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    TOTP on BBC4

    It turns out that The Hairy Cornflake had a part to play in the attempt to bring democracy to Burma.

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      TOTP on BBC4

      "I was touched but not surprised" quoth DLT. Typically point-missing and immodest response from a man who called his autobiography A Bit of a Star...

      Sunshine Saturday by New Edition beggars belief.
      Yeah, give me 'Candy Girl' any day.

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        TOTP on BBC4

        I'm surprised she never ended her suffering rather than listen to that gobshite every day.

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          TOTP on BBC4

          DLT is all over the evening news programmes. In an uncertain and everchanging world, it's almost comforting to see that he's still a prize twat.

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            TOTP on BBC4

            George wrote:
            Sunshine Saturday by New Edition beggars belief. Awful song, toe-curling studio performance, occasional footage of the band living it up at the coconut shy and some obscenely tight trousers on one of the male vocals. Spectacularly shite stuff.
            When I heard it it immediately reminded me of that horrible "Friday fun fun fun" thing that was going around on Youtube a few months ago. The two songs are actually pretty similar.

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              TOTP on BBC4

              I never thought I'd say this, but I sort of miss DLT on the World Service (sorry: the BBC Wild Service, as he tediously insisted on calling it).

              It was a bloody terrible show, as you'd expect, but in those days quite a bit of the World Service's programming consisted of a sort of boiled-down version of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 for ex-pats and interested non-Brits, so while you had to put up with DLT, you also got Just A Minute and John Peel.

              Nowadays, almost the entire schedule is rolling news for the Thrusting International Business Traveller and endless Speak Your Branes nonsense. Where the sports show used to at least acknowledge the presence of the lower divisions, these days it consists entirely of Alan fucking Green talking about Manchelsearsepool.

              I never listen to the wretched station any more and I take great pleasure in noting that Aung San Suu Kyi agrees with me.

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                TOTP on BBC4

                She must have believed that snooker quiz "Give Us A Break" was DLT's code for "free the political prisoners"

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                  TOTP on BBC4

                  the BBC Wild Service, as he tediously insisted on calling it
                  I can hear his self-satisfied tones in my head uttering that nonsense.

                  My cousin - an avowed DLT-hater - tells me the guy's C4 news int last night was so bad he (my cousin) had to leave the room. Not seen it myself, but there's a 'secret' recording of DLT knocking about where he blows his top in a very offensive way at some of his studio lackeys. Kind of sums the guy up.

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                    TOTP on BBC4

                    Burma!

                    Why did you shout Burma?

                    I panicked...

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                      TOTP on BBC4

                      Lovely bit of pathos (bathos? one of those anyway), as after 'Fool to Cry', Tony Blackburn asks one of a bevvy of young ladies 'so, did you see the Stones when they were in town?' (shy shake of head) 'Neither did I... I missed out on that as well... but we're not going it miss out on this! it's Cliff Richard with Devil Woman'

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                        TOTP on BBC4

                        Yeah, and afterwards he said he thought it was Cliff's best ever song. HE IMPLIED THAT EVERYTHING ELSE YOU'VE DONE IS SHIT, CLIFF. SET YOUR GOD ONTO HIM.

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                          TOTP on BBC4

                          She must have believed that snooker quiz "Give Us A Break" was DLT's code for "free the political prisoners"
                          I'd like to think that the signal for thousands of oppressed Burmese to rise up and take arms was WAK WAK, OOPS.

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                            TOTP on BBC4

                            I've absolutely no memory of that Mud disco song. It's utterly brilliant.

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                              TOTP on BBC4

                              Indeed, it's aged pretty darned well compared to their previous Ted-glam efforts. I remember Record Mirror ripping it to pieces at the time.

                              (As many would have done to the Record Mirror, before someone else says it.)

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                                TOTP on BBC4

                                I have several questions. Firstly, why was Dion's The Wanderer back in the charts in 1976 and secondly what was that choreography with the girl that went with it all about? The producer had discovered multi-screen and was using it pretty blithely without anything interesting to put in one screen yet alone three.

                                So you had this weird shot in one of the windows of her disembodied hand clenching and unclenching and another one of just her ankle moving slightly from side to side. I was thinking Boxing Helena I was.

                                Thirdly, who the hell was still buying Don Mizzell's Jungle Rock after all these weeks. It was still managing to hold on to a Top 30 place and has been in the charts every week since these re-runs began. I mean so has Fernando by Abba but you can understand that one. Abba had a nice video too, Jungle Rock was eviscerated by Pan's People and the soft toy department at Hamley's yet still people continued to buy it.

                                Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is a curious little song. Good chorus but really plodding and awkward in the verses between. It's got a really unconventional rhythm too, yet the studio audience gamely tried to dance to it as if they were doing an impersonation of Pan's People dancing to Jungle Rock. Alex really didn't know what to do with his hands, there can't have been many artists on the show who deliver a verse with their arms folded. He had them down the front of his trousers at one point too.

                                Bryan Ferry is a cool fucker. Not only is he in a very small minority of men who can carry off wearing white shoes (I tried and failed myself circa 1985) but he teams it up in a double act with a Portuguese waiter pencil moustache and it still looks cool. I'll never understand why Jerry Hall ditched him for the considerably less suave Mick Jagger.

                                My TOTP years came a bit later than this when it had moved to a Top 40 and they would break the chart rundown into four segments of ten over the course of the programme. That still seems innately sensible to me compared with the way they dump out the whole chart at the beginning of the programme in the current format before they have even played a single song.

