Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

One of the most regular things I’ve done my blog these past 10 years is share blog posts on the first Monday of May every year. For many outside the UK, this isn’t a massive deal. But in the UK, we have our Early Bank Holiday Monday in the first week of May to enjoy. 🙂

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!

And this is the tagline I would often use to announce the fact that it’s Early Bank Holiday Monday in the first week of May. My inspiration for this tagline came from seeing the ‘Thunderbirds’ episode ‘Operation: Crash-Dive’ where one of the characters said that. 🙂

I’ve tried to create a mystery surrounding the “Mayday” tagline. As if it was part of some unknown force trying to insert itself into my “Mayday” blog posts by saying that tagline. But I never found a satisfying resolution to the mystery and quite frankly, I’m not bothered.

It’s one of these things where I’ve played it as a joke and it doesn’t matter if it’s a mystery that gets unresolved. I’m just happy I can use the tagline to announce that the blog post on the first Monday in the month of May every year celebrates Early Bank Holiday Monday.

The first “Mayday” blog post I did on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ was in 2016 where I announced my ‘Nyssa Challenge’ reviews on the ‘Doctor Who’ story ‘Earthshock’, both the TV story and the Target novelization by Ian Marter with the audiobook that’s read by Peter Davison.

It wasn’t planned I would include the “Mayday” tagline in one of my ‘Nyssa Challenge’ blog posts to announce my ‘Earthshock’ reviews. I was sharing my original marathon of ‘Nyssa Challenge’ reviews on Mondays from the end of January 2016 to mid-June 2017. 🙂

It just happened that my ‘Nyssa Challenge’ blog post for ‘Earthshock’ was on Early Bank Holiday Monday in May 2016. So, I came up with the “Mayday” tagline on the spot. And I’ve been utilising the tagline for every Early Bank Holiday Monday blog post since then. 🙂

In 2017, my “Mayday” blog post was for the Big Finish audio story ‘Eldrad Must Die!’. I was coming to the end of my original ‘Nyssa Challenge’ review marathon from 2016 to 2017 then. It’s very fitting my 2017 “Mayday” blog post was for ‘The Nyssa Challenge’ once more.

When it came to my “Mayday” blog post in May 2018, I decided to do something different. I visited Swansea in the weekend before Early Bank Holiday Monday happened. So, I decided to share my photos of going to Swansea Beach for my 2018 “Mayday” blog post.

This was like a pre-birthday blog post for me, as Early Bank Holiday Monday often happens before my birthday. 😀 I enjoyed going to Swansea at the time. I must do a blog post about me visiting Barry Island sometime, whether it’s for a “Mayday” blog post or not.

In 2019, I shared a new page and my reviews on the ‘Beast Wars: Transformers’ TV series. In 2020, my “Happy Birthday to Me!” blog post happened to be on Early Bank Holiday in May, except it wasn’t on a Monday this time. This happened on a Friday instead.

This was also to tie-in with the V.E. Day 75th anniversary celebrations at the time, and it was during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 when it happened. In 2021, I shared a blog post about Season 18 of ‘Doctor Who’ with Tom Baker and Season 19 with Peter Davison.

In 2022, my “Mayday” blog post was the first one of the ‘Star Wars’ Week, where I reshared my reviews on the prequels trilogy. In 2023, my “Mayday” blog post was in the ‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon on my blog and on ‘The Armageddon Factor’.

In 2024, I shared my in-depth CD reviews on the ‘Timeslip’ audio stories ‘A Life Never Lived’ and ‘The Time of the Tipping Point’. And this year, I began updating my ‘Beast Wars’ reviews with my “Mayday” blog post on the first ‘Beast Wars’ story. What will be next for “Mayday”? 😀

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