Life in The 80's

2009-04-19T12:35:00.002+01:00

Life in the 80s

2007-05-04T13:46:00.002+01:00

Life in the 80's is being updated throughout 2009, but we need YOUR help!

Remember something from the 80's that you want to see on the site? Simply Contact Us with a short amusing article, and it will be published. Browse the categories on the left and right for inspiration!

(Closing date for submissions 30/5/09)

80s Christmas Films

2006-12-26T13:54:00.000Z

Hi - Im back. Sorry - been busy! Anyway - heres a list of my favorite Christmas 80s Films:

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation
Chevy Chase is an absolute hero. Any film with him in it is excellent. Griswald at his best

Trading Places
This film first got me interested in boobs

Die Hard
Its a christmas film, I promise you

Lethal Weapon
Again, trust me its a christmas film.

Santa Claus The Movie
Poor.

Blackadders Christmas Carol
Edmond at his best. Pure British Comedy

A Christmas Vacation
I love Chevy Chase

Still on the lookout for guest articles. Despite many promises, nothing forthcoming (Phil and Andy pull your finger out!)

Days of Thunder

2006-10-09T20:03:00.001+01:00

Basically, Top Gun with Cars. Strictly speaking, it shouldnt even be here anyway because I think it came out in 1990, but I loved the damn film so what the hell!

"There's nothing stock about a stock car" Robert Duvall, wise old dude who builds stock cars, and talks to them, too

Cars. Cars cars cars cars. Vroom! Vroom vroom vroom! Crash! Tom and Nicole have sex! Cars cars vroom vroom! Crash! Vroom!

There. Youve just seen Days of Thunder. Or, if thats not enough for you, think about Top Gun, and substitute stock cars for fighter jets and there you go.

"Theres nothing I can't do with a race car!" -- Tom Cruise, who races stock cars despite the fact he's from California

Cole Trickle has not one but two tragic secrets that keep him from trusting anyone or becoming the sleek, winning driver his raw talent suggests he could be.

Will he wisen up enough to learn to trust Harry, who built the car he races in NASCAR events for Tim Daland ? Will he succeed in his quest to play doctor with neurosurgeon Dr. Claire , who thinks hes insane? Will Claire stay for the big race? The suspense is not only not killing me, it's practically nonexistent.

"We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there!" Randy Quaid, stock-car owner, rants after a bad showing, and no one asks him how he knows what that would look like.
Bring on the racing!

I know the racing is nothing but good natured dick measuring between Cole and Rowdy, wholl race whatever wheeled vehicles they can find, even if they have to use wheelchairs. But why do those bits need to be interrupted by the entirely ridiculous, entirely gratuitous, and entirely inevitable romantic interlude? Its not like the guys in the audience even get treated to Nicole's boobs or anything. Its all demure, under the sheets stuff here. Wasted good racing time there.

Best line of the Film? "Im going build you a race car, going give you a new paint job, new fuel lines, and shape her like a bullet!"

The film was complete crap, and I loved every minute of it!

Connect 4

2006-10-03T21:04:00.000+01:00

Connect for was one of the great 80s games. Its greatness was due to its simplicity. Also, apologies due to the lack of posts recently. This is due to starting my new job this week. I have not had much time to post, so I am afraid that this one is also short.

Pretty much everything I, and no doubt you also loved about this game can be remembered by playing it right now against the computer!

Just click here to play right now.

Skill.

Next posts will be about a classic 80s movie so watch this space!

Buck Rogers

2006-09-27T14:15:00.000+01:00

Buck used to be a BBC Saturday teatime institution! Its certainly one of my clear childhood memories. It had that sort of not taking itself too seriously feel that Stargate has today.

Sure, you can spot the flaws in effects and acting compared with todays shows, but hey, considering when it was made, it was ahead of its time really.

The basic principle of the show is that Buck Rogers is a former NASA astronaut whose shuttle goes on a little detour. The result is that he ends up back at Earth a little behind schedule having been turned into a human lollipop for the best part of 500 years. Unlikely? Perhaps.

When I first saw the show, the acting wasnt really an issue. I loved the futuristic special effects, and, of course, the spaceships. The ship that Wilma flies, and that Buck also adopts, is very simply called a Starfighter. It was one of my favorite Corgi toys of the early eighties. It could go Interatmospheric for gods sake. Yeaah!

Enemies tended to use Hatchet fighters, perhaps because they were cheap, or perhaps because it was cheap to use stock footage! Generally not too much trouble for Starfighters, once Buck has persuaded the Starfighter pilots to go manual. Haha.

One nice thing about this series is that it didnt forget its roots. I wouldnt have recognized him at the time, but the series features the re-appearance of the original Buck Rogers from the old black and white serials which I do actually vaguely remember. Perhaps a very early example of a follow up series acknowledging its roots, like Star Trek The Next Generation actively involving characters from its past.

Sega even released a video game of it.Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom in 1983. The user controls a spaceship that must destroy enemy ships and avoid obstacles; Buck is never seen, except assumedly in the illustration on the side of the game cabinet, and its only real connections to Buck Rogers are the use of the name and the outer space setting. You gotta love those 80s games!

Of course, history has repeated itself with another Glen A Larson show - this time its the new show thats nodding its head to the Glen A Larson original with Battlestar Galactica involving the original Apollo. And so the wheel turns.

Super Ted

2006-09-24T13:58:00.001+01:00

This 80s cartoon was originally a Welsh cartoon, and later dubbed into English. It did actually make it to the US in the 90s under the name of SuperTed Returns or something, but it was quite different, with Spotty remaining the only original cast member. Each episode would begin with the story on how SuperTed came to be.

This is a story about an ordinary teddy bear. When he was made, they found something wrong with him, and threw him away like a piece of rubbish into an old dark storeroom. Then from outer space, a spotty man bought him back to life with his cosmic dust. He took him to a magic cloud where Mother Nature gave him special powers. That bear became Super Ted!

I have very fond memories of coming home from school and watching this as a kid in the late 80s. His mortal enemies were Texas Pete, with his sidekicks skeleton and Bulk. His best friend and savior was Spotty.

SuperTed's powers are activated by his secret magic word, which (as the name suggests) remains a secret. SuperTed whispers it every time he or someone else is in peril and he transforms into a Superman type red suit with rockets built in to the boots. These allow him to fly.

In one episode, Bulk overhears the secret magic word and also whispers it, briefly acquiring identical powers to SuperTed. However, he subsequently forgets the word. I heard once that the magic word were actualy the words, magic word, although I have not been able to veryify this as yet. If anybody knows, then leave a comment!

When not battling them or other forces of evil, Ted and Spotty spent their time either in their tree-house home or up on an orbiting space station. Judging by Spotty, I reckon that they were probably doing gay stuff up there.

It does make you think though. He was thrown away because there was something wrong with him. What exactly was wrong with him? Its a very worrying fact that he has special powers and we have no idea why he was thrown away in the first place. For all we know, he could have a split personality, and one day he might flip out and destroy the entire planet. Nobody thought to check these things, did they? All we know is that there was something wrong with him. He looks perfectly healthy to me, so thats why I now have a phobia of teddy bears.

Anyway, great cartoon with an amusing bear and his blatantly gay spotted robot friend.

Spotty was very gay, and Skeleton in particular was also very camp. If you are in any doubt over the campness of Skeleton, please look at these select quotes

Do you mind? Barging in here without so much as a by your leave! I could?ve been doing something really personal!

Oh, Bulk. You are so uncouth.

Skeleton, let go! You are pulling down my pants!

There isn?t anything else to hold onto!

Ooh, Tex! You are so naughty!

Youre cold? With all that blubber? Im positively chilled to the bone! And my mittens clash with my muffler!

Cant we steal it, Tex? Id look lovely in that tiara.

The dont make em like they used to do they!

Watch a full length episode of superted right now below!

Toys from Nature

2006-09-08T12:48:00.000+01:00

I am off on a lovely 2 week holiday tonight, so Life in the 80s will not have any updates for a few weeks.

I thought I would leave you all with some memories of playing outside on summer days back in the 80s.

In the 1980s there was a lack of Ipods, Playstations and other gadgetry, so your entertainment would often be sourced from nature. Days spent playing hide and seek in wheat fields, ruining crops in farmers fields and running around in the woods were well spent as far as I am concerned.

There is the obvious stuff like climbing trees, riding your bike in the fields, and exploring, but nature also had other uses for imaginative 8 year olds with time on their hands.

Below are some of my favourite Toys of Nature that I remember.

Grass Darts
These were the little things that you could find growing all over the place in fields and stuff. The great thing was you could throw them a surprisingly long way, with a good degree of accuracy. They would embed themselves into hair, clothing, shoes, eyes, pretty much anything.
Generally you would arm yourself with 30 or 40 of these, and then find the nerdy kid at school and bombard the back of his jumper with them. Yeah, damn right.
Even today when I see one of these dart things, the urge overcomes me and I have to pluck it, and lob it straight at the jumper of the closest person to me. Brilliant.

Sticky Plants
There were the sticky plants that would grow in large clumps, and it would stick to jumpers, hair and woolly clothing, and the nerd at school would always be covered from head to toe in this stuff by the end of the day. Hahaha.

Itching seeds
No idea what they were actually called, or the scientific reasons behind the effects of this wonderful plant, but basically you would get this little orange berry, and when broken open it would reveal lots of little seeds. Then you would find the kid with Sticky plant all over his head and grass darts covering his back, and stick it down his jumper resulting in severe, chronic itching for about 20 minutes. Genius.

