Home • About • Archives • Best Of • Subscribe

Gypsy Creams

Published 7th July 2013

Internet

Select Seven Girls From Paisley If you’ve been wondering why Dirty Feed has been updating even less than usual recently, that’s because I’ve been busy redesigning Gypsy Creams, my darling girlfriend’s site based around 1960s magazines. There’s all sorts of amazing stuff there – and posted as part of the relaunch is this great interview with Simon Dee from 1969 – but one of my favourites is still the very first thing ever posted on the site.

(Sadly, it’s not currently very mobile-friendly. Yeah, I know, I know. It SHALL BE FIXED. Apart from that, if you have any suggestions regarding the site design, let me know below.)

Right, back to getting this place updated. I’ve been building up plenty of things to be annoyed about, don’t you worry your pretty little heads.

The Voice of Ephemera

Published 22nd June 2013

Other TV

One day, I will get this jingle sung to the title of this post; something I love about running this site is detailing lovely pieces of television ephemera. Recently, I got a great email from Paul Hudson, who worked for the BBC VT department in the 70s, and he sent me a couple of things you might find of interest. I certainly did.

First up, a couple of canteen menus from the BBC’s Wood Norton Training Centre, from June 1971. (Look, you know the kind of site this is by now.) I rather fancy the Bilberry & Apple Price myself. Only 6p! Rather tastier than anything hot served up at my workplace. Which wouldn’t be difficult, seeing as absolutely sod all hot is served up at my workplace.

BBC Menu first image
BBC Menu second image


The other piece of interest is the front page of a script for Braden’s Week – a consumer affairs programme which was a forerunner to That’s Life! What I love about this is that script pages tend to make appearances for what are ill-advisedly called “cult” shows – Doctor Who and the like. It’s lovely to see an example for the kind of workhorse show the BBC made which were popular, but rarely talked about now.

Braden's Week

Thanks hugely to Paul for these scans. I’m always interested in things like this, so if you have anything rattling around in an obscure box somewhere, and the inclination to scan it in, I’d love to hear from you. I guarantee you it’s more interesting than the kind of stuff I find in my boxes. They’re more fun when you worked for the BBC in the 70s.

Read more about...

Four Channels

Published 30th April 2013

Music / Videogames

Here’s something rather silly I’ve put together. Anyone up for a bunch of 8-bit versions of popular TV and film themes, taken from a load of BBC Micro games? I CAN TELL YOU ARE, HELLO YOU.

Some of the pieces are really well done – I especially love the opening version of the Match of the Day theme – and some… aren’t. What the bloody hell is that interpretation of Play Your Cards Right?

[mejsaudio src=”https://www.dirtyfeed.org/audio/fourchannels.mp3″ volume=”false”]

Download “Four Channels” (13MB MP3, 11:06)

[Read more →]

Read more about...

On Television.

Published 27th April 2013

Other TV / TV Comedy

From a piece on the Red Bee Media blog, “Is the Golden Age of TV Here To Stay?”:

“What’s behind the rise of the Golden age of television and how are consumer habits tuning into it?

There has been much talk recently about how we are experiencing a ‘Golden Age’ for television. There’s certainly no doubting the quality of the programmes being produced; from Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Walking Dead (to name but a few) in the US to the likes of Downton Abbey, Sherlock and Dr Who right here at home.

But what is it that has made this such a great time for TV and, as business models and viewer behaviours continue to change, how much longer can we expect it to continue?”

Now, I don’t really want to go down the road of debating whether we actually are in a golden age of television, or whether that was in the 60s, or whether it all went downhill once the resolution went past 30 lines. Such discussions have been had endlessly. What I want to examine is how the debate here – and elsewhere – is framed.

Breaking Bad. Mad Men. The Walking Dead. Downton Abbey. Sherlock. Doctor Who. All given as examples of a current golden age of television. And all six examples are drama. Television is not just drama.

Television is sitcom. Television is game shows. Television is chat shows. Television is news. Television is documentaries. Television is sport. Television is entertainment shows. And television is many other things, stretching outside genre boundaries. Whenever this debate comes up, drama is nearly always the focus; and of course, it’s hugely important. But by ignoring everything else that television is, you diminish it. Great TV is so much more than just drama.

The latest series of Saturday Night Takeaway was at times absolutely extraordinary; clearly made by a production team which put stupid amounts of effort into the show. Pointless could be just another mediocre afternoon quiz show; but a ludicrously clever format and the Armstrong & Osman double act turn it into fantastic telly. Peppa Pig is one of the funniest and most heartwarming shows on television, with a line in dry humour a lot of adult drama would kill for. All important. All part of how television can be great.

