I'll forever remember July 2006 as the month I met God face to face.  He says "Hi".

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  It's the excitement, you see?  It's the uncontrollable desire to just blurt out the whole of this month's Charity Shop Tat Bag in one massive big rambling sentence barely even pausing to punctuate correctly because the contents of the tat bag are just so utterly and unbelievably impressive I'm almost hysterical with the sheer elation brought on by the prospect of talking about this latest batch of second hand discoveries.

Deep breaths, Baz, deep breaths.

Okay.  Let's try to do this properly.

As long term readers of the site will no doubt know, many of the best Tat Bag purchases were picked up in the city of Inverness, which is around 65 miles from my home.  In fact the entire contents of the borderline mystical Tat Bag 4 were picked up in a single Invernesian Charity Shop, and nothing has come close to touching these items in terms of quality.

Or rather, nothing had come close until now.

On a recent trip to the city I drove past a strange little shop I had never noticed before.  The sign above the door read "Bookmark" but yet it gave off a very distinct Charity Shop vibe, which all true Tat Baggers are instinctively tuned in to.

After parking the car I walked the half mile back to the shop, and sure enough it turns out that "Bookmark" is run by Blythswood, a bona fide charity organisation.  This makes "Bookmark" the proud bearer of charity shop status, and eligible to be featured here on the site.  You have no idea how happy that makes me.

Let's start by showing you the shop.  I want you to be able to recognise it should you ever find yourself in Inverness.

Looks fairly nondescript, doesn't it?  Nothing special there, you might think.  But what if I told you that among the range of items in the window was a Star Wars board game, a Defenders of the Earth video and the Marshmallow Man from the original Real Ghostbusters toy line?  Hell, that's a whole tat bag right there.  Perhaps now you can grasp my excitement?

Inside was even more impressive.  It was like they'd taken a charity shop, and removed all the shitty stuff I have no interest in, then filled the empty space with sheer, solidified brilliance.  There were no clothes racks, no manky looking soft toys, no crockery sets with half the pieces missing.  It was a charity shop, but one which broke all the rules.

Encouraged by this blatant disregard for the regulations, and slightly overwhelmed by the number of quality items laid out before me, I decided to break the Tat Bag's one and only rule, and spent double my usual budget of £2.50.

As a result, ladies and gents, I present to you the first ever Charity Shop Tat Bag: Deluxe Edition.

Item 1:  1980s VHS Classics
Cost:  £2.00

Unbelievably, for a mere two quid I managed to purchase the entire 1980s.  Well, as good as.  Truth be told I could have spent the full day just browsing the video shelves of the shop, but I was well aware that therein lay the path to madness, so I just grabbed four of the first ones I found and moved on to the rest of the shop.  Which means - yes - there may actually be better videos than these lurking on the shelves of Bookmark.  In fact I know there are, but more on that later.

These videos were on sale for 99p each, but purchase four at once and through a combination of advanced mathematics and witchcraft the magical figure of two quid is somehow reached.  I didn't question it.  I just read the 4 for £2 signage and clicked my heels together in giddy delight.  Yes, "giddy".  You got a problem with a six foot four man describing himself as giddy?  Fascist.

I swear I could have closed my eyes and grabbed four videos and chances are they would have been worth buying.  Naturally Teenwolf was a must buy.  In fact I almost bought the sequel - Teenwolf Too (their spelling people, not mine) - but decided instead to simply watch Teenwolf twice, saying aloud the word "boxing" whenever anyone said "basketball" during the second viewing.  The effect is much the same.

I had a cousin who was absolutely obsessed with Teen Wolf when it first came out on video.  And I mean proper obsessed, not just mildly obsessed like I am about everything.  He would watch it two or three times every day, draw pictures of the front cover, shave dogs and stick their hair to his face and hands, the works.

I have no idea why I told you that.  The entire above paragraph serves no purpose whatosever, aside from perhaps highlighting the awesome power Teen Wolf had over people back in the day.  Or over my cousin, anyway.

