Things we never had and didn't miss part 2

I know I talked about the internet in part 1, but I'd also like to mention a few specific websites as we go along with this series. And if you think that's cheating – it's my blog, so there.

1 Kids TV channels

 

I will take you through the current listings labelled 'kids' on my Sky Plus box, right now, at 6.00pm -

Some Dreamworks shite

'Johnny Test'

Scooby Doo and the cyber chase

Sam and Cat (I know about this – it's two shrieking teenage girls having wacky japes)

iCarly (same)

NEW – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Peppa Pig

Ultimate Spiderman

Hulk and the agents of SMASH (not the mashed potato brand)

Liv And Maddie

Gravity Falls

The Hive

Sofia The First

Jedward's Big Adventure

In The Night Garden

Peppa Pig

Sally Bollywood

Franklin And Friends

Scooby Doo and the cyber chase (+1)

Fireman Sam (new version)

Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom

Ultimate Spiderman

Family fun time and rhymes

In The Night Garden

Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs

Sabrina the teenage witch (the cartoon series)

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

The hive

The mysterious cities of gold

Peppa Pig

Jessie

Sam & Cat

Jedward's big adventure

Dreamworks shite

I think I can stop there, because I've come to the end of the kids' channels. My god.

Our equivalent – Saturday morning tv -

Oh, it's Saturday, there's no school, yay! So do we lie in bed, scrolling through our iPads and scratching ourselves? No! Of course we don't, because it's 1990 and iPads haven't been invented yet.

We spring out of bed like an eager young lamb, and immediately head downstairs to commandeer the tv before our older sisters/parents can get to it. Because, dammit, this is the only day of the week where we get to watch shows aimed at us – viewers who haven't learned to use a knife and fork properly yet.

It's only for a couple of hours, so everyone else in the family can just shut up and find something else to do. Me, I have to dedicate these precious hours to Phillip Schofield, Roland Rat or similar, as they 'gunge' people and introduce American merchandise spin-offs that will fill my brain with colours and sounds.

BIG SHOPS -

Nowadays you can get everything everywhere. Want a battery operated spoon? Primark have some. Want some leggings? PC World has a sale on, what are you waiting for?

I must admit, as a person rapidly skidding towards middle age, it's a relief to be able to get everything I need in one converted warehouse, rather than having to trudge round so many shops that I need a 'coffee break' in between.

Ok, I guess I've never been a big fan of shopping. But even I never dreamed that one day you'd be able to go to one building and get all the things on the following shopping list -

onions

knickers

WD40

vaccuum cleaner

prescription glasses

box set of Steven Seagal movies

Korean noodles

wellies

pile cream

6” screws

You can get all this from my local TESCO EXTRA BIG FUCK OFF HYPER SUPER FUN HAPPY STORE. What you can't get is someone to come and assist you when you have an 'unexpected item in the bagging area' yet again.

Our equivalent – shopping

“Oh, I just need to pop to the butchers, then Farmfoods, then the opticians, then Topshop and Miss Selfridge and H&M and New Look and then I need to go to the chemist...”

I was not a fan of being dragged round all these shops. Even now, when everything I buy is for me, I like to have it in one handy package. Ok, maybe my life would have been improved had we had these SUPER FUN MEGA HAPPY STORES in our lives. I give up.

Blame and claim culture

 

Did you chip a fingernail at work? Or did you sit down on the loo at work and momentarily experience discomfort because the loo seat was a bit cold? Even worse, did someone wilfully injure your feelings by calling you a 'div' at work? Sue those bastards! Phone our hotline now, and we'll get you millions of pounds!

Disclaimer – we will not get you millions of pounds. We will get you up to and including five hundred new pounds, of which we will take up to a hundred percent.

Everyone everywhere is scared of everything. Even I have days where I don't want to leave the house in case a meteor falls on my head, or in case a terrorist comes up and tries to do terror at me.

But when I was growing up, getting injured was not a career. It was a vocation, at best. We did not expect to have our clumsiness rewarded with money. That's what clowns and Eddie The Eagle were for.

Now, if you're short of money and don't want to ring WONGACASHNOW4U, you can simply claim you were tripped over by a member of Al Qaeda, or that someone looked at you funny, and all your financial problems will disappear!

