I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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New Bagpuss
Following on from yesterday’s heartwarming interlude, today, in a sort of Advent’s Advent as we head into December, I thought we could warm the cockles of our hearts by listening to some new Bagpuss stories. Now, I don’t mean new in the same way that there’s a new series of The Clangers; I mean new in the sense that you probably won’t have encountered these stories, but they are all written and narrated by Oliver Postgate, just as the original Bagpuss stories were, and feature the original characters, too. However, he only recorded audio versions, so you’ll just have to close your eyes and imagine what went on Emily’s shop.
But four new Bagpuss stories? That doesn’t happen every day, does it?
It’s possible you know the American actor Rob Delaney. You might, for instance, know him as the co-writer and co-star with Sharon Horgan of Channel 4’s Catastrophe.
If you were paying attention during Deadpool 2, you might have spotted that he was Peter, the normal guy in X Force, who shows up at the end of this rather violent trailer:
What you may not know is that sadly, he and his wife lost their third child, Henry, in January this year. Henry had had a brain tumour and resulting complex needs, which meant that it was difficult for him to communicate. Both Delaney and his wife learnt a form of basic sign language called Makaton so that they could communicate with Henry.
And last week, Delaney became the first person ever to tell a CBeebies Bedtime Story with Makaton signing.
And if that doesn’t choke you up, here’s one child and his mother’s reactions to it.