Bicycle Pump Gun
There were these evergreen trees that used to have little pea sized things growing on them. First you pick one off, stick it in the end of the bicycle pump. Then, you look for the guy covered in Grass Darts, Sticky Plants, writhing around on the floor itching in agony, and push the hanlde of the pump in as hard and fast as you could, and pump about 5 or 6 pea sized rounds into him with the bicycle pump.

The 80s truly were the glory days. Hahaha.

Browse previous posts on the menu to the left to satisfy your 80s nostalgia for the next couple of weeks, and I will be back with more nuggets of 80s memories soon.

Lego

2006-09-05T14:26:00.000+01:00

Growing up, our house was always full of Lego. Boxes and boxes of damn Lego. There were elaborate trucks made out of it, strange flying machines, entire cities constructed out of these little blocks. Friends would come over and spend hours playing with it. Grandparents, aunts and uncles would marvel at the creations. It was fun. It kept us out of our Parents hair and was great on those rainy days that you couldnâ€™t go outside on your BMX and see who could do the longest skid.

Coming from the Danish words LEg GOdt meaning play well, Lego has been around forever. Ok not forever, but since about the late 40s. However, Lego as we know it started appearing in the 60s. In fact, 60s Lego blocks will still fit together with blocks bought today.
It was seen at the Brighton Toy Fair for the first time in 1960 - and the blocks took Britain by storm, massively outselling the Loopyloop (whatever the hell that was)

Nowadays it seems you can only get Lego items as a whole, for example, a Lego Space Ship, Lego Star Wars, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Lego Harry bloody Potter. Yes, unfortunately it is totally commercial these days.

However, for us Kids of the 80s, Lego was brilliant. These were the days that you could just go and buy loads of Lego blocks, and make whatever the hell you could dream up!

You could still get the sets, and my particular favourite was the space and moon Lego you could get. In particular, I had the classic ship that is pictured here.

Damn, those are some memories right there!

You would end up spending days building this great big damn space ship, create a whole story for it and all the little Lego dudes that had their faces worn off from overplay.

This would then culminate in a big crash scene where you would lob the thing across your bedroom, or even better out of a first floor window, to smash the thing into a thousand pieces. Damn that was one of the most satisfying memories I have from the 80s!

You could also get the technics Lego, the mechanical stuff where you had motors, moving parts etc. I remember making a helicopter, and a beach buggy with working rack and pinion steering. Awesome! Here is my beach buggy from back in the day.

I remember having a huge box if the stuff, and after tipping it all over the floor kids of the 80s would be entertained for hours and hours.

Yup, back then kids did not need crack, guns, knives, muggings and happy slapping to entertain them, a simple box of Lego would do the trick. A genuinely innovative toy that fuelled the imagination of 80s kids. Those were the days.

Womens 80s Fashion. Guest Blogger Edition!

2006-09-03T18:30:00.001+01:00

Hi there readers! My name is Jen and I am filling in today as a guest blogger for my good friend Alastair! His 80s blog has really got the memories going about how I lived thru the 80s and lived to tell about it!

I grew up in the 80s and I had a total blast! The 80s were some of the best times of my life! Alastair has asked me to be his guest blogger from time to time and today I have chosen to write about 80s fashion from a girlie point of view.

I can easily say that without a doubt that I had fallen prey to some of the 80s fashion that took the world by storm! Yes, I had the big hair, the 10,000 bracelets on my arms, lots of eye makeup and I had the 80s clothing! I had the jellie shoes, the bracelets, L.A. Gear shoes, Jordache Jeans, spandex and all.

In the early 80s circa 1981 to 1983 women everywhere either sported the Pat Benatar look or the Olivia Newton John exercise look. Their attire was very similiar, with both spandex, braided headbands and short no fuss hair. Women everywhere adopted this no frills look because they could make the transistion from workout clothes to rocker clothes with minimal effort.

Pat Benatar had the rocker edge, while Olivia Newton John was coming out of her Grease era and into her Physical stage. Both women were big trendsetters before 80s fashion really took off!

Fashion in the 80s was catapulted to a whole new era when Madonna came onto the scene full force in late 1983 to 1984. The Material Girl sent mothers everywhere hurrying to cover their daughters who rebeled in half naked clothes against wholesome clothing with Madonna's trade mark, Boy Toy Belt, bustiers, lacey see thru blouses, shades and short skirts.

Madonna had young girls everywhere raiding their mothers lingerie to put a Madonna look together of their very own. She had also had young girls everywhere not only dancing, dressing and singing like her, but she also had them not wanting to be virgins anymore as well.
I remember the first time I played Madonnas Like a Virgin in my house. I was about 10 or 11 years old and my mom had gotten it for me as a present for being good in school.

I was playing it on the record player in my room when my dad bursts in my room and says, What the hell is that? I was like, Dad, it's Madonna! The next thing I know, my dad is asking my mom what the hell kind of music his kids are listening to! Madonna was a real icon in fashion back then.

Lets not forget the whole blazer jacket thing with the shoulder pads that made every woman look like they could be a linebacker for the Packers. This whole look got started with the soap Opera Dynasty'circa 1984 to 1987, when Joan Collins and Linda Evans made looking like a woman on steriods an 80s classic in fashion.

The look was unmistakeable and it also carried over into womens blouses and dresses as well. Yes, I will admit, I had a few of those types of blazers, but most of the time, I would rip out the shoulder pads.

Also among women's fashion in the 80s were banana hair clips, jelly shoes, jelly bracelets, big hair clip bows, L.A. Gear sneakers, Jordache Jeans, big hand bags with no purse straps, big earrings, popped collars and lets not forget the whole Flashdance thing with the sweatshirt hanging off the shoulder thing thrown in with some leg warmers!

I am sure that I a missing a few more items of 80s fashion, but for some reason, I have repressed them due to how embarrassing they had become when looking back at it all.

If it was in a fashion mag back then, women were wearing it! Women's fashion trends in the 80s was a like a religion. If you weren't wearing what was cool, then you definitely got picked on. It was not hip to be square!

Well, that's pretty much the lowdown on womens fashion in the 80s from a girls point of view!

Perhaps next guest blogger post, I will talk about mens fashion in the 80s!

Big thanks to my friend Alastair for inviting me to be his guest blogger! It was a real honor!

Until Next Time,
Jen =)

Street Hawk

2006-09-01T14:23:00.001+01:00

Wow. Thats really all there is to say about this awesome programme. Thats not really much of a post though..... So heres some more!

Street Hawk was a short lived television series that aired back in 1985 on ABC. It lasted only one season and there was only 13 episodes ever made (what a shame!).

The show was about a cop name Jessie Mach who was picked to test a top secret government project called Street Hawk. His partner Norman Tuttle, the designer of the motorcycle, was in charge of the project.

Jessie would cruise the streets of L.A. on the bike while Norman sat back at command center guiding Jessie. Together they would fight crime on the Streets of Los Angeles. It would go 180 mph in traffic while firing small rockets, have a total video uplink to the master crime lab in his helmet, and a racing suit form-fitted to his body by immersing him in a vat of high-tech foam!

The show followed the templates of the other television shows of the futuristic crime-fighting vehicle genre of the 80s most notably, Knight Rider, Blue Thunder, and Airwolf.

I actually have a Street Hawk book at home somewhere, and its bloody hilarious! You wouldn't beleive how it's written, so the following is an actual excerpt from the book:

â€œJessie opened up the machine guns, and although he missed the thugs, with the power of StreetHawk he knocked them into some crates of eggs, and they all went flying. At that moment, he lost control of the bike and crashed into some empty cardboard boxesâ€�

That really about sums it up.

Danger Mouse

2006-08-31T13:14:00.000+01:00

The world is in constant peril, and our only hope is a small mouse with one eye, who's best friend is a small hamsted, and they live in a post box in the middle of Mayfair.

Hmmm. Still, this didnt seem to bother anyone, as Dangermouse was one of the funniest cartoons of the 80s.

The voice of Dangermouse was narrated by David Jason, of Only Fools and Horses fame! Honestly, this cartoon was so full of humour, it really used to make me laugh. In fact it still does!!

It was a blatant parody of all British Spy fiction, including James Bond. It was also the first British cartoon that broke into the American TV Market, and was aired on Nickelodeon in the 1980s. It was tremendously popular.

Some of the Characters:
-DangerMouse
-Penfold
-Colonel K
-Agent 57
-Baron Greenback
-Stiletto Mafiosa (The Crow)

An interesting fact, is that in the UK the crow had an Italian accent, and was changed in the US over fears it would offend Italian American people. So in the USA he had a cockney accent. Also, they dubbed out his surname so he was just called Stiletto. Weird!

The song:

-He's The Best
-He's The Greatest
-He's The Greatest Secret Agent In The World!
-He's The Ace - He's Amazing...
-He's the Strongest... He's The Quickest.... He's The Best!

Possibly one of the funniest cartoons of the 80s with loads of surreal jokes. Also, his car was so cool it made my eyes bleed when I looked at it.

Ahhh good times!

NES

2006-08-30T08:40:00.000+01:00

Courtesy of Simon , today we have a guest post about this wonderful system from the 80's. Gotta say it tickled some memories for me... I had totally forgotten about this!!

Be sure to check out Simons Blog as it's a damn funny read!

Enjoy!

