St George’s Day is just a few days away and we are looking forward to celebrating it with you!

Join us on Tuesday 23rd April when we’ll be having a teatime bar with free Great British grub (beef sandwiches, roast potatoes and gravy) served up.

Later in the evening, we’ll be celebrating with a St George’s Day quiz special from 9.30pm and it’s a rollover this week, so 12 pints will go to the winner!

There’s also Play Your Cards Right, with £100 up for grabs, and FREE bingo, with £20 in the pot plus booby prizes.

And in case you missed the teatime bar, we’ll be serving up more complimentary Great British grub at half time! So, why not come along and celebrate with us at The Cock Inn.

I walk past this little hideaway on my way to rehab twice a week. Can’t wait to grab a snow picture

Still too damn cold and clunky for proper camera lately so here are some more glimpses of the things I see as I walk around my little city.

Santa looking suitably European at the Christmas market thing in Cathedral grounds.

The coolest mannequin I have ever seen (so cool I almost rhymed).

Fake night sky as Guild Hall Christmas decorations.

Someone in Princesshay seems to be saying ‘balls’ to Christmas.

From when the river was high and floods were scary the other week.

During a 35 minute wait to pick up a parcel in busy post office depot last week I wondered what unicorns actually have to do with delivery post?

Extra frosting on this donut or real frost?

Christmas decorations seem weird when the sky is almost as blue as summer.

Frosty railway lines in the first week of December.

Not sure what Bruce Forsyth or Morcombe and Wise have to do with bland clothes shop in Gandy Street. Or cards. Merry Agnos everyone.

Maybe no gold, but there is certainly a JACKPOT at the end of this rainbow on Thursday night!

Over £260 is up for grabs at the Play Your Cards game at the Quiz Night on Thursday 18th October.

Strips of 5 numbers are £1 – if your number is drawn you get to play the popular game – Will it be “HIGHER” or “LOWER”.

The Quiz is free-to-enter and contains anagrams, picture and music rounds. A MEAL to be won for the winners!

The alternative method consists of him, touching her shoulder (Brucie – higher or lower – Lower), massaging your back (Brucie – higher or lower – Lower) BINGO WE HAVE A WINNER. He has to stop there because any lower he would be giving her a pedicure. However with all his efforts, he is still not guaranteed a Brucie bonus.

I recommended that he adopted my method, it has a 99% success rate. You grab your partner’s hand, look in to their eyes and start………….. begging until she breaks.

After our discussion, it got me thinking maybe we as human do such things because it is a part of a mating ritual. We tend to have to set a scene (bed), have a meal (fuel for stamina), brush our teeth, (bad breath is a no no), clean our skin, dim the lights, some music and maybe some equipment (handcuffs, whip and ball gag). I need to do a bit more research on this matter so please add your pre sexual habits down below.

Janet is down

I think i will ask my previous guest blogger to add a female perspective to this blog.

Plus side (cos you should always look for one) was that the WWF manoeuver seemed to click my bad back into place temporarily.  Let’s hope it lasts.

Today though was my turn for wardrobe malfunction, albeit in a slightly less spectacular way than ‘Roundersgate’, when I held a conversation with my Boss for 5 minutes before being discreetly told by my friend that my dress was undone to way past the bra line.  Brilliant! 

Thank goodness I hadn’t been asking for a payrise cos you don’t get anything for a pair in this game my love especially not with my shit tits!

“Nice too see you. to see your tits”

The QUIZ NIGHTS - and our Jackpot Play Your Cards Right – take place fortnightly on Thursdays starting on 12th January, then the 26th January, 9th February, … etc.

The Quiz will start about 9pm – but it’s a good idea to get in early to get a good seat for the evening.

Just have a look on our Calendar to remind you: Calendar of Events

Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t seen lately that many stores are offering buy so much in gift cards and get so much extra in gift cards FREE.  If you play your cards right you can score some awesome deals.  You can usually buy the gift cards first then in a separate transaction order what you want.  Pay for your second transaction with your gift cards from the first transaction.  It is an awesome deal if these are places you eat or drink at regularly.  I know some local coffee shops are doing this and a few other restaurants.  Keep an eye out because this has become a trend in the last five years around the Holidays. 

