25 FILMS HIDDEN FOR YOU TO FIND!

I haven't tried this yet so I thought I'd blog it in case you wanna have a bash. there are 25 films hidden in this illustration from the internet. I don't know what they are. Can you find any and how did you do it?

Thunderbirds Somportex Poster

Woodsy,

A shot of the 'trade poster' that the Thunderbirds large Somportex bubblegum cards made up by putting the backs of the cards together like a jigsaw

Bernard Dunne

COLLECTING POP SUB-GENRES: SOPHISTI-POP

Having always been a nerd I have always been interested in sub-divisions of things: plants, animals, books, films, toys and music to name a few.

Regarding pop music I heard a song the other day in a shop and I was entranced by it's tribal swaying beat. The song was one I'd heard before and sort of guessed at the artist, one Brian Ferry singing Don't Stop the Dance.

As I adore the tribal rhythms of Talking Head's glorious LP Remain in Light I wondered if Don't Stop the Dance was of a similar throbbing vein, but I was wrong.

Brian Ferry's Don't stop the Dance is a cornerstone of a pop sub-genre called Sophisti-Pop. From an LP I know nothing about called Boys and Girls, ex-Roxy Music's frontman Ferry appears to be the Soph-father of this particular 80's tributary.

Swaying, lazy jazz-pop with strong beats, Sophisti-pop was blended into the background of my Twenties, a more refined blend I largely heard but didn't take note of. With my head in studies and being a young Dad new music took a natural dive. Certainly contemporary music in the mainstream. I was still discovering older singers like Van Morrison, Peter Finger, Pat Methany, Joni Mitchell, along with my own rock LP collection, which moved round the country and Europe with me during that decade.

Now I'm 60 I'm fascinated by that background sound as me and the Missus were young parents in the 80's. First Punk, then New Wave and the New Romantics, with a peppering of Soul, Rockabilly, Ska and Reggae, the mainstream meandered around looking for smooth new flavours. Sophisti-pop appears to be one of those. Back then I may even have dismissed it as yuppie jazz. I was still in a local rock band in 1980, but time and tastes moves on.

It has some famous names, Sade being its Queen and Ferry the King. Simply Red's there too, along with the Style Council and the great Joe Jackson plus many more.

Having listened to many of this particular sub-division's entries this week there are for me a few stand-out tunes that make my neck-hair rise they're so damn good. Here are three sophisticated toons:

Its a Wonderful Life by Black, 1986: there is something simply haunting about this song, which I never ever tire of. A beautiful hymn written in Black's darkest personal period. A Liverpudlian, after his own private turmoil he wanted to be ironic with this tune but for me Wonderful Life is simply gorgeously optimistic. Watch it with the original video for added monotone atmosphere. Sadly Black was tragically died as a result of a car crash in 2016. Such a lost talent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZoHfJZACA

Mary's Prayer by Danny Wilson, 1987: now this was a revelation. One of those catchy melodies echoing in my deep RAM and almost forgotten, I listened to it again and was knocked out. The sheer energy and verve of this band's performance demands respect and the song itself is quite magnificent. Soulful, sincere and heartfelt, it reminds me of the artistry of bands like Dexy's Midnight Runners and Hothouse Flowers. Looking like a gathering of Gene Vincent, Chris Isaacs, Vincent D'Onofrio and an unseen drummer, Danny Wilson, the name of this terrific Dundee band [and no-one in the grou], had sadly faded away by 1991. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqgC3W9GUI

Steppin' Out by Joe Jackson, 1982: a tune from an earlier year, Steppin' Out is a fast-paced, sharp, almost two-tone eulogy to the nightlife at the start of the Eighties. From Burton on Trent, Jackson's infectious voice and insistent beat make this a postcard for youth everywhere. His line "We are young but getting old before our time" holds the essence of being young, that fragile mayhem just before adulthood when it will all change. It may also be an early reference to the emergence of AIDS in New York City. However the optimism of its message, to step out into the city, reminds me of the jazz-frontiers of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly album from 1982. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwt2dxx9yg

Do you have a favourite sophisti-pop song?

BIRTHDAY GIFTS FOR DADS: WHAT DID YOU BUY?

When browsing charity shops I often see vintage stuff I got my old Dad for his birthdays.

If they're in charity shops I wasn't alone in this venture and it looks like many of these gifts never got used!

Top of the list are useful Dad apparatus like car wash kits. You know the ones; a turtle shampoo and wax and maybe a sponge or a shammy all neatly packaged in a plastic zip-up case. Very practical I would say. What's not to like for the Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies Father?

Next would be a travel manicure set. Often found in a handy oblong zippable mock leather case these sets might include a hairbrush, a comb and an empty tin for I'm not really sure. Again eminently useful. Why wouldn't they get used?