Our equivalent – looking where you were fucking going

 

You know what used to happen if you fell over in the street? Everyone would laugh at you. Certainly they wouldn't offer you money.

Of course, work accidents did happen, and they were generally quite serious, but back then people tried to avoid getting injured. They didn't like being injured, what with the pain and all. Getting injured was seen as a bad thing, not as an equivalent to winning the lottery.

When I was growing up, if you tripped over in the street you were unlucky, or a div. If you broke a nail or had your 'feelings injured' while at work, then you were a fucking crybaby, and didn't deserve the fucking job in the first place.

By the way, I wrote these last paragraphs on the toilet. Just thought you'd like to know.

Wikipedia/IMDB/Yahoo Answers (especially Yahoo Answers)

Killer of pub conversations about... well, anything really. But especially about “Oh, who's that guy from that thing, you know, he was in Morse that one time...)

Nowadays, one self important fuck in the group will casually tap away on his iPhone, and declare -

“Richard Fucknuts, born 1968, was best known for his work in 1990 drama series Impotence Clinic. He went on to be a spokesman for...”

At which point everyone punches him.

Our equivalent – finding things out

If you're like me, you have a mental list of 'oh, I must Google that when I remember.' These things never get looked up, because we're too busy doing important things like looking at porn or playing Candy Crush when we're on the internet.

Before the days when you could Google anything, you had to put some work into finding things out. You had to read books, visit the library, even (shock horror) talk to other people and ask them. This was a good way to acquire knowledge. Certainly better than just going on Wikipedia, and here's why.

As for Yahoo Answers, I refer you to this.

Things we never had and didn't miss part 1

This is not going to be one of those annoying 'OMG THIS STUFF WILL MAKE YOU FEEL SOOOO OLD!!!!1111' posts. No. This was just a discussion between me and the mister, over things we couldn't live without, but somehow managed perfectly well without when we were growing up. Which makes us feel, like, sooo old!!1

I am basing this on a British childhood really, because my American readers will have had some of these things around since they can remember. Then America decided that they wanted to inflict their crap on other countries, and slowly the rest of the world caught up.

Because I have a list longer than my arm, I'm going to split this post into several parts, because I do need some me-time you know, to sit there drinking red bull and watching Antiques Roadshow.

1. The internet 

This is maybe not such a given, because a lot of you young scallywags assume the internet has been around since 1798. No. I didn't have my first glimpse of online until 1995, with the help of Netscape Navigator -

Ok, hands up if you remember any of the following things – getting 3000 free AOL CDs in the post/whenever you buy anything ever, the dial up music, Geocities, waiting ten minutes for half a picture to load (and not just because of all the advertising), your sister buggering up your conversation with 'manicsfan83' because she selfishly decided to make a phone call. No? Then you lose!

Our equivalent – Teletext

Shut up, this had all the features of your so called internet; we were quite happy with it back in the day. It had endless loading times, celebrity gossip, and fake psychics. Ok, it didn't have porn, but sometimes you could squint and pretend that Bamber Boozler, host of the Channel 4 Sunday Teletext quiz Bamboozle, was a nudey lady. Not that I ever did that, but I'm sure you could if you wanted.

2. Mobile phones

 

My god, the day I got my first mobile phone I felt like such a badass, and an important badass at that. It was a big Motorola brick, but still quite modern because it had texting on it. Much like a word processor of old, you couldn't see the entire text in one go; you had to scroll through each word from left to right. So if you realised you'd made a mistake at the beginning, you generally couldn't be arsed to go back.

No one ever phoned me as I had no friends, but it didn't matter. I would still have a fine old time choosing my ringtones just in case I got a wrong number or something. And then I upgraded to this bad boy -

Allow me to play you the song of my people -

Unless, of course, you could work the 'composer' feature, and then the world was your lobster. I got really good at using the composer, and ended up being able to make any tune on request. But my favourite thing to do was to bash the buttons on the composer for ten seconds, then have whatever godawful noise came out as my ringtone.

Our equivalent – The phone -

You know, the phone? The actual phone that households have? That has an area code? Where, if you ring and there's no answer, you just assume they're not in, not that they hate you? That.

