We'll Win the Fight (Then Go Out for Pizzas)

The Thirteenth of September Two Thousand and Fifteen. Sunday.

I remember the exact moment that Steven Universe became my second favourite television series, deftly accelerating past Columbo. (I suppose that means I'd better induct it as my Twenty-First Telly Recommendation). Like a lot of animated shows, there had been a slow drip feed of new episodes, so Cartoon Network had taken to using a 'Steven Bomb' - a week's worth of episodes shown after a long gap from the last lot. 'Steven Bomb 2' took place in June.

Hold on. I'd better do a quick introduction to what I'm talking about (I always forget to do that). Steven Universe is a Cartoon Network show created by Rebecca Sugar, an animator probably best know for her work on Adventure Time. She's also a songwriter and responsible for some of the best tunes from that series. Which explains why Sugar managed to crack one of the most important facets of any TV series - the theme music. Since I seem to be making arbitrary lists at the mo, I'll go so far as to say Steven Universe has the Third Best theme in television. That's the music that plays over the end credits. The First Best is Doctor Who (obvs). The Second Best is Steven Universe's opening theme.

Steven Universe follows a well-worn path for an adventure serial. Essentially we join the story in the middle. Steven is a young boy who lives with three magical beings: Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl - the Crystal Gems of the song. It's quickly established that they fight threats to humanity - so far, so super-hero. We discover that Steven is half-gem. His earthly father fell in love with a fourth Gem, Rose Quartz. We're joining Steven at a familiar point in a familiar story - a would-be hero growing up to fulfil their destiny. There are early hints as to the history that led us to this point and subtle set-ups for stories to come, but the first few episodes are about introducing the characters and establishing the world of Beach City where Steven lives.

The format is the usual Cartoon Network one of 11 minute episodes, like Adventure Time, Gumball and Regular Show and we're now about 70 episodes in to what has unravelled to be a complex story with lots of twists and surprises. A quick scoot on a Wiki or two would reveal everything but I'm going to ask you to trust me and start at the beginning. All the episodes are available at the World of Steven Universe. It doesn't take too long before you see how bit by bit the story is beginning to build and build.

And the songs! Funny, clever, heartbreaking and sometimes just flat out awesome (sorry for using that word, but it really is the most appropriate). They're beautifully arranged too. The makers of the show post lots of behind the scenes material and it's fascinating hearing the demos of the songs and comparing them to the finished versions. There are links to downloads on the World of Steven Universe site.

Here's a one of the lighter ones that isn't too spoilerific. From the episode 'Giant Woman' it's called, er, 'Giant Woman'.

The goat is called 'Steven Junior', by the way.

Anyway, I can't be too specific about why this strange cartoon is so fabulous without going into details that would spoil the story, so I'll just vaguely allude to such things as love, feels, female sexuality, parenthood, 8 bit videogaming, anime, self-worth and breakfast. And the fact that that brilliant end music I mentioned develops as the first season progresses, matching the intensity of the episodes that lead up to the superb finale before serving up a sweet sucker punch right after you've already been on an emotional rollercoaster.

So anyway, 'Steven Bomb 2' was airing. I'd starting getting episodes on US iTunes so they came with subtitles so No2 son could enjoy them more fully. We were about to watch the first of those episodes 'Sworn to the Sword' round at his house, so I was connecting my iPad to his telly. I set it off before switching on the subtitles and paused it as it was a second into the theme song. We all called out excitedly 'New titles!' and No1 son started berating me for my tech incompetence and interrupting the purity of this thrilling moment.

It reminded me of when, as a young man, I had been round at my best man's house when the new series of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon started. There was an exciting new title sequence then too, followed by a brilliant, confident episode with all the characters well-established and flying (the episode was 'The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow' if you're wondering).

That's how I felt as this ep unfolded. It is a soaring, fabbo installment with the rare treat of two great songs in it. And as it closed Columbo politely moved out of the way.

More soonliest.

Sunday Night at the Palladium Tetrafluoride Factory

The Fourteenth of April Two Thousand and Thirteen. Sunday.

Palladium Tetrafluoride (PdF4) is is a strong oxidising agent and undergoes rapid hydrolysis in moist air and is only mentioned here in order to shoehorn in a very weak pun. Although, it was interesting to note that palladium - the metal - has its own currency code (under the ISO 4217 standard that labels pounds as GBP, euros as EUR and American dollars as USD one troy ounce of palladium is represented by XPD) and that one of the chemists associated with its discovery - Richard Chenevix - was awarded the Copley Medal. I mention this because at this moment I'm listening to Gary Copley on Radio York (big bands, vocals and jazz. Not normally my thing, but doing it quite nicely at the mo). Here's Gary rocking a tank top:

Ha-ha, they've reversed that photo! His buttons do up on the wrong side, like he's wearing a blouse! Still, that tank top is fierce. Man, I wish our tank tops at work were like that. Instead they look like this:

Brrr! (Incidentally, have you ever wondered why they're called 'tank tops'? I did until I Wikied it two minutes ago. Here's why. Remember: knowledge is a bell you can't unring.

Anyway, that's not the same Gary Copley as the Dublin artist who paints pieces like this:

All of which is my way of saying that things have been pretty much the same all the time I've not been blogging. Everything bumps into everything else. The sails of the Blut Vin Windmill rotate back to their origin as they must.

