it would, look you see, seem that i am, perhaps more by default than design or if you will ipso facto, doing what i suspected might happen earlier this year. this would be at least one post per calendar month pertaining to Bullseye broadly and the greatly missed Jim Bowen specifically.
the latter is of relevance here. yes, i know it is hard to imagine Jim away from Bullseye, his chosen forum via which he did his thing. every now and then, though, he was persuaded to step away from the studio so as to perform his art by other means. undoubtedly the most famous of these instances was when he stepped in for "the italian job", so to speak, when the German incumbent could not handle the job, but we have covered that ground before here.
yes, quite. not one, not three, but indeed two recordings of Jim Bowen in action. two similar, but ultimately different ones, as we shall see if you stick this out and read on.
did i go and seek these items (remember, not one and not three but two, which you get nothing for if they were in a bed according to his holiness the most righteous Jim Bowen may he rest in eternal peace) as a tribute to the great one after his recent passing? no. well, partially. we will get to the specifics of provenance as we go on with this. assuming, of course, that you read on.
what i would say now, however, is that i got all of these items for bargain prices. less than £5 in total for the pair, i think. the final figure may well even be south of £4, i am having a look. going on market price indicators, one of them was then quite the bargain.
provenance of my copy? alas, one of my favourite shops, That's Entertainment, was closing down and had a sale. they are, i believe, moving all operations online, via the splendid Music Magpie website.
so, this disc was sat there as part of a deal, where you could have it for £1.99 or one of three for £5. as the closing down sale mean 75% off all stock, i got this for whatever 25% of £1.99 is. i suspect it is somewhere just slightly north or south of 49p.
having not heard of this DVD before, for if i had then i would have surely already owned it, i did some research. from what i can gather it seems a rare, scarce thing. the best price i saw it for online was, in a used condition (like my copy, for full disclosure), listed as north of £20 but just slightly south of £25. quite steep and exploitative, really, unless the money from the sale goes to one of the many charities which the honourable Jim Bowen was a patron of. anyway, anyone not prepared to stump up that sort of money is clearly not a proper, committed, dedicated fan of Jim Bowen, or has otherwise discovered that the whole thing is online, for free, on that "you tube" thing.
oh yeah, the disc. this was filmed at a venue in Blackburn, and i am quietly confident that it was made post-Bullseye, pre-Vatican era. ostensibly, it is one of them "live stand up comedy" shows, but let me not accidentally cheapen it. because it is Jim Bowen doing it, this is the best thing ever.
as the title suggests, this is Jim Bowen lamenting the way the world has gone. everything in society went south precisely when ITV took Bullseye off of the tele. we lost our moral compass, with no guidance given to how we should live via his sermon on a Sunday tea time. to this end, Jim shares with us, his devout audience, jokes which are not offensive at all, for they laugh with people and not at their expense, and explores his sadness at how he is not supposed to tell them any more. also, he tells an absolutely brilliant story about an episode of Bullseye what ended up not being screened, due to the out of character drunken activities of two Irish contestants on the show.
should the provenance be the internet, the cost? approx £2.50, as it happens. so both together did, assuming my skills with % are correct, cost me just south of £3.
in showing the dedication Jim had to cities and towns what start or should you prefer commence with the very same letter what his most excellent surname does or sadly rather did, this one was recorded in Blackpool, not Blackburn. or Bolton. or Basildon. also, not Basingstoke. i could go on with the list of places where this was not recorded. for the sake of less typing, i would ask you to just accept that i could do that, whilst we carry on with the actual point of this, if indeed there is much of any point.
mostly this is the same material on the DVD. there are, however, a few extras. highlights of the extras include referencing some contestants if Bullseye with casual obscenities vented in favour of their guilt of the sin of greed and the subsequent loss of prizes.
yes, by the way, one does hear Jim Bowen use what society deems to be offensive language in both recordings. in his defence - not that he needs me to defend him - this was all before he accepted the job of being Pope Francis, so as far as i am concerned he was not breaking any terms and conditions of employment. besides, if he was, well, look at the terms and conditions the pope before him broke.
the tape, alas, was not perfect. despite being brand new and factory sealed (it looked to be and the fella what sold it to me assured me that it was) there was some damage. the tape had one or two "folds" in it. whereas some fast forwarding and rewinding, or "fast backwarding", straightened it out (plus a bit of pencil magic), the sound was distorted as a consequence.
distracting, disappointing but not a failure. that's what i say of this. whereas it is not perfect, i all the same used my deft skills to convert this tape to that "mp3" format, so as i may be able to load or otherwise add it to that one decent device Apple made, the iPod. now i may listen to the voice of Jim Bowen on a night as i lay down to rest.
alas, no, the great Tony Green does not make a guest appearance on either of these recordings. he does get mentioned in the most respectful terms, though. someone called Hughie Green gets mentioned, mind, and not in particularly complimentary terms.
right, that's about that. yes, indeed i am happy with these purchases. surely, if i can, i will find something else to say of Jim Bowen and/or Bullseye next month, just to keep this regular thing going.
be super smashin great to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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