THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

Isn't it amazing how sights, smells and sounds can evoke a memory and so it was when I saw the photograph below when I was transported back in time by 45 years.   The Harrogate hifi show was an exciting event back in the late 70's/ early 80s especially to two young blades with no money and we would make the pilgrimage to the Harrogate Festival Hall in anticipation of being wowed by all we couldn't afford. On one occasion, after enetering a crowded room, we milled around only to have the doors closed on us...... we had stumbled into...

Rhyming slang originated in the East End of london during the mid-19th century.  Many erudite philosophers have postulated how how rhyming slang originated with one camp citing origin as a linguistic game among friends  with another suggesting use as a cryptolect developed to confuse non-locals.  Or if in Peckham, to allow traders with yellow three wheelers to talk amongst themselves in marketplaces to facilitate  collusion.  Another theme was that that rhyming slang was invented by Irish immigrants to London so locals wouldn't understand what they were talking about. This colourful patois finds use with radio references too.   I have known...

I just love this Mullard advertisement from 1946, such prescience to forewarn the advent of a wrist mounted 'electronic teleprinter news receiver'...... or was it just plagiarism? Could it be that envious eyes scanned events across 'the pond' and hence a 'copy and paste' idea was hatched?    Well, in 1946, someone else got a radio wrist watch, yes, it was Dick Tracy.  Who, I hear you ask , well  Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring created by Chester Gould that made its debut  n the Detroit Mirror in October 1931.  It was to be 15 years later,...

As an ex Quality Manager, I am not a fan of the concept nor the effectiveness of 100% inspection but this is (allegedly) what happened at many LP pressing plants. I present for you,  LP QC at RCA in London:- And again,  LP QC at RCA in Toulouse:- Where is your Garrard 301 ma petit choux-fleur?  

 But first... a hi-fi joke:-  The world’s leading expert on European wasps walks into a record shop and asks the assistant “Do you have ‘European Vespidae Acoustics Volume 2? I believe it was released this week.”“Certainly,” replies the assistant. “Would you like to listen before you buy it?”“That would be wonderful,” says the expert, and puts on a pair of headphones.He listens for a few moments and says to the assistant, “I’m terribly sorry, but I am the world’s leading expert on European wasps and this is not accurate at all. I don’t recognise any of those sounds. Are you sure...