It’s not often I get set challenges to write on this blog. I believe the last one may have been about a Rice Krispie square. It’s buried in the archives somewhere. Anyway, I was having a discussion with a certain Mr. Dick Brown. you may remember him from the infamous website dick-brown.com. I’ve actually linked to the website, because, honestly, at the moment, the site looks better than its done since its inception.

Anyway, I’d like to say this was a drunken discussion, but unfortunately, no, we were both sat in Employment Palace. As the boredom took hold, he looked at me and said (or rather, emailed me) those infamous words…

“Was pat sharpes mullet the greatest hair cut ever? Please explain your answer and show your working out. ”

YES, is the answer to this, for Mr. Patrick Sharpin, was without doubt the king of mullets. Note, how I say, was, as in recent times, he has ditched the trademark mullet, and has since disappeared into obscurity. Imagine if Hitler Charlie Chaplin had shaved off his famous toothbrush moustache? Would he be as famous? I am quite sure the answer is quite simply no.

To prove this, we just have to take a quick look at “Fun House”. Mr. Sharp’s tea-time extravaganza, featuring all of the things important to an adolescent, watching telly on a friday afternoon whilst on a complete sugar rush that is expected to last all weekend. Yes, those things are go-karts, mess, people falling over, a huge padded obstacle course (which I would often dream about going into) and above-all, a presenter with a wacky hairstyle and a jolly personality.

It would be wrong of me to think of Mr. Sharp as simply just the presenter of Fun House. During the late eighties and early nineties, who can forget this foray into the pop charts, with such classics as his remake of “Use it up And Wear it Out” – a duo with Mick Brown. I actually owned this particular single. I use the past tense there, as it was so indescribably bad, it ended up getting thrown out. I do remember, however, that the cover featured Mr Sharp’s mullet. The label was an embossed silver colour, and I have no idea what the B side was.

Mr. Sharp was last spotted in an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, unfortunately sans mullet.

In conclusion, I am happy that Mr. Sharp brought the mullet back to the publics attention. I never had the chance to grow one. That’s probably a good thing.

EDIT: Thanks to c64glen for finding a video on Youtube with Mr. Sharp, and Melanie + Martine…

Hard to believe the twins are nearly in their 40s…

Oh, I’ve not done one of these for a while. It just so happened to coincide with my latest “digital music” purchase in a way that simply hasn’t happened before. Did any of you watch that “Unforgettable Jeremy Beadle” thing that was on ITV tonight? No? Anyone find it odd that the obituary programme was shown at roughly the same time slot as many of his programmes? No again? Well, I’m going to continue anyway.

Chris was round tonight, so a night of vegetation in front of the telly was in order. The afore mentioned programme sparked enough interest in the room to warrant its watching. On the other hand (ho ho), there wasn’t much else on.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable look back at the man’s life, with clips from shows I didn’t even think existed anymore. The end theme, however, made me shout of with amazement.

Let me take you back to 1992, 1993ish. My record collection was still at a minimal level. Few singles, fewer albums. This was boosted by an old relative clearing out her cupboards, and a stack of mainly uninteresting LPs were given to me. Out of all of the albums played, two tracks stood out. One of them featured on a scratchy old Telstar compilation album named “More Green Velvet”, and was entitled “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys + Davey Arthur. It was a short, flutey, instrumental with a great guitar track and very 80s sounding seagull samples.

Now, thanks to the tinternet, I was able to find many different recordings of this, but not the one featured on the More Green Velvet album. The online stores only stocked the same CDs which had a different version. Even Spotify didn’t have it. Thankfully, I managed to find a version of it on youtube. It was longer than my vinyl version, though it would appear that the disc it came from was long out of print, and therefore went for an absolute fortune on ebay. Sigh. This was the only time I’d heard it coming from a source other than my own record collection.

Years pass, and on Friday, I’m awoken with the tune in my head, and the realisation I’d not tried any of the digital download sites. Within minutes, I was 69p lighter, and downloading “The Lonesome Boatman” My long search was over! In fact, I tweeted about it…

Finally got a digital version of “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys for 69p… had it on vinyl, given to me by a long dead relative. 11:45 AM Aug 13th via web

All was not right, however, when I played it through headphones for the first time…

Ugh. Disregard my earlier “Lonesome Boatman” tweet. Awful analogue tape damage on this version all the way through. 69p wasted. Grrrrr. 1:48 AM Aug 14th via web

If you’re listening through speakers, it’s not too bad, but on headphones, the right channel is terrible! This version is taken from a “greatest hits”, so I’m hoping for a better version out there somewhere.

Er, anyway, back to the telly theme link…. two days after purchasing it, the very same version was used as the closing credits for the Jeremy Beadle thing. I find it really a bit spooky and coincidental that I would buy this tune almost immediately after waking up thinking about it, and two days later, for the first time in ~18 years, actually hear it broadcast on TV. It’s just weird, and a little too concidental.

Oh, and, to end this posting with yet another “death” announcement, according to the UKGameshows mailing list, Jack Parnell, one of the two composers of the original “Family Fortunes” theme (Bob Monkhouse / Max Bygraves era), has died. The other composer, Dave Lindup, died in 1992. Lindup’s son, Mark, is the keyboard player from Level 42.

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.

You might as well consider this bandwagon well and truly jumped on. Yes, it’s Sunday night, and for the first time in my entire life, I’m actually planning to sit down and watch the final of a Simon Cowell-induced “talent” show. Not because I’m going to particularly enjoy it (Ok, I probably will), but I just want to be “there”, as in, know exactly what the hell certain people are talking about for the next 6 weeks instead of just instantly switching off the instant I hear the letter X.

I did see a couple of earlier episodes of the series, mainly because I got sick of hearing about John and Edward. However, I did particularly enjoy their rendition of Ghostbusters, but immediately lost interest the moment they got voted out.

I know I did post a sarcastic tweet last night, along the lines of “OH MAN I AM SO GLAD I AM OFF WORK TOMORROW TOWATCH X-FACTOR FINAL HAHAHAH YEAH LOLZ”, but I woke up today (freezing cold, by the way because the heating is still knackered) and decided “Yes, I WILL actually watch it”.

Why? Because there isn’t anything else on. Top Gear is AWOL for a week and the snooker final doesn’t restart until 9PM.

I shall also be monitoring twitter, because there’s bound to be some classic comments showing the deep inner turmoil some humans suffer in the face of what is simply a con to make some rich people even richer.

And as for Stacey, with a face like hers, I think we all knew there was “neigh” chance she was getting through to the final.

(EDIT: Jamir. What a fucking prick I am. Title corrected)