Summary: .While sifting through the rubbish we are subjected to on television I actually found a program I enjoyed....it was the story of Jimmy Perry and David Croft who created Dad's Army....it was about the struggle they had to get it off the ground...and the two actors who played them were really good and the chap who played Captain Mainwaring was spot on....it was a brilliant insight into problems of trying to convince TV boffins of the credibility of good comedy...boffins who can't see further than the end of their noses......the pair went on to write Hi-de-Hi which is also classic comedy........................and another interesting documentary was the story of Fawlty Towers...another classic...it was interesting to see how John Cleese stopped after the second series as he felt it had run its course...a wise decision....unlike "Benidorm" which started well but has now reached rock bottom....definitely well past its sell-by date.....sadly great comedy is a thing of the past. 2.I thought after his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing Ed Balls would vanish off the scene....how wrong I was....he features in a new documentary called Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls....where he travels around the southern states of the U.S.A. meeting Donald Trump supporters......and is he a dark horse or what....he got involved in wrestling...gun handling and even trained with the police and volunteered to be tazered....very impressive stuff which will be the making of him...I now see him in a totally different light....Go Ed !!! 3.Rick Astley was on the Zoe Ball show on Saturday morning....he is going back on tour to promote his latest album....which he made in his garage.....he is a really good personality and is quite modest....he talked about the occasional problems of doing concerts which I can relate to...because of the success of his album he intends to go back into his garage and make another one...a man after my own heart....I built a recording studio in my attic back in the day as I failed to see what difference Abbey Road would make to my records....nowadays with modern technology you can make a record on a computer in your bedroom....so I'm afraid it's goodbye to the greedy major labels....who needs 'em. 4.It is nice to see my pales The Krankies on the Marigold Hotel programme....they really are a lovely couple whom I have known for around 20 years and have written many songs for them which they have used in their many pantomimes over the years............also Donald Campbell's Bluebird has been restored and put back on the water....I actually have a connection to this....back in 1958 I saw a skiffle group called The Atlantics on our local cinema which was the first time I heard an electric guitar on stage....the leader of the group was called John Lomax and he went on to make a cine film of Cambell's last tragic attempt at the world water speed record in the Lake District....the film won several awards and his story was featured in a programme called "Days That Changed The World" a while back...with an actor playing John.....in the mid nineties I met John and we became very good friends....we even formed a skiffle group in 2001 and played at the International Skiffle Convention in Finland.....he was a great guy and a good friend but is sadly no longer with us...as a small tribute I wrote a song for him called "The Story of Skiffle" which we recorded and got quite a bit of airplay. 5.Skiffle was the beginning of it all in tis country so the song this week is in memory of my pal ......."The Story of Skiffle" by Skiffle John Lomax.....a great friend who I still miss.
