TangoMikeOne

BTCC in the 90s was peak motorsports, moreso because the cars on the track looked like the cars on your street (with jazzed up paint and stickers), and Murray giving the commentary was the cherry on top... but wait, there's more! If he was interviewed about anything like for a documentary, he was measured and considered in his speech and you felt nobody else could describe what he was describing better (whether it was the IOM TT in the 60s or F1 in the 70s or Jaguar at Le Mans).

You could try looking for "Morecambe and Wise, Gregg's piano concerto" and "Four Candles" - 2 excellent skits from British TV that are legendary and touchstones of British humour. You could also search out Dad's Army "Don't Tell Him, Pike!"

If you want an opportunity to repeat the pleasure, without the disappointment, there's a planetarium at the Greenwich Observatory - I've heard it's very good, but I never go out there because I never think of the bloody things (except if I read it somewhere or overhear mention of one every few years and think "Oh yeah, I've always wanted to go...")

Using phones and devices while driving - yes, it's illegal, and you'll get a fine, points and if it contributes to a collision, or a breach of the road traffic act it can be treated as an aggravating factor, but lots of people still do it (if I'm driving, I usually set my phone to airplane mode). Also, the proliferation of speed cameras - I read an article in Motor Cycle News 10 years after they were first introduced, and the chief constable that pushed for their introduction was disappointed with how it had been done - namely he anticipated them being an aid to traffic divisions, allowing them more time to focus on other road crimes, but what ended up happening was lots of cameras turning up everywhere and traffic divisions budgets being gutted and the money redirected elsewhere. I think he made a telling point by saying that cameras can't stop a banned driver, driving impaired, with no tax, MOT or insurance, but someone late for work, or distracted by kids on the school run doing 37mph gets penalised.

The BV was a replacement for the Benghazi burners that were used before - basically an old 5(?) gallon oil drum or flimsy, petrol and a match, kettle on top, job jobbed (and better hope that Rommel doesn't rock up before the tea's brewed)... burning petrol inside your armoured vehicle being incompatible with continued vehicle (and maybe crew) serviceability. I tried using a surplus hexamine stove (aka hexy telly) camping on Shell Island one time - not recommended for a "quick" brew (maybe because I'm a thick civvy and set it up wrong)

TLDR: Hot, sweet tea for the win! Especially for mild shock. I was riding on a road with a rain damped concrete surface one time, started applying the front brake for a junction and washed out the front. I rolled down the road, and laid there as I ran a mental check (Any pain, can I move everything, does that cause any pain? etc), got up and looked for the bike and found it tank first under the front of a Pug, looking like someone went mental on it with a dod o'clock 2X4 (cue girly scream - only transport at the time and I was running around getting sorted for a trip to Prague at sparrow's fart the next morning). Some middle aged woman looked at me, saw I had loosened my grip on reality (alternately feeling sorrowful and verbally abusing myself, walking and pacing around, picking up bits of fairing and having a mental meltdown), came over and more or less pushed me into her house, sat me down, made a mug of tea and put it in front of me and told me to drink it..."Urgh, it's got sugar in it, I don't take sugar!" "Never mind this one time, it'll make you feel better." It absolutely did help, and she sat at the kitchen table with me and just let me babble the shock out of myself - when I couldn't find my fags, she even splashed the ash for me (not a fan of Marley Reds, but it hit the spot). She got me to stop, and empty all the conflicting information, obligations and anxieties out of my head long enough to form some kind of order from the chaos. The bike was rideable, but fucked looking, and I still had shit to do before leaving the next morning and getting it sorted created more fuck ups down the line... but I wasn't having a nervous breakdown, thanks to a wise woman and some hot, sweet tea.

