I've spent most of tonight having a rummage through various things, namely a few VHS's of things such as Jonathan Ross co-hosting an edition of Top Of The Pops with Fearne Cotton in late June 2003. Amongst the acts performing included Jennifer Ellison and her cover of Transvision Vamp's "Baby I Don't Care", Wayne Wonder and "No Letting Go" which became more or less an anthem of that very hot summer, The Darkness with "Growing On Me", and The Fast Food Rockers.
Thankfully they didn't show the whole performance, opting for a video montage of the band telling us how they met at a fast food festival in Folkestone of all places.
It's also rather suprising to see how young Fearne Cotton looked back then, even at just 22 years old.
This was towards the end of Chris Cowey's reign as producer and it included gimmicks such as "The Star Bar" which was just pathetic and I remember that being one of
Andi Peters main priorities on the disposal list when he took over near
the end of that year.
I never really liked the Chris Cowey era of the show despite him being a great interviewee and having an interesting background in music programmes on television, although it was mainly because it looked pretty lifeless and samey.
Wayne Garvie the then head of entertainment for the BBC mentioned in a documentary about TOTP around it's demise in 2006 that he thought Chris had
"been there for too long". It certainly felt like that.
Also, with his appearance in the Big Brother house, I decided to dig out Coolio's appearance on the 2002 Christmas special of Buzzcocks where he performed a song he wrote as part of a rap contest called "Cracked Out Christmas". I can't remember the words to it but it was about a load of reindeer being addicted to smoking drugs.
However around the time they performed it Coolio lost the contest
to "someone rapping about his dick".
That show was probably more notable for the appearance of Peter Stringfellow who's muddled behaviour wound up Mark Lamarr to a dreadful extent with one incident in the Next Lines round when a group of Victorian carol singers sang "The 12 Days Of Christmas" ending on the line "5 Golden-" to which Peter responded "Geese".
I've also rescued a box from the loft which contains several Jinglemixes donated by collectors at various pub meet ups for jingle collectors, some of which I haven't even listened to. That's probably because they were sent to me from the North East Radio night in October 2007 which I was unable to attend as around the time I couldn't even sit still for more than 5 seconds.
I've heard that the meet up itself wasn't as good a turn out as the ones in London the previous years so I'm hoping they do another one pretty soon, before I leave University at least.
In fact I haven't been to one since the Hob Goblin in Baker Street in late October 2006 which was the same weekend I went with Ross T and Steve Jones to surprise Kim for her birthday.
I'd love to visit Dorset again although with things going up and down it's rather tricky.
I know Ross went up there again in October last year and the visit went really well with Kim almost breaking down in happiness.
It's rather sad to think it's now three years since she had to leave London and I was just as gutted as everyone else was as we could have done with her a lot on our practical projects in the second and third year. And unlike quite a few of the others, I would never have got fed up with her as she was really enthusiastic and had a lot to offer.
It's a terrible illness to have and I've definitely learnt a lot more about M.E. and it's effects.
With regards to Ross it turns out that our very own Caroline has got the position at Heat Radio possibly because she did a bit of stuff at Somethin' Else over the summer where I presume they have ProTools. I'm certain they have SADiE as well, otherwise Dave Sharp wouldn't have demonstrated it to us in his impressive manner.
Why do all the big companies use software I've never been given the chance to use?!
I'm not giving up though as most of the big guys know that Westminster Radio people are reliable.
However to lighten things up and to finish with, more vintage CBBC and the Rat Run, an interactive game featuring Ross's stunt double Ratz, the computer generated cat going round a virtual obstacle course collecting rats with an instrumental version of
UB40s "Rat In Mi Kitchen" playing in the background.
And there's also the opening to "Incredible Games" featuring an early appearance by David Walliams.
Rather bizarre stuff.
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