Coronation Street capers

I've been watching re-runs of Coronation Street from 1986 on ITV3 for the last week or so, episodes which I probably watched when they were originally broadcast.

The first thing to say about them is that the show was far funnier then, with many more comic characters and storylines than there seems to be now (I gave up watching it regularly a few years back, partly for that reason) rather than the Eastenders-style grimness which seems to have crept in since, with lots of sparkling repartee between brassy Rovers Return landlady Bet Lynch and the conniving showbusiness agent (and her future husband) Alec Gilroy, the newsagent's shop-running duo of Rita and Mavis (and her hapless fiance Derek) and the malapropisms and wall-adorning "muriel" of pub cleaner Hilda Ogden. The main difference there is the number of boxed keg beer taps on the bar - something you don't see much now outside of Sam Smith's pubs - rather than the more traditional handpumps which have since replaced them.

The main reason for the drop in quality is no doubt the increase of episodes from two to six a week, requiring the scriptwriters to stretch out storylines and make them more melodramatic.

That problem funnily enough is one which the only soap I now watch regularly, the Australian Neighbours, seems to have overcome, despite being broadcast daily, mostly maintaining quality and the fine balance between comedy and drama.

Bear with us

I'm not sure what to make of the news that Hofmeister lager is being revived. I'm pretty sure I never drank it in the 80's when it was produced by Scottish & Newcastle, now trading as Heineken UK,

The entrepreneurs who have bought and relaunched the brand are working with Marston's to make it available in pubs again, although, unlike the original beer, the new Hofmeister will only be available in bottles, rather than the canned and draught versions of the past, has jumped in strength from 3.2 to 5% abv, is now a Helles rather than a Pils, and will be contract-brewed by a small Bavarian brewery just east of Munich, Schweiger.

Hofmeister was just one of a number of fake German-sounding lagers brewed in Britain in the 70's and 80's. Locally, Robinsons brewed Einhorn (German for "unicorn", the name of their brewery in Stockport) and Greenall's in Warrington Grünhalle, a very rough translation of the company's name.

Salford Quays ahoy

The owners of the Manchester Ship Canal are expanding the amount of shipping on the waterway by building a series of new container facilities, including one in Salford.

Although referred to as the Port of Manchester, the docks on the Ship Canal that closed in 1982 were mainly in Salford rather Manchester, including those that now make up the Salford Quays shopping and leisure complex.

One of the main reasons for the closure of the docks was containerisation and while there may be some jobs created by the new scheme, it's unlikely we'll ever again see thousands of dockers manually unloading goods from the holds of ships.

All things bright and beautiful

The slot on the Yesterday channel in which Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ran this summer is now home to All Creatures Great and Small, the 1970's series about a veterinary practice in North Yorkshire in the 1930's.

Like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, I remember watching All Creatures Great and Small as a child in the late 70's and 80's. Watching it again, it strikes me how enviable the vets' life is. Endless pints of draught Yorkshire bitter at the Drovers' Arms - drawn from a wooden barrel into a jug - followed by massive slabs of pork pie and a full cooked breakfast the next morning. It might not be the healthiest of lifestyles but it certainly looks like an enjoyable one,  more than making up for being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a farmer to stick your arm up the backside of his cow.

Hillsborough, truth and justice

I'm glad that the lies of the police, politicians and press about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster have been thoroughly exposed by the independent panel examining documents relating to that day, especially for the relatives of those killed whose long fight for the truth has now been publicly vindicated. But the apology made by David Cameron in the House of Commons yesterday struck me as hollow and cheap. And twenty-three years too late.

Will anyone responsible for what happened at Hillsborough in 1989 or the cover-up in the years since then be held to account for what they did? The policemen whose incompetence was the main cause of the disaster who then smeared the dead as drunken hooligans? The politicians - including the local Tory MP and the Prime Minister - who helped spread what they knew were lies in order to protect the reputation of the police? The newspaper editor who published the lies? The coroner who accepted without question the police's evidence and dismissed that of other witnesses such as fans?

I fear that Hillsborough will join a long list of incidents - Bloody Sunday, Bradford, Heysel, Zeebrugge - where even though the truth of what happened is known those responsible will ultimately escape justice.

JR is back!

Channel 5 has announced that they will be showing the new series of Dallas next month.

I watched the first series of Dallas as a child - in fact, my tenth birthday party ended early so people could watch the episode where it was revealed who shot JR.