• Dixie Grill- Have you been to Dixie Grill Aiea?  I love this place, and they started their holiday promo where you buy $50 gift card get $10 gift card to use later, or buy $100 gift card and get $20 certificate to use later.   
• “Poke Stop – BLACK FRIDAY PROMOTION – 11/25/11 – Purchase $150.00 worth of Poke Stop gift certificates for only $100.00. Pre-order by sending an email to pscatering@hawaii.rr.com. While supplies last!!”  Thanks HiDeal  
• Jamba Juice Hawaii – Get a FREE Smoothie when you purchase $25 worth of jambacards!! It can be in any increment so if you need 5 – $5 cards.
• “California Pizza Kitchen is doing gift card rewards $100 in the donminations of your choice, & you get a $20 card to be used Jan5-Mar5,2012.”  Thanks Fan Penny  
• Outback Steakhouse buy $100 worth of gift cards between 11/1/11-12/31/11 and get $20 bonus Card redeemable between 1/1/12- 2/10/12 https://www.facebook.com/outback?sk=app_263338013713174 
• Children’s Place buy a $40 egift card get a $10 egift card http://childrensplace.cashstar.com/gift-card/buy/?ref=tcp1. Offer expires 12/31/11 
• Chili’s Bar & Grill will give you 10% off $100 or more gift card purchases.
• Barnes & Noble – free $10 egift card when you buy $1oo in gift cards.
• Benihana – Get $10 promotional card when you buy $50 in gift cards.
• Cheeseburger in Paradise – Get $10 bonus card for every $5o in gift cards purchased.
• IHOP- get $5 off your next visit when you buy $25 in gift cards.
• Panda Express - Get a free two-entree plate with purchase of a $25 gift card. Exclusions apply; some locations it’s $30, read fine print. 
• Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse - Buy $250 in gift cards, get 10% off. 

I will keep updating this as I see more stores offering this or feel free to comment and I will add it to the list.” 

Just makes me think of Play Your Cards Right... "Higher than a 7? Oh no, I'm sorry it's Yog-Sothoth." Gribble.

In case it wasn’t glaringly obvious by now, I really like gaming and I really like the Cthulhu mythos. When the two combine, it’s one of my favourite things. I’m lucky enough to have a girlfriend who understands my geeky ways, and indeed embraces them herself. She picked up this gem from our favourite store Inner Sanctum Collectibles (Plug! Where’s my affiliate money, Graham?) on a whim the other day, as it was post-pay day, we were looking for something fun to add to our collection, and the Munchkin Cthulhu bits we considered either weren’t available yet or didn’t appeal that day. Laura spotted this one, The Stars Are Right from Steve Jackson Games, makers of many amazing games (including the aforementioned Munchkin, GURPS, and my two favourite widely available dice games, Zombie Dice and of course Cthulhu Dice).

The Sky At Night, with your host -OHMYGODMYSANITY!

The gist of TSAR (sweet acronym) as with all good games is to summon one of the Great Old Ones and in this case you’ve got the choice of Tsatso, Cthulhoo, Chaugnar and Hastur. Actually summoning one of them doesn’t necessarily mean you win in game terms, but it does seriously help out and is also pretty awesome. As you can see in the (fantastic) photo above, the game is played with tiles representing the night sky and it is your job (via invoking and summoning various Mythos beings – Ghasts, Byakhee, Deep Ones and more!) to rearrange it to pave the way for more eldritch beings of cosmic horror!

This is achieved by pushing rows, swapping two tiles or flipping tiles over in order to assemble the constellations shown on different cards. The cards in front of you then often allow you to make more of these changes, or to ignore some of the constellation requirements of the big gribblies. Each is also worth some number of points, with the winner of the game being the first to ten. As a Steve Jackson game, with excellent light-hearted illustration from Goomi, it’s a very high quality product, designed really well and you can easily get an hour’s enjoyment out of this. One gripe some people have is that there are a maximum of four players, but honestly any more than that and the game might start to get overly long (with other players rearranging your carefully wrought plans for the night sky) and a little infuriating (same as before).

I only have one negative thing to say about the game as a whole and that is this: Why the misspelling (or, at least deviation from the now generally accepted common spelling) of names like Cthulhu? Seriously, who is Cthulhoo? Or, indeed, Ktulu (if you’re Metallica circa 1984)? I was under the impression that the Cthulu Myhtos and Lovecraft’s work were largely, if not entirely, in the public domain and had been for some time. So I never quite get why some people choose to change it, though I can understand some artistic license, etc. When your company already uses one spelling for several products though, why change it for another? Very odd.

Still, overall a very enjoyable game and well worth picking up!

Already running years before my birth, but still going strong into the early nineties, was the fantastic The Krypton Factor. Four contestants would be pitted against each other in a series of serious mental and physical tasks. Each shows winner would then go through to further group finals and from their try to reach the grand final, and attempt to become the ‘Superperson’ of the year.

The heart of the The Krypton Factor lied in the immense challenge it put upon its contestants. The opening ‘Mental Agility’ round made any normal persons head spin. For example, host Gordon Burns may ask something like a complicated mathematical question. The contestant however, had to give the answer to the previous question, and remember the answer to the current question, which they would then give after the next question. Are you following? Thought not, it’s complicated enough just to explain, let alone play.

