'The 80s in the Dock' is a Radio One documentary, broadcast on the last week of the 1980's, attacking the decade its about to leave.

Hosted by Muriel Grey, and featuring a host of celebrity contributions taking potshots at Jive Bunny, Live Aid and Frankie Goes To Hollywood amongst others. This is what the 80s thought of the 80s.

Listen to the whole thing here
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F430194DB0890659&playnext=1&play...

Anyone else have nostalgic memories of the comedy album? A genre made near obsolete by the time VHS reared its cleanable head.

They were often to be found in the one slim shelf in the corner of the record shop. Often mixed in with Learn To Speak French, Acker Bilk and Moira Anderson records. The only chance in the pre-video age for you to keep a permanent record of the likes of Hancock's Half Hour, Monty Python and Steptoe and Son. Or a rare chance to hear comedians swear like actual human beings (I still remember the classroom thrill of secret C90 Derek and Clive trading by whoever was old enough to get hold of a copy). I've still no idea who Blaster Bates was though.

Has any band or musician hit their creative peak over the age of 40? I can't think of any. When Macca releases a new album it will often be described as "his best work since Band On The Run", same with a new Bowie album and Scary Monsters. But no one would dare say they were anything close to equalling the creative heights of their youth.

But has anyone ever bucked that trend? And held off their creative high point until middle life. And I don't mean "well I think the Travelling Willbury's is a nice listen", I mean actually outdoing the works of their younger selves. Or is the decline in talent inevitable from aged 25 onwards. Any suggestions to refute this welcome. In fact Pulp's 'Different Class' is the only career peak from over thirties that springs to mind.

The whole infamous speech now re-enacted on Youtube. Oh my, not much room for ambiguity here. Shocking stuff!

Despite the live shows

"He last topped the UK chart with New Morning in 1970. His first, in 1964, was The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

Dylan now holds a record, previously held by Tom Jones, for the longest gap between solo number one albums. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8031636.stm

Though there's thousands of versions of Yesterday and Michelle (The Pixies even covered 'Wild Honey Pie'), for some strange reason, four decades worth of bands that followed The Beatles demise seemed a bit shy of covering this particular White Album epic. So, perversely, for bloody ages, I've been searching for a proper cover of it (to see if it was possible as much as anything else). And now I've found one

Revolution 9 by Shazam

Those that it's simply beyond the pale to criticise. Every group, no matter how legendary it is gets a critical kick in the stones at one point. And in this age of media saturation and internet bitching, is there anyone left who its simply out of bounds to give an emperor's new clothes style slagging off too?

I've thought about this, and compiled a very slim list (open to change and suggestion) of what might just be those few that its still considered extremely bad form to have a go at.

Johnny Cash
Nick Drake
John Peel
Girls Aloud

Cash, Drake and Peel for solemn, rootsy muso reasons, and (yes, I know) Girls Aloud for the inverted snobbery of the "you must love pop" critical concensus since the NME put the Spice Girls on their front cover. Elvis can be condemned with just the word "cheeseburger", Albert Goldman saw to Lennon, but don't you dare slag off winners in an ITV talent contest. What a strange world we live in.

Also anyone that's displayed too much of a social conscience can be ruled out instantly. Because people nowadays are more interested in calling them a hypocrite for owning a big house than they are in listening to any message they may have.

Any more suggestions gratefully accepted.

Been thinking about the worst output of The Beatles, the stuff that Beatle bashers cite. "You like The Beatles? Have you heard Octopus's Garden?"

This is nonsense of course. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that The Beatles at their very worst are better than most bands at their very best. I would sooner listen to Octupus's Garden than the entire output of, say, Spandau Ballet (put that in yer pipe Robert Elms).*

Over the years, I've noticed a lazy notion amongst a lot of music fans of what constitutes the worst of their output, based on a very narrow, art school student interpretation of the loveable moptops. It starts that they were just writing glorified chopsticks till Revolver, and then demands a vast bulk of their great tunes afterwards should be written off as musical atrocities. for the heinous crime of sounding a bit music hall or horror of horrors, appealing to children.

Well I'm happy to defend the very least of their output

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Pub piano classic mixed with a bit of Ska. One of the Voted the worst record of all time a few years ago by idiots.

When I'm 64
Worse than the crime of writing for children, this one's written for pensioners. One of the best and warmest tunes they ever wrote, with McCartney at his slice of life best. But fashionistas like Elms would die of shame in its company. So what?

Revolution 9
I can't imagine The Rolling Stones having the balls or imagination to put something this radical on their new 'long player'. Lennon wanted to release it as a Beatles single!

