Childhood stuff #8 - Tele Bingo

I have writers' block today. I've been occupied with work/website related stuff, and in my spare time have been busy being far too hot.

When I was a kid (hang on, why do all my posts begin with me sounding like an old dear in a care home?) Now I've forgotten what I was going to sodding write.

When I was a kid, a hefty amount of my time was spent crossing numbers off a little plastic board -

This glamour encrusted spectacle was known as Tele Bingo, or Telly Bingo (which I think sounds like a dodgy used car salesman) or Colour Bingo. I was nearly an expert at this game, sometimes only being too slow to miss four or five numbers in an entire game. The Tele Bingo we frequented most was here, at BJ's amusement centre in Ingoldmells, sadly closed now -

Tele Bingo was ace because it only cost 10 or 20p a game, and you could win tokens which were saved up and exchanged for prizes. And everyone knows how much I love tokens.

It was pretty much a standard game of bingo. The numbers were called out, and also displayed on little television screens throughout the room. Each set of 20 numbers was given a corresponding colour (on the left was red, in case you were wondering). When your number was called, you crossed it off. This, I guess, is why kids were allowed, even welcomed - no messing about with bingo markers.

If you got a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, or the four corners, you won. Sorry, let me rephrase that - YOU WON! 

Sometimes you had to press the 'claim' button when you won, and sometimes it was automatic, all done by computers and magic and shit. I much preferred the automatic versions - manual claiming could be damn tricky - you had to realise you'd won quickly enough. If you didn't, and you missed your win, the world was not big enough to hold your sorrow.

Mostly this was a 'me and my mum' activity, although my dad sometimes played too. However, even at casual seaside bingo the unwritten bingo rule applies - men are looked at a bit strange if they dare enter.

How to handle grown ups - 101 useless scams

Just a short post today, on a book that was, in theory, my bible as a child. In reality, of course, I was always too much of a wimp to actually put any of the ideas in this book into practice.

How to handle grown-ups, by Jim and Duncan Eldridge, claims to be able to get a child out of any tight spot, providing 101 fail-safe excuses for any occasion. In retrospect, I realise these excuses are perhaps not as "fail-safe" as a gullible child might have thought -

Reason for not doing the washing up - "We've run out of washing up liquid."

Way to go Braniac. There's no way your mother will do anything as drastic as looking in the cupboard to check.

Reason for being late for school - "I was here much earlier, but no one else was, so I went home again thinking school must have been cancelled."

Obviously, school opens at 5.30 in the morning, so anyone who isn't there at that time is a lazy fuck.

How to get more pocket money - "I want to buy you a special present."

Listen kiddo - I have money, and if I want something I'll buy my own fucking present. Which is exactly what I would be doing anyway.

How to get your parents to buy you something - "Were you a deprived child?"

Nope, and neither are you so shut the fuck up.

Reason for not eating certain foods - "Eggs are baby chickens. I'd feel like a cannibal.

This excuse will only work if you are a chicken.

How to get more food - "You're looking a little overweight, so perhaps I'd better eat that for you."

The result in our house - a slap.

Reason for having a pet - "I promise I'll look after it.

This is not a reason to have a pet. It is a standard aspect of pet care once you have acquired said pet.

How to get your parents to give you a clothing allowance - "Don't you trust me?"

Not as far as I can throw you, kiddo.

Music education Barbie style

Betterware catalogue - things you never even knew you needed

Every once in a while, this plops onto our doormat -

I like to peruse the Betterware catalogue, if only to check if their ware has got any better. It rarely has. Allow me to display some life changing inventions, beloved by old ladies everywhere -

Were you born into the sacred, God given role of 'Keeper of the onions'? Never fear - never again will you have to fight off onion thieves with a sword.

"Look stylish". Like this woman.

"Modesty panels"? What the fuck are modesty panels? Are they seriously suggesting that without these, women would be walking round with their tits out? Actually my friend Janine did that once, but it was only once.

Look lady, if it ain't an entire packet of biscuits, I don't want to know. Imagine turning up to someone's house with this. No one I know would dare turn up at my house with this.

This looks far too much like alcohol. If I came in drunk one night, I'd probably drink this whole bottle by mistake.

Coal paint. For painting your coal. "Oh sorry darling, I can't go out with you tonight, I have to stay in and paint my coal."

Firstly, I don't believe this flimsy plastic basket is entirely weatherproof. It might not withstand, say, a tornado, or getting struck by lightning. Secondly, I haven't seen a peg basket for ages. Didn't they go extinct in the 90s, along with cullottes and Walkmans?