What 80's themed blog could not have an article about this piece of Japanese wizardry!

Released in 1985 it was the HOT HOT product for the christmas season.

This was fun in a box! It even came with a game cartridge to get you started. Actually it was a cartridge with two games in it Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt.

With Duck Hunt you got to use the Zapper gun, also included with the basic system.

While Duck Hunt was fun, I think that most people got hooked on the other game Super Mario. For most consumers this was the first In Home video game that they owned.

I bought one for the kids in 85, and over the christmas break I played it day in day out for aa week! By the time New Years rolled around my thumbs were paralysed from using the controller.

By the way, NES systems are alive and well and still available on E-Bay. My wife had been talking about how much she enjoyed playing Super Mario so last christmas I got her a complete system and 11 games, after postage etc it cost under $50 canadian.

And she kicks my butt at it every time we play!

Simon

Thanks to Simon for his wonderful piece about this system. I totally remember the gun you got with this system... as far as I am concerned it was, and still is the most advanced piece of technology available. Still no idea how it works!

Cheers Simon. You can check out his blog here It cracks me up!

Raleigh Vektar

2006-08-24T08:27:00.000+01:00

Now, I received an email from a friend yesterday that asked if I remembered a bike from the 80's that was white, and had a futuristic control panel in the middle, that had lights and noises etc.

I did indeed remember such a bike, and duly went about trying to find out what it was called by doing some R&D on the web.

It was then that I stumbled across This blog. It's by a girl who is keeping the 80's alive by riding around on a pimped out Raleigh Grifter. Cool.

Not only did her blog make me laugh, it also had a post about the bike in question! I had found the holy grail! I immiediatley knew that Hans post summed the bike up perfectly, and I would not be able to do it justice. So, with Hans kind permission, her post is copied below. Enjoy!

Originally posted on Cakey Voice, July 5th 2005.

"A Shadowy Flight into the dangerous world of a bike I do not own....."

"So, my front bike tyre has developed an unsightly, not to mention dangerous, hernia. The tyres on my bike are almost completely bald. They are, like, 25 years old or something. I had been holding out on buying new ones because I wanted some original Raleigh Grifter tyres, but it's looking like I'm gonna have to get myself some cheapo BMX tyres to tide me over. I have already compromised my bike's historical integrity by fitting it with new and inauthentic brake blocks. Don't tell anyone."

"Me and my bike have been together for a year. In that time we have had many adventures. There was that time it slipped out of gear and I smashed my kneecap into the handlebars and had to get off and sit down for a bit until I stopped feeling funny. Then there was that time we went on a LONG ride up some very steep hills and then just as we were getting ready to come back I got a puncture and we had to walk back down instead of gaily hurtling down at 40mph as was the original plan. Then last week, during a thunderstorm of biblical proportions, I misjudged a kerb and careered through the air, dashing myself on the wet gravelly pavement. Upon impact I expelled a surprising noise, like a kicked bagpipe. Yep, I love my bike.Yet despite this, once again my eye has been wandering. You might want to sit down or something, because LOOK AT THIS:"

"Woah. The Raleigh Vektar. The bike of choice for overprivileged 80's kids. The one in this picture sold on eBay recently for Â£36. Â£36!!!! I am in love with this bike. I MUST have one. You see, this Battlestar Galactica beauty not only LOOKS like a bike you might ride around on in space, it sports some futuristic Knight Rider technology in the form of THIS control panel: "

"According to the spiel on this eBay sale, the onboard computer features elapsed time, distance travelled, speed and maximum speed achieved. Optional add-ons include a Computer Module accessory pack (trip meter, speedo) Radio Accessory pack (3 preset AM stations) and - OH MY GOD - Sound Synthesiser with 8 built in digital sounds, paddle, shifter and speakers."

"And so my obsession begins. You see, in my mind, this bike can go up to 300mph. It is equipped with a bullet and flame resistant protective shell. It can drive itself, and has the ability to jam electronic signals. It has auto-pursuit & auto collision avoidance, radar, sonar and x-ray surveillance capabilities and is programmed never to take a human life.Dear God, if you can fix it for me to find one of these in a skip I promise to spend 4 hours a week on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless and the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law. Mint condition please, and it has to have that synthesiser. "

Awesome. Brilliant. Thanks to Han for permission to copy your post onto Life in The 80s. That bike is so damn cool. Check her blog out. Itâ€™s unusual, and made me laugh out load!

Thanks to Andy also for reminding me about this Street Hawk like machine!

Break Dancing

2006-08-23T11:56:00.001+01:00

Dancing, or at least attempting to breakdance! My friends and me used to love it!

I thought I was brilliant at it, and it basically involved bizarre gymnastic floor exercises, and thinking you looked as cool as the people in the Beat It video.

The moves I can remember were the Caterpillar (I tried to replicate this before writing this post, and nearly broke my back. I guess I am not as flexible as I used to be!)

Others were the Windmill, Backspin and Headspin. I attempted all of them in the 80s but was pretty rubbish. Looking back now, itâ€™s amazing that parents actually used to let their kids do this, as it seems pretty damn dangerous thing to attempt spinning on your head!

It evolved from the street corners of urban areas in the USA (like New York City) and was ideally a creative expression that allowed gangs to let off some steam and avoid fisticuffs (as depicted in Michael Jacksons Beat It video) which doesn't mean that fights didn't occur.

All that was required was a smooth floor (or a large piece of cardboard or linoleum), a pair of sneakers, some sweat pants, a few bandanas tied around your leg and preferably not too much honkiness in your blood . . .

From popping to locking (as demonstrated by Fred Berry as Rerun on Whats Happening!) to moonwalks and backspins, break dancing had all the moves.

Some greedy opportunists ultimately made some poor films like Breakin and Electric Boogaloo and break dancing disappeared off TV but still exists on the street in different forms today. It never actually went away, and is still pretty big now in London.

Family Ness

2006-08-22T13:26:00.001+01:00

Proper 80s Cartoon!!! Pretty much a UK thing I think - it was done by the same guy who later went on to produce Penny Crayon and Jimbo the Jet Set. Remember those?

The Nessies were great, I can remember it so well, which is surprising, because for the most part my memory is completely shot!

Mr McTout playing the bagpipes, and Ferociousness eating the sound on the intro. Bizarre!

We all know about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, however in this cartoon, there was whole family of them.

Typical Episode. One day, the two children of the lochs owner, Elspeth and Angus come across a huge mound next to the loch. It turns out that it is one of said mosters, Sillyness, who managed to get his head stuck in a hole. The two children try to pull the stuck Nessy out, and encounter more from the family.

As a reward for helping out, despite the Nessys rule of never having any contact with humans, they are given secret thistle whistles which they can use to call the Nessys any time they wish. And so the adventures begin.Each 5 minute episode is basically based around the same theme.

The Loch Ness monster doesnt exists, but people keep reporting sightings. The Nessys do their best to hide, but still continue to get spotted, usually while helping the children out with some task.

I loved it. And until this post, I had almost forgotten about Jimbo the Jet Set! They truly were happy days!!

below watch the whole first episode of family ness!

Swatch / Digital 80s Watches

2006-08-20T14:35:00.000+01:00

Thanks to CT for the comment on the last post and reminding me about this!

The swatch, and 80s watches in general were brilliant. Todays watches are rubbish. The 80s ones were a fad that caught on around the playground pretty quick in the 80s.

There were basically two types of people. The digital watch people and those that had swatches. Both types of people would routinely wear 2, 3, sometime four or five watches at a time. Why? God only knows. But it seemed like the right thing to do back in 1985.

I personally loved the digital watches. First of all the calculator one came out by Casio. Brilliant. Then, you had the one with the A to Z keyboard and a slightly angled screen. This was my favorite, and it still looks futuristic today. I want one again! They were so cool.

In addition to the calculator and computer watches from Japan, you had the game watches. Well ahead of their time, you would usually have two buttons, and the only one I ever owned was a football game that I swapped with my mate Kevin for the computer watch. A very simplistic game where you could go left, right, or pressing both buttons you could shoot for goal. Yeaaaah!

Swatch Watches, as with punk rock, leg warmers from Flash Dance, charm necklaces, jelly bracelets up and down both arms, neon colors, Flat tops, the swatch watch was a relic of the 80s.

Quite why we all used to feel the need to wear 4 at a time I dont know. But I loved it. I am off to EBay to buy one and go Retro!

Thanks CT for reminding me about this crazeâ€¦ Iâ€™d totally forgotten!

His blog is a great read, check it out here

Good swatch website here too

I love the 80s. Anyone else got something they remember that they want to see here, just post a comment!

Skill.

Button Moon

2006-08-18T10:55:00.000+01:00

If were honest, the 80s were completely mental as far as kids TV was concerned. Looking back on it now is a very strange experience!

I swear the 80s was just one big experiment by the government to test the impact of severe surrealism on young children.

If you never watched Button Moon as a kid, then youve no idea what I am talking about.

Button moon was a purely British thing (I canâ€™t honestly imagine it was shown anywhere else) and it was on Thames television (you must remember the logo!) The Spoon family consisted of Mr. Spoon, Mrs. Spoon, and Tina.

Each episode would basically consist of zooming off on their rocket, into Blanket Sky, and go to Button Moon.

There they have some surreal experience with a giant tea chest or something and just before returning home, they have a look through their telescope to see what else is happening, such as the Hare and the Tortoise, before heading back to their home planet Junk Planet

Watching Button Moon now would be bloody hilarious. The subtle humour it has is right up there with Pingu.

