tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85003947153012968302024-02-08T06:10:49.305+00:00National Office of Importance“Keeping the public informed since the 20th Century”National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-23138823679122211712015-07-15T22:08:00.000+01:002015-07-17T12:03:19.851+01:00Flying Ant Day, then (1953) and then (1978)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How the times they are a-have-changed.</div>
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Once the friendly flying ant was as welcome an annual sight as the Padstow Mummy or Doctor Christmas. Now the insect has fallen from favour, and its day (traditionally the third full sun of July) is seen as nothing more than a regular nuisance.</div>
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The change seems to have taken place in the 1980s, when increased awareness of sub-surface pestlife like moles and soil turtles was met with the might and maybe of the poisons industry. Turtle powder and mole hammers were regulars under the sinks of the nation’s sinks.</div>
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In the 1950s, people were encouraged to put out a saucer of sugary batter to welcome the popular arthropod into their home, to bring good luck or, at least, a stay to any forthcoming death.</div>
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But after Britain joined the Common Market, an increasingly busy populace didn’t have time to prepare the Anting Bowl, and neighbours no longer gathered to bob for faeces alongside their insect friends. Ant Carols were no longer sung, and only children on the Isle of Hair now dress as Ant Henry VIII.</div>
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By 1978, the only airborne formicida was an unseen character – part of its sad downward journey from local feature to threat, much like the urban fox and the postman. And, by the 1980ses, a traditional Flying Ant Day costume could only be seen in the record videos of pop man Adam Ant, who had chosen the trappings of the ritual – including Ant Henry VIII’s distinctive nose stripe – to promote his double-drum music.</div>
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National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-32155083948256538332013-10-10T14:23:00.000+01:002013-10-10T14:23:38.827+01:00“Ennui - the silent killer,” 1975<br />
A tireless programme of national jam making, competitive vegetable husbandry and choir practice had all but eradicated the perilous sickness of boredom in Britain by 1970, when a new hovercraft link to the Continent and a vogue for day trips sparked fears of contamination from abroad.<br />
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Suddenly our spectred isle was vulnerable to virulent foreign strains of boredom, such as German <i>Weltschmerz,</i> French <i>ennui,</i> and the Dutch <i>molenvermeidheid</i> (literally ‘windmill fatigue’, caused by the infrequency of vertical objects on the horizon of the low countries).<br />
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After Mrs Sarah Kettleship, the infamous ‘Patient Zero’ shrugged herself to death in Felixstowe in 1974, the focus turned sharply towards the group perceived to be at the highest risk: Britain’s housewives, with their repetitive routine and depressing rollerblinds.<br />
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Initial attempts to stem the blight of apathesis included quarantine kennels for globetrotting housewives returning from Calais and Rotterdam, and the introduction by Whitehall’s Central Planning Secretariat of a string of national talking points, starting with breakfast television and ending with AIDS.<br />
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Opinion is divided as to whether <i>ennui</i> was ever a real threat. Experts still disagree on what wiped it out, attributing it to a wide number of factors including upstairs phones, the Kays catalogue, and everything.<br />
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National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-43005920032520834412013-06-14T10:44:00.000+01:002013-06-14T10:44:00.917+01:00“There’s a new town in town,” 1969
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<span lang="EN-US">The building of the New Towns in Britain was the biggest
construction project in mainland Europe since France’s national basement was
dug in the 1920s. The third wave of towns included Milton Keynes in
Buckinghamshire, Telford in Shropshire, and (Untitled) in Woldborough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">(Untitled) was a troubled undertaking from its inception.
The architect, Rolfgang Üd, was unused to the compromises of communal planning,
and demanded full rein to explore his dream of building as a “concrete ballet”.
Many of the houses he designed had no windows, to avoid “the grotesque
discontinuity of curtains,” and his insistence that the radical town centre
include three art galleries and a “water library” left planners scratching
their drawing-boards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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But it was the town’s name that caused the biggest headache.
All Üd’s works were untitled, and he saw no reason why the New Town should be
any different. The Postmaster General, Anthony Muchless, angrily challenged Üd
to compose a usable address for the citizens of (Untitled). Üd refused to be “musclebound by envelope culture” and further entrenched his position by suggesting
the roads be identified by “smells and sighs, building a city of memory and intensity”.