Some newsagents/tobacconists also have big jars full of boiled sweets and you'd go in there for ¼lb, 200g or however much you wanted of whatever (pear drops, shebert lemons, cola cubes, jelly babies, liquorice torpedoes, etc, etc - it's like a pick and mix, but better (at least for boomers and Gen Xers and others that grew up with visiting shops like that))

I wouldn't rush to Billy Hill's with that - unless it's changed in 30 odd years the maximum payout (irrespective of stake and odds) is around £1M - you could spend a few monthd travelling the country, visiting bookies and dropping £20-100 in different branches, but the head office keeps track of stuff like that and will adjust prices accordingly. You could do the same for all high street bookies and they will do the same - not to mention they'll be keeping an eye on each others prices and you will cause movement in the market. Much better to go spread betting in this case (I presume - never done it, and couldn't afford it) and buy a fuck load of 15/16 Premiership, Leicester City... and have the mug punters that think selling LC is a sure thing. The best thing to do, is get your fortune together before then, so you don't have to work during the season, go to every game and have any seat (or box) in the house... while you're at it, make sure that the chairman doesn't take *that* helicopter ride (not a LC, or even football fan - but that was no way to go, and I'd like to see what LC could have achieved if he was still around)

Smoking - I thought my parents were outliers because neither of them smoked, (but as I learnt a couple of years ago, for one, that was just a fuckin' lie), and everyone smoked in cars, pubs, on buses on train platforms and express train carriages, restaurants, EVERYWHERE! It still was more or less when I came of age and sparked for the first time and has slowly reduced, with smoking indoors banned 15ish years ago and talk now of phasing out tobacco sales altogether for a future generation (IE: one group of 18 year olds will be able to legally buy tobacco, but the next year, the following cohort of 18 year olds won't be permitted to buy tobacco).

I'm not a McDonald's chief executive or mayor of New York in the late 2010s, so I use my hands always, ditto takeout pizza (some home cooked pizzas don't have the structural rigidity I like, so I'll cut it up with a knife and fork, but still eat with my hands).

Two when I wake, two as I'm getting ready, two 1 litre flasks through the night, two when I get home and one/two before bed. During the weekend, two when I wake, rinse and repeat every hour or so until it's time to get some sleep.

Always - to go through a red light, whether you blow through at 60mph or roll through at 20mph is a criminal offence (driving without due care and attention at minimum). You won't be spotted by a cozzer until you do, and then you could be fucked. The only exception I make, and which I think a policeman might accept mitigation for (but which the officer might proceed with, rather than letting it go at the roadside) is temporary traffic lights that have stopped cycling... but I still wait a good 4 or 5 minutes before I attempt to cross a red.

I live in a 1 bed council flat with a disabled wife, and professionally/financially, it's fair to say that I am not winning at life. My siblings are what can be described as comfortably middle class. My brother actually took in our mum when the family house was getting too much for her. That didn't last, partly due to her attitude/behaviour and partly due to a diagnosis initiated by that behaviour, and she's in a professional care home now.

Nissan Jukes and Quasqis are owned and driven by people that hate driving and embody that hate by driving in a way that others find hateful

Look, c'mon guys, the soup is fuckin' £10

If we wait long enough, I reckon we'll find somebody around the corner from Headingley that that got asked for directions to the castle (Leeds Castle is near the Kent hamlet of Leeds near Maidstone, not the city in Yorkshire).

I was working close to Stanstead (hamlet) near Wrotham/Meopham/Ash in Kent and a woman asked for directions to Stansted airport...oh dear. It's close to the M20 so the directions were very simple, but that was not going to be the significant problem.

I vaguely remember Operation Nimrod - the storming of the Iranian embassy by the SAS, that's as early as I can remember (but I'm aware that the "memory" might have been contaminated by any and all mentions of the SAS in the weeks and months afterwards. If not that, then the Falklands war)

And I have heard that in central London, both north and south of the river, the service pipes (IE: the pipes that connect the main to the property) were made from surplus musket barrels... don't know how true or apocryphal that is, but the time would be right, when water would be supplied to the upper echelons of society and the Tower musket was being superceded by the Enfield rifled musket.

Not always, and usually just to keep track of the shitboxes I've owned (Cav for cavalier, Vicky for Vectra, mega for omega, riva for meriva, etc)

I'm in the UK - we gave you the imperial measurement system 😉 (and hey, what's with America all being about bigger being better, and their gallons are smaller than UK gallons) - I didn't expressly say it beyond using the "£" symbol but we still use imperial in conjunction with metric (which can be a bit schizophrenic to say the least).

£2.88 for a ¼ pounder meal at McDonald's, £1 for an egg muffin, Christ, when I started smoking at 16, I could get a midrange brand of 20 for less than a fiver.