Genius!

The song:

Were off to Button Moon, well follow Mr. Spoon,
Button Moon, Button Moon.
Weve been to Button Moon, weve followed Mr. Spoon,
Button Moon, Button Moon. We've been to Button Moon,
Button Moon (be back soon) Button Moon

Yo Yo's

2006-08-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

Now this isnâ€™t really 80s as they have been around for a VERY long time. But I had one in the 80s, so who cares. Itâ€™s here! A playground favourite for millions of school children the world over, the yoyo is actually, according to some historians, one of the oldest toys around.

Museums hold ample examples of terra cotta yoyos from ancient Greece, and wall paintings in Egyptian temples are said to depict playthings recognisable to the modern eye. While there is little evidence to support the theory that yoyos were once used as weapons, both combatants at Waterloo, Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, were said to be aficionados.

The name yoyo was first brought to the attention of western society in a 1916 Scientific American article on toys from the Philippines.

Major advances in yoyo technology followed after 1955 when Duncan introduced the first plastic yoyos and the Butterfly shaped yo-yo, which is easier to land on the string for fancy tricks. These are the ones I remember!

There was a point in school where you would go outside at lunchtime, and as far as the eye could see, there would be Kids madly Yo Yoing everywhere, Occupying every square inch of the playground. It spread like mad, one kid would bring one in... the next day every single kid would have one. haha.

Then you had the people on TV that were really rather good at it, although they werenâ€™t cool, because they were 30 years old, and that was all they did. God, 30 used to seem so old!

Its still big now. As each successive generation of school children adds the yoyo to its bag of playground tricks, this simple plastic-and-string bauble has held its place as one of the most enduring toys of the twentieth century.

The only trick I remember was how to Rock the Cradle

1 Make the yoyo spin rapidly at the bottom of the string without returning (make it sleep, in other words).

2 Extend the thumb and pinkie of your free hand, bending the other fingers down so theyre out of the way. Put this hand against the string so that the string lies across the tips of your thumb and pinkie finger.

3 Lift the string with your thumb and pinkie. Now pinch the string about midway down with your yoyo hand.

4 Maintaining the tension on the string, switch the positions of your hands: Move the hand that's pinching the string so that it's above the pinkie and thumb extended hand.

5 There! Rock the yo-yo through the triangle of string youve created. Now let the yo-yo drop back to Position.

I really want a go on one now.

80's Computers

2006-08-16T08:59:00.000+01:00

Now, I know I have already posted about the Spectrum and BBC Micro, but 80s computers were the greatest, and there is so much more to say!

Before the Xbox, before the PS2, the N64, the Snes, The Mega CD, the Megadrive. etc. there were 80s Computers.

The joy of those computers was something else. They were so user friendly. So much funâ€¦ they just donâ€™t make em like they used to! Sure, the graphics were nothing compared to what we have now but I loved them. Spending 12 hours to load the damn thing from a cassette. Brilliant!

Dont know about the US, but here in the UK when we had the Megadrive, you could get the American one, or the Jap one, and the game cartridges were a slightly different shape, so yo ucouldnt put Jap games in the US machine. The one to have was the Jap one as that fitted all the games!

Another computer craze I loved in the 80s were the small hand held ones you used to get. Hours and hours spent playing Donkey Kong. (I had one of the futuristic dual screen Donkey Kongs. Great!) The other small hand held I had was Snoopy Tennis. Ahhhh those were the days!

The handheld thing is still going strong with the PSP. Still, I dont think they are as good as the Game Gear, or Atari Lynx though. The Lynx was so far ahead of it's time. The most advanced computer of the day though had to be the Neo Geo. The same games went in the console or the colour handheld. Always wanted one of those but they were really pricey, and never really caught on anyway. Shame. They were good.

Had a look around and found some cool emulators so we can all play like it still 1985!

Well, thatâ€™s my day sorted then. No work for me today! Hehe.

Click below to play games such as Boulder Dash, Chase HQ, Paperboy, Harrier Command and more.

Yes. Were back in the 80s!!!!

ZX Spectrum Emulator

Master System Emulator

Weird Science

2006-08-15T12:22:00.000+01:00

Very good film and I have very fond memories of watching it, sitting in my stone washed jeans with Le Cost or Le Shark T-shirt, my LA Gear trainers twiddling my Yo Yo. (!)

The basic plot: Two super-nerd, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), unable to find girls on their own, hack into a US Government mainframe and use government technology to create a computer simulation of the perfect woman in order to place her in real life sexual situations and see how she reacts.

Mysteriously, the result is Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), a real-life woman and sexed-up but deeply caring 80s babe with Einsteins IQ, David Lee Roths attitude and inexplicable sci-fi powers. Absolutely gorgeous, then and now!

Self aware from the moment of her creation, Lisa sets about revealing their inner coolness, transforming Gary and Wyatt from nerds into men through a series of wacky and bizarre adventures, which include summoning the cast of The Road Warrior to crash a party at Wyatt' house, turning Wyatts abusive brother Chet (Bill Paxton) into a gigantic, disgusting toad, and summoning a full size nuclear missile to the middle of the house.

Brilliant film all in all, with a great part at the end with the car chase involving the Porsche and the Ferrari. Pure 80s! Anthony Michael Hall was also Rusty in national Lampoons Heâ€™s gonna bone her. Heâ€™s not going to bone her Rusty (hehe)

Teen Wolf

2006-08-14T10:00:00.001+01:00

Now, instead of running away in horror, or attacking his house with torches and pitchforks, when the townsfolk is Scott Howards hometown find out he is a werewolf, they embrace him and he quickly becomes the most popular guy around.

Strange, because in real life the hairiest kid in school would be beaten up and laughed at. He also develops a 10 foot high vertical leap, which must come in quite handy for the 4 foot 3 inch pint sized Michael J Fox.

My favourite bit is when he reveals himself to his dad, and the bathroom door opens to reveal Scotts dad in full wolf mode, looking more like a Care Bear. Hahaha.

The basketball scenes were brilliant too (as if a munchkin like Michael J Fox would ever be allowed near a basket ball team). The film on the whole was your basic coming of age affair, where he pined for the blonde bombshell, while ignoring the obvious love of his best friend Boof

Styles was the coolest character in the film, a party animal with an entrepreneurial streak. The most famous scene in the whole film is where Scottâ€™s eyes glow red, Give me a keg of beer!

The funniest scene is at the school dance when everyone starts doing The Wolf What a bunch of prats.

Somehow, somebody kept a straight face while pitching this to some Hollywood Executive, and the unlikely hit clawed in about $35 million and set Michael J Fox on his way to stardom. Iâ€™ll always have fond memories of this great 80s film. The ultimate hollywood feel good film at the end when he is carried aloft, and everyone is cheering him as the hero. Same thing happens to me every day I finish work.

Quickly looking on the Internet to get the dates and stuff for this article, I found out that they actually made a sequel called Teen Wolf Too. No idea at all, never heard of it. It must be really good. hmmmm.

Lets watch the 'Wolf Dance' from teen wolf

and of course, "Give me a keg of beer"

Star Wars Toys

2006-08-09T08:44:00.000+01:00

I, as every 80s kid did, loved these toys. Everybody had them, and youd build huge bases with your friends and play all day long. Below you will find some of my favourites:

The Speeder Bike was a brilliant little toy. I used to run around with this thing making car noises until I crashed into a wall. Not just once, it happened fairly often. Aside from being a good representation of the vehicle from the film, the Speeder Bike had a button you could press to make the entire thing explode into small pieces. I mean, really small pieces. Once you made the thing explode, chances were good that you werent going to find all the pieces again. I originally had 2, although you could only muster up 1 complete bike from the leftover pieces.

Action Figures were great too. I had Luke (I actually had 5 Lukes, and every single one had the hand bitten off from when I had re-enacted the fight where he loses his hand. I also had storm troopers (white and red) and the Rancor beast thing, among others.

Jabba the Hut and his plinth thing he stood on. You could press a button and it would open up to swallow anything that was nearby. I now remember this in a slightly different way, as the plinth that Leah was tied to half naked. Brrrr. Great!

Vehicles. I had the X-Wing, Y-Wing, B-Wing and Darths vehicle with the fold down wings. My best fried had the Millennium Falcon (Bastard! Always wanted one!) which was absolutely amazing to a 6-year-old kid. He also had a Tie Fighter (Darth Vadars one, obviously. No one had the standard one with flat wings, because when hassling your parents to buy it for you, obviously you were only allowed one, and therefore it had to be Darths.

At-Tat This was my favourite, and to my horror my parents sold it at a boot sale for about 10p. A huge thing with a handle inside to move the head around and fire the lasers. The coolest thing in the whole world. I also had one of the walkers from Return of the Jedi, with a button to make the legs go.

These toys were the greatest. The new ones are complete shite. My disappointment when the new films were released was so great, I still cant put it into words. Oh well, at least I will always have the memories of the original, and the toys that went with it. Happy Days.