Muchless resigned and threw his ministerial car into the sea in protest.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When the first residents of (Untitled) complained that they were unable to receive post or have a telephone
connected, Üd replied, “for this they should thank me; I have gifted them more time for contemplation”. The town never achieved even 15% occupancy, and was empty by 1981. It was blown
up by Roy Castle on <i>It’s A Christmas
Knockout!</i> in 1983, provoking Üd to send the BBC a dead panda as a “gesture
of syllepsis”.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-56470711584187813652013-03-08T17:12:00.002+00:002013-03-08T17:12:43.228+00:00“If you’re playing without a licence, you could be fined,” 1976
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“Sound synthesis” was discovered one
freezing summer afternoon in 1941 at the GPO Research station in Twelveford by
Dilwyn Elis Llwy and Herbie Fussiter, two electrical engineers working on the
typedryer (a predecessor of the hairdrying typewriters of the 1960s).</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">No military use was found for the
synthesizer, despite enforced deployment of the device at mess dances (one
furious Colonel described “entreaties to boogaloo to the sound of a robot with
gut-rot”), and eventually the technology was quietly put into the civilian
realm (as happened with Teletext, Bigtrak and Toast Toppers).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The synthesizer licence was introduced
in 1969 when a quick-thinking junior Treasury minister heard that The Beatles
were using one on “Here Comes The Sun”. Rushed legislation was passed in
Parliament before the band reached take two.</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Editor’s note: Among the materials for this design found in the NOI’s
archive was the original synthesizer licence featured in the poster. Though it
has aged with no little grace, it is notable for its famous owner: Brian Eno,
the flamboyant glam-rocker behind the chart-topping Windows operating system.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-26176038816172122912013-02-22T11:20:00.003+00:002013-02-22T11:20:42.495+00:00“Sit up straight,” 1946
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<span lang="EN-US">The period immediately following the grand
finale of the Second World War found Britain exhausted and impoverished. In an
act of unprecedented social engineering, a mass re-energisation was planned,
including injecting everyone under the age of 50 with orange juice, and the
introduction of the ‘Doctor, Doctor’ joke as a national fillip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">But not all were convinced. Sir
Constant Payne, Minister of Labour, who coined the phrase ‘feed them sticks and
leave the carrots to their idiot dreams,’ took a dim of view of the project,
ridiculing it as ‘no better than putting the country to Nanny’s bosom to cork
its mewling’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xQzqEG5RUnY7BtO3eMzwOwurbVJoNUHGHFkPWaNVE9tUch_KXSoQojXkTI69_a_-x9Lt_iuk1HK36ZiiuosbjOzLAGTlNyxJ9LdK-4MoppjIpwcdIOeOXe59hHttO5ux7m3TvT-Mmxzc/s1600/Sit+Up+Straight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xQzqEG5RUnY7BtO3eMzwOwurbVJoNUHGHFkPWaNVE9tUch_KXSoQojXkTI69_a_-x9Lt_iuk1HK36ZiiuosbjOzLAGTlNyxJ9LdK-4MoppjIpwcdIOeOXe59hHttO5ux7m3TvT-Mmxzc/s640/Sit+Up+Straight.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">His idea was to bully the nation back
to its senses, and this was the first of 115 posters he commissioned from the
NOI. In his memoirs, <i>No Book For Fools,</i> he wrote <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">[T]he sight of Britain’s young men slouching like dead tramps in a canoe
was enough to make a chap want to take a ferula to their sit-upons. I resolved
to get the nation’s backs straight once more – even if I had to break them
myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Payne went on to present the Open
University’s first panel game, <i>British
Foreign Policy 1381-1955: A Critical Study.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-27957377924807553442013-02-07T10:56:00.000+00:002013-02-07T10:56:22.947+00:00“Here’s a sight for sore eyes. And soon it could be yours,” 1989
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<span lang="EN-US">The privatisation of government assets was
reaching boiling pitch by the late 1980s and, having sold off Britain’s oil,
gas, water, electricity and weather, there seemed little left in HM
Government’s asset bank except food and miasma. That is, until one Treasury brightclogs
came up with the notion of selling off Britain’s views.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVSGAorpmdvAGr7-9RvY_yz8t5wE49UyYwCNzZLckAZ_gvb7ZTQzPM4O7Q4YZChupg-8y4XF5A6toLSm_WTSEU2HxFuCUz_HgzLU4LUAaG3tHo6J_nupoLPMwLlqEVdZt-ETPnbSINfPNE/s1600/Here's+A+Sight+For+Sore+Eyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVSGAorpmdvAGr7-9RvY_yz8t5wE49UyYwCNzZLckAZ_gvb7ZTQzPM4O7Q4YZChupg-8y4XF5A6toLSm_WTSEU2HxFuCUz_HgzLU4LUAaG3tHo6J_nupoLPMwLlqEVdZt-ETPnbSINfPNE/s640/Here's+A+Sight+For+Sore+Eyes.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">The NOI was co-opted to design the
advertising campaign, and the flotation took place on 3rd November 1989. The
initial share price of 83p rose to £10.32 by the end of the first day’s
trading, making multimillionaires of some lucky millionaires.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Some of the premium views were bought
