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Wednesday 29 March 2023

Second Picture: Deep Fried Mars Bar
Third Picture: 1940’s Advert
Forth Picture: A Mars a Day………
Mars, commonly known as Mars bar, is the name of two varieties of chocolate bar produced by Mars An American version of the Mars bar was produced which had nougat and toasted almonds covered in milk chocolate; later, caramel was added to the recipe as well. The American version was discontinued in 2002, then revived in a slightly different form the following year under the name "Snickers Almond". It was first manufactured in Slough under the Mars bar name in 1932 by Forrest Mars, Sr., son of American candy maker Frank C. Mars. He modelled it after his father's Milky Way bar, which was already popular in the US, adjusting the recipe to better suit European tastes. He had a staff of twelve people, and originally advertised it as using Cadbury's chocolate couverture. The bar and the proportions of the main components have changed over the years. With minor variations, this version is sold worldwide, except for the US, and is packaged in a black wrapper with red gold-edged lettering. Three million Mars bars accompanied the British task force to the Falklands in 1982. In 2002, the Mars bar was reformulated and its logo was updated with a more cursive appearance except in Australia where it still has the pre-2002 logo. Its price also increased. The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. The slogan "Pleasure you can't measure" was intended to appeal more to women and youths. In the second half of 2008, Mars UK reduced the weight of regular bars from 62.5 g to 58 g. Although the reduction in size was not publicised at the time, Mars claimed the change was designed to help tackle the obesity crisis in the UK. The company later confirmed that the real reason for the change was rising costs. In 2013, the "standard" Mars bar was further reduced to 51 g, bringing the change to around 20% in 5 years. In May 2009, the Mars bar size reduced from 60g to 53g in Australia, citing portion sizes and the obesity debate as the primary driver. As of 2022, it was noted the Mars bar size has been reduced further to 47g in Australia. In the United States, the Mars bar is a candy bar with nougat and toasted almonds coated with milk chocolate. The same candy bar is known outside the United States as a Mars Almond bar. Originally it did not have caramel, but at some point caramel was added to it. It was discontinued in 2002, relaunched in January 2010, discontinued again at the end of 2011and relaunched again in September 2016 by Ethel M, the gourmet chocolate subsidiary of Mars, Incorporated. The 2016 version is the "original American recipe", which doesn't have caramel. It's available in their stores and on Amazon.com. In 2003, the company introduced a replacement called Snickers Almond. It's similar to the Mars bar, containing nougat, almonds, caramel, and a milk chocolate coating, although there are some differences. For example, the almonds are in smaller pieces in Snickers Almond than in the Mars bar. The European version of the Mars bar is also sold in some United States grocery stores that stock imported food products. Deep Fried Mars Bars is a Mars bar which has been coated with batter and deep-fried in oil or beef fat. First reports of battered Mars bars being sold in Stonehaven, Scotland date back to 1995] The product is "not authorised or endorsed" by Mars, Inc. Deep-fried Mars bars are available from some fish-and-chip shops in the UK (mainly in Scotland), Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the United States. A similar dish has reportedly appeared in Kathmandu, Nepal where momo (dumplings) have used Mars bars as fillings. In July 2005, Mars bars, along with the Snickers bar, were recalled due to an anonymous extortion attempt against Star City Casino in Sydney. The extortionist claimed to have poisoned seven Mars and Snickers bars at random stores in New South Wales, As a result, Masterfoods Corporation, the company that manufactures Mars bars in Australia, recalled the entire Mars and Snickers product from store shelves in New South Wales. In the later half of August 2005, the threat to the public was deemed negligible and the bars returned to shelves In February 2016, Mars, Snickers and various other Mars, Inc. chocolate products were recalled in 55 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The precautionary recall was issued after a customer found pieces of plastic in a Snickers bar purchased in Germany. The error was traced back to a Mars, Inc. factory in Veghel, The Netherlands. Did you know that Gerry and the Pacemakers were originally known as Gerry Marsden and the Mars Bars before changing their name due to the objection of Mars, Incorporated. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com /b>

