Today, my American friends are celebrating National Peanut Butter Day!

 

I became hooked on this sticky, nutty, product when I was, maybe, six or seven years old and I pestered my mother into letting me try it solely because the jars from Sun-Pat then being sold in the UK came with a picture of this Walt Disney icon on the lid and a label carrying the sing-song mantra: SUN-PAT DONALD DUCK CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER.

 

Surprisingly, I succeeded in getting it added to the regular grocery shopping-list – remembering my Mother, I'm not sure how I did that! – and it became a much-loved breakfast spread long before I discovered the additional pleasure derived from a second topping of jelly – or, as we say, jam.

 

Mind you, if I'm honest, I'm no longer certain whether, back then, I actually really LIKED peanut butter that much, or whether it was totally down to the compelling marketing powers of the Disney Duck! I suspect the latter and, of course, I was – then and now – a 'Walt-nut'!

Anyway, I really wish I'd kept the empty jars: those selling on eBay (all of them with bashed, battered and rusty old lids) change hands for surprisingly toothsome prices.

 

 

 

WHO'S BACK?

WHO?

Why, DOCTOR Who, of course...

A new series of the legendary TV series begins tonight (BBC One 6:20 pm) with the time-travelling Doctor sporting his latest - and eleventh - physical embodiment in the person of Matt Smith...

How appropriate, bearing in mind the Doctor's celebrated anonymity, that he should, at long last, be played by a man named Smith!

And in case you've forgotten any of Mr Smith's predecessors, I found this tribute on YouTube as a reminder of Who Was Who --- well, at least, all of the legitimate ones because, as all Who-fanatics know, there were also one or two locum doctors such as those who stood in for deceased actors, took on the part for spoof versions or, in the case of Peter Cushing, portrayed the Doctor on the film.

So, with that caveat, here (courtesy of YouTuber, Brian Rimmer) is the Doctor Who first eleven...

I won't pretend that I've been a constant fan and devoted follower of Doctor Who throughout his 47 year-long regeneration process, but I've always checked out each new incarnation of the Doctor if, for no other reason, because of a sentimental attachment to my youthful memories of where it all began...

To be honest, I've never quite got over the fact that I missed the very first appearance of Doctor Who on our black and white telly or the fact that, whenever I mention this, David reminds me that he was watching!

It was teatime - 5:15 in the afternoon of 23 November 1963 (the day after the assassination in Dallas of President John F Kennedy) - when the BBC transmitted episode one of 'An Unearthly Child' with William Hartnell as the enigmatic Doctor.


Come Monday morning, everyone at school was talking about this amazing new TV show about a Time Lord zapping through time and space in a machine called a TARDIS that was disguised as a then commonplace piece of British street furniture - a police telephone box.

The following Saturday, I was on the sofa (I was already too old to be hiding behind it!) ready to watch the next episode and - wonder of wonders! - in response to a phenomenal public reaction to the series' debut and the fact that other hapless youngsters had missed the beginning, the BBC preceded the second episode with a repeat of the first! Brilliant! I was hooked...

It's a truism (but true for all that!) that everyone's favourite Doctor is the one they watched when they were growing up. For me it was first and foremost, the irascible, grandfatherly William Hartnell followed by the quirkily eccentric Patrick Troughton and how utterly, fantastically exciting it was, back then, when one became the other!

Here's the fan picture I wrote for at the time...

I remained a fairly consistent devotee through the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker years (two more highly idiosyncratic characterizations) and I quite enjoyed Peter Davison's sojourn as the first really young Doctor although, following on from his appearances in All Creatures Great and Small, I could never quite stop thinking that this doctor was actually only a vet!

Sad to say, I pretty much gave up and lost hope when Colin Baker took over; although I gave Sylvester McCoy a go and still think her deserves credit for trying (against overwhelming odds) to give Who back something of what he had once been.

I was, frankly, optimistic (wrongly so, as it turned out) when Paul McGann made his brief, but quite impressive, foray in the role and - after almost a decade of being lost in space - was engaged by Christopher Eccleston's energised portrayal, despite having quite a few issues with Producer/Writer Russell T Davies' re-birthing of the series.