by foreign interests. Most people know that the view of the Houses of
Parliament from Albert Embankment is owned by the Japanese prison system; less well
known is that the view of Huyton & Prescot Golf Club from the northbound
carriageway of the M57 is owned by the bass player from Boney M.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-71937294796111481092013-01-18T11:42:00.000+00:002013-02-22T11:15:38.745+00:00“Ask before you vent,” 1955<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">The NOI ran this hastily conceived poster
in theatres and working men’s clubs in 1955. That year, polite and rude society
alike had been outraged by the infamous case of R. v Treadles, brought after
popular ventriloquist Archie Treadles was caught red-fingered leaving the
dressing-room of rival act Wally Pippin at the Lincoln-on-Land Alhambra</span><span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Treadles
at first denied any unpropriety, saying he’d come backstage to congratulate Pippin
on a fine turn. And when Pippin admitted under cross-examination that he
hadn’t been in the room when the offence was said to have taken place, it
looked as though Treadles would be acquitted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But,
in a surprising twist, Pippin’s doll, Señor Moneybags, took to the stand – the
only time a ventriloquist’s dummy has been called before a court – and told a
shocked Old Bailey </span><span lang="EN-US">that Treadles had “come and got me
out of my gox and had a go on me”</span><span lang="EN-US">. His evidence was devastating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNMZzv9lhsTLQTlSj92a0OY56hukzwh8a_4AnoyVJGxglAeYNXma7HA0tXO_OO2PU2_PGAjsz36VCfnq0-TqQgEVc5LOttcWkwwCC9yakNANVsswPKt3BLS-M9HZncHA1Z1g5Oagc5X7W/s1600/Vent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNMZzv9lhsTLQTlSj92a0OY56hukzwh8a_4AnoyVJGxglAeYNXma7HA0tXO_OO2PU2_PGAjsz36VCfnq0-TqQgEVc5LOttcWkwwCC9yakNANVsswPKt3BLS-M9HZncHA1Z1g5Oagc5X7W/s640/Vent.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The press
of the day spared the public the grislier details, saying only that Treadles
was accused of performing “a variety act” on another’s doll. Treadles changed
tack in the face of so damning an accusation, saying he had mistaken Señor
Moneybags for a wooden glove, but his defence was in tatters, and he was found
guilty and bound over for £350. After his conviction, his own puppet, Dickie
Tummie, never spoke to him again.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-86113707135404523062013-01-11T11:25:00.000+00:002013-01-11T11:25:14.544+00:00“Mr Barratt’s hiding – are you?” 1968
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<span lang="EN-US">Before divorce was fashionable, there
were very few options for the unhappily married man. The French tradition of
taking a mistress was thought too smutty for the British and, apart from
stoicism, there was little available to Johnny Regret except wistfulness
or beer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">But all that changed when marriage ointment
became available on prescription, and many a troubled coupling became a
blissful union again. However, the wonder tincture was a victim of its own roaring success. By the mid-1960s, the government was spending more on marriage
ointment than on defence and the search for the Loch Ness monster, and
something had to be done to reduce the crippling outlay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US">Hiding licences, the brainchild of Lord
Lucan, were introduced in January 1968, enabling scores of glum hubbies to run
away and hide in complete happiness for the rest of their lives. But even this wasn’t
enough to significantly dent the national expenditure, and eventually divorce
became the only affordable option, which led to the NOI’s gentle “Give The Old
Bat The Heave-Ho” campaign in 1972.</span></div>
National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-17595395031603917522012-12-13T15:50:00.000+00:002012-12-13T15:50:00.589+00:00“Kelp, clam and carrion,” 1941
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<span lang="EN-US">The Second World War II was an era of
thrift and self-suffiency. Government campaigns entreated the resourceful
British to turn their potato peelings into costume jewellery, grow mushrooms in
their Anderson shelters, use their shirt buttons as currency, lay their own
eggs, and even hibernate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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This poster was one of some to encourage
scavenging. At a time when most of the country’s food supplies were
requisitioned to feed the pigs that provided pork to the workers who melted
down railings to make armaments to destroy enemy food supplies, survival was
often a matter of eating whatever could be sourced.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Other campaigns promoted the consumption
of roadkill, rare birds’ eggs and invalids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-2569466451469225312012-12-06T14:18:00.003+00:002012-12-06T14:18:33.658+00:00“Don’t throw hammers,” 1985
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<span lang="EN-US">For decades, the only way to pass a
hammer to somebody was to first secure a position in their workshop, and even
then, it was considered impolite to hand over the tool at anything other than