Wednesday 22 March 2023

Web Page 3054 23rd March 2023 Steve Race First Picture: Steve Race at the piano
Second Picture: The My Music team
Third Picture: Sheet Music for Nicola
Forth Picture: Steve Races’ autobiography
Stephen Russell "Steve" Race OBE (1 April 1921 – 22 June 2009) was a British composer, pianist and radio and television presenter. Born in Lincoln, the son of a lawyer, he learned the piano from the age of five. He was educated (1932–37) at Lincoln School, where he formed his first jazz group, which included a young Neville Marriner, later a major figure in the world of classical music. At sixteen, he attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying composition. After leaving the academy, he wrote occasional dance band reviews for Melody Maker and, in 1939, joined the Harry Leader dance band as pianist, succeeding Norrie Paramor. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, and formed a jazz/dance quintet. After the Second World War, he began a long and productive career with the BBC, where his ready wit, musicianship and broad musical knowledge made him much sought after as a musical accompanist for panel games and magazine shows, such as Whirligig and Many a Slip. At the same time he was playing in the bands of Lew Stone and Cyril Stapleton, and arranging material for Ted Heath. In, 1949 The Steve Race Bop Group recorded some of the first British bebop records. He also developed a sideline arranging player piano rolls for the Artona company. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he presented numerous music programmes on radio and television. Additionally, in 1955, he was appointed the first Light Music Advisor to the independent television company Associated-Rediffusion. He is probably best known as the chairman of the long-running light-hearted radio and TV panel game My Music which ran from 1967 to 1994. He presented and wrote most of the questions for all 520 episodes . He also presented Jazz For Moderns on radio and Jazz 625 on television for the BBC in the 1960s. As a composer, he produced a number of pieces in the jazz, classical and popular idioms. Faraway Music, the theme to an ITV Play of the Week in 1961, was issued as a single by Steve Race and his Orchestra. Others followed, including one of his better-known compositions, the short instrumental piece Nicola (named after his daughter), which won an Ivor Novello Award in 1962. But his best-known and, according to his autobiography, his most lucrative composition is his music for the Birds Eye frozen peas jingle, "Sweet as the moment when the pod went pop". Windsor Blues, a duet written in 1970 for Prince Charles (cello) and the Earl of Chester (trumpet) has been recorded. Race's autobiography, Musician at Large, was published in 1979, and in 1988 Souvenir Press Ltd published his book about his grandfather's short but interesting life, from lead miner to missionary, entitled The Two Worlds of Joseph Race. He married Marjorie Leng in 1944 and they had a daughter, Nicola. Marjorie died from cancer in 1969. He married again in 1970, to radio producer Léonie Mather, who survived him. He had his first heart attack in 1965. He died of the second attack at his home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, in June 2009. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

Thursday 16 March 2023

Second Picture: Coronation edition
Third Picture: Look and Learn Magazine
The Children's Newspaper was a long-running newspaper published by the Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway Publications) aimed at pre-teenage children It was founded by Arthur Mee in 1919. It ran for 2,397 weekly issues before being merged with Look and Learn in 1965. Following the successful publication of The Children's Encyclopædia as a part-work between 1908 and 1910, the title was immediately relaunched as The New Children's Encyclopædia. This new edition, published in monthly parts from March 1910, added a supplement in September 1910 entitled The Little Paper which carried news stories that would have been of interest to children. This idea was expanded by Arthur Mee into the 12-page, tabloid-sized Children's Newspaper which debuted on 22 March 1919 and was priced 1½d. Subtitled The Story of the World Today for the Men and Women of Tomorrow, the paper epitomised Arthur Mee's values and reflected the editor's twin faiths of Christian ethics and the British Empire. Arthur Mee believed that children could be guided to better, more creative lives through education. His aim for the Encyclopaedia was to give the nation's children a firm grasp of subjects such as history and geography and the practical world. The Children's Newspaper was designed to keep young people up to date with the latest in world news and tha sciences. At its peak, The Children's Newspaper sold 500,000 copies a week. Following Arthur Mee's death in 1943, Hugo Tyerman took over the editorial reins. Sales began to fall after the Second World War as rival publications, notably the Eagle, Girl, Junior Mirror and Junior Express, began to appear. It was not until the mid-1950s that The Children's Newspaper began to modernise, adding features on television and sports and including interviews with popular sporting personalities. In January 1962, Fleetway Publications launched the educational weekly entitled Look and Learn magazine in colour. The black and white Children's Newspaper suffered by comparison and despite attempts to attract a teenage audience by adding a column for girls and a 'Pop Spot' featuring photos of popular singers and groups, sales continued to slip. The Children's Newspaper came to an end on 1 May 1965 after 2,397 issues. In November 2004, the rights to the magazine were purchased by the Look and Learn Magazine Ltd who began posting issues for viewing or downloading on their website in April 2007. I must admit that on a couple of occasions I did try to read the Childrens Newspaper but found it very dry and stuffy. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com /b>

