Day 9 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian visit a curious and extremely topical festive extravaganza from 1984, The Torvill and Dean Christmas Special. The programme wasn't the light entertainment variety hour either of your heroes were expecting, but their initial relief quickly gives way to astonished disgruntlement once they realise there had been a key omission. Along the way, they discuss the Winter Olympics, pop a stalk in every church in two counties and casuall...
Dec 09, 2020•34 min
Edward and Ian have both been to their fair share of honking parties, but Day 8 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar took them to Keith Harris' Christmas Party in 1983 and now all bets are off. Our heroes ponder whether or not Keith was a white supremacist, the exact wording of Orville's tenancy agreement and the potential incarceration of Stu Francis in a sweet-smelling sex dungeon. Ian reveals another telling part of this podcast's origin story and Edward rails against the duck. Can anyo...
Dec 08, 2020•32 min
Day 7 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian seek to once and for all answer the question: were the olden days better? Their chosen method is analysing an episode of The Appleyards from Christmas 1956. Pantomimes come in for some significant critique by one of our panel, there's an encounter with a racist magician and Ian lays bare the stark reality of eating out in St Albans in the early 1980s. Was the past idyllic? Is capitalism actually a force for good? Do you want pe...
Dec 07, 2020•33 min
Day 6 (yes, it is really only day 6) of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian watching the 1992 Big Break Christmas Special, regardless of where they'd rather be or what they'd rather be doing. Listen as your heroes deal with the conflict of watching one of their favourite people and one of their least favourite people simultaneously for half an hour, as all the while what Edward seemingly believes to be a ranking tournament on the professional snooker tour takes place. The...
Dec 06, 2020•32 min
Day five of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar begins with an unsolicited and completely unrelated television recommendation, then our heroes get back to business and watch the 1989 Telly Addicts Christmas Special. Ian gazes on with horror and fascination at the career trajectory of Noel Edmonds, members of the general public are held up to open mockery and we find out how to go about getting to see 12 seconds of Victor Borge in 1989. Edward is heartily disappointed by the lack of competiti...
Dec 05, 2020•36 min
Day 4 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar takes in Delia's Classic Christmas. Edward and Ian disagree about food on an almost recreational basis but are both keen consumers of it, so expect a variety of hot takes and disagreements about parsnips, Quality Street, microwaves and dried fruit. Our heroes also find time to assess Delia Smith's cultural impact, recommend robbing Marks & Spencer, discuss how Sisyphus would have cooked his turkey and identify the correct topping for a trifle....
Dec 04, 2020•37 min
Day 4 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar takes in Delia's Classic Christmas. Edward and Ian disagree about food on an almost recreational basis but are both keen consumers of it, so expect a variety of hot takes and disagreements about parsnips, Quality Street, microwaves and dried fruit. Our heroes also find time to assess Delia Smith's cultural impact, recommend robbing Marks & Spencer, discuss how Sisyphus would have cooked his turkey and identify the correct topping for a trifle....
Dec 03, 2020•34 min
Day 2 (door 2?) of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian watch the 1991 Des O'Connor Christmas Special and just like Des they're packing them in. Edward guarantees his bins will never be collected again, Ian summarily chalks off one of Mariah Carey's UK number 1 singles and Bernard Manning gets a well-deserved kicking. Meanwhile, Barry Manilow sends corset buttons popping in all directions, Edward gets a tattoo and there's an unseemly argument about chestnuts which suggests...
Dec 02, 2020•32 min
On the first of 24 daily Advent Calendar editions of This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian ease themselves in slowly by watching an edition of Saint and Greavsie from the 22nd December 1990. With the exception of a ratty tinsel Christmas tree you'd be forgiven for forgetting this was a festive edition at all, in fact, which is pretty much OK by us. There are philosophical discussions about exactly how much like Jimmy Greaves something needs to be before it essentially becomes Jimmy Greaves, Peter ...
Dec 01, 2020•26 min
On today's valedictory episode of This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian give themselves a little treat and watch Crown Court, a programme they both love. They explore the origins of this stupid podcast, whether or not there should be degrees of treason and why they're looking forward to Brexit. The main virtue afforded by Crown Protection is assessed and Ian doesn't believe who is playing the prosecution counsel. If you'd like to watch Crown Court too and see whether or not you believe it, you can...