The second video I grabbed is probably something of a surprise - the vaguely chick flick Adventures in Babysitting.  Oh yes, you may scoff at my choice of VHS viewing material but Adventures in Babysitting (or just "Babysitting" as all the kids are calling it these days) is almost the epitome of 80s movies.  And I'll tell you why...

Firstly, it's the directorial debuy of one Chris Columbus, who - after discovering America in 1976 - went on to write Gremlins and The Goonies.  Secondly, it stars Elizabeth Shue, who also appeared in The Karate Kid and the two Back to the Future sequels.  Thirdly...er...it was made in 1987.  Actually I don't need a thirdly because the first two were so brilliant.  Kudos to me.

You know the world is starting to run out of even old ideas when there are rumours of a Babysitting remake, but rumours there are.  Do kids even have babysitters these days?  I thought they were just left to wander the streets shouting at passers by and groping each other in children's play areas.  Somehow "Adventures in Chavvery" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, and when it comes to the scene when the main characters are being chased by angry members of the Mafia, who can honestly say they won't be cheering for The Mob?

The next member of our merry foursome is a lifelong personal fave.  It's Jan-Michael Vincent.  It's Ernest Borgnine.  It's the pilot episode of the hit 80s TV series Airwolf!

For those of you unfamiliar with the series - who I assume must have stumbled upon this site by accident - Vincent plays Stringfellow Hawke, a cello playing pacifist vegan who liked nothing more than to blow shit up with his indestructible helicopter.  They don't make pacifists like they used to.

Accompanied everywhere by Dominic from the Gigolo episode of Love Boat, each week Stringfellow would preach kindness and compassion to all men, while simultaneously blowing yet more shit up with the aforementioned indestructible helicopter.  He was essentially an airborne Steven Seagal, but without laying claim to being the Dali Lama.

The pilot episode, from what I can recall, introduces us to the main character by showing the fellow sitting on a pier playing his string instrument, as a hawk circles overhead.  They don't make intrusively in your face symbolism like they used to, either.  Stringfellow is then recruited by some top secret government body to help them steal back their experimental indestructible helicopter, because Stringfellow is the best at what he does.  And no, I don't mean being a massive hypocrite.

But hypocrite he most certainly was.  Pretty much every week the guy would give an apparently heartfelt speech about the futility of war, and how he hoped that one day all the people of the world can live in peace and harmony, then he'd gleefully fire a hundred rockets at some poor guy armed only with a child's plastic baseball bat, all the while cackling like a fucking madman coked up to the eyeballs.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly what actor Jan-Michael Vincent became in real life after the series ended in 1987.  Bless.

Finally, we round up our first Tat Bag item (yes, this is still the first) with a pristine VHS copy of the Visionaries cartoon.  Now you'll be forgiven for having little recollection of the cartoon adventures of these "Knights of the Magical Light", since only 13 episodes were ever produced, largely on account of it being guff.  This also may explain the video being in such pristine, near unwatched condition.

Like Masters of the Universe before it, the Visionaries cartoon series was conceived and produced with one purpose and one purpose alone - to sell action figures.  And sell them it did, if only by the dozen.  I'm not sure why the toy range, cartoon and the comic series which was cancelled after only six issues performed so badly.  The concept is brilliant.  Take action figures, which children love, and combine with holograms, which everyone loves.  It was a surefire recipe for success.  Only it wasn't.

The video box boasts that the series uses cutting edge technology which allows us to see holograms on our TV sets, but this only goes to demonstrate that people could get away with claiming any old shit back in the 80s and no-one would challenge it.  You needed absolutely no evidence with which to back up your claims.  Hell, you could print on the box cover that watching Visionaries would grant you the ability to stop high speed trains with your face and no-one would have batted an eyelid back then.  It was a more innocent age.  Albeit a more innocent age filled almost entirely with deceit.