bent-arm’s length. But the so-called 1960s revolutionised attitudes, and
suddenly gently passing a hammer looked as repressed and old-fashioned as
wearing a bath-bowler or putting up an umbrella when you coughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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But after a seemingly endless summer of
groovy hammer-throwing, dark days were ahead, and first reports of deaths by
flying hammers started to emerge from the club scene in 1970s New York. The
messsage was hammered home in Britain when Ponda Tang, the flamboyant-groined
bassist of Tingletip, passed fatally out during a showbiz mallet-tossing
weekend in 1978. The post mortem revealed that his death was not due to excess
alcohol or just enough drugs, but blows to the head from some sort of blunt
object.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">The party was over, and by the time of
this NOI campaign, demands for safe-hammermanship had ushered in the more
puritan age in which we now live and carefully pass each other hammers.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-74445594419768318362012-11-29T10:07:00.000+00:002012-11-29T10:07:34.745+00:00“Now there’s no excuse not to sing,” 1978
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<span lang="EN-US">The decline in public singing that
characterised the last two quarters of the 1970s was attributed to, among
others, the television, the discothèque and the ravioli restaurant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Keen to hear Britain’s saloon bars
avoice with revelry again, the NOI teamed up with the BBC to launch a radio
programme, For Pubs And Oil Rigs, and an accompanying book of traditional pub
singalong songs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCLdy5GrvVMGMMO1jXh4p8VIqDoeLou4nJQcAulBw99Luo32T7QSET6WZm6WtY5WI0qj73GMhYe9X44D4pjqa3LvMIVl1Z_KWdh2-55M4f0Vq-2IuXWkqGyj-9kBzJ_zPM-YYjw_WmbRv/s1600/Now+There's+No+Excuse+Not+To+Sing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCLdy5GrvVMGMMO1jXh4p8VIqDoeLou4nJQcAulBw99Luo32T7QSET6WZm6WtY5WI0qj73GMhYe9X44D4pjqa3LvMIVl1Z_KWdh2-55M4f0Vq-2IuXWkqGyj-9kBzJ_zPM-YYjw_WmbRv/s640/Now+There's+No+Excuse+Not+To+Sing.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For a brief, glorious period, pubs up
and down the width of the land were again arenas of full-throated crooning and
gay serenade. Regretfully, it didn’t last, and by the 1980s most pubs were
silent places full of the tearful unemployed, staring holes in their solitary
pints while the etiolated afternoon surrendered all hope to the sickly grey of empty
evening. Luckily, there was Bananarama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-9203321206045932702012-11-22T10:58:00.001+00:002012-11-22T10:58:57.085+00:00“I before E except after C,” 1977
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<span lang="EN-US">Rising levels of dimbo-ism in the 1970s led to a
campaign for national literacy, championed by then education minister (now
fascinating King of Tuvalu) Hadleigh Carport.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Carport declared that he wanted “Every mechanic to have a
not inconsiderable grasp of litotes, every labourer to owe a debt to the
masters of bathos (as well as the bookmakers), and every-damn-body to understand tmesis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3mvKhxZHxY3H2GBm-x81fow-U7enw8vO2eRaYIgT716OdGrKaXSrObmOB8GqIHB4R3cXBxaLsvKmCFNCNj-k4KAIh8_WdcLD9aVkLfBUEFaIVdd6s9Vr7lSSz0YoY3ey6gbTdZvPlj3K/s1600/I+Before+E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3mvKhxZHxY3H2GBm-x81fow-U7enw8vO2eRaYIgT716OdGrKaXSrObmOB8GqIHB4R3cXBxaLsvKmCFNCNj-k4KAIh8_WdcLD9aVkLfBUEFaIVdd6s9Vr7lSSz0YoY3ey6gbTdZvPlj3K/s640/I+Before+E.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In 1978, the first National Spelling Test was set. At 7am on
Thursday, 11 May, queues started to form outside Spelling Stations all over the
UK. 56% passed, with 37% failing and 18% spoiling their papers – figures which
resulted in calls for a national numeracy test. The answers to the Spelling
Test appeared in national newspapers the following day. The Guardian printed 37
wrongly, and the Daily Telegraph asterisked the word “plumbago,” for fear of “mortifying
the more delicate reader over the puckles of his hot crumpet”.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-52705614554532449082012-11-14T10:05:00.000+00:002012-11-14T10:05:36.977+00:00“Disburse contiguum against yet the most squamous bulwark,” 1940
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<span lang="EN-US">With war comes confusion, and with
confusion comes a need for clarity. So it was with simple, determined messages
like this that the National Office of Information kept the undersieged
civilians of Britain in a robust frame of mind during the teething pains of the
Second World War.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWL0cCSdlxD1hPKUj5lBWL2UHEpgTQw6EB0-4yo1ChA8hx6fyw6MjXU4nOvR5mdSQFMTgdPhXfhiCSt_TBuKF26PccT79Urmg5jiLdTNI8b65wDcybFb4BYb-RPjJad7ogYpOALM8hXaI/s1600/Gibberish+REV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWL0cCSdlxD1hPKUj5lBWL2UHEpgTQw6EB0-4yo1ChA8hx6fyw6MjXU4nOvR5mdSQFMTgdPhXfhiCSt_TBuKF26PccT79Urmg5jiLdTNI8b65wDcybFb4BYb-RPjJad7ogYpOALM8hXaI/s640/Gibberish+REV.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The language may be arcane, but the
message is plain: disburse contiguum against yet the most squamous bulwark.
