Remember I told you that I'd been downloading some really promising looking free e-books off the Internet?
Well, now I can report back to you that I've actually started reading them.
The Floating Island Of Madness made an ideal companion on the Intercity journey from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston - not least because it is a classic example of total sci-fi schlock and roll.
It recounts the exciting and vital tale of an American secret service agent who gets together with his counterparts from the British and French secret services to investigate the mysterious disappearances of a number of people in the vicinity of Constantinople (note that the book seems to be set in the present-day of the period at which it was written, the Thirties, yet the author still refers to the city as 'Constantinople').
As this is meant to be a premier slice of riproaring techno-adventure, writer Jason Kirby prefers to cut straight to the chase, so he doesn't bother wasting any of his valuable narrative time and energy with any poncey niceties of more mainstream literature, such as characterisation and motivation.
Instead, the three agents simply climb into a plane and zoom off in the direction of the Arabian Desert (er, how close is this to Istanbul 'not Constantinople', exactly? Will have to get round to looking it up, but can't imagine it being exactly next door or anything).
After flying around all day attempting to catch up with the elusive gliders that have apparently been spiriting people away from the city rooftops, at sunset they reluctantly decide to turn back and head for the airport.
However, this sensible plan fails to come to fruition - because their plane has now been caught by one of the mysterious tractor beams emanating from the floating island of madness.
Helpless, but not hopeless (if they were, then there would be no basis for a story), they are dragged miles and miles off-course, right up to the notorious island itself.
Despite the fact that this island is several acres in diameter and floats two thousand feet above the Arabian Desert, the mad scientist that runs the joint is convinced that nobody back down on the ground has the slightest idea what he's up to!
Yes, this place has been created by a classic barmy boffin.
Although he is named Fraser and looks more like Hercule Poirot than Albert Einstein, this delightful individual is indeed a classic example of the genre. With a mind the equal of someone like Stephen Hawking, he originally came to prominence via some fascinating discoveries connected with 'light'. What these were precisely we are never told, quite possibly because Jason Kirby himself knew five fifths of bugger-all about science, and doubted his target audience would care, either.
Anyway, Fraser then lost no time in going nuts, so he was promptly consigned to one of the best bins in the business.
Everybody thought that would be the last of him - until he very conveniently escaped.
The men in white coats wielding the massive butterfly nets failed to catch him, and he was thus registered as a missing person.
Of course, Fraser is one of those barking mad scientists who believe in giving full value for money. Therefore he indulges himself to the max explaining all his fiendish and unspeakably evil plans to his three prisoners in almost mind-boggling detail.
According to his own incredibly self-indulgent monologues, the floating island of madness owes its very existence to that world-beating combination of raving genius and what Ben Goldacre from The Guardian would call Seriously Bad Science.
Defying the very laws of physics, Fraser has invented an almost weightless new element called 'fleolite' (sic). This you can pour into moulds and let set like concrete. The entire island has been constructed from it, and the only reason it doesn't float right off the planet altogether and up into space is because there are enough people and vehicles living on it to weigh it down a bit.
Now, at this point the reader, very much like the three secret agents themselves, may be wondering just how Fraser managed to persuade all his many and varied personnel to come and work for him on such a ricketty, out-of-the-way structure.
Time to introduce technical innovation number two. Fraser's strange discoveries about light inevitably led him to develop the tractor beam - several centuries before the characters in Star Trek thought up the idea.
But that's not all this amazing boffin keeps up his sleeve ...
To ensure that his unwilling guests don't cause any more trouble once he's brought them there, he gets every last one of them injected as soon as possible with a secret serum that he developed on his day off.
This unlikely substance is what sends you mad. Your intellect keeps working as per normal, but all your emotions are permanently switched off.
Fraser went teapot quite naturally, but everybody else who works for him has been treated with this horrible drug (wonder how he persuaded the first one of them to take it, then? Now THAT would be an interesting story and a half ... ).
The three agents are next on the list for conversion - until they manage to trip Fraser's looney doctor assistant up, causing the contents of the syringe to spill out onto the floor. They then fill it back up again with harmless water.
This is as far as I've got at the moment, but I'll be sure to keep you posted on subsequent developments (assuming the rest of the book lives up to this early promise. If not, then I probably won't be arsed and will just talk about something completely different instead).
Still, it's nice to know that the stock literary figure of the Mad Scientist was not only alive and well, but cooking on gas at such a relatively early date.
I'm sure someone somewhere must have bothered to study the phenomenon in relentless and bum-numbing detail, so I'm off now to look up their work and see what it says.
In the meantime, what continues to perplex me is the issue of who precisely would have read this stuff when it first came out. Presumably people who knew so little about real science and technology that they were easily overawed by Kirby's crap theorising and so took it on face value.
Yet in his classic study New Maps Of Hell, veteran sci-fi aficionado Kingsley Amis states quite clearly and unequivocally that many of the readers of the genre from the late Twenties on actually were trained in some sort of scientific or technological based discipline as part of their jobs or careers, so you'd reckon that they would have been able to recognise that Fraser's inventions were total and utter bollocks.
And back in the late nineteenth century, no less a writer than Jules Verne himself declared that there is no point in writing science fiction unless you make quite sure to get the science bit right.
Maybe it was easily over-impressed teenagers, then ...
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Welcome to Shepperton Babylon
If you are a television researcher for one of those mammoth 'best of ... ' documentaries that they are always showing on BBC3, Channel 4 or Sky 3 in order to fill up the lonely hours for those sad viewers who were born too late to watch Why Don't You ... back in the late Seventies, you are convinced that there is only one joke in Carry On Columbus.
This occurs in the scene where Columbus is making a business presentation to Ferdinand and Isabella to try and attract funding for his trip.
A series of blokes wearing massive plaster jars on their heads parade in front of the monarchs, illustrating all the wondrous spices that the great explorer hopes to bring back from his voyage.
Of course, the rather camp one is introduced as: "And he's ginger."
"Ooooo - is he really?" queries the king in far too salacious a tone.
However, according to that great history of the British film industry Shepperton Babylon, there is a second joke hidden in the screenplay.
Once the trip is finally underway, a salt-bitten old seadog explains to a female passenger that it's too dangerous to go swimming in the sea because of the sharks.
"Oooooo - will they eat me whole?" she asks in delicious terror.
"No, I'm told they always spit that part out."
This occurs in the scene where Columbus is making a business presentation to Ferdinand and Isabella to try and attract funding for his trip.
A series of blokes wearing massive plaster jars on their heads parade in front of the monarchs, illustrating all the wondrous spices that the great explorer hopes to bring back from his voyage.
Of course, the rather camp one is introduced as: "And he's ginger."
"Ooooo - is he really?" queries the king in far too salacious a tone.
However, according to that great history of the British film industry Shepperton Babylon, there is a second joke hidden in the screenplay.
Once the trip is finally underway, a salt-bitten old seadog explains to a female passenger that it's too dangerous to go swimming in the sea because of the sharks.
"Oooooo - will they eat me whole?" she asks in delicious terror.
"No, I'm told they always spit that part out."
Monday 20 December 2010
Chocolat is life
Ever watched a film and hated it right from the very first frame?
Then you'll know exactly how I felt when I saw Chocolat on Saturday afternoon.
Now, it was the wrong time of the month, we had been practically snowed in by the blizzard from the night before and the radiators were barely functioning, so you might have thought a life-affirming chick-flick would be just the ticket.
First up, let me point out that I do understand that the novel the film is based on belongs to the magical realism genre, in which it is no surprise to anyone that chocolate being the food of the South American gods, it must obviously possess miraculous properties.
(So if I slowly and sensuously munch and swallow my way through a couple of bags of milk chocolate Vienna truffles from Thorntons, doing my best Nigella Lawson impression while licking the sugar sprinkles off my fingers in between each one, I get to enjoy a steamy, passionate affair with Alfred Molina - once the protagonist has shown him the error of his ways.)
Therefore, the heroine has to be the daughter of a South American fairy-spirit, rather than a normal, average, everyday lady from Amazonia who just happens to fall in love with the visiting pharmacist from France.
This means that women characters come by their amazing knowledge and abilities purely through virtue of their genetic and spiritual inheritance, rather than through study, hard work and practice.
Despite the setting being a French village in the late Fifties, nobody who lived there seemed to have any true love or appreciation of food or drink, either sweet or savoury. This I find almost impossible to believe in the land that likes to pride itself on being the home of great cuisine.
Unlike the author of the original book Joanne Harris, I am not half-French. Therefore I don't have any relatives over there that I spent idyllic holidays with during my formative years (might have been more interesting and exotic for me if I had, but I haven't, so there you go). Perhaps it is true that all the inhabitants of obscure French villages out in the middle of nowhere are inhabited purely by the prim and repressed. Though coming from a small market town in the south of England, I would suspect not.
Anyway, despite constantly wandering from place to place with her nine-year old illegitimate daughter firmly in tow, Vienne always seems to have plenty of money with which to set up her incredibly chic new business and pay for their exquisitely well-designed new lodgings.
Where does she get all this dosh from?
