THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

I love a sexist ( YOU BEAST) advert don't you.  Just look at this corker from 1975 And here you see four bunnies extolling the virtues of AKG microphones for all to see.   And what's more, this wasn't the first time bunnies were in front of the microphone either as the following photo  from three years earlier shows:- So who or what were the "Bunnies" or "Bunny Girls" then?  WELL, I'll tell you........ The Playboy Bunnies are waitresses who serve drinks at Playboy Clubs. There are different types of Bunnies, including the Door Bunny, Cigarette Bunny, Floor Bunny, Pool Bunny, Fine...

Love it or loathe it, Halloween is upon us once again.  Why are supermarket shelves groaning under the mass of pumpkins ? Well, we all blame the Americans but that is only partly true as in times of yore it was an Irish custom on All Hallows Eve to carve a turnip into Jack-o'-lantern because a potato was too small and squidgy.  This was done, all because of a fokelore tale that went something like this:-  Stingy Jack,a lazy but wily blacksmith tricked Satan into climbing an apple tree, then trapped him by carving crosses around the trunk which Satan...

Look at this advert from 1910.  Isn't it a great idea, using a tap fed turbine to power a grinding wheel.  Alas, we are on a water meter so the knives remain blunt at Mullard Magic Grange.  

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...