how dare they kill off Ben Kenobi?

TV Oh for pity's sake.

Over and over and over and over, we've been told by people who like telling us these things that the youff of today (well since the 90s) are far more media literate than ever and can grasp the messages they're receiving far faster and with greater depth than ever before. Steven Johnson wrote a whole book about this. It has charts demonstrating how the average episode of 24 is basically impenetrable to anyone without a young mind capable of cumulative long term memory.

If the finale of Torchwood has proved anything, it's that there is a (hopefully) small minority of people for whom:

(a) None of the above is true
(b) Have no idea about the language of television
(c) Can't tell the difference between a news item and a "review"
(d) Think that sending abuse to one of the writers is a pleasant and clever way to conduct business
(d) Shouldn't be allowed anywhere near proper drama again basically.

Kirsty Walker's article is an attempt to sum up the "fan" reaction to the death of Ianto and how it spilled out into the hate mail directed towards James Moran. It's not a review. It's not about the general public reaction. And yet the comments section spends its time criticising it for not being a review and not mentioning the ratings most horrendously comparing it to The Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough Tragedy.

To stereotypically paraphrase the response in these comments, on Twitter and elsewhere: "How dare you kill Ianto. He was the reason I watch Torchwood and how very dare you make him and Jack into a couple and then kill him off you homophobes and you didn't develop their relationship properly. I'm never watching the programme again. You just keep bringing in these characters and then killing them off after we've started to like them. Why would we want to watch it again. Bastards. Lusers."

Anyone with quarter of a brain can see the flaws in that so I'm not going to bother outlining them too much. It's just fairly shocking that the very people who profess themselves to be fans of the series can't deconstruct it on the most basic of levels. Banging on about the rift being open in Cardiff and the SUV being stolen and then entirely the subtext that ran through the rest of the series about humanity being the real monsters. Remember that tense scene in the board room about how they're going to organise the collection of the children? Boring and too long apparently (according to someone on Twitter).

Also, over and over throughout all three series now, one of the underlying ideas is that if you join Torchwood, it'll kill you. It was the basis for whole episodes and what Jack was talking about in his final speech before being beamed up; so the death of Ianto shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Well it was a surprise because of when it happened (though on-reflection it was forshadowed throughout the episode) and its sudden brutality, but from the first episode on, its been underscored that with the exception of Jack, everybody dies.

How can you and I see that but not MJ who writes: "I don’t care to see a series four that doesn’t have any recognizable characters, or that I can now fear will merely kill off whatever characters are introduced. Why should I warm up to characters who are simply destined to be eliminated pointlessly,or allow myself as a viewer to care about what happens to them?" Well, yes, it's a point, but you've clearly been watching a different programme to me. Plus, you must have a real problem with Star Wars. I mean how dare they kill off Ben Kenobi half way through, I mean what's that about?

I don't remember it being this bad for Wash and Book or Tara ...

"Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;"

Books Up until recently, it was generally accepted that William Shakespeare’s final play was The Tempest; there was some historic evidence, not least that it was the first play to appear in the Folio that was published just after his death and how best to commemorate a genius than with their latest, perhaps last work. There’s also the romantic notion that Prospero’s final speech isn’t simply concluding the play but the writer’s career, one final humble exclamation to his audience before retirement:

“[..] Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.”

Sadly, as Jonathan Bate’s brilliant biography, Soul of the Age, demonstrates, Shakespeare’s retirement was a myth. He continued working right through to his death, his hand potentially seen all over the place, his final work most probably the collaboration with upcoming playwright John Fletcher, Two Noble Kinsmen. After all, the man died at the age of fifty-two. He was wealthy, he didn’t need to work, but like similarly successful artists across the years, the impulse to create overwhelmed the potential for leisure.

Bate’s motive here (just as it was in the RSC complete works completed simultaneously) is mythbusting, though he comes not bury Shakespeare but to praise him. Taking Jacques’s seven ages of man speech from As You Like It as a backbone (“All The World’s A Stage…”), he traces through Shakespeare’s life extrapolating him onto those ages, but rather than offering a straight biography, he instead charts his external world, his historical context, gathering the collective miscellany of experiences he must have had in order to write the plays, poems and sonnets.

For example: many biographies give short shrift to his school days; they aren’t well documented and often there’s a preference to motor on to the juicy gossip, his marriage to Anne Hathaway and thence to London. Instead, Bate, using what evidence is available and applying a curriculum from a similar school, conducts a forensic year on year investigation into how Shakespeare may have been educated listing the books he must have studied and then, and here’s where it gets interesting, demonstrates how that learning blossoms within the plays, notably Plutarch (Anthony & Cleopatra, Coriolanus).

From there he sets about attempting to construct the personal library Shakespeare must have kept, suggesting books he must have read in translation and in their own language providing yet more examples from the texts, even to the point of suggesting which edition of the bible he would have had to hand, the heavily annotated Genova. The point he returns to again and again, is that far from the words and ideas popping into the bard’s mind, he was instead a literary magpie, grabbing snatches of language and ideas and themes and slotting them in to fit his own aims.

In other words, he was a writer. The effect should be to decrease our appreciation of the man and his work because it slowly becomes apparent that his original thought was rather less and the legend suggests. But curiously it simply increases our appreciation because though Shakespeare would often take old plays and texts and rewrite them, hammering in all of these allusions, the taste with which this was accomplished and the psychological, thematic and dramatic depth that shimmers through them is breathtaking.

And so Bate continues, explaining how the court scenes will have been influenced by his own brushes with Stratford law in cases related to land rights and how sexual scandal, which appears to have been rife in town, bubbles under in the likes of Measure for Measure. We’re given a thorough description of his contemporaries, his rivals and friends and so the circumstance in which many of the plays would have been written or revived, forever underscoring that though Shakespeare was the greatest writer of most times, he was also a businessman.

Though the cover suggests that it’s from the popular history genre, Bate never shies away from intellectual rigour; in places it reads like one of Stephen Fry’s deviations on QI, as he enjoys the opportunity to demonstrate the depth of his knowledge and simply lets fact after fact spill out on top of one another. Sometimes that can lead the text into areas that are difficult to pursue without a strong knowledge of the text (most impenetrably in a passage about The Tempest which I read twice and still couldn’t quite follow).

But turn a few pages and there’s something new; a useful discussion of the sonnets which, simply by unfurling the publication history (posthumous, exploitative) untangles the idea that in their present form they tell a biographical story of the artist’s amorous extra-marital entanglements, suggesting that there may have been more than one boy, who the dark lady might be and that in any case that these poems may not have been expressing Shakespeare’s own feelings but those of a fictional construct no more realistic than Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet or Falstaff ...

links for 2009-07-12

• AudioBoo / Stephen Fry On Piracy
  "We all know that advert that is on every fucking dvd..."
  
  
• the pen is mightier than the spork: Stepping back
  James Moran, Torchwood writer talks about the "fan" reaction. Ianto Jones was a *television* character for goodness sake.
  
  
• Louise Bagshawe on being a novelist-turned-politician | Politics | The Observer
  My (only?) favourite Tory talks about the why.
  
  
• BBC - Radio 4 Blog: America, Empire of Liberty
  Professor David Reynolds reflects on the experience of writing and presenting his 90-part history series.

The Spotify Playlist Obscure Charity Record Special

(or the best of the rest)



The Wishing Well

Having dodged a bullet by not being in Doctor Who when Doctor In Distress was released, Sylvester McCoy offers his vocal talents to aid Great Ormand Street Hospital. The b-side features the 'cast' wishing the listener a Happy Christmas "Hello Rat Fans, I just want to wish you all a very merry Christmas, yeaaaauuuuhhh." That sort of thing.



Ferry Aid

Boy George and Hazel O'Connor again. Shows once again that in terms of charity records, cover versions are the best way to go and if you can rope in Sir Paul, so much the better. The freeze frame which accompanies the YouTube video just shows a sea of people with long hair. It's difficult to tell the boys and girls apart.



Artists Against AIDS Worldwide

Or as it seems to have been called in the US, The Mtv Allstars. This was the period when I bought Rolling Stones regularly and still watched music television on a regular basis and became quite interested in R&B. I'd forgotten how much I liked Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child and the Gwen Stefani record. There were two versions of the video. The one above goes for the usual screaming into a microphone model. The other uses an interesting blindfold motif and is by far the more entertaining:

links for 2009-07-11

• Save Ianto Jones
  That didn't take long ... "Join us, and send a packet of coffee (or three or four, if the mood so takes you!) to this address. We're all doing it; it's fairly cheap and easy to do, and makes our point in a peaceful way. "
  
  
• Mt. Kilimanjaro - to the Roof of Africa: Kili 09 Day Nine: Hell on Earth
  Neil's gutwrenching post about reaching the summit. I'm not sure I'd have the will to do something like that.
  
  
• fourth edition : Lost in Fiction – RIP?
  Karie explains why indie bookshops tend to fail. It's no good these days just offering the same as everyone else. Pity it has such a cool name.
  
  
• How to scan a cat and other subjects - The Globe and Mail
  Lovely profile of Metafilter which perfectly captures its spirit.
  
  
• Topless Robot - So You Might Want to Hold Off on That Watchmen Director's Cut DVD
  Noted. Thanks.
  
  
  

the shelves were empty

Commerce The Head (formerly Zavvi) shop at the Liverpool One shopping precinct is closing in August. Passing through this morning I noticed half the shelves were empty and much of the stock is heavily discounted. When I ask an assistant what was happening and she told me I could tell she'd been on something of a roller-coaster over it, her job looking secure and now -- not. I picked up a copy of Twister (Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton chasing tornadoes) for £1.76 and left.

There hasn't been anything in the news as far as I can tell so either the management company which bought out these stores has been unable to turn the new business into a going concern or they're scaling back operations and shutting the less profitable stores. Either way, it reduces the number of city centre specialist music and entertainment retailers to HMV and err that's about it -- with CEX picking up the second hand trade and WH Smiths and the hundred odd Tesco stores offering their narrow stock choices.

It's my fault of course, as I've said before. I don't go to these places unless there's a sale on and even then I've a fair idea of what's available online and more often than not it's still cheaper and I'm buying even less music, as predicted, with the advent of Spotify. When entertainment media is so prevalent, so available, the more traditional business models can't cope.

If I get a ying to listen to some of Julie London's back catalogue and its something I haven't already got, I just need to fire of the software, do the search, click and few times and there she is. It might be clinical, it might not have the same resonance of being in a record shop with the shared experience, but it is cheaper (free) and in these times, the price of eggs, bacon and sausage trumps almost everything else...

Elsewhere The reason I didn't go to bed until half one this morning.

links for 2009-07-10

• Kermode/Mayo podcasts make leap to TV | News | Broadcast
  Well good. If it's as good as the Edinburgh pilot it should be something special. And yes, stand alone episodes would be just the thing; like small half hour film lectures. As well as genres it would be neat if they covered the likes of editing, plotting and sound.
  
  
• the pen is mightier than the spork: Torchwood. Children of Earth. Day Four.
  I predicted a riot and here it is as the Ianto/Jack 'shippers go mental at James Moran's blog. Even though he didn't write the episode.
  
  
• Can you have a musical without live music? | Tom Service | Music | guardian.co.uk
  "Cellist Adrian Bradbury successfully sued the Lowry in Manchester for staging The Wizard of Oz to a backing tape." The biggest problem about this story is that it makes me think even less of The Lowry.
  
  
• elzr: Backbars on social link-sites
  "Backbars on social link-sites is a GreaseMonkey script to turn the headlines and comments of social link-sites into ambient bar charts (of votes/diggs/views/users…) It works on Reddit, Delicious, Digg, Hacker News, and Stack Overflow (and MetaFilter now!)."

Elsewhere Just in case you hadn't already assumed I've posted reviews of Torchwood's Day Three and Day Fourherherheerrrr at Behind The Sofa.

links for 2009-07-09

• Scribe tapped for 'Spider-Man 4'
  Gary Ross is rewriting Spider-Man 4. Wow. Having had to study his work at university, he's essentially made a career out of 'reimagining' Frank Capra's filmography. Spider-man seems closest to 'John Doe'. At least we can rest easy about it being half literate.
  