Also, BT phone boxes. Great for making prank calls (like when you phone someone's house and just blow a raspberry down the phone), useless for making actual calls as they were all crackly and cost about a pound a go.

3. The Lottery -

It could be you! Tip – it won't be. But when The National Lottery started in 1994, every single person in Britain was convinced it would be them. So we went mad buying tickets, in a frenzy akin to something out of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. And all workplace/pub/playground discussions were immediately wiped out and replaced by 'what we'd spend our winnings on'.

We still have the Lottery, but recently the ticket price has doubled to £2, and hardly anyone plays it any more. Sometimes we have a flutter though, because quite often you do get three numbers up, which these days will net you a cool £25 – not to be sniffed at.

Our equivalent – The football pools

Typically run by Vernons or Littlewoods, the idea was to correctly predict the scores of all the upcoming football matches of the week. My childhood was filled with my parents talking mysteriously about something called a 'score draw', or a 'no score draw', and putting ticks in little boxes, which a man in a hat would then come round and collect. I can't remember how much you could win on the pools, but it definitely wasn't millions. It might have been enough to retire on, if you just ate tins of beans and never got your hair cut, I don't know.

4. Netflix, Love Film etc -

Bored of everything on TV? Can't find anything to watch? Then I suggest you stop taking those drugs you're on, since they've clearly turned you into a mental. There is always something good to watch since TV on demand was invented. For a mere fiver a month, a household can watch almost any film or TV show ever made with the touch of a button. Very Jetsons. Especially now that Youtube on your TV has been thrown into the mix. Now it seems inconceivable that you might have to flick through the channels to 'see if there's anything good on', and hope you haven't missed the start of it.

Our equivalent – going to the video shop

This was a big thing, generally undertaken when the family was all together on a Friday or Saturday evening. As our family consisted of my parents, my two teenage sisters, and a fat, whining me, numerous rows over what to rent were guaranteed.

The proceedings would start with my parents casually saying, “Oh, there's nothing on TV tonight, let's get a video.” Magic words to me. Immediately my young mind would be filled with thoughts of the entire Hanna Barbera collection, or perhaps The Little Mermaid. Naturally, the video would be my choice; those peasants I lived with wouldn't be given a say.

It hardly ever turned out like this. I wanted something with no more than two dimensions, my sisters invariably wanted either a horror movie or Road House, my mum wanted anything to do with Coronation Street or Brookside, and my dad wanted something about a war. Any war. Or about Hank Marvin. Because of this inability to agree, the family generally ended up renting something nobody wanted to watch, probably not even the people who starred in it.

Then there were those times where, when I'd been really good, I won a trip to the video shop just for me, where I could pick out a video of my choice. This was where I got silly, and all thoughts of Hanna Barbera went out of the window. I would choose something like The Fly, and my parents would get all pissy and make me choose something like The Happy Unicorn.

Well, that's it for part one. I'll probably write part two over the weekend, just so you know and aren't endlessly pacing up and down crying “But when will she write it? When?” Now you can relax. 

Cans of lager and packets of lard - four people's memories of Santa

You're standing in the queue, about to pee yourself with excitement. Just three more kids and then it's your turn! At that point you cannot think of anything greater than the honour of being able to sit on an old man's knee and convince him you've done absolutely nothing wrong this year. No, make that ever, just to be on the safe side. After all, you absolutely have to be sure of getting that A La Carte Kitchen or that Barbie Dream House, otherwise you will actually die.

Two more kids before you. You start to panic – maybe Santa will run out of time or run out of presents before he sees you? Quietly you start to think about ways you could get the other kids out of the way. Maybe shout really loudly to Santa that the two kids in front of you robbed a bank this Spring, so they definitely shouldn't get anything.

Luckily, by the time your stupid four year old brain has hatched this plan, the two kids in front have been and gone, and there you are, standing in front of a wonderland that contains all your hopes and dreams -

Now it's time for you to meet the big man -

Holy hell, could this get any more exciting? Now's not the time to get stagefright and be a wuss. Mentally you go over your Christmas list one more time, just to make sure there's nothing you've forgotten. Then you're ushered in by an elf, and the greatest meeting since the Frost/Nixon interview can begin.

