Mark Albrighton

It’s going to be difficult to say a name that absolutely no one has heard of in Off topic on VT as I sense the vast majority of us tumble down rabbit holes on Wikipedia or similar. So I’m only thinking of people whom I think probably don’t quite have the public recognition their work merited. Beryl Vertue is a name that might be recognisable to anyone who has watched a mainstream UK sitcom but her impact is probably less well known. Starts off as an admin role, typing up Goon show scripts. I can’t quite tell how it happened but it comes across to me as “We need someone to sort our contracts out…let’s ask the secretary to do it.” And then she becomes an agent to Galton & Simpson, Hancock, Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, Frankie Howerd… And then was the person who was tasked with selling the rights to the US for versions of UK sitcoms. So basically G&S would have made a good amount from “Sanford & Son” and other writers benefit from her work. Also I’d never heard of Pauline Boty until the other day. Hers seems like the sort of life that would provoke a bio drama in one form or another.

Ooh Citizen Cane is on BBC four. Considering he’s not quite a household name, Joseph Cotten really did have quite the set of films in his CV. Not film related but I saw him in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock presents (this episode directed by Hitch himself) “Breakdown”. In its own way, that was a fairly nightmarish watch.

I’m never normally happy reading stuff about the tories. However this sentence I really am not at all pleased with I would say 35-50 is the age range that BCS would appeal to most. Whether those who vote Tory also like BCS is another matter. To my mind, they’ve taken a critically acclaimed show, with a catchy title which literally instructs you needing the service of an individual and put Starmer in place of the show’s protagonist. The character who, while flawed I believe people like (I’m referring to Saul, not Starmer). It’s not dissimilar to that time Labour (?) put Cameron’s head on that detective from Life on Mars. Let’s associate our enemy with something good and/or popular. That’ll show ‘em.

I think it could be, as suggested, people who you think should be more well known to the general public. I’d agree that we if said, say, five out of ten people have heard of the archduke Franz Ferdinand, I would wager that proportionally speaking, only one would have heard of Princip. Said before, everyone knows Guy Fawkes. Very much not everyone knows Catesby. There will be an obvious British bias for this, but it’s Scott of the Antarctic, not Amundsen of the Antarctic. Or it could be about very famous people who you hadn’t heard of until later in life. I previously posted in the “On this day in history” thread about how I’d never heard of Nicolae Ceaușescu. But I’m reliably informed for a few years leading up to his festive demise he was a regular fixture in the news. In terms of know people who should be more well known. I dare say Juan Garcia isn’t a household name and his role in Operation Fortitude isn’t well known. Receiving both an Iron Cross and an MBE isn’t something that many people manage. Moving up the fame scale, Henry Cavendish probably should be more famous. They went through his writings years after he died and found that he’d independently discovered loads of things that would only be discovered later. Robert Hooke did a tonne of work in various sciences. But we don’t know what he looked like and it’s only springs that he’s associated with. And Slinky from Toy Story has probably taken that title these days.

Missing Spurs at home in the list. Otherwise, yes, we can.

My sincere condolences, @Seat68

I’ve only watched the Sunderland one because I knew it was a car crash. Not particularly fussed about watching the behinds the scenes footage of a successful club. There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success - to quote Max Beerbohm. I would likely watch a Villa one. But only if it’s on a streaming service I already have. Wouldn’t sign up to watch it. Am sympathetic to @Spoony in that I don’t think there would be much interest outside of the Villa fan base. By all means try and sell the product, but I’m not sure it will take. Argentinians will have a certain fervour for Martinez but after that I’m not sure of the wider appeal of the other players - as much as I like them (and I really do). And am sympathetic to the wider point of it all being a bit soapy. Although I think football has really always been a soap drama to an extent, it’s just notably packaged and sold that way now. T’is the way of the world now.

Always think it’s something of a ballsy move to give a song the same name as an even more famous song. Especially something unique like “Goldfinger” where the phrase doesn’t appear anywhere in the lyrics of the second song of the same name The carefree attitude of youth, I guess.