                                Every week it jars for me, now of course back then you didn't have MTV and people had attention spans greater than a fruit fly but who can take in all that information at once? This was an age where the number one song was considered really important so if you were the producer why would you not delay the reveal until right at the end of the programme. It's premature ejaculation, it's driving your tractor through someone's haystack last night instead of today.

                                I mean who wouldn't want to crank up the tension when it is The Wurzels at number one after all.

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                                  TOTP on BBC4

                                  Nesta Que Un Club wrote:
                                  Lovely bit of pathos (bathos? one of those anyway), as after 'Fool to Cry', Tony Blackburn asks one of a bevvy of young ladies 'so, did you see the Stones when they were in town?' (shy shake of head) 'Neither did I... I missed out on that as well... but we're not going it miss out on this! it's Cliff Richard with Devil Woman'
                                  Brilliant.

                                  My grandmother hated his voice and used to complain every time she saw or heard Tony Blackburn that he had hair 'like Frankenstein's Monster'.
                                  That book Nishlord mentioned might be worth a read.

                                  The Hairy Cornflake is completely oblivious to the fact that the entire world thinks he's an absolute cunt and a complete pilchard. You have to admire that.
                                  Simon Bates' big boomy voice and that wanky Our Tune thing he used to do cracked me up.
                                  Susan was diagnosed with MS, but she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, that baby boy is now ten and I guess he, er... never really got to know his mum...
                                  I was going to say that Radio 1 at that time could have done with a psychiatric department, but they'd love you to believe they were all totally bonkers.

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                                    TOTP on BBC4

                                    dalliance wrote:
                                    Bryan Ferry is a cool fucker. Not only is he in a very small minority of men who can carry off wearing white shoes (I tried and failed myself circa 1985) but he teams it up in a double act with a Portuguese waiter pencil moustache and it still looks cool. I'll never understand why Jerry Hall ditched him for the considerably less suave Mick Jagger.
                                    Dirtier Mick Jagger, allegedly. Well, not allegedly, she said in an interview that he's the dirtiest, rudest man she ever knew.

                                    I dunno, "short" is a complete deal breaker for me, and Mr Ferry is very tall and yeh, cool, but I think he may be a bit dull.

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                                      TOTP on BBC4

                                      Bryan Ferry could croon you to orgasm though and Mick Jagger has a small cock according to Keith.

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                                        TOTP on BBC4

                                        MsD wrote:
                                        [
                                        I dunno, short is a complete deal breaker for me, and Mr Ferry is very tall and yeh, cool, but I think he may be a bit dull.
                                        And possibly a bit too right-wing, though I'm guessing Sir Mick isn't a subscriber to Anarcho-syndicalist Monthly neither.

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                                          TOTP on BBC4

                                          I did think that, but I was trying to put myself in Jerry's shoes .. It strikes me that's she's a funny girl and both blokes seem a bit humourless. So maybe she just likes the alpha male success thing.

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                                            TOTP on BBC4

                                            Yeah, she was never gonna end up on a council estate with an unemployed kitchen porter and a cider habit.

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                                              TOTP on BBC4

                                              dalliance's account of this week's doesn't mention Archie Bell & the Drells doing 'Soul City Walking'.

                                              Part of that slightly odd but always interesting period of crossover between black consciousness funk and supperclub soul, complete with formation dancing and glittery evening wear. Great stuff.

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                                                TOTP on BBC4

                                                In other news I've just scored The Nation's Favourite off Amazon for 1p.
                                                Well, £2.81 + P&P.

                                                Huzzah!

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                                                  TOTP on BBC4

                                                  Firstly, why was Dion's The Wanderer back in the charts in 1976 and secondly what was that choreography with the girl that went with it all about?
                                                  Dion had issued his first album in yonks the previous year - the Phil Spector-produced Born To Be With You - and it had bombed spectacularly. I recall hearing that he was part of some package tour that came to Europe in 1976, so presumably his people needed to get his name back into the spotlight. It worked: the reissued 'Wanderer' made a return to the UK Top 20.

                                                  I have no clue as to what that Pan's People/Ruby Flipper dance was all about, however. As I suspect Flick Colby (RIP) also didn't.

                                                  Thirdly, who the hell was still buying Don Mizzell's Jungle Rock after all these weeks. It was still managing to hold on to a Top 30 place and has been in the charts every week since these re-runs began. I mean so has Fernando by Abba but you can understand that one. Abba had a nice video too, Jungle Rock was eviscerated by Pan's People and the soft toy department at Hamley's yet still people continued to buy it.
                                                  'Jungle Rock' by Hank Mizell was a long-forgotten rock 'n' roll gem that deserved its four months in the charts, is why. The follow-up, 'Kangaroo Rock', was as sh*te as its title suggests, however.

                                                  Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is a curious little song. Good chorus but really plodding and awkward in the verses between. It's got a really unconventional rhythm too, yet the studio audience gamely tried to dance to it as if they were doing an impersonation of Pan's People dancing to Jungle Rock. Alex really didn't know what to do with his hands, there can't have been many artists on the show who deliver a verse with their arms folded. He had them down the front of his trousers at one point too.
                                                  Alex was on his way out by then - drink and God knows what else had got to him. Still a darned good record though. I bought that one at Canterbury Woolworth's, on 7 inch. And I was right to do so.

                                                  I mean who wouldn't want to crank up the tension when it is The Wurzels at number one after all
                                                  Noel Edmonds, it seems. He didn't even announce that it was 'the nation's number one sound' on the edition I saw the other night...

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                                                    TOTP on BBC4

                                                    Mick Farren, in a particularly epic NME singles review page, made The Wanderer Single Of The Week.

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