Festive fun on the 143

On the way home from the museum yesterday, the bus drew up at a stop and a bloke gets on.

The following conversation ensues between him and the driver:

BLOKE: How much does a ticket cost to Withington?  Haven't a clue, 'cause I've never got on a bus in my entire life.

DRIVER: £1.20, mate [or however much it was].  How come you've never got on a bus in your entire life, then?

BLOKE:  Always driven a car, haven't I?

DRIVER:  So what happened to your car?

BLOKE:  Coppers took it off me just half an hour ago.  'Cause I didn't have any insurance, see?

Bus continues on down Wilmslow Road, until it reaches the stop before my one.  The doors hiss open.

DRIVER:  There you go.  Hope you get your car back soon, mate.

The bloke gets off.

BLOKE:  (just before bus doors close again) It'll be fucking crushed, won't it?  I'll just have to buy a new one tomorrow.

Driver shrugs and rolls his eyes as he drives off.

Cue much concealed hilarity on the part of the passengers.

Who'llbuttertheparsnips?

Coming to a screen near you, very, very soon ...

Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky

Ever read a book that hacked you off so much that you were seriously tempted to throw it at the wall in a towering rage?

Well, I have just finished a classic of this sadly under-rated genre.  Sadly I can’t go ahead and smash it straight into the gob of the anaglypta like nature never intended, mainly because I made the mistake of downloading the damn thing onto my Kindle.  It’s not exactly fair of me to blame the poor contraption for a mistake on the part of my own pathetic powers of judgement, so to save time and effort, I won’t.

Yeah, it was me wot dun it, all by meself, no help and no messin.

All I will say in my defence is that I wish the proprietors of those sites that you can download free legal e-books from would make it easier for you to browse through them first.  If only they had, then perhaps all this stress and strain on my poor, over-stretched nerves could have been avoided.

It’s called One Year At The Russian Court: 1904-1905 and penned by an extremely superficial and highly pretentious aristo named Renee Elton Maud (and no, she can’t  have the little accent floating above the second e in her first name, the silly bint.  I don’t care if she was originally French, the bloody book’s in English and that’s one of those languages that do without such dainty affectations.).

Like Jill Tweedie’s first husband Count Istvan (he’s not getting one either, so tough), she was naturally enough a member of Europe’s haut noblesse.  In other words, she insists she is closely related to just about every other member of it going – and boy, is she determined not to let you forget it! 

Just three sentences in, and she’s already beefing up her ‘devoted’ grandma, giving name, rank, serial number, together with a rather involved explanation to the effect that although nan considers Russia to be ‘her’ country, she was actually born in London while her dad was serving at the Russian embassy there.  Dad’s next posting was in Copenhagen, where he remained for the next 20 years, refusing to move away from the company of all his besties (including the King and Queen, naturally) to any other posting.  Yet unlike today, he didn’t get the sack or a demotion.  Instead the Tsar decided to indulge him in his little whim, presumably on the grounds that a man so well thought of by the monarchs and everyone else who was anyone in Copenhagen society must have the clout to do the job properly.  This would tend to suggest that much of his work must have consisted of socialising and networking, rather than filling in forms and bailing out skint student backpackers.

Then we hear all about the Queen of Denmark giving a diamond bracelet to Renee’s grandma, who just happened to be so exotically half-French on her mother’s side, nee Princesse de Broglie-Revel (just the sort of name sported in previous centuries by some raddled old rouge pot back in the 1770s who filled in for Madame du Barry during the wrong time of the month, yet criticised Marie Antoinette for falling off the back of her mule using the wrong etiquette).  

Obviously the name alone is meant to be conjured with.  I, not being a society woman (real or aspiring) of the late 19^th and early 20^th century, haven’t a clue who she was.  And I really couldn’t care less, either.  In the words of Figaro: “You just took the trouble to be born – nothing more.”         

It all reminds me irresistibly of Jill Tweedie’s account of Istvan taking her on a protracted honeymoon across Europe to stay with one of his relatives after another.  Like Istvan, Renee has rellies all over the bloody place – and like his, none of them seem to belong to one single country or place.  God only knows whose side they fought on in the war.  Jill accused her husband’s relatives of lacking loyalty to country or cause.  Their only concern was themselves and all the traditional benefits accruing to their class.  Like Renee, Istvan regarded such a viewpoint as only right and proper.  When Jill declared that that sort of attitude made them corrupt and decadent social parasites, he loftily informed her she shouldn’t be ‘so bourgeois’.

As the perfect representative of the middle classes, Jill felt uncomfortable staying with Istvan’s relatives for too long.  She always used to worry that she and her husband would prove a drain on his family’s resources, or distract them away from their work, study and other pressing concerns and obligations.  Renee’s little mind is not at all troubled by such frivolous concerns.  Her family are happy to have her come to stay with them in Russia for an entire year.  And of course their influence helps her to sail straight through customs without having her luggage examined in any shape or form.  She smugly congratulates herself on the brilliant achievement of making the other travellers feel quite envious.  (How many rocks of top notch crack she may or may not have smuggled in her vanity case goes sadly unrecorded.)