Nov 30, 2020•40 min
Today's bucolic episode of This Is Our Everest sees Edward and Ian watch an episode of Out Of Town. There's some extremely questionable and troubling content about the annual Appleby Horse Fair and then a sheep orgy, all of which leaves at least one of our heroes feeling particularly sullied. But while Jack Hargreaves queries the sexual morality of the ewe, Ian is more worried about issues of consent and the general propriety of the whole sheep industrial complex. None of this is a problem for E...
Nov 29, 2020•40 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian find their most amusing misprints from local newspapers and watch an episode of That's Life from 1986. It's a programme that provokes a number of thoughts and feelings, particularly a quite unprecedented swell of good will towards the British general public in Ian, who had thought such things were long behind him. Edward has some alternative names for disenfranchised cobblers, we grass up a consumer who ought to know better for aiding and abetting i...
Nov 28, 2020•43 min
In an ironic twist, today's episode of This Is Our Everest (not sponsored by Just Juice) is both the first to feature any basketball at all and also the episode least likely to appeal to basketball fans. However, Edward has a perfectly reasonable defence and Ian has been watching the 1985 NBA finals instead so couldn't care less either way. There's good news for Canada, bad news for Telford and a chiding for Leicester's lack of ambition. How believable is Tom Cruise as an American Football playe...
Nov 27, 2020•37 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian revisit everyone's favourite trans-European quiz express, Going For Gold. It's increasingly a relic of a forgotten era in UK-EU relations and our heroes try and pick through the finer points of the Maastricht Treaty to figure out why this might be. There's talk of a giant quiz warehouse, Henry Kelly's voting preferences and a suggested way for Dracula to enter the United Kingdom post 2021. There's up-to-the-minute news of exactly where Finland is an...
Nov 26, 2020•40 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian provide exactly the service the world needs: two more middle-aged white men talking about racism. Yes, it's The Black and White Minstrel show, a truly despicable relic of a past we'd all hoped was firmly behind us, however reluctant it was to leave. Neither of our heroes particularly like the programme but it did give them a chance to properly examine their prejudices and assess a totemic cultural phenomenon that is often cited but rarely actually s...
Nov 25, 2020•37 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch an episode of the BBC's Tomorrow's World from 1984. Edward is in an especially silly mood for whatever reason but is nevertheless able to provide an update as to the progress of the robot plan to take over the world. Ian, who usually missed most of Tomorrow's World getting ready to watch Top of the Pops, takes one for the team and watches the lot, potentially risking a seizure to do so. There's also some facts about the historical development ...
Nov 24, 2020•37 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian get into a festive mood to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pebble Mill, by watching Pebble Mill At 10. This is not, as Edward thought, a racy after-hours version of the BBC's venerable lunchtime magazine show but rather a shambling birthday party complete with a car rally, parrots and a really, really old 71-year old woman. Aided and abetted by two of their favourite Teds - Heath and Bovis - our heroes, now rapidly reaching the point of no return ...
Nov 23, 2020•38 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian take a jaunty trip back to World War 2, with Wartime Kitchen and Garden. Ian finds it difficult to see the appeal in yet another British thing crowing on about the war and isn't even swayed by a plate of dried apple rings. Indeed, there's even the risk that programmes like this one are going to spoil the war for him entirely. Nevertheless, some important ground is covered: having already accurately described a pig, Ian learns about pig clubs and bus...
Nov 22, 2020•39 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian have been invited to Southern Television's Houseparty, a cursed daytime TV discussion show that leaves one of our heroes absolutely foaming at the mouth. Meanwhile, Ian provides another potted history about an ITV franchise and we assess the right way to lose with grace and step aside with dignity, somehow without mentioning Donald Trump once. Richard Stilgoe makes an appearance, rattling the keys but doesn't stick around for the party, most of whic...
Nov 21, 2020•40 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watch a 1977 vintage episode of the BBC's long-running religious programme, Songs Of Praise. Our heroes discover the secret to its success is the relentless and unchanging nature of its format, but they also find out a lot more. There's some unexpected but probably warranted dramatic criticism, an expose of a particularly strong-armed charitable scheme and the groundless impugning of a major cultural institution. Dinosaurs are - inevitably - discuss...