Firm and reassuringly steadfast, it is a call to action that still resonates
today, during times of national pandæmonium. Will Self has a tattoo of this
poster on his tongue.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-65003808787675213552012-11-08T11:14:00.000+00:002012-11-08T12:33:01.232+00:00“Got something to say? Write it on a wall,” 1970<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">How times change. What once seemed harmless, devil-may-care </span>– illicitly thrilling, perhaps, but no more – hindsight renders sinister, grisly,
even reprehensible. Ask any light entertainment star of the 1970s</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">and they’ll tell you that Graffiti was the craze that none
could afford to shun. The practice was introduced by the Italians during the reign
of Franco, as the country’s first hand-gesture-free form of protest. When it
became clear Franco was in charge of Spain, not Italy, this was claimed as an
early victory by the protestors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Xtzg8_er2I7gyxhBDQ7cmJA8rab5t8mna5sKgaEClvQyL7_BjRha2Fpj3XsmWy0f1t2_TD16w7DaQg5l0MeMVokWiv5aMvj3s7EOVe9t-u0hcGtRkmDFgIDq4V8lLTrWtmUJjG5Yb0UP/s1600/Got+Something+To+Say.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Xtzg8_er2I7gyxhBDQ7cmJA8rab5t8mna5sKgaEClvQyL7_BjRha2Fpj3XsmWy0f1t2_TD16w7DaQg5l0MeMVokWiv5aMvj3s7EOVe9t-u0hcGtRkmDFgIDq4V8lLTrWtmUJjG5Yb0UP/s640/Got+Something+To+Say.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The craze soon spread beyond its seditious roots and into
the soil of art. Brian Eno made an entire album by typing “found Graffiti” into
an ARP sequencesizer; <i>Do Your Walls!</i> was the most watched BBC-2 series
of 1974; and Dennis Healy was famously photographed daubing the perimeter of
Buckingham Palace with the popular phrase “Nelson Riddle is innocent”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">But decades of gleeful free expression left their mark, and
the 1980s saw Graffiti fall from favour. Home Secretary Lord Bravilor of Bonamat
campaigned long and wide against the criminalisation of walligraphy, but
the tide was well and truly in over his head, and his refusal to yield to
public opinion led to his faking his own botched double-suicide in 1983, in a
resignation that still gets heads wagging today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<br />National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-23730329720321311722012-11-01T11:55:00.000+00:002012-11-01T11:55:43.866+00:00“A lunchtime drink makes work go with a swing,” 1966
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<span lang="EN-US">British commerce boomed through the
1960s, and nowhere did it boom more noisily and merrily than in the humble pub.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The first sketches for Concorde were
famously done in a puddle of spilt Gin & Quosh, and the iconic hand-drawn logo
for Welland’s Filter-Tipped cigarettes was, said designer Neville Turpin, “scribbled
on the back of a fag packet”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmSUOa2VWmZOarrSnGlJFktRZrJlhe-rQQlhq5kz0N4w5qwfrkhLsyuzF8gfnyxkmT1tV2BhvxMtPMTa6BPCuJtxGlaCpfVKoId27zxnV4bc4GPrUJ8V6leU-oom9-mrCm0yTjDXWi8Uh/s1600/lunchtimedrink+v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmSUOa2VWmZOarrSnGlJFktRZrJlhe-rQQlhq5kz0N4w5qwfrkhLsyuzF8gfnyxkmT1tV2BhvxMtPMTa6BPCuJtxGlaCpfVKoId27zxnV4bc4GPrUJ8V6leU-oom9-mrCm0yTjDXWi8Uh/s640/lunchtimedrink+v2.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Long liquid luncheons are said to have
saved the UK many a multi-million on the Channel Tunnel, as the British construction
team had only advanced thirty yards in sixteen years when they met the French coming the other way.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US">Keen to capitalise on the productive
(not to mention reproductive!) atmosphere of the lunchtime tipple, the NOI ran
this campaign, featuring the then and still unheard of Angela Moldewarp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-89397195927140756372012-10-25T08:01:00.000+01:002012-10-25T09:36:14.307+01:00“Don’t think about monsters,” 1972<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">Much of the NOI’s output was designed
for the classroom. Campaigns like “Mind that rat!” and “Not everyone’s called
Simon” still live on in the collective memory like nostalgia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This poster – designed to reassure
young heads destined for the pillow atop the wooden hill to
