The wonderful Jack Hargreaves looks at birds, specifically British Finches.
I had a non-British finch once, a Zebra Finch, to be precise. He took a chunk out of my finger, and later had a heart attack and died when next door's cat walked in through the sliding doors and jumped up at the cage. He could dish, but he could not take. Lightweight.
Christmas isn't Christmas without the appearance of a wise old man with a big white beard: Jack Hargreaves.
In 1981, Southern TV (which Jack had helped set up and run) lost its franchise, signalling the end for his long running TV show 'Out of Town', a jewel in the channel's crown since 1963. Jack bought the masters of the show and, shortly afterwards, set to work on re-editing them and adding newly filmed intros and outros. Now in his seventies, when reviewing the footage he occasionally becomes somewhat wistful and philosophical. In 'Ice Fishing', for instance, he ponders if the UK could get by on hydro power but concedes that he won't be around to see the answer.
Never one to suffer fools gladly, his assessment of his (slightly) younger self at the end of the film is typical Hargreaves: bluff, funny, honest. Merry Xmas, Jack.
More high quality edutainment from Jack Hargreaves. This is a clip from 1977 - Punk and the Jubilee are all very well, but what about the 'zider? Super stuff, and a drinking game in the making, simply take a swig every time they do.
We haven't had any 'Out Of Town' for a while, have we? Here's a short film about pannage, i.e. letting pigs out into the woods to snuffle up acorns and eat other interesting things which will, ultimately, make them taste better in a sandwich.
No particular angle on this, it's just an interesting bit of film, and Jack Hargreaves is, as ever, an informative and hairy host. I'm loving his combat jacket in this clip, and imagining an alternate reality where he is starring in 'The Wild Geese' instead of Richard Burton. He'd have shot Richard Harris like that.
More from 'Out Of Town' and the inimitable Jack Hargreaves (actually, he can be imitated, I do it all the time). 'The Moley Man' could be straight out of a nasty fairytale, despite being so nice and old and quiet and harmless looking. Harmless to human kind that is: to the humble Talpidae he's the flipping Terminator.
The casual cruelty of the countryside is much in evidence here. I don't know what's more disturbing: the information that you can kill a mole simply by tapping it hard on the nose, or the fact that somebody has obviously tried it out and been pleasantly surprised by the result. I get the feeling I'm going to be dreaming about the Moley Man tonight, assuming, of course, that I can get to sleep at all.
In a bit of a change of scenery from the concrete spires and rotundas of Brum, here's Jack Hargreaves out in the country doing what he does best, i.e. looking at big veg and sinking a pint.
'Out Of Town' ran between 1963 to 1981, with subject matter ranging from fishing to farming to hobbies and horses, dogs, hunting, handicrafts, fetes, foxes, birds, carts, moles, lobsters and charcoal burners: a staggering variety of country pursuits recorded for posterity as they began to slowly die out. This report is from 1978, concluded with an insert added in the late eighties. Typical of the gentle, slightly wry approach of the show, it's a charming eight minute report on a small village and the things that knit it together: gigantic gourds.
There is, by the way, a good reason why this film is an appropriate sequel to the Telly Savalas post, but you'll have to watch it all the way through to see it.
Things to note: the people; the knitwear; some of the trousers and, most of all, the faces: forget the cardigans and the flares, these people's faces would have been equally at home at a witch burning, or a joust, or a battle with the Vikings.
I also like Jack's sign off, and the rather abrupt way he cuts off his stream of consciousness. He's a busy man: he can't sit here all day jabbering about the size of onions.