An ‘amusing incident’ occurs when the train arrives at Gatchina.  She and her companions stared out of the window at the Grand Duke Nicholas Michaelovitch, who was forced to dash into a side room at the station to change out of his civilian mufti and into the uniform suitable to his exalted rank.  A number of such incidents occur during the course of the book, always to people endowed with a splendid title and venerable old name.  Many of these incidents I cannot even understand, never mind laugh at, due to my total lack of social training.  Sorry, but I’m simply not comme au fait with all the requisite nuances, so there was no point in her including them.  When Renee witters on about such exciting and vital topics as the way in which posh Russkies should behave when people are presented to them, I immediately pass into a heavy slumber.

People who possess definite national and ethnic identities nearly always seem to hail from a different social class to her.  Therefore they do not matter in the great scheme of things, and only occur as a means of quaint window dressing to convey the expected ‘exotic’ flavour.  Such ‘characters’ include the Russian coachman who comes to collect them from the station when they first arrive in the country, the Persian merchants who run shops in the middle of Tblisi and a caravan of camel traders seen traipsing through the desert in the environs of Baku.

Although Istvan seemed to be equally fluent and at ease in the language of practically every country where his relatives lived, Renee isn’t.  Despite managing to pick up a number of basic Russian terms for things, such as drozky, she never even bothers to get round to trying to learn a bit of the actual language.  I suppose this would be because at this time Russian was still to some extent regarded as the language of the ‘people’, rather than the aristocracy.  As a result, her aunt can speak ‘perfect’ French, English and German, but not Russian.  Her knowledge of it is so bad that she prefers never to speak it in society, for fear she’ll be laughed at (or possibly dismissed as ‘a bit common’).  And as her aunt and everyone else she mixes with in Russian society all speak the very best of French, there’s no need for Renee to bother getting her pretty little head round the Cyrillic alphabet, never mind the horrors of perfective and imperfective forms of verbs and the glory that is the Russian case system. (So how did Pushkin end up such a genius writer?  Because his peasant Russian nanny just happened to be a master storyteller who taught him that the Russian language was something to be proud of.)

At one point she takes a leisurely trip to Georgia.  Georgia, for those of you who don’t know, used to be a quaint little theme park attached to the Russian empire for the express purpose of taking a holiday in.  Or at least that is the way Renee comes to think of it. Of course auntie is so rich and well-connected that she owns more than one thumping great mansion in Georgia alone.  Not only does she boast the main one in Tblisi, she also has a cute little weekend palace in the neighbourhood of Sukhumi.  Unfortunately, due to a teensy bit of civil unrest in the immediate vicinity, they are unable to go and stay there.  As the unrest does not seem to have involved the participation of aristos in any shape or form, Renee considers it of no further interest, so we don’t get to learn what it was all about and why.

During her stay, Renee claims that she met everyone who was anyone (ie all the usual suspects).  All the eligible young men seem to be dashing young officers in the army.  They can’t be doing an awful lot of work, though, as they are able and willing to engage in the full social round of Tblisi every night of the week.  A typical evening would involve going out for a meal in a restaurant, followed by a trip to the theatre (plays in French and Russian only, no Georgian, though they did exist at this time) and then on to a dance at somebody or other’s house.  In the daytime, she and her aunt pay visits or receive them.  Once their social obligations are fufilled, they go and visit all the hackneyed old tourist sites or do the odd bit of voluntary work. 

Yes, it’s a tough old life – but someone’s got to do it!   

Now, this is all very well - or not, depending on whether or not you happen to be a decrepit aristo-wannabe who crooks out your little finger whenever you take a dish of tea or a frankly cringe-making bourgieous upstart like me who attends a radical-minded institute of further education that not only encourages women to ride bicycles but obtain degrees and agitate for the vote - but what the hell has it all got to do with Leon Trotsky?

According t, o Renee's account, Rasputin and the Bolsheviks between them have done a mighty fine job of screwing up the fantasy funland of the entire Russian empire.  Torn away from her fluffy little reminiscences by the great sweeping panorama of history, she is forced to devote the last couple of chapters of the book to a discussion of serious matters.

Some of what she says about Rasputin is just plain bloody wrong.  But then, to be strictly fair, all sorts of lurid rumours seem to have been doing the rounds in polite Russian society at this time - and either her relatives didn't know or talk to anyone who did  possess the most accurate and up-to-date information about the Mad Monk, or maybe they thought the true story was far too shocking and outrageous for a nice young lady like her to hear.