Bedroomshire – appeared in every primary school the width and breadth of
Britain. It was accompanied by a controversial Public Information Film, only
passed by the BBFC after cuts which director Ken Russell said rendered it
“disjointed and chthonic”.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwuY4uvffLIxsvwM15DEjvgbcXnDMvLQ5rbt1eba6tj-xLIK293JNTGbi3wVjSCPqpnTb_z9oCl9Cax8ucHEsCrs1WfJdyanfErv1Uh1ej3FnU_PmqjUbBczK9L9OBbnGyByAmP-tGcJZd/s1600/Don't+Think+About+Monsters+v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwuY4uvffLIxsvwM15DEjvgbcXnDMvLQ5rbt1eba6tj-xLIK293JNTGbi3wVjSCPqpnTb_z9oCl9Cax8ucHEsCrs1WfJdyanfErv1Uh1ej3FnU_PmqjUbBczK9L9OBbnGyByAmP-tGcJZd/s640/Don't+Think+About+Monsters+v2.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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The Welsh-language version (“Peidiwch â meddwl am anghenedlgarwch”) was withdrawn after a typogryphical mistake left the children of Wales baffled by the stern instruction, “Don’t think about a lack of patriotism”. It is no coincidence that the red dragon, for centuries the Welsh national monster, was removed from the Union flag shortly afterwards, in an unrelated incident.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-35084342830581668462012-10-18T11:36:00.000+01:002012-10-18T13:00:26.166+01:00“Whistling is killing music,” 1981<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US">The success of the title song from
Monty Python Live At Brian’s (1979) tempted millions to experiment with
whistling, almost destroying the British music industry. Takings at concert
venues and sales of LP records plummeted as ordinary people found they could
make their own entertainment, a phenomenon Jonathan King described as “morally
repugnant”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Acting on instruction from the Lord
Privy Minstrel, the NOI mounted this memorable campaign, which ran alongside a
macabre television advertisement showing a young Dexter Fletcher whistling
himself to death in a public toilet. The music industry was eventually revivified
by the cassingle.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-13150988322300651022012-10-11T12:01:00.000+01:002012-10-11T12:01:39.073+01:00“Don’t delete that blank document,” 1995
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The arrival of the electro-digital
office coincided with a passing fad for environmentalism, leading to this
well-meaning advertisement from the NOI.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The scientific adviser for the campaign
was TV phlebotomist Roy Cheddar, who had become the public face of global
warning after fronting the “shock-umentary” series <i>Kettlesphere: Earth.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Cheddar claimed at the time that every one of these posters would save “enough trees to stretch a double decker elephant to the size of Wales and back”. By 2011, he had became a high-profile outspokesman for climate change denial, insisting his advocacy of environmental causes was merely youthful naivety. “I was green,” he told Kermit The Frog on <i>Muppet Island Discs.</i></div>
National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-12862141708432613272012-10-11T11:58:00.000+01:002012-10-11T11:58:15.512+01:00“Going upstairs? Get your jabs,” 1967
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<span lang="EN-US">Little did NOI typing pool attendant Maureen Diddley
know what she was letting her pussy in for when she agreed to his being
photographed for this campaign. Honky, her lager-coloured four-week old Bodleian
shorthair, soon became a national star, appearing on <i>Ways Of Seeing, The
Ascent Of Man</i> and the ICI trousers advertisements.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtF8Ef_cav28StdIvZaS3elfTCISXBRI9KTxt4zJaNeh7o0qSt__Ms4norC9kimN7-LIeJHTR9be2Q321vt-mgMYuDvHQZmAzomVYaplGPxhKTRvJt7issDWJ8drl8BEMrLlZPqKO7eGJG/s1600/Going+Upstairs+FINAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtF8Ef_cav28StdIvZaS3elfTCISXBRI9KTxt4zJaNeh7o0qSt__Ms4norC9kimN7-LIeJHTR9be2Q321vt-mgMYuDvHQZmAzomVYaplGPxhKTRvJt7issDWJ8drl8BEMrLlZPqKO7eGJG/s640/Going+Upstairs+FINAL.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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Honky toys were the must-buy purchase
at Christmas 1971, and his autobiography, <i>Always Landing On The Same Feet</i>
(co-written with Fay Weldon) was the bestselling book of 1972, and
won the Duff Cooper prize the same year, causing historian Robin Lane Fox to
threaten to set himself on fire.</div>
