WHO'S A CHEEKY BOY THEN?

Also recently arrived at Castel Crivens, is the complete 2 series box set of BUDGIE, starring ADAM FAITH and IAIN CUTHBERTSON.  This was an LWT show I watched when it first started in 1971, viewing all 13 episodes of series 1 and the first 8 of series 2 in our previous house, with the final 5 being aired over the first month in our new (and my current) residence in '72.  Around 1985, the show was repeated on Channel 4 while we were ensconced in yet another abode (from which we returned after 4 years to its predecessor), meaning that I last saw them nearly 35 years ago.  Funnily enough, that period seems nowhere near as long as the 13 or so years between the original '70s broadcasts and their '80s repeats (when I was just over twice the age I'd been when I'd first seen them), which just goes to show that time really seems to accelerate the older one gets.  How can 35 years seem of lesser duration than 13?  Unreal, isn't it?!

Anyway, Budgie was a great wee show, and every male in the country fancied his on-screen girlfriend HAZEL (LYNN DALBY) - and his TV wife JEAN (GEORGINA HALE) wasn't half bad either.  No doubt I'll be branded sexist by some people for those observations, but note that it's only called sexism when a man appreciates a woman's physical appearance, not the other way around.  The guy taking off his trousers in the laundromat in the TV ad, or the DIET COKE man taking off his shirt aren't considered sexist, because, as we all know, when women drool over men, it's perfectly acceptable and not offensive in the slightest - he said, sarcastically.  (Those people - male or female - who indulge in such double-standards are total plonkers in my view!  Women indulge in their own form of sexism all the time.)

Anyway, do you remember Budgie?  (No, not the helicopter.)  If so, feel free to say what memories it conjures up for you (if any) if you watched it back in the day.

TWO NEW TRUE BELIEVERS TO GET YOUR HANDS ON - YOU'D BE CRIMINALLY INSANE TO MISS THEM...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Two new TRUE BELIEVERS arrived this morning at Castel Crivens, readers, reprinting The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #14 and DAREDEVIL The MAN WITHOUT FEAR #131, respectively.  The first features the introduction of The GREEN GOBLIN and the second contains the debut of BULLSEYE, two cracking collectors' items to be sure.  So if you're not out buying them already, don't leave it for too much longer or you might miss 'em!  (And don't worry - although the covers are amended for The CRIMINALLY INSANE printings, the original, unaltered covers are reproduced in the back of their respective mags.)

REFLECTIVE REPOST: MOBILE MADNESS...

Mobile 'phones?  Mobile ruddy 'phones?  Don't get me started!  Am I alone in considering them to be the most irritating, infuriating, antisocial invention of modern times?  Help me salvage some rapidly-fading remnant of my hard-pressed sanity and tell me that I'm not the only person on the planet who thinks so.

Don't get me wrong though.  Mobiles are all very well - in their place!  And that place is for making or receiving important calls which, if missed, could leave us knee-deep in the soft, smelly brown stuff.  The trouble is, however, that very few calls or texts actually fall into that category.

The telephone, once a practical and useful tool, has now been demoted to a mere toy - an idle distraction for the easily bored and the feeble-minded, who can never be content to simply be alone with their thoughts on account of not having any to begin with; who have absolutely nothing to say worth saying, but, thanks to the workings of a perverse fate, now have the technology with which to say or text it anyway.

Example:  "wot r u up 2  did u c big bruv last nite  c u l8r"

Just think - all over the world, literally millions of people are exchanging such pointless, badly-spelt and punctuation-free drivel countless times a day.  And simply because they can, not because they actually need to.

"But if people are using their mobiles to keep in touch, then in what way are they being antisocial?" you might ask.  Pay attention the next time you see a group of people anywhere.  It's not uncommon to see friends or partners oblivious to one another as they gab or text away on their mobiles to someone else.  Why not just go out with the person on their 'phone if they'd seemingly rather talk to them at the expense of whoever they're with?

That's why they're antisocial.  They drive a wedge between actual physical company and divert the attention of those who should be interacting with each other, as opposed to some ethereal voice or illiterate text on a mobile.  If you were out with some friends who barely spoke a word to you because they were engrossed in deep conversation with one another, it's a safe bet that you wouldn't be too impressed by their manners.

So in what way is it any less rude to ignore those you're with to talk or text on a mobile to someone else?  That disembodied master or mistress whose imperious summons (heralded not by a heavenly fanfare, but rather a tacky and irritating ring-tone) must be answered immediately and cannot be ignored.

Well, excuse me, but I've always thought that technology was supposed to be at our disposal and for our convenience, not the other way around.  Hear that mobile ring - see its slave give a convincing impression of someone who's just had a tub of itching powder dumped down the back of their neck as, seemingly in the throes of spasm, they frantically check every pocket or aperture that fashion provides in order to obtain their regular fix of 'mobile madness'.

This madness, however, isn't confined only to adults.  Children as young as 11 or 12 are falling victim to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), brought on by continually texting their friends.  RSI? That's got to be one hell of a lot of texting!

How sad.  Where kids once merrily played together in fields and parks or each others' gardens, they now spend a disproportionate amount of time in their rooms texting (or emailing) their pals, instead of interacting together face-to-face.  And, just like 'adults', when they are with their pals, they often ignore them while they text friends who are elsewhere.

"A fool and his money are soon parted" runs the old saying.  Considering the obscene profits reaped by mobile 'phone companies from the exchange of  unnecessary communications between simpletons, it's plain to see that this maxim is true many millions of times over.

So, let me ask you a question.  Do you possess a mobile 'phone?  Or does a mobile 'phone possess you?