Topic: School Dread on Sundays

[gilbertharding]

Blimey, was it?

The Phoenix and the Carpet then.

[Pranet]

For some reason I strongly associate Ever Decreasing Circles with Sundays. That and pickled eggs.

I also get work dread on Sundays now. Don't really do anything I really like on Sunday evenings in case it gets tainted.

[Darles Chickens]

I have bittersweet memories of Sunday evenings.  For every Highway (or Credo before it), Songs of Praise, Last of the Summer Wine, Antiques Roadshow, there was also Spitting Image, Hale and Pace or The New Statesman which were always talk of the playground the following day.  Not fucking Bread though.  Or Dear John.

I think Jeeves and Wooster was also a Sunday night thing, although it definitely went in the "dread" category for some reason (I think I would've still been on the last-minute homework panic at that time, and I misjudged it, lumping it with those ITV dramas of the time - I never saw it or appreciated it, and still haven't to this day).

The key to shaking off the feeling of dread was ditching TV completely on Sundays (apart from the ITV 10pm slot).  I used to retreat to my room in the afternoon, put on the Network Chart show on Capital Radio, and do my homework to it (with a cheeky tape lined up for recording anything good which came on).  Then after that it was "Neil" Fox's Jukebox, "earth's most powerful instant music machine" which purported to be a hi-tech way of delivering song requests from callers (complete with tappy tappy typing noises), but actually was just the producer screening the calls in advance and digging out the CD from the back room.

[Gulftastic]

Add me to the list of 'That's Life'. It took me a good few months after leaving school and working for a living to rid myself of that 'I've not done my homework' feeling.

[petrilTanaka]

Mondays were a different sort of dread. a cosier dread, with Desmond's near the end as you await midweek

[poodlefaker]

I was allowed to stay up and watch the South Bank Show, so inadvertantly learned quite a bit. The Francis Bacon one from the mid-80s had a big effect on me. Frankie takes Melvyn out on the piss in Soho and poor old Melv can't keep up. "Why do you do it Francis?" "CHEERIO MELVYN!" I still say Cheerio instead of Cheers to this day.

[Bently Sheds]

The theme tune to Sing Something Simple is pure despair.

Yes! The end of the Top 40 with Stewpot and then that shit comes on the radio signalling for wee Bently Sheds to get in his pyjamas and get to bed. Weekend is gone. Skool tomow. Desolation.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Not just the title music (which was potent by itself) but World In Action also had a deadening effect on my soul because, even up to the late 80s, it seemed to be filmed in brine, like the film stock had been found in a puddle out the back of the Thames studios, and they said: 'Give it to the WIA crew. They refused to use video because it doesn't look 70s enough.' It gave me a hugely dispiriting, disconcerting feeling that - even though the events were current - these were dispatches from a beige-and-brown alternative time strand where the 3-day week was still in force and the only place to buy olive oil was a chemists. As such, I've never truly landed on a fully rounded point of view about the Gibraltar Three.

They used that same film stock in schools programming too, leading to those creepy, unsettling scenes of plants germinating and volcanoes erupting, backed by the Radiophonic Workshop.

It also led to whatever the fuck this was supposed to be:

https://youtu.be/gVTsnSg-MS4

[non capisco]

It also led to whatever the fuck this was supposed to be:
https://youtu.be/gVTsnSg-MS4

Obligatory mention for this astoundingly ill-judged horrorshow that looks like it's going to be about a race of paedo aliens attacking Earth's playgrounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY3NPCpX3mY&frags=pl%2Cwn

[canadagoose]

It was always the Antiques Roadshow and Heartbeat themes that gave me the dread. I have vague memories of the Clothes Show theme, but I don't think it was late enough to give me that feeling.

[non capisco]

I have vague memories of the Clothes Show theme, but I don't think it was late enough to give me that feeling.

It helped that the theme from the Clothes Show was 'In The Night' by Pet Shop Boys, which is a birruva banger.

[Tombola]

Nothing quite like Where the Heart is to instill dread.

Watching this just now ruined me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPB8Q9cDsHQ

[buzby]

They used that same film stock in schools programming too, leading to those creepy, unsettling scenes of plants germinating and volcanoes erupting, backed by the Radiophonic Workshop.

It also led to whatever the fuck this was supposed to be:

https://youtu.be/gVTsnSg-MS4

World In Action and the Schools programmes would use 16mm film for their location shooting which then needed to be telecine'd into the video during the final edit, which is why they all had that distinctive grainy, washed-out  look.

[petrilTanaka]

As for that Sunday feeling, it was always the dreaded Highway. Such a dull thing to watch whilst you're eating your crumpets and bakewell. Apparently, my dad always insisted on watching it because he loved the Goon Show and was convinced that, at any moment, Harry Secombe would break out into the Ying Tong Song, instead of the usual hymns. It never happened.

