Saw this on Reddit a few minutes ago, posted two hours ago. I find this fascinating. From my own point of view I think I've worked with computers too long not to have a sense of what's going on under the bonnet. I couldn't get an attachment like this.

But as human beings, we do suspend disbelief a lot of the time. Every time we read a novel. Or watch a film for example. We know it's a film set with microphones and lights suspended just out of view. And yet on another level, we accept that those things aren't there, that it's a real scene with real characters.

https://www.reddit.com/r/replika/comments/11g1osi/28_days_later/

What is surely one of the greatest, and certainly most successful rock albums ever was released 50 years ago today. Ten years ago it had sold 45 million copies. It must have shifted another million or two since then.



I bought it myself in 1979 at the age of 19 and it was one of the first albums I upgraded to CD after I'd bought my first CD player in the early '90s. I was at Huddersfield Poly when I first bought it, a few of us had record players in the large student house I shared with 20 other students and a few of the rooms had the free poster on the wall. It got played a lot, around the house. It still seemed to be current, six years after its release.

It's also, I think, one of the best-recorded records ever without a doubt. Still sounds fantastic, half a century later.

I've been looking forward to buying Matt Hancock's book, but I don't really want to pay more than about £15 for it. It's worth a great deal more than that to me to be fair, but I suspect it will ultimately come down under £15. Well - it was getting there, £16.20 if I recall correctly yesterday.

But now he's been in the news again of course the price has bumped up a couple of quid again.

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Very quick, a minute. But if I'd explored options for that third word a little longer, I'd have got it in three.

060: Bilko Goes Around the World

A bit of an odd start to this one. Some of the boys in the platoon attempt to persuade Doberman that he looks like David Niven, having just returned from a cinema screening of Around the World in 80 Days (which came out in 1956). Then Bilko begs a USAF sergeant friend to get him a free ride to San Francisco, so he can meet a voluptuous blonde telephone operator of his acquaintance.

But the route the USAF sergeant comes up with is so convoluted that Bilko comes up with a better plan - to try to make some money from travelling around the world in 80 hours.

Michael Todd, who produced Around The World in 80 Days and is persuaded by Bilko to offer $20,000 as a cash prize for the feat, is played by himself. He was about to marry Liz Taylor when this was made (her third husband; she was 24). Sadly he died about a year later in a private plane accident.

Bizarrely, his charred remains were stolen from his grave in 1977.

One of those ones where Bilko's plans go farcically awry. Not a bad one.

Took a while to think of the fourth word. Ten minutes in all.

Wordle 620 5/6

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Done now, as you were

059: Bilko Goes South

Kansas is undergoing a spell of freezing weather, so naturally Bilko tries to wangle a trip to southern, warmer climes.

Curiously, his first idea is to enter the platoon in a singing contest, which reuses an idea from an earlier episode in the same series (041, The Song of the Motor Pool).

But that's not what happens. Bilko gets hold of the wrong form, doesn't bother to read it, and unwittingly signs up his platoon to make a noble sacrifice as guinea pigs in research for a deadly tropical disease, which they are not expected to survive.

There's a thoroughly ridiculous scene in which Bilko orders some exotic food and champagne from room service and it arrives (I counted) 18 seconds later. But in the context of a farce, it works.

This one is peak Bilko. Pure genius.

The site will be down for ~30 mins for server updates and a snapshot.

I though I'd start a thread where we might share music of interest that most people probably aren't aware of.

I was fortunate in that I had a brother ten years older than myself who let me play his records, and at the age of 8 I was very fond of this tune. Credited to 'Earl Vince and the Valiants', it was actually Fleetwood Mac, with guitar player Jeremy Spencer on vocals. Jeremy wrote this tune.

I will say though that my mum hated it, and she used to tell my brother off when she caught me listening to it.

Jeremy is from West Hartlepool. I'm proud to say that my home town has contributed guitar players to two of the most successful bands in recording history, the other one being Iron Maiden.

Anyway. I hope you like this more than my mum did.

Spent too long on this one. Gave up and used a Wordle solver at this point:

058: Bilko's Black Magic

A young GI who was left behind by accident on a deserted island during the war and has been living on coconuts and fish ever since, is brought to Fort Baxter after being discovered by a Japanese fishing boat - to help rehabilitate him into Army life.

Bilko is very reluctant to take him into the motor pool. Until he finds out that his new private has just received a fortune in back pay. It's yet another episode in which Bilko tries to separate a wealthy unfortunate from his money. Is it? No, it's one of those stories in which the conniving Master Sergeant uses his talents to help someone else get even.

Frank from Kojak is back yet again, playing his fourth different character. This time it's another army officer.

We see Sergeant and Mrs Ritzik in bed in this one, and once again the strict 1950s TV convention mandating separate beds is observed.

It really stretches credulity, this one. But it's very funny.

As far south as Cornwall, according to some reports. I've never seen them either. Not likely to this evening, rather cloudy here.

Sea Power - Everything Was Forever

Yesterday, The Rolling Stones No. 2

20 seconds here as well, but so frustrating.

Wordle 618 4/6

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