"I say, Chummers!"

"I say, Chummers!"

I've always enjoyed a bit of Basil Brush, of course, though his constant interruptions to the story at the end always used to make me fret that he'd delay the start of 'Doctor Who'.

A quick search of BBC Genome soon unearths some oddities such as 'Basil Brush's Christmas In Norway' from Saturday 20th December 1975, which features none other than Olaf Pooley, hopefully not in charge of a dangerous drilling project this time. Although the idea of an Evil Universe Basil with an eyepatch does appeal.

But the 'TV Comic' strips are a whole different world of weird when it comes to the Brushiverse and I was reminded of this when we added a couple of 'TV Comic' annuals to our collection a while ago.
In these, Basil is not confined to a desk with a helper in the vein of Mister Derek or Mister Roy (you can tell my era for watching the show!), but instead lives in a stately home with a Cockney butler going by the name of Chummers, who refers to his employer as 'guv'.

There's one story where a rent collector turns up, which surprised me as I'd always assumed Basil was a fox of property, but his financial state of affairs does seem to vary wildly.

Sometimes he complains about the number of bills he has to pay and the roof is in dire need of repairs. But he's still got enough spare cash to go skiing and take a trip to Spain.

We hear of his relatives from time to time, as his red hankie (used in the bullfighting sequence) was a present from Aunt Rachel. At the ski resort, Basil relates a possibly tall tale about his ancestor Titus Brush who reached the pole centuries before Scott. Allegedly, he did the journey whilst wearing a suit of armour, which was attracted by the magnetic pole, though Chummers doesn't believe a word of it.

Basil's wardrobe is definitely more varied than on the telly and we see him dressed for playing golf and cricket. Although still not exactly the talles of chaps, Basil in the comic strips is larger than his TV incarnation, being able to hold a full-sixe cricket bat quite happily.

He also owns a (not very) sprightly red roadster, going by the name of Bessie, which may or not explain why Jon Pertwee's own car was renamed Betsy in 'TV Comic' to avoid confusion.

I've got a rather battered Corgi version of what I presume is meant to be it (simply named 'Basil Brush's Car') but sadly there is no sign of Chummers on board. Not even in the boot. Although, having now checked, the boot is actually sealed shut which does seem slightly suspicious, now I come to think of it...

Maybe Basil just got fed up with being called 'guv' every hour of the waking day...

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Up Captain Peacock

Up Captain Peacock

We seem to be falling into a weekly schedule for our rewatch of 'Are You Being Served?', now that we've rediscovered the DVD for Season Three, which suits us fine.

First broadcast on 13th March 1975, 'Up Captain Peacock' gave us over six pages of notes by the end of it, which is going some.

But it's an interesting character piece, with Mr Grainger being annoyed at Captain Peacock being allowed access to both the Executive Washroom and the Executive Dining Room, neither of which he's seen the inside of even after his many years of loyal service.

You've got appearances from Jeffrey Segal, Donald Hewlett and Michael Knowles within the space of 30 minutes, which is pretty good value by anyone's standards.

We learn of the different classes of bow-tie available at Grace Brothers and get to see Donald Hewlett in a dress.

Mister Mash has another daft display model, this time for Sensitouch rubber gloves, which inevitably end up giving V-signs after Mrs Slocombe has tampered with it.

With a change in the lunch hours, everyone is feeling hungry and cross. Mister Humphries, having gone without his breakfast, is very keen to get his hands on his melon balls, even after a visit from the Meals On Wheels service that Mister Mash begins to operate from the lift.

Come 2pm, Mister Grainger is supping his soup with much gusto and even more in the way of decibels, but the Factory Inspector is on the case and declares the dining area is too small for the number of people it has to serve.

Captain Peacock and Mister Rumbold have barely sipped their Peruvian Beaujolais (type) wine before a suspiciously light wall is removed to knock the area into one.

I'm glad we've picked up the pace on these again as I think Season Three is the point at which 'Are You Being Served?' really starts to hit its stride. And the BBC seemed to agree as the first Christmas Special is looming on the horizon. Although some of those will present us with a few problems when it comes to certain scenes...

Our video about 'Up Captain Peacock' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

The Herbs - Strawberry Picking

The Herbs - Strawberry Picking

"1300. lunch stew and prunes. eat with relish.