I would say following on quickly would be a shaving set. My own choice for Dad was a large alabaster face soap mug with the Old Spice ship on the front, together with a rather natty soaping brush. these may have come in gift sets too including pre-shave and after-shave bottles. Really quite splendid!

After these I get stuck. there must have been more gifts for Dad's back then. I guess air fresheners for the car, a stick-on dashboard compass, a pack of cards, a pair of nutcrackers and even a book by Jack Higgins.

I imagine my Mum gave me some spends to pay for stuff like this. Somewhere I even have a list of things I bought in 1972.

What did you get your Dad for his Birthday readers?

PS. I'll do Mums later!

SAMURAI VADER

 Reading about Princess Leia's double hair bun origin I remembered something I'd read about a likely inspiration for Darth Vader's helmet.

Being a fan of the Samurai it struck a chord.

Here it is as an another split image this time courtesy of Nipponrama's site.

You can read more about this possible origin on Nipponrama itself.

https://nipponrama.com/date-masamune-samurai-darth-vader/

What do you think readers?

Yesterdays War

 While looking for something worthwhile to watch on tv, I decided to try the latest Amazon Original, 'The Tomorrow War'. Initially, I was put off by the fact that it had Chris Pratt from Guardians of the Galaxy fame as the lead, but I thought I could put up with it and fast forward the naff bits.

Pratt has also been in the Jurassic Park franchise and seems to only have the one style of acting, trying to play the hard man and failing miserably. His constant joking in Guardians and machismo in Jurassic Park are really grating, but in Tomorrow War, he adds another method acting style to his suite - the permanently surprised/bemused look. All through the film he looks like he's hamming it up and for the first half carries an expression like someone has just told him he has run the first few takes with his flies open.

But enough about Pratt, where things go desperately wrong is with the basic premise of the film. The plot involves an alien v human war, thirty years from the present, where humanity is being decimated. In a bid to bolster the armies, future military techs resort to time travel to go back in time to recruit civilians to fight the aliens. Thrown literally into the fray by a defective warp, the newbies quickly encounter a devastatingly effective alien species, which quickly eliminates the troops. Queue Pratt as the guy who can save the world singlehandedly, after being transported from a schmaltzy middle american home into a cutting edge war zone.

As usual there is a lot of buddy building, grown men screaming rage as they fire miniguns in the face of overwhelming odds, pointless self sacrifice, strong female leads achieving very little and general gung ho gunplay. On the whole, its ok for a sci fi film, with well realised aliens, but the big issue with the plot is that it doesn't have a single new idea of its own.

Screenwriters have clearly built the entire film, lego like, around Pratt as the nice guy family man thrown into jeopardy to save the world. They have clearly just cruised the dvd shelf and picked out major blockbusters from the last 30 years and lifted memes, themes, ideas, plot points and anything else they could cobble together to make a workable script.

In doing so they have borrowed from so many films to create a pastische of sci fi tropes - So far I have seen the following clear references: Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, The Thing, Starship Troopers, Life, Battlefield Los Angeles, countless time travel films and many others!

Also, it lifts scenes almost wholesale from various films, such as the 'wounded in the face of the enemy onslaught and facing off bravely till the hero gets away', 'Give me your hand, I've got you - no let me go and fall to my death', 'Dont make a sound or turn the lights on while we navigate these tight corridors until someone makes a noise and brings the aliens running after us', 'Watch me hold this delicate glass vial while I get seven shades beaten out of me, blown up and run over and still emerge with the glass intact' and the classic Tom Cruise trope 'Protagonist starts out not knowing what to do, makes a big mistake, redeems himself against unassailable odds and goes on to save the day'.

Then there's an absolute stinker of a line mid way through the film too, as Pratt delivers an overwhelmingly obvious observation following a blunderingly blunt set up, so plain that even a five year old can see what's going to happen, in his classic 'oh god my flies are open again' botox injected mask of mock surprise, in response to an army of wildly screaming aliens breaching a perimiter. At this point, had the stream not been lagging as much as the plot, I would have been reaching for the fast forward button.

So if you aren't a cynical, scowling, tight lipped pedant like me who enjoys a thinly veiled, simply plotted action flick, break out the beer and pizza and dive in.

ED'S SNAKE

My snake: Although the battery cover is missing, the batteries manage to stay in the thing and it works pretty good!
Cheers
Ed

Nevada

USA

Cracker Jack History

Hi

From the Recollection Road series on You Tube, here is a history of Cracker Jack pop-corn, and the prizes the boxes once contained. Not much on the various prizes, but still an interesting video.

Cracker Jack and the prize inside - Life in America - YouTube

Paul Adams from New Zealand