Television
Writing about football for the best part of a decade and a half can take a toll on you, so there have been points in the past when I’ve opted to indulge one of my other weirdly specific obsessions – television, old and new, but particularly old. With football headed in the direction that it seems to be at the time of writing (November 2020), what better a comfort blanket could there possibly be than the weirdness and occasional brilliance of the television of the past? So this is my dumping ground for the things that I need to get off my chest on this particular subject.
Podcast 256: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-Six – Crown Court
On today's valedictory episode of This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian give themselves a little treat and watch Crown Court, a programme they both love. They explore the origins of this stupid podcast, whether or not there should be degrees of treason and why they're...
Podcast 255: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-Five – Out of Town
Today's bucolic episode of This Is Our Everest sees Edward and Ian watch an episode of Out Of Town. There's some extremely questionable and troubling content about the annual Appleby Horse Fair and then a sheep orgy, all of which leaves at least one of our heroes...
Podcast 254: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-Four – That’s Life!
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian find their most amusing misprints from local newspapers and watch an episode of That's Life from 1986. It's a programme that provokes a number of thoughts and feelings, particularly a quite unprecedented swell of good...
Podcast 253: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-Three – Channel Four Presents Basketball
In an ironic twist, today's episode of This Is Our Everest (not sponsored by Just Juice) is both the first to feature any basketball at all and also the episode least likely to appeal to basketball fans. However, Edward has a perfectly reasonable defence and Ian has...
Podcast 252: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-Two – Going for Gold
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian revisit everyone's favourite trans-European quiz express, Going For Gold. It's increasingly a relic of a forgotten era in UK-EU relations and our heroes try and pick through the finer points of the Maastricht Treaty to...
Podcast 251: This is our Everest, Part Twenty-One – The Black & White Minstrel Show
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian provide exactly the service the world needs: two more middle-aged white men talking about racism. Yes, it's The Black and White Minstrel show, a truly despicable relic of a past we'd all hoped was firmly behind us,...
Podcast 250: This is our Everest, Part Twenty – Tomorrow’s World
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch an episode of the BBC's Tomorrow's World from 1984. Edward is in an especially silly mood for whatever reason but is nevertheless able to provide an update as to the progress of the robot plan to take over the...
Podcast 249: This is our Everest, Part Nineteen – Pebble Mill At Ten
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian get into a festive mood to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pebble Mill, by watching Pebble Mill At 10. This is not, as Edward thought, a racy after-hours version of the BBC's venerable lunchtime magazine show but rather...
Podcast 248: This is our Everest, Part Eighteen – Wartime Kitchen & Garden
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian take a jaunty trip back to World War 2, with Wartime Kitchen and Garden. Ian finds it difficult to see the appeal in yet another British thing crowing on about the war and isn't even swayed by a plate of dried apple...
Podcast 247: This is our Everest, Part Seventeen – Houseparty
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian have been invited to Southern Television's Houseparty, a cursed daytime TV discussion show that leaves one of our heroes absolutely foaming at the mouth. Meanwhile, Ian provides another potted history about an ITV...
Podcast 246: This is our Everest, Part Sixteen – Songs of Praise
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch a 1977 vintage episode of the BBC's long-running religious programme, Songs Of Praise. Our heroes discover the secret to its success is the relentless and unchanging nature of its format, but they also find out a...
Podcast 245: This is our Everest, Part Fifteen – Open Door
On today's community-minded This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian examine two episodes of the BBC's Open Door from 1974. Public access television's many faces are examined closely, particularly those dealing with issues of sexual health and anarcho-communist...
Podcast 244: This is our Everest, Part Fourteen – The Two of Us
Today's episode of This Is Our Everest is the fourteenth, which means we're now half way through Lockdown 2 and feelin' fine. We're not, of course, particularly Edward who has done himself a mischief involving extra strong lager. The topic of the episode is the ITV...
Podcast 243: This is our Everest, Part Thirteen – Friday Night Live
It's episode 13 of This Is Our Everest, which is unlucky for some. Particularly, it turns out, Harry Enfield, who gets an absolute reaming as Edward and Ian watch Channel 4's questionable alternative comedy variety show Friday Night Live from 1988. Our heroes...
Podcast 242: This is our Everest, Part Twelve – Top Gear
In today's alpha male edition of This Is Our Everest, the lads have been watching Top Gear. However, anyone expecting bants, pranks and racially insensitive remarks will be sad to hear that it was an episode from 1989. As such, our heroes are just as likely to be...
Podcast 241: This is our Everest, Part Eleven – The Six O’Clock Show
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian continue their odyssey through non-current Current Affairs with The Six O'Clock Show from July 1982. It's a programme Ian remembers fondly from his childhood and as such this edition is filled with memories and insight....