Davies undeniably rejuvenated Who's popularity with all those spin-offs and, in casting David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor at least ensured the continuation of the character's mercurial personality. Here are those Top Ten Whos as seen by the talented Jon Pinto...

Now, as the the Brigadier once famously said, "Here we go again..."

The creative reigns have passed to Steven Moffat, a dedicated Who-fan (and, arguably the man responsible for some of the best of the recent Who scripts), with the mantle of William Hartnell now falling on the slight shoulders of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor...

Of course, you all spotted the moment of homage...

Yes, well that's more than enough to get an old Whoster like me, tuning in, I can tell you!

And, look, here's further proof of my loyalty...

And you can find out What's What on the Doctor Who - The Official Site

Images uploaded via my flickr Photostream.

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By the way, just before 12:30 am this morning, the hit counter on my blog reached a pleasingly configured number...


Thanks for reading all those pages, folks!

SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENTS

It seems my blog of earlier today has brought a few folk out of the closet!

Here's LISAH's collection of fridge magnets...


And here's where they came from...

Top left: souvenirs from a Caribbean cruise – my only cruise.

Top 2nd from right: Picasso plate from Malaga, beneath two of the roof of Casa Batllo in Barcelona – my favourite building – it would be worth visiting the city again just to sit in a cafe opposite and stare at it.

Top right and two below: a visit to Dallas for a wedding followed by a lovely week touring Texas and then three days in San Francisco.

Assorted bears and animals dotted about – if they’re cute and cuddly, we like them. That particularly goes for the two chinchilla fridge magnets near the bottom left, who remind us of our adorable, cute, departed chin, Freddie.

Middle of the fridge: magnet of the BBC Horror/Mystery series from 2003, Strange, with Ian Richardson, Samantha Janus and Richards Coyle.

Right-hand side towards bottom: gecko from Lanzarote and two magnets from Gran Canaria – a place I’d love to go back to.

Bottom: Chatsworth; my Coronation Street visit souvenir; Menorca and Costa Del Sol (the Menorca magnet wouldn’t budge and the Costa Del Sol one needs to be propped up against it to keep it straight); one from a visit to the beautiful Cotswolds; a scene from Stratford-upon-Avon – purchased during one of many visits.

Down the left-hand side: purchased during a visit to Eilat in the early ‘90’s. I’d love to have swum with the dolphins, but wasn’t quite brave enough.

From SUZANNE, here's the rest of those Tin Tin magnets!


And, in case you missed his comment on the previous blog, here's what a GOOD DOG found when he start rummaging among his collection of magnets and things...

Oh, I so shouldn’t have read this post, only because I had so much to get done today. Instead of knuckling down I pulled out the two metal tins on one of the back shelves here and had a good snoop through them. Inside... treasure!

Travelling around I’d never opt for great big souvenirs that would be difficult to manhandle, instead picking up little nick-nacks along the way like a small, four-inch high “totem pole” from Vancouver and a fridge magnet from the city’s aquarium; various badges from museums and galleries; little character models from theme parks, which include a Looney Tunes Road Runner pencil that has a plastic cactus top with a curved stalk coming out of it attached to a little Road Runner figure that can be twirled around (odd, I know).

Most of the time, when travelling all around the States and Canada, I picked up matchbooks from hotels, restaurants and bars in the various cities. So, from the pile there’s Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Ruby’s River Road and Benny’s Burritos from NYC; Sloppy Joe’s (Key West); Pat O’Brien’s (N’Awlins); Sun Dial Steak Restaurant (Atlanta); The Dubliner (Washington DC); Bull & Finch Pub (Boston); Billy Goat Inn and Ed Debevic’s (Chicago); Gold Spike (San Francisco); Duffy’s Shamrock (Denver); Barney’s Beanery (LA); Elephant and Castle Pub (Toronto); Space Needle Restaurant (Seattle), along with just about every casino in Las Vegas (at least at the time I was there).

However, there is one favourite magnet here. Though not on the fridge, it’s stuck on the side of the file cabinet beside the desk holding up photos of myself and The One That Got Away, who is striking a very enigmatic pose. On the magnet: a round yellow face with two black eyes. Instead of a curved smile, the mouth is a horizontal black line.

Underneath it are the words: HAVE A DAY.

