I Was A Hitman For Primrose Dairies

The first episode of series 30 of Last of the Summer Wine aired today at 7:30pm. It featured the biggest shake up of the cast since its inception. Two of the trio from series 29 were reduced to secondary characters, they being Clegg and Truly. In their place are established charactor Entwistle and new character ‘Hobbo’.

‘Hobbo’ is a mentalist former Primrose Dairies Milkman who believes he once had ties with MI5 and being a Milkman was a cover. Always making strange hand movements (much like Foggy used to) once causing a Waiter to drop a very large tray of Sandwiches.

Other changes include the return of ‘The Captain’ who is the head of the local Golf club that Barry visits. As usual there was a guest star in this episode, this time being Mortar who was the Debt collector who often visited Tom a long time ago but he is now retired so they are now friendly towards each other. Auntie Wainwright makes a return but seems to have lost weight and now looks not a day older than when she first arrived in Holmfirth in the 1980s! It has also reduced the amount of screen time the secondary characters have so it is very much like it was in the 1980s.

The most major change is the change of colour of the credits, from the familiar yellow to white. I have no idea why they changed the colour but perhaps it was in memory of Kathy Staff who died a couple of weeks ago who was attributed at the end of the closing credits. This is not the first time the credits have been white, from series 3 until series 4 and during the reign of Seymour the credits were also white. The typeface has stayed the same since series 29 however.

The plot – Luther ‘Hobbo’ Hobdyke, a retired milkman with strong links to MI5, arrives in the village. Very soon, calling upon his experiences on numerous dangerous missions overseas as a master spy, he forms a small team of reluctant volunteers, consisting of Alvin and Entwistle, ready to react to any emergency in the village. Finding that Hobbo has moved in next door, Clegg and Truly recall that he was never much of a milkman, but have to admit that his needlework is always exemplary. (Thanks to the BBC)

So do you like series 30 so far? Or has it changed to much? Please vote in my poll to the right!

When is the next episode? I have no idea but when I find out I will post it here by which time it will be 2009 so Happy New Year!

UPDATE: The next episode will air on April 19th and is called Some Adventures Of The Inventor Of The Mother Stitch!

Here Yesterday, Gone Today

The second batch of shops closed yesterday under the Woolworths shop closure programme including my local. I went yesterday and photographed it for old times sake. I also went inside and what a shock! Two thirds of the store was sectioned off with all the shelves being dismantled. All the remaining shelves in the rest of the shop were also empty (except strangely the CD section, rubbish songs this year perhaps?). You would never believe how many people were grabbing the last remaining sweets from the infamous Pick ‘N’ Mix section. It was very sad to see it in such a state. This shop in particular was never that nice compared to the likes of Fareham and Portsmouth shops but I liked it purely for nolstalgic reasons. The tackiness was its charm.

Anything under a sixpence? Not a chance! A biscuit tin, for example, was ‘80% off’ yet it was still £34! No wonder Woolworths entered administration because it is far too expensive. Also being a all purpose general merchandise store also didn’t help because there was no need for such a shop anymore as there are plenty of convienience stores and supermarkets to purchase ‘general merchandise’ from, why go to an old fashioned shop like Woolworths?

In the latter years most people ‘hung’ around the sweets and drinks section never venturing to the back of the shops unless you had time to spare. Or in my shops case, noone went inside at all other than to buy lottery tickets. So clearly you can see why Woolworths got into this state. They did not move with the times. Still, I will miss them and who knows, I may even start my own ‘mini market’ chain to take its place!

So that is it for another year, Happy New Year!

Reminder: Do not forget – Last of the Summer Wine New Year Special is on tonight on BBC One at 7:30pm!

Bah Humbug!

So, what did I do over the Christmas holidays?

What presents did I get? Well like many other people, I got one ‘main’ present and many ‘little’ presents. This year I have got what I have been waiting for years for – a PlayStation 3! It is the latest model – the 160gb model which was only launched in the UK last October. Of course I did get some games with it, here is a list, if there is not a paragraph accompanying the game title it means I have not played it yet.

• LittleBigPlanet. I also got some James Bond and Doctor Who DVDs.   Great game for little brats but not suitable for someone of my age and attention span. Good graphics and colours. Stupendously easy and embarrassing to play in front of your parents!
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Superb game especially thanks to it’s very high definition graphics. The cars realistically crash and drive and the actual computerized person inside moves realistically, unlike old games where you could not see anyone inside the cars. The city is realistically reproduced in computer model form but the best bit is the way the ‘camera’ moves across the city to and from different races.
• Quantum of Solace. More and more games use pre-rendered footage to join up game sequences. Yes they look good but only the first time you see it, after which when you play the game again gets boring and tiring especially when you cannot press a button to move it on. Anyway about Quantum of Solace – I only played the couple of minutes as it was very annoying you cannot see Bond while playing as on the previous game From Russia With Love. Also the camera doesn’t turn with him but stays in the same place so you cannot see where you are going. The graphics are very poor for a supposedly Blue-Ray Playstation 3 quality game.
• Tomb Raider Underworld. Very good graphics to show off Lara Crofts assets. Could be a very good game but the instructions are not that clear with random quotes and buttons popping up everywhere. Once I dived into the sea that was it for me. Once I find someone who knows how to play it I’ll give it a good old excellent mark.

 

• Fifa 09.
• WWE Showdown.
• Grand Theft Auto IV.