  
• BBC1 plans peaktime arts series | Media | guardian.co.uk
  These seem to be straight documentaries rather than something presenter led which is a bold step for the channel -- this looks like the kind of thing which you'd expect to turn up on BBC Four or at the very least BBC Two. It certainly makes a change from the usual routine of Rolf Harris patronising us for half an hour. But which end of peak time will it be?
  
  
• 5 Doctor Who universe characters who could join Torchwood - Den of Geek
  Random if amusing speculation. Despite an annoying start Chrissie turned into one of my favourite Whoniverse characters. Any woman who thinks a cherry necklace is acceptable is ok in my book.
  
  
• Lancashire County Cricket Club: The Ashes Are Coming To Sefton Park
  "The next best thing to being at the match, npower Cricket in the Park allows you, your friends and family to have the best day out of the summer watching the live Ashes action on a big screen with thousands of other fans ... plus much more."
  
  
• 15 Movies That Were Almost Turned Into TV Series
  Includes a hilarious comment from Kevin Smith on the subject of the failed Clerks tv pilot: "Keri Russell was in it as some chick who worked in a tanning parlor that was also in the strip mall. I was, like, ‘There’s no tanning parlor in the strip mall!’
  
  
• keris stainton: Get Gilbert*
  "The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you." Having had some nice comments about the Torchwood reviews which I thought were the rubbish late night meanderings of a tired illiterate this is something I have to keep remembering. But do I really want to be the Lester Bangs of the Whoniverse?
  
  
• Popjustice: He's just saying what they're all thinking
  Calvin Harris asked to open jam jar as part of ITV's Wireless Festival. Predictable non-hilarity ensues.
  
  
• The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry: The Spectator Lecture, Royal Geographical Society, presented in London 30th April 2009
  "Here we are. Gathered together in the very lecture theatre where Henry Morton Stanley once told an enraptured world of his momentous meeting with Dr. Livingstone. Charles Darwin was a member and gave talks in this same hall. Sir Richard Burton lectured here and John Hanning Speke … spoke ..."
  
  
• The Torchwood experience | Scott Matthewman
  Last week, The Stage's TV blog offered some excellent Torchwood related content. In here, Scott describes the rationale and comments on the web reaction.

links for 2009-07-08

• Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star - 4oD - Channel 4
  Did anyone else watch this?
  
  
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? - 4oD - Channel 4
  All of the British episodes. Notice how the suggestions become markedly less intellectual once John Session leaves. If I remember rightly he once managed to do a whole sketch in the style of Ben Johnson. Classic.
  
  
• St Elsewhere - 4oD - Channel 4
  All six seasons. I wonder if someone somewhere will work their way through. This is quite a coup.
  
  
• Smack the Pony - Channel 4
  Thanks goodness. The video compilation is clearly inadequate.
  
  
• Paul Merton: The Series - 4oD - Channel 4
  I have a feeling this (like Spotify) is being done on an indie by indie basis. I think all of the Hatrick series are on here.
  
  
• North Square - 4oD - Channel 4
  The best legal drama you've never seen. Because if you had it would have got a second series.
  
  
• GBH - 4oD - Channel 4
  Calm, calm, calm.
  
  
• Faking It - Episode Guide - Channel 4
  Which episode do you remember? I saw the cellist turned DJ Sian Evans on a train not long afterwards. Best I can make out she's at the Ulster Orchestra...
  
  
• Drop the Dead Donkey - 4oD - Channel 4
  "George?" "Yes Alex." "You know the MPs expenses row..." Gosh I wish this was still around to comment on our heady times. "Oh my viking! Oh my norse warrior!"
  
  
• Dressing for Breakfast - 4oD - Channel 4
  One of my favourite ever sitcoms though unlike Desmonds none of the episodes have their own title. Shame.
  
  
• Desmond's - 4oD - Channel 4
  I mean they have the whole of Desmonds. Lovely titles "The Peckham Pimpernel" "Smokeless Fuming" "Vanity Merchants".
  
  
• Chelmsford 123 - Series 1 - Channel 4
  How can the whole of Streetmate be on 4oD and not this? Someone sign the contracts now!
  
  
• Cape Wrath - Series 1 - Channel 4
  I love the way this hopefully says "Series One". Hello to David Morissey.
  
  
• The Camomile Lawn - 4oD - Channel 4
  Reminded again of The Fourmative Years: "Aah, The Camomile Lawn featuring the woman with the alabaster breasts..."
  
  
• The Book Group - 4oD - Channel 4
  The mythic though it is out on dvd. I wonder what that James Lance is doing now...
  
  
• Blue Heaven - 4oD - Channel 4
  One of the most miserabalist sitcoms ever. Apparently it nearly killed Frank from fatigue in the making.
  
  
• Banzai - 4oD - Channel 4
  Probably worth seeing again from a pop cultural perspective. Just what is TPT doing now?
  
  
• The Adam and Joe Show - 4oD - Channel 4
  Doesn't include The Fourmative Years unfortunately. Pick, pick, pick.
  
  
• Absolutely - 4oD - Channel 4
  Just want to keep track of some things I might want to watch later. Look -- Absolutely!
  
  
• The Stage / News / Coronation Street moves under ITV schedule overhaul
  ITV really have stopped caring about innovation haven't they? Major schedule overhaul means moving the soaps around a bit just in case the football's on. “We’re delighted that Thursday evenings on ITV1 will be a great showcase for soap from Weatherfield and the Woolpack" (as opposed to every other night of the week...)
  
  
• Chicane's "Poppiholla" cover tackles Sigur Ros, racial prejudice | My Chemical Toilet
  That really is appalling. Horrible cover version backed up by the kind of hackneyed god-awful liberalism that gives us liberals a bad name by being inadvertently racist whilst attempting to combat racism. You might as well redo the tea shop scene from Withnail & I using The Wayans Brothers. Or something. Stuart's analysis is correct and hilarious.
  
  
• The History Blog » Blog Archive » A Roman mosaic the size of my first apartment
  "The 1700 year old, 600 square foot (180 square meter) masterpiece was first found in Lod, Israel, 13 years ago. It’s a riot of gorgeousness, full of colors, exotic animals, seafaring scenes, swirly decorative motifs, and it’s almost complete"
  
  
• This is an ad » This is an ad for Air New Zealand
  Those uniforms must take a while to put on in the morning. Talk about long haul etc.

offering intelligent discourse

Film This new essay from Roger Ebert is worth posting in-line. It's about the reaction to his review of Transformers 2 in which he was lambasted for being out of touch and/or only giving it a poor review because it's "clearly" not the sort of film he likes. Once particular quote stands out:

"What disturbs me is when I'm specifically told that I know too much about movies, have "studied" them, go into them "too deep," am always looking for things the average person doesn't care about, am always mentioning things like editing or cinematography, and am forever comparing films to other films."

That's me! That's been said to me over and over again, ad infinitum and usually by people (some of whom might even be reading this) who've asked me what I thought of a particular movie in the first place then don't like a proper thought out answer as though being informed and having an opinion is a bad thing.

And hating something like Transformers (I've yet to endure the sequel) has nothing to do with not liking that kind of film or not 'getting' what Michael Bay is trying to do. I'm one of the three people who adores The Island. It's that it's poorly written, horribly directed and pisses a much loved franchise up a wall.

links for 2009-07-07

• Creative Review - London's 7/7 memorial
  "I decided to use the 19th Century, un-tutored, signmakers' sanserif you see on buildings around the city as a starting point and draw a bespoke font for the job," Baines explains. "The lettering is set in capitals-only to provide maximum character area."
  
  
• McFilter: Liverpool Architecture Society's Integrated City Project
  "A few days ago I found out about a project that the Liverpool Architecture Society is in the process of launching. The Integrated City Project is a challenge to look at ways of reconnecting the various districts and areas of Liverpool and working out a cohesive set of suggestions and plans for how best to develop the city."
  
  
• Man With a Movie Camera :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies
  One of my favourite films, a cavalcade if imagery that was waay ahead of its time, though you do have to be careful to watch a version with a decent soundtrack. There are few rotters out there.
  
  
• Bad Science: Steve Connor is an angry man
  Ben gives his counterpart at The Independent a talking to. The response letter to the editor is hilarious.
  
  
• ishouldbeworking: Turd
  Frank account of problems with the toilet and visiting thereof. Since it's nearly a week later, I hope you've been. Also, eat lots apples. That tends to shift it for me.

Elsewhere My review of Torchwood: Day Two, in which, much like the episode, I largely reiterate what I've said before.

the voice of a mega-fan

About On of my Radio Torchwood reviews has been mentioned at the Radio 4 blog:

"The most entertaining blog post Shownar exposes is this one, by Stuart Ian Burns on the Behind the Sofa blog. Stuart's not entirely won over by the radio version ("generally underwhelmed" he says) but then this is the voice of a mega-fan and he does find some kind words for writer Anita Sullivan.

[...]

I hope that Kate McAll and her team will be reading this one - I think there's a valuable fan's perspective on offer here. This is the kind of direct access to the opinions of listeners that these social media tools make possible. BBC programme makers will inevitably already have bookmarked Shownar."

Thanks Steve!

Elsewhere An initial burst of enthusiasm for the new tv Torchwood. I hope it can keep it up ...

links for 2009-07-06

• Elizabeth Banks's blog
  She funny: "I'm not sure what Face of the Future means, but it's a little sci-fi, a little naughty and a tad preposterous."
  
  
• Veronica Mars coming to UK
  John reports that Veronia Mars is finally making it to the UK.
  
  
• Sefton Park Lake « image cellar
  Somehow makes the park look like Canada.
  
  
• Headlines and Deadlines: Discovering the joys of FriendDeck
  "I'm still playing around with it but on first impressions I'd have to say it works well - it's very fast, user-friendly, looks like Tweetdeck (which is a good thing) and has the ability to share, like or open the original link."

links for 2009-07-05

• Spotify: Lenka – Lenka
  This is rather good; a Lily Allen with a kinder sound?
  
  
• 
  
  Where Did It All Go Right: Carry On Camping
  Andrew Collins gives Glastonbury a thorough going over.

stuck with you

Meme The fifteen books which have stuck with you. In no particular order:

Return of the Native
Prozac Nation
Father Time
Have Spacesuit Will Travel
The Midnight Folk
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
Longitude
Spike Mike Slackers and Dykes
Public Art Collections In North-West England
Travels With My Radio
William Shakespeare: Complete Works
Adventures In The Screentrade
84 Charing Cross Road
Schott's Miscellany
To The Lighthouse

[via]

The Spotify Playlist

gated set, originally uploaded by chameleonic.

Torchwood Titles

Regular readers will know that I generally have a love though mostly hate relationship with the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. It's a bizarre thing, a folly, adult drama played out in the universe of a family adventure which has never settled into one particular tone so desperate is it not to play by any rules even if those rules govern such boring things as narrative coherence and logical character development.

Over time I've realised that best way to watch the show must be with the kind of revere required for some art films in which our usual expectations for what should be happening and what we've been trained to expect from fiction have to be ignored in favour of what's in front of us and that it probably works on its own terms. In other words, if Last Year at Marienbad can be acceptable entertainment why not an arc story about a living corpse who dies anyway?

Most of the following reviews were written in the wee small hours after the late broadcast of an episode as I wrestled with the thorny problem of trying to have a coherent opinion and attempt to word it in a coherent manner before falling asleep at the keyboard. To read them in order is probably to find someone slowly but surely going insane ...

Season One

Everything Changes
Day One
Ghost Machine
Cyberwoman
Small Worlds
Countrycide
Greeks Bearing Gifts
They Keep Killing Suzie
Random Shoes
Out of Time
Combat
Captain Jack Harkness
End of Days

Season Two

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Sleeper
To the Last Man
Meat
Adam
Reset
Dead Man Walking
A Day in the Death
Something Borrowed
From Out of the Rain
Adrift
Fragments
Exit Wounds

Radio Plays

Lost Souls
Asylum
Golden Age
The Dead Line

[Wow, I'd forgotten about giving Cyberwoman a positive review. And most of the second series...]

links for 2009-07-04

• BrokenTV: Wheeling Out The BBC Shockometer
  Mark schools the Daily Fail on their coverage of the BBC's Glastonbury coverage. One of these days I'd love the BBC to turn around and make a Panarama about the Mail in the same style ripping the piss out of their practices but they won't because they're too polite. And publicly funded.

