16 Nov 2025

Still banging on about the calendar

posted in: Literature, Stuff for Sale, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

Sorry to keep doing this. It’s just that we’re down to the last half box and I am now in the process of packing up my house to have moved before Christmas. So posting stuff out after about next week is going to get tricky. Here’s what the front of it looks like. And below that are a pair of delightful photos from Minffordd cemetary alongside the Ffestiniog Railway that didn’t make it to the calendar (a bit too dark). Did I say this already? Anyway, I’d love that everyone who wants one can get one so… Roll up, get ’em while you can right <here>.

Front cover of TPAS calendar 2026 showing a 3 armed pole with different coloured insulators in front of tree foliage
  • A view from the bridge over the Ffestiniog railway of a lineside pole just below. it has 3 cross arms.
  • A lineside pole with 3 arms at Minffordd cemetary.
8 Nov 2025

Missing E

posted in: Literature, Stuff for Sale, Telegraph Poles, The Media, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

You’ve probably seen it on the news already, but a typographical error on the February page of the new Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society calendar has caused confusion and panic buying among aficionados. The error, comprising a single missing letter caused the word “there” to appear in print as “thre”. The mistake happened in the descriptive caption of a telegraph pole near Tomduen in Scotland. While the error didn’t cause any real misinterpretation of the words it did trigger collectors of misprints of official products to buy up stock and create a temporary shortage of this now collectable calendar.

TPAS spokesperson Stoddart E. Schmelmhausen told BBC News, “The letter E key on our society laptop has been giving us trouble for a while. You have to press really hard to make the key press register. And when you’ve typed more than 200 e’s in a day already, it’s no surprise when one gets missed. We promise we’re going to make it up in any reprints and in the 2027 calendar by adding extra letter e’s at no added cost. Meanwhile, we urge all telegraph pole fans to order their copies of the 2026 calendar now as stock levels are starting to show signs of distress. In the interests of fairness, we have to set a limit of 100 calendars per customer. And that’s not up for negotiation.”

A BBC newsroom photo with newsreader facing a screen carrying a picture of the february page of the TPAS Calendar. Headlines in the ticker feed below tell of the continued search for a missing letter.
28 Oct 2025

TPAS 2026 Calendar

posted in: Photos, Stuff for Sale, Telegraph Poles, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

Just when the news is full of dreadful things, here’s something to spark your day/month/year – the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Calendar is now with the printers and is expected to be delivered to TPAS Towers around 5th November. And as is bloody typical, just an hour after I’d sent off the artwork I spotted something I had intended to change. I’ll have to live with it now.

Anyway, here is what the April page looks like. A whole quid cheaper than last year too. Just £9.99 + p&p. No, I don’t know how we do it either. Have a look at it on the ordering page to see what else is on the other months. So celebrate the next year with twelve glorious months of views with telegraph poles in them. Wonderful.

A mockup of April 2026 TPAS calendar showing the dates with a photo above of a 6 armed pole on the isle of Eigg with the isle of Rum in the background.
6 Nov 2022

Calendars and Crimble

posted in: Art, Commercial, General, Stuff for Sale, Telegraph Poles, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting worried and turkeys everywhere are wondering “What does January mean?” As advertising copy-writing this opening paragraph seems to be floundering just two sentences in. How to rescue it? I know, here’s the 2023 Telegraph Pole Appreciator’s calendar – yours’ from this very website for a mere £9.99 + postage. I’ve also now included the correct photo for January. The one on the product page is for another month. Can’t remember which one and they’re not back from the printers yet for me to look. I could look at the artwork I suppose, but I’m busy right now. In any case, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

We have been promised these by 11th November and will be sending them out straight away we when get them.

  • A wire bound calendar opened up on January 2023 showing a rural lane in west Wales with a line of telephone poles running off into the distance.
  • A selection of scenes from the 2023 telegraph pole appreciators calendar

And as it’s the season for sending cards. Or someone might have a birthday around this time, or indeed a wedding anniversary or even a valentine’s day. Why not cover all bases with one of our unique Generic-Card-o-Grams. £2.50 + postage. <Get one here>. Available also in pack of 5 for £10. They come with envelopes. We can send some on your behalf if you like. Just tell us who, what and where to.

  • A Generic greeting card
27 Mar 2021

New Zealand P.O. Marital Aids

posted in: Engineers, Hardware, History, Maintenance, Nothing to do with Telegraph Poles, Oddities, Stuff for Sale, Vintage |

Low productivity levels among telegraph pole linesmen was causing serious concern among New Zealand P.O. bosses as the 1960s came to a close. Research led them to believe this was because of unhappy home lives and if they could somehow spice up marital harmony then this trend could be reversed.