Discussions about drama on television and the rise of Netflix and the like are hugely valuable. But it’s important to frame that debate as just one part of the wider picture. We mustn’t forget the rest. It all needs attention. It should all be the best it possibly can be. And it should all be appreciated when it is.

A post about JLS. Really.

Published 25th April 2013

Jingles

Never let it be said that Dirty Feed isn’t topical. To, erm, celebrate JLS splitting up, here’s some audio from their appearance on The Chris Moyles Show back in 2011, where they sung the show’s jingles live – in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre.

[mejsaudio src=”https://www.dirtyfeed.org/audio/jls-jingles.mp3″ volume=”false”]

Download “The Chris Moyles Show (18/02/11) – JLS Jingles” (9MB MP3, 4:44)

To be honest, it’s a case of “nice thought, pity it’s JLS”. (I prefer the BBC Concert Orchestra playing the jingles live the following year, 17:20 into this clip.) But it’s worth it purely to hear Moyles being extremely rude to JLS over their ability to sing. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Pips from the end of the show are kept in at the end of the clip. Because playing the pips in front of an audience at the end of your show is bloody great.

Read more about...

# Serving the South West… #

Published 10th April 2013

Jingles

Last Wednesday was Pirate FM‘s 21st anniversary – and to celebrate, they dug out a bunch of their old JAM jingles from their 1992 launch. I wish I’d managed to record the whole day, but sadly I only captured a part of Hometime with James Dundon – of which the below is just a small badly-edited snippet:

[mejsaudio src=”https://dirtyfeed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/piratefm21st.mp3″ volume=”false”]

Download “Pirate FM 21st Anniversary – 3/4/13 5pm” (10MB MP3, 8:16)

Highlights include the amazing Pirate FM song at 1:45 (“The future’s looking great, at Great Britain’s Western Gate…”), and a hilariously sniffy contemporary BBC Spotlight report of the launch at 3:35. The whole day was a fantastic, heartfelt celebration – I only wish every radio station celebrated its anniversaries by having so much fun on the air.

The main thing I’d point out though, is how wonderful those jingles – now 21 years old – sound today. And more importantly, still work with a huge variety of different music – from Prefab Sprout in 1988, to a 2012 Pink hit. They made the station sound bloody fantastic. And, dare I say, deserve bringing back for more than one day…

See ya, YouTube

Published 6th March 2013

Internet

I’ve been uploading things to YouTube for a few years now. Hardly a heavy user, mind you, and I was never eagerly chasing views: it was mainly just a place to store small bits of video easily that I didn’t especially want to pay the hosting costs for.

This was was the case tonight, where I had recorded a fun bit of video I wanted to share with the world. So I go to the YouTube upload page, and was greeted with this. Pay special attention to the right-hand column:

YouTube account creation with Google+ profile screenshot

[Read more →]

.faxmachine

Published 15th February 2013

Internet

Yesterday, I bought the domain name for my upcoming internet radio show: 80track.fm. There’s only a holding page there at the moment, though TV pres geeks should recognise the font used for the logo. (For more, check out this post by Dave Jeffery.) There will be plenty of time for more about the actual show, however – let’s talk about simply buying the actual domain itself.

As it’s a radio show, I decided to go for a .fm domain; domain hacks make me feel a bit dirty, but I just couldn’t resist it. My usual domain registrar doesn’t deal with .fm domains, so I decided to go with the official domain registrar. OK, so the website looks like it was designed in 1485, but no matter. So I got to work filling in all my details, and was told my fax number was required. I got a vaguely amusing Tumblr post out of this, typed in “none” in the Fax field, filled in the rest, and awaited a confirmation email. Ah look, there we go…

[Read more →]

A Few Notes on a Tour of BBC Television Centre, 28th January 2013

Published 12th February 2013

Life / Other TV

I often ponder what my ideal job would be. Perhaps it would be working in TX for BBC One in the 90s, at TV Centre. Or working in BBC VT in the 80s, at TV Centre. Or being a BBC cameraman in the 70s, at TV Centre.

You may have spotted a subtle link between all those jobs. Sadly, I will never enter TV Centre – as it stands now, anyway – as a professional rather than a telly nerd. So a telly nerd I remained, as I walked into the reception of TV Centre in January, to take part in one of the last BBC Tours of the building. I won’t try to detail everything that went on in the tour, but I thought a few observations may be of interest.

TV Centre from outside

[Read more →]