Smash Hits (1987)

The boys of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour continue their turbulent odyssey of past periodicals as voices begin to break, clothes start to matter more, and you can be entirely judged on liking an incorrect song from the hit parade. Yes, it's a return to the awkward years of enforced superficiality as 1980s teen culture comes under the beeroscope.

And it rarely gets more awkward than this issue of legendary music mag, Smash Hits. Seemingly penned by a range of journalists who despise music, the Autumn 1987 advertisement-directory also features fictionalised interviews and lyrics for songs which never existed. For a relic of the pre-internet era, it's all remarkably meta...

How many pints is Rick Astley going to neck as he tries to shake his interviewer? How many articles is Doctor Velvet going to take extreme exception to? And how many pounds is Blackout likely to spend on a Personal Cassette Player™?

You can press Play here, or dial 0898 [REDACTED] to find out...

WE HAVE BEEN READING:

Title: Smash Hits
Cover Date: 09 September 1987
Publisher: EMAP
Editor: Barry McIlheney
Features: The Sisters Of Mercy, Michael Jackson, The Housemartins, Rick Astley, Then Jerico, Black, The Pet Shop Boys, Danny Wilson, Heart, Bon Jovi
Contributors: Tom Hibbert, Lola Borg, Ian Cranna, Fred Dellar, David Keeps, Richard Lowe, Vici McDonald, Ro Newton, Derrin Schlesinger

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The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

Eagle (1982)

It's Saturday morning once again, and what would the weekend even be without a trip to the paper shop, a plain paper bag full of unbranded sweets that have all been individually handled by the friendly newsagent, and a comic - nay magazine, surely? - to get stuck into before World Of Sport comes on?

This week, beguiled by colourful illustrations of fearsome aliens and a cover-mounted Free Gift, the hosts of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour have been have parted with twenty pence to partake in the first issue of the relaunched Eagle comic from 1982. Aimed at boisterously opinionated boys who love sci-fi, horror and crime-fighting intrigue (and who have a penchant for collecting tat), this feels like it was created in a secret government lab to appeal to Doctor Velvet and Blackout...

Will the mysterious man who embodied Sgt Streetwise ever be found? Will the post-apocalyptic survivors of London Town ever find a leader who actually understands the tube network? And will somebody please help Mike Read..?

Launch your free Space Spinner™ at the Play button, and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN READING:

Title: Eagle
Cover Date: 27 March 1982
Publisher: IPC Magazines
Features: Doomlord, Thunderbolt And Smokey, Sgt Streetwise, Dan Dare, The Tower King, The Collector
Contributors: Alan Grant, Gary Compton, Tom Tulley, John Powell, Gerry Finlay-Day, Dave Watts, BJ Tomlinson, Gerry Embleton, Alan Hebden, José Ortiz, Roy Preston, Pat Wright, Ron Smith, Peter Davison, Daley Thompson, Mike Read

You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

Star Wars Summer Special (1983)

Yes, there's still nothing on the telly so the boys from The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour turn to the wise counsel of their local newsagent for solace, distraction and entertainment. Well, they sent Producer Ken down there. That Front Street's seen better days, mind...

His successful journey apparently via the Galaxy Far, Far Away, coming under the macrobinoculars this week is May 1983's Star Wars Summer Special; subjected here to more editorial appraisal than it ever was in May 1983. With industrial genocide, trans-dimensional cults and hypnotic death-monkeys, this UK-centric spin on everyone's favourite feelgood fantasy is sure to test the very limits of the words "Star Wars", "Summer" and indeed "Special".

What's happened with the timeline when Han Solo is working with the Rebels he met after the Death Star to steal a ship he already owned before the Death Star? What's happened with Imperial procurement when staff are turning up to work in a tracksuit their mam bought off the market? And who's responsible for casting Chewbacca's understudy?