A short-lived experiment ensued in which 120 pairs of No. 1 S&M kits were handed to linesmen across three districts: Rotorua, Auckland and Christchurch. They failed however to provide explicit instructions as to their intended use and the baffled pole engineers took them home to humour their bosses.

However by the end of the six month trial period productivity had actually increased in these key areas. Dramatically so in the case of Rotorua. It turns out that the enterprising linesmen had discovered that these fierce looking devices could be attached to their legs and thus enabled them to climb poles way quicker than they ever could using a ladder. Whilst the love lives of the workers hadn’t changed, their speed up a telegraph pole had accelerated four-fold.

Embarrassed bosses back-tracked and reported that this had been their intention all along and that “leg irons” should thenceforth be issued as standard to the workforce.

The set you see below was bought by Judy Pittman at a car-swap meet in Nelson, S. Island. She was delighted to learn the history of them from me but intimated she would be keen to sell them to any of our readers were interested in adding these fascinating love-aids to their paraphernalia collections. She would be happy to post to the UK but reports that postage would cost £36. If anybody is interested, do drop me a line to martin@telegraphpoleappreciationsociety.org and I will pass on your details.

  • Photo shows the teeth of a telegraph pole linesman's leg iron. Used for climbing poles
  • Part of aluminium leg iron - used by linesmen to climb telegraph pole and trees etc.
  • A set of aluminium leg irons - when strapped to the legs these allow engineers to climb poles.
3 Dec 2017

The Fabled Lost Pole of Bala Leisure Centre

posted in: Art, History, Stuff for Sale, Vintage |

We’ve had a fabled lost tape-measure in this house for many years now – last seen when putting some shelves up under the stairs. Apparently, it’s right where I left it according to Mrs TPAS.

Anyway another futile hunt for same earlier put me in mind of a conversation I once had with Ged McCarthy the old pole prospector from them thar Mersey hills. We were sat around his camp fire in a layby on the B5105 late one night, eating beans from a tin and retelling tales about poles of yore, stay wires, double grooves and all that when he started to scratch out a map in the dirt on the back of his van and proceeded to mark an X.

“Ooh aar!”, he said, “Arr!”, he insisted, “Arr! here be found the remains of the fabulously fabled five-armed pole of Bala Leisure Centre.” {further oohs and arrs omitted for brevity} “Lost for many a year in the undergrowth it be, and nobody that has set eyes upon it has ever lived longer than a lifespan.” he warned. My spine chilled – Ged’s mate Deggsie had spilled Special Brew all down my back.

So magnificent is this pole that back in the 1920s they used to run bus trips to see it. People came from as far away as Norwich to gaze upon its tall wooden sticky-uppy grandeur. Slowly, though, fashions changed, fibre broadband arrived and BT Openreach came along and stuck a ‘D’ plate on it and its fabledness became lost to mankind.

Not any longer, because now you can light up the walls in your office/lounge/kitchen/bedroom/massage parlour with our reproduction of the original art-deco unoriginal fabled tour poster of the day. These come in A2 size (420 x 594 mm), unframed, satin finish all posted in a lovely refreshing cardboard tube. Just what your Christmas pressie idea head-scratching was looking for and only £8.99 plus p&p. And while you’re doing your Crimbo shopping you really ought to stock up on our diamond-encrusted*1 Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners book. Key Stages 1-4 will delight, amuse, educate and something else your appreciative gift recipient – and they might just buy you something much nicer in return.
And if you enter the code IAMSKINT during checkout you’ll get 10% off everything – yes, everything: posters, memberships, mugs, books, everything. So just buy everything. What are you waiting for?The fabled lost pole of bala leisure centre
*1 We use only the finest homeopathic diamonds to encrust our books.

12 Nov 2017

Christmas shopping

posted in: Stuff for Sale |

Well the Christmas tree has been up in the Feathers for nearly a month now so it must be time.  And John Lewis has rolled out it’s Sesame street tear-jerker-give-us-all-your-money Christmas advert and everyone else is already hard at it on the telly and that…  So here’s our very own take on the Christmas hard sell.