Then there was the ‘Response’ round. Earlier series’ had contestants pedal bikes forwards over a short course whilst also winding backwards on hand bikes above them, they would then get off and participate in a simple count the number of coloured spots on screen test. What this round is remembered for though, is the later change it went through to incorporate testing contestants on various flight simulators. These included landing a Harrier Jump Jet, a Royal Navy helicopter, Boeing aircraft and even the Space Shuttle. Every week you were guaranteed to see at least one contestant crash the plane off the side of the runway or ditch the helicopter in the sea.

The ‘Observation’ round was pretty simple. But it did go through a number of changes throughout time. Contestants viewed a clip and then answered questions on it, this then evolved in to showing two clips and contestants had to spot the differences or continuity errors between them. They even started making mini-serials for the round, which included familiar faces such as Tony Slattery and Tony Robinson.

Probably the most fondly remembered of all the tests, was the ‘Physical Ability’ round. Taking place on a 400m army assault course at Holcombe Moore in Bury, Lancashire, contestants would have to run, climb, swing, crawl and sometimes fall, their way to the finish line. Famed for its zip line shortly before the end, the only female winner of the show, Marian Chander, once slipped out of the safety loops on the zip line and plummeted in to the water earlier than usual. Many contestants damaged ankles along the way, some breaking them, and took various tumbles during the course, including this guy;

The ‘Intelligence’ round saw contestants given a hands-on 2D or 3D puzzle in order to test spatial awareness, but it only had one solution. Burns would give a quiet running commentary along the way, generally saying “That’s not quite right” and “He looks likes he’s struggling”. Some contestants would do it in an instant, whilst more humorously, some would stand there scratching their heads with no clue what to do. Recording for these could actually go on quite a while, over an hour sometimes, but were condensed down to a few minutes for TV broadcast. It’s reported that a contestant even broke down in tears once during this round.

The final round was simple ‘General Knowledge’. But it was made more interesting simply by switching all the studio lights off, spotlighting each contestant and smartly overlaying camera shots to see all four contestants illuminated faces at once, it was all very reminiscent of Queen’s video to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

It’s a shame ITV had to tarnish the reputation of this fine programme by producing such a horrendous remake in 2009. Ditching the cracking original theme tune by Art of Noise, and hosted by Ben Shephard, it screamed of awfulness. They decided to turn the set in to something from the movie ‘Tron’, and made contestants sit in a weird cube thing to answer questions. His catchphrase, “Activate the cube!” is the single worst quote I have ever heard on such a programme. Thankfully, it flopped and hopefully will never see the light of day again.

BBC’s daytime quiz Going for Gold was one of the most fondly remembered proper quiz shows. Contestants from various countries around Europe competed in different rounds of general knowledge, with foreigners having to struggle to understand host Henry Kelly’s Irish accent as he hurled questions at them. The winner of the first series of the show was Daphne Fowler, who now appears as one of the regulars on Eggheads. Her prize for winning was a trip to the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

Treasure Hunt was an exceptionally ambitious piece of television. Two contestants would be in a studio with host Kenneth Kendall and would be posed a cryptic clue. Former weatherwoman Wincey Willis was also on hand, though from my recollection she didn’t do much apart from tell the contestants what time they had remaining. The clue led to a destination, which would be passed on to ‘Skyrunner’ Anneka Rice, always sporting one of her infamous jumpsuits, who was at that moment out in a remote area of Britain or mainland Europe. With the help of Keith and his handy helicopter, she would trek around finding further clues in the hunt. There was a lot of arse on show in this programme, mainly due to Graham the Cameraman, who accompanied Anneka out in the field. At every available opportunity, we were treated to a gratuitous shot of Anneka’s arse as she ran about, thanks to Graham’s great camerawork.

In his earlier days, the closest Noel Edmonds came to a box was on Telly Addicts (See what I did there? Hey!). Two families would sit on over-sized sofas that would physically eat them as they answered questions related to television. Grizzly faced Noel, with his giant remote (or ‘hoofer-doofer’ as he liked to call it), would sit in his throne seat in the centre throughout wearing the most hideous shirts and cardigans you can imagine. The show was alright mind.

One show that was indeed “super, smashing, great” was Bullseye. Hosted by comedian Jim Bowen, along with the shows resident referee and announcer, Tony Green, it took the humble pub game of darts and turned it into one of the most loved British game shows of all time. Three pairs of contestants, one an amateur dart player and another a non-dart player, competed across three rounds of darts related tomfoolery.

