December 22nd, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Get that turkey plucked, Matron; it's fast approaching Christmas - that magical time when we all look forward to the year ahead and wonder what it might bring.

And that can mean only one thing.

That I'm looking in completely the wrong direction and looking back to 1976!

But what a year it was!

Well, I say that. I can barely remember a thing about it. I think we've already established that the only memory I have of it is that Kevin Keegan fell off his bike.

But I do know that, forty years ago today, When a Child is Born by Johnny Mathis was the UK Christmas Number One. Bionic Santa by Chris Hill was at Number Ten and Ring Out The Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull was at Number Twenty Eight.

Amazingly, those three tracks were the only Christmas songs in the Top Forty that week. I can only conclude that Christmas was still viewed as a newfangled, fancy, foreign thing and therefore not as big an event as it is nowadays.

Meanwhile, on this day of forty years ago, at 10:30 AM, BBC One was showing The Great Grape Ape Show. This week's episode was called Grape Marks the Spot and starred Grape Ape and Beagley Beagley and Bailey's Comets in Kenya Catch that Clue. Frankly, if any of that made any sense to you, you have better powers of comprehension than I do. It has to be the most baffling TV listing I've ever seen.

Also showing on BBC One that morning was the original Flash Gordon, plus Tarzan's Desert Mystery.

Later that night, that selfsame channel was showing its adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Signalman - an adaptation that is still spoken of in hushed whispers, to this very day.

What's this? Women being burned at the stake? Angry locals with flaming torches? Half-timbered dwellings with thatched roofs?

It can only be 1970s England.

The award for The World's Least Observant Ape goes to...

What's this? Men in kilts? Sporrans? Lairds, broth and castles? It can only be 1970s Scotland!

It's that legendary moment when the Hulk fights the Loch Ness Monster, even though they can't quite bring themselves to admit it's the Loch Ness Monster.

I believe this is that story where the Shocker uses strategically planned blackouts to spell out his name, using the buildings of New York as letters. Some might call that  a trifle ostentatious.

I also believe the Avengers tale is the one where our heroes come up against Magneto and his Beast-Men or whatever they're called, and the Vision decides he's incapable of love because the call of the Lorelei doesn't affect him

Even I, a mere child, could spot the flaw in his logic, as it clearly merely proved he had ears made of plastic. For a man with a computer for a brain, he didn't seem to be very logical.

Finally, we have to finish this post with the results of our biggest poll yet.

And that's the poll to discover your favourite incarnation of legendary super-hero stalker Rick Jones.

There were thirty three votes in total, and the results were as follows:

The Hulk's third wheel	9 (27%)
The Avengers' third wheel	4 (12%)
Captain America's third wheel	2 (6%)
Captain Marvel's third wheel	12 (36%)
The Teen Brigade's absentee leader	2 (6%)
A-Bomb!	0 (0%)
The Whisperer	0 (0%)
The singing sensation	2 (6%)
Some other incarnation	2 (6%)

So, there you have it. The world's favourite incarnation of Rick Jones is as Captain Marvel's Third Wheel. Don't forget you heard it here first - and don't forget to tell all your friends that you heard it here first, because it's the sort of thing that will no doubt impress them.

Thanks to you for voting, and Merry Christmas to you all.