Category: Ageing

Avatar Memory Flash: celebrities

When you were watching television as a kid did you ever notice a person or persons who seemed to be everywhere? I watched a lot of TV when I was young. I drank it all up at all times of the day. I would watch kid’s programmes very early on, mundane game shows and special interest programmes during the day and films that were definitely not for my age group late at night.

Those interest programs and gameshows though, they were something else. You’d be watching something like ‘Noel’s House Party’ and a particular someone would be there, and then they’d also be on ‘Blankety Blank’, and then you’d see them later on in the week on ‘Crosswits’. This person would always be there, no matter what you were watching on what channel. They still flash into my mind every now and then and the majority of them I have no idea why they’re famous. I thought it best to therefore look into the CVs of a select group so that we can all remember why

Lionel Blair

Lionel Blair was an actor, dance, choreographer, tap-dancer (I remember this about him the most, don’t ask me why) and television presenter. When he father died when he was thirteen, he became the breadwinner for the family and took to the stage to earn money. He briefly took on a career as an actor before deciding dancing was for him. His dance troupe appeared on a number of TV programmes in the 1960’s. He also appeared in the Beatles film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and was one of the team captains on the game show ‘Give us a Clue’ from 1979 until the early 1990s. Later on in his years, he earned up to £100,000 for a six-week run doing pantomimes. This is but a brief insight into what must have been a very illustrious career.

The Krankies

This was a husband and wife duo, Ian and Jannette respectively, where the latter dressed as a schoolboy called Wee Jimmy and the former was their umm paternal figure. Unusual setup aside, they began their comedy career performing on the circuit during the 1970s and were given a big break with a spot on the Royal Variety Performance. They released a series of pop singles and an album, they had roles on several television shows including Crackerjack (?) and the Joke Machine (??). In 2003, Wee Jimmy Krankie was voted ‘the most Scottish person in the world’ by readers of the Glasgow Herald. The most interesting aspect of all of this me looking at Wikipedia is that in 2009 they were invited onto the Paul O’Grady show for the pantomime special of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in which Janette played a hooker and Ian played a rampant camel. Yes, you read that right. I’m sure that’s not the strangest part of their careers but hey ho.

Gary Wilmot (who?)

Wor Gazza needs no introduction. Already adept at singing and performing, his big break came in 1978 when he featured as part of a comedy double act with Judy McPhee (?) on ‘New Faces’. This then led to numerous appearances on ‘Copy Cats’, ‘Knees Ups, Cue Gary’ (??) and ‘The Keith Harris Show’ (???). In addition to co-presenting the kid’s quiz show ‘So You Want To Be Top’ (I’ve never heard of any of these things), he hosted something called ‘Showstoppers’ where wor Gaz would sing songs from musicals with special guests, although the main point of the show was for celebrities to learn and perform a song in ten days. Nobody cared about that mind. Gary was so popular that his original sixty dates taking the performance on tour had to be increased to one hundred and sixty due to phenomenal demand.

We all know his marvellous music career including such classic albums as Double Standards, The Album and, of course, Love Situation.

Gaz has dabbled in theatre too playing numerous roles in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘The Pirates of Penzance’, ‘Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. I personally remember him being the guy man in ‘Chicago’ when it was showing in Leeds around maybe 2010. Not because I actually went to see it but because I saw the poster in Leeds train station and took a photo of it (and I still have it somewhere).

I also saw him recently on Richard Osman’s ‘House of Games’ which was only showing last week however I can’t remember if it was a repeat or not.

There you have it. A comprehensive insight into the world of people who were around when we were growing up. It’s not too much of a understatement to say that there’s a lot going on here (especially for Lionel Blair, who knew?) and I would thoroughly encourage everyone to go do their own research.

Also, what happened to Rowland Rivron?

Avatar Long-awaited outcome

I was recently reminded that this exchange had happened while Ian and I were talking about gingerbread.

