We dropped Nat off at The Vipers Rugby Club this morning to join his team mates on a trip to Twickenham to watch the Guinness Premiership Final between Leicester Tigers and Saracens. I would have loved to have gone but at the time of booking it wasn’t clear whether or not I would be physically up to it. Even now I’m not sure I’d be able to sit on a coach seat / stadium seat for a whole day without cocking up my new hip. I’m not supposed to sit on low chairs for at least six weeks after the operation and to date it’s only been three and a bit! I’ve nagged Nat to take some photos and videos whilst he’s there but I’m willing to bet buttons to dollars that he doesn’t take any or if he does only a very few and certainly no videos. I’m hoping to be disappointed but very much doubt that I will be! Anyway, by the time he gets home he’s going to be shattered because their ETA back to the Vipers Club House is 11 PM!!! Called Nat about 2:15, they are still on the coach, although they have stopped at some services for a break, and are now on, he thinks, the M25 which sounds about right because Twickenham Stadium is about six miles away for London Heathrow Airport. We were cut off when my phone’s low battery warning started sounding; either I’ve got a duff battery, hopefully, cos it was fully charged this morning or I’ve got a duff phone which is a far more serious problem. Mind you when the N95 started draining batteries like there was no tomorrow I just left it somewhere warn and dry for a few months and the problem appeared to solve itself. Whatever the reason it’s now working fine and holding it’s battery charge for days.
Germany 1992; I’ve told the kids a number of times that when Deb and I visited Germany in 1992 we discovered a kind of bobsleigh run on the side of a mountain during our travels across the Rhineland. I’ve never tried to locate this site on the internet but that changed this morning. I’ve been watching that odd little daytime series Coach Trip Series Three (I’d never heard of it, let alone seen it, before); on yesterdays episode they visited the Innsbruck Winter Olympic Bobsleigh Run where, in the non-winter months, you can ride the run on a wheeled bobsleigh, known as “Summer Bobsleighing” reasonably enough. I showed this clip to Han this morning after we returned from dropping off Nat and it inspired me to see if i could find the site we visited in 1992. God Bless the Internet; it must have taken me all of five minutes to find the location followed by their website followed by YouTube footage of people riding the run. I’ve linked to a couple of these videos below:
I’d really really like to have another go on this and so would Nat and Han; for some reason Deb isn’t so enthusiastic!
Well talk about Serendipity, as Victor Meldrew might say “I Cannot Believe It”, quite by chance, I can’t even recall how now, I came across a site called TV Heaven that basically lists virtually every TV show/series that has ever been on TV. Now whenever I encounter such a site there is ALWAYS one search that I ALWAYS (are you getting the picture) ALWAYS make; so too the H’s and look for “The Hanged Man”. Well would you believe it, there it was The Hanged Man. Why do I always make this search? Because in 1975 (when I was 18) I stayed in every Saturday night for eight weeks (Note to Young People:- there were no videos recorders in those days) to watch this drama thriller. As far as I was concerned it was, at this point, the best thriller I’d ever seen on TV and if I’[m honest I’d say that few dramas since have bested it. I managed to pick up a copy of the book of the TV series in Cardiff shortly after the series concluded and this book must rank amongst my most reread books of all time. My original copy is now held together with sellotape and prayers (luckily I managed to acquired a new copy on Amazon a few years ago that retains it’s unread virgin status to this day). Now one other thing I ALWAYS do when I do this search is look to see if there are any episodes available anywhere to watch (For Example the first 10 minutes of the comedy spin-off “Turtles Progress” is on YouTube and can be seen here…
). Until now I’ve had no luck and all leads followed have ended the same way saying that the original tapes were either wiped or lost. Imagine my surprise and DELIGHT when I discovered this has changed and it changed THIS MONTH. The Complete series became available on DVD on 3 May 2010…YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
I will be sending for it forthwith…well actually it’s £18.00 and Deb has just told me I can have it for Father’s Day. Now I know it’s available I’ve searched to see if I could find it cheaper elsewhere but, alas, to no avail. But “Sod It”, I’ve wanted to re-see this programme for 35(!!!!!) years so what’s £20 (inc postage). I know the production valves of programmes for this era were so low that, sometimes, reviewing a fondly remembered series can be a great disappointment ( BBC’s Gangsters one off and 2 spin-off series in 1976 and 1977 being cases in point) but as I recall much of this series was shot on location rather than in the studio so hopefully this will play in it’s favour. Either way I’ll be seeing it… shit I’m so happy I can’t explain it!!!It would appear that I’m desperately in need of a further thirty words if I am to reach the thousand word mark on this particular blog post, can anyone suggest anything that I might do to achieve this target, What’s that, waffle on endlessly you say, surely that would be cheating and something that a gentleman would not countenance. No I understand fully the point you make and if, like you, I too were totally lacking in honour then perhaps I too might pursue it also; but alas I cannot! Oh looks “cannot” somehow mysteriously became the 1059th word so the problem appears to be moot! (1075) Of course this now means that I’ve got to find something to fill the remaining 25 words and this will, no doubt, be it! (1100)
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