1979, 1903 and 1985…

Choose any Sunday evening in the ’80s, and I can guarantee you millions of teenagers were sat in front of the radio with their cassette recorder in hand pressing the pause button between tracks, so we didn’t have to listen to Simon Bates on the move.  Yes, we all did it and why – so that we had the UK Top 40, back to back on cassette to play on our Walkman.  It was a game-changer people and a significant influencer on 1980s culture, come on we all had one remember the headphones had orange foam, how bloody cool were they!.  Well, Masaru Ibuka was the co founder of Sony, and when he traveled on business, he would carry around a bulky cassette recorder so he could listen to music.  He got jacked off with that (headphone reference right there) so decided to design a playback-only stereo version with headphones, and with that the WALKMAN was born.

It rolled off the production lines in 1979, the world’s first low-cost personal stereo that runs on two AA batteries.  The metal-cased blue-and-silver Walkman TPS-L2 was predicted to sell around 5,000 a month, but they shifted 30,000 in the first two months. In 1985 cassettes outsold vinyl for the first time, the word Walkman entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and millions joined the aerobics craze wearing them while stretching to fitness gurus like Mad Lizzie and Mr Motivator.  With dodgy 80s hairstyles bouncing around the joint between 1987 and 1997 when the Walkman was at its height the number of people who said they actually walked for exercise increased by 30% – not a bad idea Ibuka-san (that’s Japanese for Mr Ibuka by the way)

Time for some gratuitous advertising!

Bloody newspapers and their opinions, did you know that in 1899 France had two rival papers Le Vélo and L’Auto.  Well L’Auto who’s editor was a cycling freak decided to stage a race and write about it in an attempt to sell more newspapers than Le Vélo – follow the bouncing ball people and in 1903 the first Tour de France was staged – an act of pure genius with a tie into cycling.  It was to be a five-stage race starting in Paris and stopping in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Nantes before returning to Paris.  The race ran from the 31^st May to 5^th July, but rain delayed the race by a day meaning the first race ran in JULY (I made the rain delay up so that I could fit he whole race into July – I like to refer to this as literary nonfiction, actual term in modern journalism).

Anyway, back to 1903, the first race had five stages and 15 competitors with most stages running through the night with rest days in between.  This proved too daunting for the riders (should try 1000ks4Kids you lightweights), so a new format was suggested along with some financial incentives.  The tour was extended to 19 days and the dates to 1^st to the 19^th July and offered a daily allowance for those who could maintain 20ks per hour and the stage winner would get 3,000 francs – that was six-times what most French workers earned in a year!

The new format attracted round 80 entrants ranging from professionals, amateurs, the unemployed and some who were simply barking mad adventurous. Fast forward 120 years and today, The Tour de France is the pinnacle of modern cycling with the oldest competition known as the ‘general classification’ for which the Yellow jersey is awarded.  The 2020 tour has been postponed to 29^th August due to COVID-19, the first time since the end of World War II that the Tour De France was not held in July – lookout for a Newbies blog on the tour during August!

I know what about 1985, well the Global Jukebox happened and for those who are confused, Live Aid, remember that big gig organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine.  The event was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in front of 72,000 fans and the John F Kennedy Stadium in the states in front of 89,484 septics.  It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups for television of all time with an estimated audience of 1.9 billion across 150 nations – that was 40% of the world population my global audience, 40 bloody %.

Here’s the background on Live Aid – shocked by the biblical famine Geldof phoned his mate Ure (the frontman for Ultravox, people) and they co-wrote Do they Know Its Christmas then got every recording artist they knew to record it for free.  Well, it stayed at No1 for five weeks, was the Christmas number one becoming the fastest-selling single ever in Britain raising 8 million pounds!

