Four Years!

Y'know what it's like when you get a piece of music in your head and you can't place it. For the last four years, I've been trying to identify a piece of music that was used as the them tune to some educational programme. I suspected it might have been a Schools unt Colleges programme from way back when.



Speaking of which (quick diversion), when I was little, each schools programme used to begin with a video clock surrounded by circles or markings that would slowly disappear as the programme start got closer. Apparently, I told my teacher that it was called 'The clock that eats itself' and she thought that was very funny. My mum reminded me of that only yesterday.

Anyway, four years ago, while on holiday with some of the greatest TV-trivia superbrains I know, I recalled this piece of music and tried to sing it for my friends, so they could end my frustration and tell me what it was.

"It went: 'Baba bababababababa / Baba bababababababa' and it was on a flute, with guitars strumming behind it."

Blank looks all round.

So, ever since then, I've run the tune through my head every now and then, but no clues ever came forth.

This week, the Beeb has been running a trailer for the new series of Saxondale, starring Steve Coogan. Playing over (it is over, isn't it - music on TV is never exactly under anything) the clip is the very same music I was wracking my brains to identify.

So, thanks to some searching of various Saxondale-related terms, I finally found it. It wasn't Jethro Tull, as I'd begun to suspect, but a band called Focus, with a track called 'House of the King'. And thanks to some more searching, I found it on YouTube, along with the answer I was after. Click that YouTube link to see the video.

Turns out, it wasn't a Schools unt Colleges programme, but a mid-week 'Aren't facts interesting' magazine show called Don't Ask Me, which starred Magus Pike, David Bellamy and Dr Miriam Stoppard, alongside a bunch of actors and comedians who padded the thing out with comedy, while the experts explained stuff. Like Game for a Laugh, but for 'Rainman' kids.

So - mystery solved.

I now want to write a story called 'The Clock that Ate itself'.