Current earworm: The Professionals theme
Who remembers The Professionals? I for one was hooked on this as a teenager, despite it being, as Martin Shaw described it, a one-dimensional show.
It was a major inspiration for the amateur action video series “STRIKE” which I helped on in high school.
It’s amusing to look back on the original Professionals title sequence now — perhaps the frame rate or other artefacts in Youtube make it look particularly cartoon-like, but it’s not hard to see why they changed it:
From season two it was re-done to this more well-known (and I think markedly better) title sequence — and I suspect re-edited into most season one episodes as well:
The music is very 70s, isn’t it. Now I have it as an earworm.
For Profesionals fans, check this different version, which include Gordon Jackson/George Cowley introducing the premise of the show… perhaps this was the export version, a bit like non-UK versions of recent Doctor Who episodes have included an introduction from Amy.
Pre-Professionals, there’s also this scene from the New Avengers, which featured Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins working together before they appeared as Bodie and Doyle.
Sights of Old Melbourne Town – as seen in music videos
Dragon: Are You Old Enough (1978) — around Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, including the now-gone behaviour of riding the running board on a tram, and a Silvertop taxi back when they really did have a silver top.
John Paul Young: Yesterday’s Hero (1975) — around Swanston Street
Paul Kelly: Leaps and Bounds — mostly the Nylex sign, of course
Everyone knows this one… AC/DC: It’s A Long Way To The Top (1975) — Swanston Street again
More recent… The Living End: All Town Torn Down (1998) — various spots, including Citylink and Parliament station
What others are out there?
Update lunchtime
Suggested by Scott: Skyhooks — This is my City (1976) (sorry, can’t embed)
And of course I should have thought of this obvious one: The Whitlams — Melbourne (1997):
My super-talented sister excels herself again
This creation by my super-talented sister, for Isaac’s birthday.
Tags: birthdays, cakes, Doctor Who, family
11 comments
Digital TV can sometimes look like crap
Where digital TV really fails is handling lots and lots of moving objects on screen at once.
Look at these two grabs from last night’s ABC news. In the first, host Ian Henderson is shown. With little moving, the picture is very smooth — even with the slightly dodgy ABC blue screen.
Now look at the second grab a few seconds later. It’s library footage of Melbourne Storm’s premiership win a few years ago. Tickertape stuff is going everywhere, it’s probably been grabbed in turn off a Channel 9 transmission and reprocessed, and the picture looks like crap.
Admittedly it doesn’t look quite so bad when viewing the footage, as so much is moving around that the eye doesn’t really notice the artefacts as much. But this is once instance where I suspect analogue would actually look much better.
“A pint? That’s very nearly an armful!”
Tony Hancock’s legendary line in The Blood Donor was “A pint? That’s very nearly an armful!”
(I really should find the DVD somewhere and watch it again.)
I referenced it the other day after going to the blood bank, and Ian noted that Tony Hancock was from Ian’s home town of Birmingham, and kindly snapped a picture of a memorial to Hancock.
A visit to the blood bank is always a good time to gather some vital stats, of course, which I’ll note below for my own archival purposes.
Height 181.5cm (with shoes on)
Weight 73.2kg (with shoes on)
(that makes my BMI 22.2, which appears to put me in the “normal” category for weight.)
Blood pressure 108/64
Haemoglobin was, I think, 163
My blabbering in the TARDIS
Deep within the bowels of the ABC studios at Southbank…
…there is a Triple J studio called “TARDIS”.
Well, recording booths. I discovered that they’re not bigger on the inside.
I was there the other day at lunchtime. My blabbering has shown up as part of a Triple J “Hack” story on the costs of public transport vs cars.
- Turns out it’s possible to tour the ABC Southbank studios
Tags: ABC, Doctor Who, radio, transport, Triple J
3 comments
The Doctor catches V/Line
Spotted on Saturday after the Doctor Who/Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Symphonic Spectacular:
Reports from the UK suggest Doctor Who has prompted more people to wear bow ties. I don’t know if that’s rubbed off in Australia, but there were certainly more bow ties and fezzes than I’ve ever seen around Melbourne yesterday, both at the venue (the Plenary at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre) and on the way to and from there.
I was impressed that they sold out such a huge venue — twice. (As far as I can see, in the configuration we saw, the Plenary seats over five thousand people.)
And the fact that it was a balanced demographic (male and female, family groups and individuals — not just nerds) attending shows the programme reaches a much wider audience now than it did when I was growing up.
Indeed, at a barbecue on Saturday night, the laughter that I might have once faced when describing the event I’d been to was instead replaced by envy from some who’d tried and failed to get tickets.
Can I just say the event was excellent, by the way. Some great music, bringing memories from the past few years of the show flooding back, as well as some nods to the “classic” episodes of my youth. Host Mark Sheppard was good, and to my surprise, composer of all of the music (bar the theme tune) Murray Gold was also in attendance. Tony has a good write-up of the concert.
- Doctor Who News: Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular this weekend — includes a publicity shot from the MCG.
- Herald Sun: The Daleks arrive for symphonic showdown
- The Australian: Who fan exterminates boyhood fear and composes himself for the Doc — interview with Murray Gold
- BBC: History in the Making: Music in Melbourne (before the event)
- BBC: Music, Monsters and Magic: The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular (reviews)
Proof that you can get a big-screen TV home by public transport
Proof that you (with the help of a friend, at least) don’t need a car to take a big-screen TV home… at least not since the advent of flatscreens.
Panasonic, 50 inch. Appears to have been bought at JB Hifi (which is nearby). Note the lady with her Metcard ready. They caught a 908 bus.
(No, this is not what they were talking about when it was flagged there’d soon be video ads on buses.)
