Toast Returns

We watch an infinitesimally small amount of telly in this house, mainly because we don't have a telly, but one show we've been hooked on, since we bumped into the pilot on Channel 4's catch-up service in 2012, is 'Toast of London', which returns for a second series this evening. Written by Matt Berry and Arthur Mathews, it stars Berry himself as Steven Toast - actor, voice-over artist and pompous windbag. It's a hoot. Don't miss it.

We Have Lift Off

In the 1970s we took our pop music on the telly wherever we could get it, be it via groups appearing in guest slots on 'The Basil Brush Show', 'Crackerjack' (all together, Crackerjack!), 'Magpie' or any one of a handful of other tea-time TV favourites. Meanwhile, producing 8 series between November 1969 and December 1974, 'Lift Off With Ayshea' was a long running example of a purely pop music show, broadcasting a total of 144 episodes. Tragically, today only 3 of those 144 episodes survive in the ITV archives.

The host, Ayshea Brough, herself an accomplished pop singer, introduced us to everyone who was anyone during those pivotal years, including The Sweet, David Bowie, T.Rex, Slade and Roy Wood, in both his Move and Wizzard guises. A firm friendship appears to have developed between Brough and Wood during this time, with Ayshea featuring on a number of Wizzard's Top of the Pops appearances. Roy repaid the compliment by writing and producing a single, 'Farewell', for Ayshea in 1973. It's a fantastically bonkers, everything-thrown-in-bar-the-kitchen-sink production, sounding exactly like a contemporary Wizzard number with Wood's vocals lifted out and Ayshea's dropped in.

(I'm a Wizzard fan, but no completest. Is there a Roy Wood voiced version of 'Farewell' out there? If there is, I'd love to hear it.)

A Bird You Must Not Miss

During my recent flying visit to London, I was struck by the selection of wildlife noises I heard in my Aunt's neighbourhood, quite a different range to those I'm used to around these parts. Take the skulk of urban foxes, screaming up and down her small back garden throughout the night and disturbing my slumber. In the two and a bit years we've lived out here in the sticks, we've seen precisely one fox - and that was being shot (possibly illegally) by a farmer at the time. Then there were fellow scavengers the magpies, by far most predominant birds I saw (and heard) during my stay and way more confident and cheeky than their country cousins who live in my neck of the woods. Not quite as confident as the creature perching on this young lady's head though! It's a c.1950 photo I picked up at a car-boot sale a few years ago in which the young lady in question appears amusingly oblivious to the sharp-beaked creature pecking away at the top of her head. 

From this funny little snapshot it's just a short, extremely tenuous, leap to the 1970s kids TV show Magpie, ITV's cool answer to Blue Peter, which was co-hosted by corkscrew haired Mick Robertson. Already looking the part, Robertson tried his hand at the pop game in 1974 and 1975, releasing three singles and an album through CBS Records. The results weren't the run-off-the-mill, embarrassing drivel you might have expected to emerge from a TV presenter apparently cashing-in on his notoriety, far from it. Singles one and two,'The Tango's Over' and 'Then I Change Hands', are distinctly quirky, quietly ambitious songs, produced by future Rah Band overlord Richard Hewson. I loved these oddities then and I love them still, but for some reason never did get around to buying the LP....until now, 39 years later - thanks to eBay. Single number three? A Clifford T Ward produced, non-album one-off, released at the tail-end of 1975, after which Mick Robertson shelved his musical ambitions to concentrate on his day job.

James Gandolfini R.I.P.

Today we heard the terribly sad news that James Gandolfini, star of The Sopranos, one of the greatest TV series to come out of America, has passed away very suddenly at just 51 years of age. This evening i'll drink a glass of red in his honour, but for now I salute him with my morning espresso.