Jump to hyperspace (or press Play) and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN READING:

Title: Star Wars Summer Special
Cover Date: May 1983
Publisher: Marvel UK
Editor: Paul Neary
Features: Flight Of The Falcon, Rust Never Sleeps, The Pandora Effect, Death Masque
Contributors: Steve Parkhouse, John Stokes, Alan Moore, Alan Davis, Adolfo Buylla, Steve Moore, Jenny O’Connor

You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

Look-In (1981)

It's almost time for a new series of the Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, but Doctor Velvet and Blackout are very aware that if they keep sitting in front of that box they'll go square-eyed. With that in mind, our heroes take a break from watching the telly, and begin a handful of vintage periodical retrospectives by reading about it instead...

First to plop onto the doormat is a September 1981 issue of Look-In magazine, the 'Junior TV Times' of the pre-deregulation era which created, trained and honed an entire generation of nitpicking television obsessives; the end result of which is podcasts like this one.

How widely can the viewing demographic of 'pre-teen TV audience' be stretched, in an age where there are only three channels so 10yr olds watch pretty much anything they're allowed to stay up for? How narrowly does one of the hosts avoid a murderous rage, after poring over every page of a publication which apparently doesn't have time for proofreaders? And where do you have to live if you want to watch Chopper Squad?

Fill out a little form, hand it to your podsagent, hit Play and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN READING:

Title: Look-In
Cover Date: 5 September 1981
Publisher: Independent Television Publications
Features: Tiswas, Elvis, Ventriloquism, Buck Rogers, Worzel Gummidge, Cannon & Ball, Kate Bush, Smuggler, CHiPs, Spandau Ballet, Slaughtering™

You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

Heads And Tails / In Company

Finally the weather starts to warm up, and as we all know in the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. The hosts of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour are not young men, of course. They are resolutely (and perennially) middle-aged, and so their jaded thoughts are of mowing the lawn, if they must. Which, naturally, means going In The Shed.

That's right dear listener, this outing is another in the ongoing series of Shed Sessions recordings, and this time the proceedings are of a decidedly musical bent. The first stop is bathing in the quirky glory of nature with Sir Derek Griffiths' Heads And Tails, and when the sun has set but the heat's still up it's round for drinks at Dame Cleo Laine's luxury pad, noting of course that she's always In Company...

How many session fees is D.Griffith racking up after adhering to the M.Union rules about separate instruments requiring different lines in the budget? How many shots is J.Thaw necking every time he knows the camera isn't on him? And how many consecutive days had the presenters of this podcast been awake and drinking by this point?

B.like C.Laine, get immediately down to business and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Heads And Tails
Broadcast: Fri 01 June 1979, 13:30
Production/Channel: BBC One
Researcher: Anne Denehy
Music: Derek Griffiths
Producer: Michael Cole
Starring: Derek Griffiths, Sheep, Dogs, Pigs.

Programme: In Company
Broadcast: Tue 20 December 1975, 21:30
Production/Channel: BBC Two
Music: Cleo Laine, Jonny Dankworth
Producer: Don Sayer
Starring: Cleo Laine, Jonny Dankworth, Sheila Hankcock, John Thaw

You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

Ragdolly Anna

As the evenings get lighter and that man in the park with the tracksuit bottoms becomes more animated in his dealings with passers-by, all signs point to Winter finally beginning to end. And emerging from their hidey-hole in Mountpeg Towers like the Blue Peter tortoise with a hangover, the hosts of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour uncork bottles once again to let their profane rambling drift across the streets below...

Don't get too excited, this is another entry to The Shed Sessions™, very much the lo-fi punk rock non-album-EP of the indie podcast movement; three guys grabbing the world by the TV schedules and laying down some hard facts and harder opinions of underground broadcasting in a post-truth age! So obviously they've chosen to dissect 1986 episode of the Pat Coombs voodoo adventure series, Ragdolly Anna.

Just how long is a coach journey which necessitates a full tin of cakes? Just how tall is Dummy? And just how high to you have to be to enjoy this programme?

Smuggle a cat onto public transport then spend the entire journey having a conversation into a wicker shopping basket to find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Ragdolly Anna
Broadcast: Thursday 30 January 1986, 16:15
Production/Channel: Yorkshire Television / Siriol Productions, ITV
Writer: Jean Kenward, Chris Stephens
Music: Allan Taylor
Producer/Director: Jane Taylor, John Allen, Cat, Other Cat
Starring: Pat Coombs, Michele Davidson

You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com