Yesterday I finished taking photographs of the new Stagecoach South Enviro 300s as I have finally got a photograph of all eighteen.

Sitting On A Black Gold Mine

At long last my town has got in the national newspapers for a good reason for a change – I am living on top of a ‘Black Gold’ Mine! Leigh Park is sitting on potentially millions of barrels of oil. Of course, Leigh Park, supposedly famous for being a ‘chav town’, will reap in benefets from the oil rig set to be built within three years near the B&Q. Comparasoms have been made to that silly american import – Dallas. Hopefully no longer will Leigh Park be associated with ‘Chavs’, ‘Trackies’, ‘Yobs’ and ‘Hooligans’ and instead be famous for it’s high rise glass skyscrapers, modern luxury houses and apartments. Currently Leigh Park’s claim to fame is the fact it is the seventh largest council estate in Europe, once it was the biggest. It was created as an overspill for those people whose houses have been bombed during the WWII. The first completed house in Leigh Park was number 7 Bramdean Drive which still exists. It grew around the Dairy idustry but since this has declined in recent years most jobs are based in Portsmouth or the town of Havant. Of course none of this is guaranteed, if Northern Petroleum do not find any oil in the first four weeks, they will abandon the plan for a full sized oil rig. If they do, they will and Leigh Park will be subjected to constant noise from the Nodding Donkeys and the smell of oil will constantly be in the air, but will it be worth it for a better economy?

Read what ‘ChavTowns’ have to say about Leigh Park at the moment.

• http://www.chavtowns.co.uk/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=317
• http://www.chavtowns.co.uk/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1487

My new Telephone Box…

…well, not yet. I have decided to start a fund in order to raise money to buy a K8 red Telephone box. It will be the first exibit in the Hampshire General Post Office Collection which will eventually house a K8, two Wall Boxes, a Pillar Box, a London road sign, an old fashioned Bus Stop and a Lamp Post. It will probably be the largest collection of GPO items on the South Coast. So far I have aprox. £1.50 out of £850. Don’t worry, by the end of next year I will have raised enough money and have purchased the Telephone box I promise!

Third Last of the Summer Wine

Kathy Staff, who played the stern Northern battleaxe Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine, has died today. Everyone in my household are very upset and hope she will Rest In Peace.

She was famed for her Wrinked Stockings and ‘relationship’ with her next door neighbour Compo. Her wooden broom keeping him and everyone else at a safe distance! Norman Clegg and Ivy are now the last two original charactors left on Last of the Summer Wine from 1973. Of course we shall also remember her for her roles in Open All Hours and Crossroads.

While we all mourn her we must think of the brighter things in life, whatever they are, and try to move on. R.I.P. Kathy Staff.

It’s Raining Again!

Today I was planning to photograph a newly located blue K8 Telephone box in Hythe near Southampton but, as you may know, the weather is terrible. To much for me to go out just for a Telephone box, so I have had to stay in unfortunately.

I took this photograph when I was last in Brighton. As usual when I go there, it was raining so I used this photograph to illustrate todays web log.

I shall look at today in the future and think to myself ‘it is not the end of the world’. I am not doing anything other than looking forward to ‘ITV 1 Night’ and writing this web log.

By the way I found out that my ‘new’ Telephone is a BELL Bakelite Telephone.

Drinka Pinta Milka Day

Today is payment day. Another two weeks worth of Pints. In this area (like most nowadays) we have Dairy Crest, although the Wales & Edwards Milk Float is still painted in the Unigate livery. Normally the Milkman comes at 8:15 on Mondays and Wednesdays but today he arrived just a couple of minutes ago at 10:00. A far cry from 10 years ago when he delivered at just gone 6:00 on Mondays and Wednesdays and at 7:45 on Fridays.

At least my Milk still comes in Glass bottles which is why I continue to have my Milk delivered. Supermarket Milk go through over ten hands before it reaches me but through a traditional Dairy it only goes through two. We have had my Milk delivered since my house was built in 1951 (I am not that old, I just know). Back then the local Dairy was (believe it or not) Walkers. Then it was another Dairy who’s name I have forgotten. Then it was the Co-op and then finally Unigate who was then bought out by the aforementioned Dairy Crest.

I will never buy my Milk from the Supermarket until I am forced to by the closure of my local Dairy Crest depot which I fear may happen by the end of next year. I hope that all who reads this will be encouraged to save this British institution.

View my Milk Float photographs!

Hello world!

Hello everybody! Welcome to my new web log! This is where I will post regularly about my adventures here in the south of england.

Now, to start things off let me tell you why I called this web log ‘The Black Telephone’. Well today, this morning a vintage antique black telephone arrived as an early Christmas present. Don’t worry folks I didn’t open a present early, it wasn’t wrapped up! Anyway I recieved it from someone who knows I have a keen interest in telephone boxes and he thought this was one of the old 200 series Bakelite telephones that used to be in the old K1 – K6 telephone boxes. Unfortunately it wasn’t but I liked it and decided to keep it anyway. I was always wondering what to write my first web log post about and what to call it and now I know.

Last Saturday I also visited Portsmouth to take more Photographs of Stagecoach South’s new Alexander Dennis Enviro 300s on route 23. So far I have thirteen out of eighteen. Unfortunately I did not get a photograph of the remaining five which are 27559/62/64/66/67. I did however add another Telephone box to my collection which was in Gosport near the Bus Station.

If you are interested in Telephone and Post boxes and transportation in the south of england then this is the place for you so stay tuned for more posts!