Meanwhile, Trotsky gets it from both barrels.  Not only is he bourgeoius, intellectual AND a member of the Reds who've just emerged from under the beds - he's JEWISH!  And his real name just happens to be Bronstein!  (Kerensky is also a right pain in the arse, in her expert opinion, being bourgeious, intellectual AND Jewish - but at least he's only a socialist who's always gone by his original name.)

Renee, of course, just like the late sainted Tsar Nick himself, is firmly of the belief that your ordinary Russian peasant is far too stupid, childish and politically inexperienced to be able to rule himself or make any healthy, appropriate decisions about how he might like his country run.  Being so deeply religious and superstitious by nature, he needs a ruler from the same faith as himself to keep him in line.  

If it wasn't for all these Bolshie Jewish eggheads running round fomenting trouble in the ranks, the peasants and workers would never have even dreamed of kicking off, no matter how unhappy they felt or how impossible life in the Russian empire might have become.  

It's at times like these that you start wondering just what Renee would have made of Stalin and his purges ...

        

Here's one I made earlier

Can't believe that there are people out there who earn a bloody good living retailing cobblers like this, so I just HAD to share it with you! 

According to these people who claim to channel messages from alleged extra-terrestrial entities, ‘Shan’ is the name that some of the aliens give to the Earth (ie that planet that we live on, to quote Leela from Futurama).

Shan/Earth has got such a bad reputation that spaceships from other worlds are said to have come here in their droves, not just to protect the rest of the universe from our nefarious influence, but also to defeat the powers of Satan himself, while doing the best they can manage to reform us.  In other words, life on Earth is Borstal on roller-skates. 

Happily Shan made enough progress during the first half of the 20^th century to have been permitted to move from the third dimension to the fourth.  Now, do please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought we already lived in both the third and fourth dimensions?  After all, modern physics defines width as the third dimension and time as the fourth – both of which have been pretty integral parts of our universe, at least ever since I’ve been here on this current go-round.

And who exactly decided that we could move up, anyway? Obviously not the Home Secretary or an astro-physicist.

Anyway, starting on 17 August 1987, the Earth was led (precisely how I don’t know, so please don’t ask me.  I am not one of those privileged to have a direct line to the rulers of the cosmos) no less than 13 million light years into an orbit closer to the Great Central Sun (of where?  The universe?  How do they know that the universe has a centre and where it is?  We should be told!).

Ah, sorry, hang on a second.  It says here (Extraordinary Encounters by Jerome Clark) that ‘millions’ of starships used ‘powerful magnetic beams’ to transfer Shan to another solar system in the Pleiades.  The process was completed on 15 December 1995.  The Earth is now the fourth planet in the orbit of the star Coeleno.

So how come nobody down here noticed anything funny going on?

Now this is where this blue-sky concept gets really clever.

The extra-terrestrials felt that we might find such a radical change of habitat a bit disturbing and bad for the nerves, so they went to great lengths to conceal their operation.  The sky around us has been specially arranged to look just the way it did before the move.  All the old stars and planets have been cunningly replaced by an enormous fleet of starships, hovering in just the right configurations.

A few very observant humans have, however, noticed that though the sun is now emitting more intense light, it still looks smaller than it did before.  This is because Shan is seven million miles further away from Coeleno than it was from Sol.  Of course, this also means that our new moon is brighter than the old one.

Before we get moved up into the fourth dimension, all the usual type of devastating cataclysms will sweep across the globe, cleansing the planet of undesirable influences, including Satan and his minions.  Despite being the undisputed evil overlord of creation, the Devil is still thick enough not to notice that the Earth has been moved by the space-men!  

So, we’ve got a lot to look forward to this December.

Terrestrial scientists, on the other hand, agree that it is safe to buy a diary for 2013 and start pencilling in all the important dates for next year, including your income tax returns.

Naughty rude words

Back on Monday, I decided to pop into Blackwells bookshop on the university campus during my lunchbreak.

Shortly after I'd got myself nicely settled in a comfy chair with a good book, the woman sitting opposite asked if I could help her.

"Yes, no problem," I replied.

"You see, I'm slightly dyslexic," she went on, "and I sometimes have a problem with certain words."

The book she was reading just happened to be Fifty Shades Of Grey.

"PLEASE don't let it be a rude word, PLEASE don't let it be a rude word!" I silently pleaded.

The word turned out to be 'anticipated'.

The one after that was the rude one.

I just happened to be reading about the deplorable private lives of the ancient Roman emperors at the time, so I suppose she thought I wouldn't mind.

It's all in the title

Insomnia has struck once again, so I've been waking up at 3 o'clock most mornings and worrying about the state of the country/world/solar system/universe/my bank balance.

In an attempt to divert my mind from such apocalyptically overwhelming (not to mention pointless) trains of thought, I have been working out some attention-grabbing titles for potential future posts.