In the first round, a specialist dartboard was divided in to ten different categories such as music, places, words, showbiz etc. It was also divided in such a way that the closer you land to the centre, the more money you could win. With each team taking it in turns, the non-darts player would nominate a category from the board and the darts player would try to hit it. If the category was hit, a question related to the category was posed to the non-player. Landing outside your nominated one, but in another category not already taken, was still valid. But the bonus for hitting closest to the centre was lost. Jim would then spin a funky question card holder in the shape of the board around to find the question. Correctly answering it earned you money. This was repeated three times for each team. In the first seven series’, the team with the lowest amount of money was eliminated at the end of this round, but this was then changed to two teams leaving after the next round instead.

Round two saw the use of a normal dart board, each teams’ darts player would try to achieve the highest possible score with the standard three darts. The partner of the player that managed to score the highest was allowed to answer a question for more money. This was then repeated a second time. As mentioned before, the two teams with the lowest money were eliminated.

The losers here were then given special consolation prizes that consisted of a tankard, a set of darts, and most notably a ‘bendy Bully’, a toy of the show’s fantastic mascot. Bully was a dart playing anthropomorphic bull sporting a wonderful red and white striped shirt, with his name stitched on his top pocket.

The next part introduced a professional darts player to compete in ‘Bronze Bully Time’, a section with no relation to the main game. The player would get nine darts to try to earn as many points as possible. Each point was converted to cash (i.e. “pounds for points”) and went to charity, earning 301 or more would double the total. At the end of a series, the professional who had earned the most during that series got to hold a Bronze Bully trophy.

Back to the main game, and the remaining team would get the chance to win eight prizes, introduced by Tony in his own inimitable style, hidden behind eight red sections of a specialist dartboard. As well as potentially winning “Bully’s Special Priiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiize” by hitting the bullseye. There was a catch though; the board was also made up of black sections where no prizes were. Also, hitting a prize that you had already previously got would cause you to lose the prize. As Jim put it, “Keep out of the black and in to the red, there’s nothing in this game for two in a bed”. With 9 darts, 6 for the darts player, 3 for the non-player, they would try to earn as many as possible.

Looking back on the show, the prizes on Bully’s Prize Board seem rather ancient. Teams could win brick sized telephones, sets of crockery, pine dressers, portable TV’s, hampers, decanters, teapots, washing machines, microwaves and many others.

After this, they got the chance to gamble all their winnings on the show so far to try and win Bully’s Star Prize, hidden behind a partition on set. Should they accept the challenge, the players had to reach a total of 101 on a normal dartboard using six darts, three each person. Tony would tell the players to “settle down, settle in…take your time”. Succeeding in this meant the partition was raised and the contestants saw the glory of their prize. Failure however, well…still led to the partition being raised, as Jim would suddenly exclaim “Look what you could have won!” and rubs it in to the faces of the contestants good and proper.

The Star Prizes were rather generous for its time, but seeing them now just makes you laugh. Prizes included cars such as a Mini Cooper, normally with a horrible paintjob. A fitted kitchen, which lets be honest, is fairly useless unless you are moving house soon. Caravans, which are not great for those in terraced homes with no space to park it outside. But the daftest of all prizes had to be a Speedboat. Anybody living inland and winning this were screwed. Where the hell are you supposed to use it? Not unless you own a lake or something. The reason speedboats were given away regularly apparently was because the shows producers had made a deal with a speedboat manufacturer. The reasoning behind the deal in the first place, I cannot understand.

The show uniquely was rounded off with separate theme tunes during the end credits depending on how well the team did. Winners would have an upbeat, jolly theme whilst those who lost got a rather downbeat and somewhat depressing tune. Spawning tons of catchphrases, this was evening entertainment at its best.

Blockbusters saw suave host Bob Holness pose questions to mainly student types with teddy bear mascots as they attempted to move across a game board populated by twenty lettered hexagons. Players picked a lettered hexagon on the board and would then have to answer a question, the answer of which began with the chosen letter. The rather childish phrase “Can I have a P please Bob?” has been uttered ever since. If they answered correctly, the hexagon turned to their colour. The aim was to join one side of the board to the other with your colour in a fashion similar to Connect 4. Winners of the show were then invited to stand on the ‘hot spot’ to compete in the final ‘Gold Run’, which worked the same way but answers now had more than one word. One peculiar aspect of the show was that a team of two people would compete against one solitary contestant, and for some obscure reason everyone occasionally participated in a weird hand jive at the end of some shows.