Top Gun

2006-08-07T08:41:00.001+01:00

My Favorite film of the 1980s. By a long way. I have watched it hundreds of times, and I could go on and on and on and on about it here for years. My friend and I find that we can communicate through Top Gun Quotes alone, so I thought rather than go on about the film I would just give you some quotes:

Iceman: You two really are cowboys.
Maverick: What's your problem, Kazanski?
Iceman: You're everyone's problem. That's because everytime you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.
Maverick: That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous.
Charlie: Excuse me, Lieutenant. Is there something wrong?
Maverick: Yes ma'am, the data on the MiG is inaccurate.
Charlie: How's that, Lieutenant?
Maverick: Well, I just happened to see a MiG 28 do a...Goose: We!
Maverick: Uh, sorry Goose. WE happened to see a MiG 28 do a 4g negative dive.
Charlie: Where did you see this?
Maverick: Uh, that's classified.
Charlie: It's what?
Maverick: It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
Maverick: Requesting permission for flyby.
Air Boss Johnson: That's a negative ghostrider, the pattern is full.
Viper: Good morning, gentlemen, the temperature is 110 degrees.
Wolfman: Holy shit, it's Viper!
Goose: Viper's up here, great... oh shit...
Maverick: Great, he's probably saying, "Holy shit, it's Maverick and Goose."
Goose: Yeah, I'm sure he's saying that.
Viper: That's pretty arrogant considering the company here, don't you think?
Maverick: Yes sir.
Viper: I like that in a pilot.
Viper: Let me ask you something, if you had to go into battle, would you want him on your side?Jester: I don't know, I just don't know
Goose's wife: Hey Goose you big stud!
Goose: That's me, honey.
Goose's wife: Take me to bed or lose me forever.
Goose: Show me the way home, honey.
Slider: Goose who's butt did you kiss to get in here anyway?
Goose: The list is long, but distinguished.
Slider: Yeah, well so is my Johnson.
Goose: The defense department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid.
Ice Man: The plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies room.
Maverick: I think I'll go make a fool of myself with Goose.
Hondo: Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash.
Maverick: This is what I call a target rich environment.
Goose: You live your life between your legs Mav.
Maverick: Goose, even you could get laid in a place like this.
Goose: Hell, I'd be happy to just find a girl that would talk dirty to me.
Maverick: She's lost that loving feeling.
Goose: No, no she hasn't.
Maverick: Oh, yes she has.
Goose: I hate it when she does that.
Maverick: I feel the need...
Goose: ...the need for speed!
Maverick: You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead.
Hondo: And if you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong!
Maverick: Yes sir!
Iceman: You can be my wingman any time.
Maverick: Bullshit! You can be mine.
Hondo: They gave you your choice of duty son, anything, anywhere. Do you believe that shit? Where do you think you wanna go?
Maverick: I thought of being an instructor, sir.
Hondo: Top Gun?
Maverick: Yes, sir.
Hondo: God help us.
Viper: Now I'm not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up your ass, Lieutenant.
Goose: We regret to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid.
Charlie: What do you wanna do? Just drop down on the tile and go for it?
Maverick: No, actually I had this counter in mind.
Charlie: Great, that would be very, very comfortable, yeah.
Maverick: It could be.
Goose: No. No, Mav, this is not a good idea.
Maverick: Sorry Goose, but it's time to buzz a tower.
Viper: Top Gun rules of engagement are written for your safety and for that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Is that clear?
Goose: Come on, Mav, do some of that pilot shit!
Maverick: Too close for missles, I'm switching to guns.

Yeeeaaahhhh!

The A-Team

2006-08-03T09:15:00.000+01:00

Ten years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as Soldiers of Fortune. If no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

The best programme, not just of the 80s, but of all time. Absolutely brilliant. I actually still own most of them on DVD, and they are still just as good, and just as entertaining as they always were. Great Van, and a cool corvette. Brilliant.
Face Man, BA Baracus, Hannibal Smith & Howlin Mad Murdoch. A typical episode starts with the A-Team being hired by a down-trodden or terrorized client. The 'official' way of doing this was for the client to contact one of Hannibal's many comic aliases that were used to ensure that their clients were not working for the military. Basically, Hannibal with a fake beard.
Then, there would be an explosion or crash causing a vehicle driven by the antagonists to barrel roll onto its roof. EVERY episode. The US military turns up, then the A Team have to break Murdock out of hospital, and convince B.A. to get on a plane.

The bad guys would then lay siege to the A-Team, who would, without fail, find themselves trapped in a barn/garage/warehouse etc. containing sets of mechanical tools, an engine of some sort. and other materials which they would use to build a contraption to finally escape and (non-lethally of course) subdue their enemy. My favorite was the cabbage firing Tank.

During these scenes the A-Team tune would play to let the viewers know that the A-Team was soon to be victorious once again. When fighting their way to freedom, no-one would ever be killed or even seriously injured.

Ever wondered what the crime they didnt commit was? Well, during Nam, The A-Team's CO, gave them orders to rob the Bank of Hanoi to help bring the war to an end. They succeeded in their mission, but on returning to their base four days after the end of the war, they found their C.O. murdered by the VC and his headquarters burnt to the ground. Therefore no proof existed that the A-Team were acting under orders, and they were sent to prison by a military court.

One interesting thing I have noticed, is that every characther has been afflicted by something in real life thats directly related to the character they played:

Hannible; Smoked lots of Cigars, sadly died of lung cancer
BA Baracus: Contracted Metal Poisoning from his chains
Murdoch: Was actually declared mentally unstable
Face: Nothing yet, but all we need is for him to contract an STD and we have come full circle!

Ahhhh, the A-Team

Chock-A-Block

2006-08-02T08:40:00.000+01:00

In the 80's, what was yellow, hard to control and sent millions of youngsters into hysterics when it appeared on their TV screens? No, not Oliver Reed after a few shandies too many, I'm talking about the Chock-A-Block car.

'Chock-A-Block' was a children's TV show which ran in the 1980s, right before Family Ness (Brilliant cartoon.) The 'Chock-A-Block' car was a Sinclair C5-alike machine which transported either Carol Leader or Fred Harris into the studio.

Both were former 'Playschool' presenters who looked as though they were destined for bigger things. You could almost see the cogs of ambition in Leader's mind turning as she presented the show. While she was singing 'Jack and Jill went up the hill', you knew that she had her eyes on a big headlining chat-show slot. 'That's right', she thought, 'One day, I will be the female Wogan. I'll be there, introducing Rick Astley to sing his latest song, and asking Miriam Stoppard what she thinks about rheumatism.

I feel as though she can be proud to be part of such a professional and valuable TV show. Hell no, its was more than a TV show. 'Chock-A-Block' was a LIFESTYLE for the under-5's of Thatcher's generation.

With absolutely no attempts made to disguise the dingy studio that it was filmed in, the programme educated a huge number of children, who hung on the words of Fred Harris and Carol Leader like the miners did to Arthur Scargill.

The aim of the show was to teach children about inane nursery rhymes. As far as I can recall, each rhyme was introduced through a big yellow machine with a huge mangle-like handle of some description.

After alighting from the car, the presenter would load a giant cartridge thing into the machine, and we would lick our lips in anticipation of what would emerge from it. I remember rushing home from play school to settle down in front of the TV to see what would happen on 'Chock-A-Block' - would Carol Leader get her hair caught in the yellow machine? Would someone sabotage the brakes in the Chock-A-Block car, maiming Fred Harris for life?

Well, I don't think anything quite as dramatic happened (I hear Harris was a lovely man, so who would want to sabotage the brakes anyway?), but I still remember it as being extremely entertaining. Each episode used to end with the Yellow car driving away, leaving the Chock-a-Block machine to power down on its own.

I learnt lots of nursery rhymes and developed a love of the yellow car, and was gutted when it was taken off air.

Obviously the car had finally conked out...

Click Here to hear the start music. Brilliant.

Manimal

2006-07-31T19:28:00.000+01:00

Basically some poor James Bond/Knight Rider affair, except this dude could morph himslef into any anumal. Great programme with a great title, "Manimal".

Glen Larson's crime-fighting shape-shifter was a man who could turn into ANY animal. Any animal at all. As long as that animal is a panther.

OK Ill admit if he can do a hawk too if he can be bothered, but usually after the bubbling hand bit, we always ended up seeing the panther.

Its not so much that special effects technology didn't exist in 1983, it's just that network TV could not afford them.

Production costs were high and pretty much all of it was ear marked for all that Manimalization, so low ratings meant they only made about 4 episodes or something.

They replayed them on Bravo not long ago. Watched them all and they reallly did make me laugh. Very funny, and very poor all at the same time. The funniest thing that I've noticed, is that Simon McCorkindale (the titular Manimal) is now the lead doctor in Casualty.

I thought it was great, we were promised a man who can be any animal, but this actually turned into the reality of a guy being swapped out for the same piece of stock panther transformation footage week after week.

Still, I loved it, and theyre supposed to be making a film of it. Brilliant.

For more on Manimal, Click Here!.

Spirograph

2006-07-26T09:45:00.000+01:00

Spirograph isnâ€™t exclusively 80s, as it actually came out in the 60s. However, I remember it from the 80s so here it is!

Basically you had this big plastic circle that you would pin down to a piece of paper. It had grooved tracks on the inside and outside, and loads of other shapes could be rotated around it, drawing all kinds of cool patterns.

You would use different coloured pens, with different shapes and come out with multicoloured blobs of ink that were, I guess, pretty exciting if you were seven or eight or taking a lot of hallucinogens.

I have even found a cool applet version ao you can play with Spirograph on your computer right now! Click Here!

There was always something strangely fascinating about it.