(Well, if it's a magical realist book and film, then this bit must obviously be more of the magic. So not to worry! Just enjoy. Wish her bank would give me that sort of backing, though.)
The daughter Anouk was so bloody fey and twee that she seemed to have stepped straight out of a Petit Filous ad. This is another one of those fashions in child-rearing that I completely fail to comprehend. Okay, I can appreciate why so many British middle-class parents fear their kids ending up as manky little feral hoodies like the ones I ran into on the bus a few weeks back, or grating American airheads. But why the longing for Pippi Longstocking crossed with a French engineer from the Limousin's daughter, if the end result is something like Anouk?
Oh yes - and dogs only feel horny if they eat magical chocolates, not because their owners have never got round to asking the local vet to lop their goolies off.
If you are a shy bloke lacking in confidence (but looking like John Hurt), then you need your dog to provide you with an excuse to talk to the sweet little widow lady with hidden depths who has somehow never got round to finding a new lover to replace her husband (who was either killed in the trenches back in 1917 or by a bomb during an air raid in this year - it was never made clear precisely what).
Johnny Depp turned up eventually to ponce round in a brown leather jacket whilst playing the guitar and talking in an Irish accent - but he really looked as if he'd spent most of the time that the movie was shooting wondering what the hell he was doing there and trying to formulate a graceful excuse out of it.
The entire experience left me with a great hankering for a massive life-affirming mug of hot chocolate with plenty of cream on the top.
I got this longing fulfilled at Starbucks.
Still waiting for the affair with Alfred Molina, though.
Then you'll know exactly how I felt when I saw Chocolat on Saturday afternoon.
Now, it was the wrong time of the month, we had been practically snowed in by the blizzard from the night before and the radiators were barely functioning, so you might have thought a life-affirming chick-flick would be just the ticket.
First up, let me point out that I do understand that the novel the film is based on belongs to the magical realism genre, in which it is no surprise to anyone that chocolate being the food of the South American gods, it must obviously possess miraculous properties.
(So if I slowly and sensuously munch and swallow my way through a couple of bags of milk chocolate Vienna truffles from Thorntons, doing my best Nigella Lawson impression while licking the sugar sprinkles off my fingers in between each one, I get to enjoy a steamy, passionate affair with Alfred Molina - once the protagonist has shown him the error of his ways.)
Therefore, the heroine has to be the daughter of a South American fairy-spirit, rather than a normal, average, everyday lady from Amazonia who just happens to fall in love with the visiting pharmacist from France.
This means that women characters come by their amazing knowledge and abilities purely through virtue of their genetic and spiritual inheritance, rather than through study, hard work and practice.
Despite the setting being a French village in the late Fifties, nobody who lived there seemed to have any true love or appreciation of food or drink, either sweet or savoury. This I find almost impossible to believe in the land that likes to pride itself on being the home of great cuisine.
Unlike the author of the original book Joanne Harris, I am not half-French. Therefore I don't have any relatives over there that I spent idyllic holidays with during my formative years (might have been more interesting and exotic for me if I had, but I haven't, so there you go). Perhaps it is true that all the inhabitants of obscure French villages out in the middle of nowhere are inhabited purely by the prim and repressed. Though coming from a small market town in the south of England, I would suspect not.
Anyway, despite constantly wandering from place to place with her nine-year old illegitimate daughter firmly in tow, Vienne always seems to have plenty of money with which to set up her incredibly chic new business and pay for their exquisitely well-designed new lodgings.
Where does she get all this dosh from?
(Well, if it's a magical realist book and film, then this bit must obviously be more of the magic. So not to worry! Just enjoy. Wish her bank would give me that sort of backing, though.)
The daughter Anouk was so bloody fey and twee that she seemed to have stepped straight out of a Petit Filous ad. This is another one of those fashions in child-rearing that I completely fail to comprehend. Okay, I can appreciate why so many British middle-class parents fear their kids ending up as manky little feral hoodies like the ones I ran into on the bus a few weeks back, or grating American airheads. But why the longing for Pippi Longstocking crossed with a French engineer from the Limousin's daughter, if the end result is something like Anouk?
Oh yes - and dogs only feel horny if they eat magical chocolates, not because their owners have never got round to asking the local vet to lop their goolies off.
If you are a shy bloke lacking in confidence (but looking like John Hurt), then you need your dog to provide you with an excuse to talk to the sweet little widow lady with hidden depths who has somehow never got round to finding a new lover to replace her husband (who was either killed in the trenches back in 1917 or by a bomb during an air raid in this year - it was never made clear precisely what).
Johnny Depp turned up eventually to ponce round in a brown leather jacket whilst playing the guitar and talking in an Irish accent - but he really looked as if he'd spent most of the time that the movie was shooting wondering what the hell he was doing there and trying to formulate a graceful excuse out of it.
The entire experience left me with a great hankering for a massive life-affirming mug of hot chocolate with plenty of cream on the top.
I got this longing fulfilled at Starbucks.
Still waiting for the affair with Alfred Molina, though.
Monday 13 December 2010
All human life is here
Hope the journey back home this evening is a quiet one.
Three weeks ago, (Monday 22 November 2010) it all kicked off on the bus back from Salford University to Piccadilly Gardens.
The driver suddenly stopped the bus in between stops so he could rush upstairs and remonstrate with two horrid little teenage scrotes sitting at the front upstairs. I'm still not sure what they were doing that he disapproved of so vehemently - but I suspect it was something like smoking a great bong, kicking the back of the seats or writing graffitti.
Anyway, he ordered them off - and the nasty little fuckers refused to go quietly.
One of them (the more dominant/aggressive one) fancied himself as something of a nutter.
He kept mouthing off about how "We ain't doone fookin' OWT!" while his weedy little mate agreed with everything he said.
Eventually, they grudgingly consented to remove themselves from the vehicle, but only because the self-appointed 'looney' had decided to announce to all and sundry (especially the driver) that he would 'bite yer FOOKIN' nose off'.
As the hydraulic doors hissed shut behind them, the midgety one encouraged him all the way.
Then the driver zoomed off down the road. He was so upset by the row that his driving had gone all souped-up and abrupt.
However, that was by no means the last we saw or heard of them.
They chased us all the way down the road to the next stop, where the driver was mad enough to open the door to them again!
They both piled on - and the mad one repeated his threat to bit the driver's 'fookin' nose off'.
Someone sitting towards the back suggested (very quietly) that the driver might like to think about phoning the police.
The driver, meanwhile, just sat and listened to the little fuckers rant on again.
Then he told them to leave.
They left, he shut the doors and started to drive off.
The looney git banged furiously on the side of the bus, then started running after it - and kept it up half-way to Piccadilly Gardens, until the driver managed to lose him in the massive traffic jam that had started to pile up in the rush-hour.
Sunday 5 December was an absolute classic as well.
During the mid-afternoon, I nipped into Sainsburys in Fallowfield to do some shopping.
As I was browsing round the newspaper and magazine section near the front of the store, a massive ding-dong broke out in the queue for the tobacco kiosk.
One studenty-looking girl went up to another one - and slapped her round the face.
Then she kicked her viciously in the shins, pulled her hair and screamed: "You fucking slept with my boyfriend, you bitch!!!!!!!!!"
There followed a short, sharp blur of kicks, slaps, hair-tugs and outraged squeals.
No sign of a security guard, of course, so one of the other shoppers shouted out: "Oi, security! Fight!"
Silence reigned for a second.
Then a third studenty-looking girl emerged from the queue, went up to the first one - and screamed in her face: "That's my best friend you just attacked!!!!!!!!"
The first one stood her ground and replied: "Well, your best friend is a fucking slut - and you shouldn't encourage her, or you're just as bad!!!!!!!"
Still no sign of the security guards.
Finally the first girl ran off to the toilets, where it was rumoured she locked herself in and burst into tears.
Once more, peace reigned at the centre of the commercial universe in Fallowfield.
A couple of years ago, I saw a bloke try to walk out of there with a plasma-screen telly he hadn't paid for.
When the security guards confronted him, he made a run for it, one of them did a rugby tackle on him - and the other one caught the telly.
Whoever said real life was boring?
Three weeks ago, (Monday 22 November 2010) it all kicked off on the bus back from Salford University to Piccadilly Gardens.
The driver suddenly stopped the bus in between stops so he could rush upstairs and remonstrate with two horrid little teenage scrotes sitting at the front upstairs. I'm still not sure what they were doing that he disapproved of so vehemently - but I suspect it was something like smoking a great bong, kicking the back of the seats or writing graffitti.
Anyway, he ordered them off - and the nasty little fuckers refused to go quietly.
One of them (the more dominant/aggressive one) fancied himself as something of a nutter.
He kept mouthing off about how "We ain't doone fookin' OWT!" while his weedy little mate agreed with everything he said.
Eventually, they grudgingly consented to remove themselves from the vehicle, but only because the self-appointed 'looney' had decided to announce to all and sundry (especially the driver) that he would 'bite yer FOOKIN' nose off'.
As the hydraulic doors hissed shut behind them, the midgety one encouraged him all the way.