Podcast 239: This is our Everest, Part Ten – Ulysses 31
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian pay a visit to the 31st Century with Franco-Japanese cartoon series Ulysses 31. What they discover is that very little in the 31st Century makes any sense. In amongst their aghast fury at the incomprehensibility of it...
Podcast 238: This is Our Everest, Part Nine – Nationwide
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and a lurgy-riddled Ian tackle the 8th June 1981 edition of the BBC's venerable flagship current affairs magazine programme, Nationwide. There are some particularly strident views about the BBC's archival policies and how well...
Podcast 237: This is our Everest, Part Eight – Junior Kickstart
Today's This Is Our Everest brings you sporting entertainment courtesy of Junior Kickstart. Watching teenagers fall off motorcycles, however, had limited appeal for Ian, who spent most of his time worrying about safety and wondering how they got the bikes in the first...
Podcast 236: This is our Everest, Part Seven – Oh Happy Band
On today's This Is Our Everest, the laughter and joviality of the last few editions is brought to a grinding halt as Edward and Ian watch Oh Happy Band!, a comedy series from 1980 that is so relentlessly boring and unfunny it hasn't seen the light of day since. Until...
Podcast 235: This is our Everest, Part Six – Bangers & Mash
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch Bangers and Mash, a 5-minute long children's cartoon. However, this does nothing to stop them having a frankly bizarre discussion about parenting techniques, Chas and Dave and ape taxonomy for nearly eight times...
Podcast 234: This is our Everest, Part Five – Emu’s Broadcasting Corporation
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch Emu's Broadcasting Corporation from November 1978. With our heroes already showing distinct signs of battle fatigue, only Emu could possibly bolster their spirits. Or so you'd think. They discuss the utter...
Podcast 233: This is our Everest, Part Four – A Question of Sport
The fourth episode of This Is Our Everest sees Edward and Ian revisit an episode of television's longest-running sports quiz, A Question of Sport. Both of our heroes choose their ideal line-up of Question of Sport guests and will probably regret it at some point in...
Podcast 231: Strength in Depth – A History of Non-League Football, Part 9
We reach the penultimate episode of Strength in Depth this morning, and this is the story of the shonky ownership that so many non-league football clubs have endured as speculators - and occasionally criminals - have circled with no intentions of doing anything but...
Podcast 232: This is Our Everest, Part Three – Calendar Goes Pop
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian revisit Yorkshire in December 1980 and the music magazine programme Calendar Goes Pop. No-one is particularly pleased about this, particularly Tom Robinson. Up for discussion are the relentlessness of Richard Madeley, the...
Podcast 230: This is our Everest, Part Two – Les & Dustin’s Laughter Show
Episode 2 of This Is Our Everest sees Edward and Ian bravely tackle the potentially poignant but probably not that funny Les & Dustin's Laughter Show from December 1985. Both of our heroes remain particularly mindful of the sad, premature demise of Dustin Gee...
Podcast 229: This is our Everest, Part One – Whittaker’s World of Music
A second pandemic lockdown has begun, with the prospect of plenty more days sat forlornly in front of the television ahead. Then again, it could have been worse: it could have happened in the pre-digital age. As it is, the fact it is happening now can't save Edward...
Don’t Have Nightmares: The Strangely Unsettling World of Crimewatch UK
It can easy to feel as though time is dilating, at times. Fashion and music seem to have ground to a standstill. The year 2000 is, in some respects, very much like the year 2019. Except it isn't, of course. Broadband and mobile technology have combined to...
I Watched An Episode Of Love Island So You Don’t Have To
That it should have come to this. I, like many of you, work in an office. It is often said that television is a dying medium, that the days of turning up at a time determined by a committee to watch an event on a screen are coming to an end. Live sports,...
Television Masterpieces: Connections (1978)
British television channels have always carried a certain way of teaching us things in the past, but these have changed over the course of time. In the 1970s, the presenter talked directly to you, sometimes almost feeling as though the...
Stream of the Week: The Yorkshire Ripper FIles
It's probably not that surprising that the Yorkshire Ripper should have come back into fashion of late. On the one hand, for those of us in our mid-forties and up, Peter Sutcliffe is the first serial killer that we can remember. The hunt to find him became...
Whatever Happened To ITV?
During Euro 2016, at the end of an evening match, I wandered off to do something else for about half an hour before making my way back to the sofa. The post-match tribulations of the ITV brains trust had reached their conclusion, the credits had rolled,...
The Eternal Truths of Reginald Perrin
Comedy, it often feels, ages like nothing else. Stand-up routines from twenty years ago have a tendency to look like exactly what they are, the musings and preoccupations of another century, whilst all bar a precious few situation comedies from any era...
History Through Television: The Rock & Roll Years
There is a generation of people for whom the chiming opening chords of Jailhouse Rock have a double-meaning. It's a generation from forty up, who learned a considerable amount of their history of the twentieth century from a programme which probably didn't...