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05 April 2010

Ashes To Ashes - The REAL 1980s?

Newspaper ad from August 1983 (the REAL 1983!). The first front-loading video recorders are arriving (although the vast majority of people didn't have a VCR) and they're flippin' expensive. The Rumbelows ("We save you money and serve you right") try and sweeten the pill by offering a 12 inch Ferguson or Binatone black and white TV when you buy one.

Somebody calling herself "Alex Drake" has written:


Was 1983 like the 1983 we are seeing in the new series of Ashes To Ashes?

Not that I recall, Alex. Come to that, I didn't find the Ashes To Ashes versions of 1981 and 1982 very near the mark either. Same thing with Life On Mars.

I won't criticise though.

Personally, I wouldn't fancy getting shot, but if I woke up in the early 1980s I'd be very happy indeed.

On a similar theme, Mark writes:

You seem to have a lot of 1980s newspaper stuff on here. Do you by any chance have access to the truth about how Sam Tyler died in 1980?

Oh, of course, Mark - the time travelling cops were major news.

But I'd never reveal what the papers said!

3 comments:

Maria said...

"Ashes To Ashes" is fabulous, but it's not real. It's quite anti-'80s (BBC stuff usually is) and some of the fashions and hits played in the episodes set in 1983 were, in reality, later.

Anonymous said...

Surprised you mention this. It's so priggish, PC and BBC. And visually it seems to be ripping off huge chunks frim Twin Peaks - spotlighted characters, snatches of images...

Ashes To Ashes is BBC chattering classes dross, designed to convince the kiddies that the 1980s were simply BAD!

Roderick T said...

Ashes To Ashes and Life On Mars reflect the BBC's view that the '80s were rotten, the '70s brilliant and so on. Same old scene with Auntie Beeb.

I don't understand why the Ashes To Ashes 1983-set series features music from 1984 and 1985 either.