Had the 8th birthday party for the little (but not as little she once was) one yesterday. Gosh it’s tiring. It was at a sort of multi entertainment venue, soft play, roller skating, lazer tag, sort of spinny bumber car things, mini go karts… Me and the ex v ten kids. In fairness the kids were very well behaved. Probably a score draw after an initial onslaught in the first half. I feel like we’re coming to the end of manic parties in sizeable numbers, although it’s really difficult coming up with ideas. Especially in January, it feels extra tricky.

Hmmm. Maybe. Debatable. After 21 games Man Utd were 3rd on 42 points. Newcastle were 4th on 40 points after 21 games. It’s really not that different to this season, as it stands. We’re one point better off than Man Utd were, Spurs have exactly the same number of points as Newcastle did. The point being made was countering the idea that we can’t keep not beating Everton or Sheffield United. We can still do it, just means it puts more emphasis on beating Newcastle.

A reminder. Wolves 1-1 Newcastle Newcastle 0-0 Crystal Palace Newcastle 1-1 Bournemouth Newcastle 0-0 Leeds Crystal Palace 0-0 Newcastle Newcastle 1-1 West Ham Bournemouth 1-1 Newcastle Leeds 2-2 Newcastle Newcastle 0-0 Leicester Newcastle finished fourth last season despite recording all these results.

Yeah I get the name itself is centralised. IF the name was at the top, I don’t think I would notice the problem as much. Situated at the bottom, my eye is lining up the bottom tip bit of the badge with the name (or rather the gap) and it exaggerates the problem. At the top of the badge, the centre isn’t as clearly defined so I don’t think it would be as obvious. And the 1874 not lining up with it either adds to problem.

Gawd, I hope they do something about the N hanging over the centre the way it is (if all these leaks/guesswork prove correct). My eye is constantly drawn to it. I’m assuming it’s because “Aston” is a wider word than “Villa” with the “I” being narrow. It’s bugging me that it looks off centre.

Yeah. No. Still not working. I could do a load of screen shots to show you. But I’m not terribly bothered. I’m of the view gifs should be used sparingly anyway. But the GIPHY app. Easy.

I find it interesting that the image displaying to me to represent the boring thread is my from post about pub signs. Unless it’s a different image for everyone.

Yeah…doesn’t work on my iPhone. Again, I’m sure this will be moved into site issues shortly. But just download the GIPHY app and it’s a piece of piss. Won’t do it from the website for whatever reason.

Probably (definitely) should go in the site issues thread. But some gif websites are trickier to post the url of the gif link. I don’t know why, it just is. Gifer used to be good, but it’s gone. I have experienced the problem with Tenor as displayed above. @Tayls, download the GIPHY app, everything becomes much, much easier if you do that.

I tend to get mixed up with Fallon and Kimmel in the battle of the Jimmys who have talk shows. I only really ever see these names, rarely have I seen a clip of their shows. I dare say all shows are hard work to one extent or another, but these nightly talk shows must be extremely stressful. (I am somewhat basing this on the short lived Aaron Sorkin series “Studio 60 on the sunset strip”). When it was on More4 I used watch the daily show with Jon Stewart. My memory is that that had a good batting average in the comedic stakes.

I often think about that line. I feel like that’s true for a lot of things for me. I’ve definitely felt like that about football. I feel that about bands whom I liked when I was younger and I still like them, but I suspect I wouldn’t like them at all if I heard them for the first time now.

Well how precisely am I meant to NOT give the game away by saying “Yes Sidcow, it is to do with the door furniture”? Look at it. Exactly how much “door furniture” is on display? Narrows it down somewhat. That’s why I’ve tried to give a not so spoon fed answer by referring to the glass. But fine, fine. It’s the door peep hole everyone. It’s ridiculous to have one when there’s plenty of clear glass glazing. That’s what’s funny about this particular picture.

I spent a large proportion of the time looking at the glass. It’s tangential to that.

You’ll see it when you see it. Took me 30 seconds to a minute.

Qualifying for the champions league group stage was worth £14m this season. According to that article and Kevin Maguire the champions league would be worth a minimum of £30m. Is the difference of £16m based on tv rights and ticket sales? I’m working on the assumption that the estimated £30m isn’t factoring in any hypothetical £2.4m wins.

If I’m being completely fair, Xia and Wyness didn’t help matters with all that.