Speaking of ‘hot spots’, back before he threw weird orgy parties, Michael Barrymore was a staple of ITV’s evening light-entertainment. His show, Strike it Lucky (later re-named Strike it Rich), was incredibly popular with audiences. Three couples competed against each other, one from each would answer questions, whilst the other would go and stand on an aisle within a row of screens. Those facing the questions got to choose how many questions they would want. Players could see the answers on a screen, but they were hidden within a number of wrong answers as well. Depending on how many they got correct, this would correspond to how many moves along the row of screens their teammate could move. Along the way, they would ‘strike’ each screen (i.e. press a button underneath) to reveal a prize, an arrow, or the dreaded ‘hot spot’. “What is a hot spot not?” Michael would yell to the audience, “A good spot!” they would reply. Finding a ‘hot spot’ would lose your prizes earned in that run and ended your turn instantly, play then moved on to the next couple. Players could choose to ‘bank’ their prizes at any point within their moves if they felt they could potentially lose what they had. The show had an amusing knack of dishing out completely unsuitable prizes for those playing, for example, one show saw a pair of pensioners winning hangliding lessons. The penultimate screen was always a holiday to some sunny place, with the last screen always being a question. They could bank the holiday, or answer the question to win the game there and then, but possibly lose the trip if they answered incorrectly. Banking the holiday allowed other contestants to possibly catch up though. The winning couple got to compete in the final game. 10 questions, 10 arrows and 10 hot spots were jumbled up by the computer and hidden along all 30 screens. Couples then had to make their way across each column of screens to the end avoiding hot spots. Before the game, contestants had a choice of how many hot spots they were allowed before failing. Those who chose to have the most ‘lives’ earned less money. Barrymore would pose the question “Top, middle or bottom?!” as he frantically waved his arm about at the screens as they moved along. It was all jolly stuff.

Dale Winton hosted a number of weird game shows before Hole in the Wall. These included ITV’s Supermarket Sweep, where contestants ran “wild in the aisles” of a supermarket, filling up their trolleys with everything in sight, whilst also collecting giant inflatable bananas and guitars for bonus cash. It was daytime telly actually worth watching, purely for its wackiness.

Dale also fronted BBC’s Pets Win Prizes (originally hosted by Danny Baker), where contestants brought their pets along to compete in a number of pointless activities in a bid to, yes you guessed, win prizes. It was aimed at kids in general, and animal expert Terry Nutkins regularly appeared to make comment on every pet. Perhaps the most inexplicable section was when it came to deciding what the big prize on offer was. The responsibility for this fell on ‘The Professor’. Who was this mythical person? Actually, it was a cat, which was plonked on a circular board with the prizes written on it. Wherever its front paws were when thirty seconds expired, determined what the prize was.

One of my favourites (mainly because I was actually quite good at it), was Catchphrase. Two players competed against each other to “say what you see” as they watched an animated video describing a well-know catchphrase, mainly starring the shows mascot, Mr. Chips. Legendary host Roy Walker would regularly utter the words “It’s good, but it’s not the one”, even if the guess was truly terrible. Getting one correct would allow you to take a guess at the bonus catchphrase, which was one hidden behind squares which were progressively removed with each try. Guessing this would lead to Roy yelling “Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhtttt!!!!!”. One of the funniest moments in game show history occurred in this round, as Mr. Chips decided to go rather X-rated:

Catchphrase went through a revival in 2000, but lost its greatest asset, Roy Walker. New host Nick Weir made a memorable entrance though, quite literally. During the recording of one of his earlier shows, he ran down the stairs in the middle of the audience, tripped over and broke his leg. Subsequent shows had him in a cast and on crutches. It’s what you get for taking the job of such a legend as Mr. Walker.

Channel 4 gave us the superbly entertaining The Crystal Maze. A team of six ‘adventurers’ would compete in a number of challenges in four areas, known as ‘time zones’, in order to earn crystals and potentially win big prizes, mainly of an adventurous nature.

The brilliance of the show was mainly due to the fantastically energetic and eccentric personality of host Richard O’Brien. The leopard skin wearing, harmonica playing guide to the maze would zoom about the place leaving the contestants themselves in a daze, whilst divulging weird stories and anecdotes to camera as the show progressed. He was later replaced by the less engrossing Ed Tudor-Pole, who looked like a pirate and presented in a somewhat Edwardian theatrical style. He wasn’t a bad presenter by any means, but he simply could not match the charm of O’Brien and thus had a chip on his shoulder from the outset.

The four time zones of the Maze were; ‘Aztec’, a sand covered Inca style area with various totems and structures. ‘Futuristic’, an electronic filled mass of corridors set aboard a space station. ‘Medieval’, a castle with stone walls, cobwebs and lit with candles. And finally ‘Industrial’, a dirty area full of corrugated iron, disused barrels and fencing. This area was later replaced by ‘Ocean’, set upon a sunken ship called the S.S. Atlantis.