Then the driver zoomed off down the road. He was so upset by the row that his driving had gone all souped-up and abrupt.
However, that was by no means the last we saw or heard of them.
They chased us all the way down the road to the next stop, where the driver was mad enough to open the door to them again!
They both piled on - and the mad one repeated his threat to bit the driver's 'fookin' nose off'.
Someone sitting towards the back suggested (very quietly) that the driver might like to think about phoning the police.
The driver, meanwhile, just sat and listened to the little fuckers rant on again.
Then he told them to leave.
They left, he shut the doors and started to drive off.
The looney git banged furiously on the side of the bus, then started running after it - and kept it up half-way to Piccadilly Gardens, until the driver managed to lose him in the massive traffic jam that had started to pile up in the rush-hour.
Sunday 5 December was an absolute classic as well.
During the mid-afternoon, I nipped into Sainsburys in Fallowfield to do some shopping.
As I was browsing round the newspaper and magazine section near the front of the store, a massive ding-dong broke out in the queue for the tobacco kiosk.
One studenty-looking girl went up to another one - and slapped her round the face.
Then she kicked her viciously in the shins, pulled her hair and screamed: "You fucking slept with my boyfriend, you bitch!!!!!!!!!"
There followed a short, sharp blur of kicks, slaps, hair-tugs and outraged squeals.
No sign of a security guard, of course, so one of the other shoppers shouted out: "Oi, security! Fight!"
Silence reigned for a second.
Then a third studenty-looking girl emerged from the queue, went up to the first one - and screamed in her face: "That's my best friend you just attacked!!!!!!!!"
The first one stood her ground and replied: "Well, your best friend is a fucking slut - and you shouldn't encourage her, or you're just as bad!!!!!!!"
Still no sign of the security guards.
Finally the first girl ran off to the toilets, where it was rumoured she locked herself in and burst into tears.
Once more, peace reigned at the centre of the commercial universe in Fallowfield.
A couple of years ago, I saw a bloke try to walk out of there with a plasma-screen telly he hadn't paid for.
When the security guards confronted him, he made a run for it, one of them did a rugby tackle on him - and the other one caught the telly.
Whoever said real life was boring?
Saturday 11 December 2010
Putting the blame on Mame
Right, I have now watched 'Gilda', a piece that many, many critics constantly cite as a classic example of film noir.
And I have to admit that my honest response to that is 'Eh?'
The reason for this is that it turns out in the end that Gilda herself is NOT the nasty, lying, devious, selfish, lustful, hypocritical femme fatale she's been making herself out to be for most of the story.
She is in fact a nice, respectable, honest, worthy, all-American girl who has just been putting on this act in order to pull the fellow that she was in love with all along.
Never mind the fact that she married her first husband because she needed security in the form of his money.
Forget about the fact that she lost no time in scoping out a possible third husband when she thought she'd managed to get shot of the second one.
And it was fine her conducting a rather rabid flirtation (to say the least) with the second husband whilst the first one was still in the frame - because he was a tough-minded all-American guy and the hero of the story.
I can only presume that this completely schizophrenic set of 'conventional' moral standards must have been imposed on the film either by the studio moguls desperate to preserve Rita Hayworth's pristine image (and thus keep box office takings healthily up), or the Hays Production Code was still in full swing at this point.
All I can say is what a complete and utter disappointment the ending turned out to be.
At least I didn't waste any money on buying or hiring out this DVD, let alone going to see it at the cinema.
And I have to admit that my honest response to that is 'Eh?'
The reason for this is that it turns out in the end that Gilda herself is NOT the nasty, lying, devious, selfish, lustful, hypocritical femme fatale she's been making herself out to be for most of the story.
She is in fact a nice, respectable, honest, worthy, all-American girl who has just been putting on this act in order to pull the fellow that she was in love with all along.
Never mind the fact that she married her first husband because she needed security in the form of his money.
Forget about the fact that she lost no time in scoping out a possible third husband when she thought she'd managed to get shot of the second one.
And it was fine her conducting a rather rabid flirtation (to say the least) with the second husband whilst the first one was still in the frame - because he was a tough-minded all-American guy and the hero of the story.
I can only presume that this completely schizophrenic set of 'conventional' moral standards must have been imposed on the film either by the studio moguls desperate to preserve Rita Hayworth's pristine image (and thus keep box office takings healthily up), or the Hays Production Code was still in full swing at this point.
All I can say is what a complete and utter disappointment the ending turned out to be.
At least I didn't waste any money on buying or hiring out this DVD, let alone going to see it at the cinema.
Friday 3 December 2010
If you all love pulp fiction, clap your hands
That's pulp fiction as in the literary genre, rather than the film of that title (which I must confess I STILL haven't got round to watching just yet - though I DO know that it was famous for Uma Thurman's black bob haircut, Uma Thurman's funky gothic nail varnish and saving John Travolta's career from the dustbin otherwise known as 'Battlefield Earth'. Oh, and nuclear briefcases and long conversations about cheeseburgers. See, I may be an intellectual - but you can't accuse me of neglecting my cultural references!).
As a life-long bookworm possesed of formidable stamina and endurance, there is nothing, but NOTHING, I like more than a guaranteed source of exciting and vital schlocky literature.
And if it's free, so much the better.
That is why the many sites on the Internet that aim to distribute free e-books to the masses are to be applauded.
If you want fine pickings without the danger of navigating the copyright minefield, then it's advisable to stick to works that are now firmly in the public domain.
Try taking a good browse through:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
http://www.openlibrary.org/
http://www.archive.org/
when you have a spare moment or three and your persistence will be rewarded with a fistful of (unjustly?) forgotten gems.
http://www.manybooks.net/
includes an extensive pulp fiction section, which they seem to be running in collaboration with Project Gutenberg.
Just yesterday, I downloaded myself copies of the following deathless tomes:
Initiative Psychic Energy - by Warren Hilton
'Being the Sixth of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency' [yeah - RIGHT. But if by some unlikely chance any of the suggestions in the book do actually work, that's a cool £17.99 I've managed to save myself]
The Floating Island Of Madness - by Jason Kirby
'Far above the Arabian Desert, three Secret Service men find an aerial island whose inhabitants are —madmen.' [I defy you NOT to love a book with a logline like this!]
The Moving Picture Girls Under The Palms - by Laura Lee Hope
(aka Lost In The Wilds Of Florida)
'How they went to the land of palms, played many parts in dramas before the camera; were lost, and aided other who were also lost.' [Or this.]
The Man Whom The Trees Loved - by Algernon Blackwood
'An exquisitely wrought and truly imaginative conception.' [er, like WHAT, precisely? I suppose you have to download the book and read it in order to find out. Though if it lives up to the promise of the title ... ]
Three Weeks - by Elinor Glyn
'The world has felt upon its hot lips the perfumed kisses of the beautiful heroine of "Three Weeks." The brilliant flame that was her life has blazed a path into every corner of the globe. It is a world-renowned novel of consuming emotion that has made the name of its author, Elinor Glyn, the most discussed of all writers of modern fiction.'
[Yes, THAT Elinor Glyn. The one alleged to get up to no good on tiger skins on a regular basis.]
What a brilliant haul!
And they've got tons more, including some works by H P Lovecraft, E Doctorow Smith, Sax Rohmer and Clark Ashton Smith (Southern fried chicken, coffee milkshakes and overwrought sagas of astronauts getting their eyeballs sucked out by giant centipedes roaming round the craters on Mars - oh happy teenage Saturdays etc).
I'm off to see what's lurking in the corners of their banned books section ...
As a life-long bookworm possesed of formidable stamina and endurance, there is nothing, but NOTHING, I like more than a guaranteed source of exciting and vital schlocky literature.
And if it's free, so much the better.
That is why the many sites on the Internet that aim to distribute free e-books to the masses are to be applauded.
If you want fine pickings without the danger of navigating the copyright minefield, then it's advisable to stick to works that are now firmly in the public domain.
Try taking a good browse through:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
http://www.openlibrary.org/
http://www.archive.org/
when you have a spare moment or three and your persistence will be rewarded with a fistful of (unjustly?) forgotten gems.
http://www.manybooks.net/
includes an extensive pulp fiction section, which they seem to be running in collaboration with Project Gutenberg.
Just yesterday, I downloaded myself copies of the following deathless tomes:
Initiative Psychic Energy - by Warren Hilton
'Being the Sixth of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency' [yeah - RIGHT. But if by some unlikely chance any of the suggestions in the book do actually work, that's a cool £17.99 I've managed to save myself]
The Floating Island Of Madness - by Jason Kirby
'Far above the Arabian Desert, three Secret Service men find an aerial island whose inhabitants are —madmen.' [I defy you NOT to love a book with a logline like this!]
The Moving Picture Girls Under The Palms - by Laura Lee Hope
(aka Lost In The Wilds Of Florida)
'How they went to the land of palms, played many parts in dramas before the camera; were lost, and aided other who were also lost.' [Or this.]
