Sunday, January 04, 2015

random factor

hello there

i should probably be considering heading to bed at this late an hour, to be honest, but instead i feel somewhat inspired to do one of those "random" posts that tend to attract a lot of interest. i assume that's down to the sporadic proliferation of google searches for images, but if one or two of you like my text with all these pictures then that's nice.

here we go, then, look you see, with a whole load of random images (as you are aware of them being) uploaded and appearing here in whatever order blogger felt best, although i have my suspicions that it is in fact done on an alphabetical basis.


here is an advert that i have unwisely put to the side. this is unwise as, yes regular readers are aware of this, i feel obliged to put loads and loads of text by the side of them to make it look what i deem as being "proper".

what is this advert? well, it seems to be some sort of offer of details about "alternative communities", whatever that involved back in the 70s. it seems that for the most part they wish to attract teachers to these alternative communities, which speaks of some level of conventional society being wanted in them.

i do sometimes wonder what sort of reply, if any, one would get if they wrote to addresses off of adverts from many, many years ago. quite possibly none is the answer, but one never knows. i would suspect that Dept MA4 are not still on the go in the picturesque ways of Bangor, but then again maybe they are and just do not advertise in places that i would see them. is it worth firing off a letter to this address, or any other address that i spot in these old adverts? perhaps. the letter i sent to the Viz a month ago claiming some more pencils due to spotting Jimmy Hill has yet to get a response, even though i sent an SAE and everything, so i am somewhat reluctant to experiment with replies via the postal system to any more dramatic level at this stage.

what did carpentry look like in the 80s, you ask? apparently, at least in Germany (or possibly Austria, but it's the same thing), it looked rather a lot like this.



i am not at all sure that one could get away with barefoot, open shirt carpentry in this day and age of legal liabilities and health & safety regulations. i suppose you could in the privacy of your own home, as if something went wrong you could only sue yourself for compensation. to me it looks like a way of getting some nasty splinters, so i will give it a miss.

yes, if you are wondering, carpentry is indeed the art, or if you like craft, of working with wood.

going back, somewhat briefly, to writing off to old addresses, and i wonder if it is not worth my time sending these chaps a letter. it is never, apparently, too late for one to change career, or at least investigate the possibility of doing so.



would i fancy being a computer mender? yeah, i suppose. it is pretty easy work these days. the stuff they build is not designed to have all that long a lifespan, so i would imagine the computer mender has a life of getting a busted computer off of someone, trying to turn it on, turning it off, turning it back on to see if it works better and then either giving it back to the computer owner saying "it is fixed, here is my bill" or "it cannot be repaired, please buy another, here is my bill".

well, maybe there is more to being a computer mender than that, actually. if it was all that simple, i suppose one would not have to go to a special school of electronics to learn how to do it. maybe i will write to them and see, i am not sure. i don't really fancy college or school in that Washington, in truth.

there was, many of you might recall, a big drive, or if you like push, by Australia to get people who were not presently in Australia to come and visit Australia. i am not sure why they felt the need to advertise, as surely the idea of seeing Warne, McGrath and the Waugh brothers play cricket was a pretty big pull. anyway, here is one of the adverts intended to lure visitors.



would that advert have persuaded, or indeed lured, me to go and visit Australia? not really, to be honest. i think i would have gone for the cricket anyway, if the chance had presented itself. although, that said, nine days wandering around Tasmania sounds pretty awesome, man.

as this weekend was FA Cup weekend, what better time than now to post this FA Cup matchday programme from some 40 years ago?



does it fill me with pride that Wycombe Wanderers considered a game against Middlesbrough as being the match of the decade? it fills me with nothing but pride, dear reader.  more teams, i believe, should provide us with the same level of respect and stature, for we have earned it.

since we are on a sports track, and this is the way in which the powers behind this blog hosting facility have uploaded the pictures, here's how that there Ferrari team, or if you like Team Ferrari, lined up in 1980.



i am not, in truth, all that much of a fan of watching cars go round and round in circles in the hope that one of them crashes in a class way. it is, however, quite a smart, indeed boss, thing when they change the tyres and that. those special tyre bolt guns they have are awesome.

the above is, of course, from a time when the One of Formula was better than it is now. back then it was all about getting as wrecked as you could on champagne, befriending several ladies and then driving a go-kart around a track as fast as you could. smart, that is, not like this "fitness and efficiency" rubbish they do today.