Now, because my coffee and beer fuddled mind cannot come up with more than one memory of going to see Santa, I've invited some of my esteemed colleagues to write about their memories of the big guy.

Firstly, the mister's memories of Santa -

"All kids know that dodgy garden centre Santa isn't really Santa but one of his “helpers” (editor's note – I thought it was really Santa, but I was an idiot). When I was a child I wondered about the inner workings of this arrangement. Did these toys come from the North Pole, or were they actually the ones next to the weird green stuff you put dried flowers in? Did Santa have a standardised training policy to maintain his brand image? Did they have a union? Did they report back to Santa daily with gift givings to make sure that if someone was actually a dick they could have the present forcibly removed? And if so, how did the elves sort through all those letters AND the ones sent by kids? Did their pay come through the same distribution channel? Where does Postman Pat get off having a van if Santa can use magic? Stupid Pat.

All of this was moot though, because I never received presents from Santa when I was a kid.

This wasn't because I was some sort of social leper (I was but that's not the point), but for two other, more boring reasons. One - you would never hear the “S” word uttered in my house unless it was coming from Dudley Moore or bellowed over the top of a Coca-Cola advert, he was definitely Father Christmas in my day. Two - present giving in my family was apparently non-standard. You see I never actually received presents from the bearded one, all my presents were from actually real life people. People like my sister, and odd family members who weren't actually related but were suspiciously close to my mother that we called Uncle Steve. And of course from my parents. But never Father Christmas.

They explained this by saying that Father Christmas didn't know how to make things like Gameboys and graphics calculators because he only did woodwork at school. So, they bought the presents, and then sent them to Father Christmas for later delivery. Being a moron (and 7) I never questioned that my parents had reduced Father Christmas down to some sort of 80s Ebay, and instead held my head high, since I had been trusted with knowledge of the inner workings of the North Pole's empire. Later I realised it was all a sham, but carried on pretending, because it got me more presents.

Things nowadays are completely different. Instead of the 80s Ebay where my dad bought everything, I now have the actual Ebay. Which I use to buy what I actually want, and not a sodding graphics calculator."

Alex is 30 and a half.

Now some thoughts from my alcoholic friend Ginny – his blog can be found HERE

"My dad used to run a working men’s club, a British Legion to be precise. Every year on Christmas Eve he’d organise a big party for all the local kids, get the big function room all decorated with tinsel and stuff and a huge tree (well I was only a little kid, it looked bloody gigantic to me).

When the music was blaring out and all the games were in full flow, we’d turn around and there would be Santa. He’d be stood at the bar, pint glass in hand and now that I look back on it, he never looked that impressed to be there.

He’d be all jolly to us all, say “ho, ho, ho” and everything that you’d expect him to say, sit us all on his lap (not all at the same time obviously), give us some cheap tat for a present and promise to bring the rest later.

The party would end quite a bit before midnight; the parents would take all the kids home. I’d stay on a bit, waiting for my mother to finish cleaning up behind the bar so she could run me and my siblings home. When we got home we’d leave the usual carrot and saucer of milk for Rudolph and for the main man himself there would be a couple of cans of lager (Editor's note – in the North of England you were supposed to leave a packet of lard out for Santa.) and some chocolate bars.

I did used to wonder though; if Santa drank at every house and party he was at, how did he manage to deliver presents all over the world?"

I also phoned my dad up and asked him for his memories of the big red dude. He got sidetracked and started talking about firemen wearing bras, but in the middle of that we have some fine 1950s Santa memories -

“We went every year to see Santa at the local fire brigade Christmas party, held at the fire station (I should explain that my dad's dad was a fireman). The firemen who were not currently putting out fires put on various bits of entertainment for the kids. This involved firemen dressed in fairy wings and bras, singing well known easy listening standards. One fireman's bra fell up and somehow ended up in the audience. A little girl brought it back, holding it over her own non-existent boobs on the way to the stage.

When Santa (one of the firemen) finally made his appearance, wouldn't you know it – I was the last in line. I was so worried he'd run out of presents, I didn't know what to do. I didn't realise that “Santa's” presents had been supplied by our own parents. I became more and more anxious, cursing myself for not fighting my way to the front. However, this story has a happy ending – I got a cowboy fort! Made by my Dad, who made a lot of toys for me.