The penny farthing on the sign

Food I chose the Curtain Call Guest House because of the name and somewhat because of the price (£35 a night). It’s about fifteen minutes outside the town centre, which meant I had the daily anticipation of going to Stratford. Having not stayed in a guest house before, I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was exactly what I needed – a comfy bed. The landlords, Cheryl and David were very friendly, accommodating and thoughtful; on the nights I was going to be out late at the theatre they left the light on in the dining room. All of the other guests I met were regulars – regular enough to be able to chat about family – so this is the kind of place that people like to return to and feel safe.

Most mornings I kept to muselli and croissants but on the Friday I treated myself to a fry up and it was very, very nice indeed and I could tell it was local sourced – whilst I was eating the delivery from the local farm arrived. I needed a good breakfast because in general I’m horrible about keeping to lunch time whenever I’m away from home, even on day trips and this was no exception. The best lunch I had was at The Posh Corner Shop, a café/delicatessen not too far up from Shakespeare’s original school, where I sat in the window and ate a coffee and giant apricot Danish pastry and wrote my parents a postcard saying as much. I never know what to say on those things.

Evening mealtimes can be the strangest parts of the day when you’re travelling alone. Restaurants tend to be geared towards groups, the event of the meal playing slowly across an evening, whereas us singletons, even if we try and pace ourselves, can be in and out in half an hour and if we’re not careful the process is reduced to the function it really is rather than the entertainment it should be. Most of the streets in Stratford town consist of restaurants, chains and independents so there’s lots of choice, too much choice probably, so I tried to go for the ‘interesting’ options:

Historical

The Garrick Inn is reputed to be the oldest pub in Stratford; the building dates from the Elizabethan era and it became a drinking hole in the early 1700s. It was renamed for the actor in mid-late 18th century after he held a three day jubilee for his favourite playwright in the town which is seen as one of the attempts to confirm his legendary status in the modern era. The interior has clearly been remodelled a few times since then, so there’s a proper restaurant section at the back and waitress service.

The chicken and bacon salad was alright; the mix of two different dressings gave it an odd smell but the poultry was succulent enough. But the real entertainment came from watching the serving staff as they negotiated the order of an American couple who were sitting at the back who from what I could gather had given all of the necessary impressions that they hadn’t decided what they were having yet then strolled up to the counter wondering why their food hadn’t arrived yet.

The two waitresses thought through events and compared notes like detectives working over a witness statement and concluded that in fact the couple hadn’t ordered – there was no paper evidence – but then it became apparent that even after the man had appeared and complained they still weren’t sure what it was he wanted to be eating (was it fish and chips?) and that one of them was going to have to go to customer and get a clarification. I didn’t envy them.

The Chain

The “Godfather of Italian gastronomy” (according to his website) Antonio Carluccio has a string of restaurants and cafes across the country; blue and white trimmed interior is split between a well stocked shop and eating area. I think this was the worst experience of the week, but that probably had more to do with me being alone and not being able to work out what I’d be doing with the rest of the evening than the food, the Insalata Di Primaver a “sautéed pancetta, gorgonzola cheese and walnuts with rocket, spinach and radicchio leaves” (the menu is online) or the environment – it was early in the evening and there was only me and a large family group and as much as I enjoy my own company, sitting next to a mirror isn’t the same thing.

The Theatre

The Courtyard Theatre has a restaurant café which like the Everyman in Liverpool offers a mix of standard, regular menu items and specials. Reaching the theatre two hours before the performance I decided to try and spread the meal out so had all three courses (somehow managing the next thing half an hour after the last). Having watched people eating outside the previous couple of nights, I decided to take my soup near the entrance, but of course it was far too windy that and as I’m desperately trying to spoon the mushrooms into my mouth one hand I’m variously holding down my book and some paper napkins with the other.

The interior looks as you’d hope it would, with proper café style furniture with tables in RSC red the walls covered in posters advertising the latest productions. Being awkward and admittedly slightly ironic, I asked the waitress if I could have half of a Warwickshire share-board, a sort of ploughman’s lunch for two people. The question was passed through many mouths until it reached the kitchen then back again in the positive. It turned out to be a breadboard covered in chicken, ham, cheese, salad and bread and turned out to be the most filling meal of the week, so I can’t imagine what the full one was like.

As ever I hummed and hahared over the desert, eventually coming down on the side of a victoria sponge after the waitress suggested it because I was clearly going to miss the start of the play if she didn’t point me in a direction. I maintain I would have got there in the end, but given I was the sitting next to stage its probably best that I wasn’t trolling in, cake crumbs across my front, just as Caesar got the sharp end of Brutus’s knife. I told them as I left that this had been my best meal of the week. Which it had. Then.

Interesting

Banjaxed for reasons I’ll get to some other time (this holiday will be good for a fair few more blog posts I’m sure) I was looking for something easy but also interesting for my final night. I did consider something with a Shakespearean theme – Othello’s perhaps? Mistress Quickly’s? But stopped instead at Edward Moons. The penny farthing on the sign makes it stand out as does the mission statement printed in the window and also appearing on the website, describing who Mr. Moon was and why he deserved to have a restaurant named after him:

”Edward Moon was a travelling chef working in the British Colonial service in the early nineteen hundreds. […] Edward was also a creative cook, enthusiastic and excited by the local ingredients, cooking styles and methods he encountered on his exotic travels.[…] He retired to England in 1940 and recorded his experiences, philosophy and recipes in a book “The Travelling Cook’s Companion” It is the spirit described in this book that has helped us inspire our restaurants. “

I’ve trimmed it a bit but you get the message. I was intrigued. Then the specials board drew me even closer to the door. Game pie. Game pie!?! I’ve always wanted to try that, properly cooked, not the soggy relic you find in some supermarkets. Inside the restaurant a group of people had spotted me looking in and were grinning and waving, two empty wine bottles nearby. I asked for a review. My thumb went up. Three thrumbs up was the reply. Good enough.

Inside looks like an Edwardian working men’s club. I sat next to a fireplace in which it looked like Phyllius Fogg had stacked his luggage whilst he to took repose and there was a general atmosphere of comfortable sophistication totally unlike anywhere else in Stratford. Some of that had to do with the waitresses; for the first time that week I felt like I was talking to a human being as they greeted me, sat me down, took my order, but all in such a way that made me feel welcome, like a regular. After each course they asked me if I’d enjoyed what I’d been presented with but in such a way that sounded like it actually mattered.

The tomato soup was light and a good appetiser but the Game Pie was something else. An oval dish filled with birds of a flavour I couldn’t identify, gravy and topped with a mountain of mashed potato but unlike similar dishes even when I thought I’d decimated the flesh, another piece appeared from underneath an onion. It tasted familiar and yet not at the same time and I was glad I was only drinking water with it so that my tastebuds could savour the culinary vacation they were experiencing. When asked all I could muster was “Lovely, thanks” which was understating things a little bit. In the donchyouknow parts of the world this is probably average, but for a mouth used to a frozen shepherd’s pie from Asda this was paradise.

But here’s why I’d return to Edward Moon’s again, and it’s a very small thing. At the end of the first two course I needed a break but knew I wanted to try one of the deserts which I’ve seen floating by. The waitress said that they closed at about 8:30 or 9:00 and after spending an hour at the RSC again I returned. They remembered who I was, remembered I was back for my desert and seemed genuinely pleased to see me, none of which sounds too special and should be standard but often isn’t. After I’d ordered the strawberry Crème-Brule (another new experience) she asked if I’d like another glass of water. She’d remembered that too and I hadn’t had to ask. Oh how I tipped …

I am an advert for Spotify

I am an advert for Spotify, originally uploaded by feelinglistless.

links for 2009-07-03

• Chris Anderson’s Free, the first audiobook on Spotify
  As the people in the comments point out it's not the first, more the first one that they've consciously selected. Spotify (as in all thngs) would be a great delivery service for audio books and I have contacted a couple of publishers (well BBC Audio and Big Finish) to ask them to think about releasing their material on the service. It's all to do with maximising revenue and making up for losses from people who stop buying the cds because they can hear it here in a medium which doesn't have the same potential for repeat listens.

Elsewhere "A giant man sized version of him once frightened the shit out of me at the Liverpool Show."

links for 2009-07-02

• The Poor Soul of Television by Leah Churner - Moving Image Source
  "Take the retired Broadway lyricist and composer John Wallowitch, host of John’s Cabaret, “the only piano bar of the airwaves.” As a phone number crawled across the bottom of the screen, Wallowitch, sitting at an upright piano, in evening dress and a bow tie, took requests over the air. He would perform whatever song his audiences wanted to hear, whether he knew the words or not. The show was surreal, but it was also truly interactive."
  
  
• Dave Gorman: Putting Two And Two Together
  10 ... 10 ... 10 ... 10 ...
  
  
• Prospect Magazine: 'Mark Thompson on the future of the BBC'
  Wide ranging and quite challenging interview covering everything from web presence to the future of schedule design. Includes talk of a season of programmes about Shakespeare to support the broadcast of the RSC Hamlet and a return of really high end cultural programming, such as documentaries about Nietzsche.
  
  
• The Guardian: Apollo 11
  Some very good writing in today's G2 special and plenty I didn't know about the mission. The astronauts were sent to visit the engineers in the factories to motivate their work and remind them that the work were doing was protecting the safety of people who they'd met personally.

Elsewhere Why Torchwood India not Torchwood Delhi if Torchwood Cardiff is Torchwood Cardiff not Torchwood Wales?

links for 2009-07-01

• johnaugust: Per-screen average
  John explains why Lars and the Real Girl wasn't released more widely in the US. I just assumed it was the premise.
  
  
• Battle between ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro to be BBC4 comedy drama ...
  Whilst this is extraordinarily exciting -- Alexander Armstrong playing Sir Clive? -- the real rivalry in the schoolyard was between the people who had a Speccy or a Commodore 64 or the toffs who had an Amstrad CPC-466 (the one the 3-inch disk drive). And me with my Acorn Electron. I expect these days people tend to just have one of each.
  
  
• Jeff Goldblum is dead.
  He says so himself.
  
  

Yeah, heh, yeah.

Elsewhere Torchwood's back. Yeah, heh, yeah.

links for 2009-06-30

• Breakfast with the Beeb - a New Yorker's view of Radio 4
  "Listen to Radio 4 and the country that emerges is witty and engaging, well-read if parochial, always up for a walk to the pub down the lane. Watch Channel 5 on TV and you see a nation obsessed with home repairs, footballers, and the Botoxed winners of Big Brother. Radio gave me the England I'd gotten to know reading Evelyn Waugh, and that I half-expected to find."
  
  
• Flickr: Looking Into the Past
  This must be what it looks inside the head of Nicholas Lyndhurst's character Gary on the sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart.
  
  
• TV Cream: Programmes for Schools and Colleges
  Many happy memories of watching the small round white blobs disappear into a blue backgrounds before 'How We Used To Live'.

the romance of the evening

Life There’s not much to do in the evening in Stratford if you’re free and single or if you’re in melancholic mood, alone. Actually, there were flyers all over the place for this music concert or that am-dram production with the odd thing on at the Civic Hall. Just not the week I was there. When I asked at the tourist information centre for some ideas, all they could suggest was a ghost tour though since that was being run by the people who also own what could be the very worst tourist attraction I’ve ever visited, Tudor World, (more on which another time) I was suspicious.

So on the evenings when I wasn’t seeing a performance, I still somehow managed to find myself at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The main venues are closed for refurbishment, but on Tuesday and Thursday after dinner, I sat on the grass nearby reading a book or listening to some Shakespeare on cd about as relaxed as I’ve been in years. One of my last experiences of Stratford was sitting in the shadow of The Swan listening to David Tennant read Shall I Compare Thee To Summer’s Day? and trying to work out what I’d need to do to move there and wistfully wondering how I could woo the girl with long flowing red who was passing by that I was certain must be an actress (not being David Tennant a definite handicap).