So where did the gig come from – Boy George the lead singer of Culture Club that’s where.  George took part in the recording of Do They Know Its Christmas while on his UK tour.  On the final night of the tour at Wembley an impromptu gathering of some of the other artist from Band-Aid joined Culture Club on stage for an encore of Do They Know Its Christmas.  The occasion so overcame George he called Geldof, and as they say, the rest is history. By the way, Live Aid raised 127 million, and Bob Geldof was knighted but here are some other exciting titbits

• They used Noel Edmunds helicopter to fly the acts in.
• Phil Collins appeared at both stadiums by jumping on Concord
• The ruling family in Dubai made the most significant single donation of 1 million
• Bob Geldof had to hitchhike home as there were no taxis left
• The surviving members of the Beatles turned the gig down, and
• Freddie Mercury flirted with Bono who was unaware he was gay.

But the bit I enjoyed the most was when Sir Geldof lost his sh#t and a myth was born.  It was a classic case of a myth getting halfway around the world before the truth could get its trousers on.  Do you remember after Queen’s first set, Sir Geldof asking viewers to donate by interjecting on the broadcast with “F*** the address, go to the phone number!” WELL

For the historians amongst us and for those who are interested here are some facts about July,

• The first Zeppelin flight took place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany in 1900.
• The Clash performed publicly for the first time at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England in 1976.
• John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time as teenagers at Woolton Fete in 1957 – three years later we had the Beatles
• Billy the Kid was shot dead by Pat Garrett outside Fort Summer in 1881.
• 700 million viewers watched the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer at St Pauls Cathedral in 1981.
• At 10:56 PM in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the Moon.
• And finally, in 1862, Lewis Carroll told a 10-year-old Alice Liddell a story that was the basis for ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865.

Now for something completely different, NO not Monty Python but in the words of the Father of English Literature, Geoffrey Chaucer All good things must come to an end, and we came lucky 13^th.  The Come on URs section will take a break for SIX WEEKS as the Championship has finished with the mighty Rs losing 1-0 to Charlton, beaten by Fulham 2-1, winning 1-0 against Middlesbrough, Slapped by Sheffield Wednesday on a Sunday 3-0, a draw with Luton 1-1 helped them beat Millwall 4-3 and ending in a draw with West Brom 2-2.  Pretty unusual season due to football being played behind closed doors but sport isn’t everything considering what’s going on across the world.  Not a bad season for us and the testament to how good we played was the manager kept his job SO roll on September 12^th when the Mighty Rs will fight tooth and nail for promotion to the promised land, in other words, The Premiership.

Here’s one for my 17 Followers and the casual readers across the world – last months blog started with It took 22 minutes……NO, I’m not on about how much time the rare Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise spends flapping his tail feathers, puffing out his chest and shimming his little feet to attract the ladies but what else lasts 22 minutes.  No, not Oliver from Chelmsford on a good night but an episode of Here Comes the Double Deckers.  For those of you who are completely lost apart from the 22 minutes connection – here they are,

Now before I start, all those kids were bloody annoying but the girl in the blue at the start Debbie Russ, known to the Deckers as Tiger was fecking annoying!  Anyway, the Deckers was a 17 part children’s TV series in the early 70s revolving around the adventures of seven (fecking annoying) children whose den was an old double-decker (hence the name) London bus in a scrapyard.  Each week I would sit glued to the TV to see what adventures the Deckers would get up to, but they got me into so much trouble as my mum wasn’t too chuffed when I replicated the gang’s entry system on my bedroom door – wasn’t a replica and the door was knackered by the end of it.

So, what did they get up to, well one week was based around a runaway homemade hovercraft (tried to replicate with my mum hoover and failed).  They also decided to take on Cadburys by creating their own factory, but Martians overran it with guns shooting chocolate.  Now I grant you it’s stretching the bounds of a kids imagination, but it was the 70s!

Before I sign off for another month just to let you know what Debbie Russ is up to, well she is a BBC Radio 4 Extra presenter.  With that, please be safe people, social distance as it saves lives, respect our front liners and for pity sake look after the oldies! – CHEERS!