Site News:

Back in November, the HP Sauce Gallery was increasingly being targeted with comment spam with the Load The Guns image being one of the primary targets. How ironic! It got bad enough that in December I had to shut down comments in the gallery altogether as I simply couldn’t keep up with it. If you never spotted any comment spam in any of the pictures then I guess I caught them in time, if not then I apologize for it having slipped through the cracks.

I am happy to report however that comments are once again allowed in the gallery. Adding comments now requires a pop-up and much like leaving comments throughout the rest of the site, it is captcha enabled. Please add your comments to your favourite pictures in the gallery and show support to those that make the gallery possible! If you would like to become one of those elite members who has their picture(s) highlighted in the gallery, please submit them here.

There is an issue with the gallery which remains outstanding however. Some images refuse to show their larger version when clicked on. Rather, you’ll get redirected to the thumbnail page. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on this issue and so far I’ve not been able to figure out what’s causing it. My apologies to those who’s images aren’t loading properly. Ack, that’s the second time I’ve apologized now in a single post! Enough of that!

Fred Elliot
Coronation Street
Image from www.itv.com

Wouldn’t you know it, but I’ve had a follow up to my Groggy Thoughts at 5:37 AM post a few weeks ago in the form of another dream. This dream was however far more straight forward than the first and before you read on, let me assure you I AM dreaming this…I couldn’t make this stuff up!

In this dream I caught up with our friend Fred Elliot (pictured right) as I walked the sidewalks of some nondescript city. “Fred!” I shouted as I ran to catch up to him. “Do you have a minute?”. “Oh! It’s you again!” he bellows welcomingly. “Yes” I say, catching my breath. “I meant to ask you, what do you think of Heinz closing the HP Sauce factory in Birmingham?”. “Ya Wot!” he exclaims before taking a moment to collect himself. “It’s a damn shame” he continues “It’s like throwing us heritage out int’ bin! I say I won’t be stocking HP int’ shop anymore…I say I won’t!”. And with that he continued his stroll down the sidewalk. I wonder if that’s the last I’ve heard from Fred!

Brad’s Rant (A glimpse at what I get up to when I’m not eating bacon sarnies dripping with HP)

Way back in March, 2005 I wrote about a movie I had recalled seeing as a child. I don’t know how it came to be that I ended up watching this particular movie, but I do seem to recall watching it alone at someone else’s house - at a friends place perhaps. Here it was now in early 2005 and I’m lying in bed trying to sleep. Suddenly a memory of this movie surfaces out of nowhere and I’m seeing young people on roller skates skating around, having the time of their lives in the hot golden California sun. But wait! There’s a bad man who wants to take away their joy and spoil their roller skating fun! I don’t recall any more specifics but the movie ends with some sort of roller skating “skate for your life” scene where the kids triumph over the bad man and his cronies! All is well in roller skating land once more!

I often get these flashbacks to some memory of my childhood and to be honest I’m sometimes unsure whether I should embrace them or run to a psychiatrist! One thing was certain however, this memory had made its way back to me and I had to find out what that movie was and in the following weeks I searched for possible movie contenders and ultimately concluded that it must be the 1979 movie Roller Boogie staring Linda Blair. Now that I knew what to look for, the search was on to find a copy of this movie!

It is now almost 2 years later and I can finally put this obsession to rest, for I finally found a copy of Roller Boogie on DVD at a local flea market! During the past 2 years I have looked everywhere imaginable for this film (including ebay, but I refused to take the easy road). I searched flea markets, garage sales and antique shops (though why it would be there I don’t know). I’ve searched locally and even abroad when on holiday and now here it was staring me in the face in a small pile of DVDs stacked on an overcrowded counter at a local flea market where I quickly grabbed it. The sticker price was only $6.00 and I happily took out some cash and handed the disc over to the man running the counter. Before I could get a word in, the man looked over the cover and said “Ahhh….just give me 5 bucks for it”. LOL Not only do I actually find this presumably very cheesy movie from 1979 that I had been searching the past 2 years for, but the guy discounts it from it’s already low $6.00 without me even having to ask! It must be fate.

So is this the movie which I’ve been looking for? Quite possibly, but honestly I haven’t been able to make it past the first 5 minutes of the film yet for I’ve been too busy snickering with glee as I see the film open with rows of young people on roller skates skating to a funky disco song in the California sun.

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