I can wish you all nothing better!

MAGNETIC ATTRACTIONS

I seem to have gathered rather a lot of fridge magnets over the years and looking at them the other day, I realised that they represented a kind of saga of my life (and the lives of my friends) over the last decade or two.

Click on images to enlarge

So I thought I'd make a small, but representative, selection of the dozens of magnets currently on display, relieve them of the notes and out-of-date vouchers they normally keep in place and share with you their origins which turn out to be quite international...


Top Row (left to right): A pair mini-clogs featuring Miffy, the rabbit created by the Dutch artist and writer, Dick Bruna.

Cartoon of David by a caricaturist with whom he worked at some corporate dinner. She caught something of his character really rather well: the impish twinkle, perhaps, just before he produces your chosen card!

One of Oscar Wilde's cleverisms purchased in the shop at London's National Portrait Gallery on a trip there with our friends Val and Michael..

I'm not sure where I got the ceramic dodo, but I've always had a kind of empathy with these absurd, hapless birds so cruelly condemned to extinction by unthinking Man.

Second Row: Ena Sharples (a memorable early character in Coronation Street, played by Violet Carson) from the shop at Granada Studios in Manchester, during a visit there with my best mate, radio producer, Malcolm Prince, when we were making a series about soap operas. Alas, the Studio Tour is now sadly closed to visitors.

Las Vegas bottle opener brought back from the Strip by my old pal, Irascian. Decorative and functional - the gift, I mean, although the same could also be said of the giver!

Souvenir of The Living Seas pavilion in EPCOT Center, Walt Disney World, Florida, the opening of which I attended with my good friend and fellow Disney historian, Richard Holliss. You won't find Mickey Mouse there these days as it's been re-vamped as The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Hmmm...

Keepsake from Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California, the fabulous, fanciful home of William Randolph Hearst who was the original inspiration for Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. It was bought on a unforgettable visit with the aforementioned Malcolm Prince when we were driving from San Francisco to LA during the making of a radio series about Walt Disney.

Kangaroo decorated by an aboriginal artist bought in The Rocks Market, Sydney Harbour, en route to New Zealand on Rings business.

The Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, although I'm not sure where she came from -- other than the West, obviously!

Third Row: Rocket from the Tintin adventures Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon bought at a Hergé exhibition which David and I visited at the Centre George Pompidou, Paris.

John Tenniel's Humpty Dumpty (from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass) bought from that Carrollian cornucopia in Oxford known as Alice's Shop.

A stylised representation of the classic Doric architecture of Paestum, brought back from Italy for us by Richard and Chris Holliss. A reminder that whilst we know Venice like the back of our hand, most of Italy is, well, a foreign country to us...

"Aah, Bisto!" The classic 'twenties advertisement featuring the Bisto Kids by cartoonist Wilf Owen. This came from the nostalgia section of the shop in the Imperial War Museum. Not being a great lover of planes, tanks and guns, I'm afraid I spent most of my time in the shop!

100% Toro from Spain, courtesy of our own dear Polkadotsoph. Like all great logos, it's 100% simple and effective.

Bottom Row: Edinburgh Festival poster from our last visit in 1997 - goodness, is really that long ago?

One of a set of magnets given away with Findus frozen products in 1992 when Disneyland Paris had just opened and was still known as EuroDisneyland. Of course I have the complete set (God knows how many packets of fish fingers I had to get through!) but this magnet is of my favourite section of the park, Fantasyland, and features Peter Pan.

E H Shepard's Pooh and Piglet (though manufactured under license from Disney, naturally!) with a caption that I used to try and heed when approaching the fridge in the days of my diet! I must start looking at it again!

Athena's Owl from a tat-shop in the Plaka, Athens. True, the head is too big - but then maybe that's due to all the wisdom crammed within!

Memento of the Jurassic Park attraction at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, visited during yet another American jaunt with Mr Prince. "Was this work?" you ask. Well, let's just say it was research!

This is, believe me, only a fraction of the stuff on our refrigerator. I'll give you a further tour another day.

In the meanwhile, why not tell me - or show me - what's on your fridge?

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Oh, yes, and happy birthday greetings today to Sibley-blog regular, Boll Weavil...

Many Happy Returns, Boll!