The Man Whom The Trees Loved - by Algernon Blackwood
'An exquisitely wrought and truly imaginative conception.' [er, like WHAT, precisely? I suppose you have to download the book and read it in order to find out. Though if it lives up to the promise of the title ... ]
Three Weeks - by Elinor Glyn
'The world has felt upon its hot lips the perfumed kisses of the beautiful heroine of "Three Weeks." The brilliant flame that was her life has blazed a path into every corner of the globe. It is a world-renowned novel of consuming emotion that has made the name of its author, Elinor Glyn, the most discussed of all writers of modern fiction.'
[Yes, THAT Elinor Glyn. The one alleged to get up to no good on tiger skins on a regular basis.]
What a brilliant haul!
And they've got tons more, including some works by H P Lovecraft, E Doctorow Smith, Sax Rohmer and Clark Ashton Smith (Southern fried chicken, coffee milkshakes and overwrought sagas of astronauts getting their eyeballs sucked out by giant centipedes roaming round the craters on Mars - oh happy teenage Saturdays etc).
I'm off to see what's lurking in the corners of their banned books section ...
Monday 29 November 2010
Now then voyager - I'd like a quiet word with you
Just finished watching 'Now Voyager'.
Now, before you (or indeed anyone else) starts on, yes, I DO know that it is regarded by many as a classic movie from the golden era of Hollywood. Yes, I DO realise that lots of critics and fans regard it as one of the high points of both Bette Davis' and Paul Heinreid's careers.
And yes, I REMEMBER only too well that loads of women from my grandmothers' generation flocked to the cinema to see it and sat there in the dark steadily chomping chocolates as they clutched their tiny lace hankies to their eyes and wept daintily at all the stirring nobility and rampant self-sacrifice unfurling before them on the silver screen.
Yet how Olive Higgins Prouty managed to make millions writing books like that, I cannot fathom.
I'm not sure if it's me, wilfully misunderstanding the works of fiction from another era. Or whether it was the scriptwriter, being forced by the suits in the top office to recast many of the author's themes and subtexts to fit better with popular public opinion about spinsters at the time the film originally came out.
Or perhaps it's the revolutions of the Sixties that stand in the way between Prouty's zeitgeist and ours.
But I must confess to finding myself quite infuriated by many of the themes and arguments put forward in that film.
Having a selfish, domineering old bat of a mother who seems to regard her youngest child as a heaven-sent combination of recompense for suffering a generally crap life and guaranteed source of support in her old age is a very serious affliction, yes. I imagine it quite probably would be enough to drive any sensitive and intelligent person three-quarters of the way into a nervous breakdown.
But as a life-long fat awkward old bat in glasses, it leaves me flabbergasted.
Are we supposed to conclude that women who need to wear glasses for whatever reason end up so traumatised by the experience that they go mad? It's all very well for Charlotte and Tina in the film not to need theirs any more. However, at the ripe old age of 43, I still require my short sight and astigmatism to be corrected in some way or other every single day - or else I keep bumping into all the furniture and can't be trusted to cross the road unattended.
Now Tina seemed to be wearing braces on her teeth, so even at that remote period in history, Americans were determined to help young teenagers improve their physical appearance. If I remember rightly, it may have been about this time that Laurence Olivier had to wear contact lenses to change his eye colour for some role or other - and he said that they were pretty uncomfortable during this era.
So fair enough - but why not try and find some more funky, flattering glasses for the two women to wear, then? Or why not have the guts to wear your glasses WITH all the incredibly chic little outfits the wardrobe department decided in its wisdom to bestow upon Bette after she recovered from her nervous troubles?
(And while we're on the subject - who suggested to Bette's character that she would look a lot better wearing black and white Orry-Kelly gowns, pearl and diamante earrings and a kick-arse red lipstick? If this was such an important element in her recovery - why can't we see the bloody makeover onscreen? Or are women 'instinctively' meant to realise all this themselves, once their minds are working 'properly'? If the latter, hand me that credit card - I'm going shopping for the good of my health!!!!!!!!)
Next up are the two men Bette gets to choose between.
Well, if Charlotte just plain doesn't love (and doesn't seem to fancy either, by the looks of things) poor Elliott, she is quite right to give him his marching papers. Sticking around wouldn't be fair to either of them.
However, Paul Heinreid is a completely different kettle of fish altogether.
Okay, okay, I appreciate that mainstream films back in those days couldn't really get away with showing a 'respectable' woman getting it on with a married man, for fear she would have been condemned by a large majority of the audience as 'wicked' and 'immoral'.
And this would be despite the fact that he was a good, moral bloke whose relationship with his wife had sadly gone down the toilet big time.
But don't tell me that she could then sublimate all her pent-up sexual desire and romantic longings for him into becoming the unpaid foster-mother for his troubled teenage daughter. Don't tell me that he would find the sacrifice easy, either. Or that his daughter Tina wouldn't begin to notice that there was something a bit strange about the relationship between her dad and her foster-mum. Or that Tina's mum wouldn't kick up a fuss and a half once she found out about the fostering arrangement.
And if Charlotte suffered terribly through being lumbered with a very troubled mother of her own, why does she 'need' to redeem herself by fostering a teenage girl who's in danger of repeating her own history?
I'm afraid I could see why Sylvia Plath had a bit of a laugh describing how Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar had to go down to the local library to borrow copies of Philomena Guinea's works 'as the college library didn't seem to stock them for some reason' and how they were full of immensely long, suspenseful questions like: 'How could he possibly marry her, if he learned of the child Elsie hidden away with Mrs Rollmop back on the farm?'.
(Apologies if my memory has ended up rewriting any of these quotes slightly. I'm a hack and my brain is determined to recast everything that's fed into it in its own image. I'd be no good transmitting the oral heritage of my culture down the generations.)
Now, before you (or indeed anyone else) starts on, yes, I DO know that it is regarded by many as a classic movie from the golden era of Hollywood. Yes, I DO realise that lots of critics and fans regard it as one of the high points of both Bette Davis' and Paul Heinreid's careers.
And yes, I REMEMBER only too well that loads of women from my grandmothers' generation flocked to the cinema to see it and sat there in the dark steadily chomping chocolates as they clutched their tiny lace hankies to their eyes and wept daintily at all the stirring nobility and rampant self-sacrifice unfurling before them on the silver screen.
Yet how Olive Higgins Prouty managed to make millions writing books like that, I cannot fathom.
I'm not sure if it's me, wilfully misunderstanding the works of fiction from another era. Or whether it was the scriptwriter, being forced by the suits in the top office to recast many of the author's themes and subtexts to fit better with popular public opinion about spinsters at the time the film originally came out.
Or perhaps it's the revolutions of the Sixties that stand in the way between Prouty's zeitgeist and ours.
But I must confess to finding myself quite infuriated by many of the themes and arguments put forward in that film.
Having a selfish, domineering old bat of a mother who seems to regard her youngest child as a heaven-sent combination of recompense for suffering a generally crap life and guaranteed source of support in her old age is a very serious affliction, yes. I imagine it quite probably would be enough to drive any sensitive and intelligent person three-quarters of the way into a nervous breakdown.
But as a life-long fat awkward old bat in glasses, it leaves me flabbergasted.
Are we supposed to conclude that women who need to wear glasses for whatever reason end up so traumatised by the experience that they go mad? It's all very well for Charlotte and Tina in the film not to need theirs any more. However, at the ripe old age of 43, I still require my short sight and astigmatism to be corrected in some way or other every single day - or else I keep bumping into all the furniture and can't be trusted to cross the road unattended.
Now Tina seemed to be wearing braces on her teeth, so even at that remote period in history, Americans were determined to help young teenagers improve their physical appearance. If I remember rightly, it may have been about this time that Laurence Olivier had to wear contact lenses to change his eye colour for some role or other - and he said that they were pretty uncomfortable during this era.
So fair enough - but why not try and find some more funky, flattering glasses for the two women to wear, then? Or why not have the guts to wear your glasses WITH all the incredibly chic little outfits the wardrobe department decided in its wisdom to bestow upon Bette after she recovered from her nervous troubles?
(And while we're on the subject - who suggested to Bette's character that she would look a lot better wearing black and white Orry-Kelly gowns, pearl and diamante earrings and a kick-arse red lipstick? If this was such an important element in her recovery - why can't we see the bloody makeover onscreen? Or are women 'instinctively' meant to realise all this themselves, once their minds are working 'properly'? If the latter, hand me that credit card - I'm going shopping for the good of my health!!!!!!!!)
Next up are the two men Bette gets to choose between.
Well, if Charlotte just plain doesn't love (and doesn't seem to fancy either, by the looks of things) poor Elliott, she is quite right to give him his marching papers. Sticking around wouldn't be fair to either of them.
However, Paul Heinreid is a completely different kettle of fish altogether.
Okay, okay, I appreciate that mainstream films back in those days couldn't really get away with showing a 'respectable' woman getting it on with a married man, for fear she would have been condemned by a large majority of the audience as 'wicked' and 'immoral'.
And this would be despite the fact that he was a good, moral bloke whose relationship with his wife had sadly gone down the toilet big time.
