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After becoming one of Channel 4's first executives, in 1982 Korer also brought us _Minipops_

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I still get the feeling the squirrels are a bit more furtive this year- getting videos was much easier last spring!

It wasn't an angry parade, just an expression of communal pride

Everybody's entitled to their opinion

It's not surprising though, if you replace the word "destroyed" with "wiped" and bear in mind that as a broadcaster funded largely by compulsory payments from TV viewers the BBC has always had to be seen to avoid waste.* Re-using magnetic tape, particularly in the days before home video gave old programmes a second life, was an obvious cost-saving measure. * "Being seen to avoid waste" can, unfortunately, lead to sunk cost fallacy issues, such as the disaster of the new EastEnders set.

@@PastPresented Many thanks for the kind reply. I agree with all of your points and I apologise for slipping into the vernacular using "destroyed" instead of "wiped". I recently rewatched Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game 1972-77 which the BBC retain intact on the original video tapes including the compilation shows that were made at the end of each year including an extra compilation show for 1978. Why did the BBC retain these compilation shows at the expense of wiping the entire first 1971 series ? It does seem illogical. If I could wish to see one show again it would be It's A Knockout broadcast on BBC1 on 15/6/73 Ashington vs Blyth. My parents took me to see event but I only have a faint memory trace. Halcyon days !

@@sirsamfay99 _"Why did the BBC retain these compilation shows at the expense of wiping the entire first 1971 series ?"_ Again, I'm not sure that "at the expense of" is the best phrasing. _Generation Game_ was a cost-saving exercise, an off-the-peg format for a glitzy, fun but forgettable show using a single block-booked studio. The BBC would not have envisaged any longevity for it until they saw that the Brucie mojo had spun gold from straw.

@@PastPresented I still cannot see the reasoning why shows of compilations of Generation Game clips are retained by the BBC on their original video spools and not the 1971 series. I can only guess the BBC decided to wipe tapes that reach a certain age rather than deciding a tapes value of its contents. This is confirmed that the BBC retain the entire run of It's A Knockout from 1975 onwards bar one from 1980. All pre 1975 episodes were wiped except for one from 1973 and one from 1971.

@@PastPresented The compilation Bruce Forsyth Generation Game Show which was broadcast in late 1975 contains a portion of the pilot 1971 show in colour. Bruce says before the clip starts "We will now show you the first game of the Generation Game from 1971". As the show was extremely popular by late 1975 leaving ITV far behind in the ratings why did the BBC wipe this and the other episodes from 1971?

VTR! A Sony reel-to-reel machine at the college where my dad worked. Sadly, they couldn't afford colour.

@@PastPresented Ah well, still a good find.

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So why do I find so many University Challenge questions really difficult?

These days I'm an avid Eye reader, but back then I couldn't afford it ...

@@PastPresented There's also this hilarious take off of Smuggins by Fry and Laurie. th-cam.com/video/npvQ3M3WaPA/w-d-xo.html

I think it's the seagull equivalent of putting your towel on a beach deckchair. 🙃

It was broadcast in colour, but recorded in monochrome (this being years before the invention of cheap colour video recorders)!

Associating knowledge with "middle class" and "repressed" is a sign of an unhealthy society. Knowledge is power.

@@PastPresented I am talking about the general mindset of a half century ago. It would not be until the 80s, when 'ordinary' people like Fred Housego and Chris Hughes would win Mastermind.

@@stephenguppy7882 That's not quite comparing like with like. A quiz team of two parents and two low-teenage children is much harder to find than a single contestant. Unfortunately I have only the vaguest memories of earlier single-contestant shows like _Criss Cross Quiz._

Robinson was known as 'Smuggins' in Private Eye.

Sadly, no. The instruction from TH-cam was that it had to be deleted. I've been wondering if I should reconstruct the video without directly using any of Paul's material, but in the meantime, if there are particular differences between Paul's narrative and mine which baffle you, I'll be happy to clarify.

@@PastPresented Thank you. I was merely curious to see some of the issues arising from what is clearly a complex topic.

