Author: Chris5156

Avatar Another lost classic

You know what I’m like. Always losing things, and then finding them 14 or more years later.

First it was Big Day Out. Then my long-lost footstool turned up on eBay. (Have I told you about the footstool? Remind me and I’ll take you through it all in exhausting detail later.) Now something else has arrived.

Back in 2002, Al had just got a camera and we excitedly made a series of five admittedly mediocre films with the title “AlCam”. The most ambitious, and possibly least terrible, was AlCam 4, where our theme was “culture” and we attempted to cover art, fine dining, foreign travel and music, among other things.

The finished movie was transferred to Super 8 tape on the camcorder, and then all the files were deleted because they took up lots of space and in 2002 disk space was expensive. Then Al, er, misplaced the tape. I had big plans to put all the AlCam movies on DVD, and in 2003 I did just that. In order to get the movie into a digital format, I gave Al my copy of the film, which was on VHS. Al then also lost that.

The result was that AlCam 1, 2, 3 and 5 have all safely been stored on DVD ever since. AlCam 4 was never seen again.

Until, that is, Al started going through old tapes when he had a clear-out over Christmas, and sent me this picture from the little screen on his old camcorder.

In it, we see a youthful Al and Chris introducing AlCam4, complete with branded t-shirts, in front of a very hi-tech bluescreen background. It’s been found. And when I get the time, I’m going to put it on DVD. Not because anyone wants to watch it – I don’t particularly want to watch it. But because it’s been an unfinished project for 20 years and finishing things is important. Especially to me. I’ve had an empty DVD box on my shelf for two decades and I’m damned if I’m not going to take this opportunity to finish the job.

To answer Kev’s next question in advance… no, Al still hasn’t found “An Evening with Kev and Chris”, now missing in action since 2003. Sorry.

Avatar Train announcement

Bing bong

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard this 17.32 Trans Country Express service to London Central Station.

We’ll be calling at Picturesque Village, Windswept Halt, Dulltown West, Dulltown Central, Dulltown East, a station with seemingly nothing anywhere nearby, Large Commuter Suburb, Long Wait in the Countryside, Several Identical Places, Cheadle, Yemen, and London Central Station.

Our scheduled arrival time at London Central Station is 18.44 this evening.

Please note that some of our calling points today have short platforms and you will need to be in the correct part of the train if you wish to alight. Passengers for Dulltown East and Large Commuter Suburb will need to be in the front eight carriages. Passengers for Dulltown West will need to be in the front ten carriages. Passengers for Large Commuter Suburb will inexplicably need to be in either the front four or rear six carriages. I don’t make the rules.

As this service will be arriving in to London Central Station before 18.43 this evening, daily travelcards are not valid for travel, but commuter plus cards are valid, and ultra saver photocards are mandatory. First class accommodation is available in carriages 4 and 8, and passengers will need a first class ticket and a peerage or hereditary title in order to travel in the first class compartments.

A trolley service of drinks and light snacks will operate on this service from Dulltown Central onwards. If you do intend to buy something from the trolley please note that alcoholic drinks cannot be purchased once we leave Cheadle since beyond that point we enter the London Central Station duty free zone. However, on our final approach to London Central we will be pleased to offer discount cigarettes, perfumes and spirits.

A reminder to passengers that due to current Government regulations it is mandatory to wear spectacles while travelling on public transport unless you are medically exempt.

My name is Carmelita Delasquez, and I am your guard for this journey. If you require any assistance during your journey, you can currently find me in carriage six of this twelve coach train. If you see anything suspicious please don’t hesitate to inform myself or another member of railway staff, or call or text the Railway FBI on 64064. See it, say it, suck it and see.

On behalf of myself and the driver, I’d like to wish you a pleasant journey with Trans Country Express today. Our next station stop will be Picturesque Village, which I’ll begin announcing in about thirty seconds’ time. Thank you.

Avatar Christmas wrap up 2021

It’s all over, all over again. Time to walk round the house with a bin bag collecting the wrapping paper and hope you don’t accidentally bin the presents too.

I got some nice presents this year, and I hope you did too. One of mine was shared with Kate and was one of the most unexpectedly brilliant presents ever. We had a bricklaying lesson.

Here are the bricks we laid.

Happy new year everyone. May 2022 be filled with joy and nicely pointed with good strong mortar.

Avatar The history of Christmas

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s nearly Christmas. There are very few signs to warn you of its approach – it would be handy, for example, if everything you saw and heard in the media for the last two months had involved a Christmas related song, perhaps – but I have checked and it’s coming at the end of this week.

We all know what that means. There will be trees and presents and cake, and the law will turn a blind eye to breaking-and-entering offences committed by overweight bearded pensioners in unlikely red outfits. But where does Christmas come from? You don’t know, so prepare your thanks because I’m about to tell you.

Time for an unforgettable Christmas feast

Christmas is the eldest child of Father Christmas, born in December 1955 in Lapland. Father Christmas himself is, of course, the nephew of Zeus. After spending a happy childhood in the snowy reindeer-filled northern reaches of Finland, young Christmas left home and travelled to Liverpool in the hope of landing a role in Brookside.

The lack of an authentic scouse accent prevented that dream from becoming a reality, and a few years later Christmas was working in a branch of M&S where a toy sale coincided with the accidental delivery of too many frozen turkeys. The marketing opportunity was obvious. Parents were persuaded to get their kids some knock-off toys and treat themselves to a slap-up turkey lunch (pictured) by Christmas’s dad, whose booming voice and hypnotic catchphrase “ho” entranced the crowds at the Uttoxeter department store.

Today those traditions have spread far beyond Uttoxeter and the surrounding villages of Willslock, Dagdale and Spath. Now we can all enjoy the warm glow of buying some knock-off presents for each other and eating a type of meat that, at any other time of year, we’d avoid in favour of something that didn’t have the flavour and texture of teatowels. Hurrah.

In celebration of the big day, which is definitely some time this week but I’m not 100% sure when, please enjoy this Twitter thread of dreadful Christmas dinners. Thank you.

Avatar Even more old news

Everyone – and by that, I mean I assume everyone without having actually checked with any of you – everyone enjoyed my previous forays into old news, looking back at what had happened on various days in May and January. Since I’m low on posts this month we’re coming to the end of another year, this seemed like a good time for a look back at December 19 in the personal history of one Christo M. Fury.

Given that we’re just a few days adrift from Christmas, I was surprised to discover that my camera roll from this day in years gone by does not contain as many Christmassy things as I expected. Let’s see what’s in here.

Read More: Even more old news »

Avatar Smidge in writing

Smidge Manly is one of the UK’s most famous interviewers, entertainers and northerners, so it’s no surprise that YouTube is bristling with videos of him in action, doing all the things he does best.

What you might not know is that, nowadays, YouTube automatically generates subtitles for videos. It does this by running the soundtrack through a speech-to-text programme and putting the results up on the screen. It’s done this for all Smidge’s work.

Unfortunately for Smidge, YouTube hasn’t yet got the hang of his accent.