More from The 350 Most Nostalgic Things EVER!, the great big overlong list of several hundred things that nobody ever seems to remember - more than likely because there's not really that much point in ever remembering any of them - but which may well yet prove useful to Boris Johnson in his campaign to capture the hearts, minds and votes of idiots by keeping up the pretence of being a 'bumbling eccentric' with our best interests at heart. Part of this strategy appears to involve trying to out-funny someone who once told a joke that set almost the entire country against him and had national newspapers calling for him to be 'banned' en masse. Yeah, good luck with that.
276. Chinos
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Twill-hewn Bratpack-inspired late eighties trouser of choice that went hand-in-machine-sewn-turn-up with the questionable 'casual' fashion choices outlined in the previous entry, about which there's really not that much else to say. Yes, we've hit a pretty uninspired stretch of the list of late, and we're not even a third of the way through. In fact, things got so dull in the last instalment that we forgot to include the usual suggestion of innovative punishments for George Osborne's face. What we really need is for some exciting new technology to come along and liven things up a bit...
279. Quantel
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Image-splitting 'morph'-facilitating here-comes-CGI computer-driven video effect much beloved of hard-hitting current affairs shows, replication-riffing sci-fi efforts, and Children's BBC programmes where the presenters needed to 'go small'. More famously seen, however, as primary driving force behind Cyndi Lauper's 'moving around the screen in a box in the direction she's looking in' pop video antics, and that inter-sketch idiocy where a still frame of Russ Abbot and Les Dennis would shrink into the shape of a wine glass that then turned into a sports car and drove off or something. Famously operable only by trained boffins, owing to Command Line-driven programming-based operating system, and measuring about eighteen million feet by six thousand miles, its degradation to eventual status of being done better by free Apps was both inevitable and deserved.
278. TV Tops
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Non-partisan attempt at straddling the TV-based-magazine-with-comic-strips-in-it middle ground between the polar extremes of Look-In and Beeb, speech-bubble rendering the likes of Hart To Hart, Knight Rider, Spit The Dog, Metal Mickey, Minder, The Professionals, Little And Large, Marmalade Atkins, Hi-De-Hi!, Fame!, and several other non-exclamation-marked programmes including, most startlingly, Granada's short-lived Spielberg-pisser-on Young Sherlock. Most famously home, however, to a truly insane Adam Ant strip in which he got involved in some weird dreamscape escapade involving possessed schoolchildren and some kind of chess game between the 'gods'. Gamely fought against its more easily get-behindable on-the-bus-or-off-the-bus rivals for a good three or four years, and - if anyone from a The Works-friendly publishing house is reading - long overdue the bumper hardback compilation treatment.
277. Tony Dortie
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Proto-'embarrassing dad' down-with-da-kidz TV pop show anchorman whose Paul Leyshon meets DJ Wakner meets It's About That Time For Megablast I'm Outta Here PEACE-eace-eace-eace presentational style enlivened everything from long-forgotten lower-end-of-top-forty-heavy satellite service Music Box to long-forgotten CBBC holiday morning trendsurfing with added features on 'improving' hobbies UP2U, and - most infamously - the notorious Everyone Must Sing Live (Yes Even You 'Shaft') 1991 relaunch of Top Of The Pops as an unwatchable puddle of horse urine. Still, at least presenters actually still had a bit of character back then, even if the 'character' was that animated singing can of Vimto that got all agitated about 'My Mate Elton' being 'flat' in a hip-hop stylee.
75. Slime
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Mattel-spewed 'trash can'-conveyed Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz-esque toy gunge of dubious texture and indeed dubious purpose, occasionally embellished with suitably quasi-revolting accoutrements such as eyeballs and worms, fashioned from Esther Rantzen's old con artist slimming aid bete noire Guar Gum, and widely deployed for low budget playground recreations of Alien or The Hammer House Of Horror with a Blake's 7-level effects budget. Certifiably non-toxic to boot, which unfortunately means that forcing eighteen million gallons of it down George Osborne's throat will have absolutely no effect whatsoever.
276. Chinos
Twill-hewn Bratpack-inspired late eighties trouser of choice that went hand-in-machine-sewn-turn-up with the questionable 'casual' fashion choices outlined in the previous entry, about which there's really not that much else to say. Yes, we've hit a pretty uninspired stretch of the list of late, and we're not even a third of the way through. In fact, things got so dull in the last instalment that we forgot to include the usual suggestion of innovative punishments for George Osborne's face. What we really need is for some exciting new technology to come along and liven things up a bit...
279. Quantel
Image-splitting 'morph'-facilitating here-comes-CGI computer-driven video effect much beloved of hard-hitting current affairs shows, replication-riffing sci-fi efforts, and Children's BBC programmes where the presenters needed to 'go small'. More famously seen, however, as primary driving force behind Cyndi Lauper's 'moving around the screen in a box in the direction she's looking in' pop video antics, and that inter-sketch idiocy where a still frame of Russ Abbot and Les Dennis would shrink into the shape of a wine glass that then turned into a sports car and drove off or something. Famously operable only by trained boffins, owing to Command Line-driven programming-based operating system, and measuring about eighteen million feet by six thousand miles, its degradation to eventual status of being done better by free Apps was both inevitable and deserved.
278. TV Tops
Non-partisan attempt at straddling the TV-based-magazine-with-comic-strips-in-it middle ground between the polar extremes of Look-In and Beeb, speech-bubble rendering the likes of Hart To Hart, Knight Rider, Spit The Dog, Metal Mickey, Minder, The Professionals, Little And Large, Marmalade Atkins, Hi-De-Hi!, Fame!, and several other non-exclamation-marked programmes including, most startlingly, Granada's short-lived Spielberg-pisser-on Young Sherlock. Most famously home, however, to a truly insane Adam Ant strip in which he got involved in some weird dreamscape escapade involving possessed schoolchildren and some kind of chess game between the 'gods'. Gamely fought against its more easily get-behindable on-the-bus-or-off-the-bus rivals for a good three or four years, and - if anyone from a The Works-friendly publishing house is reading - long overdue the bumper hardback compilation treatment.
277. Tony Dortie
Proto-'embarrassing dad' down-with-da-kidz TV pop show anchorman whose Paul Leyshon meets DJ Wakner meets It's About That Time For Megablast I'm Outta Here PEACE-eace-eace-eace presentational style enlivened everything from long-forgotten lower-end-of-top-forty-heavy satellite service Music Box to long-forgotten CBBC holiday morning trendsurfing with added features on 'improving' hobbies UP2U, and - most infamously - the notorious Everyone Must Sing Live (Yes Even You 'Shaft') 1991 relaunch of Top Of The Pops as an unwatchable puddle of horse urine. Still, at least presenters actually still had a bit of character back then, even if the 'character' was that animated singing can of Vimto that got all agitated about 'My Mate Elton' being 'flat' in a hip-hop stylee.
75. Slime
Mattel-spewed 'trash can'-conveyed Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz-esque toy gunge of dubious texture and indeed dubious purpose, occasionally embellished with suitably quasi-revolting accoutrements such as eyeballs and worms, fashioned from Esther Rantzen's old con artist slimming aid bete noire Guar Gum, and widely deployed for low budget playground recreations of Alien or The Hammer House Of Horror with a Blake's 7-level effects budget. Certifiably non-toxic to boot, which unfortunately means that forcing eighteen million gallons of it down George Osborne's throat will have absolutely no effect whatsoever.