But don't tell me that she could then sublimate all her pent-up sexual desire and romantic longings for him into becoming the unpaid foster-mother for his troubled teenage daughter. Don't tell me that he would find the sacrifice easy, either. Or that his daughter Tina wouldn't begin to notice that there was something a bit strange about the relationship between her dad and her foster-mum. Or that Tina's mum wouldn't kick up a fuss and a half once she found out about the fostering arrangement.
And if Charlotte suffered terribly through being lumbered with a very troubled mother of her own, why does she 'need' to redeem herself by fostering a teenage girl who's in danger of repeating her own history?
I'm afraid I could see why Sylvia Plath had a bit of a laugh describing how Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar had to go down to the local library to borrow copies of Philomena Guinea's works 'as the college library didn't seem to stock them for some reason' and how they were full of immensely long, suspenseful questions like: 'How could he possibly marry her, if he learned of the child Elsie hidden away with Mrs Rollmop back on the farm?'.
(Apologies if my memory has ended up rewriting any of these quotes slightly. I'm a hack and my brain is determined to recast everything that's fed into it in its own image. I'd be no good transmitting the oral heritage of my culture down the generations.)
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Tiberius chucks a wobbly
Right, I said earlier that I've started getting into 'I Claudius' as well.
So I suppose now might be as good a time as any to explain a little why it might have caught on with audiences and critics much more than 'The Cleopatras' ever did.
In all probability, I suspect viewers probably found the Romans far more sympathetic and three-dimensional than the expat Greeks.
Now, this is no reflection whatever on any of the actors who appeared in 'The Cleopatras'. They are all, in their many and varied ways, every bit as talented and able as those in 'I Claudius'. Quite probably, more than one actor from each camp ended up auditioning for the other series. They're married, they've got kids to feed and the gas bill is due.
Okay, so the Romans are a right bunch of evil bastards who could probably give the Cleopatras and Ptolomies a bloody good run for their money. Of course, otherwise we wouldn't be so interested in watching their antics over two thousand years later.
But they are also surprisingly human.
We can identify with them and their dilemmas far more than the Greeks.
Take Livia and Augustus, first of all.
Both have been married before and had children by the previous marriages - Augustus a daughter Julia and Livia sons Drusus and Tiberius. Each is obviously biased in favour of their own kids, yet neither will cut their progeny the slightest bit of slack. This means that the children often have to appeal to the step-parent in order to get a bit of sympathy and understanding whenever they end up in trouble.
Naturally the kids have picked up on all the rivalries and antagonisms of the older generation and use them to pick quarrels amongst themselves.
Whatever their precise blood relationship to the child, the parents are far more likely to support their position if the sprog is of the same gender as themself and experiencing specific gender-related problems that they also have personal experience of. So Augustus will occasionally speak up on Tiberius' behalf when he's experiencing problems with Julia, while Livia will back up Julia against Tiberius and Augustus when necessary (Livia's version of 'necessary' is never quite the same as Julia's you'll note. Nor her husband's).
As many, many viewers from the Seventies until today are or have been members of a 'blended' family (as sociologists will persist in calling this), they will probably sit there nodding vigorously (and maybe wincing too) at all these shenanigans taking place on screen.
Next we must consider the character of Livia herself.
As she so rightly points out, she is easily the equal of the greatest Cleopatra of them all - but she lives in Rome and has lasted much longer than Cleo managed.
Unlike all the other Cleos, Livia has found herself a husband who is pretty remarkable in his own right. Because he (with some adroit, well-timed help from her) has managed to retain his grip on power and restore the country to some sort of semblance of peace and stability, Augustus remains alive and well.
However, Livia got the measure of her husband long ago - and came to the inevitable conclusion that sometimes he lets his sentiment get the better of his political and social judgement. If she lets him get away with these wrong decisions, the results could be catastrophic, not only for the family but Rome itself.
So she has to run round behind his back clearing up the messes his excessively warm heart has created.
Many, many women in the audience must identify with this particular scenario, surely?
Then we come to Tiberius.
Like Demetrius in 'The Cleopatras', he has suffered the breakdown of his marriage. Like Demetrius, he was forced to marry a woman he didn't love for political reasons.
However, Tiberius is pretty talented and prefers getting up off his bum and doing something useful, rather than lounging about on a throne all day displaying his false beard and moobs to all and sundry whilst being languidly fanned with bunches of peacock feathers. He runs military campaigns against the Germans in the Black Forest when he's not helping Augustus dole out the Roman version of income support.
He also has an ex-wife that he still loves. He loves her so much that he follows her about down the streets of Rome and visits her in her new home for all the marital benefits he refuses to obtain from Julia.
Unlike Demetrius, he has the balls to argue with his wives. He rants and raves and yells at both Julia and Vipsania.
And they both tell him in no uncertain terms just what they think of him.
Vipsania says he's got a bloody sauce shouting at her when HE was the one who divorced HER, while Julia complains about his sexual coldness and even accuses him of being a secret pervert.
Once again, a substantial section of the audience will be undergoing the pain of a relationship that's gone seriously and irreparably wrong. Many of them will still be attached to their ex-partners, for good, for ill or something in between.
Probably they can even identify with the subjects of the quarrels and unhappiness. After all, personal incompatibility and sexual frustration haven't changed over the past two millennia.
So tell me - where, in all of this does Demetrius get a look in?
Nowhere.
And that's why we can't develop an interest in him.
Oh yes, we learn enough about him to feel sorry for his fate.
But not enough to make him our friend and our brother.
And that is the great lesson about scriptwriting to take on board.
So I suppose now might be as good a time as any to explain a little why it might have caught on with audiences and critics much more than 'The Cleopatras' ever did.
In all probability, I suspect viewers probably found the Romans far more sympathetic and three-dimensional than the expat Greeks.
Now, this is no reflection whatever on any of the actors who appeared in 'The Cleopatras'. They are all, in their many and varied ways, every bit as talented and able as those in 'I Claudius'. Quite probably, more than one actor from each camp ended up auditioning for the other series. They're married, they've got kids to feed and the gas bill is due.
Okay, so the Romans are a right bunch of evil bastards who could probably give the Cleopatras and Ptolomies a bloody good run for their money. Of course, otherwise we wouldn't be so interested in watching their antics over two thousand years later.
But they are also surprisingly human.
We can identify with them and their dilemmas far more than the Greeks.
Take Livia and Augustus, first of all.
Both have been married before and had children by the previous marriages - Augustus a daughter Julia and Livia sons Drusus and Tiberius. Each is obviously biased in favour of their own kids, yet neither will cut their progeny the slightest bit of slack. This means that the children often have to appeal to the step-parent in order to get a bit of sympathy and understanding whenever they end up in trouble.
Naturally the kids have picked up on all the rivalries and antagonisms of the older generation and use them to pick quarrels amongst themselves.
Whatever their precise blood relationship to the child, the parents are far more likely to support their position if the sprog is of the same gender as themself and experiencing specific gender-related problems that they also have personal experience of. So Augustus will occasionally speak up on Tiberius' behalf when he's experiencing problems with Julia, while Livia will back up Julia against Tiberius and Augustus when necessary (Livia's version of 'necessary' is never quite the same as Julia's you'll note. Nor her husband's).
As many, many viewers from the Seventies until today are or have been members of a 'blended' family (as sociologists will persist in calling this), they will probably sit there nodding vigorously (and maybe wincing too) at all these shenanigans taking place on screen.
Next we must consider the character of Livia herself.
As she so rightly points out, she is easily the equal of the greatest Cleopatra of them all - but she lives in Rome and has lasted much longer than Cleo managed.
Unlike all the other Cleos, Livia has found herself a husband who is pretty remarkable in his own right. Because he (with some adroit, well-timed help from her) has managed to retain his grip on power and restore the country to some sort of semblance of peace and stability, Augustus remains alive and well.
However, Livia got the measure of her husband long ago - and came to the inevitable conclusion that sometimes he lets his sentiment get the better of his political and social judgement. If she lets him get away with these wrong decisions, the results could be catastrophic, not only for the family but Rome itself.
So she has to run round behind his back clearing up the messes his excessively warm heart has created.
Many, many women in the audience must identify with this particular scenario, surely?
Then we come to Tiberius.
Like Demetrius in 'The Cleopatras', he has suffered the breakdown of his marriage. Like Demetrius, he was forced to marry a woman he didn't love for political reasons.
However, Tiberius is pretty talented and prefers getting up off his bum and doing something useful, rather than lounging about on a throne all day displaying his false beard and moobs to all and sundry whilst being languidly fanned with bunches of peacock feathers. He runs military campaigns against the Germans in the Black Forest when he's not helping Augustus dole out the Roman version of income support.
He also has an ex-wife that he still loves. He loves her so much that he follows her about down the streets of Rome and visits her in her new home for all the marital benefits he refuses to obtain from Julia.
Unlike Demetrius, he has the balls to argue with his wives. He rants and raves and yells at both Julia and Vipsania.
And they both tell him in no uncertain terms just what they think of him.
Vipsania says he's got a bloody sauce shouting at her when HE was the one who divorced HER, while Julia complains about his sexual coldness and even accuses him of being a secret pervert.
