{"id":506,"date":"2018-04-26T19:55:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T19:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=506"},"modified":"2018-06-25T19:58:13","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T19:58:13","slug":"super-smashing-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/04\/26\/super-smashing-great\/","title":{"rendered":"SUPER, SMASHING, GREAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

The passing of the comedian Jim Bowen last month was keenly felt in our neck of the woods. He became a household name in the 1980s as the presenter of ‘Bullseye’, but he was known to Lancastrians in the 1970s as a teacher at several schools in the area. Younger Lancastrians may remember him for different reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the early 90s, some bright spark Bowland social secretary had the idea of booking the notoriously ‘blue’ comic to perform in the college bar. Bowen didn’t manage many, err, ‘off-colour’ gags before he was booed off the stage. After having a drink poured over him by a Sikh in the audience, Bowen asked the head bouncer to provide an escort. He obliged, and called over his very large, very black colleague to assist. Bowen, recognising his awkward situation, allegedly asked if he could expect any help if it all kicked off, to which the answer was a very confident ‘no’. Bowen was wished well in his escape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some time later, the unfortunate Jim Bowen, who lived in a converted railway station, received a phone call from a ‘representative of British Regional Railways’ (actually Louis Barfe, doing a wind-up for University Radio Bailrigg). Those wanting to listen to Bowen advising on how best to market a railway line as a tourist attraction using his likeness and trademarks can do so here: www.soundcloud.com\/louis-barfe\/full-frontal-crudity-jim-bowen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The passing of the comedian Jim Bowen last month was keenly felt in our neck of the woods. He became a household name in the 1980s as the presenter of ‘Bullseye’, but he was known to Lancastrians in the 1970s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[103,5],"tags":[292,290,291],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-obituary","tag-issue-176","tag-jim-bowen","tag-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-8a","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":538,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/05\/10\/letters-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":0},"title":"LETTERS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"May 10 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear subtext, In 2005\/6 when I (as HoD) was trying to support an appeal by a female member of admin who had been downgraded by the job review that was supposed to bring equivalence to roles, I looked\u00a0 through the internal telephone directory at the names of people who occupied\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "letters"","block_context":{"text":"letters","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":289,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/01\/18\/shart-attack-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":1},"title":"SHART ATTACK","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"January 18 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"FROM: Lord Rod E.L. Girdle, Pro-Chancellor, Lune Valley Enterprise University. TO: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U). DATE: 13\/1\/2018, 03:45AM SUBJECT: New Appointment Mike, I trssust your well. Listen I\u2019m just art a gatheringt in London, and who shouild I run into but Toby Young? I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "shart attack"","block_context":{"text":"shart attack","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/shart-attack\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1238,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/03\/27\/some-thoughts-on-tony-madeley\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":2},"title":"SOME THOUGHTS ON TONY MADELEY","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 27 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Nigel Annis Tony was the University's Safety and Radiation Protection Officer, a position he held from 1985 until 2011. As you will know, he died suddenly at home on 23rd February. I worked with Tony for almost 20 years in the Safety Office, but I knew him for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "obituary"","block_context":{"text":"obituary","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/obituary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":159,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/11\/09\/queen-albert\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":3},"title":"QUEEN ALBERT","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 9 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Your cultural correspondent squeezed into a packed Dukes on Monday (6th November) to watch a screening of 'The Death of Stalin' - a brilliant film, a creative mixture of grim and laugh out loud funny. This was followed by a question and answer session with one of the screenwriters on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/12\/court-in-the-act\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":4},"title":"COURT IN THE ACT","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"October 12 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"David Allen, the Court Effectiveness Review Group's 'external reviewer', is visiting campus this week to meet with those who asked to be interviewed by him, as part of his review. Mr Allen is a former Registrar at the University of Exeter and we hope he'll enjoy his visit. He'll be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":927,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2019\/03\/01\/students-union-hustings-a-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":506,"position":5},"title":"STUDENTS’ UNION HUSTINGS – A REPORT","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 1 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Scene: County South Lecture Theatre, Thursday 28 February, 7pm onwards, set out cabaret style. Audience: probably just short of 100 people, though this fluctuated a lot. Lighting: usually this was on 'low', except for the several moments when (we think some of the audience were leaning on the light switches)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}