Its the same sort of enjoyment that you used to get when youâ€™d go out with your Mum before school started in September, and kit yourself out with new stuff: rulers, pens, set squares, protractors etc. Used to feel great, or maybe that was just me, who knows.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise

2006-07-24T11:59:00.000+01:00

All modern toys are crap. Nothing beats 80s toys. Our generation had it so good.

Transformers were possibly THE greatest toy of the THE greatest decade in human history.

Transformers, robots in disguise. I bloody loved them. Everybody did. You had the Autobots (good guys) and the decepticons (bad guys).

My absolute favourite was the Lamborghini Countach (Sideswipe), whereas the Rolls Royce of the Transformer world was Optimus Prime.

All kids had at least one or more of the following: Transformer sheets and pillow cases, Transformer pants, Transformer socks, Transformer pyjamas, Transformer lunchboxes, Transformers pencil cases, Transformer curtains, Transformer shoes, and so forth.

I remember the little hologram on each toy that you had to press with your thumb to heat it up and reveal it!

Some of my favourites I remember:

Jazz Porsche 935
Bluestreak Datsun zx
Sideswipe Lamborghini Countach
Optimus Prime Truck

You also had some cool decpticons that were fighter jets; think they were called Thrust or Ram jet or something.

There are some wicked transformers websites here, here and here to tease more memories out of you!

Enjoy!

Silly Putty

2006-07-23T18:14:00.000+01:00

Bounce it, stretch it, smash it, shape it, snap it, mould it, and store it in an egg.

Strange toy, but an instant hit. It was actually invented by mistake. See here for the history about it!

Really odd toy, but so much fun as a kid in the 80s. Oddly flesh coloured, it came in a plastic egg. You could pull it about, bounce it, you could even make 'fart' noises with it. Superb. But if you hit it with a hammer, it would shatter. Remember all of that?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you got loads of it, I mean bloody loads, made a huge ball, and dropped it off a building? I have.

Bet that would be pretty cool. Did you know you can still order this stuff by the pound? I didnâ€™t, but someone else did.

They got hold of 50 pounds of this crap and decided to find out what would happen if it was thrown from a building. Click here to see what happened.

Brilliant. I wish I still had some.

Remote Control Cars

2006-07-21T09:07:00.000+01:00

Excellent Toys. Most people had, or knew some that had a Tamiya Grasshopper.

I had a Tamiya Hotshot, my brother had the Vanessas Lunchbox, and I think the Optima Mid. Brilliant. I think they were all 1/10th scale.

Used to go to some control car club as a kids and race them. We must have been about 10 years old, and there was a strange dude always there that took it really seriously. Honestly this dude must have been about 40 years old. Very odd.

The annoying part was building them, as they took quite a while, but was worth it in the end, as you could then modify them, and fix them when they went wrong, which they continually did! You could upgrade everything, batteries, engines suspension etc.

In the race, I would always tune mine to be the absolute quickest, streaking ahead of everybody, to then stop dead as I ran out of batteries after 37 seconds. Never could get it quite right!

The crÃ¨me de la crÃ¨me of the control car world in the 80s was the Midnight Pumpkin. Some obscene Monster Truck with 2 engines. Everyone knew someones friends brothers mates dads uncles sons cousin who had one, but mysteriously no one ever saw one in real life. Probably didnt even exist.

My brother has not changed, and still builds and modifies cars to race, however they are now real. In fact, you can be the proud owner of a freshly built Porsche Race Car.

Check it out here

Soda Streams & Mr Frosty

2006-07-20T09:36:00.000+01:00

Sodastream. Brilliant. Either you had one, or your best mate had one.

Supposedly you were getting lovely home made fizzy drinks. In reality it tasted like flat coke, and the bubbles lasted approximately 8 seconds.

You would run in from playing outside, possibly wearing stone washed jeans, fingerless gloves, a plastic tennis visor and a hypercolour T Shirt, and go about making your soda stream drinks.

They were the 80s equivalent of Bread Maker. They would be used no more than 6 times before being relegated to the back of the cupboard never to be seen again.

They were great. After you sodastream, you would tie the top toggle of your coat round your neck, without putting your arms in the sleeves, and you would go haring around outside truly believing you looked like a superhero.

Hahaha they were truly crap. You can probably still get them.

Another favourite of mine was the Mr Frosty that my little sister had. Some plastic contraption that basically crushed ice. She would sit there with legwarmers on, bicycle shorts under a skirt, and just crush ice continually. For hours. Honestly.

I reckon the working parts of the Mr Frosty machines are recycled and now used in modern American style fridges with Ice Makers.

The Broom Cupboard

2006-07-19T08:33:00.000+01:00

Ask anyone over the age of 25 what they think of children's television these days and nine times out of 10 they'll tell you it's inane rubbish.

The main reason? Those presenters. Bloody idiots in day glow T-shirts patronising the hell out of the kids.

Now, Childrens BBC and the broom cupboard was excellent, mainly due to the hugely ramshackle way it was presented.

Started in about 85, the most hi-tech aspect of the whole output was the title sequence. A five second animation produced on a BBC Micro which interestingly was fed live directly from the Acorn machine every day. Brilliant.

The show consisted entirely of Schofield, in his own clothes, chatting to a fixed camera on the wall, helped along with Gordon the Gofer. Shrewdly, Philip actually retained the commercial rights to Gordon the Gofer. Nice.

Ahhhh the 80s. Super Ted, Mysterious Cities of Gold, Ulysses 31. All gold.

I seem to remember every now and then Schofields Producer would appear just on screen, except youd only just see an arm, or a shoulder. Hmmm.

Schofield was eventually replaced with Andy Crane. Some gangly dude with a stupid haircut and a gay duck called Ed.

After this, you had Andy Peters (quite funny). Philipa Forrester (Yum) and so on. It pretty much went down hill after that. Anyway that was into the 90s so we donâ€™t care about that here!

Amazingly, there is a website dedicated to this show, so for more (if you really need it) go here:

http://www.the-broom-cupboard.co.uk/

Garbage Pail Kids

2006-07-18T08:31:00.000+01:00

In the 80's, sticker collecting was huge.

(Actually it still is, nearly everyone I know collected the World Cup Stickers last month, and they are all in their 30s!)

Long before South Park or Beavis and Butthead entertained children, you had the Garbage Pail Kids, which were basically a piss take of the Cabbage Patch kids.

Bedroom doors and lunchboxes eveywhere would be covered in these, and they were basically little characters with a sick twist.

For example, one might have been named Peter Pimple Popper (or something like that) and the card would show a Cabbage Patch Kid look-a-like with pimples all over his face and pus on his fingers.

As gross as this sounds, they were funny. They'd be traded in the playground by girls with bicycle shorts under their skirts, hypercolour T-shirts and LA Gear trainers.

There was actually a film made in 1987 - never saw it but it looks like complete crap. Cabbage patch kids actually sued Garbage Pail Kids for Infringement, and not long after that they sort of dissappeared...... which was no bad thing....... though at the time they did seem pretty cool!

Fraggle Rock

2006-07-14T12:56:00.000+01:00

The series was created by Jim Henson, and ran from 83 to 87. It was so funny, and featured a cast of creatures, mainly the fraggles, but also the Doozers and the Gorgs.

Fraggles: Gobo, Mokey, Red, Wembley, and Boober. Fraggles live a very carefree life, spending most of their time playing, exploring, and generally enjoying themselves. They were bloody hilarious, and lived on a diet of radishes and "doozer sticks" (see below).

Doozers: Strange little hardhat wearing things that are in a sense anti-Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to work and industry. Doozers spend much of their time busily constructing all manner of pointless scaffolding throughout Fraggle Rock, using miniature construction equipment out of radishes made into doozer sticks

Gorgs: The 3 Big people that lived outside, and had a garden with radishes. Now, the fraggles were considered a pest by the Gorgs, as they steal radishes. â€œLook ma, I cauwght a fwaggle. Hahaha

Thus, the three main races of the Fraggle Rock universe - Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs were all ixorably linked by radishes, are were all dependent on the radishes for their own particular reason.

Bizzare....

...but hillarious.

It still makes me laugh now.

Iâ€™m going to have the theme tune stuck in my head for 2 weeks.

Check out the intro here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aky72-gyLLI&search=fraggles

Rubiks Cube

2006-07-14T08:36:00.000+01:00

I challange anyone that says they never owned a Rubik's cube. Everyone had one, and I mean everyone. There was also the Rubik's Snake.

Now I was pretty rubbish at both. Although for some reason it was highly, highly addictive to kids and adults alike.

Kids would spend hours and hours hunched over, working this thing like crazy, with a furrowed brow. Give one to me now, and I would be bored within 2 minutes.

I remember in the 80s you would always see someone on the news, probably called Sebastian from 'special school' in Coventry or something, and he would be some 14 year old kid with a ridiculously smug smile because he had made the national news having been able to complete the Rubik's cube in, like, 8 seconds or something.

I couldn't even pull the stickers off and put them back on the the right way in 8 seconds.

With the Rubiks snake, I could make the dog, and.... well..... the snake. I think you could also make a ball. Hmmm.

Rubik's Cube. I remember them well.

Knight Rider

2006-07-12T16:34:00.000+01:00

This really needs no introduction. Honestly - I could start a Blog dedicated to Knight Rider, and never run out of stuff to say, so Ill keep this short.

Ill start with the intro that was narrated by James Earl Jones aka Darth Vadar:

Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the powerless, the helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law. Michael Knight, a lone crusader in a dangerous world. The world... of the Knight Rider.