Before the game could start though, the team had to get in to the maze first by overcoming an obstacle. Entering Aztec, you had to paddle boats down a short river. To get in to Futuristic, you had to answer a science related question posed by the zones ever-present computer. Medieval required you to winch open a portculis, or alternatively climb over it. Industrial and Ocean didn’t have particular interesting entrances though, climbing over barrels, using ladders and opening metal grilles generally.

Once inside, contestants would compete in a number of games in each zone, and had the choice of what style of game to play; Mental, Physical, Skill or Mystery. Though working as a team, the games were played individually. Players and game styles were nominated by the team captain. Contestants had a time limit to complete each task and earn a crystal, and if they failed to leave the room before the time expires, they were locked-in to the room. The only way to get them back was to ‘buy them out’ by sacrificing a crystal previously earned. Some games even had specialist ‘automatic lock-in’ rules, where if a contestant made a set number of mistakes or infringed one major rule of the game, they were locked-in regardless of whether or not they had the crystal or reached the door in time.

As well as the host himself, at times we had the pleasure of meeting Mumsie (played by Sandra Caron), whom resided in the Medieval zone. Depicted as Richard’s gypsie fortune-telling mother, she occasionally posed cryptic questions to contestants. If they answered correctly, she would ironically lift up her crystal ball to pick up the actual crystal to give to them. During series 3 she was replaced by Auntie Sabrina (still played by Caron), who was a throwback to the 1960′s free-love hippy culture.

The show would induce viewers in to hurling tirades at the screen based on the stupidity of some players. Sometimes they would display incredible acts of uselessness at even the most simplest of tasks, that it goaded you in to hoping for them to fail. The two clips below perfectly illustrate my point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOLZvAziLzc

The climax of the show took place inside ‘The Crystal Dome’, a large hollow glass crystal shaped structure. Any crystals collected during the main game would be converted in to time for this game, each crystal earning five seconds inside the Dome. All remaining contestants would enter the Dome, and once Richard yells “Will you start the faaaaaaaaaans please!” and blows his whistle; contestants would jump around trying to collect gold tokens being blown about inside the structure. The aim was to collect 100 gold tokens and post them in a special letter-box. The Dome however, was also populated by silver tokens. Any silver token collected would deduct one gold token from their total. This led to teams winning on very rare occasions. All contestants did get to take a lovely crystal home though, engraved with “I Cracked the Crystal Maze”. Even for those who were hopeless at it.

The show endured massive success, and easily was one of the most ambitious game shows at the time. The Maze covered the area of two football pitches and cost around £250,000 to build. The idea for The Crystal Maze actually came about by accident. Originally the shows production company, Chatsworth Television, were planning to create a British version of the French show Fort Boyard. But when it seemed unlikely the Fort would be prepared in time, the makers came up with a new idea based on similar principles, and The Crystal Maze was born. As you may well know, Fort Boyard went on to be broadcast on Channel 5 years later, hosted by heavily bosomed Melinda Messenger, with snarling plank and serial webcam user Leslie Grantham as ‘Master of the Fort’. It was pretty cack in all honesty.

ITV’s Saturday night schedule was home to testosterone filled Gladiators. Four contestants; two men, two women, would battle against the might of the Gladiators, a group of athletic and muscular individuals, in a series of physical challenges. The Gladiators had rather dorky names given to them, like Shadow, Cobra, Nightshade, Saracen etc. The only Gladiator of any interest was Wolf, who was basically the pantomime villain of the whole piece. Although seeing the likes of Jet, Scorpio and Lightning in lycra did perk it up a bit, the show that is. Various riggings would cover the entire Birmingham NEC, where contestants would batter each other with what can only be described as large cotton buds, run around in giant metal balls, wrestle on swinging rings and so forth. Hosted by Ulrika ‘put-it-about-a-bit’ Jonsson and John “awooga” Fashanu, it became incredibly popular and dominated Saturday night ratings.

Jim Davidson presented the BBC’s snooker themed game show, Big Break. Three contestants would answer general knowledge questions, whilst each was aided by a professional snooker player, whom would compete in various tasks on the snooker table. It was a novel idea of a show for a sport that seemed to be losing popularity, and it certainly was fun. Co-host and referee, the beardy John Virgo, would each week teach a trick shot to a contestant by demonstrating it first. This however, did not always go to plan. Any viewer of outtake shows will probably have seen him attempt some shots around 20 times before actually succeeding. Just to rub it in, contestants would sometimes then do it on their first try.

