Thankyou!
Writer and mumbler. Fortean Times, Electronic Sound, Doctor Who Magazine, Shindig, Mulgrave Audio, Haunted Generation, Wiffle Lever To Full, Scarred For Life and Summer Winos. Summat to do innit
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Thankyou!
Ah, nice to know you're getting some fun from the column. Thanks! I'm sure FT would be happy to receive your stories too, and I'm sure they'd keep them anonymous if you asked.
Oh, those badges aren't sold out - I don't know why the website said that, but I've changed it now. I've got lots of them in the cupboard. Cheers!
No probs! All the Haunted Generation badges are currently in stock for the first time in a while... bobfischer.bigcartel.com/category/bad...
Oh, which badges? I've got lots here...
The @scarredforlife.bsky.social Folk Horror show comes to ARC in Stockton on Wed 10th Sep, and here's me and Ste discussing it on BBC Radio Tees...
God. What's that from?
You just can't beat proper Open University!
Max Power Rangers! If we're doing this, I will see your Max Power and raise you the Stockton pensioner who was my parents' next-door neighbour when they first got married. Victor Conquest.
I'm very happy that Boro have finally signed a player who sounds like the hero of a 1960s spy thriller series. "His sights are set... on DANGER!"
Seat B13 is the only one left in the main front section for our @scarredforlife.bsky.social Folk Horror show at @arcstockton.bsky.social next Wednesday. Can somebody claim it please? I'm worried that if it stays empty something might manifest there during the show. arconline.co.uk/whats-on/sca...
Thanks to my old Beeb chum John Proudler for allowing me to gatecrash his Zetland FM show on Sunday... to discuss radio work, magazine writing, Haunted Generation, Scarred For Life, Public Information Films, Folk Horror and the rest! It's all at 1hr 21m here... www.mixcloud.com/zetlandfm/so...
I've just seen that Christopher H Bidmead has died, and it's made me very sad. I liked Doctor Who before 1981, but it was Logopolis and Castrovalva that absolutely turned me into an avowed fan - everything about them was perfect for me at the time. Such incredible collisions of ideas.
School run traffic at 8.30am and 3.30pm every single day, though.
Hall's blink at 49 seconds is the blink of a man who has been awake for 36 hours.
I loved playing football, but I loved playing it the most on warm, light summer nights.
I'm intrigued, John - where did you go when everybody else was playing rugby?
My PE teacher would definitely have been satisfied if I'd just kept away for a full year.
God, yeah. "Stop moaning, you'll grow into it".
Itchy trousers.
It only counts if you've actually read it at Mow Cop.
I spend every September even more sweaty and flustered than usual. That appalling meteorological combination of quite warm but absolutely pissing down.
You can actually smell the room.
"Everybody's high on consolation..." Yeah, and the rest.
Ah, honestly - good for you. It's just riddled with melancholy for me. I'm very much a "long hot summer" kind of person.
I'll remind you of that in the middle of November when it's relentlessly pissing down every day.
Have you seen (genuinely) my favourite pop video of all time? Daryl Hall is actually green. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZn...
I hated it. Still do. My only memories of playing rugby are of being trodden into the mud by boys twice my size, and PE teachers laughing at my total inability to understand the rules.
It's over 35 years since I left school, but I still get "that feeling" on the first Monday in September. A subtle chill in the air. Leaves and flowers suddenly looking limp and pallid. A deep feeling of foreboding about the frozen rugby pitches and impenetrable maths homework still to come.
My day has been brightened by watching Alan Parsons being chased around a car park by Eric Woolfson pretending to be a robot with a surgical stocking over his head. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwF...
Ha, thanks - any time!
Two weeks to go till our Folk Horror show on Wednesday 10 September, at @arcstockton.bsky.social, with @bobfischer.bsky.social and me! A fun night of ancient curses, rural horror, and suburban sex orgies! Tickets: bit.ly/44Jh9EJ
NEW LIVE SHOW! Join me, Dave, and @bobfischer.bsky.social for the SCARRED FOR LIFE: UNPLANNED Halloween show at Dukes, Lancaster on Wednesday 29 October! We'll share real-life ghost stories, then talk about whatever spooky stuff takes our fancy! Tickets: bit.ly/3HK5duQ
Notorious Merseyside figure. We did a Scarred For Life show in Liverpool earlier this year, and the conversation turned to local folklore. He was someone that everyone there had heard of as kids, and lots actually thought he was an urban myth - but he was real. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_...