we all, i would like to think, had dreams - if not aspirations - when we were younger. some of us still have them, some of us clutch to them, some of us have got to live them, some of us have seen them simply all fade away. a dream i would like to think that i had was that one day i would have a flat or a pad that looked very much like this.



what part in particular of that pad would i like to be living like? well, i will leave that, for the most part, for you to determine, but i would draw your attention to how excellent that carpet, or big massive rug, is in accentuating the finer details of the umbrellas what the guests have.


if i was ever to live in a pad, or flat or whatever it is, like the one in the picture above, then i think i would have to take the subject of aftershave a good deal more seriously than i presently do. at this stage of my life it is not something that i trouble myself with at all, really.

i would like to think, however, that even though i strongly suspect that this smells of, and probably is indeed, p!ss, i would wear musk oil all day every day. not just any old musk oil, of course, but the Jovan kind, whatever that is.

this is probably what Ron Jeremy and maybe John Holmes wore in the 70s when they were making all them smart films. Burt Reynolds probably had a spare bottle or two of it too, now that i think.for all i know, all the people who i mentioned there that happen to still be alive might still use it today, if you can get it. what about The King, Elvis Presley? i suspect not, for He would get stuff especially made for Him, you would think. some sort of aftershave or cologne that was unique to Him.

i might well have a google thing later on, see if one can indeed still purchase musk oil by Jovan or anyone else for that matter. that said, i am not sure i am prepared to buy it. knowing that one can, if they wanted to, however would be handy information to have.

into the 90s, then, or maybe the 2000s, and a look at some sort of University in Norwich getting all upset and a little bit Australian about Nestle products.



no, i have no idea what the specifics or anything like that are of this, except that i note the voiced protest here does manage to carefully namedrop, if not advertise, several Nestle products that were apparently banned or boycotted in the University in Norwich.

my student days did not really involve any efforts to take on multinational conglomerates as such, but then again i never studied in Norwich, or wherever the above is from. i am not entirely sure that i have ever visited the place, except of course through the eyes of Alan Partridge. and her that does the cooking and owns, or used to own, the football team.

is there something for Spiros in this random post? why yes, there is indeed.

i like a bit of lamb as much as anyone else who likes lamb, although not in the same way that Spiros tends to, shall we say, enjoy lamb. i would suspect that the idea of getting a tattoo, or maybe even an interestingly located piercing, for a particularly special lamb that Spiros enjoyed would appeal to the chap.



all i know is that the sheep, or if you like lamb, in the above picture looks really scary, man. those eyes. it looks like the sheep has been downing the harder, stronger variant of sheep dip all day, and has something of the devil about them. i would not mess or interfere with that sheep, no thank you.

some classic tapes, possibly of the 8 track variety, from the 70s? sure, why not.



there are some classic albums on display there. and some that i was not aware of. like, for instance, the one by Walter Carlos, also known as Wendy Carlos, of some fame and considerable note due to doing the moog based electronica sounds of Beethoven and that for the film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange by that director whose name escapes me for the moment.

speaking of films, to end off with here's a major promotion by the TV Times for the motion picture Gold, which they broadcast on the date indicated in the year 1979.



i have peculiar memories of this film. i do not recall seeing it all the way through, but i can remember being present at a screening of it. we, as in my family and i, were on holiday somewhere, either in the late 70s or early 80s, and there was a screening of it. we were in some sort of big function room or dining hall, right, and they had the project all set up and one of them smart 8mm or 16mm projectors set up to show it. cannot remember where, i want to say Malta but i am not convinced. i think me and my siblings just ran around. i seem to recall a scene of Roger Moore stood on top of a big massive pole and being scared that he might fall off of it.

i don't think it was at school in New Marske that we saw this; i can remember my Mum & Dad being around. or maybe it was, and it was some sort of evening out thing. i know that they used to show films at that school, usually on a Friday and certainly on a projector as video was not so widespread. that's where i saw Watership Down, which was considered ace for 6 and 7 year olds.

and with that stroll down memory lane, the first random post of this year is now at a close. unless the far worse than ebola strains of manflu return and defeat me, well i would like to think that at least one more random post like this will turn up during the rest of the year.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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