That reminds me Jenny, did I tell you about the last episode of Homes Under The Hammer I saw?...”

This was my cue to politely make my excuses and disconnect the call.

Personally, my best memory of Santa is getting some pots and pans. I was so overjoyed with this; I probably had the A La Carte kitchen to use them in by this time. This year I am expecting the following things from Santa -

A bottle of alcoholic booze

A copy of Viz

20 things from the pound shop

A hangover

Fewer pots n pans than I have had in previous years

Finally, just a reminder – don't forget to leave a can of lager and a packet of lard out for the big guy.

My big TV occasions

I've just read a forum discussion on people's favourite TV moments, which has inspired me to write this list. I think compared to many people, I've had relatively few massive TV events in my life – programmes that you sit down to watch with other people, and hand round nibbles, and everyone is on their best behaviour. But I can think of a few, and now I'm going to bore you for ten minutes by telling you about them.

William and Kate's wedding -

I'm not entirely sure why I went so insane over K-Willz's wedding, apart from it just seemed like the thing to do - everyone was going nuts making plans for TV parties. Since I was at university and didn't have a TV, I went over to a guy friend's house and commandeered his for the day. He didn't mind because he wasn't asked.

The wedding should have made me run a mile, because I was getting over a bad break up at the time. Normally, the last thing I wanted to do was sit there watching two people squish over each other and have lots of money. But something in me thought that I shouldn't let that stop me being party to this occasion. Most generations have a royal wedding, and this was mine. I wasn't going to let some philandering git spoil it for me.

Naturally, we were all a bit pissed by lunchtime so don't ask me about the ins and outs of the coverage. But we did all agree on one thing, which I'm sure you've seen many times before -

Reality show finals -

Aw, you beat a disabled lad. Well done.

Mostly Britain's Got Talent, Stars In Their Eyes and The Apprentice. I'm not much of a one for reality shows, but I do watch Britain's Got Talent religiously. Which lucky act will win some money and then never get mentioned ever again? Will it be Charlie the cheese juggling monkey? The amazing three-nippled Terence? Or will it be one of the plucky young pop singers that didn't fancy their chances on The X Factor?

I love TV talent shows, but I'm indifferent about pure singing shows (Stars in their eyes doesn't count in my opinion – it's still enough of a freak show to make it interesting).

When there's a half decent reality show final scheduled, me and whoever can stand my company for the evening will stock up on crisps and nuts and beer, smugly convinced that our favourite is going to win with 200% of the phone vote. This hardly ever turns out to be the case, and our champion will usually come about seventh, even when there are only five acts on the show.

The Brookside body under the patio -

I bloody loved Brookside. When I was a kid I used to sit and watch it with my parents, and to my childish mind, drama couldn't possibly get any more dramatic. This was because Brookside was known for having forward thinking and edgy storylines that other soaps wouldn't touch.

I recently bought this DVD which brought back memories of me being glued to the screen as a child, not entirely sure what was going on, but feeling full of peril nonetheless.

By far the most terror inducing plot my young mind witnessed was the Mandy and Trevor Jordache 'Body under the patio' story. For those of who who never saw Brookside, this should explain it. See, the body under the patio story even has it's own entry on Brookside's Wikipedia page. So there.

Being about nine, I never fully understood what was going on during the domestic abuse storyline, but I knew Trevor was a bad man. So I rooted for Mandy and Beth, and rejoiced (sort of) when they finally managed to kill him. Then I witnessed them desperately shoving his body under the patio. Even though I knew it was Trevor under there, still I recoiled and yelped in horror when Eddie the neighbour came across his rotting hand -

This led to the Jordaches being arrested, and subsequently to the 'Free the Jordache two' campaign across British media. Me being nine and stupid, I thought they were really in prison, and that it was up to the British public to get them out. Although my little self ranted and raved, it didn't do any good, and ultimately I had to rely on the producers of the show to release them from prison. Well, one of them – Beth Jordache sadly died, rendering her ineligible for parole. Sob, cry. 


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Bullseye - even if you win, you really lose

I've been wanting to write about Bullseye for a while now, but have never truly felt up to the task. If I feel like that normally, then I'm probably even less up to the task now, sitting on my sofa feeling sorry for myself with a bad cold and a stomach ache. But hey ho, it's better than pottering around my flat muttering to myself, which I intend to do later.

