Avast me hearties

[peterbirks]

Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men; The entire crew of Captain Pugwash; The Daleks; The Cybermen, and Zippy from Rainbow, would make interesting attendees at a dinner party, one might think. Actually they would make just one attendee at a dinner party — since all of the voices were performed by Peter Hawkins, who died recently, aged 82.


Captain Pugwash was one of those uniquely British serials that will forever be imprinted on the minds of British men of a certain age. Along with the Oliver Postgate programmes such as Noggin The Nog, they were made with a budget of about three-and-sixpence an episode, I reckon, since the visuals consisted of carboard cut-outs. Kind of puppets or marionetters on a budget, before being shown around about 4.30pm, just after we had got home from primary school and had eaten our tea.

Such was the impact of Captain Pugwash that every few years or so the urban myth appears that some of the characters in the show were named Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger The Cabin Boy. To my recollection, this isn't true. There was indeed a Mister Bates (probably the source of the urban myth), but no seaman Staines, and the cabin boy's name wasn't Roger. But, well, it's one of those stories that I guess people wish were true.

Bill & Ben The Flowerpot Men was a 1950s Watch With Mother programme that could never get made today. A pair of hippies talking gibberish, except that apparently it wasn't gibberish. There was actually a script, which Peter Hawkins then translated into Flowerpotmen language. This merely sounded like gibberish.

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An interesting e-mail from Brian Frew about CD Poker, which I rerpint here.

Hi Pete, I just wondered if you have ever come across anything like this one?

I was just casually checking on progress towards my $80 bonus on CD Poker last night when I was surprised by the totally unannounced news that the points requirement to make the bonus had changed from 4800 points to 8000. This pissed me off mightily as you might imagine, so I emailed customer support asking what was going on.

Here is the reply...

"Thank you for contacting CDPoker.

Hi this is Jojo of CD Poker Support!

Brian, we have received your email and we understand how you feel. We
always strive to provide excellent experience to all our valued
players. Our poker room management has decided that due to current trend in
the online gaming industry, this change will serve the purpose of our
poker room to be at par with competitors. Rest assured that this
modification will benefit all our players eventually.

We are confident that this will not, in one way or another, affect our
existing relationship. We aim to offer a high level of customer
support to each and every player at CD Poker."

Well that is all very fine and dandy but doesn't even attempt to answer my question as to why the goalposts moved. Jojo should be Home Secretary with that range of evasiveness. I don't have good feelings about this one.

All the best

Brian


Not having bonus whored CD Poker, I can't tell you how good or bad the initial (or rejigged) offers were, but the obvious conclusion is that CD Poker's marketing team fucked up, and that the initial offer was costing them money to bonus whores that was not being recouped by players staying on after the bonus expired (well, duh. That's what happens when people listen to the guys in marketing). So they changed the rules; and, online poker being online poker, there's nothing that you can do about it except vote with your feet. Since voting with your feet was probably what you were going to do in the first place, that isn't much of a loaded weapon. But at least potential new players have now been warned.

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Comments

Bill & Ben, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I think Bill & Ben were revived and modernized quite recently; our son Marc has a computer game based on the rejuvenated version.

Yes, Seaman Staines & Co. are known as a (remarkably well-established) myth; I've read about it before on the Internet. I think I believed it to be true myself at one time; I don't think I ever saw the real Captain Pugwash, having had very limited access to British television during my childhood. Though I do vaguely remember having seen the original Bill & Ben, at least a few times.

I'm sorry about Peter Hawkins. We are all mortal. The other day my mother looked on the Web for a Basque dancer called Pirmin Trecu she'd been friendly with in her youth, and found he'd died just a few days earlier of a heart attack in a hospital in Portugal.

I had a similar experience some years ago, when I Googled Richard Hedden, who was at school with me. His family had been based in the Bahamas, and what I found from Google was a Bahamas newspaper report that he died in a car crash there while visiting his sister.

Someone else I knew slightly at school died soon after leaving school by falling into some agricultural machine. Anyone who dies at 82 could have done worse.

-- Jonathan

Re: Bill & Ben, etc.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

My mother went to one of her oldest friends' funerals on Thursday. Doreen was diagnosed with leukaemia in the middle of June and dies 23 days later - something of a reminder of our mortality.

As you say, if you get to 82, you can't complain. But you probably do. If you are in love with life at the age of 80, I doubt that you say to yourself "well, I've had a good innings". Then again, if you feel that you've got to the end of a useful life, maybe you do.

PJ

Re: Mortality

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry about your mother's friend too.

Eleven years ago, I was corresponding with an American lady in Switzerland, whom I think I'd encountered on a CompuServe forum. One day she went to her doctor to complain of stomach pain; about a month later she was dead. Liver cancer. These things can strike out of the blue at any time.

I don't know how I'd feel if it happened to me. But I'd naturally prefer to die instantly and without warning, if possible. Perhaps this could be arranged: I could just notify the Israeli government that there's a Hezbollah arms cache in Sant Pere de R

Re: Mortality

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

This "I'd like to die without warning" attitude has always puzzled me. I'm with Gil Grissom on this one. I'd like a note saying "you will die on November 30th 2038, after four years of needing medical and nursing care that will cost yout £28,000 a year at today's prices".

That would make my financial planning and decisions what to do with my life over the next 10 years one hell of a lot easier. As it is, I just don't know. I might die in five years, I might die in 45 years. The actions that I take tomorrow would be different from the ones that I am going to take if I thought that "five years" was the more likely answer.

I guess I just dislike uncertainty.

PJ

Re: Mortality

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe part of the difference is because you're single and so you can go in for financial planning. My money goes out about as fast as it comes in: I haven't got anything left over to do financial planning with. So knowing when I'll die wouldn't make much difference to my actions now, but the knowledge would hang over me unpleasantly -- especially when the time drew nearer. I'd rather go on assuming that my death is safely away in the far future sometime. If I then die suddenly and without warning, I'll die happily with my illusion preserved.

If I got a reliable message that "you will die on November 30th 2038, after four years of needing medical and nursing care that will cost you £28,000 a year at today's prices", I'd look into efficient methods of suicide so that I could quit the game in 2034 and miss out on all the medical misery.

-- Jonathan

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Not that I've looked it up or anything but I would have laid money (if I may say that and tresspass on your department) that Zippy was voiced by Roy Skelton (the other famous Dr Who monster voice artiste).

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I would have happily backed down on this, since Zippy was somewhat after my time. However, The Stage comes to the rescue.

Hawkins would provide the original voice of Rainbow’s Zippy, only to be succeeded by Roy Skelton, who eventually became the most prolific Dalek voice artist in later episodes.

So, there ya go.

PJ

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

There, as you so rightly say, I go. (But for the grace of God.)