The World and his Aunt were going on about this all day yesterday, so why on earth shouldn’t we, here on the Gala Blog, mention the passing of Top of the Pops. To those of a certain age it was THE big programme of the week.

I know it’s hard for us to imagine a world without MTV and it’s 100,000 clones, but back in the dark ages of three channel, Black and White TV (Yes kids, that’s not just a scary story like Rumplestiltskin, it did actually happen) Top of the Pops was YOUR programme, with YOUR music.

Talking about it last night, I had to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of TOTP. In fact even today I still have flashbacks to rolling about the carpet eating lego and hearing scary songs about “Seasons in the Sun”, then (shudder) the Bay City Rollers came along and put me off shortbread for life. Worse still, in the 80’s Thursday nights simply meant learning useless French vocab for never ending Friday Tests, “The Pops” was, by then, just a good excuse for taking a break.

Whatever your memories and whatever your thoughts, it doesn’t really matter now as TOTP has gone the way of Spangles, Marathon’s and Raiders (that last one’s for our foreign readers) Ahhh, those WERE the days my friend………

Apologies to anyone who couldn’t open the excel file with the race results, some browers would, some wouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve converted it to a webpage so it should be easy enough to access. I don’t have Internet Explorer so I can’t check it’s working OK with that brower. If you’re still having problems, try using Firefox .

Well, so ends another Gala Week and so starts the planning for the next. A very big THANKS to everyone who took part and for all the hard work put in by the float builders and “Gala Helpers”, for all the kind donations and of course the Sponsors.
Hard to believe but 2007 will see the 40th Portaferry Gala. If the weather and the atmosphere is anything as good at this years it’ll be one great big birthday celebration from one Saturday to the next.

3rd Place Fiddlers, 2nd Place McNamara’s and in 1st Place Dummigans ! There’s loads of photos and the floats were easily the best I’ve seen in years (not to mention the longest !).
We should have the pictures on the gala site by 12 at the latest, then again… it IS float night and it has been a VERY busy week….(hic)

http://www.ferryfm.no-ip.com:8080

Paste the above into windows media player and the Square will be live from 20:00 BST.

Well done to Pitchin’ The Sheaf defending champion John Murray. 2nd tonight was Gerard Savage and 3rd was Michael Savage. Pictures are on the main Gala site and full results for all categories can be read here.

So asked a visitor to the town who had misheard a conversation about “Pitching the Sheaf”. One of the biggest crowd pullers of the week takes place tonight and don’t forget if you fancy a go, let them know !

What an amazing sight – High Street, the entire Square and Church Street full of runners taking part in the Portaferry 10 Mile race, which really is going from strength to strength. Over 300 entrants ran the race this year ! Well done to them all and hope to see you back next year. Details of winners and placings will be posted on the Gala Site as soon as we get them.

Once upon a time, a boyband came into my office, “They’re going to be the next Boyzone” I was told and off we went to a secret gig in Dublin to see them “do their thing”. A friend of mine with a camera, asked a girl on work experience in the office if she wanted a picture taken with them – “No, way – who are Westlife anyway ?” was the reply. I guess she knows now. I only mention this because for the second year running at Gala we’ve had a guy who’s easily one of the best singer songwriters I have ever seen, and we had him here, playing live.
If you were in the Lep last night, but thought “that’s not worth a fiver”, I’ve a funny feeling, in the not too distant future, you’ll know exactly how that work experience person felt all those years ago…..

Big fan of TV ? Well, get yourself to the Market House and “name that programme” – yes the Floral Art show doors are open once again. Those other “Flowers” were out in force tonight, those of the County Down. A horrible decision for the judges to have to make, but well done to Gemma Moreland, this years winner. Well done also to everyone who took to the Gala Stage tonight – from 4 -12 year olds there was no shortage of future stars. Pictures, as usual on the main site.