We all know the story: Michael Long, Shot in Face, Resurrected, Michael Knight, The Car (a bit camp), The Foundation, The Hoff (Embodiment of Masculinity), Devon Miles, The Truck. Bonnie (Fit) and so on. And we all had the toys.

In reality the Trans-Am is complete crap, but luckily they had a Molecular Bonded Shell fitted to it. Honestly, if I had to have a crime fighting car in real life I would rather have a Citreon BX.

Ok Iâ€™l admit it. it was the coolest car in the whole world. At the time. Closely followed by the Firebird from Smokey and the Bandit. Yeah.

Some great quotes: Gimme all ya got Kitt & With all due respect Michael, you are not possibly thinking of... Oh my word, you are!

The best episode is when they dig up K.I.T.T.s evil cousin and they fight with lasers. I remember in one episode, that Michael also had an evil twin, Garthe Knight I think. This guy was also played brilliantly by the Hoff, except he had a beard. Obviously. He was evil and therefore had to have a beard.

It all got a bit stupid when they brought in Super Pursuit Mode. And Knightrider 2000? What the hell was that? Apparently they are remaking it again this year. If it has the Hoff in it Iâ€™ll watch it. You can spend hours combing memories of all of this and more here:

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tvshows/20-knight-rider/ - all stuff Knight Rider.

http://www.dropitlikeitshoff.com/index1.php - Hoff Appreciation. Brilliant.

It was cool. My other favourites were A-Team, Airwolf, Street Hawk & Blue Thunder.

Dont worry - I will cover all of these in future posts. It would be rude not to.

Junior Kick Start

2006-07-12T08:34:00.000+01:00

Young kids churning up the mud on motorbikes during the half term holidays. It could only have been Junior Kick Start. A TV format that has survived to this day - human suffering for entertainment. brilliant.

Jimmy, aged 12, from Dagenham would drive his mini Yamaha 50cc around a course of slalom poles, see saws ramps and steep hills. Junior Kick Start was a show you only ever watched in case some poor kid on an overly large trials bike came a cropper.

Thankfully, that happened on a regular basis. My funniest memory of this, which has been replayed endlessly, is when some young 12 year old kid stacked it, tumbled into a ditch and had to be rescued by a St. John's Ambulance guy. The ambulance guy went down to get him and stacked it too, ending up on his arse in the mud. Quality entertainment.

The programme eventually ended in the early-90s when a new generation of kids turned their backs on driving motorbikes over ramps and see-saws and big hills, in favour of alcopops, crack, joyriding and mugging other kids for their mobile phones.
Ahhh Sunday afternoons in the 80s. Yeah, Kick Start was right up there with the A-Team and Hardcastle and McCormick.

M.A.S.K.

2006-07-11T08:51:00.000+01:00

Now basically, back in the 80s TV Cartoons were just 20 minute long toy commercials. M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand) was one of the better ones, even if it was a complete rip off of Transformers.

This cartoon had some pretty cool characters, and each one was made unique by way of their own personal vehicle and helmet. These weren't just ordinary helmets though, as each character's helmet had its own special power and code name.

Bruce Sato's helmet was called Lifter, for example, and obviously when he uttered the words Lifter ON!, his helmet would shoot out a beam and... well..... lift things.

The baddies were called VENOM (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem) When these guys were up to something, Matt would tell his computer to pick the M.A.S.K. agents best suited for the mission, based on the agent's vehicles and expertise, and then the computer would page the selected agents. Every agent wore a special wristwatch device that beeped and flashed the M.A.S.K. logo when they were needed.

The plots were hilarious, and the bad guys came up with some pretty stupid ideas to deal with M.A.S.K. For example, instead of say, buying up a couple of nuclear warheads and launching them at M.A.S.K. headquarters, Mayhem would decide to hijack a bunch of metal-eating bugs from a group of scientists and unleash them on the M.A.S.K.... because you see, their vehicles are made out of metal, and the bugs would eat the metal! This would cause their vehicles to corrode away and be useless! What an ingenious idea! Now what was better than the cartoons, were the toy vehicles you had. They were so cool. They transformed from one thing into another just like transformers, but were easier to do.

Some of the Characters:

Name Mask Vehicle
Alex Jackrabbit Rhino (Truck)
Brad Hocus Pocus Condor (Bike/Helicopter)
Dusty Backlash Gator (Jeep/Boat)
Miles Viper Switchblade(Chopper/Jet) my favourite
Sly Stilleto Piranha(Sidecar/Boat)
Vanessa Whip Manta (Car/Sub)

I bet itâ€™s still on some obscure SKY channel. Iâ€™m off to find out.

Scalextric

2006-07-10T11:24:00.000+01:00

Possibly the coolest toy ever invented. You could continually add to it or buy extras like crossovers, plastic barriers, bridge supports, start grid, lap counter and so forth. You'd pretty much be getting this from the nearest Beatties (whatever happened to Beatties?)

To this day I can still remember the smell that came off the metal brushes on the bottom of the car. Basically my memories of this toy are as follows:

Bulbs in the headlights brighter than the sun as 30000volts of electricity surge up through the wire brushes just before you slam it into the skirting board at a scale speed of 300mph.

Taking 400 years to put together if Dad wasn't about.

After 400 years snapping the track together, put the car on the track, pull the trigger, car goes nowhere but a shower of sparks erupt from a join in the track.

Fix this problem then put the car on backwards and have it reverse at a scale speed of 400mph.

Put both cars on the track and try and drive them at the same time, scale speeds of 1000mph reached, skirting boards destroyed.

After 1 hour of breaking the scale land speed record you become tired of having to reach across to put the car back on the track, as it flys off you reach over and put your hand on both lanes of the track, 1.5 gigawatts surges up your arm.

Get the Gold porsche, lift up the rear of the car, pull the trigger and let the wheels spin up roughly to the speed of light, drop the porsche and watch it snake up the track and slam through the plastic barriers before wedging itself under the sofa after doing 400 rolls across the carpet.

Tired, electrocuted you now become even lazier with your trigger control and soon the cars cease to move, making a high pitched screaming noise. You have sheared the plastic cog as you red lined the Gold Porsche to 350,000rpm for the 456627th time that day.

There's always one piece of track you could not undo as those bloody plastic loop things where too hard for your little fingers to bend back....

Laying your action man figure across the track attempting to simulate a decapitation by running in to it with your blue elf tirell....

Also, did anybody else convince themselves that one hand controller was faster than the other? In my house this would lead to severe sibling rivalry.

The best though, was when you would get back from beatties with your brand new brushes to replace the dirty skiddy ones that had done over 1000km. Pure gold.

Those were the days.

Spokey Dokes

2006-07-09T19:02:00.000+01:00

In the 80s we as kids were able to spend hours outside, without our parents ringing us on mobile phones to find out where we were. Dads were allowed to have an incinerator, and while all the kids were out on their bikes on a sunday afternoon, they would get out the incinerators, get out there, and burn cardboard. For no particular reason- just because it was blokey to burn things.

No one could reach you, but it didnâ€™ seem to matter and no-one minded. Everybody would go out on their BMXs and you could bet that nearly all of the kids would have spokey dokes clattering away on their wheels. The 80s equivalent of Spinners

These things were great, and youd go to the shop to get a packet and then attach every spokey dokey to your wheels and cruise around all evening. Usually the goal would be to see who could do the longest skid. Or to ride somewhere and climb trees (there was no playstation then so would couldn't virtually climb the tree, we actually had to do it)

There was none of this safety crap either - no helmet and pads etc. No - the only safety feature of the BMX was the foam strip you had across your handlebars, which offered limited protection. (Skateboards went the other way from what I remember - first you had the stupid looking ones that were really really thin - these were then replaced with the really wide ones, that had add-ons everywhere; plastic surrounds for protection, big plastic skid pad on the back, and grab rails.)

Once you had your spokey dokeys attached, decided who could do the longest skid, and climed the tree, you would get a playing card, stick it so it was poking through your spokes. Or, you could use a can of coke, stamp on it and jam it against the back tyre - you then had the motorcyle sound effect.

At the time, all of this seemed like the coolest thing to do. (Also, the cans of coke had proper ring pulls back then, and you could ping them a surprisingly far distance at someone, before sticking the can on your bike.........brilliant)

Once it was so dark, and the only thing you could see were the spokey dokes themselves, and it was really late (but probably only 8 o'clock) you would ride up to your house, get off the bike and drop it in the same movement so it crashed onto the floor as you were going in the door, go inside, have tea, and watch Gremlins or Ghostbusters or something.

Ahhh the 80s. Spokey Dokes were good.

Thundercats. HO!

2006-07-07T11:01:00.000+01:00

One of my favorites!
'Sword of Omens' with the 'Eye of Thundera' to give him 'Sight beyond Sight' and that sort of thing. Brilliant. Now I cant remember them all but I think they were: Lion-o, Panthro, Cheetara, WillyKit and WillyKat (these 2 actually freaked me out a little bit) and Snarf (Irritating little shit) Only evil one I can remember was Mumm-Ra.

Toys - I had the 'Thunder Tank', and my next door neighbor had the one everybody had - The Sword of Omens. This had a rubbish light that was supposed to mimic the cartoon and send the symbol into the air (like Batman) to give him Sight beyond Sight. In actual fact it lit up just enough to see.... just......if you turned all the lights off...... and really squinted.