1 May 2025 was three weeks ago and I can confirm with pleasure that it was a fairly normal day. I was at work, where among other things I dealt with some emails about election coverage and logged a call with our facilities helpdesk to have a carpet cleaned following a minor water leak.

As a result I am pleased to confirm that my ability to see precisely five years into the future is working nicely. Or at least it was five years ago. If you want to know whether it’s still working now you’ll have to wait another five years.

Avatar Newsboost – unused material (part one)

You may or may not remember the Newsboost Twitter account that I started back in 2014. It was a way of force-feeding mega news into the public subconscious via a steady stream. I ran it for roughly a year before abandoning it as one of those Beans side projects that didn’t quite work out as well as we’d hoped.

I still have the same notebook that I jotted ideas in. Most of them were used but there were some that didn’t make the cut, possibly because they were too “radical” for the time or, which is much more likely, because they were utter nonsense that popped into my head for a moment and there was nothing I could do with it.

Anyway, here’s a short list of what could’ve been:

  • A good chair shouldn’t be sat upon
  • Portable sarcasm
  • Pointy beard serving posts (?)
  • Credit card gifts to children for irresponsible parents
  • Broom jacket
  • Aliens have given up on earth
  • Drive by serenades
  • Recycling man caught littering
  • Skeleton career guidance
  • Polar bears stealing chips
  • Tub Barsley promises a marrow for every household
  • Backwards cutlery for dieters
  • THE NOSE IS THE FACE ON THE BODY OF THE FACE
  • Chicken on drums
  • Slowest tortoise keyboardist fired
  • Big ass television comeback
  • Growling slippers
  • New number set to debut this Autumn
  • Chronic pigs

I’ve listed this as ‘part one’ because after turning over the page there’s so much more and one month where I’m not particularly feeling it, I can whip this out again for a quick win.

Proof that not every idea is a good idea (but every invention is a good invention).

Avatar Last minute rush

“… so nobody eat the mushroom cake because you could come out in a rash.

Moving onto our last race of the month, we see the “young” McIver slapping together whatever nonsense that could constitute as a post in order to fill his quota of four. It’ll probably have numerous spelling errors, make very little sense and be as disposable as any film created and released by Netflix.

Chris “Consider Me” Marshall, once the dark horse of the beans collective, now demoted to digging holes in his back garden and filling them with water just to get some attention. It’s a shameful practice and hopefully one that will eventually peter out because what the crowds want is more bathroom art and weird things he sees on the train to work posts. They ALWAYS go down a storm.

We finish, if you can call it a finish due to the unpredictable nature of the man, with the scant offerings of Kevin “Podcast pirate” Hill. Will he slide in with another podcast shortly before the end whistle? Will he be too tired to edit and post one? Does he have enough thumbs for the process after whittling so many wooden spoons? Only time will tell.

It’s going to be a scrabble however you look at it. Still we should all be grateful that these titans of men, these pillars of hope keep generating enough content to fill a website. Where others have fallen, they continue to get back up. I know I never get sick of reading it.

Anyway, onto Purdy’s prediction corner!”

Avatar The return of…

As the ravages of time affect us all, I stare into the mirror and I am greeted by a face that looks both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. There are traces of the young boy who once flapped around gurgling nonsense about loins and chagrins mixed with those unavoidable lines and bags around and under the eyes. It’s always the eyes that give it away.

I am awash with melancholy. Has it been twenty years since Reuben was born? Almost twenty years since I moved to Newcastle? Coming up to twenty-three years since finishing sixth form? Where has the time gone?

I look back through the photos in my phone to make sense of the madness, to try and find a firm grip on the rockface of life. I must shackle myself to something tangible because I will go out of my mind if I do not. My most recent photos are of the Florida holiday: cheery blue skies, sunshine lollipop backpacks and rainbow cookie wonderlands. All of it warms my soul to see it once more like an old friend visiting. Then I see him:

SERIOUS IAN?!