These days, Bullseye is the go to default programme for me and the mister. We currently have around 6000 episodes recorded on our Sky Plus box. And I repeat – each episode is exactly the same. That's one of the wonderful things about Bullseye – it never makes you try too hard. It's familiar and reassuring, like comfort food or a hot bath. Only this is a hot bath containing Jim Bowen, which raises more questions than it answers.

Once I start talking about Jim Bowen, I find it hard to stop. I am endlessly fascinated by the man – his perma-sad face, the way he seems to have been 53 all his life, his odd one liners that don't really go anywhere, his knack for accidentally insulting contestants by asking them personal questions. You may think I'm being sarcastic – I am not. I genuinely love Jim Bowen. These days it's a bit of a cliché to claim that he was a bit rubbish as a host, but he was nothing of the sort. He just had idiosyncracies that made him far more entertaining and interesting to watch than Vernon Fucking Kay.

Also, I'm not sure why I'm using the past tense to talk about Jim – the guy isn't dead, far from it if this photo is anything to go by -

Little quirks aside, when we watch Bullseye, we always find Jim to be laid back and approachable. The right words might not always have come out of his mouth, but you always knew what he meant to say, and that's what counts. More importantly, he didn't feel the need to constantly shout in everyone's face like so many presenters do these days. Also, he had the best line in suits that looked a bit like they were offcuts from DFS -

I'll stop there, because I don't want this post to just be me crapping on about how much I love Jim Bowen. It should also contain me crapping on about how much I love Bullseye as a show.

As I started to say earlier but then forgot for some reason, I was never really enamoured with Bullseye as a kid, although I did quite like the bit where the prize board revolved and everyone shouted 'Gamble!'

I'm getting ahead of myself here. The point is that my parents watched Bullseye, and apart from the prize board bit I just kind of had to sit there and wait for something more interesting to come on, like Surprise Surprise, or That's Life, or whatever the hell used to be on after Bullseye. Maybe it's a nostalgia thing, or maybe I just wasn't capable of appreciating the show as a kid, I don't know.

Since every episode is exactly the same, I guess I can just choose any one to use as an example. I should stick to one, for the sake of continuity, so here is a random one from Youtube -

Watch along link - PART 1  PART 2

We start with the brilliant opening titles. In the early episodes this was a cartoon featuring the manliest pub in the world -

And later on it was a frightening bus and dart commute to work for Bully -

The opening titles were always accompanied by the same jangly Chas n Dave style music, written by John Patrick.

After the opening titles, the big man himself makes his entrance, down those fabled stairs. Sometimes he stops to have an awkward chat with some old ladies in the audience, other times he might read out a humorous local newspaper clipping about himself. This time though, he gets straight down to business and introduces the contestants. Note how he never tells you where the contestants live, only the TV service they receive. In some episodes he just says 'please welcome Bob and Steve from Anglia TV, as if they actually work for Anglia TV, or they live in the studios.

Here is our contestant line up -

Me and the mister usually pick our winners from the line up based on who has the best moustache, or the most fetching mullet. Bonus points are awarded if the pair are wearing matching outfits, or if a pair contains a woman one, especially if she's manlier than all the men.

Couple number two clearly has the moustache, the matching outfits and the woman one, so they're our favourites to win. However, likely to come up on the outside is couple number three, by virtue of the guy on the right. Everything about him screams awesome.

Jim warms up the contestants by having light hearted exchanges with them, such as the following (from different episodes but 100% true, I swear) -

Jim - “Now then, I hear you're a widower. So how long has your wife been dead?”

and

Jim - “Now then, are you married?”

Contestant - “No.”

Jim - “Are you engaged?”

Contestant - “No.”

Jim - “Well are you courting?”

Contestant - “No.”

Jim (in a camp voice) - “Oh dear, I'm worried about you.”

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, it's time to begin the show proper. The first couple of rounds are question rounds; the categories are decided by the dart playing half of the couples hurling darts at a special category board, attempting to hit the subject their partner has requested -

What usually happened was that the non dart player would request 'books', and would end up with 'sport'. If a question was answered correctly, the team would receive points, which translated into real live pounds!