The other nights were something else entirely. The RSC have the monopoly on theatres but at present, the only auditorium open is The Courtyard, formerly The Other Place, a giant multi-level space patterned after The Globe (or if you’re local to me, the Everyman with balconies). My heart was pounding on the Monday as I walked the road up to the theatre for the first time, my hands quivered as I handed my bag into the cloakroom, I stuttered when asking to buy a programme. Walking into the auditorium, I caught the scent of the place, a fragrant mixture of paint and wood. “It smells like a theatre doesn’t it?” I said to usher. “That’s because it is a theatre.” He replied dryly, though I could tell he knew what I meant. I think.

Despite visiting the birthplace and other houses and where the man was buried, I only really became sentimental that night. I’ve idolised that theatre and its rolling companies for so many years that I couldn’t believe I was actually sharing their air, watching a performance by them and just ten hours after the leaving of Liverpool. During a rather fabulous song and dance number in the Bohemia section I was on the brink of tears. Isn’t that silly? I suspect I could have been watching any production of any play, and I still would have had a lump in my throat. Is this what happens when real Beatles fans step into the faux-Cavern for the first time?

The Winter’s Tale hasn’t previously been one of my favourite plays though I know that has had a lot to do with the assemblages I’ve had to endure, samples being the BBC tv version from the 1980s which looked to have been filmed on the set of a Blue Peter Christmas Special and featured some of the country’s very worst child actors and an all male production which also swapped the masculine/feminine assignments to provide some rather butch women and fey men. Director David Farr turns the opening half of the play, everything leading up to the abandonment of the child on the beach into a brooding noirish tragedy then sharply contrasts it with the jolly pastoral scene in the second half, like splicing Peter Brook’s Bermanesque film of King Lear with Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, with its lashings of hey-nonny-nonny.

My problem with Julie Bailey’s Julius Caesar is that she allows the multimedia backdrop, depicting locals and battles, to dominate the action so much that there’s not much space for the actors to develop their roles, which also means the opening hour drags horribly and only gains momentum with the murder of Caesar though that’s largely because the text forces it to accelerate. Sam Troughton’s Brutus has just the right measure of confused passion, but John Mackay’s Cassius is too understated; it’s a delicious character, the embodiment of the serpentine devil from Milton’s Paradise Lost but here he became a kind of Peter Mandelson figure but without the impression that the quiet man could be a complete bastard given half the chance. It goes without saying that Greg Hicks is amazing in both productions as men betrayed by a perception of who their friends really are.

But with the shadow of temporal distance I can tell it’s not a perfect place to see a play, which might have stoked my prejudices. The seats are very close together which means if you’re sitting next to a fidgeter as I was on the Monday, you’re perennially distracted by someone periodically tickling you. Even after I’d moved to somewhere else in the circle after the interval, I was stuck in a place which despite offering an amazing view of the land was also behind a prop ladder. On the Wednesday during Julius Caesar, the staging meant that if an actor stood in front of my ground level corner seat the entire rest of the stage was blocked, the show briefly turning into radio as you could only imagine what was happening behind Sam Troughton’s arse.

Acoustically it’s suspect too – often the surrounding talkers were more audible than the actors which wasn’t at all fun during Caesar when I found I’d also bought a seat in the middle of a coach party who clearly didn’t have too much of an interest in Shakespeare or the play and spent most of the show commenting on everything or passing wisecracks around during some of the more dramatic scenes. Example: in the climactic battle scenes, one of the characters, having been stabbed in the back, is clawing for life across the stage, dragging himself ever closer to the audience desperately looking for our help.

Idiot One: [Inaudable.]
Idiot Two sitting in front: WHAT?
Idiot One leaning forward: HE’S COMING TO GET YOU! HAA HAA HAA!
Idiot Two: YES! HAAHAAHAAHAA!

Meanwhile, the poor actor is clearly out of breath but trying not to show it. I’m sure I could see him looking balefully in our direction out of the corner of his eye.

And I still managed to have get wrench through my throat because of the proximity to the actors. That seat was also right next to the runways which largely brought the performers onto the stage from the foyer and often they’d hesitate before joining the main action, perhaps even kneeling and I can’t imagine how disconcerting it must be to have someone like me eyeballing them from just inches away, close enough for them to spit on me. In Empire Magazine a couple of months ago, Sam Mendes was asked if he’d consider using 3D cinema and he said he already had. It was called theatre. Now I can see what he meant. At the opening of the second half, the remains of a solider were parades on and our section were drenched in fake blood and I’m convinced I also had the liquid contents of half the cast on my top by the end of the evening too.

That’s one t-shirt I’ll not be washing soon.

Walking away that evening I was overtaken in the street by actress Noma Dumezweni who'd played Paulina in The Winter's Tale and Calphurnia in Julius Caesar and who my fan gene had identified as playing UNIT Captain Erisa Magambo in Doctor Who at Easter and had demonstrated here that she has rather more range than when she was simply barking orders at Lee Evans. She looked to be in determined mood and it took only a fraction of a second to decide to not to chase after her looking for an autograph. It seemed wrong, an invasion. Like it would spoil the mood. So I let her go, and simply let the romance of the evening envelop me, knowing that these had been some of the best evenings of my young life.

links for 2009-06-29

• Nothing: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press)
  It's all in the title. Reminds me of those weeks when Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time discusses a fairly nebulous subject like clouds. "You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!"

the school masterly guide

Life Shakespeare’s final resting place is at Holy Trinity Church on the banks of the Avon. You can’t help whispering as you enter and pay the couple of pounds to the small reception (card table with a plastic box) cannily erected half way up the naïve. There’s not very much to see – a nice church (which must be atmospheric at Christmas in the way that only churches like this can be), the memorial, of course, and then the tomb, which, because the bard was a lay preacher he was entitled to have added to the altar area. Most of his immediate family tree can be found here too, carefully labelled.

I chatted with the school masterly guide sat to the left, showing him an entry about the place from the Penguin miscellany which was my main reading material for the week (on account of the very short entries ready to fill in all kinds of still moments), which he gave 8/10 for factual correctness, then left just as a visiting school group, camera phones cocked, swamped the area. In the graveyard I sat writing out a postcard. It (I) said, “It’s quite unsettling to visit where a person was born, see some of their life’s work that evening, then the place they were buried the following afternoon.” I can't imagine there are many world figures with whom this is possible.

links for 2009-06-28

• Oscars Will Now Feature 10 Best Picture Nominees | /Film
  Well hooray for that. Hopefully it'll lead to a greater variety of material on show, though it's unlikely to increase the number of comedies and genre works actually winning the thing.

The Spotify Playlist

Perfect Day

Originally created as a promo for the BBC and what we pay for them to do and later released as a charity record for Children in Need, it's probably the most eclectic of these various artist 'collaborations' encompassing performers from a range of styles and genres and about the only place you'll find Leslie Garrett, Brett Anderson and Laurie Anderson sharing the same four minutes (and paid just £250 each for the privileged). The resulting compilation is a riot, especially since I chose the most played track for each of the performers, resulting in the Dr John choice being Cruella De Vil and O Superman butting up against It's Not Unusual.

http://open.spotify.com/user/feelinglistless/playlist/35qCx42vx9uFtaymZ4pL4c

one of the moments of perfect calm

Life In 1759, Reverend Francis Gastrell, the final owner/occupier of Shakespeare’s retirement home, New Place, was so incensed by the constant stream of tourists pitching up at his house and invading his lawn that he knocked out all the windows and chopped down the mulberry tree that had reputedly been planted in the garden by the bard. Then when the local council demanded Land Taxes, he furiously demolished the house itself, its ruins still rotting as he was run out of town by his bloodthirsty compatriots and banished from returning to Stratford for the rest of his life. Now, all that remains of the place where Shakespeare died are the stone foundations and a rather nice lawn, accessible from his son-in-laws property next door (see above).

Lord knows what Gastrell would make of the tourism which exists in his town now; it’s apparently the second biggest destination in the country behind London, its population of 23,000 probably doubling (tripling?) during the peak season. It’s not something the Shakespeare Trust shy away from; throughout their properties there’s a twin story, not just of his life and period but also of the people who’ve paid homage to him since; in places they highlight the other great thinkers who’ve also taken the same steps you have around the houses – in the birthplace they’ve even preserved one of the bay windows in which visitors famous and not so have left their mark or autograph. Which meant that though I was travelling alone, I didn’t often feel it, since I was part of a tradition stretching back centuries.

This wasn’t the first time I’d visited the birthplace; the last time was in the early nineties when I was studying the plays at school and it seemed the thing to do. Then, I’d characterised the experience as ‘disappointing’ (for reason I forget). Not so now. Having spent the intervening years becoming a proper fan of Shakespeare and discovering the plays and his life it was quite overwhelming to be standing in that place again, even if as the demonstrator described the method of his birth, her words were being translated into Japanese for some of the other visitors, the surprise of one half of the room to the news that the phrase ‘Night night, sleep tight’ referred to the way that Elizabethan babies were tucked in at night on a rope frame underneath the marital bed, repeated minutes later by the other half.

So I was rarely alone in these places, especially on Monday and Tuesday when the town was saturated by delegates from the 100th International Rotary Conference in Birmingham, all wearing a little white badge with their first name and country of origin on them. But just now and then, within a lull, by taking things slowly against the crowd, I’d find myself in an empty room and could briefly imagine what it must have been like to live that superficially simpler life. All five houses are to some extent frozen in time or recreations of a period in their history selected because of the association with Shakespeare, attempts to provide a context for students of history and literature and they work best when you can hesitate at a kitchen utensil or piece of furniture and think about how different the person using them must have been and whether you’re much of an improvement.

The demonstrators are the key element which brings these places alive. Some are simply tour guides offering a bit of background to the house and why it’s an important part of the story. Others, dressed in period costume, balance precariously between that and full blown improvisation. At Arden’s Farm, a group of roleplayers prepare a meal across the day and then sit and eat it to show what the process of living in the house was somewhat like. I spent ages in that kitchen talking to the cook about everything from the health awarness of Elizabethans to the preparation of nettles and why we don’t eat them as much these days, the information flowing from her lips as she shimmered in and out of character by the pronoun, like a Doctor Who actor appearing on Blue Peter being asked to break character by Simon Groom.

Just as interesting, at the birthplace, in the gardens at the back and the street in front, actor work through extracts from the plays, girly arguments from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Nurses advise to Juliet and according to the poster Hamlet soliloquy’s, all of them completely in character as though we’re witnessing the fraction of a production. Fighting to be heard against tourists chatting about cameras and children poking fun at their costume, they’re absolutely fearless and a rather more visceral way of reminding the visitor why they’re taking the time to walk about this house in particular than the introductory display in which a voiceover from Juliet Stevenson and Patrick Stewart tell us that we’re looking at the actually desk that Shakespeare may have learnt the classics from or the actual book, or actual etc.

My favourite was probably Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. It’s the most complete dwelling, the only one in which all of the rooms are given over to showing living rooms (all of the others including an exhibition space of one sort or another breaking the illusion), and the most romantic since it’s presumed to be the place were young William wooed his future wife, perhaps inspiring dozens of similar romances in his plays. Without a car or coach, the only approach seems to be a walk from the parish centre through a series of alleyways cutting across suburbia then a field and into the village of Shottery of which it is but one of a multitude of thatched buildings (which did mean I misidentified the odd building before finally happening upon what was obviously the tourist attraction). One of the moments of perfect calm I experienced during the week was sitting in the garden outside the house, listening to the birds and looking up past the roof towards a deep blue sky. I need to have more of those.

links for 2009-06-27

• Topless Robot - Bonus! Rob's Transformers 2 F.A.Q.s!
  Lo the Transformers fans looked at their Trekker cousins with envious eyes and wonder how the screenwriters who created the act of love that was Star Trek could also piss all over their childhoods. Sample of this amazing FAQ: "Can you explain Megan Fox's appeal? Yes. She looks like a porn star and has the same acting talent as one, yet for some reason she makes mainstream movies. This tonal disconnect is what's so appealing about her."
  
  
• Mt. Kilimanjaro - to the Roof of Africa: Kili 09 Trailer
  Many congratulations Neil and Palma. Makes my arduous walk to Anne Hathaway's Cottage look a bit puny. Incidentally, is that really Werner Herzog?
  
  
• BrokenTV: The End of Setanta Sports: Live Blog
  Reminds me of the closing moments of ITV Digital and watching Carlton Cinema going dark. Except that simply consisted of the picture going off in the middle of a film.
  
