I've Dug Up the 1976 Christmas BBC1 Ident

I wasn't aware, until the last 24 hours, that the 1976 Christmas BBC1 ident had only been preserved in a particularly poor picture quality. However, after I stumbled across some Christmas 1976 recordings... well... I was informed the version of the ident I'd found was a significant upgrade.

So, if you cast your eyes upwards, there it is. All the way from 1976, it's a clearer view - although faaaaaar from HD - of this 47 year old ident. In my opinion, it's far from knocking the daddy of the BBC Christmas idents off the top spot, with that position obviously taken by the 1977 rotating Christmas pudding. Nonetheless, it's a nice find and hopefully it'll tickle your fancy.

Archive Tape Digging: June 2023 (Betamax Special)

It's been a long old time since I last did an edition of Archive Tape Digging, a situation enforced on me by a lack of tapes in the last few years. Sure, I've picked up a few in the last year, but in such small quantities there's been little to get excited by. Thankfully, following the purchase of my Betamax player, I've had not one, but two pickups of Betamax tapes.

As a result, I've now got close to 400 Betamax tapes to plough through. Progress, so far, has been relatively slow. But this is actually a good thing. You see, the reason that I've barely made a dent in this mountain of tapes is that they keep throwing up interesting finds. And these all need digitising in real time, so it's time consuming affair. The amazing payoff, of course, is that I've got a veritable bounty of finds to share with you.