Please Stand By

A random selection of telly apologies / announcements from the golden age of broadcasting, i.e. not now. See you next Thursday.

Off The Island

In a change to our normal domestic flight path, we now take a 2,391.16 mile diversion to Hong Kong, and celebrate the arresting visual imagery and sheer bonkers brio of their television and film. 'Sexy Killer' is a 1976 take on the old 'comely lady takes brutal revenge on nasty criminals' sub-genre perhaps best typified by the fantastic Pam Grier. The credit sequence is just about the best thing in the film, but there is an awful lot more on offer: sex, violence, drugs, groovy music, larger than life performances - and some eye watering outfits.      

Analogue Knobs

While we're discussing 'Design For Today', I couldn't resist a part two, this time focusing on the various knobs, dials, reels and readouts featured in its fifteen minute running time.

God Bless The Central Office of Information!

Design For Today

'Design For Today' is a seminal 1965 short film directed by Hugh Hudson which presents us with an avalanche of good looking products all designed and made in the UK. Stylish, aspirational, it's a very high end vision of life but a highly desireable one: a pretty wife, a beautiful car, a high powered job in industry, aubergines for dinner, a Francis Bacon catalogue on the coffee table.

Made without narration as 'good design speaks for itself', it does, however, benefit enormously from a very cool Johnnny Scott soundtrack. An interesting aside is that the credits are read out, the only human voice on the soundtrack: I wonder if that's where Truffaut got the idea for the credits on 'Fahrenheit 451'?

Modernist Public Houses Of The Realm

The Stamp Of Quality

The design evolution of a set of stamps to commemorate the maiden voyage of Concorde on 2nd March, 1969. I'm not a philatelist, but I have a framed set of these in the house.

The stamps featured are the 9d and the 1s 6d, both designed by David Gentleman (the fellow in the screenshots), who also created the equally iconic World Cup 1966 stamp with 'the sexy footballers kicking their legs up in the air' (as David Hockney once described it) and the wonderful set commemorating The Battle Of Hastings. In fact, it was Gentleman who more or less invented the British stamp as we know it, writing to postmaster general Tony Benn in 1965 to suggest that, if Her Majesty didn't mind not having her head so large on every stamp, a more interesting and varied approach could be taken. Good work, David.

Mr. Gentleman also designed the mural at Charing Cross tube station, which is lovely and folky and well worth a special stop.