Boggenstrovia's 9th Bit of Christmas... Noel, noel... Born is the king of the BT Tower...

All back? Settled in? Good, now we can start again... One person can be indentified with Christmas and its not Santa Claus... His name is something so Christmassy that the Egg Nog would curdle in itself, that is Noel Edmonds. 


Noel usually to be found up the BT Tower on Christmas Day has been associated with the big day since 1984, though his first Christmas Day programme was to be found at Beaulieu with Mike Smith on duty as well. With 1985 being the launch pad for Comic Relief, in associating with live television firsts meant that Noel could always pull out something from his stocking.

Default Noel Position #75... Hand in pocket...

Once in a while though, Mr Edmonds does have it put all back onto him. Take for example, the clip above. Its the end of the Late, Late Breakfast show's run in 1983 and throughout the series Noel has been send out the Hit Squad to play pranks on people, but maybe it's time for some own back... Thanks to the BBC1 announcer who's in on the joke...

Later on in the decade, Noel started the tradition of his Christmas presents being like the BBC's Cilla and the late Sir Jimmy Savile by having people writing to his programme and Noel would turn up at a person's house, ready to give them a surprise and a present as well...

Socks? A Jumper, maybe? No, when they say go big, Noel goes big! 

Hollies... All the way!

For this gentleman who is a huge fan of the Hollies, a CD wasn't enough... How about a private concert from the band itself? In all of this, Noel can be seen to saccharin sweet with this type of thing. But you don't have to take sugar in your beverage at all, it the idea of something impossible made real which makes Noel, the master of Christmas... He might have gone from the BBC but his presents maybe on Sky now, the surprise element always can be there, but nothing says Christmas like Noel...

Or hang on...

When presenting Swap Shop, a working model of BBC1's 1980 Christmas ident was brought onto the programme to show how it worked, so Noel loves idents does he? Yes, he does... But if there's a gag involved, he's the first one to do it...

"Blast!"

After Christmas 1985, Noel decided to start 1986 with a blast... Literally... Destroying the 1985 BBC1 Christmas ident with a blunderbuss? Sacrilegious! No, not really... In which a good way to show a sense of humour by doing this, but didn't Bottom use guns? So the best comedy comes in blowing something up, so Noel, Noel... Born is the king of Christmas...

Write-ly or wrongly...

For my sins through life and waffling about nonsense, I have been many things. Some would say I was something still, but in my 32 years I've fitted in being a disability swimmer, a football mascot, someone who's written letters to stars and television executives, a mature student who's retaken his GCSE's plus also a hospital radio DJ. Most of which I've failed at of course, but one thread has run through my life and still does and that is comedy.

The old school - Hardly inspiring isn't it?

Now, its easy to watch and pick it apart with such precision to look at the nuances of it all. From an early age I have enjoyed alternative comedy, even before maybe I fully understood it. But it was a language to get through school with that 1990 to 1995 period being dominated by Bottom of course. Not everyone would have understood it with majority looking on at East 17 or Take That as their main course of action, especially the girls. Otherwise it was football for the boys, but entertainment dominates in my mind as wanting to be a continuity announcer when I left school. Though after realising that dream had gone when I sounded like Mr Bean, never the less I turned my attention to getting into writing comedy scripts. They were just put down on A4 paper, I didn't know what it all meant most of my ideas usually would end on television not by my own hand.

"Eddie, there's people looking at us..."
"Blimey, Ritchie... You're right!"

Whether that was my luck or not I don't know, but it was never off-putting and eventually I wrote sketches that and they were sent off for appreciation to people like Danny Baker and Iain Lee, never got a reply back but by putting them out there it would show I was here and not going to go away, even showing them to other people who had a better grasp of the English language. They said they were alright but if that was just to puff me up a bit I don't know. I chose to write still by doing an article for 'Off The Telly' about a programme  I had seen on daytime on Channel 5 and for them to publish it on the site was something to behold. OK, it had needed changes both from my brother and also from others at the site. But I felt justified in what I was doing and I could feel proud that something I wrote was being read by people all over of the world.

So where's the News at One music then?

Maybe it was a case of 'Go Me!' but it felt like there was a freer spirit coming out of me and that rather then speaking words could flow forth on the page or the screen about what was going on in my mind. By this I had tickled my own funny bone and there was something to be said about it all. In terms of everything I might not be a journalist or a novelist, the expression of the word can never be any truer then something spoken by somebody.

The scripts? Well, they are hidden away for a rainy day, so who knows? The words come forth and so do the ideas...

Off course you can...

Some people may question where about the quest and thirst for knowledge comes from, what makes up someone who wants to learn more and more. I will admit I've never been the most intelligent of beings, but I've always had a thirst for learning new things. After leaving school as a 16 yr old with no GCSE's this made me want to know more about the media and the industry surrounding it. Fine, I could read TV listings from a young age but I wanted to know about the companies behind the programmes and the people who made them.

Like many things nowadays, anything like this is seen in the newspapers as quirky and odd. These stories come with a 'Good for a Laugh' image, but I don't never see this as that. Since I have been tweeting I have learned more and more from various people and their knowledge of such things, where as I would have looked at a book and read now I can discuss with people about all angles of an industry set up to inform, educated and entertain us. 

Learning such information on my own seems like a little triumph for myself, knowing that I can know something that it might not be 100% right, but just the knowledge of knowing that particular fact. Then again some of the most influential people in the media and entertainment sphere have search for that knowing all their lives. By example Jeremy Beadle was supplying information to shows, Bob Monkhouse built up a huge collection of videos of shows and other items as well. We all want to be able to say 'Here's something that you don't know...' Maybe such not as pub trivia but being able to impart knowledge to other people each and every day. I read mostly reference books and autobiographies of people and have done all through my life, knowing what people have been through to get where they are today. A good true life story is as good as a fictional one, where as you could say that you couldn't make it up at all. 

By using this knowledge I can impart thing onto other people and help them in whatever I do, even by doing this and passing on little bits of knowledge to the likes of Iain Lee and Danny Baker, if they used them that was upto to them. But knowing I can provide a little bit of trivia and knowledge with what I do, it makes an audience sit up and listen. I'm not saying that I'm no memory champion as such, but when you are given a hand of cards to be able to sit in front of a television set, it'll be used to do so.

I was never going to be a world champion being able to kick a ball around, but knowing that Mickey Dolenz  

directed Metal Mickey, that's one thing I will take with me....