despite listening to the track constantly for around an hour.

The rest of the track was rarely played, but occasionally edited for random purposes such as viewer competitions, etc.

I thought for many years it was by Argent/Van Hooke, as they knocked out many themes for ITV around this time, but no, it’s actually by the same guy who did the famous 1970s-2000s Grandstand theme, Keith Mansfield.

EDIT 2: It’s not Keith Mansfield, it’s Richard Myhill, and is entitled “The Heat” from his record “Out Front”. the confusion probably came about by whoever released this, because it was featured on the KPM record library.

Right now, I want to be stood in the middle of an athletics track, in the pouring rain, looking slightly pissed off and uttering those immortal words… “Hello, from Brussels”…

England V USA. My live commentary

Much Longer After: Well, I think that draws this post to a close. I don’t think I’ll be writing too many more of these!

Adverts after: Heh. They must have filmed loads of those carling ads.

90:00 4 added minutes… just enough time for me to finish this can.

78:36 With just over 10 minutes to go, I can’t help but wonder what I should order from the indian – 15% voucher for just-eat.

61:37 Main vein drained, no goal scored. Hurrah. Fly is still bust though.

58:09 I’m going to the toilet. I’ll bet there’s another goal.

51:32 England are still… um… kicking the ball, along with USA, who are trying to get the ball into a net, but there’s a bloke trying to stop them. Occasionally. Why don’t they let the guy in the yellow shirt have a kick? He must feel so left out.

More half time shite Oh god, I’ve just saw that 3D telly advert, and now I feel nauseous. What an awful thing to show.

Half time shite I do like that “Waving Flag” song on the Coke advert. I first heard it thanks to someone singing it to me during a hoaxcall several months ago. Wait. I’ve just remembered. When I was tidying under my desk, I found a cigarette lighter from a car. I don’t smoke, and I don’t have a car. Wo where has it came from?

44:16 Almost half time. Thank god. Maybe ITV will get their act together.

39:56 Goalie drops an absolute clanger. ITV show this one, but not in HD.

38:06 This is what happened for those who didn’t see… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6YHr7jZsxg – I’m still pretty annoyed by this!

22:36 I’ve lost interest in the match, unstead laughing at some of the stuff posted on twitter about this almighty fuckup… I like this:- http://twitpic.com/1w7ynk

10:58 “Hope you all caught the start!”, says the commentator. Yes, I did see the start, but because of your company’s fuckup, I didn’t see the pissing goal.

08:36 Peter Dickson, voice of everything telly, also missed the goal. I love Twitter.

03:00 I do not fucking believe it. I’m annoyed. England have score, and guess what, I didn’t see it. Some fucking idiot at ITV pressed the “advert” button just after the throw in. It plays the stupid fucking sponsor advert, black-screens for 5 seconds, and by the time it goes back, the goal’s gone in. I hate you ITV.

01:01 Well, as mentioned, I’m in on my own watching this. Not that I’m bothered, because the fly on my jeans has just broken….

Some blokes are kicking a ball around a bit.