Once again, a substantial section of the audience will be undergoing the pain of a relationship that's gone seriously and irreparably wrong. Many of them will still be attached to their ex-partners, for good, for ill or something in between.
Probably they can even identify with the subjects of the quarrels and unhappiness. After all, personal incompatibility and sexual frustration haven't changed over the past two millennia.
So tell me - where, in all of this does Demetrius get a look in?
Nowhere.
And that's why we can't develop an interest in him.
Oh yes, we learn enough about him to feel sorry for his fate.
But not enough to make him our friend and our brother.
And that is the great lesson about scriptwriting to take on board.
Saturday 20 November 2010
Follow that snake! Fiona watches 'The Cleopatras' on YouTube
Lurid historical melodrama has returned in a big way.
Following the huge success of 'The Tudors', the powers that be are now in the process of creating 'The Borgias'.
No-one is sure yet whether this is meant to be a direct remake of the notorious BBC mini-series from the Eighties or more of a lush reimagining for the new millennium. What we do know is that Ronan Vibert will be playing the son-in-law of the Pope - until he get shafted (in the metaphorical sense, that is) for being impotent (though really he's not, but that's the type of dirty lowdown subterfuge the inlaws have been forced to stoop down to back in the days when there was no such thing as a quickie divorce).
While we wait with breathless anticipation for this never-ending saga of incest, adultery, poisonings and other assorted murders, mayhem and general skullduggery in Renaissance Italy to reach the screen some time next year, now seems as good a time as any to take a look back at its antecedents.
Although Salford University library boasts the full and complete set of 'I Claudius' (in both DVD and VHS formats), the shelves are strangely lacking in anything either Borgia or Cleopatra related. I haven't been able to find any transcripts for these series anywhere either.
So I've been forced to resort to YouTube.
What a bloody weird place YouTube is.
Yes, 'The Cleopatras' has been uploaded there for all and sundry to watch at their leisure.
But it seems to be a bit like 'Match Of The Day' would be, if it was edited by Ron Manager and had ashen-faced, tight-lipped Ron Knee (59) for the presenter. Fair enough, if the highlights consisted of Rio Ferdinand scoring a hat-trick in the last 10 seconds of the Cup Final at Wembley.
As far as I can make out, each episode of 'The Cleopatras' must originally have been somewhere between 45 - 60 minutes long. What you get on YouTube are sequences of around 15 minutes each.
Possibly the person who uploaded them chose these particular ones because their favourite actor appeared in them.
Fair enough - only what about the rest of us who'd like to see how the rest of the episode pans out?
For this and various other reasons which I shall be going into shortly, it is almost impossible to work out what the hell is meant to be going on each week.
I watched all the YouTube segments of episode 2.
The first thing you have to remember is that practically EVERY member of the wretched bunch of treacherous inbreds has the same name. The women are all called Cleopatra and the men Ptolomey. In order to tell each other apart, they have to resort to titles and nicknames.
So we had Cleopatra the Grandmother, Cleopatra the Mother and Cleopatra the Daughter (I think?). Richard Griffiths played the splendidly named Ptolomey Potbelly.
Some woman (Cleo the Daughter?) kept complaining to her (husband? brother? son? This is what the breakdown of traditional values does to family relationships!) that he was far too inclined to keep doing everything his mother told him. If he wanted to be a tougher, more manly ruler, he needed to start saying no.
Meanwhile, another Cleo (the Mother? Looks like my Auntie Betty in a wig made out of macrame plant pot holder string, anyway) came to the conclusion that her husband was completely and utterly useless, so she'd be better off without him.
Hubby was called Demetrius and turned out to be portrayed by Stephen Greif in what was meant to be the only reasonably realistic beard in the entire episode.
All the men of any status at any of the courts apparently believed that displaying a huge bushy beard of some description would prove both their masculinity and their high standing. But because ritual and show were essential to the performance of government, these beards all ended up as very obvious stage props, held on under the chin by gold straps. The Greeks had golden curly ones, the Egyptians the traditional stiff barbs from the Tutankhamen mummy-case.
Despite being Greek (I think?), Demetrius seemed to be ruling Syria - which may explain both the Assyrian wallcarving effort stuck to the long-suffering Mr G's poor chin and the lashings of black Alice Cooper-style eyeliner he was wearing.
Like the other male aristos, he had then been stuffed into some ill-fitting sausage skin of a linen tunic that created a rather unfortunate moob-effect around the chesticle region. This was only enhanced by a huge clanking golden pectoral that would probably sell for several hundred pounds in the Prada or Marni stores these days.
You really did end up wondering if the Ancient Egyptians wanted every half-decent looking man at the court to be rendered so effete and decadent in appearance. If so, then they were obviously doing a great job.
(Also remembered Diana Dors saying that when she appeared in 'Oedipus Rex' at the Chichester Festival, she and her co-stars all looked pretty much like this once they were in costume and fully made up. One of the men once reduced her to fits of hysterics by announcing that he was just going down the fish shop for some chips - and did she want anything? Couldn't get over the image in my mind of Demetrius and Potbelly meeting in the queue at The Codfather and Demetrius explaining that he'd just nipped in for a bit of battered flange, to which Potbelly replies that he should really try asking them to slip in a free Saveloy some time ... )
Anyway, Demetrius was so bloody useless that Cleopatra had left him in Syria and gone back to live with her mother in Egypt.
If I've understood this bit correctly, he had apparently (?) fathered several children over the years, including at least two sons, so he can't have been all THAT hopeless. Problem was that the boys were now old enough to be ruling their own kingdoms - and mum fancied bossing about men who would actually be bothered enough to get up off their arses occasionally and do something she told them.
Due to BBC funding constraints, you didn't really see anything that would show how useless Demetrius was. He just seemed to sit about on his arse all day while minions fanned him. So you mostly had to take it on trust.
His mother-in-law decided for some strange reason or other to go and visit him in Syria. She took all the money from the Egyptian treasuries with her. She told him that she would give all the gold to him so that he could use it to start a war.
Demetrius agreed that this was a brilliant idea.
However, he took the money and ran - without fighting a single battle, as his estranged wife pointed out.
One Cleopatra (the Grandmother?) then suggested that he took refuge in the temple in Melkart (this is in Egypt, not Syria, and is the same place where Zawi El Hawass reckons Cleopatra and Anthony may have been later buried).
Naturally wifey soon sends a death squad to Melkart, a bloody great chopper is produced and poor Demetrius meets his end at the end of it with an expression much the same as Claudius must have done three seconds after swallowing the mushrooms.
Meanwhile, Potbelly declares that his overriding ambition in life is to become the fattest, most degenerate gutbucket the world has ever seen. Although everyone laughed at his wit, Griffiths was by far the best looking (and svelte!) bloke to appear in this episode!
Someone had the inspired brainwave of purchasing a slave called Alexander from the market and putting the rumour about that he was some legitimate male claimant's illegitimate son. It might even have been true. It didn't matter, as they needed yet another man who was easy to boss about.
Yes, this is ancient feminism - Eighties style.
Men are crap, women rule.
It's just the way of nature, so there's no need to rant and rave about it unduly.
Following the huge success of 'The Tudors', the powers that be are now in the process of creating 'The Borgias'.
No-one is sure yet whether this is meant to be a direct remake of the notorious BBC mini-series from the Eighties or more of a lush reimagining for the new millennium. What we do know is that Ronan Vibert will be playing the son-in-law of the Pope - until he get shafted (in the metaphorical sense, that is) for being impotent (though really he's not, but that's the type of dirty lowdown subterfuge the inlaws have been forced to stoop down to back in the days when there was no such thing as a quickie divorce).
While we wait with breathless anticipation for this never-ending saga of incest, adultery, poisonings and other assorted murders, mayhem and general skullduggery in Renaissance Italy to reach the screen some time next year, now seems as good a time as any to take a look back at its antecedents.
Although Salford University library boasts the full and complete set of 'I Claudius' (in both DVD and VHS formats), the shelves are strangely lacking in anything either Borgia or Cleopatra related. I haven't been able to find any transcripts for these series anywhere either.
So I've been forced to resort to YouTube.
What a bloody weird place YouTube is.
Yes, 'The Cleopatras' has been uploaded there for all and sundry to watch at their leisure.
But it seems to be a bit like 'Match Of The Day' would be, if it was edited by Ron Manager and had ashen-faced, tight-lipped Ron Knee (59) for the presenter. Fair enough, if the highlights consisted of Rio Ferdinand scoring a hat-trick in the last 10 seconds of the Cup Final at Wembley.
As far as I can make out, each episode of 'The Cleopatras' must originally have been somewhere between 45 - 60 minutes long. What you get on YouTube are sequences of around 15 minutes each.
Possibly the person who uploaded them chose these particular ones because their favourite actor appeared in them.
Fair enough - only what about the rest of us who'd like to see how the rest of the episode pans out?
For this and various other reasons which I shall be going into shortly, it is almost impossible to work out what the hell is meant to be going on each week.
I watched all the YouTube segments of episode 2.
The first thing you have to remember is that practically EVERY member of the wretched bunch of treacherous inbreds has the same name. The women are all called Cleopatra and the men Ptolomey. In order to tell each other apart, they have to resort to titles and nicknames.