Here's what I've managed to come up with so far:

*  A Gallonful Of Arse-Gravy
*  A Little Light Goethe
*  Frumpy Shoes For Frumpy People

Now I've just got to write the articles to accompany them.

Wish me luck, fans!

The crepe list continued

Yes, you can take it as read.  There are even more aspects of modern life that seriously get on my non-existent knackers.  And because I had neither the time nor the inclination to look at them in the original Crepe List post, I thought I might as well put together a follow-up now.  (Cheap, tacky and obvious move I know, but hey, flankers always sell well in cinemas, sweet shops and perfume halls.)

So here they are, again, in no particular order:

Drippy hippies running in slow motion through waist-high meadows of wild flowers against a soundtrack of sensitive singer-songwriters crooning fey paens to childhood friendship whilst strumming a single acoustic guitar – when the mobile phone network in question continues to send you computerised invoices carefully itemising every last text you sent to your ex when you felt ‘tired and emotional’ last Friday night. Don’t forget that these multi-national conglomerates intent on grabbing every last penny of your cash used to advertise themselves as looming behemoth Laputas mistaken for invading UFOs on RAF radar screens back during the Eighties.

Keep calm and carry on posters – why the hell have these Second World War relics from

the Central Office of Information’s attic clear-out become so popular of late? Presumably because they are easy to turn into mugs, tea towels and the sort of ‘ironic’ retro poster that Nathan Barley and co consider an absolute hoot to hang up on the wall of the office boardroom. No-one these days takes this sort of stark, stoical, uncompromising attitude to life at all seriously (hence the existence of such bleary miseries on the literary landscape as Liz Jones). The only variants on this theme that I like at all are: ‘I will not keep calm – and you can fuck off’ (have saved a copy of this on my mobile to make me cackle when times is hard) and ‘Now scream your head off and freak out’ (not managed to track down one of these for my mobile as of yet – though we live in hope)

David Cameron – ugly, moon-faced, ubiquitous windbag of an utter non-entity – yet somehow he’s managed to find himself in charge of our entire country. Just what is the point of his existence, apart from helping to pay the mortgages of Ian Hislop and Paul Merton? Bloody big mortgages to keep going in such financially straitened times as these, is all I can say. Move to a cardboard box on the Norfolk Broads. You know it makes sense!

Spray tans – so walking about drenched in stray off-cuts of reject caramel is supposed to make me more attractive to the opposite sex, is it? I know human beings come in a huge range of colours and finishes, but Tango-Dorito E-number orange is not exactly a Pantone I ever remember encountering in nature.

Pod being a hip, happenin’ sort of suffix for desirable new products (like state-of-the-art computer technology, cool coffee-shops on Islington High Street frequented by urban bike-riding Guardian readers, offices constructed entirely out of plate glass and steel girders so that the inmates end up feeling like tomatoes in a greenhouse every time the sun comes out) – ‘pods’ are what beans live in as they develop to maturity. It doesn’t matter whether they are coffee, vanilla or green. End of story.

Stacks of false eyelashes adorning women’s faces – sorry, but I don’t happen to be either a drag-queen or Ermintrude the cow from The Magic Roundabout. And while Scandinavian-style paper cut-out ones showing the outlines of birds perching on top of chimney pots might well be a work of art, they’ll still peel off and fall straight into your mug of skinny latte the first time you ever wear them, so I wouldn’t bother shelling out that £29.99 in Liberty if I were you.

Britain is great fever – in that case, why all the jokes about sending your rubbish to France? And how comes it was Roger Federer who won the Men’s Singles at Wimbledon for the seventh bloody time? (I’ll say this for him, though – if he hadn’t bagged the title, then it’s guaranteed that Andy Murray would have been given a knighthood in the next Queen’s honours list.) Plus we seem to have conveniently forgotten that, in normal years, some of the most vociferous advocates of bellowing patriotism are football hooligans, extreme right-wing Fascist nutters, Daily Mail readers – and punks taking the piss during tough times. Are you sure you want to be associated with any of these people?

Spanx knickers – aka ‘pull-you-in’ knickers. So you’ve been following the maple syrup and lemon juice diet for the past month and a half, yet you still haven’t managed to rid yourself of that last teaspoon of stubborn cellulite on your bum? Fear not, control underwear is here to hoist you into shape for that red carpet photo-opportunity. Now no-one but you need ever know your dirty little secret – you’re fat!!!!!!!! If someone like me pulls a pair of these vicious piranha knickers on, they simply redistribute the flab. The laws of physics state that energy cannot be created or destroyed – and neither can wobble. So your spare tyres are forced to migrate to sunnier climes – your neck and your knees. Aren’t you glad nobody has ever heard of you, so that no pictures of you appear on the front of Heat magazine with a circle drawn round the offending portion of blubber together with the accompanying caption accusing you of ‘letting yourself go’?

