They Don’t Write Them Like They Used To…

The über stylish German act, Goombay Dance Band, featuring the incomparable Oliver Bendt, performing their only UK hit, Seven Tears.  This spent three weeks at Number One in 1981.  Wouldn’t happen nowadays.

Cartoon Cobblers

I’ve often wondered what sort of person, in 2009, goes into Dublin city centre to buy a pair of shoes based on a drawing they’ve seen on the back page of The Irish Times.  You all know the shop, I’m sure.  It’s an impossibly quaint method of advertising, from a time way before such mod cons as pocket calculators, fondue sets and Soda Streams.

So, do you know anyone who has ever gone into that shop, ripped back page corner of The Times in hand, looking for that particular shoe?  If so, did the illustration and the reality actually bear any resemblance to each other? 

Designate the Fate of your Pate

I love adverts for “miracle” baldness cures.  They’ve fascinated me since I was a child, chiefly because my dad was convinced I’d be a slap-head by the time I was 19.  In fact, everyone was convinced of this, mainly because my dad was very convincing – and talkative.

As a teenager, I “articulated” these deep fears in an appallingly-drawn cartoon strip entitled The Onset, in which a bald man, short on confidence and money, goes to buy a toupee.  Looking at the available range, including “The Elvis” and “The Jimmy Savile”, he has to settle for the cheapest syrup in the shop – “The Pedal Bin”, a horrid, nasty rug made out of two Brillo pads, strung together into the shape of a comb over.

New Doctor, New Set Of Moaning Geeks…

Well, the excitement in Doctor Who-land didn’t last long, did it? The first pictures of the 11th Doctor Matt Smith and his new assistant Amy Pond (played by ‘wee’ Scots actress Karen Gillan) were published all over the British press this week as filming of the next series began in Cardiff.  But there’s already a chorus of whinges about his costume emanating from the grubby, hidden quarters of sci-fi-geek Inter-Nerd forums – the weird dimension where greasy-haired hordes of smelly, overweight, plastic bag-carrying, fully-grown adult males create a virtual “life” for themselves by railing against anything that resembles progress, and that almost entirely in the field of their favourite TV programme.

Doctor Who’s new executive producer Steven Moffat, a lifelong fan himself, has created what appears to me to be the perfect image for the new Doctor.  Matt Smith may, at 26, be the youngest actor to take on the role but the costume reflects that he’s still playing a Time Lord who’s almost 1000 years old.  Expressions like ‘geography teacher’ have been bandied around everywhere, but really, Smith’s look is part of a series of Moffat’s small nods to the Doctor’s own past which will put his stamp on the new era – those little nods are illustrated at the bottom of this post.

From the Bush Era to the Tush Area

So there you go; Barack Obama isn’t Irish at all, he’s Italian.

Star “Style” – Reg’s ‘Lion King’ Bassist

Hipper-than-thou Elton John groupies who attended his Thomond Park knees-up over the weekend were treated to the rare sight of a bass-slappin’ Gerry Ryan, proudly announcing his role in a new stage version of The Lion King.