"Look beautiful in blue." Actually, that is quite a nice dressing gown. I...oh...you're supposed to wear it outside?

I think they've already invented a dispenser for toothpaste, called a tube.

"Make your face glow." Yes, if I attacked my face with a toilet brush, I'm pretty sure my face would "glow" too.

Is this really the perfect welcome? I suppose it depends on who you're welcoming. If it's your boyfriend, maybe a steak and a naked woman would be a better welcome. If it's someone trying to sell you something, a punch in the face would be an appropriate welcome.

Are you tired of never looking like a member of The Seekers? Help is at hand with this "Instant Seekers" playset!

And finally - because I am an idiot, I read this as "Keep damp baby in small spaces." And I didn't even bat an eyelid, such is the Betterware catalogue.

Childhood stuff # 7 - Snap Snap

This guy -

Otherwise known as the very devil himself. As a child I was absolutely terrified of Max Headroom, or 'Snap Snap' as I called him. I have no idea why I called him Snap Snap, but the name does suit him. Look at him, with his angular head and stripes. Urgh. For a lot of years I used to have to hide behind the settee when he came on TV, which was sadly quite often, because Bobby Davro did a Max Headroom sketch on his impressions show, which my parents loved.

I can sort of watch Max Headroom now, but he's still sort of creepy. Worse than that, he's not very funny. And that is unforgivable.

Maybe Sonny and Sally aren't that impressed with the fair

Rolf's TV cash in

This story comes from the dark recesses of the 1973 Playhour annual -

I picked up this copy cheap from Doncaster market, and was mightily glad I did. The first comic strip stars none other than arty kangaroo botherer Mr Rolf Harris. Here he is in all his splendour -

That is not Rolf Harris. That is a pervert.

The story is entitled "Rolf's TV Tie", for reasons I have yet to fathom. We begin in, oh, a tie shop. Cool in the pool. Rolf Harris is out tie shopping with a koala bear. With me so far?

Look at the surprised shop assistant. I think I'd be surprised too.

So Rolf and the bear are out buying ties - but oh shit! Rolf only has enough money (dollars?) for one tie. That's ok because he only has one neck. Oh wait, there's something I missed on the first reading - the koala picks out a tie for Rolf but Rolf doesn't like it, so he makes up some bullshit excuse about money. The tie picked out by the koala has a 'chuffer' on it. I'm glad they explained this is a type of train. I can assure you that 'chuffer' means something quite different in Britain.

Anyway, when they get home, the koala decides to con some money out of Rolf, by selling Rolf the toys Rolf must have paid for in the first place. This reminds me of the time I tried to raffle off my Barbie camper van. My uncle Geoff won the raffle and tried to take the van home with him. Needless to say, he didn't win that fight.

"Come to my sale!" called the 'funny' bear. Rolf hands over his money. So essentially, Rolf is putting his own money into a fund to buy a tie he didn't even want and couldn't afford in the first place? I'm not sure I like this koala.

Not only is this koala a con artist, he's also bloody stupid. He can't see that Rolf doesn't want the hideous tie with 'chuffers' on it. Anyway, he manages to swindle enough money out of Rolf, and buys him the tie.

This is Rolf's reaction to the tie -

A picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, possibly all swear words.

Rolf avoids any embarrassment by using one of the oldest tricks in the book - "Oh it's fab, I'll save it for best" or something. By only wearing his tie for watching TV, there is no risk of anyone seeing him in it accidentally, since no one ever visits. Probably.

So to recap - Rolf spends money he hasn't got (twice) to buy himself a tie he hates, and that koala gets all his toys back anyway. The moral of this story? Rolf should have just told the truth in the first place. And never trust a koala.

Horse love, between one guy...

Just been sent the following photo on Facebook -

When they say 'riding couple'...

Childhood stuff #6 - Bakers Oven

It seems like everything from my childhood is slowly being killed off. My holiday haunts, my favourite food, my sanity. The other day I learned about the sad demise of my favourite ever purveyor of baked goods - Bakers Oven -

Founded in the North-East of England, Bakers Oven ruled the cut-throat world of sausage roll flogging in the 80s and 90s. For a lot of years, I went every Saturday with my mum to the cafe in our local store. In the front end was a take away bakery, where old ladies would congregate to fight over the last poppy seed loaf. In the back was the cafe - a proper kind of cafe, with those trays you slid along, picking up various components of your meal as you went. My meal of choice (and this was the only meal for sane children to choose) was a sausage roll and a chocolate thick shake. Heaven on a brown plastic tray.