Yellow Submarine
Best children's song ever written. 'Watching the wheels go round and round' I spit in your face.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Contains the wonderful word 'pataphysical', and the fact that its dismissed as light and fluffy when its about a serial killer is part of its genius.

Imagine
Wasn't a Beatles record

A big part of the appeal of The Beatles was the breadth. And that not only meant having the balls to be more radical than most other bands, but the balls to be more conservative too.

* http://web.archive.org/web/20080103195937/http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/co...

Follow that!

Perhaps the ultimate muso talking point when it comes to seventies rock. The now big cliche that punk had to sweep away all old music to make way for the new.

Now I sit on the fence on this one a bit. I love the revolutionary, back to basis, anti-corporate message of punk, completely re-shaping the music scene, brilliant, on you go punk. I've just got one problem, this having to dismiss all prog, Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Wurzels and Pilot as worthless poop. Well they're not you know. Joe Strummer was talking out his rear in 1977 (the song and the year).

One of the biggest year zero puritans of course was the sadly missed Tony Wilson. Who 5mins6secs into this clip escalates an argument with Danny Baker over his oft-made claim that he never listened to any English music between 1969 and 1976.

Seems a tad extreme to me. Couldn't there have been a correct compromise between punks and proggers? I dunno, smashing the system without having to throw out a perfectly decent gatefold record collection? Or would a more compromising attitude at the time blunt the message?

As much as I miss John Peel, I miss his brilliant producer just as much, the also irreplaceable John Walters. A genuine original who spotted many of the legendary bands that dear Peely gets the credit for discovering. He was also one of the funniest people ever involved in radio.

A fine example of this his guest appearance below on the original radio version of Room 101 in 1992. Where he picks his least favourite things, places and pop songs. One of the funniest half hours I've ever heard. Discover Walters contempt for Peter Sarstedt, Alma Cogan and Joyce Grenfell, and why he hates his home town of Longeaton. You wont regret it.

A rare seventies guest appearance followed by one of the strangest showbiz anecdotes you'll ever hear

If The X Factor final isn't your cup of tea this saturday, on BBC2 is an episode of Dads Army "Room At The Bottom" being seen in colour for the first time in forty years, after being restored using a new technique called Colour Recovery.

The Beeb, in its mad dash to annihilate its own heritage in the sixties and seventies, only kept copies of a lot if its shows originally broadcast in colour on black and white film to sell abroad.

The BBC press release takes up the story:

"James Insell, Preservation Specialist for the BBC Archive, found that many recordings had been created without the colour sub-carrier having been filtered out, and that the colour information was still embedded in the film as a pattern of fine dots – or "chroma dots". He speculated that it may be possible to extract and decode the dot pattern in order to retrieve the original colours

"Being able to restore such BBC classics as Dad's Army, for example, is such a great opportunity for us. It's amazing to think that, 40 years ago, no colour copies were ever kept of such iconic BBC shows.

"Finding that the colour information had been preserved, and now having a technology available to recover and reapply it, brings great potential for breathing life back into certain programmes."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/12_december/...

Amongst those programmes is editions of Top of The Pops. In fact the first test the group did was this previously black and white clip of Jimmy Saville introducing the mighty Blodwyn Pig

http://colour-recovery.wikispaces.com/

I'm trying to compile a definitive list of Rock Stars who've publicly supported The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain.

From memory, at the moment I've got

Rick Wakeman
Graham Edge
Bev Bevan
Gary Numan
At least two of the Spice Girls
Mike Batt (obviously I'm struggling by this point)
Gary Numan

There are those that have expressed dubious right wing views I haven't included (Clapton, Bowie, Steps hilarious opinions on immigration). But that's too general,. I'm only after the properly declared "true blue" rockers.

This subject fascinates me as there is something extra galling about rock stars supporting the party of order and decency, in a way that I don't feel about actors. When I once saw Sir John Mills on the news at a Tory rally I didn't feel as though I could never watch Ryan's Daughter again. But the types who encourage you to grow your hair long and smash up Holiday Inns in their younger years, now telling you the country is too full of Muslims and poverty is less of a problem than speed cameras, its just not right.

I know some of these people are quite AOR, but my emotional side tells me that everyone in popular music should pay some lip service to rebellion. Lets put it this way, as an ex Pop Quiz viewer, I'm still upset with Tim Rice about it. That's how purist I am on the matter.

The only plus side is there's never anyone too cool. Though there still doing better than the American right. All John McCain could appear to sum up was Hank Williams Jr.

So who have I missed?