The poetic and (probably) drunken world of Stuart Hall

[Partridge's Love Child]

It is very rare that I will listen to wireless reports about Premiership football, because I prefer to watch the highlights without knowing the results, so's I can get excited about proceedings as I would do if I were watching live.  However, the fact that my team weren't playing yesterday, and more importantly we were stuck on the M6 bored stupid, I decided to put on Radio 5Live and listen to the Tottenham v Manchester City game.  As yesterday was a near-on full programme of matches, they did the usual round-up and latest news from all the games, plus updates from Jonathan Agnew in Auntiga on Brian Lara's historic innings - which I shall be trying to emulate in the nets at Lords this evening.  In amongst BBC Sports usual old stalwarts and young shavers - yer John Motson, yer Alan Green, yer Garry Richardson, yer Mark Pougatch (which, when said aloud, always sounds to me like another name for your arse crack.  "Pougatch, Mark" would therefore sound like a skiddy in your undercrackers) is the bizarre match reporting of former It's A Knockout presenter Stuart Hall.

Hall talks with a deep-voiced hammy zest, and blabs his ludicrously poetic reports across the air like some demented old colonel regailing the war between the Montagues and the Capulets.  It's fabulously archaic, and is so out of place in today's cliched sick-as-a-parrot, Brian sporting dialogue that it would almost be worth releasing an album of it.  The man is quite clearly bonkers, and very probably sozzled on whisky - fellow insomniacs around the mid-90s will remember that he was almost certainly razzed-up on every single edition ever of ITV's Pub Quiz.  I cannot help but think that Beeb bosses have employed him for a day, for Comic Relief or something, y'know, just for a laugh, and have subsequently forgotten that he's there.  This theory seems to be supported to some extent by the complete lack of knowledge of Mr Hall on 5Live's website....

Results from 5Live

Sorry!

There are no websites that match "stuart hall". Please try another search word. Alternatively, you may find results from other sections of the BBCi Search:

On yesterday's coverage, Stuart was reporting from Anfield, where Charlton nabbed a 1-0 away win against Liverpool.  He described the Charlton defence in the first half as being

like a bunch of virgins running away from an advancing Don Juan

- a similie he then repeated to a rather perplexed Alan Curbishley in the post-match interview.  Glorious.

Several years ago, my friend was working as a runner/bit-part actor on a programme called Focus North (which I seem to remember weekender was a bit of a fan of) - a kind of local news version of The Day Today.  One of his duties during the shoot was to be Stuart Hall's driver for a couple of days.  He said that Hall was lovely, but utterly utterly hatstand.  Apparently he didn't seem to grasp that Focus North wasn't a real news show, despite the fact that the presenter saws someone's head off with a chainsaw at one point.  To be honest, if I was most famous for commentating on Princess Anne running around a muddy field, dressed a giant Turkey, pursued by other members of the royal family, also in animal costumes, I think my grasp upon reality would be fairly flawed too.  I think we should have more of him.

On a different note, but not worth starting a new thread for, I caught the beginning of 606 after the game, where a Liverpool fan of 25 years described Gerrard Houllier as

the biggest disgrace in the history of Liverpool Football Club

which is an interestingly rose-tinted look on the past from a supporter of a club whose fans were responsible for  the deaths of 39 Juventus fans at the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.

[Marcus Or Relius]

- fellow insomniacs around the mid-90s will remember that he was almost certainly razzed-up on every single edition ever of ITV's Pub Quiz.  

I remember that! I was usually a bit 'refreshed' during it too, so I can't remember much of it, but it was funny, rather cheap and fucking cheezy. I reckon he'd do a pretty good job of hosting Have I Got News For You.

[hoverdonkey]

You're right, Hall is a welcome break from the drones that you mentioned. Peter Alliss is golf's equivalent - although his balls-up at the end of the US Masters was embarrassing for him and the BBC and very funny for the rest of us.

I'm not even gonna start about deluded Liverpool fans. They all seem to have a superiority complex based on the fact that they had a good team 15 years ago, but now have a very average side, sprinkled with 2 or 3 world class players.

[Nearly Annually]

In The Goodies And The Beanstalk I think it was, they did a quick It's A Knockout skit, with a cardboard cutout of Stuart Hall on a Weeble base, wobbling around and doing his extended Basil Brush-style laugh. It was dead funny when I was ten. Um, yes, I like Mr Hall too. For a loony probably reactionary old fart. Ha ha ha ha send 'em home ha ha.

Re: Focus North - didn't he first emerge through the North West's real life BBC local news? Think so. Mad as a mung bean from the start, someone told me.

[weirdbeard]

This theory seems to be supported to some extent by the complete lack of knowledge of Mr Hall on 5Live's website....

Results from 5Live

Sorry!

There are no websites that match "stuart hall". Please try another search word. Alternatively, you may find results from other sections of the BBCi Search:

On yesterday's coverage, Stuart was reporting from Anfield, where Charlton nabbed a 1-0 away win against Liverpool.  He described the Charlton defence in the first half as being

like a bunch of virgins running away from an advancing Don Juan

- a similie he then repeated to a rather perplexed Alan Curbishley in the post-match interview.  Glorious

Try searching on the BBC Sport section as opposed to the 5Live section.

Here's his the Liverpool - Charlton analysis

[Alberon]

Poor bastard. He probably misses 'It's a Knockout' bigtime, if he knows its finished of course.

He was perfect for 'It's a Knockout'. I can vividly remember his demented laughing as a Yugoslavian in one of those costumes where you can't see wanders farther from the course on a beach and blunders out to sea.

[MonkeyDrummer]

It's easy to imagine his demented laughter when any slight incident occurred. If a streaker ran accross the pitch. He'd probably laugh his silly head off and demand the players throw wet sponges at him.

[boki]

The Hall rocks, it has to be said. If he is suffering withdrawal symptomes from les jeux sans frontiers, then Challenge TV could always get him to do Takeshi's Castle, either instead of or as well as Craig Charles.

[Partridge's Love Child]

Heh, my friend has just pointed me towards this

I particularly like:

I was once made love to by a lion and I've never forgotten it, they're very loveable people. The lion in question went on to a circus and immediately killed the trainer

and

I always wear white underpants. They're very tiny Y-fronts, only really there to cover the gonads in case somebody kicks me.

The player I fell in love with and who inspired me to coin the phrase "the beautiful game" was Peter Doherty

Isn't he the fella from over-rated noise merchants The Libertines?  Robbed his mate's house, then rejoined the band.

Didn't know he coined the phrase "the beautiful game".  Surprised Ben Elton didn't claim he invented it, the big git.

[Ambient Sheep]

Um, yes, I like Mr Hall too. For a loony probably reactionary old fart.

You'd think so, wouldn't you, but in part of the Guardian interview that PLC just linked to he says:

What newspapers or magazines do you read?
I'll delve into the Guardian, of course, and the Telegraph, which is the Israeli Times. The Guardian is the antidote to it. And Hazel, my wife, takes the Mail. I'm not much of a magazine reader.

Weird.

Other gems not already quoted include:

Tea or coffee?
Tea please, no sugar and with just a drop of breast milk.

and

Tell us a joke...
It'll be awful, I have to warn you. Alright, a news flash: 700 US soldiers have entered Jordan. George Bush is furious; he wants to know what she was doing there. I told you it was awful.

[Nearly Annually]

Hehe yeah, too weird to be a straightforward nazi. I'm imagining him in charge of a concentration camp, forcing Jews to do 24 hour pugil sticks.


< Some sort of joke about greasy Poles here >