In 2011 BBC4 started to screen repeats of the old BBC1 music show “Top of the Pops”. On Friday 1 April that year they showed the episode that was first broadcast exactly 35 years earlier. Brotherhood of Man were at #1 with “Save your kisses for me”. As the year progressed they continued to show… Continue reading 10 years of “Top of the Pops”
You know how to use a pencil. Most of the pencils that you have encountered were probably HB. They are most common type. You probably also know that the H and B indicate, respectively Hard and Black. 4H indicates a much harder drawing implement than HB (and it’s lighter in shade), and 4B is much… Continue reading 2B
For the fourth weekend running I have made a note of the questions and answers from the previous week’s episodes of ITV quiz show “Tenable”. For weeks 1 to 3 click on any of the following links: Week 1 questions (3-7 September) Week 2 questions (10-14 September) Week 3 questions (17-21 September)Sno The format here… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 28 September 2018
On this date in 1971 the UK #1 was “Hey girl, don’t bother me” by the Tams. Treat yourself to this performance of a great chart-topper. Rod Stewart was at #2 with “Maggie May”, listed in some charts as a double A side with “Reason to Believe”, another pair of great songs. Here’s the classic… Continue reading “It’s late September, and …”
The website for BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” has changed. Back in 2016 I referred to “the indispensable ‘Desert Island Discs’ archive” in this piece and included a link to it. That link no longer works. It used to direct you to a page where you could search through every episode of the show… Continue reading “Desert Island Discs” and an unwanted technical change
In this piece from February 2016 I summarized the three levels of expertise that apply to practical skills, skills like speaking another language or playing a musical instrument. I categorized these three levels of expertise as “nothing, something and everything”. The first of these applies when you have no familiarity with a task. I offered… Continue reading Word of the week: transpose
This piece from last weekend, and this earlier piece from the weekend before that, listed all the questions and answers from Weeks 1 and 2 of the new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”. Here are the questions and answers from Week 3, Monday 17 September to Friday 21 September. The format is the same… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 21 September 2018
Leeds United FC drew 1-1 at Millwall last Saturday thanks to a late equalizer by Jack Harrison. Harrison is on loan from Manchester City for the season. Back in 2010-11 Leeds had George McCartney (a Northern Ireland international) on loan from Sunderland. He played 30-odd games for the club. Before that, Aaron Lennon came through… Continue reading Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Leeds United
This piece from last weekend listed all the questions and answers from Week 1 of the new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”. Here are the questions and answers from Week 2, Monday 10 September to Friday 14 September. The format here is the same as last week’s piece: a list of the 30 “Tenable”… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 14 September 2018
Well, this is exciting. Earlier this week the Tate Modern began screening “The Clock”, described on the gallery’s website as “a mesmerising masterpiece of contemporary art”. It was created by Christian Marclay, is 24 hours long, and, again in the words of the Tate’s website, “the installation is a montage of thousands of film and… Continue reading “The Clock”: this is where we came in, over and over again