Ah, gosh. Such a strange and sad story.
That as well.
I knew you'd get a cock in there somewhere.
"I'd leave it a minute if I were you"
Sam's a hobbit as well, though. They're special. The eagles would steal the ring and take away to an eyrie or something. They'd try to use it to claim dominion over the starlings.
Just spilt half a litre of white spirit on the kitchen floor and the smell is not unpleasant. Tempted to buy a job lot and do it in every room.
That's my favourite section of all three books!
Oh God, no wonder. I think you've actually read more of The Silmarillion than anybody else, ever. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are wonderful beyond words, and most other things published during his lifetime are worth a look. But everything posthumous is decidedly "specialist".
Wow! I'm... surprised.
Cheers Simon - really pleased to be coming back!
Yeah, me too! It's like 3D Monster Maze all over again.
Peak District weirdies! My one-man Haunted Generation roadshow is coming to Glossop Labour Club, thanks @lowwintersun.bsky.social for the invite. Sat 25 Oct for a night of urban folklore, Fighting Fantasy, Zippy & Bungle and Fred Harris-related nightmares. Here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bob-fische...
That's Merry and Pippin, they're absolute pigs. In the final stages, Frodo powers through days of starvation to fulfill his quest. It has to be a hobbit, and it has to be him.
Oh, I'm never upset. I've just been reading the books and watching the film this week and thinking about both in a bit too much detail.
The eagles didn't take the ring to Mount Doom because they would have been corrupted by its power and tried to claim it for Eaglekind, like pretty much everyone else. Only the stout-hearted hobbits can resist its allure - that's pretty much the whole point of the story. Anyway, as you were.
North East weirdies, tickets are still available for our Folk Horror show on Wednesday 10 September, at @arcstockton.bsky.social, with @bobfischer.bsky.social and me! Everything from film & TV to comics, music, and suburban sex orgies will be covered... Tickets: bit.ly/44Jh9EJ
Thankyou!
Thankyou! So did someone have to overturn that? Sorry, just being nosey...
Important research question here. Did 1970s newbuild houses come with TV aerials fitted as standard by the builders, or did you have to install one yourself when you moved in?
Ah wow, that's great.
From what I remember, I was more like Officer Crabtree.
Now wondering if my Oral Communication was actually a CSE, still hanging a year after the fact.
Do certificates still exist? I imagine you have to download a GCSE Certificate app now.
I've never been double entered, but I took my French Oral in the stationery cupboard.
Same deal? Quick speech in an ordinary English lesson?
I thought you had a Junior Certificate.
It's weird, I definitely did GCSEs (in 1989) but the rest of my results are letters. I don't even know anyone else who did Oral Communication - from what I remember, I just had to stand up in a normal English lesson and give a short speech. That was it. I just talked about Doctor Who.
The world has left me behind.
That feels like a big risk to take. I'll just have the scrambled egg.
Are there still get GCSE grades in numbers? I got "1" in "Oral Communication". Not "A", but "1", and I've never been sure whether to count it as "A" or not. Or even whether "10" was the equivalent of "A" and I was actually terrible. Not that anyone gives a fig about my GCSE results any more. I'm 52.
Is the normal version just as nasty?
@bobfischer.bsky.social Reading an American horror comic last night and this pops up! Even now, and in America, the horror is real...
Wow - and there's me thinking it was a very British phenomenon. Our gift to the world.
We keep talking about it, but have quite got round to it! I'll ask Sandra...
Ah, great. Isn't she brilliant? Total force of nature.
Thankyou!
Any folk-loving Bagpuss fans free on the morning of Sat 30th August? I'm teaming up with the ace Sandra Kerr again to host 'Bagpuss And Beyond' as part of Alnwick Playhouse's Folk Off festival. Gentle chat and a few singalongs - 11.25am, and it's only a fiver! alnwickplayhouse.co.uk/event/bagpus...
