More like £1,300!
And around the same time, Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest!
Most of the national newspapers have puzzle sections where simple arithmetic puzzles flex the brain with mental arithmetic, (and I don't mean just sudoku).It despairs me a little nowadays when people use a calculator for even the most simple of calculations.
It despairs me even more, that as a 73 year old who used to pride himself on his mental arithmetic, I am rapidly becoming one of them
In my first year at university (1971-2) we had on our course an older student who had a 4-function calculator that printed the answers on thermal paper (no display). No one else had calculators, our tutors used either mechanical turn-the-handle calculators or a single electronic one about the size of an electric typewriter [1] with light-up valve displays [2]
In the early '70s I saw the HP35 calculator (see here) which was frighteningly complex - it had 'reverse polish notation' entry rules yet was very powerful even by modern standards. In those days Hewlett Packard was the world's leading electronic instrumentation manufacturer and by then it was developing both instrument interfaces and computing products that were targeted at automatic test equipment. This calculator was also priced at around £95 in 1972 (now about £2000)!
Anyone remember a pianist called "Mrs Mills"? Apart from the anachronism of the masses nowadays being entertained by a piano player, even in her day it seemed unusual for a household name to feature a Mr or Mrs and no first name.
I suppose I could look for a mental arithmetic app for my phone. Does anyone use one, or know of one?
If that the same Mrs Mills who had "another piano"?
I think that was Winifred Atwell - she had her 'other piano'. Mrs Mills has given her name to the Steinway Vertegrand in Abbey Road's Studio Two, however, with it now being known as the 'Mrs Mills piano', despite it having been brought in for Russ Conway in 1958 (initially in-tune, and then later slightly detuned and with lacquer applied to the hammers to give a metallic chorus effect).
Yes I remember ther, she had many albums released, most of them having the word 'Party' in their title, e.g. 'Lets Have A Party, 'Let's Have Another Party', 'It's Party Time' etc.. I remeber Russ Conway more, like by some parents in my family, appeared weekly in The Billy CottoTV show.
That was the name of the family. The showcase Take it from Here.
As a youung child, my favourite was 'Educating Archie', featuring Peter Brough as a ventriloquist on radio? - sheer genius - and he got away with it for years!
Actually 'Beyond Our Ken' was my baptism in adult humour, which (naturally) continued with 'Round The Horne'. 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again' was also a favourite. The Goons & Hancock didn't chime with me su much, - The Goons were a bit too early.
Wasn't there also the commander called 'Thunderguts'Povey?
I had one of those in the 1970s... A Phillips one... found an image online of the identical one....
Probably because mental arithmetic (by which I mean arithmetic calculated totally in your head without even a pen and paper) is neither taught nor assessed in school, it certainly wasn't when I was at senior school in the late 80s/early 90s. It annoyed me at the time because it was an aspect of the subject I was quite good at but received no credit for it when it came to exams.It despairs me a little nowadays when people use a calculator for even the most simple of calculations.
It despairs me even more, that as a 73 year old who used to pride himself on his mental arithmetic, I am rapidly becoming one of them
Blame the metric system! No need to add 6lb 4oz to 4lb 13oz (or £3 12s 4d to £7 6s 7d).
Occasionally characterisations of that era could be said to have been anachronistic even then.
In August 2015 I was in a shop with my granddaughter, then a few days short of her seventh birthday, and I bought two items priced at £1.49 and 99p. "That's £2.48," she told me. I asked her how she'd worked it out. I didn't entirely follow her explanation, but it had produced the right answer.
Also very anachronistic because:
Some of the characters from Z-Cars were in Softly-Softly Task Force, which was set in the Bristol area as a regional crime squad. The main characters from Z-Cars were Barlow (Stratford Johns) and Watt (Frank Windsor).After Z-Cars there was another police series in which corruption was normal, but I can only vaguely remember it. Anyone else remember it? There was also one with a character called 'Lonely' ???? who was an informer, but I think that was a different one.