  
• Buffy vs Edward (Twilight Remixed)
  Which you have of course already seen in my absence. Just wanted to note how shonky the Twilight material looks in comparison to the Buffy footage.
  
  
• soyf*ckers anonymous
  It's not just about the gesture, it's also the picture they chose ...

tales of Stratford-Upon-Avon

Life I’m not happy to be home.

There’s no greater mental barometer of how well a holiday went than the genuine feeling as you stumble onto the train at the end of the week (or in my case about four days) that you’re leaving a place were you felt complete and yourself and complete within yourself and those things are effortless, to return to a place where you have to work at them. That’s what vacations are supposed to do, but you hear so often about how stressful they can be, how often they’re nothing like a holiday because of the hassle involved in attempting to enjoy yourself, I’m so pleased and elated that I can genuinely say that I did enjoy myself, despite having developed blisters by the end of the first day and painfully limped through the rest of it.

I’ll be boring you stupid in the coming days (and weeks?) with tales of Stratford-Upon-Avon (and photos, so many photos) but I want to make the most of my Shakespearean glow by finally watching the BBC adaptations of his history plays so I’ll not spend too much time tapping things here today. Just to say this: after watching the results, I’m glad I didn’t follow my original idea of a coach tour. I watched coaches park up throughout the town, outside the various designated Shakespeare houses, the passengers herded off and into the dwelling which they’d trundle through briefly, take some photos, buy some souvenirs before being led back to the coach and on to the next attraction, presumably working through all five before returning to wherever they came from without the time to breath in the atmosphere.

To spend just half an hour here and there is not enough time. Much better, as I did, to slowly let the story of the bard's life through his home unfold slowly over a few days, seeing the places where he and his family were born, died, were buried and commemorated and discovering the world in which all of that happened. If you’ve already been yourself, you’ll know that there aren’t many places like it in Britain. It might have gained many of the elements of a modern town, the same high street shops which make most places seem like a photocopy of each other these days and industrialisation and suburbia just outside the centre, at magic hour it still retains the stillness of an ancient village, a reminder of what we've lost.

[Exit pursued by a bear.]

[End of Act I.]

geocities rescue

Amusements

Even though I seem to have spent 40% of my life sitting in front of little rectangular boxes punching keyboards, I’ve never actually been very good at computer + video games. Even when everyone thought that a 12” disc was acceptable and that instead of loading a game onto the machine you had to copy-type the thing from Personal Computer World, I’d have trouble getting the little cross (or whatever passed as a spaceship) into the bracket (docking port). In the arcade, ten pence would last fractionally longer than the lick of an ice cream.

What was a bit embarrassing was my Dad could play them better than I did. He’d sit up for hours into the night playing Acorn Electron Pac-man clone ‘Snapper’ and the platformer ‘Chuckie Egg’, usually the same game, usually for hours on end. I’d try too, but there isn’t much fun in trying to beat an impossible score.

I think the only game I’ve ever made any sense of was Lemmings . . . perhaps it was the futility of their little lives, or the fact you could play each level as many times as you liked until you got it right . . .

the Bond-like skiing adventure

Film Day four. I might be going to Coventry today or Warwick. I haven't decided yet.

I’m aware that sometimes when I’m criticising the master’s work, I can sound like Oliver Peyton picking over some inedible lump of goop cooked to perfection by a chef with a Michelin asterisk on the Great British Menu and probably just as wrong sometimes, but to my eyes and ears, Spellbound is a disappointingly uneven and often dull film, the most attractive reason to watch being the central dream sequence created by Salvador Dali, in which the artist relishes the opportunity to transfer the elements of his painting into a moving picture format. To save you the time, here it is:



Unlike his paintings (and to some extent his earlier film collaborations), Dali’s work is being pressed into service to help explain Gregory Peck’s character’s psychological quagmire and all of these exciting elements are explained at the climax, the theory being that all unconscious elements of the human psyche, especially dreams can examined and interpreted.

Though there’s undoubtedly some excellent performances and the usual quota of surprises, my main problem with the film is that Hitch is repeating himself – the wrongly accused is on the run again. I’m guessing that the director is keeping these elements formulaic because the overall subject, psychiatry, is somewhat outside of the mainstream and he’s attempting to keep his audience on side. Except the execution is weirdly anticeptic and there’s a lack of chemistry between Peck and his leading lady Ingrid Bergman, who also seems uncomfortable with her part as his doctor and lover.

The director himself lists many of these problems to Truffaut in their interviews together and notes that he wanted to use a realistic approach because of the psychoanalysis. He was reluctant to fantasize and wanted to use a logic for once. Odd, then that best sequence is clearly the Bond-like skiing adventure and you can’t help but wonder if a much more interesting film might have come from setting the whole thing within the Daliscape, with Peck’s character trying to escape his dreams metaphorically instead of literally, in other words, an early version of the old Amiga game Weird Dreams or Richard Linklater’s animation Waking Life with Bernard Hermann writing the soundtrack.

long and wordy

Film Day three. I'm seeing Julius Caesar at the RSC tonight.

When I was trying my hand at script writing in the late nineties, one of the subjects I was interested in was how films effected their audiences. When Kevin Smith's film Dogma was released there were a number of protests about its content by religious groups in the US. Famously, as a wheeze, Smith himself protested his own movie:



There have been similar protests for everything from The Life of Brian to The Last Temptation of Christ and I wondered if it would be possible to write a screwball romance about an atheist and a Christian who meet and fall in love at a protest for the Monty Python film and then we'd revisit their rocky relationship during the time frames of when each of these 'controversial' films are released.

I hadn't developed it too much, but I did make a (very) rough start on the script and that's what's published below as is, typos and other flotsam intact. Keep in mind, if you know the place, the cinema is supposed to be the Hyde Park in Leeds.

===========================

CAPTION: ‘1999’.

INT. CAFÉ – STUDENT UNION – UNIVERSITY BUILDING. DAY.

A girl with blonde hair in power dress is sitting at a shabby looking café table looking nervous. This is JASMINE RAINE. In front of her are placed, two bottles of ‘Volvic’ water and two shrink wrapped packets of SANDWICHES.

MAN’s VOICE: I could only get Tuna.

JASMINE: I hate Tuna.

A man with short dark hair in a white shirt and stripy tie sits down in front of her. This is TOM PARKER.

TOM: So do I. But I’m also hungry.

JASMINE reaches forward and grabs the water.

JASMINE: Why do we do this . . .

JASMINE starts to unscrew the water bottle.

JASMINE: . . . why do we put ourselves through this?

TOM: Because you love it, and we make a great team.

Tom bites into his sandwich.

JASMINE: But these ones. I like having at least a week to prepare. But two hours.

TOM: (gesturing with his sandwich) Look, its going to be alright. You always think of something. I’ll just go in and talk about freedom of speech, talk about book burnings, y’know stir it up and then you come in for the . . .

JASMINE: Kill? I don’t know. This is too close.

JASMINE takes a swig of water.

TOM: You keep saying that, but you won’t tell me why.

JASMINE: I can’t.

TOM: Well, you’ve got ten minutes. Plenty of time.

INT. LECTURE THEATRE – UNIVERSITY. DAY.

The lecture theatre is in some disrepair, but this doesn’t seem to bother the people who have filled it, and clapping loudly.

They are watching a debate. A chairman (slightly balding, late fifties) sits at a long desk underneath a blackboard with the motion – ‘This house believes the film ‘Dogma’ be banned?’ - scrawled across it. On the left hand side of the chairman sit two men in grey suites behind a card which reads ‘For the motion’. To the right sit a still confident TOM and a still nervous JASMINE, who is smiling despite herself. Sitting on the desk in front of everyone is a glass of water.

The chairman turns to left.

CHAIRMAN: And I now believe it is the turn of John to second the motion.

JOHN, who is sitting at the far end stands and reaches into his jacket pocket for his prompt cards, which he proceeds to read from.

JOHN: As my learned friend has highlighted there is little recoups but to support this motion. My argument is simply this – any film which blasphemes against someone’s religious system can only be damaging. The writer James Blish once suggested that every budding writer should ask themselves one question – ‘Who does it hurt?’ Kevin Smith, the writer/director seems to have forgotten this and offers a film which hurts believers everywhere, by presenting the following – two murderous angels, a profain ‘13th’ apostle, the supposed decendant of our Lord working in a laundrette, at the Crucifixion, he offers an obscene gesture . . .

As the list continues, the audience offer a mixture of stunned silence, shock and laughter.

JOHN: . . . and the almighty is portrayed as a rock singer. None of which occurred in the gospels and which go against the fundamental beliefs of over a fifth of the world’s population. Please, support this motion.

The hall again erupts with applause.

TOM: (whispering to JASMINE) He’s done his research.

JASMINE nods nervously in agreement.

The applause stops. The chairman turns to the right.

CHAIRMAN: And finally, I think it’s the turn of JASMINE to second the motion against.

JASMINE stands and pulls her cue cards from her pockets.

JASMINE: Thank you, chairman. My learned friend in the opposition offers a very valid quote from Blish. But he forgot to mention, Mr. Blish’s amendment – which was – I think – that its always good to walk on the wild side now and then – and I think if the artists religious or otherwise had followed the oppositions foggy thinking, we’d have been a poorer place. Excuse me.

JASMINE takes a sip of water.

JASMINE: My colleague has clearly stated the legal and sociological reason’s Dogma can’t be banned, so instead, if you will indulge me – and I hope you will since the opposition didn’t seem to give an argument but a list – I’d like to tell a story by way of illustration.

TOM sits down in his chair and gets comfortable.

JASMINE: You see this isn’t a new motion. Not too long ago, another film was banned throughout the country for very similar reasons. It was 1979, and the film was ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’.

CAPTION: ‘1979’.

EXT. OUTSIDE CINEMA. NIGHT.

This is a time before the multiplex. The cinema is a large building on the corner of a road with a box office that is actually a box and a foyer with a big log fire. A fire which isn’t benefiting the crowd of people outside. The protest has been well attended with assorted people in big thick coats freezing to death. Some even have plackards with phrases like ‘Ban BRIAN’ and ‘For the faith’ printed on. A long queue of people are lining up against the wall of the cinema looking at ‘Coming Attractions’ boards and the sign over the door “Now Showing: The Python Film”.

AMY (V.O.): I was always amazed at how many people would turn up to these kinds of protests. But I suppose it was the decade for it.

AMY is standing handing out leaflets to cinema goers as they join the line. She much younger than previously, with long flowing hair and a warm looking leather biker clothes and boots. She is chatting to a friend as he hands her pile of leaflets, a young, shorter man in a blazer and role neck jumper.

MARK: Do you like the leaflet? I mean - I hope I got - my – our – point of view across.

AMY (V.O.): MARK was a good friend. Whenever I had a problem, if I was doubting my faith, he’d always listen, and put me back on the right track.

As she straightens the leaflets out, she doesn’t notice MARK wishing she was kissing him right then.

MARK: Would you like a coffee?

AMY: Black.

MARK heads of to get his thermos. As AMY offers the leaflets to passers-by, she looks up and down the line for the film. Its date night, so there are couples cuddling, couples reading newspapers or magazines and couples tucking into crisps. Some are looking at protest grimly. One man, somehow seperated from the rest is scribbling away at a notepad. He’s in a long grey overcoat and extra long scarf. She knows him. Realising she is staring, she looks away and goes to get some more leaflets from MARK.

The man in the queue realises she was looking at him and looks back, impressed by what he sees. He looks up and down the line and turns to the couple behind.

MAN: Do you mind holding my place?

The couple nod uncertainly, and the man smiles. He approaches AMY. She has her back to him (still passing leaflets) and doesn’t seem to notice him. He looks down at his shoes slightly in embarrassment, then softly taps her on the shoulder. She turns startled.

MAN: Hello. You’re in one of my joint classes.

AMY looks slightly embarrassed as one part of her life clashes into another.

AMY: Yes. Erm . . . NATHAN? Greek Philosphy, I think. How are you?

NATHAN: I’m all right, I think.

He motions his body towards the cinema.

AMY: (incredulously) You’re going to see it.

NATHAN: I’m going to see it again, actually.

AMY: Didn’t the blasphemy work its evil the first time around?

NATHAN: Blasphemy? (he steps closer so that he can whisper) Haven’t you heard – it isn’t blasphemous.

