All Going To Pop

I'm about halfway through reading Ian Gittin's history of Top Of The Pops and it contains a lot of interesting behind the scenes gossip of what really happened on the show,
as well as the experiences of soon to be popstars watching the show themselves at an earlier age when it really was on of the viewing highlights of each week.

It also mentioned that Janice Long was the first ever female presenter of TOTP which I never realised, although in all fairness Anne Nightingale had established herself as one of the hosts on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

William Orbit recalls how him and many others used to cheer and boo the acts that appeared on the chart rundowns themselves and now that quite a lot have been uploaded to Youtube I find myself saying if certain acts were superb or rubbish.
One such example comes from December 1984 where some of the really good tunes that week came from the Thompson Twins, the Dazz Band and even the Toy Dolls,
whilst the rather bad ones include Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called To Say I Love You" and
"I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner.
Or in other words the playlist of Magic 105.4.

It's also worth mentioning this infamous moment from 1986 where Janice Long and
John Peel are presenting where at around 2:21, John Peel makes a rather cutting comment following a Pete Wylie performance. Janice later mentioned that producer Michael Hurll was on holiday at the time and ended up being woken in the night about people complaining about John Peel's comments, although for me John was the best presenter that they've had on the programme who never took anything seriously.

As for tonight it will be the usual dosage of Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor where they're performing Britney Spears songs this week although from what I've heard Britney won't be giving them a masterclass in the same was as Mariah and Take That in previous weeks.
For me she has to be one of the most annoying twisted performers who's extracurricular activities have got in the way of quite a few decent pop songs, although I would not go out of my way to buy any of her records.

Before all that kicks off however, BBC 1 are resorting to repeating earlier episodes of "Hole In The Wall" that has become one of the most infamous TV shows this year as a result of the constant mickey taking on Harry Hill's TV Burp.
Tonight's episode happens to have Prick Reeves as one of the guests so it may be a bigger excuse to get my cooking done before 6pm.

I'm pretty certain that I've never referred to the "comedian" by his proper name on my blog, although his real name Jim Moir is the same as an ex BBC Head Of Entertainment and the man who revitalised Radio 2, as well as actually being the voice who in the early days announced
"Yes It's Number One, It's Top Of The Pops!".

You might say it would make Peter Dixon sound less overly-dramatic.