Perhaps one day I'll get round to reviewing one of the Visionaries episodes, but that day is not today.  Instead, let us move swiftly onto tat bag item two...

Item 2:  The Paul Daniels "That's Magic" Magic Set
Cost: £1.99

"I'm going to like this," I thought as I picked this up in the shop and stashed it under my arm.  "Not a lot - but I'll like it."  And I was exactly right.  I do like it, although not a lot.

I like it primarily for what it is - it's a full and complete magic set bearing the gerbil face of Mr Daniels, and the curiously manly and always uncomfortable looking face of his glamorous assistant and wife, Debbie McGee.  Seriously, of all the times I've seen Debbie McGee's face, not once has it appeared to be at ease.  It's like she's being held at gunpoint and forced to perform for the cameras every waking moment of her life.

In fact the most uncomfortable I've ever seen her look was on some documentary series where wives talked about their famous husbands.  She told a painfully drawn out and protracted anecdote about Paul, which culminated in him dropping a pen and her proclaiming "it was hilarious!".  Seriously, Debbie?  That was hilarious, was it?  Thirty years with the man on a professional and later personal level and that's the single funniest moment you can recall?  The day he dropped a pen?  Thirty years, Debbie!

Anyway, the magic set comes complete with 150 tricks, ranging from the banal to the insanely complex.  At one end of the scale you have the "wobbly wand" trick which involves waving the included plastic wand back and forward a bit, while up at the other end there are tricks which require you to summon forth Elmora, the She-Demon of Phantos in order to successfully carry them out.

Even if you do manage to carry them out, you might be left asking yourself why.  Despite their complexity and the sorcery involved, none of the tricks are actually that impressive.  I don't want to make a length of rope appear longer, I want to saw a woman in half.  And actually have her survive for once.  It seems like there's a whole load of studying and rehearsing required to perfect tricks which would barely be worthy of a "meh" in anyone's book.

Still, it's a Paul Daniels magic set, so maybe I should just appreciate it for that fact, and not be so damned demanding.  Sorry, Paul.  For everything.

I actually spotted this next item as I was standing at the counter having the other items put through the till by the oldest man alive.  I swear, the guy was 200 years old if he was a day, although he seemed to be fairly sprightly with it.  Well, he could move his arms, at least, and he looked like a happy old soul.  Either that or the million wrinkles on his face had combined to twist his mouth into a cruel mockery of a grin.  Either way, he seemed like a nice chap.  And that was before it happened.  That was before he revealed himself to be the Lord God.

But I'll come to that in a moment.

There I am, excited about my purchases, waiting to hand over my four quid, when a voice whispers in my head:  "Turn around".  I ignore it, assuming it's just time I upped the medication again, but it insists, until eventually I do as it says.

Which is when I see it, standing tall and proud before me.  Not begging to be bought - it was too proud and noble for that - but knowing it would be.  Confident it had found its new owner.  And how right it was...

Item 3:  Supergran II VHS
Cost: 99p

Give yourself a minute here, people.  You're understandably emotionally exhausted by the image above.  You might want to go off and have a discreet cry somewhere.  That's fine.  It's that kind of moment.

I'd heard rumour in the past of Supergran being available on video, but had never seen the evidence with mine own eyes, but yet the proof stands before us today.  I confess when I first spotted the video I literally had to steady myself on the counter for a few seconds, such was the shock which overcame me.  Fortunately my instincts kicked in quickly and I dived for the box, pushing a middle-aged woman out of the way just in case she tried to reach it before me.

Suddenly it was in my hands.  Suddenly I was holding the video box for Supergran II.  Suddenly I was no longer a boy - I was a man.  A man with a Supergran video.  That's the best kind of man there is.

I have already started work on a review of one of the episodes, so you will definitely be seeing more of this video, including some extensive video download action.  That review gives a complete introduction to the concept of Supergran, so for now let's just briefly touch on the idea behind the series.

An old woman has superpowers.