AMY: WHAT! OF COURSE IT IS!

The man looks around implying that everyone just saw her outburst.

NATHAN: Which scene.

AMY: Well I can’t tell you that.

NATHAN: Why not? YOU’VE SEEN IT HAVEN’T YOU?

It’s now AMY’s turn to look around.

NATHAN: How can you protest against something you haven’t seen?

AMY: I didn’t want them to have any of my money.

NATHAN: Then they’d better have some more of mine.

AMY: Are you actually inviting me to see this thing?!?

NATHAN: Call it spying behind enemy lines.

AMY smiles.

AMY: Well, if you put it that way. And you’re paying?

NATHAN: I believe that was the offer.

By now, MARK is trying to carefully carry two cups of coffee to AMY. She arrives smiling almost pushing him over.

AMY: My coffee?

She takes the coffee and begins to swig down the lukewarm liquid.

MARK: Where are you going?

AMY comes up for air.

AMY: I’m going to be gone a couple of hours. I’ve got some research to do.

MARK: That person you were talking to.

AMY: NATHAN’s going to take me to see the film.

MARK is disapproving.

AMY: Well someone in the campaign has to see the thing. It can only help us to be more effective.

MARK still doesn’t agree, but nods. AMY reaches up and kisses him on the cheek.

AMY: Thanks. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.

She runs off, leaving MARK to watch after her with a look of horror and love.

NATHAN is waiting for her. He looks at his watch, then at the queue, which has rapidly disappeared into the cinema. She appears, looking stony faced.

AMY: (impatiently) Well, come on.

INT. CINEMA - FOYER. NIGHT.

The interior of the cinema is in the style of the old picture houses with candelabras and old-fashioned popcorn machine. People are crowding into the auditorium, through ground floor doors and up some stirs to a balcony.

AMY and NATHAN are passing the refreshment stand.

NATHAN: Popcorn?

AMY: Don’t push your luck.

NATHAN: (to the girl passing out popcorn) Do you have any with sugar?

INT. CINEMA – AUDITORIUM – BALCONY. NIGHT.

As AMY and NATHAN enter the balcony, it is packed with people. Its already dark and an advert is playing ‘Adora – Kiora . . . it just for me and my dog . . . I’ll be your dog . . . woof – woof – woofwoof – woof – woof – woof.’ Some what inevitably the only seats free are at the very back.

As they sit down, NATHAN with his popcorn in his lap, AMY turns to him.

AMY: Don’t get any idea.

The film starts as three camels are silhoetted against the bright stars of the moonless sky, moving slowly along the horizon. A star leads then towards BETHLEHEM.

AMY: (whispering) This is worse than I thought it could be.

NATHAN is munching his popcorn.

The film continues. BRIAN’s mother, Mandy, has been offered Myrrh, a balm.

MANDY (on screen): . . . what is Myrrh, anyway?

THIRD WISE MAN (on screen): It is a valuable balm.

MANDY: (on screen): A balm? What are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him.

The auditorium fills with peels of laughter. NATHAN laughs. AMY is not happy.

The theme tune starts . . . ‘BRIAN, the babe they call BRIAN . . .’

AMY gets up.

NATHAN: You’re going.

AMY: I can’t sit and watch this.

NATHAN: The next scene is great. Its got Jesus in it.

AMY: Throw tomatoes at him do they?

An irritated man in front of him turns.

IRRITATED MAN: Sh!

NATHAN: (to irritated man) Sorry. (to AMY) Look, please stay.

AMY looks around and thinks for a moment.

AMY: Tell you what. I’ll stay. If you come to church with me on Sunday.

NATHAN double takes at her.

NATHAN: This Sunday?

AMY: Going once. Going twice.

NATHAN: I’ll do it. Now, will you please, just sit down. Please.

AMY sits down again smugly.

EXT. CINEMA – PROTEST OUTSIDE. NIGHT.

The protestors have downed their placards, have no one to protest to now. Some are drinking coffee. MARK is opening his lunch box. Inside are two silver wrapped packets of sandwiches. Each with a white sticky label. One has ‘MARK’ written on it in black felt pen. The other reads ‘AMY’. MARK sighs and picks out his own closing the box.

INT. CINEMA – AUDITORIUM – BALCONY. NIGHT.

The film has moved on some more. It’s the scene where BRIAN’s been scooped up by the alien spaceship which subsequently crash lands on Earth. As BRIAN staggers out from the wreckage, A PASSER BY looks at him with amazement, having witnessed both his fall and his rescue.

PASSER BY (on screen): You jammy bastard!

Again the audience falls into laughter. MARK turns to AMY and realises she is enjoying herself. She smiles at him and helps herself to his popcorn.

EXT. CINEMA – PROTEST OUTSIDE. NIGHT.

MARK has open his lunch box again. Only the sandwiches with AMY’s name on them remain. He lists them out.

INT. CINEMA – AUDITORIUM – BALCONY. NIGHT.

The film is finishing. Some people are chatting, other people are whistling along with Eric Idle. AMY and MARK are oblivious to all this.

NATHAN: So?

Amy is smiling.

AMY: It wasn’t so bad.

NATHAN: So harmless.

AMY: (reticently) Oh, it wasn’t harmless. Definitely not.

NATHAN: But you enjoyed it!

AMY: Yes. But people are going to be seeing out of context. The only way that film would be harmless is if they were giving away a copy of the gospels with every ticket.

NATHAN sighs disappointedly. AMY is conciliatory.

AMY: Thank you for inviting me. (she looks around) Come on. The cinema’s closing.

EXT. CINEMA – PROTEST OUTSIDE. NIGHT.

The PROTESTORS have consolidated now and are marching in a circle with the placards. All except MARK, who is sitting on a bollard waiting for AMY, who arrives eventually, NATHAN in tow.

MARK: Should we be burning the placards?

AMY: Not yet. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

MARK: Tomorrow.

NATHAN: We’re going for a quick drink. You’re welcome to join us (in a way which say ‘Oh no you aren’t).

MARK: I can’t. I’m driving the minibus.

AMY nods some mock understanding. She turns to NATHAN.

AMY: Give me moment.

Nathan heads off and starts chatting to the protestors.

==============

It's a horrible opening -- long and wordy -- and if I was starting this now I'd ditch the flashback structure (in which Jasmine would eventually be revealed to be the couple's daughter) and voiceovers and open on a lateral tracking shot from the people queuing up to the protesters stopping on Amy with her coffee. And I wouldn't have Nathan convince Amy to to go into the cinema on the first night -- I'd have him return on consecutive nights until she's eventually won over, the end of the first act having them fall in love despite their differences.

No refund.

Film Day two. Here's the only letter of complaint I've written about film. It's 1997 and I'm really, really pissed off ...

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am writing to you by way of a thank-you. One of your films has helped me through a mental block which I have had since I was a child, and I thought I would write and congratulate you.

I have always had a problem with walking out of films. I have spoken to friends and read magazine articles, and both have described leaving movies in the middle quiet flippantly. I have even seen it happen. But I have never understood how someone could do it. I mean, I’ve paid my money at the box office, so I might as well see the film. This has meant that I have sat through some really awful films. But I never thought would come to walking out.

Then I went to see ‘Batman and Robin’. The trailer had made this seem like a very exciting film, in the tradition of the rest of the series. I thought George Clooney would fit the bat-suit in the dark tradition of the comics, and I loved Alicia Silverstone in ‘Clueless’. Arnie seemed to have his usual carisma. And as Batman jumped into the Bat-mobile, I still thought that I would be in for an enjoyable two hours.

Then the film began proper, and even before the opening credits ended, my heart began to sink as I realised that yet again, I had been cheated. As scene after scene passed, I felt myself cringing, my intelligence not only being insulted, but being kicked to the floor, and stamped upon. I should have felt like a child on a spending spree at Hamley’s. Instead, I felt like a kid whose been given 50p and told to choose something from the second hand bargain bucket at a Car Boot Sale. I should have been enthralled, thrilled and losing myself in the new reality. Instead I found myself trying to work out what was wrong with the film .... while I was watching it.

I began thinking of the script, characterisation being reduced to exposition. How there were simply too many characters, meaning that some simply didn’t have anything to do but stand around looking pretty. I thought of the so-called action, tension being lost because everything felt so artificial, so obviously controlled by a Special FX operator somewhere. I thought about how the actors seemed to be more concerned about having a good time, than giving strong believable performances and making the audience care or not about the characters, hoping they would get by on star quality and nothing else (although I felt sorry for George Clooney - he still gave Bruce Wayne some charm despite the dialog, and the guy who played Alfred, as dependable as ever). I got as far as when Poison Ivy repeated the Joker’s line from the first film (as if we’d think it was funny) ‘This place needs re-decorating,’ and I’d had enough.

I know it is not really Warner Brothers UK’s fault. You merely had to advertise and distribute what your American big brother delivered. And you have to be congratulated - the second biggest opening weekend in British history is a slam-dunk.

But I am writing this letter for people like me, the people you cheated. The people who gave you their money, because they trusted you to give them an entertaining time and who instead left annoyed, insulted, and out of pocket, Why should I trust you again to entertain me?

Perhaps I could suggest a way. You could write back and apologize. You could refund the price of my ticket at my local Odean (£3-00), and suggest a film in the next couple of months that you are certain I will enjoy. Because if I don’t you can bet you will be hearing from me again, very, very soon.

Yours faithfully,

Stuart Ian Burns.

No refund, and I didn't write again. Though I did walk out of some more films.

Life Props: A cheap hardback A4 lined book

Life In the early 1990s, when I should have been studying for my A-Levels and with the internet not having been invented yet, for reasons that have dropped through the cracks of my brain, the younger version of me collated/edited a volume of writing that he was particularly impressed at the time. Having thought it lost in time, it dropped out of a pile of old magazines that had been gathering dust, early Heat magazines and the first ever issue of Personal Computer World. A cheap hardback A4 lined book with about a hundred pages, half of which has been written on in a variety of black inks.

After a carefully planned out index/contents page which must have been compiled once the rest of the book had been filled in, the first page contains the following introduction. Even though the rest of the book is handwritten, this was typed into First Word Plus running on an Acorn Archimedes and printed out on a dot-matrix then stuck. The school had made me prefect in the school computer room, which though it meant that many lunch times would be spent supervising young kids more interested in scanning pictures of Jet from the Gladiators into the computer than doing any actual work, had the reward of being able to use the computers during free periods.

I didn’t have a girlfriend at school.

It’s not a great piece of writing; it’s very naïve in places and betrays a scratchy knowledge of the subject – though notice even at that age the differences between different editions of Shakespeare’s plays was a topic with which I had a keen interest. If the sixth paragraph makes little sense at least it's pondering what I would have made of the internet had it been available then. Probably, downloading pictures of Jet from The Gladiators and whole lot more besides.

Introduction -

During our time on Earth, many (including myself) have tried to answer the question of what gives Man the compunction to create literature, and why only a select few actually get their work into print. What gives each work its individuality and why anyone has the right to say whether a work should be allow to be given out to a wider audience.

Before the innovation of mass printing techniques, if a work was popular it would be hand copied by scribes by the people who actually wanted the work. This meant that piece of writing (The Canterbury Takes by Chaucer for example), would only gain a very small audience, and because of the differences in skill of the scribes (either through style of laziness), the final editions might eventually not be what the writer intended.

Matters were made either worse or better (depending upon your point of view!) with the invention of the simple printing press by Caxton. This innovation meant that some writing could be read by more people, but it was still a thing for the rich to actually own a large collection of printed books, and these still contained problems due again to lazy typesetters (hence the differences between the Folio and Quarto editions of William Shakespeare’s plays – whose original intentions will have to be left to theologians and critics until time-travel is invented).

Slowly, more advanced methods came into use, and more and more writers got into print. And, while many classic works were written, many of these works were composed (in my opinion) by writers fill of their own importance, who wrote about things which would appeal to a very small audience and which were beyond many reader’s comprehension – and very often anyone but the writer.

At the start of the pop-culture of the twentieth-century, the pulp novel appeared. It was once said that there is a novel in all of us, and it seemed as though everyone on Earth wanted to set out to prove it. Everything from ‘The Incredible Melting Man’ to ‘French Passion Goddess’. It was during this time that my favourite genre, ‘Science Fiction’, came to a head. Even at this time some great writing was produced, and many writers began asking, and answering themselves questions ‘best left to saints’.