Since Bullseye was a fight to the death, the couple who had won the least money by the end of the question rounds was eliminated. This is normally the couple that we want to win. Such is life.

Looking at the score so far, I suspect this is going to be another of those times -

Sadly, I am right. We have to say goodbye to the couple with the woman one in it, just like everyone bloody expected. That'll teach her to leave the kitchen.

The next round involves... well... more dart throwing and more answering questions, if I'm honest. The category board has gone and is replaced by a 'traditional matchplay dartboard', as Jim tells us every single week. Whichever couple scores the highest with three darts gets to answer the question. I think in later years they tweaked the format a bit so no couples were eliminated until the end of this round, but for most episodes, this round was a two horse race.

Keeping score in this round is Tony Green, famous for being the guy who keeps the scores and shouts stuff out on Bullseye. Tony keeps the show ticking along nicely, curbing Jim Bowen's urges to just start calling the contestants gay.

Bugger, now my outsiders are out of the race too, leaving the boring couple to romp home to victory. This always happens.

These guys have won £191, which Jim proceeds to count out in notes during the break. Since he only ever has a couple of notes in his hand, I assume it's Jim's special currency – a £100 note, and a £91 note.

After the break, a famous darts player or a celebrity comes on to throw darts for charity. Tonight it's the brill Jockey Wilson -

As usual, points equal pounds, and if the guest scores 301 or more with 9 darts, the producers double the money. This doubles the sense of failure when the guest scores something like 37 with 3 darts. That happened a lot, especially when it was a non dart playing celebrity, or a woman.

Sadly Jockey Wilson only scores 220, but that's still a pretty respectable score on Bullseye.

Now it's time for everyone's favourite bit – the prize board!

 

We get to see all the stuff that Central TV managed to buy in bulk off the back of a lorry, or got for free with Tiger Tokens.

Tonight's prizes are -

In 1! - a dozen bottles of champagne – not bad actually

In 2! - a washing machine

In 3! - his n hers crappy watches

In 4! - a BMX bike

In 5! - a set of garden tools. They ALWAYS have this prize, every week without fail

In 6! - some horrible wicker chairs

In 7! - a camera

In 8! - a food mixer

And Bully's special prize – a colour TV, with Teletext no less

Ok, I guess the prizes aren't that bad in this episode. But I have seen some horrors – like a basket of dried flowers, and a wheelbarrow. I refer you to http://shitbullseyeprizes.tumblr.com/ for more hideous fayre.

This is what the guys won - the washing machine, the matching shit watches, the camera, the food mixer, and the colour TV. Not a bad haul.

This is the bit I always loved as a kid – the guys have to decide whether or not to gamble, risking their prizes for a chance to win the STAR PRIZE.

The guys decide not to gamble, which is a bit of a surprise since they've done reasonably well tonight. But oh well, this means the runner up couple can come back and gamble the money they won!

They can always refuse as well, which means the third couple come back and have a go. I'm not sure if there's ever been an episode where none of the couples want to gamble – I think it might be one of the rules of the show where if you come last, you have to gamble. You know, like if this is your first time at fight club, you have to fight.

As it is, the second couple have decided to gamble, and must now score 101 or more with 6 darts in order to win. Nails are well and truly bitten at this point.

Oh bollocks, they don't win. I thought thy were going to win, thanks to a fluke treble 19 by the non dart player, but luck was not on their side in the end. Now for the cruellest part of the show – the star prize is brought out so Jim can taunt them about being losers. This time it's a car with a big dart in it -

And that's the end of the show. The sad, minor key version of the closing music is played if the contestants lose, which I'm sure cheers them up a great deal. Jim finishes by reminding us that 'You can't beat a bit of Bully', and the show is done for another week.

Maybe my love of Bullseye is just me subconsciously latching on to that 'oh weren't the 80s great, isn't old stuff funny' bandwagon. Although that wouldn't be so subconscious, since almost my entire blog is based on that ethos. I think my love goes deeper than that though. I think it is an admiration based on a feeling of cosy familiarity, being reminded of a simpler, pre internet time, and sitting on the sofa with the mister and taking the piss out of the contestants who, let's face it, are there to be mocked.