Tons of black eyeliner – in case you hadn’t already noticed, I’m not Amy Winehouse. And I’m not modelling cheeky little polka-dot prom dresses designed to showcase my ‘magnificent bangers’ in the after segment of a Gok Wan make-over, either. Nor am I sleeping with Don Draper in the office stationery cupboard when I’m not typing up letter after wonderful letter for him in the typing pool. Let’s get the photocopier on the case!

‘I’m going on a journey’ type formats for documentaries – always fancied a holiday in the Galapagos Islands or a cruise aboard the QEII, yet have never had enough moolah ready to afford it? All you need to do is get commissioned to write and present your very own documentary. All real-life programmes automatically triple their appeal to the viewers once they can offer a few pretty (and aspirational) backgrounds, so chuck your cute little knitted beanie on and start thinking of some nifty links between the death of neutron stars and a trip round the Galapagos Islands via the QEII. Hint to any glamorous lady intellectuals out there nurturing a humongous crush on Professor Brian Cox – just arrange to pass by a convenient glacier or iceberg whilst wearing your best padded parka – and he’ll get winched in by helicopter to join you. Guaranteed!

Knackered and clapped out

If anybody out there is wondering where the hell I've been and what the bollock I've been doing since you last heard from me, just give me a chance to explain.

Over the course of the past month I have:

1.)  Undergone an operation at the Christie Hospital
2.)  Passed my MA course with a Distinction
3.)  Finished learning the Georgian alphabet
4.)  Been stricken with a horrible virus
5.)  Suffering from post-viral exhaustion

I am afraid that I also looked up 'steam cleaning teeth' on Google - and discovered that that stupid old ratbag Liz Jones happens to be telling the truth about this rather esoteric sounding health and beauty treatment.  However, you'll be glad to hear that no way am I daft enough to actually sign up for a course of it.

And of course I haven't forgotten the lovely Dr Frogg.

So just relax and give me a break, would you?

Froggy is my darling

Or why we all love and worship Doktor Archibald Frogg from the League of Super Evil.

Find out more once I've finished writing it and posted it up here ...

The crepe list

In no particular order, a selection of the things that have been getting right up my schnonker (sp?) recently:

* Cupcakes - ponced-up fairy cakes with an inflated idea of their own importance
* Mismatched sets of vintage china - great way to charge triple for chipped pieces of bargain-basement crockery in balls-achingly trendy and eye-wateringly overpriced interior decorators called Carpet in Shoreditch (remember that shop in The Harry and Paul Show that used to part Trustafarians from their parents' hard-earned money?)
* Cake-stands - only useful for putting cupcakes on in twee teashop windows in Shoreditch
* Doilies - ditto
* Tea-cosies - what you make to pay your mortgage after you get made redundant from your job in the City
* Crochet - ditto
* Knitting - ditto
* Home sewing - something I am not very good at, due to being deficient in many of the more traditionally 'feminine' skills (so how I'm going to pay my mortgage during an economic downturn, I don't know.  Chutney-brewing, perhaps?)
* Owls - as signifiers of cute 'quirkiness', rather than ancient wisdom and knowledge
* Taxidermy
* Fancy cut-out silhouettes
* Bloody obsession with anything and everything Scandinavian - starting to wonder whether this hasn't all been secretly sponsored by the tourist boards of all these countries a la 'Carrots give you cancer - signed the Potato Marketing Board' campaigns
* Sara Lund's sodding jumper - she wears it because it keeps her warm in a cold climate and it's quick and easy to put on in the morning.  Proof - I have never seen her get snapped in it at the Coachella Festival
* Constant festivals - that all seem to be starring Florence And The Machine on the Jimi Hendrix Stage
* Assumption that I am meant to be at all arsed what all the female celebs are wearing at these endless festivals and who they have started going out with this week
* Twiglet-thighed female celebrities who don't ever seem to do any work, but only ever get papped on the red carpet/on holiday/at festivals, thus making you conclude that their definition of 'work' must be 'blagging designer clothes to get papped in on the red carpet/on holiday/at festivals'
* Constant twitterings in women's magazines about how 'lonely' and 'unlucky with men' Jennifer Anniston is meant to be - well, she doesn't seem to be doing at all badly from where I'm sitting
* Claiming that Prince Harry is 'handsome' - no, he sodding isn't!  Just look at him - a baked potato in fatigues jumping out of helicopters into the sea.  All these women only drool over him because he has a title, is loaded and appears in the papers every day.
* Liz Jones getting paid shedloads of moolah every week for writing total cobblers about her supposed 'fairy-tale' affair with a washed-up 'rock star' - generally referred to on Mumsnet, DigitalSpy, Gransnet, The Angry Mob et al as the 'FRS' (Fantasy/Fairytale Rock Star, rather than 'Former' RS) because that's what they have all concluded he probably is.  If Liz Jones longs to write novels with curlicued pictures of pink shoes and purple handbags on the front that stressed-out twenty-something women read on the Tube to take their minds off worrying about possibly losing their jobs during the current economic downturn, then why doesn't she just write up a synopsis of her idea and send it off to a few publishers for consideration?
* The media insistently banging on about how 'gorgeous' George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling are - don't you even trust me to make up my OWN mind about celeb men?
* Idea that it is intrinsically 'feminine' for women of all ages to absolutely adore pink sparkles on anything and everything - if I took this up at my age (44), the natural assumption would be that my husband had left me for his secretary and I was now attempting to drown my sorrows in chardonnay and male strippers
* Fake tits
* Tango tans
* Horrible dagger-like false nails - if I'm not working as a porn star, why the hell would I want to dress like one?