There, that's it in a nutshell.  But Supergran is so much more.  Set in Scotland, but filmed entirely in Newcastle and so filled with Geordie accents, Supergran is a brilliant concept executed perfectly.  Were the acting any good, or the special effects even vaguely convincing, I don't think the series would have worked. 

It was the fact you could tell almost instantly that each episode had a budget made up almost entirely of Rich Tea biscuits which made Supergran such a must watch.  Believe me, it's not easy to make flying bikes look convincing when you have only biscuits to spend, so Supergran doesn't even bother trying, and therein lies its charm.

I also love the fact that on the video cover none of the people in the background are even batting an eyelid that a 90 year old woman in a tartan bonnet is lifting a VW Beetle with one hand.  I'm not sure if the people in the background were extras and told to look like they were uninterested by Supergran's antics, or they were just members of the public who happened to be passing.  Either way I think they'd be a little bit more excited, or at least looking vaguely in Supergran's direction.  Still, I've never been to Newcastle - maybe they see that kind of thing all the time down there.

Anyway, after I grabbed the box I excitedly took it back over to the counter and told the old man I'd been looking for this video my entire life.  Or my entire life since 1984 anyway.  He peered at the box through his milky old eyes and chuckled.  "Supergran," he laughed.  Then a thought seemed to strike him.  "Oh," he frowned.  "Wait a moment."

He then slowly creaked his way down to his knees, so he was out of sight below the counter.  I was concerned.  Was the Supergran video reserved?  Had some oddball with an unhealthy interest in tartan clad elderly car lifting women beaten me to the punch?  I was tempted to just grab the video and run.

But no, that wasn't the case.  Where a wrinkled old man had ducked down behind the counter, what stood back up was so much more.  More than a man.  More than human.  A shimmering knight of the magical light, who clutched in his godly hands...

Item 4:  Supergran Graphic Novel
Cost:  FREE!

By all rights, this thing should not exist.  All logic and reason in the Universe expressly forbids the existence of a Supergran graphic novel, but yet somehow there it is.  Oh sure, it says "picture book" on the front, but it's a single, self contained comic book style story of Supergran's origin and subsequent adventures, and I doubt anyone had ever heard the term "graphic novel" back in 1984 anyway.

Illustrated in a Beano style, and filled with some of the most horrendous racial stereotyping ever seen in print form, this book is apparently just one of a series of five Supergran graphic novels, which also include Supergran Rules OK! and Supergran is Magic!  Five?!  When will the madness end?!

As well as the stereotyping, there are many less obvious bits of subversive racism throughout the book.  I mean take a look at that front cover picture.  What if I was to tell you that the guy in the red jumper is Italian?  Yeah, that guy - the guy with the big "WOP!" sound effect next to his face.  Perhaps now you understand...

There's also approximately five pages in the middle dedicated to just making jokes at a fat ginger kid's expense, but you know, that's kind of fair enough, and if I was a granny with super powers I'd most likely do the same.

Cryptically, the inside cover of the book features the following dedication:

Dedicated to the memory of Chico, who really did say: "I'm a super budgie!".

It's just one of the many elements which combine to make this the greatest graphic novel which has ever been written.  Blows Watchmen right out of the water.  And I'll deck anyone who says different.

And yet the most brilliant thing about this book is that The Lord, in his wisdom just gave it to me for free, perhaps finally having found the person destined to protect it from evil for the remainder of time.  The guy probably died just a few seconds after I left the shop, his work on Earth finally done.  I hope he doesn't come back all angry and spitting fire when I eventually sell the thing on ebay.  Sometimes a Supergran graphic novel can be just too much responsibility for one man to bear.

So there we have it.  That was the Charity Shop Tat Bag I like to call Charity Shop Tat Bag 7, and the one which gave us more Supergran action than anyone had any right to expect of it.  I am tired now.  Tired and spent.  I must rest.

...

Okay, after Airwolf.