1330. eat secret lunch smoked salmon duck green peas strubres and cream."

The above is a snippet of a Headmaster's typical daily 'timtable' from the first nigel molesworth book 'Down With Skool!', one of those books I've read so many times it is now a bit of a shambles.

We sometimes treat ourselves to some strawberries, but in deference to nigel, I often actually write 'strubres' on the shopping list, or I might ask Lisa the leading question "Do you fancy some strubres?" - that is the way we roll, apparently.

We had a couple of strawberries plants at home in the 80s, but they rarely produced anything larger than a medium-sized gobstopper. In the words of Albert Steptoe "One burp and you're empty!".

"Enough is as good as a feast. And too many is worse than none at all!" claims narrator Gordon Rollings in 'Strawberry Picking' when Dill and Sage stuff their faces with a fair proportion of that year's crop from the Herb Garden.

Though frankly, I'm more worried about the long-term damage Bayleaf, Sir Basil and Lady Rosemary are doing to their backs, bending badly when harvesting the strubres.

There's no sign of spooky witch Belladonna, though Bayleaf's mention of The Phantom Strawberry picker does rather come out of left-field, and makes me wonder whether there's a subconscious link with 'The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Old London Town' by Spike Milligan and a gentleman.

Ultimately, this one is all about the consequences of not throwing away old Christmas boxes, which is about as convoluted an explanation as the dreaded Fast Return Switch in 'The Edge Of Destruction' by David Whitaker and a Food Machine.

Constable Knapweed is on the trail of the missing strawberries, though once he finds the remains, alert viewers will note how the evidence probably won't last long in his custardy (sic). Though he seems to be perfectly happy taking them into sugary and creamery (groan!).

Hmm, perhaps too many bad jokes are indeed worse than none at all, but if you want more thoughts along these lines, our video about 'Strawberry Picking' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Jacqueline Pearce

 Jacqueline Pearce

We were never lucky enough to spend any time with Jacqueline Pearce over a drink, but just hearing her tell stories at various convention panels was always a joy.

The last time we were in the same building with her was at the 'Regenerations' convention in Swansea some two years ago now.

Warren had his photo taken with her on the Saturday morning and we now regret that we didn't follow his example. She had been scheduled to appear on the first panel of the morning, but the after-effects of two bottles of red wine and watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' the night before were still taking their toll, so she appeared somewhat later than planned.

But it's tales like this that made us love her all the more.

Jacqueline Pearce was rightly proud of portraying a fantasy figure for some many people growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, and although she'd talked about her battles with cancer, hearing the news of her death last night was still a shock to us.

We reached for Tanith Lee's episode 'Sand' and for once we didn't take any notes. It was wonderful to just sit back and enjoy a brilliant performance. I won't waste your time here trying to analyse everything, it's all on-screen, so just go and watch it. After all, in the episode she claims to like watching old films...

I'd quite forgotten Lisa's anecdote about going to her local hairdresser and having Jacqueline's name crop up unexpectedly, but then Warren once was surprised to meet her on a train. She picked up on the fact that he was slightly in awe of her, just saying to him "Yes, darling, I KNOW..."

Gawd bless yer, Supreme Commander.

Martin Holmes has done this special 'RTA' cover...

Our video about Jacqueline Pearce can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

If you want to get ahead, get a Cyberhead

If you want to get ahead, get a Cyberhead

Warren came round this morning holding a huge package.

I've recently had one of those 'significant' birthdays and I knew he was planning to present me with something special, as he'd already had a word with Lisa and mysteriously asked me how large my head was.

To be honest, I'm never exactly sure about personal details like this. When asked my age in a hurry, I turn to Lisa and ask her, to gain myself valuable thinking time. Though 50 is quite an easy one to remember, as well as being one of my favourite notes when playing 'Monopoly' for some strange reason.

To give Warren an idea of my cranial capacity, I popped upstairs and returned with my top hat, which we picked up a few years ago at the Sherlock Holmes museum in Baker Street, London. Apparently, I'm medium-to-large which sounds about right. Slightly big-headed but it rarely becomes a problem.
Lisa knew what he was planning, although there was a slight setback when the initial order arrived in a slightly damaged state. There was no problem with getting a replacement, only it did mean a six-week delay.