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Honky later drifted into a life of homelessness and milkoholism, and died in a wet cardboard box in 1977.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-17838269199492275882012-10-04T08:44:00.000+01:002012-10-04T08:44:22.113+01:00“Watch That Girl,” 1967The Singing Sixties were a high tide mark for female emancipation. The pill was introduced, hemlines headed north, and sex before marriage was legalised for women, as it had been for men in 1182. But this newfound freedom rattled some in Government, and, in an infamous speech he made in Doorford in 1967, Cabinet Secretary Sterling Bellend warned that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The once fairer sex has become a foul plague. There are now as many women as there are men in this sceptr’d isle, and the indigenous British male is in danger of being swamped by these giddy creatures. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. I see the rivers of this green and pleasant land running red with their lipstick. And this must never be let happen, say I. We are men. We are resolute. We will not secede to Babylon.</i></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tQX3wFIpiKWjw9w49-M2YrevmtWfptNEeCJ-TWWiK8Ku7kaS-QkgX6-x-_D34siUWXsysaC0wnuUw0D_Xc_-i4sw3t4JUzgA7ykJKbJQm_H2L38-BomAXlSFdwpkbZ-wemU695Mq3jmz/s1600/WTG+Vegetarian+REV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tQX3wFIpiKWjw9w49-M2YrevmtWfptNEeCJ-TWWiK8Ku7kaS-QkgX6-x-_D34siUWXsysaC0wnuUw0D_Xc_-i4sw3t4JUzgA7ykJKbJQm_H2L38-BomAXlSFdwpkbZ-wemU695Mq3jmz/s640/WTG+Vegetarian+REV.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJhYDojs2PUNL_LK6KIm5FGqvVHvle4NACHGibaqxK2S4K8poxRwSfSY3z1S45sFHbbKP6ojgQ-jsT24y_EuCqNYydIEfOVlfGAfnkG5DoefTqasNyfM6NV6XRO3defDh9acT9PKDmqzD/s1600/WTG+Nightmare+REV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJhYDojs2PUNL_LK6KIm5FGqvVHvle4NACHGibaqxK2S4K8poxRwSfSY3z1S45sFHbbKP6ojgQ-jsT24y_EuCqNYydIEfOVlfGAfnkG5DoefTqasNyfM6NV6XRO3defDh9acT9PKDmqzD/s640/WTG+Nightmare+REV.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="text-align: center;">Bellend lost his seat and three toes at a by-election shortly afterwards, and his career never recovered from what Joan Bakewell called his ‘rampant homomania’ in her 1968 single, </span><i style="text-align: center;">Bubblecar Ding-a-ling</i><span style="text-align: center;">.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-40217324568718470262012-09-27T10:39:00.002+01:002012-09-27T10:39:23.607+01:00“Keep Britain Tipsy,” 1962
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<span lang="EN-US">An epidemic of bar slops and
leftbehinds in the early 1960s sent the staff of the NOI scurrying to the
drawing board of Christmas Mintz. The Hungarian draughstman and chess
grandmaster was to contribute a string of striking designs, starting with this
thrifty-and-thirsty poster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUh9x5kAPTHtDhJCgXfljH8cw3ZpzTdO41pn5iMkOHgVS1Q5cpGUIw02WXs_qHsfk7BvxGaHBf5hch2E-TNWaaTih_lqM0tKL6NeIryOcCVEa4ArPdlC3fNjQIR83lyH_qd5rRlUbb9bO/s1600/Keep+Britain+Tipsy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUh9x5kAPTHtDhJCgXfljH8cw3ZpzTdO41pn5iMkOHgVS1Q5cpGUIw02WXs_qHsfk7BvxGaHBf5hch2E-TNWaaTih_lqM0tKL6NeIryOcCVEa4ArPdlC3fNjQIR83lyH_qd5rRlUbb9bO/s640/Keep+Britain+Tipsy.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
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A decade later, Mintz’s stylish graphics were themselves abandoned, like a flat quarter glass of Red Rodney on a formica bar top; fashion had shifted to a personality-fronted campaign. Thus the memorable black and white image of hellraising Rod Fivepole, tousle-toothed wildman of Lipstick Jazz, with its brazen message: “Leave a drink unfinished? You might as well cast a bedstead into a lake.”</div>
National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-53883205264662550932012-09-27T10:35:00.001+01:002012-09-27T10:35:55.295+01:00“Make an appointment with style,” 1969
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<span lang="EN-US">The burgeoning National Health Service
was in the pink by the autumn of the 1960s and started to extend its quotidian
reach beyond dentistry and optometry and into deodorants, singing lessons
and hairdressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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There were two available styles of
National Health haircut: the Monsieur, and the Woman. By the mid-70s, their
popularity had fallen away, and a brief attempt to replace the Monsieur with