Nov 20, 2020•37 min
On today's community-minded This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian examine two episodes of the BBC's Open Door from 1974. Public access television's many faces are examined closely, particularly those dealing with issues of sexual health and anarcho-communist syndicalism. Our heroes discuss the stark realities of being a volunteer answering telephones in a sexual health advisory drop-in centre, the future prospects for anarchy in the UK and finally establish once and for all the much- anticipated l...
Nov 19, 2020•43 min
Today's episode of This Is Our Everest is the fourteenth, which means we're now half way through Lockdown 2 and feelin' fine. We're not, of course, particularly Edward who has done himself a mischief involving extra strong lager. The topic of the episode is the ITV sitcom The Two Of Us from January 1990, a programme simply bound to make you get your Doctor Whos muddled up. Our heroes marvel as a simple case of lost property quickly deteriorates into a charge sheet of criminal offences as long as...
Nov 18, 2020•38 min
It's episode 13 of This Is Our Everest, which is unlucky for some. Particularly, it turns out, Harry Enfield, who gets an absolute reaming as Edward and Ian watch Channel 4's questionable alternative comedy variety show Friday Night Live from 1988. Our heroes speculate about Green Room practices and Feargal Sharkey's life choices as well as digging into Ian's childhood cultural life and schoolboy crushes. But it's the Loadsamoney section you're all here for and you won't be disappointed. Unless ...
Nov 17, 2020•46 min
In today's alpha male edition of This Is Our Everest, the lads have been watching Top Gear. However, anyone expecting bants, pranks and racially insensitive remarks will be sad to hear that it was an episode from 1989. As such, our heroes are just as likely to be discussing the strange evolution of Top Gear from pokey, dry as a bone motoring magazine programme to international culture juggernaut. There are also thoughts on Jeremy Clarkson's schooldays, the price of both super unleaded and the hu...
Nov 16, 2020•39 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian continue their odyssey through non-current Current Affairs with The Six O'Clock Show from July 1982. It's a programme Ian remembers fondly from his childhood and as such this edition is filled with memories and insight. Up for debate are walkmans, vegetable show grift and the futility of live traffic reports on teatime live broadcast television. Greg Dyke is given his due, there's some hard-hitting investigative journalism looking into the fried chi...
Nov 15, 2020•42 min
So finally it's time for the final episode of Strength in Depth, our ten part series on the history of non-league football. For this final episode, we're taking you from 2004 to the present day, including Leigh Genesis, My Football Club, Steve Evans and much more. For those of you who have stuck with this series, thank you for listening. I'll go away and have a break now, and will come back with something else in the future. Should you miss the soothing sound of my voice (!), we're still releasi...
Nov 14, 2020•34 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian pay a visit to the 31st Century with Franco-Japanese cartoon series Ulysses 31. What they discover is that very little in the 31st Century makes any sense. In amongst their aghast fury at the incomprehensibility of it all, our heroes try to unpick Ulysses' real motivations, bemoan the absolute liberties taken with the concepts of time and space and learn a salutary lesson about revisiting anything from your past. France emerge as a world leader in t...
Nov 14, 2020•35 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, Edward and a lurgy-riddled Ian tackle the 8th June 1981 edition of the BBC's venerable flagship current affairs magazine programme, Nationwide. There are some particularly strident views about the BBC's archival policies and how well Frank Bough is aging; a terrifyingly up close and personal encounter with a tennis professional and a tour of London with Fred Housego. Our heroes also run the rule over the political prospects of Roy Jenkins and Ian fondly recalls th...
Nov 13, 2020•49 min
Today's This Is Our Everest brings you sporting entertainment courtesy of Junior Kickstart. Watching teenagers fall off motorcycles, however, had limited appeal for Ian, who spent most of his time worrying about safety and wondering how they got the bikes in the first place. There are also thoughts on watching television at school, British Leyland cars, scrap metal yards, the dark art of holiday time TV scheduling and a perhaps slightly overstated claim in an obituary. As ever, you can watch wha...
Nov 12, 2020•38 min
On today's This Is Our Everest, the laughter and joviality of the last few editions is brought to a grinding halt as Edward and Ian watch Oh Happy Band!, a comedy series from 1980 that is so relentlessly boring and unfunny it hasn't seen the light of day since. Until now! There's much wistful reminiscence about how every other Croft and Lloyd sitcom is far better than this one, an explanation of how twitching an birdwatching are not quite the same thing and some thoughtful consideration of the l...
Nov 11, 2020•33 min
