Avast me hearties

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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