Now, in the 1990s, the written word has come to something of a renaissance. The written word has become an even more popular form of media, and has over taken the television as a more open type of entertainment. Indeed, television has become little more than a supplement, and perhaps even a breeding ground for ideas.

Here is my own personal and totally biased selection of quotations from many sources. Everything from poetry of my own and by other writers, to song-lyrics which have given me some kind of meaning, to prose and a meaningful or amusing retort between two characters in a novel.

So, to you, the reader, here’s wishing you a good read, and I hope that whichever century it is to you right now, it will give you some idea of what kind of literature a teenager of the 1990s might have liked (we weren’t all philistines you know!).

Stuart I Burns,
February 1992.

Understand that over the years this volume's importance has built up in my head attaining mythic status, the literary equivalent of Son of Rambow. My memory was that during this period, I discovered art and film and literature and began to think about the world in a far more complex way than before, that it was full of Shakespeare and movie quotes and song lyics and that it captured the moment when stopped being a teenager.

That's all there; it's also a mess of John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins, but also song lyrics from Debbie Gibson, Wilson Philips, Paul Simon and The Bangles the profundities that topped the sitcom Family Ties. Page 61 features quotes from Woody Allen, Art Linson and Lewis Mumford. Flicking through the pages is like talking to someone who doesn't yet know what they like, but whatever it is they think they like they like it very much.

It ends on the scene from the film Stand By Me, the one in which River Phoenix tells Wil Wheaton that he won't amount to anything because people have an expectation that he's a dead beat that won't amount to anything. Perhaps I was subliminally pointing to something I've always had to deal with (and I suspect we all do) the difference between the person I project, the person I think I am, and the person I really am.

This blog will not go dark.

Life With any luck, but nine o'clock tomorrow morning I'll be on the train to Birmingham where I'll be changing for Stratford Upon Avon where I'll be hero worshipping for five days. It's not my first time. In 1992, the family took a coach trip there because it seemed the thing to do when studying Shakespeare, but then I wasn't catagorically 'a fan'. I am now.

It's the longest holiday I've taken in twelve years, since the Edinburgh trip in 1998. In between there's been three days in Paris, a night or so in Oxford (the so being the overnight coach trip there and back) and an overnighter to Cardiff in 2004 for reasons I'm sure you can guess, though note I got there first.

I'm exiling myself from the web. No twitter, no blogging, no email, no rss. Which isn't to say there won't be anything here to keep you entertained; a couple of people commented at the Tweetup the other day that I'm a fairly prodigious blogger and there doesn't seem to be much point in changing that just because I'm away from a computer. This blog will not go dark. Ghosts of the past, as you'll see.

Speak to you when I get back.

Africa Oye from above

Africa Oye from above, originally uploaded by feelinglistless.

The Spotify Playlist

It's Only Rock And Roll

An antidote, then, to last week's monstrosity. This works simply because it's a free-wheeling meringue, a well chosen song to cover, put together with a modicum of taste. At time of release, a television documentary followed producer Ray Barretto as he met these singers and musicians in recording studios, homes and hotel rooms recording their contributions and simultaneously putting together the video which we then saw being layered together. It was a technical marvel which made the result sound even more impressive. True, Ronan Keating segways into Robin Williams and a leather jacketed Lionel Ritchie is in there too, and the Spice Girls are in their post-Geri period, but there's Joe Cocker to Iggy Pop and Chrissie Hynde and Skin and Jackson Browne which balances everything out somehow. Plus it ends on Natalie Imruglia giving it some elfin Tom Waits... (or indeed Mick Jagger ...)

http://open.spotify.com/user/feelinglistless/playlist/14IbW4fAW0Qyh1MTJj4L32

links for 2009-06-20

• YouTube - What is a Browser?
  Someone should try this in the UK. No, someone else.
  
  
• Walker steams ahead in awards
  Well deserved win for the Art In The Age of Steam exhibition which was truly one of the best collections of paintings I've seen in one place in many a year.
  
  
• SciFi Love: Capricorn One - great sci-fi moments number six
  We talked about this at the Tweetup. It is a great piece of work -- and as I said then my favourite moment is the freeze frame at the end with the three astronauts all caught in highly undignified positions.
  
  
• The Littlest Hobo (little_hobo) on Twitter
  "Nothing pisses me off more than some jackass giving me a milk-bone for stopping a nuke reactor from exploding. WHERE'S THE FUCKING STEAK??"
  
  
• Editor quits after journal accepts bogus science article
  Easily done. Really. No one can know everything and there does seem to be a bond of trust in the science (and arts world) that the academic won't screw over the publisher by submitting rubbish masquerading as research. I wonder how many examples of this do slip through.
  
  
• Reporter Ruins Guinness World Record Attempt from That Happened!
  "Geez Brian, I don't know what to say..."
  
  
• I have seen the whole of the internet: Mouse in Loaf, found in Supermarket in Ballymoney
  Suzie Sweet was unavailable for comment. Oh wait, um.
  
  
• BrokenTV: Heavily Stylised Gs and Silent Laments
  A history of Granada Television via its idents. Perhaps if ITV1 hadn't unified it wouldn't be in a better situation now.

a blogging element

Geography Liverpool Tweetup on Thursday (a local Twitter gathering) was a far more relaxed affair than the earlier Twestival; it's a very different prospect to be walking to a room and recognising people, for there to be someone to wave to.

Within the crowd was John McKerrell, an old school friend who I last saw (he reminds me) on a train to Manchester in 2002, where we talked about blogging and he showed some new platform he was working on. That still seems like a remarkably long time ago.

His latest project is Map Me! which according to the neat card he gave me allows you to "share your current location and past trips with friends and family online", which sounds a bit like Google Latitude with a blogging element. I've signed up for an account and I'll let you know how I get on.

Updated! John's clarified some of mapme's applications in the comments, essentially what I haphazardly hazarded a guess at with the title to the post: "mapme.at is similar to Google Latitude in some ways, having the location tracking and social network aspects, but we store your history and let you browse through it too, which Latitude doesn't do it. If you're an existing user of Latitude though you can let us know your details and we'll pull your location in from there and store the history as well. "

geocities rescue

Ranking Professionals

Some of you might remember being a kid. When you’re young there are very few avenues for true comedy. There’s sound making (burping, farting, that thing with your hand under your armpit), hand gestures (sometimes with props like rulers) and finally, playing about with your face.

You’d sit there pulling bags down under your eyes; turning your eyelids inside-out; pushing the front of your nose up; sticking your mouth on a window and blowing (see Daryl in ‘Adventures in Babystitting’); pushing your ears forward; pressing down as hard as you can on you head and pushing the skin back and forth to prove you’re wearing a wig.

The fact you’re only just remembering you did all these things proves what happens after the age of – say – thirteen, took a lot of the fun out of life. You actually began to care about your physical appearance. What people think about your hair colour or whether that mauve tie with a picture of Tweety-pie on goes with that pink shirt (NO!). But you didn’t actually know whether all that hard work to make yourself look terrific was actually worth it. Then the bandwagon began.

In television and film, a bandwagon takes months, even years to come into effect. It took nearly a year for the ‘Scream’ clones to appear at the cinema. The Docusoap menace took six months. ‘Hot or not’ seemed to take three days. This rash has already claimed many casualties and destroyed hundreds of self esteems. Pity they can be so darned fun . . .

[The older version of me notes -- the only other one of these rating sites from the original page still in circulation is Pick The Hottie. Some of those photos must be ages old.]

links for 2009-06-18

• Internet Archive: Free Download: I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
  About thirty years worth, from 1974 through to 2002. The first episode: "Plumbers Ball" (from six months before I was born) is a bit of an oddity -- features all of The Goodies and has a very young sounding Barry Cryer in the chair (Humph apparently being ill that week)
  
  
• Having already destroyed the Indiana Jones franchise, Spielberg is making a 5th
  I didn't hate the 4th -- even the fridge scene. The quicksand was a mistake and the climax simply lacked awe. What it desperately needed was a reaction shot of Indy showing us what to feel, but for some reason Spielberg decided to concentrate on the thing with the whatsit which simply wasn't that impressive given that we've already seen thousands of them flying around in other doodahs.
  
  
• keris stainton: Getting this letter was one of the most exciting moments of my life
  Doesn't Johnny Dee write for The Guardian these days?
  
  
• Finally! A Movie Where Love Happens | Film | A.V. Club
  What a lazy poster and appearances from Aniston and Eckheart might not guarantee an audience. What's the plot then? If only it was Maggie Gyllenhaal and John (not in American Beauty at all) Cusack. That's a film writing itself. Then, I thought 'Must Love Dogs' was going to be good ...
  
  
• Popjustice: The New Shakira
  Oh yes, she is the she wolf.

the decency of the resistance fighters

Film Hitchcock worked as a propagandist during the war working with the UK’s Ministry of Information to produce a couple of shorts as a morale booster for the French Resistance.

The first, Bon Voyage, is a neat bit of suspense about an RAF who has escaped a prisoner of war camp and describes how he returned home. His story is presented in flashback, the events described from two perspectives Roshoman-style, Hitch demonstrating that there are always varying degrees of truth and that you shouldn’t believe everything you see. Clearly made on a budget and featuring few locales, it’s still more purely entertaining than many war films because the director isn't afraid to emphasise small details at the expense of the epic gestures, such as the decency of the resistance fighters. A scene in a farmhouse (between a soldier and a resistance fighter) has a clear antecedent in The 39 Steps, and the overall impression is that if he’d had the time and inclination Hitch would have been able to stretch the material over a longer duration.

Aventure Malgache has a similar flashback structure, but it’s the much clearer, more straightforward story in which an actor explains to his colleagues how he escaped from Vichy controlled Madagascar. The BFI have an incisive discussion of the political implications but my favourite scenes are the brief moments between the actors in their dressing room; Hitch returned to the theatre throughout his career, but this seems to be the most accurate presentation so far of what it is like, the friendly banter between actors just before subsuming themselves in character before going on stage. There’s also a wonderful moment within flashback in which a picture is replaced which could have been dropped in from Casablanca. And that’s that for the war period.

links for 2009-06-17

• Underrated: Sharing the joke: The case for 'Last Action Hero'
  According to @anattendantlord the only positive contemporary review of The Last Action Hero and it does get the measure of the film. It's one of my favourites. As I told him it's a misunderstood, post-modern masterpiece. It's an action adventure film that references Hamlet and The Seventh Seal for goodness sake...
  
  
• The problems and dilemmas facing ITV - The Medium is Not Enough TV blog
  Rob explains why ITV1's in trouble but also why it's important to keep it around even though it is a bit rubbish. Lost In Austen was superb as was Boy Meets Girl (mostly); but I can see why neither of them brought in viewers since (a) the usual ITV1 audience doesn't seem to expect something that gives them something to think about and (b) the audience that's generally disenfranchised by ITV1 wouldn't expect them to have something that intelligent and assumes ITV's drama is rubbish so didn't make the journey.
  
  
• Topless Robot - The Greatest Megan Fox Pic of Our Times
  "Hey, stop pulling me along! That guy has a rose. He might be nice..."

"Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, things happen and they make you jump, they make you jump ..."

Music Exciting news. One of my favourite bands, Bush, The Tree And Me have reformed and have a new album and gigs lined up. Jimi Ashmore writes:

"7 years on, we are jumping on the reforming bands bandwagon and have decided to do some shows.

Our London gig is @ Dingwalls (Camden) on Wed 23rd September. http://www.dingwalls.com/

Part of the ticket sales will be going towards the Sands charity and we're aiming to keep the venue open after the show for dj and drinks.

The eagerly awaited new album, "Mouthful Of Bees" will also be available."

For some background, you can listen to their first album, How To Get Home, on Spotify, or if you're not in the area, here's their myspace page and the video for one of their best songs ...

sometimes (you do that)


Isn't that great? God, I've missed them.

I have seen the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Warning, spoilers ahead. Obviously. Click away now.

TV Concluding a television series is an impossible business. Unlike film, which Hitchcock, Welles, Goldman, Bordwell, all kinds of people acknowledge should always strive to have a clear and obvious ending mapped from the opening of the film, either because of the nature of the characters or the type of story that’s been set in motion, television series are designed never to end.