Wednesday 8 March 2023

Second Picture: Cliff and Jean Metcalf
Third Picture: The Holiday programme
Forth Picture: Book by Cliff and Jean
Clifford Michelmore , known as Cliff) was born on 11th December 1919 and died on 16th March 2016. He is best known for the BBC television programme Tonight, which he presented from 1957 to 1965. He also hosted the BBC's television coverage of the Apollo Moon landings, the Aberfan disaster, the 1966 and 1970 UK general elections, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1969. He was born in Cowes, the youngest of six children of insurance agent and former prison officer, police constable, and groom servant (Albert) Herbert Michelmore and Ellen, daughter of labourer Richard Alford. The Michelmores had moved to the Isle of Wight in hopes of relieving his father's tuberculosis. His father died when Michelmore was two years old, and he was raised by his mother in a terraced house near the Cowes boatyards until being sent to live with his sister and her husband, a farmer. His mother was unable to afford the fares to the grammar school in Newport, so he attended Cowes Secondary School where he was head boy and captain of Cricket Loughborough College, and Leicester College of Technology and Art. He was a member of the 32nd entry of the Aircraft Apprentice Scheme at No. 1 School of Technical Training RAF which was located at RAF Halton. He was a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and began broadcasting on British Forces Network radio. After the war he worked for BBC Radio and television as a freelance sports commentator, then as a news reporter and as a producer of children's programmes, including All Your Own. From 1955 to 1957 he presented the BBC TV programme Highlight, a current affairs show with a reputation for uncompromising interviews. On 18 February 1957 he became anchor for BBC Television's new topical weekday magazine show Tonight, which ran for eight years and attracted eight million viewers at its peak. This made him probably the most frequently appearing person on television at the time. He was named BAFTA Television Personality of the Year in 1958, he was on air when the news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy broke in 1963. Arguably his most poignant commentary was in October 1966 on the Aberfan disaster, where 116 children and 28 adults died. When Tonight finished in 1965, he hosted a BBC One series called 24 Hours until 1968He. He presented coverage of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969 and when the BBC closed its Lime Grove Studios in 1991, he presented the last broadcast from Lime Grove. After leaving full-time television work, he became head of EMI's new video division. He was a regular presenter on BBC1's Holiday programme from 1969 to 1986, and presented other shows for BBC TV, ITV and BBC Radio. He had married a nurse during the Second World War but they divorced in 1949.On 4 March 1950 he married Jean Metcalfe, a BBC Light Programme announcer, who presented Family Favourites in London while he was presenting the Hamburg link in the programme for the British Forces Broadcasting Service. The two did not meet face to face for six months, but after meeting they were quickly engaged and married. The marriage produced a daughter, actress Jenny Michelmore, and a son, broadcaster and composer Guy Michelmore Cliff Michelmore during his later life lived in the West Sussex village of South Harting. He died at Petersfield Hospital and was buried in the graveyard of Saint Mary & Saint Gabriel Church in South Harting. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com /b>

Thursday 2 March 2023

Web Page 3048 2nd March 2023 Lenny the Lion First Picture: Terry and Lenny
Second Picture: Lenny at Home
Third Picture: Lenny and Emu
Forth Picture: Terry Hall blue plaque
Terence "Terry" Hall. He appeared regularly on television with his puppet, Lenny the Lion, whose catchphrase was "Aw, don't embawass me!" Terry Hall is credited with having been one of the first ventriloquists to use a non-human puppet. He was born on 20th November 1926 in Chadderton, Lancashire, where his parents ran a local working men's club and was educated at St Patrick's School in Oldham and at De La Salle College in Pendleton, Salford. t was clear from an early age he would be talented and he played the accordion at Nimble Nook Working Men's Club from the aged of 12. He initially worked as a ventriloquist with a boy dummy, named Mickey Finn, and he won a talent show aged 15. Terry Hall created Lenny the Lion in 1954 after he visited the zoo while working at the summer season in Blackpool. Lenny was made from an old fox fur and papier-mâché, with a golf ball for the nose. He originally had a mouthful of fearsome teeth, but they were removed at the suggestion of the singer Anne Shelton to avoid scaring children in the audience. Terry and Lenny first appeared on BBC Television in 1956, in a variety show entitled Dress Rehearsal that also signaled Eric Sykes's television debut. The Lenny the Lion Show ran on from 1957 to 1960, followed by Lenny's Den in 1959 to 1961, and the pop music show Pops and Lenny in 1962 to 1963 and in 1958 Bill Mevin created a comic strip based on Lenny the Lion. Terry and Lenny visited the United States in 1958, making his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show that year. Throughout the 1960s, Terry Hall and Lenny appeared on stage in Blackpool and on television. The Beatles made one of their early TV appearances in a 1963 episode of Pops and Lenny, singing "From Me to You" and "Please, Please Me". David Bowie's father, Hayward Jones, worked on the show, and launched the Lenny the Lion Fan Club. Lenny advertised Trebor mints for three years and Terry Hall released a single, "Lenny's Bath Time", in 1963. In spite of the fact that Terry was a staunch Oldham Athletic fan, during the 1957–58 English football season, he took Lenny to the Den which was then the home of Millwall F.C. and allowed Lenny to pose with his "fellow Lions" for publicity shots, much to the delight of all present in the ground. They continued to work in variety through the 1970s, appearing on television in programmes such as Crackerjack and 3-2-1. From 1977 to 1980, They regularly appeared in the educational television programme Reading With Lenny. He wrote the Kevin the Kitten series of children's reading books which accompanied the series. Terry Hall married twice. He had two daughters from his first marriage to Kathleen Mary Hall, who died. He married a second time in 1980, to dance teacher Denise Francis. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease in later life, and died in 2007 in Coventry aged 80. The Lenny the Lion Song "I'm Lenny The lion and I'd like to say I'm strong and ferocious, but I'm not that way. I wish I had courage then I'd shout with glee that I'm Lenny the Lion, so Don't Embawass me!" Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com