So we had Cleopatra the Grandmother, Cleopatra the Mother and Cleopatra the Daughter (I think?). Richard Griffiths played the splendidly named Ptolomey Potbelly.
Some woman (Cleo the Daughter?) kept complaining to her (husband? brother? son? This is what the breakdown of traditional values does to family relationships!) that he was far too inclined to keep doing everything his mother told him. If he wanted to be a tougher, more manly ruler, he needed to start saying no.
Meanwhile, another Cleo (the Mother? Looks like my Auntie Betty in a wig made out of macrame plant pot holder string, anyway) came to the conclusion that her husband was completely and utterly useless, so she'd be better off without him.
Hubby was called Demetrius and turned out to be portrayed by Stephen Greif in what was meant to be the only reasonably realistic beard in the entire episode.
All the men of any status at any of the courts apparently believed that displaying a huge bushy beard of some description would prove both their masculinity and their high standing. But because ritual and show were essential to the performance of government, these beards all ended up as very obvious stage props, held on under the chin by gold straps. The Greeks had golden curly ones, the Egyptians the traditional stiff barbs from the Tutankhamen mummy-case.
Despite being Greek (I think?), Demetrius seemed to be ruling Syria - which may explain both the Assyrian wallcarving effort stuck to the long-suffering Mr G's poor chin and the lashings of black Alice Cooper-style eyeliner he was wearing.
Like the other male aristos, he had then been stuffed into some ill-fitting sausage skin of a linen tunic that created a rather unfortunate moob-effect around the chesticle region. This was only enhanced by a huge clanking golden pectoral that would probably sell for several hundred pounds in the Prada or Marni stores these days.
You really did end up wondering if the Ancient Egyptians wanted every half-decent looking man at the court to be rendered so effete and decadent in appearance. If so, then they were obviously doing a great job.
(Also remembered Diana Dors saying that when she appeared in 'Oedipus Rex' at the Chichester Festival, she and her co-stars all looked pretty much like this once they were in costume and fully made up. One of the men once reduced her to fits of hysterics by announcing that he was just going down the fish shop for some chips - and did she want anything? Couldn't get over the image in my mind of Demetrius and Potbelly meeting in the queue at The Codfather and Demetrius explaining that he'd just nipped in for a bit of battered flange, to which Potbelly replies that he should really try asking them to slip in a free Saveloy some time ... )
Anyway, Demetrius was so bloody useless that Cleopatra had left him in Syria and gone back to live with her mother in Egypt.
If I've understood this bit correctly, he had apparently (?) fathered several children over the years, including at least two sons, so he can't have been all THAT hopeless. Problem was that the boys were now old enough to be ruling their own kingdoms - and mum fancied bossing about men who would actually be bothered enough to get up off their arses occasionally and do something she told them.
Due to BBC funding constraints, you didn't really see anything that would show how useless Demetrius was. He just seemed to sit about on his arse all day while minions fanned him. So you mostly had to take it on trust.
His mother-in-law decided for some strange reason or other to go and visit him in Syria. She took all the money from the Egyptian treasuries with her. She told him that she would give all the gold to him so that he could use it to start a war.
Demetrius agreed that this was a brilliant idea.
However, he took the money and ran - without fighting a single battle, as his estranged wife pointed out.
One Cleopatra (the Grandmother?) then suggested that he took refuge in the temple in Melkart (this is in Egypt, not Syria, and is the same place where Zawi El Hawass reckons Cleopatra and Anthony may have been later buried).
Naturally wifey soon sends a death squad to Melkart, a bloody great chopper is produced and poor Demetrius meets his end at the end of it with an expression much the same as Claudius must have done three seconds after swallowing the mushrooms.
Meanwhile, Potbelly declares that his overriding ambition in life is to become the fattest, most degenerate gutbucket the world has ever seen. Although everyone laughed at his wit, Griffiths was by far the best looking (and svelte!) bloke to appear in this episode!
Someone had the inspired brainwave of purchasing a slave called Alexander from the market and putting the rumour about that he was some legitimate male claimant's illegitimate son. It might even have been true. It didn't matter, as they needed yet another man who was easy to boss about.
Yes, this is ancient feminism - Eighties style.
Men are crap, women rule.
It's just the way of nature, so there's no need to rant and rave about it unduly.
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Credit where credit is due
Well, I've finally managed to get round to listening to 'Point Of No Return'.
And it really was worth the wait - and then some.
So I thought I would let author James Swallow know of my enjoyment.
Just had a note back from him thanking me for my kind message and explaining that he really enjoyed writing scripts for Commander Travis.
Nice to remember that we all respond to a bit of intelligent appreciation, isn't it?
And it really was worth the wait - and then some.
So I thought I would let author James Swallow know of my enjoyment.
Just had a note back from him thanking me for my kind message and explaining that he really enjoyed writing scripts for Commander Travis.
Nice to remember that we all respond to a bit of intelligent appreciation, isn't it?
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Wiggy business
Right, totally cheesed off that the poxy bollocking wi-fi system in Starbucks opposite Sainsburys in Fallowfield decided in its wisdom to boot me off before I'd even managed to complete my allotted two-hour stint earlier today. This was purely in order to let the yummy mummies and their googly ga-ga babies troop in, put their feet up and sink down more coffee.
But I'm a hack and I'm skint, so obviously I haven't spent enough dosh on triple frappucino skinny lattes to be of economic viability to the management. Therefore my time online needs to be stringently limited, or the profit margin will plunge below the event horizon.
Probably just as well I had to make a move when I did, because the wiggy quota was beginning to burgeon alarmingly.
What is a 'wiggy', I may hear you ask?
(Or not, as the case may be.)
In very basic, down to earth terms, a 'wiggy' is a very pretty, feminine, young studenty-type woman.
The sort of woman I should have been myself back in 1986, only I never really had the equipment for it.
A 'wiggy' woman is so called because she has full, fat, rounded, wobbly buttocks, which she wiggles, woggles and switches back and forth like nobody's business every time she walks down the road. She is knows that her femininity is the most important asset in her life. She is fully confident in her charms and the power they have over the heterosexual male of the species.
So she keeps them switched on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
She invariably talks in a cute, fluty, girly voice, just like she is still 5 years old and has never grown up.
Her clothes, hairstyle and accessories are all carefully chosen to emphasise both her curves and her cuteness.
No wiggy woman is afraid to let her wobblers roam free and wild. The last thing she worries about is dirty old men panting down the ski-slopes of her ample cleavage.
Her skirts never fail to be any less than virtual pussy pelmets, while cosy sheepskin lined Ugg bootees caress her sweet little ankles in all weathers.
All wiggy women look and sound exactly the same - yet their boyfriends have no trouble at all distinguishing their particular girlfriends from the rest of the endlessly cloned tribe.
Personally I blame all those parents back in the late Eighties and early Nineties who elected to swamp their little princesses in oceans of pink frills and ferry them about in hunchback cars with 'Baby On Board' notices stuck in the back windows.
But I'm a hack and I'm skint, so obviously I haven't spent enough dosh on triple frappucino skinny lattes to be of economic viability to the management. Therefore my time online needs to be stringently limited, or the profit margin will plunge below the event horizon.
Probably just as well I had to make a move when I did, because the wiggy quota was beginning to burgeon alarmingly.
What is a 'wiggy', I may hear you ask?
(Or not, as the case may be.)
In very basic, down to earth terms, a 'wiggy' is a very pretty, feminine, young studenty-type woman.
The sort of woman I should have been myself back in 1986, only I never really had the equipment for it.
A 'wiggy' woman is so called because she has full, fat, rounded, wobbly buttocks, which she wiggles, woggles and switches back and forth like nobody's business every time she walks down the road. She is knows that her femininity is the most important asset in her life. She is fully confident in her charms and the power they have over the heterosexual male of the species.
So she keeps them switched on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
She invariably talks in a cute, fluty, girly voice, just like she is still 5 years old and has never grown up.
Her clothes, hairstyle and accessories are all carefully chosen to emphasise both her curves and her cuteness.
No wiggy woman is afraid to let her wobblers roam free and wild. The last thing she worries about is dirty old men panting down the ski-slopes of her ample cleavage.
Her skirts never fail to be any less than virtual pussy pelmets, while cosy sheepskin lined Ugg bootees caress her sweet little ankles in all weathers.
All wiggy women look and sound exactly the same - yet their boyfriends have no trouble at all distinguishing their particular girlfriends from the rest of the endlessly cloned tribe.
Personally I blame all those parents back in the late Eighties and early Nineties who elected to swamp their little princesses in oceans of pink frills and ferry them about in hunchback cars with 'Baby On Board' notices stuck in the back windows.
Monday 15 November 2010
Normal service will be resumed ...
... as soon as possible (ie when I think of something interesting to say).
Friday 5 November 2010
Just going for a quick slash - some personal observations on the slash fiction of 'Blake's Seven'
Let's be honest here - slash fiction is a sensitive topic at the best of times.