the Mohican proved calamitous, and caused punk.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-38659550919515221882012-09-20T13:48:00.004+01:002012-09-20T13:49:29.356+01:00“Summer is here,” 1975The three-season year had been in place in Britain since its formalisation by Wodecnute in the 9th Century, so when Prime Minister Harold Wilson proposed changing to a four-season year, in keeping with most of Europe and the United States, opposition was fierce and vocal. One MP, Galwin Tite, famously locked himself in the despatch box of the House of Commons, refusing to emerge until the legislation was repealed.<br />
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Despite the upheaval, the transition went smoothly, and Potter Widd, the head of the British Seasonal Adjustment Board, later wrote, “We sat in our office, my staff and I, on the first day of Summer, waiting for the telephone to ring, hot with complaint and inquiry. Came there of either none. At 10.45am, we went for lunch as usual, and, by the time we returned at 3.45pm, it seemed the worst was over. One of my secretaries bought me a desk parasol as an amusing gift.”National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-1160654580047453602012-09-20T13:48:00.001+01:002012-09-20T13:49:36.073+01:00“Tonight and every night, you MUST press your Not The End Of The World button,” 1968The climate of fear fostered by The Cold War left people in need of reassurance. The innovative Not The End Of The World button, the last major undertaking of the Ministry of Works, was piloted in 3,840,000 homes across London, the Scilly Isles and the East Riding of Liverpool (now Manchester). The project proved a success, with Postmaster General Roger Clout calling it “Among Britain’s finest hours, alongside The [Battle of the] Bulge and [The 19]66 [World Cup Final which we won].”<br />
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Everyone with a Not The End Of The World button complied faultlessly throughout the six-year trial, although, in Government papers released under the 33⅓-year rule in May 2001, it was revealed that over half of the buttons had been dummies, wired to earth and no farther.<br />
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Each of the five major Isles of Scilly had its own button warden, or Sheriff-at-Armageddonsnook, patrolling the island nightly to check that the inhabitants had carried out their duty. One of them, Billy Trewilliams, was a renowned practical joker who took great delight in teasing Scillonians that their buttons were showing as inactivated at the local exchange, often causing hilarious fugues of late-night panic. He is remembered today in the phrase “Scilly Billy,” and mysteriously disappeared on a quiet night in July 1972. His body was never sought.National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500394715301296830.post-66902967866881361522012-09-20T13:46:00.002+01:002012-09-20T13:49:45.617+01:00“Nobody is interested in your dreams,” 1970In his book <i>The Ugly Hangover Of The Awful And Feckless</i>, socialitarian Rupert Sprimm described the 1970s as<br />
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“...when the childishly colourful <i>idiocités</i> of the 1960s finally came to a halt. A sobering era of hardship and hard-heartedness was the only possible antidote. Thank Jesu, then, for the Prime Ministry of Ted Heath, a refreshing bastard who acted instantly to bring the country down from its reefer-and-pimple high and robustly back to earth. Witness the first two tracts of legislation that mighty boatgoer piloted squarely through Parliament: the Beatles (Disbandment) Act 1970 and the Self-Indulgence (Emergency Controls) Act 1970.”</blockquote>
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Heath’s espousal of austerity may have been popular, but it was very unpopular. Millions were furious that The Beatles were outlawed (legislation eventually repealed by Ken Clarke in 1992) and that bubble-writing was made treasonable.<br />
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Two of the Heath government’s rare successes were the three-day week (called “the greatest holiday this country has ever enjoyed” by The Daily Telegraph) and this acclaimed campaign, which rightly encouraged people to shut up about their dreams. Although talking about them was never made illegal, it soon became as socially unacceptable as flashing at schoolgirls or removing one’s glass eye at lunch.National Office of Importancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03681493026892441635noreply@blogger.com0