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...

The staff are the stars...

Since about two weeks ago I have been logging my collection of books, DVD's, VHS' and also other items which has given me a chance to look at some things I knew I had, other I didn't and some 'What was I think recording that?' moments as well. But over time there has been a trend occurring as I go, with the most of the recordings being about television naturally though with a twist. Its seems that people are always more then willing to appear in front of the camera if they have been behind it for so many years...

So I have seen the excellent Stewart Morris talking about swinging Shirley Bassey off an ship to get a good shot and then coming back and turning the air blue at him, Greg Dyke remembering about saving a sinking ship by getting a rat to help him and Paul Jackson getting caught by the fuzz with Denise Van Outen and Ray Burdis as well. 

"If you rub cream onto it Sammy, then the chaffing will go double quick..."

By all of which television likes talking about itself, but one thing which surprise me though was when watching the 'Finger' episode from Bottom was a bellboy who turns up who's just delivered Ritchie and Eddie's bags to their room at the Marvelouso Splendido Hotelo in Wolverhampton demanding a tip from Ritchie for doing so. It took two turns, well after a 'Nah, it wasn't him was it?' It was, he was Jon Plowman head comedy honcho at the BBC making a cameo in the episode and making a darned fine job of it as well. At any time the staff would have been their offices coming up with the next idea for a programme or making sure they run off like clockwork. Even those of the old school have been running off programmes such as Michael Grade's History of Variety on BBC4 and also Bill Cotton appearing in The Story of Light Entertainment as well. 

"Match.. of the day?"

When usually they would be associated with appearances on Points of View having to defend what they are putting on their channel from people who've written in using a Crayola, it must come as a relief to impart what they know to the public by explaining what they do rather then just having the public running at them screaming 'ARRRGGGHH! Taxpayers Alliance are right!' At the moment there's another furore going on about the vetting of contestants on ITV's Red or Black, seemingly they have tightened up the rules by eliminated two contestants who could also possibly sue the network now for just dumping them and finding a moral compass down the back of the sofa at Gray's Inn Road. 

Seemingly we've gone from old Uncle Bill Cotton to grab the money and run, its little wonder why old school producers put themselves out there to explain what they did in programmes, maybe lessons can be learned from these people. Because if you don't know who started it all, then who knows where it will end up...

Hire and higher...

Whilst listening to Danny Baker this morning talking about television repairmen this morning, it provoked a thought. Some of you might say 'What a first one in years?' But it begs the question, is the box the corner just like a chair?

In our family we were a renting family for many years from Radio Rentals, until a win on the pools got us a brand new Goldstar television set (Goldstar? Nah, me neither...) thought that for me was the last of the television sets which were a portal to world away from my own and rather a bit of furniture. Nostalgia maybe rose tinted but there was always a thrill of a set looking like it was carved rather then just being moulded from plastic, plus it gave something to the viewing experience. Can you imagine watching Brucie and the Generation Game on what is amount to an ice cream tub?

"Thunderbird Seven is go!"

The set itself way before FST, Fasttext was a rudimentry affair it seemed. Though the workings needed a gentle touch from a repairman with the valves inside or a good old whack on the side whenever the vertical hold went,
take for instance my grandparents had a repairman who was local to them in Cosham called Mr Head, he would come out brown jacketed and booted to twiddle with knobs and recalibrate the set. But it was a skill to be able to this, with proper workshops and tools which seemed they were from the Soviet Union. A set could be gone for ages whilst it was repaired, but it made the love for the set grow even stronger like a child going into hospital.

"Good wood?"

"Balsa!"

"No, its true!"

My first set me and my brother had was an old Pye set high up on a wardrobe, until it let out a puff of smoke telling us that it was knackered. But that set had seen everything, watching The Muppets, the launch of Breakfast Television, the launch of Channel 4. It was a friend to me and I got over it, we got a new set to replace but in this age of widescreen when I see a set like the Pye Colourmaster, it gives me a warm glow. Overall, with televisions today I would always take HD and stereo sound. But the thrill cannot match getting a new set from Radio Rentals, it might seem like a joke to have set with 'Supersound' years before a full stereo service but those touches made it for me, even Danny Baker reminded people that he had a set with a hue button to be able get the skin tone right by increasing the browness or blueness. These quirks are what make greats sets great, the clunk of the buttons as you switch it over, even with a Grundig set we he, there was that ability to tune it in yourself without any micro technology to do it for you and you knew you had done it.

To some, looking at old sets maybe boring, but think how far we've come from the early days of a disc spinning around to create a picture. The love of an old set is something, but nuturing them like a classic car is another thing...

 Pure sets machine...

I survived a riot (and lived to tell the tale...)

At the moment Britain is at point with rioting and looting, but this is not going to be a political style expression, just more of a tale...

In 2000 I had just moved out of my family home for a life of independence and into a new flat, what pride I was feeling at having branched out into the world at at last. This was about to all change...

1st of August was the moving in date and as I contemplated my new life ahead, it was lollipops and sunshine. Events were to take a new twist though, because of the lack of accommodation for my needs I had to move into a council estate, not the wisest move but it was mine at last. Though this was all to be shattered, at that time in the air was the anger about Sarah Payne's killing and also the News of the World's naming and shaming campaign. I had moved into Paulsgrove, Hampshire...

During that period people had been protesting about paedophiles living in their community, but this was to take a new twist during the night... An uneasy feeling much like what is going on at the moment had been permeating the air as more people got angry about this apparent lack of respect for citizens in the area. As more people gather at the main shopping area, it got too much and then it happened... The tinderbox had been set alight...

"Boy! See me after class for extra spelling lessons!"

Grievances were held against anyone who didn't agree with the mob or thought they were off-kilter with this mood.

I was not part of it myself, I was asleep at that time... I know you're wondering how can you sleep through a riot? But I did, it was the next morning turning onto BBC Breakfast and bleary-eyed just thinking 'I know that place... That's just down the road!' But when I had seen the damage I knew the scale of the situation and wondered if I had made the right choice after all in moving there...

For eleven years, when I have mentioned Paulsgrove to people in passing, they have thought I must be a thug or someone what... Myself, all I love is good television theme tune and pop culture... If that makes me less of a person to do that then so be it, I will be relaxed in my chair enjoy that... If two wrongs make a right, then a lot of people are going to look at themselves before jumping on any passing bandwagon which is going past because no matter how leafy your area is... You'll be defending yourself for years to come from the paranoia which goes with this type of event...