Tweet

Pulp Librarian

Follow @PulpLibrarian

12 Jan, 10 tweets, 4 min read

Today in pulp... I homeschool with some classic programmes for schools and colleges!

Both the BBC and ITV produced a range of TV programmes to help with the school syllabus from the 1970s onwards. As a treat you got to sit cross-legged in the school library in front of the 'school telly' to watch them!

Look and Read was one of the longest-running BBC educational programmes, starting in 1967 and continuing up to 2004. It was fronted by Wordy - a nightmare-inducing floating goofball typewriter head! Who thought that was a good idea?

Look and Read featured a story for viewers to follow across the weeks, many of which are now classics: tales such as The Boy From Space and Geordie Racer.

ITV's flagship story programme was Picture Box with Alan Rothwell: a gnostic TV storytime show that featured a genuinely terrifying theme tune. It was more like a supernatural horror movie than schools TV!

History was provided by How We Used To Live - Yorkshire TV's soap opera of the past covering everything from the Victorians up to the swinging '60s.

It did feel like watching The Sullivans at times...

Experiment was just that - a video of an experiment for schools with no chemistry labs. You had to take down readings from the screen whilst listening to a disembodied scientist. Sometimes he would point at Leibig condenser with a pencil. It was all very surreal.

Zig Zag was the show with the exciting futuristic titles masking the slightly dull magazine-type content: history, science and geography for seven year olds. Oh how cheated we felt!

The reason schools TV is so fondly remembered is because the range of TV programmes we had in the 1970s and early '80s was so limited. It's like they wanted us to go outside and do things instead!

More childhood TV flashbacks another time. Let's wheel the school TV back into the library now and get ready for P.E.

Play our song please...

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @PulpLibrarian

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

14 Jan

On 23 September 1984 the BBC broadcast the apocalypse: the story of nuclear war and its effects on the people of Sheffield. Filmed on a shoestring budget it still causes nightmares to this day.

This thread is not for the squeamish.

This the story of Threads...

In 1965 the BBC had filmed The War Game, a fictional docu-drama about a nuclear attack on Britain. However under pressure from the government the BBC withdrew it from screening. It was finally released in 1966 as a film in selected theatres.

For many years the withdrawal of The War Game had rankled many at the BBC. Surely it was a public broadcaster's duty to show the public what the reality of nuclear war would mean. Finally in 1982 they did so.

Read 18 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

11 Jan

Today in pulp I look back at the world of Soviet women's fashion!

It's not all berets, but it mostly is...

Now you may think that fashion and the Soviet Union go together like Groucho Marx and Friedrich Engels. However that is to misunderstand the nature of the Commad Economy: if she commands it, you'd better buy it for her!

So there is a rich history of fashion and fun (along with the tractor factories and endless ballet performances) in the old USSR. Let's take a sashay along it...

Read 18 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

9 Jan

Today in pulp... "Breaker one-nine for a copy. You got your ears on?" Ah the halcyon days of CB radio!

And let's look back at one phenomenon that swept the CB world in the 1970s - the eyeball card!

What's that good buddy? What's an eyeball? Well here's the 20...

QSL is the radio Q code meaning can you acknowledge receipt. Amateur radio enthusiasts would often send an (often humorous) home made QSL card to fellow hams on request. It was a way of building camaraderie off air.

And as CB radio began to spread more widely in the 1970s, users began making and sending their own QSL cards to people they met on air. It was the classy thing to do!

Read 11 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

8 Jan

What do you think folks, shall we do some bad book covers today?

I think we should...

"I have made some bad decisions in my life..."

Dressed Up For Murder, by Gary Brander. Fastback, 1986.

"It's not you Mr Darcy, it's me..."

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Bestseller Library, 1966.

Read 15 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

7 Jan

Today in pulp... the searing, evocative power of a well crafted opening sentence!

For this thread I will draw my examples from the greatest writer in the English language (based on synonym use): the Reverand Lionel Fanthorpe.

On death:

"Bellenger was dead when they found him. That Bellenger was dead was probably the understatement of the year. Bellenger was horribly, violently dead!"

On introducing characters:

"The alien was a strange looking beast. Even by the broad standards of the Galactic recognition code it was definitely non-U. [...] The alien's name was Khgnjsdag, which didn't really matter except to the alien."

Read 14 tweets

Pulp Librarian

@PulpLibrarian

28 Dec 20

DATELINE: MARCH 1981. Shakin' Stevens is top of the charts, Tom Baker is leaving Doctor Who and Clive Sinclair is bringing computers to the masses. Britain is finally moving into a new age, and one object above all heralds its arrival.

This is the story of the ZX81...

Like many electronics companies Sinclair Radionics had been beaten up by the 1970s calculator wars: cut-price LCD products from Japan, plus aggressive price cuts from Hewlett Packard made Sinclair's LED calculators unprofitable. The company was in trouble.

The British government bailed out Sinclair in the 1970s, and wanted it to focus on instrument manufacturing - the only profitable part of its business. In 1979 Clive Sinclair resigned in disgust from the company he had founded.

He had a better idea...

Read 16 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!