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The Radio Ham
"The Radio Ham" is an episode from the comedy series ''Hancock'', the final BBC series featuring British comedian Tony Hancock. First transmitted on 9 June 1961, the show was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and was produced by Duncan Wood. The title is a retronym. Synopsis Anthony Hancock has taken up amateur radio as a hobby but is dissatisfied with his conversations with other users, which consist mainly of remote games of chess and Snakes and Ladders, as well as discussions about the weather with a fellow operator in Tokyo who speaks poor English. Just as he is expressing his wish for more excitement in his hobby he hears a distress signal from a yachtsman whose boat is sinking. Hancock tries to help but struggles to copy down the man's location details correctly, suffering numerous inconveniences and interruptions such as a broken pencil, having to put another shilling in the electricity meter, having his radio set forcibly disconnected by his burly neighbour, ge ...
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Hancock's Half Hour
''Hancock's Half Hour'' was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Galton and Simpson, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James, Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply ''Hancock'', starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in Cheam, East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the Sitcom, situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development. The radio version was produced by Dennis Main Wilson for most of its run. After Main Wilson departed for his television career, his ...
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Geoffrey Matthews
Geoffrey Vernon Townsend Matthews (16 June 1923 – 21 January 2013) was a British ornithologist and conservationist. Biography Born on 16 June 1923 and educated at Bedford School and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he completed his doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ... and post-doctoral research, Geoffrey Matthews was director of research and conservation, 1955–1988, and deputy director, 1973–1988, at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge. He was also a professorial fellow at Bristol University between 1970 and 1990. Matthews died on 21 January 2013. Publications * * * * References Further reading * 1923 births 2013 deaths People educated at Bedford School Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Officers of the Order of t ...
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Too Funky
"Too Funky" is a song written and performed by English singer and songwriter George Michael and released by Columbia Records in the United States and Epic Records elsewhere in 1992. The song was Michael's final single for his recording contract with Sony Music before he started legal action to extricate himself from it. "Too Funky" had been initially earmarked for a follow-up to the album ''Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1'' but Michael shelved the idea, instead donating it, along with two other songs, to the project ''Red Hot + Dance'', which raised money for AIDS awareness. Michael subsequently donated the royalties to the same cause. The song never appeared on any of Michael's studio albums, although later it was included on his solo collection '' Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael'' and in the 2017 reissue of ''Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1'', which also included the two other songs from ''Red Hot + Dance'' and its B-side "Crazyman Dance", all of which wer ...
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George Michael
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most significant cultural icons of the MTV generation and is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with sales of over 120 million records worldwide. Michael was known as a leading creative force in music production, songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation. He achieved seven number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart and eight number-one songs on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Michael won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three American Music Awards, twelve ''Billboard'' Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. In 2015, he was ranked 45th in '' Billboard''s list of the "Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time". The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004.
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Sampling (music)
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using hardware ( samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations. A process similar to sampling originated in the 1940s with '' musique concrète'', experimental music created by splicing and looping tape. The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron. The term ''sampling'' was coined in the late 1970s by the creators of the Fairlight CMI, a synthesizer with the ability to record and play back short sounds. As technology improved, cheaper standalone samplers with more memory emerged, such as the E-mu Emulator, Akai S950 and Akai MPC. Sampling is a foundation of ...
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ITV (TV Network)
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 ...
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Paul Merton
Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known under the stage name Paul Merton, is an English writer, actor, comedian and radio and television presenter. Known for his improvisation skill, Merton's humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and sometimes dark comedy. He has been ranked by critics, fellow comedians and viewers to be among Britain's greatest comedians. He is well known for his regular appearances as a team captain on the BBC panel game '' Have I Got News for You'', and as the former host of ''Room 101'', as well as for several appearances on the original British version of the improvisational comedy television show ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' Merton appears as a panellist regularly on Radio 4's '' Just a Minute'', first appearing in 1989, and became the only remaining regular panellist in 2009 following the death of Clement Freud. He has also appeared as one of the Comedy Store's Comedy Store Players. Early life Paul James Martin was born on 9 July 1957 in Parsons ...
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Gramophone Record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. At first, the discs were commonly made from shellac, with earlier records having a fine abrasive filler mixed in. Starting in the 1940s polyvinyl chloride became common, hence the name vinyl. The phonograph record was the primary medium used for music reproduction throughout the 20th century. It had co-existed with the phonograph cylinder from the late 1880s and had effectively superseded it by around 1912. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as the compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the record left the mainstream in 1991. Since the 1990s, records con ...
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Radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the waves, and received by another antenna connected to a radio receiver. Radio is very widely used in modern technology, in radio communication, radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications. In radio communication, used in radio and television broadcasting, cell phones, two-way radios, wireless networking, and satellite communication, among numerous other uses, radio waves are used to carry information across space from a transmitter to a receiver, by modulating the radio signal (impressing an information signal on the radio wave by varying some aspect of the wave) in the transmitter. In radar, used to locate and track objects like aircraft, ships, spacecraf ...
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The Blood Donor
"The Blood Donor" is an episode from the television comedy series ''Hancock'', the final BBC series featuring British comedian Tony Hancock. First transmitted on 23 June 1961, the show was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and was produced by Duncan Wood. Supporting Hancock were Patrick Cargill, Hugh Lloyd, Frank Thornton, James Ottaway and June Whitfield. It remains one of the best known situation comedy episodes ever broadcast in the United Kingdom. Synopsis Hancock arrives at his local hospital to give blood. "It was either that or join the Young Conservatives", he tells the Blood Donor Department's reception nurse (Whitfield), before getting into an argument with her about whether British blood is superior to other types. After managing to offend two other waiting donors, Hancock amuses himself by reading the waiting room's wall posters out loud, finally singing " Coughs and sneezes spread diseases" to the tune of the Deutschlandlied before being shown in to see Dr ...
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Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–1979). The label changed its name to PRT Records (distributing as Precision Records & Tapes) in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006. History The Pye Company originally manufactured televisions and radios. Its main plant was situated off what used to be Haig Road, in Cambridge, and it entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records in 1953. In 1955, the company acquired Polygon Records, a label that had been established by Leslie Clark and Alan A. Freeman to control distribution of the recordings of the former's daughter, Petula Clark. Pye merged it with Nixa Records to form Pye Nixa Records. Pye International In 1958, Pye International Records was established. The company licensed record ...
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Geoffrey Lewis
Geoffrey Lewis may refer to: * Geoffrey Lewis (actor) (1935–2015), American character actor * Geoffrey Lewis (scholar) (1920–2008), British professor of Turkish * Geoffrey Lewis (philatelist), Australian philatelist * Geoffrey W. Lewis (died 1992), American diplomat See also *Geoff Lewis Geoff Lewis (born 21 December 1935) is a Welsh retired jockey who was born in Talgarth, Breconshire. He moved to London with his family (he was one of thirteen children) in 1946. After initially working as a hotel page boy, he st ..., Welsh jockey * Jeffrey Lewis (other) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Geoffrey ...
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