From 1995 to 2002, Davidson also presented the classic show The Generation Game, but it will be remembered mostly for being hosted by British televisions seemingly immortal national treasure, Bruce Forsyth. Four pairs of contestants would be challenged to complete a number of relatively simple activities. In essence they were simple anyway, but were hard to master. An expert would turn up, demonstrate something, such as making a clay pot on a potter’s wheel, and the contestants would then have a go. The expert would return, and judge the teams’ work and give points out accordingly. It was very light-hearted and humorous in its attitude. The entertainment of the programme came from contestant’s utter ineptitude at such tasks, usually resulting in clay everywhere and pots smashing. What everyone remembers about this show, is the final conveyer belt game. Contestants are sat in a booth with various objects going past them on the belt, which they had to remember and afterwards have to recall as many as possible. Of course, the obligatory cuddly toy was in there somewhere, which prompted cheers from the audience.

Brucie had a string of successful game shows, including the simple family entertainment of Play Your Cards Right and The Price is Right. He also presented the early series’ of You Bet!, but was replaced by Matthew Kelly. You Bet! saw members of the public claim that they could complete some sort of challenge, some of which were rather dangerous, and others that are just plain out-there. These varied from such things as doing motorcycle stunts to the more bizarre, like identifying various models of lawnmowers. A panel of celebrity guests and the audience would then bet on whether or not they would succeed in the challenge. The success-to-failure ratio was pretty even, which did make it unpredictable and entertaining for viewers to play along too.

Before loudmouth Vernon ‘sex-text’ Kay took over, Family Fortunes was hosted by Les Dennis on ITV. Two teams of five family members would be asked an open-ended question, such as “name a Japanese car company”. They would then have to try and find the top answers given by a poll of 100 people. Some shows did lead to hilarious answers from some participants. For example “Name a bird with a long neck” to which was answered “Naomi Campbell”. Also “Name a dangerous race”, the reply, “The Arabs”. Utter stupidity at its finest. As Les would say “If it’s there, I’ll give you the money myself!”. Incidentally, on two occasions when he said this, the given answer did indeed appear on the board. He kept his word though and paid after the show. Les is now a regular on the pantomime circuit, enduring chants of “Where’s your career?“, “It’s behind you!“.

When Chris Evans was a decent television presenter, he fronted the superb late-night entertainment show Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush. Calling it a game show might be stretching it a bit, but it was pretty close. It was live, loud and very energetic. All the studio audience members brought with them their passports and toothbrushes, as at the end, they had the chance of winning a luxury holiday, which they would leave to enjoy immediately after the show. As well as various random games in the studio, someone, somewhere around the country, also got the chance to win something by completing wacky games, such as the ‘throw things out of your window’ game. A household was picked at random, and the occupants had to chuck 10 everyday household objects out of different windows within two minutes to win. It was so simple, but hugely entertaining and refreshing. In one episode, the whole studio audience won a holiday to Euro Disney, and one man was treated for shock backstage after he won a Ferrari.

Far superior to the later The Weakest Link, was Channel 4’s Fifteen-to-One. Serious-faced host William G. Stewart would ask general knowledge questions to fifteen people standing at podiums in a semi-circle around him. Each player had three lives (apart from round one, where you only had two), and each would be eliminated for poor performances as they eventually dwindle down to one through each round. None of this stupid voting crap; get the question right, you carry on, get too many wrong, you’re gone, simples. The show would end up with a smart-arse left standing being asked questions one-on-one until they got enough wrong, or answered all 40 available questions, which could last for some time. The show was simple, yet brilliant.

In the late 1990’s and beyond, game shows began to become more intuitive. Take for instance the wonderfully original Scrapheap Challenge. Two teams of ‘bodgers’ would be given the task of creating a contraption or machine within 10 hours out of anything they could find in a scrapyard. An ingenious concept. The things teams were able to create were astounding, managing to build catapults, buggies, battering rams, boats, diving bells and a whole host of other feats of engineering. The programme still runs today, hosted by former contestant Dick Strawbridge, but it is not quite as engrossing as its early days hosted by the brilliant Robert Llewellyn alongside Cathy Rogers, and later, Lisa Rogers (no relation).

1999’s Bare Necessities was an enjoyable BBC show presented by Ed Hall that challenged two pairs of teams to survive in an exotic and potentially hazardous location for a week. Each team was given six basic essentials for survival, such as a knife, spade and a lantern. As well as four specifically useful items depending on what terrain or climate they were in. This wasn’t reality TV, with stupid things like casting people off, having arguments and so forth like I’m a Celebrity… that followed. This was about pure survival using your environment, and that’s it. It was a precursor to Ray Mears’ programmes, who effectively teaches you the same skills this show did. It had a serious message, and the shows resident survival expert, Hugh McManus, judged the teams’ efforts in challenges he set throughout. The winners would get to spend a night in a five-star hotel for enduring the week.