Jo Blo did a Clerks compilation the other day on their channel - every film reference in the original

The era of New Wave of British Heavy Metal - no 80s, no emergence of Motorhead, Maiden, Priest, Leppard, etc - and how many bands were influenced and informed by those bands? And if anyone says "Oh, but so and so started/released their first record in the 70s" yes they might have... but if they didn't get picked up and promoted by the press by getting lumped into the NWBHM genre, then they would have been a little footnote in music history.

I actually did a few birthday parties when I worked at McDonald's, and taking some 8-12 year olds in to the back was just another birthday party but seems utterly fucking wild in today's context - the local H&S officer would have a major shit fit about it. Please don't ask me about it, I still have PTSD from one party of a dozen 8 year old girls *stares off to a point 1000 yards away*

Okay, but dogs *can* look up, right?

It's NOT the Stig, but it is the Stig's American cousin - cut to Mike Skinner stepping out, wearing the white Simpson and race suit.

Sorry, keep forgetting we're two nations divided by a common language.

Phone boxes - used to be one every ¼ or ½ mile radius, and scores of them in high traffic areas like stations and airports... but I think the last time I used one would have been the mid 80s, possibly the early 90s and it would have been a reverse charges call home when I didn't have bus fare home

Pushing a marshmallow through a keyhole

Find a heritage railway near you (Spa Valley in Tonbridge and another in Tenterden are both near me) and make a visit, even if you only go on the platform it's worth it... but if you take a ride, you can drop a window and hang your head out like a dog in a car and fill your lungs (the smell of coal is unique and a blast from the past and I grew up with central heating!)

This probably fails the assignment, but it's the first thing that came to mind. Our first cat, he was a happy, healthy boy until one night during lockdown he lost the use of his back legs... rush down to the 24hr vet, wait outside until the sparrows farted to be told he'd had a clot near his heart, part time of it had broken off and blocked some vessels near the back and he could not be fixed, so we'd have to do... the humane... thing... The vet brought him out for us to say goodbye, but we couldn't go inside, let alone be with him in his final moments and even though my wife was his human, I cried like a baby all that day and when I think about it I tear up (including now). We've since lost 2 more cats (and have number 4 and socialising kittens 5 and 6 with number 4 since last week), but number 2 was the first to go and it still hurts and induces guilt of leaving him with strangers. Sorry if I've dragged the mood down.

The "-gate" suffix for any and all scandals... Watergate was 55 years ago this year, and it wasn't even British

And the tyres would be down to the carcass - even if they were replaced 6 hours before the sale, JC would take it out for old times sake and then he's knocking a few grand off the price

It's all fun and games until someone knackers the clutch

If you go to their YouTube channel, they post a video Page 94 every fortnight, usually Ian, Adam McQueen, Helen Lewis and Andrew Hunter Murray - but occasionally they'll have one of the hacks on to talk about an ongoing story they're covering (Post Office sub-postmasters, tainted blood, etc). They also announce the nominations and winner of the annual Paul Foot award there. Plus if you're on YouTube, just search for Ian Hislop and you can see his appearances before parliamentary committees or LBC (he was on Andrew Marr's show this week talking about Mandleson). I sometimes go back to watch them (especially the committee stuff), because he's authoritative, knowledgeable on the subject, isn't there to cover his arse, usually is almost fizzing with anger and adds levity to his evidence by dropping witty/cutting remarks that maintain respect for the victims of the wrongs he's testifying about.

Couple of stitches from knocking a milk bottle off a table and then falling on it (was a toddler at the time, so that's what I heard growing up), 3 exploratory scars on my left knee checking for potential torn cartilage (in 9 months I tore ligaments in left knee, dislocated right kneecap, dislocated left kneecap) Indentation on forehead after heavy folder landed corner first on it and I spent weeks picking the scab. Scar on forefinger from improperly cleaning a wicked sharp knife (Saturday job) Scar under lower lip, after being attacked in a pub (was rabbit punched, heavy glass ashtray thrown at my head and punched or kicked in the face, forcing some teeth though the flesh).