"Panthro - look after Cheetara, Tygra, Wilykat and Wilykitt - I, Lion-O, lord of the Thundercats, and him, Snarf, the twat, are going for a walk to look for that Mumm-Ra bloke and get into another highly predictable battle situation." - "Fire! Fire, Vultureman! Fire before it's too late!"

Oh, yeah, Mumm-Ra. I remember him. Who the hell thought of "Mumm-Ra" as a name? Imagine - "The evil one is coming soon." "By what name is he known?" "Mumm-Ra" "Are you taking the piss?" He does rule though! He rarely leaves his tomb for fear of looking at himself in a mirror. I could never work out why the Thundercats didn't just carry mirrors with them on the off chance that he might attack?

The good thing about Mumm-Ra is that his toy was brilliant. It had a lever on the back to make both his arms move (that's right - both arms, not just one, Lion-O!) and if you poke a battery in his back his eyes glowed red.

Yes!

Big Trak

2006-07-06T11:01:00.000+01:00

Now any true 80's kid would remember this baby. I had one, and nothing matched it. For those that may not remember this technological marvel, it was basically a wheeled moon buggy type thing. The majic was, it wasn't remote control, you had to use the keypad on the back to programme it to follow a pre determined path.

left 3, forward 2, left 4 and so on.

I remeber spending hours and hours making and obstacle course around my room and then attempting to programme the big trak to negotiate it. If i remember right, you could put in about 16 commands, and every now and then it would fire its Photon Cannon. It also had a tipper on the back, and my brothers thing was to programme it to go into the kitchen with a note in the back requesting buscuits. Pure gold. These days I reckon the kids would put a note in requesting a knife or some crack.

I spent hours with this baby, and then I guess it must have been replaced the Christmas after with my Budgie Bike. More on that tomorrow. I'm off to ebay to see if I can find a Big Trak.
Skill.

Spectrum or BBC Micro?

2006-07-05T15:50:00.000+01:00

Rubber keys to protect from splashing, or the more superior Acorn Machine. So which were you? Personally, I never owned a Spectrum - I always thought they were a bit gippo - I was a huge advocate of the BBC Micro. The model I has was a BBC Micro B+ with REM chip and external disk drive and tape deck.

Just the thought of the sounds when you loaded up your game by tape, waiting anxiously for the game to load, only to be thoroughly dissapointed when you eventually got to play! ahhhh those were the days. Computers then I feel were so much more fun, rather than the headache modern games give you. Is it just me or are todays games so damn hard? Give me Repton anyday.

So, what were your favorite games of the day? PacMan perhaps? Donkey Kong? Paperboy? My personal favorite Repton? aaaaahhhh I can almost smell the 80's just thinking about it. Even if you did get bored of the games, it was fairly easy to write that well known programme that everybody knew:

10 Clear Screen
20 Print "hello"
30 goto 20

Anyway, I went back to my parents house the other day to fish the BBC Micro out of the loft - I figured it must be worth something after all this time. (ok, ok I was going to hook it up and play) To my horror, they had actually sold it at a car boot sale for.... wait for it...... Â£1.50 ?!? Now I dont know what it should have been worth, but alot more than that I am sure. I havn't been the same since.

Enough! All this reminiscing is making me quite over excited. ooooh. too late. If I had a rubber keyed speccy now everything would be ok but i think i have damaged the keyboard and my pc is about to cra......... ~@?@!(*&$^!"*&$Â£!!"~@?........

The 80s

2006-07-05T12:42:00.000+01:00

I loved the 80s. I was brought into this world in 1977, so my first memory was the 80s beginning. As far as I'm concerned it was all brilliant. Transformers, Computer Games (proper Computer Games!) Maninal, A Team, Magnum PI, 20p would go a long way. Flourescent socks (odd, of course), Junior Kick Start, Mask, Cities of Gold and so forth.

This blog is basically a rant, loosly based around my experience during those 10 years we all remember as the 80s, with no obvious flow or direction whatsoever. All of the above topics and many more will be covered, with a new post each day. My plan is just to log on share a memory of the 80s with you each and every day. Anything you would like to see? Email me and let me know. Forward this link to your friends and enjoy. Remember, life in the 80's was skill. Hang on, didnt 'skill' mean a camels arse? Tee hee.

"A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions." Marcus Aurelius

Adventure Autos Northampton. Steer Clear.

2005-02-12T10:45:00.000Z

http://www.reviewcentre.com/review624676.html

Thinking of going to Adventure Autos in Northampton? Think again. Read mine and other peoples poor reviews of their service:

I would steer well clear of this company called Adventure Autos. Here is my recent experience, 11th Feb 2010: Saw a car on the web from them. Wanted to go to see it, but as it was a 2 hour drive away, called first to discuss price and part ex, to save a wasted journey if they wouldn't discuss price.

So, agreed a price based on part ex for my car, and made appointment to view car following day. Went to view car, they were initally very freindly. I liked the car alot so asked for a test drive. Here is where their demeanour changed.

They said I couldn't drive the car. I explained I had driven a long way to see the car, and made an appointment. Their response? "well you've seen it, aint ya". Hmmm. I thanked them for wasting my time, and the man then called me a tw*t. Great service. Fact is I really like the car, had £10k in my pocket, and was trying my best to actually buy the car.

Called them this morning to try and resolve this issue, as despite being sworn at, I was very keen on the car and still wanted to pursue it. They were very rude, saying they don't offer test drives until a deposit is paid.

A very strange way of trying to sell cars! The car itself on closer inspection was not as advertised - badly repaired dings, respray on rear bumber, and lots of little bits of work. Tried to speak to them to negotiate the price and arrange a test drive. They said none of those things were an MOT failure, and they told me to go and buy a car elsewhere.

Complete cowboys, who as soon as they realised I was not stupid and knew exactly what I was talking about, changed their tune completely. Dont go anywhere near this company, I have lots of experience of smaller showrooms like this, and they are the worst I have ever experienced by far. They are simply cowboys in my opinion.

Wish I'd looked at the other reviews on this company before I'd wasted 4 hour round trip to their "showroom". Look at the other reviews on the internet, and they're all bad. Sad thing is, I still want to buy the car, but despite trying very hard to do so I was unable to.

Steer WELL clear of adventure autos, and be patient and wait for a car elsewhere to come along. Wouldn't trust them to wash my car, let alone sell me one.

other reviews including ones ending up in court, plus similar stories to mine here:

http://www.justanswer.com/questions/1wsbo-i-purchased-a-used-bmw-from-adventure-autos-in-northampton

http://www.tipec.net/_forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6480&start=0

http://www.reviewcentre.com/review571316.html

http://www.reviewcentre.com/review523778.html

portscod

2001-04-11T16:41:00.003+01:00

Hi BLACK_BURNER

Ok to fix the friend invite issue, you and anyone you are trying to connect with has to open the ports on the router, and then assign them to the PS3.

once you've both done all this there should'nt be any problem. Here is how to open the ports for the BT home hub. If the other person has a different router, just look up how to open the ports for it on google.

BT Home Hub
Call of Duty: World at War uses these ports :
ports 3478, 3479, 3074, 3075 (UDP)
and ports 80, 443, 3074, 5223 (TCP)

to open these ports.... first you need to log into your Home Hub as Admin :

Go to your PC or laptop. Click Start > Run > then type CMD. then in the new window, type IPCONFIG - then what you're looking for is Default gateway and will look simething like 192.168.1.254.

Then, open your internet browser, and type in the default gateway into the address bar of your browser. This then logs you in to the home hub. (for advanced settings, the log on should be admin and the password default should also be admin unless you have changed it!)

Go to Advanced > Configuration > Application Sharing
Under "Assigned games and applications", there should be a line where you can select an application from a pull-down list and assign it to a connected device.
click on "Create a new game or application".

Enter a name for the application (mine is CODWaW) and select "Manual Entry of Port Maps", then press 'Next'

Select the Protocol for the port you need to open (TCP or UDP), port range, and the port number to translate to, then press 'Add'. so for example the first port you want to open is 3478 UDP. so select UDP and type 3478 into the boxes for port range and port start and end - basically just type the same port number into each one...., then click ADD.

Now do this again for ports 3478, 3479, 3074, 3075 (UDP)

change the protocol to TCP then do the same thing for these ones:

ports 80, 443, 3074, 5223 (TCP)

So, once you've now created the application and opened all the ports, you need to assign this application to the ps3 through your router, so it uses it.

So, go back to Configuration > Application Sharing, and under the "Game or application" heading, select the application you've just added from the pulldown.

Then, under the "Device" heading, select the device to want the application to connect to, in other words, the PS3.

here you can see what things access your router like your ps3, laptop or whatever.

THis is the bit people sometimes get wrong.... you have to map the application you've just made to the device (the PS3) - you should be able to select a drop down of anything that connects to your router like laptop, ps3 etc etc.

If you cant see your ps3 or are not sure which one it is, what I do, is enter it manually by going onto my ps3 and on the xmb go to Settings>NetworkSettings>SettingandConnection Status

then see what IP address you have got for your PS3. Then when you're in your router settings.. map the application to that ip address.

You may need to give your PS3 a static IP address so it uses the same one every time. You can find tutorials for that on google probably.

You also need to make sure who you're trying to connect with has done all this too, then it should all work perfectly!!

If it doesnt, the only other thing i can suggest is putting your ps3 into a DMZ - which basically opens all the ports. you can find out that on google probably!!!

Sorry its so damn complicated - it should really work without having to do all this crap!!

hope you get it working.