It's Jo's 49th birthday today but she wasn't the only one getting presents as her mum had also sent me a belated cheque towards funding for books at Uni. At least it's something to lighten the overdraft. I also managed to find the CD I brought a couple of days ago on Ebay which was released back in 1990 by London Weekend Television and contains some really good themes from around that time.
These include Brian Bennett's superb theme to "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries" as produced by TVS and of course the theme to another show from the Southampton (well it was made in Maidstone) stable "Motormouth".
I can remember about a year ago when Benedict Smith on Invicta FM was reminiscing about being in the audience for that show when he was younger and one of the guests was the legend that is Terry Nutkins.
Having looked at his profile on the website it turns out that fellow presenter Andy Walker was also a fan of both that and it's predecessor "Number 73" which was slightly before my time but had quite an impressive cast including Sandi Toksvig, Neil Buchanan and Andrew O'Connor.
Not forgetting Nick Wilton who went on to become the voiceover man on Double Dare with Peter Simon! "you get to take home your Double Dare T-shirt and trainers!"
Overall it goes to show that in the case of Motormouth, 73 and even Catchphrase in it's early years, those programmes made you feel proud to live in the TVS region and I reckon quite a few of the others who have worked for Invicta FM and KMFM to an extent all shared the same thing in common of wanting to get into showbusiness at an early age.
Hannah Dorey's photo of her with Rod Hull and Emu being a prime example! Although I'd prefer gloss over those photos of when I met the Blue Peter team back in 1994!
The opening to an edition of Motormouth from December 1989 can be seen in this rather interesting selection but unfortunately it gets cut off way too early in the titles themselves!
But another interesting addition on the CD that is making me kick myself for not buying it when I was younger, was the extended version of the ITV generic theme introduced in September 1989. Composed by top jingle writer David Dundas this really made me understand the link between ITV and the regions as both Thames and LWT adapted it although TVS stayed clear having just brought MTM and getting a bit too ambitious with their money, which resulted in an underserved franchise loss.
Asides that I've been copying my CDs of jingle packages onto my hard drive to make things easier to access but one thing that has pissed me off since getting into this jingle hobby is the cageyness and arrogance of some of the collectors. But then again I suppose they'd be just as annoyed with the large amount of people that come hassling them for packages that it took them an arm and a leg to get hold of.
And I'm fucking glad we didn't have internet access at home back then because I would have pissed off a lot of people if I weren't careful and I'm very grateful for those who took the trouble to send me CDs and even re-create the covers!
The next time there's a Jingle Mad.com meet up (which I believe is in Newcastle of all places) I am bringing my laptop and hard drive over once again and between now and then I'm going to attempt (hoping that I will succeed) to transfer all my CDs and MDs of jingle packages onto my hard drive and also label them with the audio quality levels because I know some collectors are very fussy about audio quality!
People of that sort should remember back to why they got into jingle collecting and not let annoying so and sos keep pestering them. If they continue to do so, they should just explain to them lightly how to go about this hobby and give them a jingle package to get them started as you never know who may not have what they've got!
And I've had my fair share of traders who have been complete lying bastards including one who used to have a website showing off his wide collection but refused to get back to me and not sending what I'd asked for, but instead sending me things that could already be downloaded easily from the net.
I can't believe the amount of excuses he used such as "a honeymoon" and "reccuperation from a kidney operation" and if you want to know who I'm talking about then you're more than welcome to send me an e-mail.
Just to ensure that if you're a wannabe jingle collector, you know the right sort of people to deal with.
And if I'm being honest if I hadn't gotten into this hobby then there's no way I'd be doing the radio course and trying to convert those who can't stand jingles into loving them!
If they can do the same with me for their music, then we're all one happy family (to used a tired phrase).
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