The tea-trays of Atlantis

Well, it's official, fans.

I am suffering from acute library book withdrawal symptoms.

Manchester's Central Library is going to be out of commission until 2014 (or even longer, if the current renovation works fall behind schedule) and I'm already finding it difficult to cope.

Because there isn't all that much room in their temporary quarters on Deansgate, the librarians have had to store  most of their extensive holdings down the bottom of an abandoned salt mine somewhere in Cheshire.  Hence there are far less books, papers, magazines, CDs, DVDs and so on in circulation at the moment.

I've been trying my best by extending my range and visiting first Didsbury and then Chorlton, but it seems obvious that all the branch libraries share a pool of books which they regularly exchange amongst themselves.  As a voracious bookworm, I've already managed to work my way through a fair old number of these volumes. So now I'm starting to read some of my old favourites again.

Oh, how I miss the extensive and capacious shelves of the Central Library!

Four floors crammed to the rafters with the brightest, the best, the brilliant and just the plain barmy in world literacy.  Plus tons more in the stacks that you can order up from the basement stores.

The lack of weirdy-books is proving particularly galling.

I realise that Manchester Libraries probably chose to keep the books most likely to be of interest to the greatest number of borrowers - and these days your average punter prefers Jamie Oliver's 30-minute mispronounced dinners and Kevin McCloud's wallpaper hanging tips to alternative history and parapsychology (unless it is the bloody abysmal Da Vinci sodding Code - how that illiterate berk Dan Brown has managed to earn so much money from it is beyond me).

But oddball books have provided me with hours of free inhouse entertainment over the years - as you will know if you've bothered reading this blog on anything approaching a regular basis.

One abiding favourite I will be forever indebted to the Central Library for is Discovering Atlantis by Diana Cooper:

http://www.dianacooper.com/atlantis/

In this classic of New Age spirituality, Diana elaborates on the popular theory that the people of that mythical sunken civilization owed their greatness to crystal power.

When their children reached the age of adult majority, they were presented with a crystal wand and an object that looked just like a large metal tea tray.  Every time they wanted to travel somewhere, they sat on top of the tea tray, tapped the side of it with the crystal wand and thought of their destination.  Slowly, slowly, the tea tray began to rise in the air ...

Costcutters

Thoroughly cheesed off to read in the latest edition of the Guardian Media guide that Grace Dent is leaving.

Not only that, but she claims that she is being replaced not by another proper professional reviewer, but by reader contributions supplemented by copy generated by 'android pigs with hats on' (must remember to check this quote again and amend if necessary, rather than spend ages online reading the latest developments in the extremely disturbing Anders Behring Breivik trial and attempting to find out how the hell the bloody appalling man has managed to get himself any fans at all, let alone a German woman penfriend who might have even fallen in love with him).

In other words, those tight-fisted buggers on the Guardian are desperately trying to save money by cutting down on the number of qualified experts they employ.  The excuse they are going to use is that they want to make the paper more 'interactive' and 'user-friendly', because the advent of the Internet has turned everyone who watches telly (aka 'downloads content' - yuck, horrible modern techno-bollockese phrase de jour) into a critic.

Enter endless screeds of rabid fanboy dork-dribble, half-illiterate two-word summaries that tell you five fifths of fuck-all about the programme and hordes of students doing unpaid work experience who reckon the best way to create a reputation is by doing word-perfect impressions of Charlie Brooker circa 2003.

Grace is right to describe television as an artform that deserves to be taken seriously.  If the Guardian agrees with her conclusion, then they should be prepared to splash out on a full-time, appropriately experienced and qualified reviewer.

And if they claim to support up and coming new journalists, then they should be coughing up the going NUJ rates for every piece of copy that the work experience bods knock up. Plus a full byline.

They walk among us

Now HERE'S something new you don't learn everyday!

Those naughty little Illuminati get everywhere - and then some.