@@sawyerhja Yes, and the irony is that most of the complexity has stemmed from attempts to resolve the authenticity problem, which turned out to be absurdly easy once the relevant resources (e.g. relating to the 1893 Madrid exhibition) became discoverable online. Another funny thing is that Paul obviously tried to avoid simply basing his video on the Wikipedia entry, and has researched a number of background sources- but the list in his video description only contains a single post-breakthrough item (a 2021 press release). To see what a difference the 2011-13 breakthrough made, compare this video with my confused 2004 pdf essay on the topic: www.pastpresented.ukart.com/vinland/vinlite.pdf

@@PastPresented Clearly, it is a very complex subject. On a quite different matter, are you a student of Latin? I ask, because I had to read Cicero's "In Catilinam" for my A-Level (many years ago, when God was a boy). The question is, where do ancient texts now reside? Where is the original text of Cicero's works, or are most such texts merely copies that have been made over the centuries, and therefore just a litle unreliable?

@@sawyerhja Therein lies a peculiar paradox. There are whole libraries of Mesopotamian texts from 4,000 years ago, because they used clay tablets, but thin media like parchment, paper and palm leaves are much more vulnerable. There is increasing hope that the volcano-charred scrolls found in a buried library at Herculaneum may be read with modern scanning technology, but generally, really old originals survive only if they are kept dry, and out of reach of all living things. Where possible, editors of old texts compile "family trees" of copies with variations to work out which are most likely to be accurate renditions of the original. There are gazillions of manuscript copies of "In Catilinam" but none from Cicero's own time.

Recorded off-air on a reel-to-reel recorder at Dad's work, later transferred to VHS.

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@@PastPresented i love you

@@dustinthedecorateddustbin2889 🗼

@@PastPresented isnt life odd (you can send another emoji now)

💚 There's no way I could just click the normal heart button for that!

Cheers Uncle J. The reasoning is sad but simple; TH-cam wants shorts to use vertical format (best for phones) whereas I want to make short videos which also look good on horizontal format TV-type screens- so I snort at TH-cam.

@@PastPresented *Nods head* I totally support this. The insipid and relentlessly ongoing TikToksification of Society must be fought against at *all* costs!! ✊😉😊 (Also, I'm pretty sure those are lesser black-backed gulls. If the adults have yellow legs then that pretty much confims it.)

and an extra point for being so clever!

Yup, failure to say a right thing can often be as bad as saying a wrong thing.

Yes, the format would have been problematic for both my mum and my dad if it had existed when they were children!

There's a fundamental problem. Until about the 17th century there was a very small common core of learning, which an individual could grasp. Once the idea of printing periodicals to share the latest information and thinking took root, the common core started to become increasingly fictitious. Now even what might be called the "lifeskills core" changes from year to year (or in the case of the classic waking-from-concussion question "Who is the current Prime Minister?" even more frequently).

​@@PastPresented And they are all Quantity Surveyors!

@@anonUK Did a Quantity Surveyor kill your favourite pet or something?

@@PastPresented No, I had a pet aardvark called Ethel who tried it once... It was a Not the Nine O'clock News sketch done about this show a few years later than this recording, in which everyone, including the kids, was a Quantity Surveyor. th-cam.com/video/ZYlOV7K-xOU/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/fSykGSUqnKk/w-d-xo.html

@@anonUK Thanks! That raises the question "Why can I remember _Monty Python_ sketches better than I can remember _Not_ ... sketches?"

What I need now is a proper stabilised camera rig so I can film as I sneak!

I'm definitely getting more confident with the zoom lens, but I'm still hopeless when they go for a jog.

Sorry, by "first squirrel" I meant "first squirrel I managed to get on video". I saw another on the ground just before this, and on previous occasions I have, within a couple of minutes, seen squirrels at both the north and south ends of the wood (including two playing tag up and down a tree). I think we'll see a lot more activity once the weather warms up.

@@PastPresented Ah yes that makes sense. Hopefully you're right about the activity increasing. Maybe things just seem quiet because the females are resting in their nests as they're about to drop some sprogs. Just had a look ont Tinterwebs and that's what it said at least.

Ultimately, none of us did!