Keep It Broken!

While we're thinking about shotguns, rural settings and sudden, violent death, remember --

'A gun should be broken and unloaded whenever it's not being fired, and especially when getting through a fence or over any obstacle. If you don't follow the rules, sooner or later there'll be a - BANG! - tragedy'.

Look at the geezer being shot. Is it just me, or is he hamming it up a bit?

I Drinks It All of The Day

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.

Good luck with that.

The Rites Of Pannage

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.

A Mole Dies Very Easily

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.

Tons Of Practically Useless Flesh

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.