According to that unimpeachable authority Dr Google, they've even managed to extende their evil suckered tentacles as far as the north west.  At great personal cost, dedicated conspiracy nuts/theorists (please delete according to personal taste and/or current level of gullibility) have now uncovered convincing evidence of their presence in Manchester and Buxton.  Just see these links for far more and unnecessary details than you ever imagined in the very worst of all your nightmares:

http://illuminati-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/ive-had-couple-of-e-mails-asking-about.html

http://buxtonilluminati.webs.com/buxtonandtheoccult.htm

On reading all these breathless revelations, a few basic questions do spring inevitably to mind.

1.)  If the Illuminati are such a mighty and all-powerful organisation as is usually claimed in these sort of screeds, then why on earth would they be so daft as to reveal covert signs of their presence and coded indications of their future plans all over the place?  They're meant to be secret, remember!

2.)  If the Illuminati are such a mighty and all-powerful organisation, you would think they would be rather more efficient when it came to company branding.  Why not open a chain of coffee-stores with a branch on every corner in the world, rather than have Rihanna make rude  gestures with her fingers in her next video (whilst wearing a jacket with a picture of a pyramid and an all-seeing eye on the back)?  That is, assuming they want everybody to even know of their presence in the first place.

3.) How exactly would it help further their supposed plans for world domination if they take over places like Manchester and Buxton?  Are they thinking of re-opening the Hacienda and the Spa, perhaps? 

4.)  I always thought local authorities were in charge of running Manchester and Buxton.  And I would imagine Richard Leeson would be pretty surprised (not to mention worried) to see a set of green scales when he takes off his vest at night.

5.) If the Illuminati are really such a brutal and ruthless outfit, how come weirdoes of every stripe have managed to reveal every little last detail of their calamatous influence right over into the furthest reaches of the Internet?  Surely they would be able to stamp out dissidence even more promptly than the government of North Korea.  

Flash aaaaaaaaahhh-arrrggghh!!!

Since we last spoke, I have obtained the script of the Flash Gordon Show (series 1 episode 1 - first broadcast on 27 April 1935) from the Generic Radio Workshop Script Library, via the Simply Scripts website.

The reason I downloaded this and the scripts for three subsequent episodes is so I can learn how radio pulp sci fi series were written back during the Thirties. And yes, it’s American because fast-moving pulp sci fi shows would have been a bit too exciting for the Beeb back then.

For such an ancient piece of history, it still packs an awful lot of incident into the first episode alone.  The best way to prove this is for me to recount the plotline to you.

The action kicks off to a brisk start with the discovery that a newly discovered planet is on a collision course with the Earth.  Not surprisingly, everyone on the planet is more than a little concerned about the prospect of rapidly impending annihilation.

Flash Gordon and his girlfriend Dale Arden are travelling somewhere or other on a giant airliner, though we never get to find out where or why they are going there.

Such minor details turn out to be immaterial, as suddenly, the plane crashes.

Big, burly hunk of heroism that he is, Flash completely unperterbed by this unexpected (if you’re not writing the script, that is) turn of events.  Quickly, he grabs Dale in his arms, leaps out of the plummeting plane and parachutes them both to safety.

Once they’re down and safe, Dale notices a large steel door closing. Flash recognises it as the entrance to the secret laboratory of the great scientist Dr Hans Zarkov, who he decides to ask for help.

Bad move, mate!  Dr Zarkov turns out to be yet another stereotypical mad scientist.  Instead of assisting them, he loses his rag and accuses them of dropping to steal his secrets.

In retaliation, he forces them to climb into his top secret experimental rocket ship at gun point.  Then the ship takes off.  Its course is set for the new planet.

Flash tries to persuade Dr Zarkov to swing the rocket ship out of the path of the new planet, but being barmy, Dr Zarkov refuses to listen to all reason.  While the ship ducks and dives, he rants and raves his obscure resentments against the world, the universe and humanity.

The ship crashes.

Both Dr Zarkov and Dale are thrown from the rocket ship unconscious.  Luckily Flash is thrown to one side of the wreckage and lands on his feet, uninjured.  Flash picks Dale up and starts to carry her in the direction of the glittering towers of a distant city.

Once again, the sensible solution turns out to be singularly ill-advised.

Suddenly, soldiers armed with ray guns jump out.  They surround Flash and Dale and capture them.

The soldiers take the captives to the throne room of Ming the Merciless, emperor of the planet Mongo and supreme ruler of the universe (or so he thinks).

Flash is a proud and free American who refuses to bow down and worship anybody.  He argues with Ming the Merciless.

Ming the Merciless isn’t going to put up with this sort of crap, so he commands his slaves to throw Flash to the red monkey-men in the arena.

Flash is released into the arena, where he knocks out the first monkey-man.  Then he picks the stunned simian up and uses him as a flail to knock down all the other ones.