He’s crept into one of the photos. He is pushing boundaries this time because, sat in a tiny car going around the Toy Story ride at Disney, shooting at aliens with lasers for points with his technicolour space gun, there he is. The irony is delicious. When did he turn up? I didn’t see him flipping through t-shirts trying to find one with Launchpad McQuack on. I didn’t witness him stuffing burgers into his grill and then finishing up with a strawberry milkshake, pretending that in a way it would count as a “balanced meal”. He must have snuck into my suitcase when I wasn’t looking.

About halfway through the holiday I caught what felt like a bad cold and needed to rest more. Was it me that woke up every time or have I been myself less and less? Could it be:

  • Maybe he tiptoed out to watch the Superbowl at some aggressive masculine sports bar and put a huge wager on one of the teams to win, watching the TV with a pint and a grimace as he realises he’d backed the wrong side
  • Maybe he walked around the vacant tourist trap landscape, shaking his head about the silly offers in the windows of souvenir shops, muttering to himself, “this country used to mean something.”
  • Maybe he complained to the hotel because the swimming pool didn’t open early enough and that it should be available shortly after the time he usually awoke at 5.45am
  • Maybe he told the family in front that they needed to calm down and that it wasn’t the “real” Mickey Mouse that they were waiting to greet.

I mean I’m not Fight Club so that probably didn’t happen but if he can creep out when I’m living it up abroad then it means he can appear anywhere. Literally anywhere? Literally anywhere. You’d best watch out.

Avatar It has begun

At what point are you officially old?

I think we’ve all been content to think of ourselves as young all these years, even as our years advance and our hairlines recede. But I think today I crossed the boundary.

This week I’ve been laid low by some kind of winter virus that I can only describe as an absolute bastard. Today, finally well enough to leave the house, I tottered unsteadily to the chemist a few minutes’ walk down the road to get another box of uplifting medicine.

The pharmacist asked me the usual things – are these for you? Have you taken them before? And then she looked at me and asked a new one. Are you over 40?

I am 40, I said, wondering what bearing this could have on some over the counter tablets containing paracetamol and caffeine.

Ah, she said, in that case you’re eligible for a free blood pressure check. These tablets can raise your blood pressure so they can do a check now, or indeed at any time I happen to be passing and wonder what my blood pressure is, since I’m now 40.

I’m used to the idea that old people get extra free services on the NHS. Flu jabs and that sort of thing. It was an interesting experience to find that I am now eligible for the first of them.

I thought about it and I’m OK with it. Bring on the freebies. When I’ve been back for my free test I’ll let you know what my blood pressure is.

Avatar Clompotition time

Gather round, gather round everyone. It’s time for a fun competition that we can all take part in. Grab your friends, grab your relatives, even grab your doggo! Come one and all to start the new year the right way.

The right way being… over two weeks after it’s already started. Yes, I’m finally awake again and can form sentences that moderately make sense some of the time (and that’s all you can hope for when you’re me).

When I was at me mum’s house over Christmas, she had started the usual clear out of cupboards and tidying but sadly more pressing matters got in the way. She has a habit of forgetting about and then not using things before their sell-by date. These then get pushed near the back of the cupboard and are usually removed around December. Occasionally things get pushed to the very VERY back and are lost to time and space. How big are these cupboards? Not very, although you’d think they were the size of the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford when we move to the next part.

I fished out a couple of food items that were well past their best. Using state-of-the-art technology, I have removed the date and it’s up to YOU to guess when it expired. You get one point for the month and one point for the year. If you get both right you’ll receive a bonus point meaning there are three points up for grab each time. There are four games to play over the next four months and with minimal participation (for some of us, wink wink) you could win a superb prize (to be chosen at a later date, and not an imaginary prize like those jelly babies Christopher was jabbering about some months back).

First up – Mint and dark chocolate fondant thins from Sainsburgers. Choose your month and year, gentlemen.