Channel 5 may have been mocked since it began, but in its early days it produced a cracker of a game show in The Mole. Ten people would be taken on an adventure of a lifetime to a location, where they would stay together for a number of days, and compete in a number of tasks. Completing tasks successfully earned money that would go in to a pot, which the eventual winner of the show would get. Therefore, players had to work as a team in order to gain money, but also had to focus on themselves. The catch, however, is that one of the players is actually a ‘mole’, planted there by the shows producer. The job of the mole is to try and sabotage the team’s efforts of accumulating money without being discovered. After each task, the contestants have to complete a questionnaire on whom they believe the mole to be, the person least accurate is eliminated. Task by task, they dwindle until eventually the winner that guessed correctly, the runner-up, and of course, the mole is revealed. Each task was divided in to numerous parts, so teams had to split up to complete them. This allowed greater chances for mistakes and thus allowed the mole to cover their tracks more easily, as genuine contestants would make errors, diverting attention away from the real mole. One great aspect was that viewers were invited to try and guess the identity of the mole. Throughout the series, various clues would be hidden in the show giving you hints to the moles identity. For instance, during one scene where the team was being instructed by host Glenn Hugill, he had a row of clocks behind him on the wall set at different times. This was revealed in the final episode as actually spelling the mole’s name out in the form of semaphore. It was all clever stuff and was a very intriguing concept. It’s a real shame it probably didn’t get the amount of viewers it deserved.

There are other shows that I haven’t mentioned, like Turnabout, Wheel of Fortune, Crosswits, and Take Your Pick, amongst many others, but I’ve gone on long enough as it is. Recent game shows like The Weakest Link, Deal or No Deal and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? are ok, but they just don’t seem to have the charm or sheer ambition of game shows gone by. The worst part though, is that the simple sense of fun seems to have been lost. I yearn for the game shows of old. But, at least there’s always Challenge TV to fulfil my craving.

• Each person picks five cards and places them in order
• A team try to put the whole pack in order, laid out on a table
• Pick a card and place it in the bible where the event occurs
• Do Bruce Forsyth’s “Higher Lower – play your cards right” game but guess whether the next card turned over will depict an event that is before or after the last. This game can be augmented with OT bible questions. Ie first team to answer the question right gets the chance to play “Before or After”.

Anyway, if you want to print them out and use them, here they are as a sort of “Brucie Bonus”.

I managed to print a backing on them but it’s a bit fiddly so I’ll just post the front images for now. Some of the  characters first appeared in 2004 when I preached on Cain and Abel. I’ll add them to my Bible blog on Cain and Abel.

For those that get to do the roasting, it’s basically a chance to show off their comedy writing skills. A sort of MC battle for comedians. Some were more successful than others. Jon Culshaw managed to think outside the box by listing Brucie’s catchphrases in the style of a Grand National commentary. Jason Manford invited us to Play Your Cards Right, with the numbers all relating to facts about Brucie’s life. And throughout, every time a particularly cutting remark was made, the camera would cut to Bruce himself to see his reaction, which was pretty much the same every time – forced laughter. I secretly hoped one person would overstep the mark, just so we get to see a different reaction. But no, Brucie knew exactly what he was in for: “I came here to get a roasting, and a roasting is what I’m going to get.” And he proved his tongue was as sharp as his guests by quipping back at Jack Dee: “That was funny. I knew you’d make me laugh eventually.”

The roasting is set to get even weirder tonight when Sharon Osbourne takes centre stage. At least with Brucie it was a comedy entertainer, who was amongst comedy friends. I’m not sure what to expect from Sharon and her friends. One thing’s for sure, she’s not one to mince her words, so I wouldn’t expect anything less from her guests!

Business card etiquette is no mere ritual. In places such as Japan a business card is both mini-resume and a ticket to the game of business; a certain amount of gamesmanship is necessary to make the best use of the ticket. The first rule is never to be without cards, any more than a samurai would be without his sword. Never being without cards in Japan means taking fifty or more cards to every meeting. The second rule is to respect the cards, keeping them in a distinctive holder. Keeping your cards in your pocket or in a cheap plastic envelop is like making a business call with a shopping bag instead of a briefcase.

The third rule is to handle the card with formality. The card is presented, not merely handed. Japanese books of etiquette even point out a variety of ways to hold the card. Fourth, try to hand cards out in descending order of rank. The fifth rule is to receive another’s card gracefully, using both hands and never stuffing the card recklessly into your pocket.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight

New Single from Keyshia Cole feat. 2 Pac ! This is another instant classic! I love it when an artist sticks to what they do best and knows what formula works well for them.

Keyshia has continued to put out instant classics, that is why I continue to listen ! Hope you guys like it ! Let me know what you think!

Listen here :: Play Your Cards Right