House Inventory – Hello Curns

Wogan

A pair of vintage BBC “Wogan” mugs.

When I was a child, I recall that every morning we sat in the kitchen eating breakfast cereal. My mum had BBC Radio 2 on in the background, and Terry Wogan was the host.

In the late 1970s, Radio 2 was a very different-sounding station from the one it is today. This was during Wogan’s first period on the breakfast show, which ran from 1972 to 1984, and his Floral Dance era.

In 1985, Michael Grade overhauled BBC One’s early-evening schedule. EastEnders was introduced on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while Terry’s chat show, Wogan, aired on the other three weekdays. It became a staple of our early-evening television viewing. At about 15, I was probably waiting for the pop act that often appeared on the show. I recall not knowing who many of the other guests were.

These Wogan-branded mugs have been sitting in my cupboard for years. I must have acquired them during a childhood trip to London in the mid-1980s. There used to be a BBC shop near Broadcasting House on Regent Street, and I may have bought them there. Visiting it would certainly have been on my wish list.

It would have been the heyday of the chat show, and I imagine there was plenty of *EastEnders* merchandise around too. This is what I opted for.

I doubt the mugs are valuable collector’s items, but I don’t really want to use them because they are not replaceable. They remain in the cupboard, preserving a small part of the radio and television I grew up with.

Time for coffee

A mug for Dave Clark’s musical, TIME.

For the last two years, this mug has been one of a number in rotation for my morning coffee. It’s a souvenir from the mid-1980s West End show Time (The Musical).

The show ran for about two years at the Dominion Theatre, which had to be remodelled to accommodate the set. I remember going to see it as a child, but mainly I remember the huge floating head of the narrator, Akash, pre-recorded by Laurence Olivier. I think Cliff Richard was appearing when we went, although that might just be a trick of the memory.

I haven’t heard the music for years. The only pieces I can vaguely recall are a recording featuring Laurence Olivier’s spoken words and a song called Time by Freddie Mercury.

The music was never readily available on CD. There was a recording of the concept album on iTunes for the musical’s 25th anniversary, but it seemed quite expensive. It’s a little sad that the music hasn’t been able to live on as much as it might because it has been locked away. I wonder if anybody has an actual cast recording rather than the concept album.

All I have to remember it is this mug

K9

A detailed K9 model from Doctor Who, displayed on a wooden table, its head tilted upward on an extended neck, with its trademark ear-like radar dishes, red laser-tipped nose gun and tail-mounted probe visible against a warm-lit room. — A K9 model, ready to roll.

This is a remote-controlled K9 toy that sits on the shelf behind my desk. Since I moved into this room to use it as my working office, the model has appeared in the background of all my video calls. There’s also a picture of Tom Baker as Doctor Who on a wall just out of shot.

At first, people commented on K9. Some younger people even asked what it was. Nowadays, they are either used to it or no longer care about the geeky things people have in the background.

When I was a child, I loved the idea of a robot dog—and K9 in particular. One of the things that appealed was that this robot, albeit in dog form, had elements of human speech. Everybody will remember how he referred to the Doctor as “Master”.

I felt the same about Zen, the onboard computer in the television show Blake’s 7. Thinking about it now, Zen feels like a foretelling of the arrival of Amazon’s Alexa. I’m a big fan of those moments when Alexa seems more human than machine.

I still like computers to have human qualities. At work, I was recently writing requirements for some software and wanted the system to log things as though they had been spoken. When somebody read the messages, they could have been written by a person. I rarely get my way in these discussions because better minds focus on how logs should work rather than on making them sound human.

But one day my systems will sound human rather than machine, and I will blame K9 for that.

The Plate That Outlasted Safeway

A cream ceramic plate with a fine, crackled glaze and scattered flecks of colour, resting on a dark speckled granite worktop lit by a blue glow on one side. — A well-worn plate’s crackled glaze catches the light.

This is just a plate. It’s an ordinary plate: off-white with some tiny flecks of colour in the glaze. The colour is not very noticeable. It’s one of a pair, and there is also a pair of matching bowls. I’m certain there were some matching side plates once upon a time.

They’re plain without being too plain. They seem just plain enough to be neither fashionable nor unfashionable—although, to be honest, I have no idea if trends in crockery really exist.

In September 1989, I bought the plates from a branch of Safeway in Shrewsbury. I was heading to university, and two plates, along with the bowls, side plates and a couple of knives and forks, were coming with me. They were used almost daily during the four years I studied.

I don’t know where the side plates went—maybe I imagined them—but I still have the dinner plates and bowls. They have remained in regular use ever since, packed away and moving whenever I moved house. If I had to guess, I’d say they were used weekly. There is a more recent set in daily use, but these were always handy and slightly bigger, capable of holding a full portion of fish and chips from my local chippy.

Today, PY discovered a crack in this plate. It’s unusable and about to break but, before it gives up, I thought I’d take a picture.

It has outlasted the Safeway supermarket brand in the UK, which is an odd fact but one I feel the need to note. More than 30 years seems pretty good going.

I wonder how long the other one will last?

Mouse Mat

There’s always a clear-out in January, isn’t there?

A faded advertisement page reading "www.ybw.com/directory — Europe's No1 Boating Contact Book", with three rounded orange text bars whose copy has faded to illegibility, and a white Apple Magic Mouse resting on top of the page. — An old boating directory advert, mouse included.

There’s always a clear-out in January, isn’t there?

I spent the day clearing out clothes I hadn’t worn and taking them to the local charity shop. There was assorted other junk to throw away too, including the mouse mat I had used since about 1998.

When I was working at IPC, these were promotional gifts from ybw.com. We handed them out at one of the boat shows. The mat carried contact details for ybw.com, but you could lift its clear plastic cover and place papers containing important notes underneath.

It had been very serviceable, but the plastic gradually became grubby and finally snapped. It was time for it to be replaced.

It lasted rather well, though.

Originally at Blipfoto