Thursday 30 March 2023

Lifelong passion for repeats

A 34-year-old man has far more vivid recollections of the 1980s than his own formative decade the ‘noughties’.

Oliver O’Connor recalls bugger all about 2000 to 2010, despite these being his teen and college years, whereas the 1980s, which he experienced two years of as a baby, was easily the best decade of his life.

He said: “The Smiths, New Order, Prince, The Cure, The Human League, Simple Minds – what a decade for music. I wish I could go back to those days. I mean I was a foetus, but what a time to be a foetus.

“And the TV – Only Fools and Horses, The Young Ones, Minder. It was classic shows like that that gave me my lifelong passion for repeats.”


The noughties, in which he attained puberty, made new friends, passed his driving test and went to university, have left O’Connor with no recollection of pop culture or indeed anything much, except exams.

He added: “It’s all a bit of a blur to me. Actually, there was Blur, wasn’t there? No, they were the 90s. What else? Did anything happen? I’m racking my brains but I don’t think it did.

“Oh yeah, Two Pints of Lager And a Packet of Crisps. There were about 800 episodes of that. Didn’t watch any.”
The Daily Mash

Of course.


Speaking of 80s...

...many happy returns to some familiar faces who blow out 80 candles on their cake this week:


Eric Idle


Sir John Major


Christopher Walken

Many happy returns, all!

13 comments:

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    1. You can never have too many cowbells! Jx

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  2. Christopher Walken is great, but he also has always looked odd to me.

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    1. I'd like to see him and Willem Dafoe play the Ugly Sisters in a Cinderella panto! Jx

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  3. Erm... Now I'm struggling to recall anything from 2000 - 2010. Big Brother? Gary Jules with Mad World. All Saints. Okay, I'm fine, I'm remembering now.
    Sx

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    1. All Saints only just scraped into the noughties - their best hits were actually in the 90s! Jx

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  4. Old men... sigh. As for The Young Ones... tried to watch it, thought it utter trash. Great collage, though.

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    1. Sigh, indeed.

      As for The Young Ones, it was just the latest in a long line of anarchic, nonsensical comedy that started in the post-War generation with The Goon Show, resurfaced a generation later with Beyond the Fringe, and again with Monty Python's Flying Circus. The "alternative comedy" crowd that launched The Young Ones (and the careers of Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson, French & Saunders, Alexei Sayle and their ilk) struck a chord with the post-Punk zeitgeist of the times; they were hugely popular with the younger generation in the early 80s. Jx

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    2. PS I cannot claim any credit for the collage - it's the work of one Sean P Carlin, an American. Hence the presence of things that are completely unknown in the UK like "Where's the beef?" [an ad for Wendy Burgers, I discovered - despite a couple of attempts, that particular chain never made it over here] and Family Ties [which apparently was broadcast in 1985 on the UK's Channel 4 in a slot up against the main BBC news, but was cancelled after a year]. I've definitely never heard of either "Jolt Cola" nor Bosom Buddies, either...

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  5. As much of this list is whizzing straight over my head I wonder if I have early-onset dementia...
    But I was, then, stuck in that Dark Place known as Aussie tv.

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    1. Don't worry about that, Dinah, dear ol' Reg Grundy exported the majority of his output in our direction, so we had Neighbours, Prisoner: Cell Block H, The Young Doctors and Sons and Daughters; we also had The Sullivans and The Flying Doctors.

      Early 80s telly in the UK really was quite Antipodean... Jx

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  6. Any one with a lifelong passion for repeats would be pleased with the BBC these days as that seems like that is all that they do.
    BBC 4 is nothing but back to back repeats of old 'Top of the Pops'

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    1. The age of austerity. The cuts are happening all across its services since Nadine Dorries declared war on Auntie Beeb, publicly announcing - in its centenary year - that she wanted the licence fee scrapped, and that current funding would be frozen for two years. Jx

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