The comical mismatch of a big ITV PRESENTS like it's the fucking World Cup, THAT theme and the actual programme did nothing to liven up the mood

[NurseNugent]

Was Catchphrase on a Sunday evening? I seem to associate it with that 'school in the morning' feeling. May to December, I think was a Sunday, my mum had a bit of thing for Anton Rogers so I remember watching that and knowing it would soon be Monday .
Bread and That's Life were definite Sunday staples.

Sunday morning I remember more fondly with Hold Your plums on the radio, then a long walk with dog before lunch.

[Pingers]

That’s the one that did it for me. Sitting at the kitchen table with my parents, probably having a depressing salad (with salad cream) for “tea”.

Lettuce, tomato, radish, hard boiled egg, maybe ham. Salad cream. This is what I most fear about Brexit.

[BlodwynPig]

I'd ease myself into Monday's by turning up to school at 4am and dossing about for 5 hours.

[kngen]

Obligatory mention for this astoundingly ill-judged horrorshow that looks like it's going to be about a race of paedo aliens attacking Earth's playgrounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY3NPCpX3mY&frags=pl%2Cwn

Responsible for filling 7-year-old me (and no doubt countless others) with an existential dread that I've never quite been able to shake.

World In Action and the Schools programmes would use 16mm film for their location shooting which then needed to be telecine'd into the video during the final edit, which is why they all had that distinctive grainy, washed-out  look.

Once again Buzby, to your eternal credit you imperiously confirm something I had a vague sneaking suspicion about. The question is: why? 'This looks shit. Let's keep doing it. For years!!!'

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sunday morning I remember more fondly with Hold Your plums on the radio, then a long walk with dog before lunch.

Sunday Morning was S-Club 7 then not really understanding This Morning with Richard and Not Judy.

[buzby]

Once again Buzby, to your eternal credit you imperiously confirm something I had a vague sneaking suspicion about. The question is: why? 'This looks shit. Let's keep doing it. For years!!!'

Because 16mm was a) cheaper to buy and process than 35mm (though it was still expensive), and b) hand/shoulder-held 35mm cameras were not really that portable or practical - an Arriflex 35 or 435 can only hold up to a 400ft reel (about 7" in diameter) magazine when used as a portable camera, which would only give you about 4m 30s of filming time. The same sized reel on a 16mm camera (an Arriflex 16BL or Eclair NPR) would give you 11 minutes.

The 16mm camera would also be a lot lighter, but even then a 'lightweight' 16mm portable camera like the NPR loaded with film might weigh as much as 20kgs, and the cameraman would also be carrying extra film magazines as well. There would hopefully be a soundman to carry the tape recorder and microphone, though they would be tethered together by the sync sound signal cable between the camera and tape recorder.

Broadcast quality portable video cameras (initially with a separate tape deck) like sony's U-Matic didn't arrive until the late 70s and were very expensive. It wasn't until the early 80s that professional compact  integrated camcorders like Sony's Betacam system made using video for news gathering and documentary filming practical, and 16mm started being phased out.

[MidnightShambler]

Was Catchphrase on a Sunday evening? I seem to associate it with that 'school in the morning' feeling. May to December, I think was a Sunday, my mum had a bit of thing for Anton Rogers so I remember watching that and knowing it would soon be Monday .
Bread and That's Life were definite Sunday staples.

Sunday morning I remember more fondly with Hold Your plums on the radio, then a long walk with dog before lunch.

Nothing wrong with Hold Your Plums (other than it was on a Saturday morning)....Billy Butler lives not far from me and obviously cos you listened, not far from you either! Just to say though, he keeps a very dirty house and all his sons are cunts... many a party while Billy was compereing elsewhere!

[buzby]

Nothing wrong with Hold Your Plums (other than it was on a Saturday morning)....Billy Butler lives not far from me and obviously cos you listened, not far from you either! Just to say though, he keeps a very dirty house and all his sons are cunts... many a party while Billy was compereing elsewhere!

Hold Your Plums with Billy Butler and Wally Scott started off as part of Billy's weekday Radio Merseyside show, but then was spun off in 1984 as it's own show on Sunday mornings from 1984 between 11am and 1pm. It was preceded from 9am-11am by Monty Lister's (the first person to interview The Beatles for radio) Tune Tonic show (theme tune - South Sea Bubble, which often featured terrible songs by Wirral songwriter Don Woods), and followed by 'Little' Billy Maher (of the folk group The Jacksons), Brian Jacques' Jakestown at 5.30pm-7pm and then Spencer Leigh's On The Beat. When Billy Butler & Wally Scott defected to Radio City in 1994 the show moved with them, but didn't last that much longer IIRC.

Sunday was my dad's 'radio day' - he wasn't keen on the TV so on sundays he would have the radio or his country & western or Rock & Roll records on all day until it was time for Last Of The Summer Wine or Open All Hours. This changed from the early 90s when he started going to the pub on a Sunday afternoon, and we would have to record the second half of Hold Your Plums for him.

[Jockice]

Tag! Duran Duran consider rewrite. Tag!