Film characters are destined to experience the most exciting/important/life changing event in their lives – on television they have a succession of them and like real life, the only definitive conclusion to their story can be death. Similarly in most films the story has a beginning, middle and end and in the best films, and the climax is so satisfactory we don’t wonder what happens to the characters afterwards.

You know all of this already, but I just wanted to put that up as a way of explaining my feelings about the close of Battlestar Galactica, the critical reaction and so that the next sentence doesn’t appear at the top the post thereby rendering the spoiler warning in the title a complete nonsense. Treat that last sentence as a buffer as well. And that last one – and this one. Here we go …

Well, why not the Douglas Adams ending?

If it’s going to mimic anything why not the closing moments of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (primary and tertiary phases)?

I mean how could you possibly conclude Battlestar Galactica satisfactorily?

Essentially the choices must have panned out as follows –

What we got.

The Blake’s 7 ending – everybody dies and the last human standing is Baltaar, hands up looking into impassive face of a cylon.

The Galactica 80 ending – they reach Earth, but discover a civilisation already in ascendancy and have to work out how to integrate themselves.

The fatalistic ending – they return to the rubbish post-apocalyptic version of Earth and decide it’s what they deserved and try to make the best of it as they slowly die of radiation poisoning

The Voyager ending – they reach Earth in the last few seconds of the episode with the fleet jumping into orbit but we don’t actually get to see them go 'home'

The Angel ending – the human race finds itself in a hopeless situation against insurmountable odds against the cylons and the series ends on a freeze frame of Apollo and Starbuck and the fleet grinning into certain doom

The surprisingly bleak ending – what we saw, but instead of the flash forward we find that the cylons were playing the long game and Caprica, Sharon and the final three turn on the humans as the centurions return along with the remaining cylon models and the final few shots are of Adama watching helplessly as the final remnants of the human race are wiped out as planned since the beginning because his son decided they need to enjoy the rural lifestyle rather than keep some way of defending themselves.

None of which would have been quite worked – wouldn’t have seemed right – because television is built that way – we always need to want to know what happens next. That’s why Angel could still continue in comics even after it ended on television, why the Star Trek franchise rolls ever onward. That’s why the Douglas Adams ending – well almost –- I’m not sure Douglas would have been too happy about the quasi-religious mysticism and the angels – is about as good as it could have been. It’s not perfect, but it’s ok.

As is the usual way of things, most of the criticism seems to be about the detail, the nitpicking. Why would the human race give up all of this scientific development like this? What about all of the diseases? Why is ‘our’ Earth in the wrong place – look at those star maps? What’s all the guff about ‘god’s plan’? How come the two most morally bankrupt characters get continue existing into our time? Does this mean we’re all cylons? Is Bob Dylan? It’s all rubbish, I tell you, rubbish!

No it isn’t. Yes, we’re back to me getting annoyed at people for expecting fiction to obey the laws of reality when it doesn’t need to. It’s fiction. I’ve quoted Hitchcock before on this. You can do what you like in fiction so long as it obeys the rules of the world you’ve created and it's entertaining in the pure sense.

The human race unilaterally give up technology to attempt to end the cycle which got them in the mess they’re in and after what they’ve been through have clearly decided to think of the future of the race, the long game, the hope for a better future for their ancestors. So what if the Earth’s in the wrong place – it’s in the wrong place in the world created by Ron Moore! Why can’t there be a deity in that version of reality – there was one in Clash of the Titans. No we’re not part cylon – the people walking around in the fictional version of New York might be.

I like this ending.

All of the main characters recieved a decent send off – the characters we’ve been following since the first year at least. Most found peace, some surprised themselves, a few found retribution, there was atonement and one just faded away. The show didn’t rest on its laurels and gave us the massive/epic/banzai epic space battle, humans (and some cylons) against cylons we’d hoped for, with the added incongruity of watching centurion battle centurion, new style and against old. It even surprised structurally, as it so often does, providing Lost-style revelations via flashback which will add texture when we decided to watch the series again.

Gestures large and small.

More than that it winds up the central themes of the series, about how we’re usually doomed to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, of history, despite our best intentions and the Asimovian conjunction between androids and humans and how we’re not averse to playing god ourselves. And I did adore the controversial coda with the return of the iconic image of Six in the red dress which I’ve always seen as a nod to the figure in The Matrix and the montage sequence of the robots we’re desperate to be in our image. But not in a preachy way, with that cheekiness which has been at the core of the series.

Except, of course, this isn’t the end, because this is television. There’s to be a new tv movie, The Plan, retelling the story from the cylon perspective. There’s the prequel, Caprica, set fifty years before the fall, in the world we glimpsed in the pilot and in the flashbacks here. And I’d be very surprised if we didn’t see a proper continuation set somewhere down the line, returning to these characters, now farmers, eeking out their simple existence as some new catastrophe befalls them. Aren’t they going to be doing the cave people what the cylons did to them?

it's a bus destination

Liverpool Life Though mainly for Annette since it's something we've talked about:

Liverpool Penny Lane are to become 'The Beatles Quarter'

It's always been slightly curious that there's nothing much for tourists to see when they visit one of the city's most famous place names. When Annette and I walked the length of Penny Lane, even I could see that if this was the sight of a pilgrimage, there isn't much to thank the traveller for visiting. On the one hand it's nice that it is still just an ordinary street unaffected by its musical legacy. But on the other, if I was a tourist and I had come miles, I'd at least expect to see something marking its 'importance', at the very least something pointing out where the various elements of the song are -- and they are there if you know where to look.

This is more than that. A coach stop, art centre and general renovation of the area from Allerton Road right up to Smithdown Road, my own neck of the forest. An artificial tourist trap then, but if it brings money to the area, then fine, and in some respects it has to be better than what we have now, the derelict shops and shell of a bistro. It'd be nice to have somewhere close by, within walking distance, which has a guaranteed atmosphere, continually buzzing; in other words, the Penny Lane that exists in The Beatles' own video where it's a bus destination and there are men on horseback.

dashing through the narrow streets of the city

Harris Museum, Preston, originally uploaded by Tony Worrall Foto.

Museums Edward Morris’s Public Art Collections in the North of England has this to say on the subject of the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston:

“The huge classical Harris Library, Museum and Art Gallery, with its inscription over its great portico: ‘TO LITERATURE ARTS AND SCIENCES’ and above it, Roscoe Mullins’s sculptural group, The Age of Pericles, dominate the centre of Preston like a medieval cathedral. Cultural and intellectual spiritual nourishment for the citizens of Preston now seemed to be the responsibility of the municipal museum and art gallery, of the church.”

Certainly, dashing through the narrow streets of the city in a downpour searching for the entrance was exactly how I’d imagine it would be if I was a character in an Ingmar Bergman film desperate to tell some god about my sins. Luckily, I didn’t have any sins worth sharing, which saved the security guard and lady working in the shop a bit of bother.

Harris, the name above the door, was a local solicitor, a very rich man, who at his death bequeathed £300,000 to the city for the building of new municipal buildings, and the council used a third of that towards this resplendent palace to house a collection which had developed during the previous few decades. The usual mix of gifts and bequests, this has built primarily from the industrialist John Sheepshanks and another local solicitor, name of Newsham. The fads of the time passed Newsham and his fellow donators by; you’ll not find the Romantics, Pre-Raphaelites or Classical Revival on these walls. His conservative tastes stretched to Etty, Herbert and E.M. Ward. Collectively, and baldy, a central theme emerges – women -– and they’re generally hung in thematic clusters, similar ages, contrasting ideas, from a range of periods, like the controversial initial layout of Tate Modern.

Unlike the controversial initial layout of Tate Modern, this works very well. Grimshaw’s melancholic In The Golden Time, an autumnal scene which depicts a maiden and child dwarfed by a stately home and wealth they’ll never know is placed next a variety of portraits of ladies in corsets of precisely the kind they’re cross the cobbled street to avoid. On one side of the main atrium is a full-sized portrait of Mary Logsdail by her father William, a chaste figure in her late teens, wear silver gown and violet scarf, perfectly designed but strangely artificial perhaps waiting for the viewer to provide their own emotional narrative, question whether her expression suggests that she cross, pensive, stroppy or simply waiting for something (perhaps her Dad to finish painting). Opposite, and produced a century later in the 60s is John Ward’s Linda, whose impressionistic style creates movement and whose dark background draws us towards the girl’s eyes and their certain emotion, sadness.

There are landscapes, true, but these are the most striking images and to an extent I wonder if the Harris could draw even greater attention to what is their main asset in their literature; this is a feminist destination and depending upon the route you take, you end up witnessing the slow development of the depiction of women in painting. I have pages and pages of notes describing this girl, that lady, at work, at play. John Rogers’ Cordelia with her Bette Davis eyes, Romney’s Serena Reading showing the tranquillity of reading by candlelight, Dickee’s Hespania whose beautifully detailed costume picked out in reds and golds distract us from her inert face. Then the rather wonderful In For Repairs by Laura Knight offering an antidote to the testosterone hued war paintings of the 1940s featuring a team of female factory works repairing a barrage balloon, the folds in the fabric of which so similar those in the dress in the Logsdail and closing At The Courtierer showing a beautiful model with deep red lips, as decorative as any of the Victorians, but more relaxed in her own skin.

None of which is to say that an element of social conscience doesn’t run through the collection. In Arthur Hughes’s Bed Time, a family is revealed to us, a mother putting her children to bed. Except from the father’s palpable anguish we can tell that all is not well, they’re a family in trouble. He grasps his leg and has his forehead in his hand which layers poignancy on the other elements of the scene, his wife teaching their daughter to pray and the smallest child laughing, blissfully unaware of whatever catastrophe has befallen them. Sherwood’s The Preston By-Election offers the city in disarray as supporters of the various parties clash, the eventual winner looking down upon the scene from a safe balcony demonstrating that politicians have always, to some extent, been out of touch. Charles Spence asks “Why War?” in his painting of a veteran of the (not so) Great War in his drawing room at the dawn of World War II, surrounded by symbols of conflicts passed, a bust of Wellington, a painting of Trafalgar and a copy of the Daily Sketch whose headline reads “Premier flying to Hitler”.

Then there’s the surprise. If by some remote chance you are planning on visiting the Harris soon, I’d look away now because it’s best discovered on your own. Gone? Right. In the main gallery space, one of the paintings has been replaced and next to the replacement is a small black and white photograph of the missing piece, Pauline in the Yellow Dress, by Sir James Gunn. She’s a regal figure with come hither eyes, like a young Princess Anne eyeing Mark Philips, draped across a chaise lounge cuddling a small dog. We’re told that its been moved to the costume exhibition, showing the breadth of fashion garments in the general collection. And it is. Along with the actual yellow dress that is in the painting! Next to each other. I actually gasped, the kind of audible gasp that tends to only appear in comic books, in a speech bubble with gasp written in the middle. The painting was bequeathed and the artist’s family recently gave the dress as well. It’s a very rare privilege to see just how accurate a painter has been with the costumer, to see how carefully they’ve copied the dots, matched the pigmentation. We can also see now that the dress was meant to be buttoned up but Pauline has unbuttoned herself, completing her seduction and making the visit worthwhile all by, um, itself…

My ringtone of Tom Lehrer's The Elements has just become even more out of date ...

Sadly, my initial viewing of this video was undermined by the irony of YouTube's advertising:

The Spotify Playlist

Voices That Care

I've always had a soft spot for charity records; most of them are awful, but there's a definite joy to picking over the list of people who turned up, if not always in the same studio at least on the same slab of plastic or collection of ones and zeros. But this is an atrocity. It's not so much that all of the middle of the road, not even your parents like them, musical artists are collected together up front. Or a young Will Smith turning up in the middle to add some 'urban'-edge (in much the same way as Dizzee Rascal for Band Aid 20). It's that so many otherwise well respected actors have also been roped in. On first watching I literally shouted out "Not you too Pfieffer! Streep? Not you too Streep."

http://open.spotify.com/user/feelinglistless/playlist/0IP8KRKSr0bz7VYZ1Uidnb

links for 2009-06-13

• What's going on here?
  Could this be the most existential caption competition ever?