I recently learned that Bakers Oven has been taken over by Greggs. Greggs. This is so wrong on so many levels. This is like Coca Cola being taken over by Gorilla Piss Ltd. I hate Greggs so much that my housemate and I decided we were legally allowed to punch each other whenever we saw one. If our government had any sense, they would only have taxed Greggs, and created a loophole whereby you could avoid the tax by turning the shop back into Bakers Oven. Everybody wins.

Childhood stuff #5 - blue ice cream

In my various blogs and paraphernalia, I write a lot about Ingoldmells. One of the fantastic things about Ingoldmells in the 80s was the unique culinary delights that could only be found there (by my 6 year old logic - in reality they were probably everywhere). One of these edible rarities was the blue ice cream available at the burger bar on the end of Sun City amusements, up near the beach. I have no idea if the burger bar is still there, but I've just Street Viewed Sun City and thank the lord they haven't pulled it down and replaced it with Harrods or anything yet. It was here as far as I remember

Anyway, I don't recall too much about what blue ice cream tasted like, but that was never really the point of it. What was really special was the novelty of being able to eat blue ice cream. Back in the day this was on a par with being able to eat diamond encrusted truffles, such was its rarity. Diamond encrusted truffles wouldn't be as good anyway, since they wouldn't even turn your tongue blue.

Anyhoo, I grew up and stopped going to Ingoldmells so much, and as such began to accept that blue ice cream was lost in the sands of time, a relic of my past. Until last Tuesday, because LOOK! -

The unlikely venue of Wakefield indoor market turned out to be the new home of the fabled blue ice cream, so naturally I bought some, after doing a little dance. It's advertised as bubblegum flavour, which I think is consistent with the Ingoldmells blue ice cream.

It tasted...odd, to say the least. It was actually like eating a big ball of frozen bubble gum, and it had a kind of powdery texture. But who fucking cares? It's BLUE!

My Puddle Lane books arrived!

A day of great excitement today - I received the absolute best books in the level 4 Puddle Lane series - that is, all of them. Five books in total, they are -

When the clock struck thirteen
The sandalwood girl
On the way to the blue mountains
Fire in the grass
The silver river

Stage 4 in the Puddle Lane series is easily the best, because it is full of peril, and you never know if the characters are actually going to die or not. At least, you don't when you're a small child.

I sat down and read them all this morning. I won't give anything away, except for no, of course they don't fucking die. This was the 1980s, long before that maverick J.K. Rowling came along, slaughtering people willy nilly. But there is peril. There is so much peril these stories wouldn't look out of place in a Beryl the Peril comic. There's so much peril I'm going to have to go and have a little lie down.

An awkward conversation...

Childhood stuff #4 - my wedding

Still haven't had my Puddle Lane books in the post, so today I'll be writing about some more random things from when I was a nipper. I got married when I was 5. And before you start calling the NSPCC thinking I was brought up in some weird kind of cult, I can assure you I wasn't. that is not the reason I grew up weird. It was wholly my choice to get married (the boy I married may have had a say in it, but I can't remember).

This was my suitor - the ginger haired boy on the left with the party hat over his nose. I believe his name was Phillip Hodgekiss. If by any chance he happens to stumble across this post, hi husband, you owe me some alimony.

Since we'd been in a mature and committed relationship for at least a day, we decided it was high time he made an honest girl of me. Naturally, the year sixes (the big kids) got wind of this, and decided to organise the whole affair. I must say they did a splendid job. I wore my best party dress to school on the day of the wedding (that's me on the left, wearing said pretty green dress), and my Clarks Magic Steps.

We did the deed at lunchtime, and one of the big kids acted as minister (lucky that our school just happened to have the only 11 year old vicar in the world). Later, at the reception, we all played pass the parcel. The girl next to me won the prize, which was a packet of Chewits -

I didn't mind at all that she won, because I didn't particularly like Chewits. I always preferred Burger King. But one of the big kids minded very much. She marched over to my victorious neighbour and threatened to beat her up if she didn't give me the Chewits, since I was the bride and I should win. I took them off her, more from a feeling that I should do what I was told than anything else. I can't remember what happened to the Chewits. I'd like to think I ended up giving them back to the girl who lost them. I might well have done, but only in secret, when my wedding planners weren't looking. 

Nowadays, when people ask me why I'm not married yet, I feel honour bound to tell them that I am already married. It is, after all, much easier than saying "Well, would you want to marry someone who collects Puddle Lane books?"