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Tag! Duran Duran consider rewrite. Tag!

Yeah, I was thinking of that one meself, but I shot my bolt with the Alice Cooper reference.

[buzby]

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure it was broadcast on a weekday, but World in Action is worth mentioning for inspiring dread with it's John Paul Jones-going-mental-on-downers theme tune.

Titled 'Jam For World In Action', and originally credited to the track's producer Jonathan Weston. It's eventual appearance on Youtube (caused by a copy finding it's way out of Granada's archive which was used by Ben Hayes in his Radio Soundhog 6 mix, mixed with Howard Beale's rant from Network) led to the reopening of a decades-old dispute over the credit by the two session musicians who actually wrote the track - Shawn Phillips (guitar) and Mick Weaver (Hammond B3). The dispute is summarised in the description of this video

Not just the title music (which was potent by itself) but World In Action also had a deadening effect on my soul because, even up to the late 80s, it seemed to be filmed in brine, like the film stock had been found in a puddle out the back of the Thames studios

Point of order - World In Action was a GRANADA production.

[MidnightShambler]

Hold Your Plums with Billy Butler and Wally Scott started off as part of Billy's weekday Radio Merseyside show, but then was spun off in 1984 as it's own show on Sunday mornings from 1984 between 11am and 1pm. It was preceded from 9am-11am by Monty Lister's (the first person to interview The Beatles for radio) Tune Tonic show (theme tune - South Sea Bubble, which often featured terrible songs by Wirral songwriter Don Woods), and followed by 'Little' Billy Maher (of the folk group The Jacksons), Brian Jacques' Jakestown at 5.30pm-7pm and then Spencer Leigh's On The Beat. When Billy Butler & Wally Scott defected to Radio City in 1994 the show moved with them, but didn't last that much longer IIRC.

Sunday was my dad's 'radio day' - he wasn't keen on the TV so on sundays he would have the radio or his country & western or Rock & Roll records on all day until it was time for Last Of The Summer Wine or Open All Hours. This changed from the early 90s when he started going to the pub on a Sunday afternoon, and we would have to record the second half of Hold Your Plums for him.

Well it must have been repeated on Saturday mornings circa 1997-2001 on Merseyside because I used to listen to it at the work. It segued into the horse racing game they used to play, I forget what that was called.

Fun Radio Fact....I decorated Monty Listers house.

[Attila]

Sunday school dread must be a phenomenon without borders, because certain TV shows my parents watched have similar associations for me -- Wonderful World of Disney (in Color!), but especially 60 Minutes.*

I gave up pretty much on a lot TV watching when I was in late high school/early university because my dad ruled the tv with an iron fist from about 6pm through to after midnight every night, and it was his choice or get out. But even then, if I were playing out in the kitchen as a little kid or later as a teenager holed up in my room in our small house, you couldn't escape the theme tunes and that, and having to go to bed early because being on a rural bus route meant 5am starts to the school day.

And yes, a Sunday followed by a Monday off school because it were a holiday or summer break was a wonderous thing indeed. It still is -- Sundays are useless days in semesters when I have lectures on Mondays, but that's more down to having commuting issues at stupid o'clock in the morning on Mondays than actually being at  'school' as it were. (Fuck Southwestern Rail).

*60 Minutes, for any UK fans of older Saturday Night Live sketches, is where the 'Jane, you ignorant slut' catchphrase comes from (the 'Point/Counterpoint' segment they used to have back in the 1970s).

[buzby]

Well it must have been repeated on Saturday mornings circa 1997-2001 on Merseyside because I used to listen to it at the work. It segued into the horse racing game they used to play, I forget what that was called.

He moved back to Radio Merseyside in 2000 (after EMAP started prgressively networking it's Magic stations from London), and finally got the boot from there last year. He did used to play clips of old Hold Your Plums episodes as part of his show though after they stopped doing it. The episodes they did for a couple of years after they moved to Radio City Gold in 1995 were pre-recorded during the week instead of being live.

Fun Radio Fact....I decorated Monty Listers house.

He died at the end of last week sadly, aged 92. He was in an old peoples home in Bebington by then though.

[MidnightShambler]

Yeah he lived in Bebington. Or Bromborough, I forget which, it was quite a long time ago. Wally Scott used to own the Italian restaurant in liscard, La Gondola, if memeory serves me well. Still got a ridiculously dyed bouffant hairdo at about 80 years of age.

Hang on, might have been Mario (who was another sidekick) that owned the restaurant. One of them anyway.

[pigamus]

Was Catchphrase on a Sunday evening? I seem to associate it with that 'school in the morning' feeling. May to December, I think was a Sunday, my mum had a bit of thing for Anton Rogers so I remember watching that and knowing it would soon be Monday .
Bread and That's Life were definite Sunday staples.

Sunday morning I remember more fondly with Hold Your plums on the radio, then a long walk with dog before lunch.

You might be thinking of All Clued Up, which was in the Bullseye slot I think.