In my younger days, three of us went on a 10 day camping adventure from Tyneside to Devon in a Mini Metro with two tents, (one of which was a big canvas job with 6ft solid wood tent poles), a load of historical reenactment gear and equipment for campfire cooking.

Don't know what type yours is, but mine was just the button outside which had corroded. It hadn't worked for years but it only took me about 20mins to fix.

Neither had I until yesterday! Now I feel I need to see Die Hard.

I love that you post these! Your tradition helps pull me through my least favourite time of the year! ❤️

I'd forgotten about 15min Hamlet. Wasn't there a 1min encore?

We studied Ros & Guil at 6th form. Think my English teacher wanted us all to share her existential crisis as we studied Hardy's poetry too focusing on the death of his wife. She was successful.

Around a decade ago I caught up with an old professor for coffee. I said that I thought the internet would cause physiological changes in people. He said 'you mean psychological?' but I didn't. We're outsourcing knowledge, memories and cognitive processes. If you don't work a muscle it withers.

That's a huge relief! I think I'm more of a fan of physical media now than ever! The clunkiness. The wavy lines on the screen. The big cassette boxes. I love them all.

That's Plan A now.

No light! It won't turn on! I still have so much special stuff on VHS. Loads of films, some specialist arts videos, things I taped off the telly and priceless memories on home video. Need to get one from eBay in the new year. I'm not crying. I'm not!

Impressive.

I once saw Keith Harris and Orville.

The Paul McCartney song that turned out not to be Paul McCartney.

Yeah you may have been at Live Aid, but did you get to dodge the chunk of ceiling that Gong brought down with high decibels alone from Alston's premier grade II listed building? 😆

We need reasons for communities to come together & interact. Anchor buildings that help shape a sense of place. Small shops helped to do this, alongside social clubs & churches before them. I believe a lack of belonging is fuelling the identity crisis which makes it easy to turn people into racists.

Another vote for the pink parrot. Green with pink accents are a winning combo and if it's an illuminated drinks cabinet then it's going to be as fabulously kitsch as hell anyway, so lean into it with that paper.

We're going to have to have a rethink about what to do with all the town centres now that the shops have gone, because it's not like past recessions, this time owing to the tech revolution they're not coming back.

Don't neglect your lower filter people!

I had the loveliest godmother Auntie Mabel who introduced me to theatre via pantomime and ballet and kept all my cuttings when I started studying and eventually working in the industry. Another strongly pro-Mabel enthusiast here.