Dallas, based on the feud between rival oil barons the Ewings and the Barnes, is best watched as a comedy. Clive James mercilessly lampooned the ten-gallon hats and far-fetched storylines in the 80's and Larry Hagman as JR Ewing always seemed to me to be playing his character for laughs.  He's back in the new series, the twinkle in his eye undimmed.

Lucky, lucky, lucky

An attempt seems to be underway to rehabilitate the reputation of the 1980's pop songwriting team Stock, Aitken and Waterman. There was a documentary on ITV about them the other night, a compilation CD of their chart hits has been released and a reunion concert featuring the label's artists in Hyde Park last month was only cancelled because of the weather.

For those lucky enough not to remember SAW's heyday in the late 80's, their roster included such god-awful singers as Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and Sinitta.  The label's Hit Factory studio was named in homage to Motown's Hitsville USA home in Detroit and located in a similarly gritty neighbourhood in Southwark, South East London. There however the similarities ended.  In contrast to the sublime soul-pop produced by Berry Gordy and songwriters Mickey Stevenson, Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland, SAW represents a low point in British popular music history, a dark period between The Smiths and Oasis that was only briefly illuminated by the Stone Roses.

The last thing we need is a SAW revival.

I should add that I've got quite a lot of time for Pete Waterman himself, especially his enthusiasm for trains and cask beer.

Happy Hour Again

One of the first albums I remember buying as a teenager was The Housemartins' London 0 Hull 4.

The Housemartins combined witty, thoughtful lyrics with left-wing politics. They actively supported the Labour Party Young Socialists which I joined in 1987. It's good to see that twenty-five years on lead singer Paul Heaton still retains both his wit and left-wing politics, telling an interviewer that when he was on Question Time "I was asked whether I agreed with the House of Lords being closed, and with the abolition of hereditary peers, so I said, ‘Give them five minutes’ notice and blow the building up’."

Heaton also deserves respect for having bought The King's Arms, a large Victorian pub in Salford, in order to save it from redevelopment.

Back to O Levels?

The Education Secretary Michael Gove is apparently about to scrap GCSE's and go back to a two-tier exam system, O Levels and CSE's in all but name.

I took my O Levels in 1987, the last year they were sat. Whenever someone says that GCSE's are too easy, I think, "Yes, they are easier than O Levels but O Levels were too hard."  The point about O Levels is that they were designed so that most kids failed them. Their only real use was identifying people who would do the subject to A Level.  That's why raving lefty Kenneth Baker replaced them with GCSE's in 1988.

The other point about O Levels and CSE's is that a two-tier exam system ends up with at least two tiers in schools. I went to a comprehensive which set us at the end of the third year into two O Level and two CSE sets. The top two sets might as well have been at a grammar school and the bottom two at a secondary modern. Almost inevitably, teachers were assigned accordingly so that in the English, history and foreign language top sets I ended up with some outstanding teachers and in the Maths and Science bottom sets lazy and incompetent ones.

A really radical step in education would be to abolish exams altogether.

Hello again Auf Wiedersehen

One of the supposed advantages of working from home is the opportunity to watch daytime TV.

I largely resist the temptation given that at least ninety per cent of it is utter bilge. Yesterday on channel 12 though occasionally have a watchable historical drama like Colditz or Secret Army. At the moment, it's Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, the early 80's comedy about unemployed bricklayers working in Germany which I vaguely remember watching the first time it was shown.

As you'd expect from a programme written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais - the scriptwriters who wrote Porridge and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? - there are some very funny one-liners. The interior shots and scenes on the building site were all shot on a lot in Hertfordshire with ITV even shipping in oversized German bricks, which might explain why the barman in the pub the lads drink in - played by an English actor - never says a word! The exterior shots though were shot in one of my favourite drinking cities, Düsseldorf.

Back to the 80's with Dexys

The line-up of Later with Jools Holland last night included Dexys, the reformed Dexys Midnight Runners.

Along with Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners was one of the bands I listened to quite a bit in the early 80's. I suppose it was the fact that - like teenagers who listened to rock and roll in the 50's - I enjoyed the traces of the music's roots without at first knowing what they were. Dexys Midnight Runners combined Irish folk with black American music, a hybrid dubbed "Celtic soul". Madness on the other hand based their sound on Jamaican ska and, like the Rolling Stones with Muddy Waters, named themselves after a song by their musical hero, Prince Buster.

Dexys' lead singer Kevin Rowlands has struggled with drug addiction and financial problems in the years since the group's heyday so it was good to see him back on TV last night, transporting me back to those days with Come On Eileen.