From the files of Neil Miles, which I didn't intend to be a rhyme but is, some promotional frippery from either side of an episode of Every Second Counts, the surprisingly long-running game show hosted by Paul Daniels from the dawn of the COW until well into the Virtual Globe era. It's 13th October 1990.

First, a trailer for Hearts of Gold, Esther Rantzen's more solemn (and less successful) version of the altogether more working-class Surprise Surprise. Basically all the cuddly bits of That's Life, down to having one of her old Nancy Boys (Michael Groth) as co-presenter, the obligatory Lynsey de Paul theme song and nightmarish parts where people come on dressed as carrots for no adequately explained reason. And lots of hidden camera stunts where they plant old ladies in need of helping across the street already and see who takes the bait, like a passive-aggressive Beadle's About. Also starring Earl Spencer before he was Earl Spencer, and Charles Nove on the sly.

Heralded by that season's special wallpaper, or a little of it. Autumn 1990 was the one where the theme was "circles" and the aesthetic was minimalist and airy. And the music was insubstantial. There actually was a tune (check it out here - [ Ссылка ] - and RIP your Sunday afternoon) but even when it was present it was a frail woodwind thing that was subsumed by its atmospherics. This "grabber" version only uses the atmospherics, and only some of them, so it comes across as actually quite unsettling and inscrutable, without the haunting quality of the whole composition. Mind you, even that was generally lost under the voice of Alan Dedicoat.

Note also the attempt at consistent fonts - some sort of condensed bold serif, I'm not sure which - both here and in the brief "coming next" spot for Russ Abbot. I'm quite fond of Russ Abbot, but as you can see, not because he was hilarious or anything. I'm pretty sure his material was usually better than this, though.

Before that, though, it's Every! Second! Counts! as the announcer used to introduce it every episode. It was the most exciting part. Not that it was a bad little gameshow; like I said it lasted a good seven years, which is at least six more than its original US version. Peter Brook sounds interested at least.

Afterwards, some exciting news from the aforementioned Deadly. There's a new look to BBC1 Daytime, which they've kind of struggled with a bit since inventing it five years earlier, largely because they went and cancelled Pebble Mill at One to make way for Neighbours and Bazaar and Knots Landing and the like. They effectively brought it back in 1987 as Daytime Live, back in the venerable old brutalist Birmingham complex, and now (with Richard and Judy proving surprisingly popular on the other side) they're throwing up their hands and expanding it to a full four hour umbrella title for the entire morning's bollocks, including Kilroy (leering disturbingly out of the screen at you), some kind of quiz show ("Brainwave" I think), the odd interruption for the news and Children's BBC, episodes of She's the Sheriff for no good reason at all and Scene Today, which seems to have been the usual Pebble Mill chitchat business that they were doing as Daytime Live. All suffused with acres of smooth jazz, the very soul of bland and the default sound for daytime in the early 90s. Still hosted from the Mill, with Judi Spiers and Alan Titchmarsh, and also Adrian "The Not-we must be killed" Mills and Debi Jones in Manchester, if you can stand the excitement. The Daytime UK name didn't last long - they decided it just undermined the programmes themselves - and eventually they gave up and just explictly brought back Pebble Mill. Just not At One.

Coming up after Russ Abbot, the last series of the original All Creatures Great and Small, with a guest appearance from Dinsdale Landen as a cock. Apparently the character appeared ten years earlier played by the amphibious Ronald Lacey, so it's actually an improvement. There's that font again.

But first, it's Russ, and the announcement hints that it's the twilight of his BBC supremacy by referencing the relatively cheap and simple title sequence he was using by then ([ Ссылка ]). The good times were definitely over when his Christmas special that year went out on Boxing Day, 24 hours later than his last five, and his BBC series in 1991 went out on Friday nights - a ratings dead zone on BBC1 at that time. That was unsurprisingly his last BBC series. ITV took him back, though. They even let him do some proper acting in September Song.

Watch the entire episode of Every Second Counts. Do it.
[ Ссылка ]

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