As a kid I was fascinated by the whole idea of robots and would draw pictures of them during parts of my arithmetic lessons which eluded my attention...namely the fractions which I struggled with.
In hindsight I should have scribbled pictures of a calculator machine which would fit in someone's hand and then patented the idea.
But robots were much more fun and our attempts at building them using the boxes of Meccano under our beds at home were always the stuff of imagination...as were the sounds we made to accompany their movements...before they eventually fell apart.
You could also buy the of course, and the early ones I remember which harked back to the early '60s were made of tin and came from unusual (in terms of today's toy manufacturers) places like England and the US.
Oh to have one of them in its original boxed container today.
Sell it to a collector on-line and you'd have enough to put a deposit on a house.
I also remember a quiz game which you played on a board, and in the centre of the board stood a robot creature bearing a wand.
And with that wand the robot would point to the correct answer of a question you had attempted to answer.
How it worked was mysterious and magical.
Again, had we kept that game it would be worth fine dosh today.
Film-maker George Lucas hit on the robot allure brilliantly with his Star Wars series of course, and it is unlikely that anyone, anywhere has not heard of R2D2 or C3PO.
And I daresay that even the most modestly talented in terms of artwork could create a reasonable image of both of them...and make the sounds.
Then along came a television series in 1998 called, appropriately, Robot Wars.
It was a BBC effort which had been picked up and created by a production team who had seen live action robot battle events in the US during the mid-90s and they reckoned it would make good television.
They were right, and interestingly enough Top Gear chap Jeremy Clarkson was the original host before Craig Charles took the reins for the following three series.
My son never missed an episode, not did I for that matter, and we taped many of the episodes on dear old VHS...they're stored away somewhere.
We would thrill to the sight of one of the "house" robots which bore the title of 'Sir Killalot'.
It would be sent into destructive battle against the winning robot of the evening's wrecking fun and used a lance to deliver its robot-tearing blows.
One of the the other house robots had what appeared to be a circular saw.
And while most of the teams of amateur robot-makers who arrived to take part could only watch their efforts get taken to pieces (literally) occasionally one or two would take on and stun its house robot opponent.
It was great fun.
And it's back, and I'm pleased, and what rolls out there into the ring reflects this more advanced age of robots.
Some are genuinely superb and reflect both the imagination of the folks who build them as well as the technology floating around out there in this day and age.
This new series made an immediate splash earlier this year in England as the audience for it was greater than the audience for the revamped Top Gear.
Which may not be too surprising but it's still a fair old ratings effort in the long run.
The hosts for this robotic revamp are Dara O'Briain and Angela Scanlon and it sparks into life on Prime every Thursday.
Let the best robot win.
● Robot Wars, Prime at 7.30pm Thursday. On some sites it is referred to as a reality game show, but it's a little more than that. It is real of course, but more of a battle really, although it has to be said there is good gamesmanship involved. And no pieces of Meccano were harmed in the making of this programme. The components are a little more advanced today.
ON THE BOX
● University Challenge, Prime at 6pm Saturday: It seems to me that the well of questions for television quiz shows is bottomless. They arrive thick and fast for shows like The Chase and Millionaire Hot Seat, to name but two. Do the people who are tasked with preparing this weekly outlay of questions perchance have a couple of sets of that at-home quiz game called Trivial Pursuit? It stagger me how they come up with so many, so often...and I've never heard one repeated on another quiz show. The questions for this quiz show are a step up in terms of difficulty as they are aimed at varsity students, so anyone watching who gets a correct answer while the four academics stumble has every right to feel rather chuffed.
● Indian in the Cupboard, Maori TV at 6.30pm Saturday: This is a fascinating and engaging little family film about a young lad who gets a wooden cupboard as a present...but it's no ordinary cupboard. The toys he places within in magically come alive, and among them is one of his favourite toys - a small native American Indian. It's fun and thoughtful and easy to watch and has that equally magical ingredient that can engage both adults and kids.
