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Diddy Men
The Diddy Men are a mythical race whose invention is often attributed to the Liverpudlian comedian Ken Dodd. However, they have existed in Merseyside mythology for much longer and, along with the Treacle and Jam Butty Mines of Knotty Ash, had been referred to in the earlier act of another Liverpool comedian, Arthur Askey. When Ken Dodd began playing seaside resorts, he made famous his home area of Knotty Ash in Liverpool and popularised a miniature race of people who inhabited it. Diddy is an informal British word for "little". The Diddy Men were originally an unseen joke but after a while began to appear on stage with Dodd, delighting children in the audience. They also appeared in Dodd's BBC television programmes in the 1960s, as Marionettes. The Diddy Men tend to wear slightly oversized adult clothes in flamboyant style including tall furry hats. Diddy Men characters The Diddy Men include: Dicky Mint, Mick the Marmaliser, Stephen "Tich" Doyle, Little Evan, Hamish McDiddy, Nige ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. "Which counties make up the West Country?", ''YouGov.co.uk'', 23 October 2019 Retrieved 22 June 2021 The West Country has a distinctive regional English dialect and accent, and is also home to the . Extent ...
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Carol Vorderman
Carol Jean Vorderman, HonFIET (born 24 December 1960) is a Welsh media personality, best known for appearing on the game show ''Countdown'' for 26 years from 1982 until 2008, as a newspaper columnist and nominal author of educational and diet books, and hosting the annual Pride of Britain awards. Vorderman's career began in 1982 when she joined Channel 4 game show ''Countdown''. She appeared on the show with Richard Whiteley from 1982 until his death in 2005, and subsequently with Des Lynam and Des O'Connor, before leaving in 2008. While appearing on ''Countdown'', Vorderman began presenting other shows for various broadcasters including ''Better Homes'' and '' The Pride of Britain Awards'' for ITV, as well as guest hosting shows such as '' Have I Got News for You'', ''The Sunday Night Project'' and ''Lorraine''. She has written books on detox diets. Vorderman was a presenter of ITV's '' Loose Women'' from 2011 until 2014. Early life and education Vorderman was born in Bedf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. It employs gender-crossing actors and combines topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale.Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. "Pantomime", ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'', Jack Zipes (ed.), Oxford University Press (2006), Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to the era of classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ventriloquist
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice. History Origins Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for 'to speak from the stomach: (belly) and (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy ( grc-gre, εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to use this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dwarfism is , although some individuals with dwarfism are slightly taller. ''Disproportionate dwarfism'' is characterized by either short limbs or a short torso. In cases of ''proportionate dwarfism'', both the limbs and torso are unusually small. Intelligence is usually normal, and most have a nearly normal life expectancy. People with dwarfism can usually bear children, though there are additional risks to the mother and child dependent upon the underlying condition. The most common and recognisable form of dwarfism in humans (comprising 70% of cases) is achondroplasia, a genetic disorder whereby the limbs are diminutive. Growth hormone deficiency is responsible for most other cases. Treatment depends on the underlying cause. Those w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Widecombe Fair (song)
"Widecombe Fair", also called "Tom Pearce" (sometimes spelt "Tam Pierce"), is a Devon folk song about a man called Tom Pearce, whose horse dies after someone borrows it to travel to the Widecombe Fair, fair in Widecombe with his friends. Its refrain, chorus ends with a long list of the people travelling to the fair: "''Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all''." Some research suggests that the names originally referred to real people. As the last name in a long list, "Uncle Tom Cobley and all" has come to be used as a humorous colloquialism meaning "anyone and everyone". The surname is spelt as "Cobleigh" in some references. History The song was published by Sabine Baring-Gould in the book ''Songs and Ballads of the West'' (1889–91) (referring to the West Country in England), though it also exists in variant forms. The title is spelt "Widdecombe Fair" in the original publication, though "Widecombe" is now the sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin And The Chipmunks
Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore who are originally managed by their human adoptive father, David "Dave" Seville. Bagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful "Witch Doctor". Later in 1958 Bagdasarian released the similarly-engineered "The Chipmunk Song" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. ''David Seville and the Chipmunks'' released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. The franchise was revived in 1979 with the characters' voices provided by his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and the latter's wife Janice Karman. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Dodd
Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd (8 November 1927 – 11 March 2018) was an English comedian, singer and occasional actor. He was described as "the last great music hall entertainer", and was primarily known for his live stand-up performances. A lifelong resident of Knotty Ash in Liverpool, Dodd's career as an entertainer started in the mid-1950s. His performances included rapid and incessant delivery of often surreal jokes, and would run for several hours, frequently past midnight. His verbal and physical comedy was supplemented by his red, white and blue "tickling stick" prop, and often introduced by his characteristic upbeat greeting of "How tickled I am!" He interspersed the comedy with songs, both serious and humorous, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism. He also had several hit singles primarily as a ballad singer in the 1960s, and occasionally appeared in dramatic roles. He performed on radio and television, and popularised the characters of the Diddy Men. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Cairoli
Hubert Jean Charles CairoliCharlie Cairoli by Dominique Jando, at Circopedia; retrieved 9 July 2014 (15 February 1910 – 17 February 1980) was an Italian-English , and . Background and career Born in Affori, , Italy to a travelling[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hamilton (broadcasting)
David Hamilton (born 10 September 1938) is an English radio and television presenter. Since his broadcasting career began in 1959, Hamilton has hosted over 12,000 radio shows and more than 1,000 TV shows. He is usually known as 'Diddy David Hamilton', a name given to him by the comedian Ken Dodd. Early life Hamilton attended Glastonbury Road Grammar School at St Helier in Surrey until the age of 17. While at school he became a columnist on the weekly national magazine ''Soccer Star''. He performed national service in the Royal Air Force from 1959. TV career On leaving school, Hamilton became a script-writer for the TV series ''Portrait of a Star''. Following his national service, he became an in-vision television announcer for ABC Weekend TV based in Didsbury, Manchester, and appeared with close friend Ken Dodd in the TV series ''Doddy's Music Box'', acquiring the nickname 'Diddy'. Throughout the 1960s, he hosted shows for the ITV franchises Tyne Tees, Anglia and Westward. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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