Refusing to be deprived of his cruel revenge, Ming orders the soldiers to destroy Flash with their ray guns.

Before they can shoot, Ming’s beautiful daughter Princess Aura calls Flash to her balcony.  Grabbing him by the hand, she leads Flash through a secret door and into a private elevator.

The lift ascends to the private landing pad of her personal rocket car.  Aura instructs Flash to climb into the rocket car to escape from Ming’s guards.

Once he’s safely in the car, Flash demands to know how he can now manage to rescue Dale.  


Aura explains that obviously he can’t.  Now he must love her instead – or die!

Meanwhile, Ming informs Dale that his soldiers will soon recapture Flash.  Dale asks what Ming proposes to do with her.

That’s easy.  She is very pleasing to him, so he will take her and she will become his new wife.  According to Ming, because the men of Mongo don’t have any human traits like love, mercy or kindness, it really doesn’t matter in the least to him whether Dale loves him or not.

A slave rushes in and announces that the lion-men have started bombarding the city in their space gyros.  Ming can see the carnage for himself on the ‘spaceograph’ (genuine example of Thirties spacey techno-speak, here).

Ming orders the entire space fleet to attack the space gyros.  A terrific aerial battle breaks out.  Finally, the men of Mongo manage to drive off the space gyros of the lion-men.

Unfortunately, Princess Aura’s rocket car is blown up during the bombardment.  Once more, Flash is in luck.  Instead of dying horribly, he is thrown to the ground, unconscious but otherwise uninjured.

Flash comes round to find himself staring into the face of Thun.  For those of you who don’t know, this character just happens to be the prince of the lion-men.


Thun demands to know who Flash is and what he is doing there.

Flash explains he is the enemy of Ming the Merciless and is trying to rescue the girl he loves.

In ringing tones, Thun declaims that he and his people are all long-standing enemies of Ming and co.  If Flash wants to be his friend, he will gladly help him beat Ming.

Flash knows he can trust his new buddy, so they shake on it.

Thun shows Flash a secret way back into the palace.  If they follow the passage, they can get in and rescue Dale.

First they repair to Thun’s handy space gyro to look at the ‘thought projector’ (more genuine Thirties spacey techno-speak!).  This shows them not only where Dale is currently being held captive, but the precise route of the secret passage.  And it leads straight into the throne room!

The hidden doorway turns out to open onto the top of the altar steps, directly behind Ming’s throne.  Flash and Thun are hidden from sight by an enormous and very convenient statue of the god of death.

As they emerge, they hear the wedding procession approach.

Even though Thun warns him that looking round the statue means certain death, Flash peers round it to try and spot Dale.

Ming is furious.  He commands his soldiers to pursue Flash and Thun – and kill them!

While Ming is distracted by Flash, Thun quickly guides Dale into the secret passageway.

The soldiers swarm up the altar steps to the attack – until Flash and Thun topple the idol right over onto them.

As the soldiers struggle to help their wounded comrades, Flash, Dale and Thun scarper down the secret passageway.  But not for long …

All of a sudden, they slip.

Tumbling down into a whirling underground river, they are swept down by a raging current and over a waterfall into a lake.

Flash swims to the shore with Dale.

But, just as he is about to pull her to safety, she screams - and disappears below the surface of the lake, clutched in two giant green scaly arms.

Flash plunges into the water to Dale’s rescue …

All this takes place in the space of 14 minutes – or rather 12, if you subtract air-time for two breathless and protracted plugs for Hearst Newspapers by the announcer at the beginning and end of the episode.

Much of the action is described by the announcer, rather than being depicted through the medium of sound, even though you do get the odd well-judged sound effect, such as a rocket taking off, an elevator humming and the statue crashing onto the startled soldiers.

Other action is indicated by deplorably clunky dialogue, such as Zarkov ordering Flash and Dale: “Get down this ladder, into this tower.  Down, I tell you!”, Dale observing: “Oh, look, Flash!  There’s a large steel door.  It’s closing!” and Dale explaining: “This rocket ship is breaking away from the Earth with the speed of light.  Right into the path of the new planet!”.  Still, I suppose she needs something to do, considering that she is too girly to participate in the action and you can’t even see how beautiful she is on the radio.

Despite living in a futuristic, technologically superior society, many of the extra-terrestrials talk in amusingly/irritatingly cod-Biblical jargon.  For example, a slave addresses Ming thus: "Oh, thou indulgent Ming, most merciless majesty of Mongo, supreme ruler of all the peoples of the new planet, thy slaves salute thee.”

Thun asks Flash: “Who are thou, white-skinned youth?  Speak!”  Note that Ming and Aura both address Flash as ‘you’ rather than ‘thee’, despite the fact that ‘you’ is the politer and more modern form of the third person singular in English.

God only knows what happens in episode 2.  I’m still too knackered to attempt it just yet.