George Formby's Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock

George Formby was a legendary British star of stage, screen and record. At the height of his fame in  the 1930s and 1940s Formby was probably the most famous man in the land. A gifted entertainer and musician, Formby is still highly regarded as one of the UKs greatest entertainers.

Blackpool Rock was one of, if not the very, first song that had to be edited to be played on the BBC, back in 1937, Formby's double entendres were impressively sophisticated, especially if all the ones we can see now were intended.

The song was written by Harry Gifford and Fred Cliffe who wrote many of Formby's songs, George occasionally altering some of the lyrics.

Looking up the songwriters, Gifford it appears also co-wrote a song called Underneath Your Mushroom Umbrella, which I have never heard but my imagination is doing a good job writing it.

The song includes lyrics such as

It may be sticky but I never complain, it's nice to have a nibble at it now and again

More on George Formby here

and now a bit of Blackpool Rock

Brighton Rock

'Rock' is sold in many seaside towns across the UK and then around the world, mostly with a high UK expat settlers or British visitors.

Known for having writing through it, rock was the holiday gift of choice for the neighbours you didn't like. The scourge of NHS dentist and friend of private ones, rock is essentially a lot of sugar and glucose syrup and part of the diabetic recruitment drive.


'Brighton Rock' is the title of a Graham Greene novel that has now been made into two films I haven't seen.

For this blog and my occasional entries on Cockney rhyming slang, Brighton rock has entered the Cockney lexicon in the plural, Brighton rocks, which tend to be worn in pairs and in yellow are one of Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Cheerful, they are indeed socks.

Cockney rhyming slang - George & Zippy

George & Zippy were star puppets in the long running British TV series Rainbow. Voiced by the late Roy Skelton (who also first brought the menacing voices of the daleks in Dr. Who to life), George was a pink hippo and Zippy was some kind of creature who had a mouth that could be zipped up, Zippy's head resembled a rugby ball, other than that he was one of a kind.

Zippy was loud, brash and irritating. George was a polite voice of reason, often calming Zippy down.

The Rainbow programme actually predates the Rainbow Pride flag by a few years, yet any retrospective viewer could be forgiven for reading a little more into the show than was actually there. George and Zippy could even be the forerunners for Cameron & Mitchell on the US sitcom Modern Family!

So in the world of Cockney rhyming slang how has the names of the most infamous gay couple become used?

"It's getting a bit George & Zippy in here, put a few bob in the meter and put the heating on"

George & Zippy = nippy, meaning cold or parky*

*Parky is a British slang word for cold. a word with no clear origin, possibly a variant of 'parka' which has been in the English language since the 17th century.

Scrambled eggs and Paul McCartney

Scrambled eggs have sometimes been found to irritate me, some hotels inability to make them well has, it almost seems impossible, but they manage it.

There aren't too many interesting facts about scrambled eggs, although on the Wikipedia page they do tell of an interesting preparation using a steam piping wand as found on espresso machines.

But what, I hear you ask is Paul McCartney doing in the title....







If you didn't know, Scrambled Eggs was the original title Paul gave to Yesterday. Now I was going to use my vast knowledge of some of the original lyrics and other useful Macca info, but then with exhaustive internet research (OK a Google click) I discovered that Paul had sung a version of Scrambled Eggs with Jimmy Fallon on US TV in December 2010, there are some grainy You Tube videos and then this version with the lyrics and some Spanish to add to the joy.

A witty riposte

Webster's gives a rather charming definition of riposte as "a retaliatory verbal sally".

The celebrated star of films such as The King's Speech and TV programmes like Dr. Who, Winston Churchill has many a riposte in his back catalogue.

The more famous riposte is said to be an exchange with MP Bessie Braddock who told Winston that he was drunk to which his famous riposte was along the lines of "and madam you are ugly, but in the morning I will be sober". Sadly it's unlikely this ever took place and a similar quote can be dated back to a 1934 WC Fields film, It's A Gift.

When George Bernard Shaw invited Churchill to the first night of his play "and bring a friend if you have any", Churchill replied "I can't make the first night, but I will be free for the second if there is one".


Possibly the most famous is Nancy Astor's comment "Winston if you were my husband I would put poison your coffee", Churchill's reply "madam if you were my wife I would drink it".

Another famous riposter was Groucho Marx, not only scripted ones but also as game show host on You Bet Your Life and whenever the occasion called for it.

One that is attributed to Groucho to a woman who had a large amount of children he asked "Why so  many?",
"Well I love my husband" was the reply. The riposte was "Well I love my cigar but I take it out of my mouth once in a while".

Cliff Richard's Move It

Released in 1958, Britain's first rock & roll hit pre dated the Beatles by 4 years, John Lennon is quoted as saying that before Cliff & The Shadows there was no British music worth listening to.

Written by Ian Samwell, who also wrote the Cliff & The Shadows hits Dynamite and High Class Baby, Move It reached number 2 in the charts for a then 17 year old Cliff Richard and his backing band (then known as The Drifters a name they later changed to The Shadows to not confuse with the US group of the same name).

The opening of Move It is a match for any classic rock & roll track and the fact that Cliff and the song are still going strong 50+ years later is testament to that.

So here is Cliff and The Drifters singing the song live, check out how cool Cliff is trying to be!

The Teletubbies before The Teletubbies - Harry Enfield.

Five years before The Teletubbies hit the screens in 1997, there were a series of sketches on the BBC's "Harry Enfield's Television Programme".

So long before The Teletubbies set of to conquer New York, a less colourful look appeared on our screens.
These aliens being taught English were not that similar to The Teletubbies, but they did have various antennae and spoke gibberish. Anne Wood and Andrew Davenports wonderful creation of The Teletubbies caught the imagination of children worldwide across 365 episodes until 2001. Anne Wood went on to create Boohbah and worked again with Andrew Davenport on In The Night Garden.

Back with the programme, here is an excerpt from the Harry Enfield show.