The Harpoon
''The Harpoon'' was a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast between 1991 and 1994, written by Julian Dutton and Peter Baynham. It consisted of three four-part series and two Christmas specials, and was performed by Julian Dutton, Peter Baynham, Susie Brann, Alistair McGowan and Mary Elliott-Nelson. It was produced ("on stretched goat's vellum") by Sarah Smith, the series was nominated for a British Comedy Award for Best Radio Comedy in 1992. The programme was a spoof of boys' comics from the Empire days of the 20th century, "a magazine for young and old across the English-speaking world" featuring "Your old chum" the Editor (McGowan) presenting regular features, adventure stories, practical advice, readers letters, etc., complete with advertisements. An enthusiastic young reader (Baynham) could be heard turning (and once accidentally tearing) the pages and occasionally commenting. Much of the humour rested upon anachronistic, politically incorrect attitudes towards such topics as educati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife Ida and five daughters. Some of his hits include "Makin' Whoopee", "Ida (Sweet as Apple Cider)", " If You Knew Susie", "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me", “ Mandy”, " My Baby Just Cares for Me”, "Margie", and " How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" He also wrote a few songs, including " Merrily We Roll Along", the ''Merrie Melodies'' Warner Bros. cartoon theme. His eye-rolling song-and-dance routines eventually led to his nickname "Banjo Eyes". In 1933, artist Frederick J. Garner caricatured Cantor with large round eyes resembling the drum-l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bigipedia
''Bigipedia'' (stylised as "βIgiPεðiA") is a comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC Radio 4 that first aired between 23 July and 13 August 2009. A second series of four episodes began on 12 July 2011. The show's storyline revolves around "Bigipedia", a fictional website broadcast on radio and parody of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The series mocks Wikipedia and other aspects of the Internet. The BBC Press Office described the show as "a unique experiment in 'broadwebcasting'". The series was created by co-star Nick Doody, who also co-writes the show with Matt Kirshen and a wider team of writers. It is produced by Pozzitive Productions. Critics have given ''Bigipedia'' positive reviews. The series was marketed by the BBC as "''The Sunday Format'' for the online age", and critics have given ''Bigipedia'' favourable comparisons with its predecessor. The quality of the writing has also been praised. However, a few critics have expressed reservations about the way the show is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fanny Cradock
Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with her fourth husband Major Johnnie Cradock who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked partner. Early life Cradock was born at her maternal grandparents' house, 33 Fairlop Road, Leytonstone, London. The birth was formally registered in the district of West Ham. As a child, Cradock lived with her family at Fairlop Road, with her maternal grandparents. A plaque (with her name misspelled) can be found at Fairwood Court, Fairlop Road, London E11: "Fanny Craddock 1909–1994. On this site until 1930 stood a house called Apthorp, birthplace of the famous TV cookery expert Fanny Craddock; born Phyllis Pechey." Her birthplace was named after Apthorp Villa, in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where her grandfather Charles Hancock had been born ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harry Enfield & Chums
''Harry Enfield & Chums'' (originally titled ''Harry Enfield's Television Programme'') is a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke. It first broadcast on BBC2 in 1990 in the 9 pm slot on Thursday nights which became the traditional time for alternative comedy on television. Enfield was already an established name due to his 'Loadsamoney' character (which featured in a few entertainment programmes in the late 1980s), but the series gave greater presence to his frequent collaborators Whitehouse and Burke – so much so that, in 1994, the show was retitled ''Harry Enfield & Chums''. In 2001, a clip show series titled ''Harry Enfield Presents'' aired which featured compilations of sketches from the series featuring new linking material recorded by Enfield in character. History ''Harry Enfield's Television Programme'' was written by Enfield, Whitehouse, Charlie Higson and Geoffrey Perkins and broadcast on BBC Two. The original series titles ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beachcomber
A beachcomber is a person who practices beachcombing. Beachcomber or Beachcombers may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Beachcomber'' (1915 film), an American drama * ''The Beachcomber'' (1938 film), starring Charles Laughton and also known as ''Vessel of Wrath'' * ''The Beachcomber'' (1954 film), starring Robert Newton and Donald Sinden * ''The Beachcomber'' (TV series), a British series premiering in 1962 * ''The Beachcombers'', a Canadian TV series premiering in 1972 * ''Beach Combers'', a 1936 Walter Lantz cartoon * Beachcomber (''Transformers''), the name of multiple characters in the ''Transformers'' universe * Beachcomber (pen name), a nom de plume used by several British humorous columnists, chiefly J. B. Morton Other uses * Beachcomber, Victoria, Australia * Beachcomber (island), one of the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji * Beachcomber Resorts & Hotels, a Mauritius-based hospitality company * Beach Comber, a carrier pigeon * Beachcomber 6.5, a class of yacht * ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lawrence Oates
Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates (17 March 188017 March 1912) was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died from hypothermia“Oates, Lawrence Edward Grace - Captain (1880-1912) - Biographical notes” Cool Antarctica. during the ''Terra Nova'' Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death for himself in order to relieve them of the bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bulldog Drummond
Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is a fictional character, created by H. C. McNeile and published under his pen name "Sapper". Following McNeile's death in 1937, the novels were continued by Gerard Fairlie. Drummond is a First World War veteran who, fed up with his sedate lifestyle, advertises looking for excitement, and becomes a gentleman adventurer. The character has appeared in novels, short stories, on the stage, in films, on radio and television, and in graphic novels. Overview After an unsuccessful one-off appearance as a policeman in ''The Strand Magazine'', the character was reworked by McNeile into a gentleman adventurer for his 1920 novel ''Bulldog Drummond''. McNeile went on to write ten Drummond novels, four short stories, four stage plays and a screenplay before his death in 1937. The stories were continued by his friend Gerard Fairlie between 1938 and 1954. Drummond is a First World War veteran, brutalised by his experiences in the trenches and bored with his post-war ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Round The Horne
''Round the Horne'' is a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne, first transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The fourth was written by Took, Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and Donald Webster. Horne's supporting cast comprised Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and, in the first three series, Bill Pertwee. The announcer was Douglas Smith, who also took part in the sketches. All except the last series featured music by Edwin Braden, played by the band "the Hornblowers", with a song in the middle of each show performed by the close-harmony singing group the Fraser Hayes Four; in the fourth series, the music was by Max Harris with a smaller group of players than the earlier series. The show was the successor to ''Beyond Our Ken'', which had run from 1958 to 1964 with largely the same cast. By the time the new series began, television had becom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ladybird Books
Ladybird Books is a London-based publishing company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the Penguin Group of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market children's books. It is an imprint of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History The company traces its origins to 1867, when Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough, Leicestershire. Within a decade he progressed to printing and publishing guidebooks and street directories. He was joined by William Hepworth in 1904, and the company traded as Wills & Hepworth. By August 1914, Wills & Hepworth had published their first children's books, under the Ladybird imprint. From the beginning, the company was identified by a ladybird logo, at first with open wings, but eventually changed to the more familiar closed-wing ladybird in the late 1950s. The ladybird logo has since undergone several redesigns, the latest of which was launched in 2006. Wills & Hepworth began trading ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Livingstone
David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. David was the husband of Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th Century missionary family, Moffat. He had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion. Livingstone's fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile River was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. "The Nile sources", he told a friend, "are valuabl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ... and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone, whom he later claimed to have greeted with the now-famous line: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo River, Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of Leopold II of the Belgians, King Leopold II of the Belgians which enabled the occupation of the Congo (area), Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |