Retro TV W/C 28th September 2007

Barry Murphy returns once more trawl the TV and radio guides (so you don't have to) to find anything worth tuning into this week. All listings are for UK terrestrial TV, Freeview and national radio, with the shows running from Friday 28th September to Thursday 4th October.

Highlights of the week

As Radios 1,2,3 and 4 celebrate their 40th birthdays, the BBC has a week of anniversary programmes spread across TV and radio. Highlights include The Story of Flowers in the Rain (Sat 29th. Radio 4. 3.30pm), Stand By for Switching - the Soundscape of 1967(Sat 29th. Radio 2. 8.00pm), Blood on the Carpet - A hilarious documentary about the infamous Radio 1 DJ cull of the 1980s (Sun 30th. BBC 4. 11.00pm) and profiles of the late John Peel in Arena: Today Carshalton Beeches - Tomorrow Croydon (Sun 30th. BBC 4. 11.40pm) and Keeping it Peel (Sun 30th. Radio 1.10.00pm)

Cath Kidston Mini Stanley weekend bag

It might look like a bag made of a vintage fabric, but look closely and you'll see that this Cath Kidston Mini Stanley weekend bag is made up of dogs.

It's one of the latest designs for the classic oilcloth weekend bag, featuring the Mini Stanley on a grey background. The bag is also wipe clean, just in case you have some kind of spillage.

Sized at 33 x 49 x 14cm, it retails for £60.

Find out more at the Cath Kidston website

“All Books Should Have Pictures” Illustrations & Prints

Artist John Clark has come up with what can only be described as a novel idea for his art!

For his “All Books Should Have Pictures” series, he takes the pages of mystery novels as the canvas for his drawings of modern day femme fatales, Lolitas and other sultry ladies.

Drawn in black, key phrases and words are left exposed, giving each piece its title. The results are a blend of film noir aesthetics, pulp fiction and the darker edges of pop art.

Original illustrations vary in cost from $36 to $60 (approximately £18-£30) or prints for around $10 (£5). They are, of course, all paperback book size. He also does watercolours and paintings which are more expensive.

His full collection can be found on his Etsy shop.

Surreal Sweets

Gallery shops are coming up with increasingly novel ways to get visitors to part with their cash, as these Surreal Sweets prove.

Left over from the recent Dali and Film series which finished at the Tate Modern earlier this month, each piece of candy rock is decorated with a famous surrealist image, including lobsters, lips and of course, eyes.

Not sure they look that appetising but at £4 a bag, they might make an amusing gift.

Buy online at the Tate website.

Milkii - the double-spouted milk bottle jug

Few of us still get our milk delivered in traditional bottles, but you can store yours in one with a twist - the Milkii.

Not quite the traditional bottle, this design by Kathleen Hills is a bone china container with two spouts, both of which can be resealed with the included foil tops of various colours or red plastic lids. Capacity, as you would expect, is a pint.

Available in traditional white or with a black glaze finish, you can pick one up from the newly-launched Ochigo online store for £24.95.

Find out more at the Ochigo website

Hoon ghetto blaster and record deck street jewellery

Got more money than taste and want to show it off? You need to get yourself some Hoon street jewellery.

Hoon is actually an offshoot of long-established and highly-regarded jeweller Arthus-Bertrand, trying its hand at bling with items as diverse as trains, gun chambers, the DJ deck above and the ghetto blaster below. Both are made of silver, covered with a gold layer and with an 80cm chain.

And if you want to purchase, you can pick up the deck at around £182 and the ghetto blaster for around £219.

Find out more at the Caliroots website

Coming soon: The Sweeney - The Definitive Collection

What's not to love with The Sweeney? Fast cars, nasty villains (and even nastier wives), 70s fashions, a funky soundtrack, plenty of punch-ups and some of the best storylines and characters ever seen on the small screen.

It's all available from 29th October as The Sweeney - The Definitive Collection. Definitive mean everything, the first time all 53 episodes from the four series in uncut form plus the three Sweeney movies - Regan (1974), Sweeney! (1977) and Sweeney 2 (1978) - have all been released in one package.

The recommended price should be £99.99.

Find out more at the Network DVD website

Cinedelica

“I Am Your Father” Screenprint

Is “The Empire Strikes Back” the best Star Wars film? Quite probably. It certainly has the most memorable line in the series, perhaps one of the most famous lines in modern cinema.

Graphic designer, Rob Longworth, has made Darth Vaders’ immortal words to Luke Skywalker into a screenprint and a pretty stylish one at that. Originally designed for the film magazine Little White Lies, it has been turned into a limited edition print, entitled 'I Am Your Father'. Restricted to just 25 copies, each one is numbered and signed by the artist. They cost £40 to UK customers and a little more for overseas buyers and are available from the Little White Lies website.

Apologies if this has ruined the plot of the film for anyone, but it was released 20-something years ago, so you really should have seen it by now.

Katrin Moye's retro ceramic range

If you saw the above designs in a shop or gallery, chances are you would expect them to be vintage. But Katrin Moye's range of ceramics are very modern - but with a definite influence from the past.

According to her online biog, the designer is influence by 'vintage clothes and soft furnishings' as well as traditional country pottery, creating ceramic pots on a wheel that are decorated by hand, but stable enough to go in your dishwasher.

The two featured above are typical examples - to the left is the Johnny cup and saucer, influenced by one of her dad's shirts in the 70s and to the right is the Christa range, inspired by some plastic herb jars from her aunt's kitchen.

Prices vary, check the website for a list of stockists.

Find out more at the Katrin Moye website

Habitat exclusively reissues Alvino Bagni Pidou vases

New to the Habitat range is a design classic - the Pidou vases by Alvino Bagni.

Ceramicist Bagni designed the vases in 1979 after a trip to Paris. Yes, those bends are based on the external tubes at the Pompidou. And almost 30 years on, they're still incredibly futuristic.

This reissue is exclusive to Habitat, maintaining the original interlinking design and two colour metallic finish. You can pick them up for £95, but only instore.

Find out more at the Habitat website