The following people off your present lists would benefit immensely from opening “Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners (Key Stages 1-4) this crimble day :  Uncles Derek, Geoff (1), Bryan, Brian, Jim, Geoff (2).  Aunties Vi, Brenda, Caroline, Julie, Debbie, Margaret, Imogen*1 Grandad on mam’s side. Grandad on her side.  Nana, the other Nana.  The one we call Nana but isn’t really one.  Mates:  Dave (1, 2 & 3), Eddie, Bob, Brian, Andy, Jez, Jaz, etc.  Lady acquaintances: Sue, Carol, Jenny, Kath, Lesley, Wendy.  Plus the following sundry persons:  The entire populations of the counties of, Leicestershire, Northants, Hants, Devon, Cornwall (is that a county?) Northumberland, Cumberland, Lancs, Yorks, Wiltshire, Shropshire, Cheshire, Borsetshire, all those ending in “sex” down south, Wales, Scotland, Ireland.  And any other counties I can’t think of right now.  Oh and John, mustn’t forget John.

Just imagine their 60 million little faces lighting up on yuletide morn as they gaze upon that beautiful wipe-clean cover revealing 150 pages of pure telegraph pole indulgence.  And all for just £9.99 plus p&p. Get your copies here.

telegraph pole appreciation for beginners (key stages 1-4)
*1 Nobody seriously has an Aunty Imogen surely! Imogen is just not an auntie name.

Telegraph Pole Appreciation for Beginners
27 Sep 2017

TPAS BOOK LAUNCH. Here, right now…

posted in: Stuff for Sale |

This is the book you’ve all been waiting for. And probably your entire lives if only you knew it. Prize-winning*1 author Martin Evans has put together 150 pages of the finest, most colourful, most distalgesic telegraphic information and other stuff about your favourite tall wooden sticky-uppy things. Many years in the making. It’s got 150 shiny pages, a front, a back, an inside as well as an outside and words galore. Plus we know you love facts so we’ve put in some of those as well. This is the book that just keeps on giving.

Here are three words that the publishers used to describe this book:

  • Humourous
  • Whimsical
  • Eccentric

Here are three more words. The ones the publishers didn’t use.

  • Audacious
  • Heartwarming
  • Cumulonimbus

Order one today and you’ll also receive some free love sent in your direction by our in-house giver of love, Mrs T. All this and a beautiful wealth-enhancing price tag specially selected just for you.  <CLICK HERE> to get yours now.

Orders restricted to 100 copies per customer. Sorry, but we are having to be strict on this one.

*1 Low Jump competition, Bronington Primary School, 3rd Place; British Sausage Time wrist watch prize draw: 1st place; 12 tins Kattomeat in Wrexham Evening Leader wordsearch competition, ca 1983: 1st place; Gallon of 5W-30 engine oil in Betws school PTA evening tombola: so 1st again.

**IMPORTANT** IF YOU WANT THE AUTHOR TO SIGN YOUR BOOK, PLEASE SAY WHO AND WHAT ETC. IN THE NOTES ON CHECKOUT. IF MR EVANS HAS ARISEN FOR THE DAY I’LL DO IT THEN.

6 Nov 2012

Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society MUGS

posted in: Stuff for Sale |

A Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society MugOctober 29th it was when the checkout girl asked the person behind me – and I kid you not –  “Are you ready for Christmas?” Well I had to be restrained! I’d already been hearing Noddy Holder grinding out his annual fingernails-on-a-blackboard thing down at the garden centre for days by then.

We should all do well to remember that Christmas is only 99% about crass commercialisation and the endless purveyance of tat. The other 1% is about you parting with £8.99 to grab for yourself (or someone else) one of our all-new Yo ho ho! Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society Mugs.

Each mug has…

  • A handle.
  • A hollow bit in the middle for the tea.
  • A bottom.
  • Magnificent splendour.
  • A picture of a telegraph pole on one side.
  • And on the other
  • And some nice Technicolour www writing on the bottom.
  • A light buff cardboard super-strong box that it comes in.

What’s more, we have 3 special pricing plans so that everyone can afford one of these wonderfully collectable treasures.

Option 1 :  £8.99 including free P&P

Option 2 :  £5.99 only + £3.00 P&P

Option 3 : For our more skint telegraph pole fans we have easy terms on the tick: 2 instalments of £3.00 with a final payment of £2.99 all consolidated into a special one-off easy payment of £8.99.

You just can’t go wrong. So click that button now*1. Once for every person in your life who loves telegraph poles.  If you live in America or anywhere that’s not the UK then contact us first, please – there’s virtually nowt in this for us as it is !

 

 

*1 Offer limited to 1,000 mugs per household.

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