there are, look you see, many many splendid and most excellent ways to describe his excellency, the great Jim Bowen. several such instances of descriptive words have been used right here, by me, on this blog. all of them have, of course, been deferential and respectful.
as far as i am aware, though, one word not used by me here to describe Jim Bowen thus far would be "iconoclastic". that, as you may have already determined or otherwise ascertained from the title and the opening words, is changing now, or as of now.
some of you will not, alas, have a dictionary to hand, and further shall not (through no fault of your own) be at all familiar with the term iconoclast or iconoclastic. for your benefit, usually it has to do with the shattering or otherwise breaking of religious ideals and imagery,. but in the modern world it has come to be used to identify those who break illusions which have to then been held as fact.
i am of the generation which experienced, with shock, awe and surprise, the iconoclastic ways of Jim Bowen when, via his chosen conduit of the Bullseye TV programme, he revealed the shocking truth about who Acker Bilk really was.
those of us who had some of our early, formulation (growing up) years in the 70s will know this. at that stage audio cassettes were quite a new technology and having a cassette deck in the car was considered to be a spectacular sign of middle class success. yes, i was fortunate as my Dad did indeed have such a modern wonder in his automobile of choice; either a Rover or a Saab or one of them followed by the other.
our fathers would all have two very specific tapes in their cars. one can only assume or otherwise presume that it was because these two came with cars or cassette stereo decks, or they were the most widely available, or they were the cheapest down at petrol service stations over the course of the A roads and motorways of our land. whereas one was an unspecified album by Dr Hook & The Medicine Show, undoubtedly featuring When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman, that one that was something or other about blue jeans and all their other stuff, the other was, without fail, Stranger On The Shore by the intriguingly, exotically named Acker Bilk.
you have to remember that this was all pre-internet, and as a child you did not visit a library for information unless you wanted to be belted to within inches of dear life by some morbid, miserable and quite likely sexually repressed librarian. with this being the case, we all just had to make our own conclusions and determine the facts of what we were curious about with the knowledge available.
for me, and no doubt many others, the conclusion drawn and accepted as fact was that Acker Bilk must be off of Switzerland. his name, Acker, was not common, and sounded seriously European. as he was popular in England in the 70s he was clearly not French or German, as he did not wear a hat he was not Spanish, we didn't really know Portugal existed then, if he was Greek then he would be called Demis and would wear a tent and be loads more hairy. thus, he must have been Swiss, as that was the only other European country what we knew of at the time, except Sweden and a vague idea that there was some little thing next to France that wanted to be more important that it was, Belgian or similar.
also, circumstantial evidence pointed at him being Swiss. yes, sure, everyone in England (perhaps the whole of the UK, i don't know i didn't go to it all) wore brown in the 70s, but not the brown worn by Acker Bilk. the shade he had on at all times was seemingly far more refined and considerably less common. this screamed "foreigner", and it was awesome how this man from another land would have access to all sorts of fancy garments that we, under a succession of repressive governments and restrictive, relentlessly destructive trade union officials, dared not to dream of.
just a quick pause, then, in looking at the logic a five or possibly six year old applied to working out the nationality of Acker Bilk. this pause is so that you may admire the prizes won by contestants on Bullseye, pictured above. even though this was the early 80s, all of the above were still exceptionally posh and most handsome gifts. they were items of luxurious convenience that were simply beyond the budget of most of us in the 80s, although that was a step forward as during the dark time of the governments and trade unions of the 70s not even the Royal Family could afford any of the above.
anyway, back to Acker Bilk. the conclusive proof that he was Swiss was that he played something called a clarinet. let us be frank, there is no way at all an English musician would have a clarinet in the 70s. they seemed refined, posh, extravagant and expensive.
combine all of that with the perfectly refined, clearly European styling of his facial hair, and it was just accepted by all of us who had Dads what had a cassette player in their car and thus as a consequence definitely had Stranger On The Shore by Acker Bilk within relatively easy access that Acker Bilk was Swiss, or from some unspecified European country that was quite posh but we had no knowledge of.
quite a rapturous, iconoclastic and life redefining moment, then, when this mysterious Acker Bilk strolled on to the set of Bullseye at the invitation of Jim Bowen, threw some darts in a most commoner of common way and spoke freely with an undeniably South West of England accent.
it turned out, then, that Acker was not some posh, elegant or sophisticated name of European provenance and higher class usage, but rather a provincial "slang" term (or nickname if you like) from the hardened streets of Somerset, simply meaning "mate" or "bloke".
yes, i appreciate you need some time for this revelation to sink in. so, to give you the breathing space required, sure, i can (reluctantly) give you an update on research into my book on what happened to all the many speedboats and caravans what were won by the brave and the bold contestants of Bullseye what dared to face down the challenge of Bully's Special Prize Board and emerged most triumphantly.
again, i am keen not to say too much, for it would rather steal my thunder as and when the book clears the lawyers and is published. but, i mentioned it all in a recent post, and interest in this work of mine has proven to be pleasantly widespread.