As a kid, going on holidays to stay with rellies in the arse end of nowhere in Ireland, I learnt to read books - I mean I already knew how to read, and had read books, (The Silver Sword by Ian Serallier (sp?) being a favourite, but definitely written with pre-teens in mind) but my first big, adult book was A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan, which was on a shelf on the farm. It was as thick as a bible and I'd looked at the photos in the centre a few times but around 10 or 11 I picked it up to read it properly. I'd already seen the film more than a few a few times (yea for VCRs!), and don't know if that helped - but it was the first time I realised that even a faithful translation of book to film excises so much detail (I still remember the anecdote of some of guards in Arnhem praising the paras for their street fighting, comparing it to their own experiences in Stalingrad and asking how hard did they train for urban combat and being told "It was our first time doing it, but we'll do much better next time!"). I didn't dive in to big books afterwards (I've still got Joyce's Ulysses on my to do list), but the size of a book didn't dissuade me from picking up a big book (or one from a big series of books) if I thought it would interest me

I'm British, so I never saw Walter Cronkite - but I got the reference to him in Bruce Almighty. Ditto Johnny Carson (referenced in The Young Ones book). There's going to be others, but really the point is there's not much excuse to know your own cultural history, even if it predates you personally...hell, if people take the attitude that "Before my time, ergo not important" why do they celebrate Christmas, Easter, public holidays, why aren't they working 6 days, 72 hours a week... and umpteen other rights that were acquired before they were born? I'm getting a little silly/going to extremes, but I think it is to a generation's detriment not to know and acknowledge their history, including cultural - and if they don't know it, it doesn't hurt to ask old farts like me/us or just Wikipedia

Never heard it before, just listened to it now and my reaction is "Yeah, and...?" Call me a picky motherfucker, but if you're going to cover a song, pick a different style Tainted Love - Northern Soul, Synth Pop, 00s metal... all different, all brilliant Suspicious Minds - Elvis (he's a genre all his own) or Fine Young Cannibals (mid 80's throwback to early 60s guitar pop), both different, both magnificent. But to me, I couldn't tell much difference between Quiet Riot and Slade, except QR just didn't push the buttons as hard as Noddy, Dave, Jim and Don do

If I hear it on the radio my ears hear Tiffany but my brain interprets Weird Al "I Think We're A Clone Now." It's right up there with Beat It/Eat It and Set On You/Six Words Long

D'you mean "Cum On Feel The Noise" by Slade? Coz that's the 70s

I think that Goon got transposed from Popeye to Milligan, Sellers and Secombe via pow camps - goon was perjorative slang for prison camp guards

A pack, no, a carton of Sweet Afton cigarettes... even getting imported from Ireland and being unfiltered, they're likely to be around £4-5 a packet and they were (discontinued early 00s) my favourite brand. Next will possibly be a few packets of JPS Black, for the sweet black and gold design (and without a big white box with a health warning or some bullshit photo showing the damage smoking does). If you don't believe me, Google image search JPS Lotus, JPS Norton or even Hertz rent-a-racer (not JPS sponsored, but one colour scheme was black and gold).

I'd do it for a few mill - double it and I'll quit on the spot (NEVER done that before - and some jobs absolutely deserved it) - I have no assets, and my co-worker is liable to be stuck when I do (I'll drop a few hundred thousands to ease his transition), so a few mill ought to insulate me from the initial rush/foolishness of going from paycheck to paycheck to never needing to worry about my bank balance (there will be some new threads, some nights out, cars and bikes plus the obligatory hookers and blow)

I think it has to be chicken tikka masala - you'll find it in every Ruby house in the UK and Ireland... but you'll struggle to find it in the Indian subcontinent

"Oh, there's a Chinook coming in to land. I wonder why it got the nickname of the Shit Hook." *Chinook lands* "Oh..."

I remember Top Gear magazine did a feature on the top 100 fun cars to drive 20 or something years ago. Try and guess what was in the number one spot (and in lieu of my inability to make spoiler bars, I'm just going to go down to the far end of this post) The winner was *drum roll* the hire car - if I remember rightly, the justification was words to the effect of it didn't matter if it was a 10k mile BMW 330 or a tired, shonky and squeaky Micra 1.0 having a car you could rag and not have to pay for any servicing, repairs or depreciation was (and is) incredibly freeing, and for example approaching a bend at 50 that you've never attempted above 40 before can be really exciting... and if you do bend it, just phone it in, get it recovered and go and get another one

Mine are wrecked, my mouth looks like a meth head's - I've never had meth, but I have been grinding my teeth in my sleep for decades. I'm just trying to hold on long enough to get into a NHS dentist, and maybe I can get some dentures

Thanks for your time minister