But today was the great unveiling and I think it's fair to say that I was surprised and delighted. Not to say slightly touched, but Warren and Lisa would say that is my normal state of mind at the best of times.

So I am now the proud owner of a Cyberman head, based on the version used in 'The Invasion' which, like me, also hails from 1968.

We did a quick photoshoot outside the shed as it was a sunny day. Though we would like to reassure readers that there is not a mysterious device in the shed made from plastic cups and string, issuing orders in an impenetrable voice.

And neither am I in the process of spraying a form-fitting wetsuit with silver paint, which will be a great relief to everyone, I suspect.

I'd like to publically thank Warren for his generosity and also Lisa for her part in keeping the secret.

The head is now sitting on a tall bookcase next to the French doors and I think we'll nod at him every time we go out into the garden.

Now all we have to do is think of a name for him...

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

The Case of The Series Five DVD

The Case of The Series Five DVD

As you may know we really love 'Sergeant Cork', but it has been a while since we watched a new (well, new to us) episode as we had stalled after watching 'The Case of Albert Watson V.C.' which although being a very good story was also a very dark one.

Looking at the next story 'The Case of The Painted Boat' which featured in the synopsis the ominous words 'baby farming' we decided to stop watching and go on to something more cheery.

Having seen 'Round The Archives' writer Martin Holmes watching and enjoying 'Cork' and having rediscovered the DVD we decided to knuckle down and finally watch the episode.

And I have to say that I'm glad that we did as it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it would be. Although the subject matter was uncomfortable to watch, it was done in a much lighter way than the previous episode, which was actually shown several months earlier.

It featured a very good performance by Harold Goldblatt as the eccentric Ebenezer Webster and a chilling turn by Avis Bunnage as the villanous Charlotte Dawson with the excellent John Junkin as her bargee husband Jacko. Although it's not a barge, it's a narrow-boat, as Harold Goldblatt is keen to point out.

This story gives John Barrie the chance to vent his fury as Sergeant Cork when he discovers what is going on and the fate of some of the children that they have had in their 'care'.

And then is even a shot of two babies dressed in Victorian clothing in a drawer, which remided us of Carole's offspring in the drawer in 'The Brittas Empire'.

Having enjoyed that episode very much and seeing that the next episode on the disc featured an appearance by Queen Victoria we decided to continue.

'The Case Of The Simple Savage' is a very strange story that features a Maori King and brillantly for the 1960s he is played by an actual Maori actor, Inia Te Wiata, who is marvellous in the part and also featured in an episode of 'The Worker' with Charlie Drake.

In common with some other episodes, Sergeant Cork is not really in it very much . I suppose John Barrie must have been on a well earned holiday, but when he arrives back he helps to solve the whole case.

It is nice to see William Gaunt as Bob Marriott given the chance to shine and take on most of the dectecting duties. And Charles Morgan as Superintendent Rodway is given a fair bit to do also.

We are aiming to finish off the disc tonight and watch 'The Case of The Hooded Students', but we have another set to watch after this, so much more 'Sergeant Cork' to be enjoyed.

We did a video on the two 'Sergeant Cork' episodes we watched, which can be seen here.

(Written by Lisa Parker)

'Round The Archives' Q & A Session

'Round The Archives' Q & A Session

With 'Round The Archives' reaching the landmark of Episode 25, we thought we'd mark this milestone by opening ourselves up to questions. So long as they were clean.

So, we appealed for queries and took the opportunity to have a pub lunch, as we've also been living (in sin! as a certain Mister Sheard was fond of saying) for fifteen years now.

We took a notepad and a pen with us, which proved to be a good idea as some of the questions actually needed quite structured answers, so if you want to find out about our fantasy TV schedules, you'll have to watch and see.

And the one from Paul Ebbs ("Spell Your Names Out with the Initial Letters of your Favourite Archive Shows") caused a fair bit of headscratching as most of the Rs seemed to have blown off from our memories. Wide awake readers will note how that's a reference to 'Not Only... But Also...' which could have served as an N, except I went for 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' instead.

In the way of things, we were uploading the video when some more questions arrived, but these can be bumped to a follow-up one, as we enjoyed doing this session very much.

Even if Andrew's stomach can be heard rumbling in the background...

The video for the Q & A session can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)