here you can see me, or if you like moi, pictured near what i am almost pretty sure was one of the speedboats won in the mid to late 80s era of Bullseye. yes, this was parked ("docked") up in Saltburn. the locals i spoke to about it were quite reticent to share information, from which i have concluded that this speedboat was in fact seized by the Saltburn Port Authorities on suspicion of nefarious use. they, as far as i am aware, do not do that sort of thing in Saltburn, to be sure. even when married, probably - i believe the expectation is that they go off and conduct such business outside of the dialling code relevant to the region.
no, i do not blame any of the winners for the antics and shenanigans they got up to on their Bully's Special Prize speedboats, or in the caravans of the same provenance. saying "i won this off of Jim Bowen" would be to have given it something of a James Bond like status, really, and thus turned into one gigantic, impressive and very powerful fanny magnet,
that's a close up of the Bullseye board game, the one which contestants on Bullseye during the foundation period of the movement in the early 80s got, whether they wanted it or not. on the basis that i cannot find this specific version of it on ebay i am going to take it as fact that it is very rare, and worth several hundreds of thousands of Pounds Sterling. the law (probably) says that if you ever see one of the "deluxe" editions, signed by Tony Green and Jim Bowen, then you have to be executed, so as to ensure all temptation of trying to steal it is removed from both seconds of the remainder of your life.
speaking of Tony Green, have i had any luck in procuring or obtaining a copy of the suppressed, mythical and rare Rat Pack episode of Bullseye? no. it remains the stuff of legend. apparently all three of Dino, Glass Eye and Mr Sinatra were big fans of the show, and pestered Jim Bowen to let them on. it did not end well. Mr Sinatra did not throw darts himself, instead calling on a couple of his business associates / legal advisors to do it. their insistence on using unlicensed firearms rather than traditional darts made a mess of the board. whilst a replacement board was sourced, Dino engaged in relationships of a sexual nature with 23 of the female members of the audience and 2 female contestants, then got all p!ssed up at the complimentary bar on some sherry Jim Bowen had provided, and then started berating the fact that Mr Sinatra kept making him buy all busted audio video equipment. Mr Sinatra instructed his business associates / legal advisors to escort Dino from the studio. he further apologised to Jim, assuring him that he would personally "bust his ass" once they got back to Vegas. Jim, unsure of what 90% of that meant but having an all the same uneasy feeling about what it might, said "super, smashing, great" and distracted all by suggesting that Glass Eye have his go.
it was at this point the wheels really fell off. what everyone forgot was just how big a part of the culture of the black Jewish cycloptic community darts was. Glass Eye announced that every time he got a treble 20 he would do a little tap dance in celebration, as was the way of the black Jewish cycloptic community at the time and quite possibly still is. no one thought much of this, but patience ran out after Glass Eye threw four treble 20s in a row, each of them punctuated by some five to six minutes of him tap dancing whilst humming Azure. Jim Bowen snapped, called Glass Eye a "bother ducker" which he did not know what meant but he had heard Mr Sinatra call Dino it, or words to that effect earlier in the day, and strolled off at a fast pace to go and have a cup of tea with the producer.
the common consensus is that the iconoclastic Acker Bilk episode was filmed and aired as a replacement for the ill-fated Rat Pack one. it was assumed that the breaking of myths about Acker would distract everyone from the anticipation of seeing Dino disgrace himself and having Mr Sinatra admonish him. also, in a quiet moment of reflection, Tony Green told Jim Bowen what that "bother ducker" business really was, and Jim got quite upset by it.
everything, of course, has a price. what was not know, and what could not have been known, was that dispelling and dismantling the belief of Acker Bilk being a posh Swiss bloke would bring an abrupt end to the musical career of Acker Bilk, at least in terms of being a big seller. pre-Bullseye, Acker was selling as many records as The Beatles, The King, Elvis Presley, The Tavares and several other bands what had a name that began with The, but not (the at the time still a commoner and not Sir) Cliff Richard. in the disillusioned post-Bullseye world, Acker the commoner from Somerset struggled to get work at even the most least discerning of Working Men's Clubs in provincial industrial towns.
i know what you are thinking when you see the above. no, i am not actively looking for the above speedboat, usually referred to as "the speedboat what was on the episode with him what did the clarinet", for it was not won. all speedboats that were not won were simply returned to the fleet of Jim Bowen. whereas Jim cherished his landlubber status, he did have a penchant for being called Admiral from time to time. as point of fact, it was only after Tony Green told him that the job was more or less like being "the Admiral of the masses" that Jim agreed to ascend to the position of Pope Francis. but, that story has been well and truly covered.
so, well, yes, great, super, smashing, that's it for another look at how Bullseye formed our modern world, or at least the decent elements of it. hopefully this has had one or two pleasant memories brought back for you, or otherwise you've picked up on some valuable insights and information that you did not know you didn't know, so don't worry you were not ignorant or lacking.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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