Was "going to see the man on the wall" a euphemism for using the outside toilet?
Yes, it's not Christmas, but we could do with a laugh right now so make sure you have a listen to Bob and Georgy being so hilarious they almost can't be stopped... timworthington.org/2023/12/24/t...
Goolites.
My other half nearly went through the ceiling when he jumped out!
Yeah, we had a nice wander around during the day. Lovely place.
Ah, lovely. I'm really looking forward to it. I think the nearest I've been is Bridlington, where I once did the Summer Winos show to brilliant (and quite drunk) audience on a Sunday evening. It was great fun.
Never been to Goole before, but I'm putting that right on Wed 1st Oct with an evening of Haunted Generation readings at the East Riding Festival of Words! A gentle look at the weirder side of the 1970s and 80s childhood. Come and join me, it's only £7. www.eastridinglibraries.co.uk/whats-on/eve...
My mind has blown! An unaired pilot for Every Second Counts has surfaced. In a parallel universe, instead of Paul Daniels and the classic theme they had this version with Russell Grant!
Thanks! Yeah, Mike was great.
A weekend of electronic music in the wonderfully autumnal surroundings atmospheric Whitby. Hosted by the equally atmospheric spectre known as @bobfischer.bsky.social Come along… oh I’ll be playing but don’t let that put you off! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/switched-o...
North East weirdies, @bobfischer.bsky.social and I will be bringing our Folk Horror show to @arcstockton.bsky.social on Wednesday 10 September! Everything from The Owl Service to Enys Men, and all points in-between. Robes and goat masks optional. Tickets: bit.ly/44Jh9EJ
NEW ISSUE OUT NOW! We have FAITHLESS on the cover of this month’s Electronic Sound and we’re bundling the magazine with a red vinyl seven-inch featuring two awesome and exclusive Sister Bliss remixes of tracks from the band’s new album. Get your copy at electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine
Thanks Jonny!
Here! downthetubes.net/hibernia-com...
In the light of breaking Doomlord news, I feel like this is worth sharing again... I had a long chat a couple of years ago with actor Mike Mungarvan, who played heroic journalist Howard Harvey in Eagle's original 1982 Doomlord strip. He was great - it's here: hauntedgeneration.co.uk/2022/09/13/m...
Fantastic news, John - a huge and terrifying part of my childhood.
Doomlord is on the way! After a few hints, Hibernia Comics has announced they will be reprinting the first very Doomlord photostory from the 1980s Eagle weekly
Pleasure!
Wow - I can't make 21st Sep, but good luck, and thanks for the tip-off. I'd totally missed that this was coming out on Blu-ray, and I'll have some of that.
A rift in the fabric of reality somewhere near Chelmsford? It must be Broken Veil. I had a fascinating chat with @gralefrit.bsky.social and @willmac23.bsky.social about their brilliant podcast, written for (and with lots of love for) @forteantimes.bsky.social hauntedgeneration.co.uk/2025/08/12/w...
Oh, you've got to take it! I don't think I could get it over my garden fence. Unless it actually dematerialises.
I don't think I've ever seen one. I associate them exclusively with Cynthia Payne's parties.
You shall not pass, etc. Magical walk through Upper Teesdale yesterday.
I've just spoken once again to a gentleman of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and I can't describe the feeling of absolute tingling warmth I got when he said he "fell in love with the ARP Odyssey synth". Little moments of joy.
Sad news about Ray Brooks, one of my favourite actors. Back in 2019 I was tipped off that he was keen to do Q&As, so invited him to come to a little local venue for an informal "evening with". It sold out, and he was very charming and funny company all day. RIP, and thoughts to all who knew him.
Trying to work out the percentage of song lyrics written between 1967-1974 that feature a man who "spoke of many things".
Ha, don't think I ever knew you'd been in the Sporty with him! What a strange but lovely day that was. A proper character. Very sad news.
Ha, I have! Me and @andrewtsmith.bsky.social contemplated the idea for about five minutes before reality struck and we had to admit we barely had a button between us.
Yeah, love it.