In literary terms, it often tends to be regarded as the embarrassing cousin whose existence you prefer never to acknowledge - until they turn up at your wedding drunk, loud and disorderly as your typical Wetherspoons bar on a Friday night at 11 pm and proceed to regale all your prissy new in-laws with the tale of how during your student days you once decided to impress a new acquaintance with your ability to fly like Superman, only you miscalculated your flight path and fell 10 feet down the nearest manhole.
Actors frequently hate it because they often feel that in some fundamental way, the characters they portrayed in the series that inspired the fanfic somehow 'belong' to them. Any differences between their views of the character's sexuality and those exhibited by the fans in the slash fiction can therefore be seen as a threat to their artistic integrity.
However, slash fiction must fulfill a vital role in fandom, otherwise there wouldn't be so much of it written across the different fandoms, nor would the actors and the fans clash so seriously over it.
I have been reading a lot of slash fiction recently because I am hoping to attend the Redemption 2011 convention in Coventry next February and am seriously considering taking part on the slash fiction panel.
Because Blake's Seven is my favourite sci-fi fan show, I feel I am best equipped to comment on the slash fiction associated with it.
Here are my basic conclusions so far:
Actors frequently hate it because they often feel that in some fundamental way, the characters they portrayed in the series that inspired the fanfic somehow 'belong' to them. Any differences between their views of the character's sexuality and those exhibited by the fans in the slash fiction can therefore be seen as a threat to their artistic integrity.
However, slash fiction must fulfill a vital role in fandom, otherwise there wouldn't be so much of it written across the different fandoms, nor would the actors and the fans clash so seriously over it.
I have been reading a lot of slash fiction recently because I am hoping to attend the Redemption 2011 convention in Coventry next February and am seriously considering taking part on the slash fiction panel.
Because Blake's Seven is my favourite sci-fi fan show, I feel I am best equipped to comment on the slash fiction associated with it.
Here are my basic conclusions so far:
1.) There don’t seem to be any physical descriptions of what the people who enjoy sex with the canon characters actually see/hear/taste/smell of that character’s body.
For example, in Ask Tell Pursue, the Travis in question is specifically stated by the author to be the Stephen Greif version of the character. Stephen Greif and Brian Croucher both were and still are very physically striking men – but distinctly different in appearance.
Why was the Greif version chosen for this story? No indication is given.
Very little attempt is made at describing what Travis 1’s body looks like, whether clothed or unclothed (apart from stock generic descriptions like ‘leanly muscled’.) So you get almost no indication of what it is like as a physical sexual experience for Avon to make love to this specific man.
(Incidentally, if you want an example of a key physical detail that a lover of either gender would probably notice in Travis 1’s appearance – and that doesn’t make Stephen Greif want to dive for cover with sheer, utter embarrassment – he has surprisingly long, languorous eyelashes on his remaining eye.)
I would presume the almost complete lack of physical descriptions of the characters is due to the slash stories being written specifically for people who are already great fans of this particular series. Therefore, they are assumed to be pretty conversant with all the canon characters. Any additional or subsequent descriptions are considered not to be needed, because this would suggest the reader remains ignorant of the most basic details known to all the other fans and thus does not count as a properly paid up admirer of the series at all.
Readers who still require descriptive details after this would probably be considered ignorant newbies or interloping lurkers, not proper fans.
2.) Characters are often portrayed in their most basic, archetypal version – more like a mythical figure than a three-dimensional human being.
This would tend to suggest very strongly that a major need of the readers is to turn the canon characters into figures analogous with gods and goddesses, Jungian archetypes or key characters from the great myths and legends of the world’s many cultures.
Therefore, Avon = Superman/Superlover, Servalan = Evil Bitch Glamorous Stepmother Queen, Vila = the Trickster figure etc.
Any sign of frailty or imperfection in the canon characters means that they are obviously human beings rather than gods or archetypes. All signs of everyday reality will be ruthlessly stamped on.
By the way, this may be another reason why so little specific physical description of the individual characters and their sex experiences is given. If a character in bed with Travis 1 notices the surprisingly long, languorous eyelashes on his remaining eye, for example, the obvious implication is that Travis may not be the icy-cold, evil, hard psychopath that most people take him for.
You are forced to confront the fact that he is a real man, with depths and nuances to his personality that perhaps you never suspected before. He has stopped being a mythical archetype – and we can’t have that sort of thing going on when we need our heroes and villains to get us through the night!
3.) Characters never seem to worry about the sexual consequences and emotional fall-out that the rest of us stuck here in the real world do.
So far, I don’t think I’ve come across a single B7 slash fiction story in which Servalan, Jenna, Cally or Soolin end up conceiving an unexpected baby after sleeping with Avon. Or Servalan has slept with both Avon and Tarrant during the same week, and now she is not sure who the father of her baby is, so she has to ask them both to take a DNA test.
Or Blake has to confront the fact that he may be gay or bisexual after Avon has seduced him and he has ended up having sex with another man for the first time. Or Travis catches the clap off Blake during gay sex, so he has to take himself down the Space Force Officers’ GUM clinic for treatment.
Critics will probably argue that the primary purpose of the slash story is to get yourself off in the best way possible by seeing your favourite characters getting off in the best way possible. Reality only gets in the way of pleasure.
(Though I would pay bloody good money to see the B7 soap opera in action! Who’s the father of Servalan’s baby? Tune in next week for the shocking surprise twist finale … Avon’s determined not to pay any maintenance, whatever happens. If he needs to, he’s quite prepared to stitch Tarrant up.)
4.) No-one ever has rubbish sex in any of these slash stories.
Although I must admit to finding Office Politics highly amusing and effective as a story, the sexual encounter between Servalan and Travis remains a stylised skirmish, rather than anything approaching a realistic intimate relationship.
Why doesn’t Travis refuse Servalan’s overtures? He might well not fancy her at all in real life. He might consider an affair with his boss a guaranteed form of professional suicide (quite apart from what he is already managing to arrange all on his own …). Or he might consider the time, the place or both highly inappropriate.
Even if he does still decide to go ahead, he could end up suffering erectile failure, due to nerves – or exhaustion from all his hard work chasing Blake (fnerr, fnerr etc).
Perhaps Servalan discovers he is not as well equipped as she had hoped in the trouser department and decides not to bother after all. Or maybe she plots the big seduction in great detail – then has to bail out at the last minute because it's the wrong time of the month.
Why can’t Travis just be crap in bed? Or Servalan?
Even with the best will in the world, they may just not be in the right frame of mind to experience an orgasm that day.
(Please see point 3 for the expected critical reposte to this issue too.)
5.) Sexual encounters are used as a symbolic means of establishing and exerting dominance and control over another character.
Hence Travis is symbolically ‘defeated’ and ‘punished’ through gay sex with Blake or Avon, as in One Afternoon.
[Though if Travis suffers from sensitive skin as claimed in this story, I think it unlikely that the cream he has been prescribed to combat this has been laced with a spicy scent. He might also be allergic to strong perfumes, particularly on his raw, inflamed skin. Just a minor observation, but there we go.].
Servalan has also done the same in this delightful little tale because it seemed the ‘ideal’ way of conditioning him to total unquestioning obedience of her (hee, hee, doesn’t seem to have worked very well, does it?).
6.) Sexual encounters are used as a symbolic means of a character being forced to confront their more tender, vulnerable side.
Practically EVERY Blake and Avon slash going falls under this rubric.
Avon sleeps with Servalan not only to ‘defeat’ and ‘punish’ her for her evil – but also to ‘prove’ to her that she is ‘only’ a woman.
An orgasm is regarded as the classic signal of defeat/surrender.
I must confess that I am NOT at ALL keen on either of these two tropes, as I consider them both terribly sexist and homophobic.
7.) ‘Humiliating’ sexual encounters are used as a symbolic means of demonstrating that a so-called ‘evil’ character is a dishonest hypocrite.
Hence all the innumerable tales in which Travis is gay or bisexual, but does not face up to this vital fact about himself until Blake or Avon buggers him into the most mind-bendingly ecstatic orgasms, despite himself.
In these stories, Travis always seems to slope around shagging the trade on the quiet, trying to persuade himself that he is either just engaging in a bit of men who have sex with other men in order to get himself through the dark night of the soul - or he's so pissed-up on booze that he is no longer responsible for his own decisions and actions.
You never seem to get a story in which Travis is out – and proud. But if he can take an odd sort of pride in his facial disfigurement, why not his sexual orientation too?
While we’re still on the subject, incidentally, I have not yet come across a narrative in which Blake is the one who constantly cruises for the most lurid forms of gay sex wherever and whenever he can find it. Why not? Is the great revolutionary too fine and noble for that sort of thing?
Friday 29 October 2010
I really must remember to thank him - with sincere apologies to Chris Boucher
Chris Boucher remains a great scriptwriter, it goes without saying. Indeed, it is abundantly apparent from all this televisual debauchery I indulged in on Tuesday that he must be one of the great formative influences on my own work.
However, I'm older, I'm tougher, I'm better educated now.
And Chris, I'm sorry, but I have been left with some serious reservations about certain aspects of Blake's Seven series 2.
Let me now share a few of them with you all:
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