I've just bought the 3rd season of my Nineteenth Telly Recommendation, Community, which they didn't have on Region 2 so I have gone and forked out for a Region 1 disc. Before watching Manchester City reach the FA Cup final I spent my Sunday watching three episodes of it including the sublime Remedial Chaos Theory which follows the characters through seven different timelines. Clever and funny.

I also watched three episodes of my Twentieth Telly Recommendation, The Mimic. It's being repeated on More 4 from next Sunday (as well as the whole series being on 4od) and I think it's worth a watch. The trailers all show Terry Mynott as the main character, Martin, doing his impressions and I thought "oh, this is all a bit obvious". But then a clip featured this exchange as Martin discusses the merits of a DVD with his friend, Jean:

‘Nah it’s got subtitles. I hate that.’
‘Subtleties Jean; it’s got subtleties.’
‘I don’t like those either.’.

That made me smile and I thought I'd try it after all. I was rewarded with a sweet and melancholy short series (it's only five episodes - give it a go) that mixes a deliberately aimless charm with some very good character work and performances.

That'll do for now. Excuse me while I get some toast before bed.

More soonliest.

Community Service

The Twentieth of November Two Thousand and Twelve. Tuesday.

Just a quick Telly Recommendation tonight, Ls and Gs. It was first brought to my attention when someone mentioned that there was this American comedy - the first series of which was shown on Viva over here, but that was as far as it went - that occasionally rolled out a spoof of Doctor Who.

All good fun, but what about the show itself?

Well, I splashed out for the DVD of the first series (season? series?) and I am four eps in and loving it. It's called Community and it is mos def my Nineteenth Telly Recommendation.

It's got Chevy Chase in it, but don't let that put you off. Honestly, google it, then buy it. It's v good.

Erm, that's it really. Just an advert for some cockamanie TV show. Boy, I need some sleep.

More soonliest.

Kindling

The Nineteenth of November Two Thousand and Twelve. Monday.

I don't write enough. Probably part of the reason for that is I don't read enough. And probably part of the reason for that is books are just too darn long.

Well, they're not really, are they? But for some reason, unless I am completely and utterly gripped by a book I seem to find it difficult to get to the end these days. I think it's yet more evidence of my dwindling powers of concentration as I approach my dotage (ah, there it is just across the square. I can see it now).

The more pragmatic among you may wish to point to the invention of something called the 'short story', but these have a troubling tendency to turn up in collections. I feel the same disappointment in having read four out of ten stories in a short story collection as I do in getting only barely halfway through a novel. Yes, those might be complete and self-contained tales, but like listening to half an album (remember those, o generation of downloaders?) it still feels like a job not completed.

(Actually, I don't know why I'm being all snotty to downloaders. The whole thrust of this blogdule (is that what individual blog entries are called? Is it? IS IT?) is about downloading stuff.)

So thank goodness something has come along that means you no longer have to read a whole book.

What am I talking about?

Kindle samples!

I don't have an actual Kindle - although if they actually sold the 8.9 inch screen Kindle Fire in this country (what is that all about? Why do they region lock US Kindles? Let's just assume here that DRM and region locking is a dumb idea and move on) I might consider getting one to read my comics on - but I do have the app on me iPhone. Even on that tiny screen, it's easy enough to read. And, as I have mentioned elsewhere, as space becomes a premium in my tiny non-dimensionally transcendental flat I am embracing the digit-all age with all digits (bit of a stretch that, but I couldn't resist). So I have downloaded the odd virtual novel or two but they do have the nasty habit of costing actual money.

Actually, in struggling to come up with a punny title for this blogdule (that doesn't really work, does it? And yet I can tell - even now - that I am going to continue to use it) it occurs to me that the idea of book burning does seem implicit in the name Kindle. Is that deliberate? It seems a fairly obvious connection. Interesting that there isn't a copy of Fahrenheit 451 in the Kindle store. 

In an amazing piece of metatextuality here, the reason these sentences don't make sense is I am listening to an edition of Just a Minute from 28 May rather than concentrating on what I'm writing. They mentioned Tristram Shandy, which, after enjoying Michael Winterbottom's film A Cock and Bull Story, inspired me to immediately download a free Kindle edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a book famous for its constant digressions.

When the radio recording had finished, the recorder reverted to the last channel it was on. In this case ITV3, and Doc Martin featuring Caroline Catz was on. Now I'll admit to having a bit of a crush on the lovely Caroline so I had a quick look on Wikipedia to see what she's up to at the moment, whereupon I discovered she is married to Michael Higgs, who I had been watching as the dad on Wizards vs Aliens earlier. Why is it when I start writing this blog thing I can constantly get distracted by the fundamental interconnectedness of things?

The more you write, the more you begin to recognise your own ticks (some might say 'clichés') as a writer. Digressional hyphens seem to be one. And have you noticed how more and more rhetorical questions seem to be creeping in?

Anyway, I invoke the works of Douglas Adams (on a bit of an Adams kick at the mo - finally bought the DVD of the TV Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which, let's be honest, has got to be my Eighteenth Telly Recommendation) because he is responsible for my latest addiction: Kindle samples.

Kindle samples are great. They're free and as they only make up the first few pages of a book you can polish them off in no time and not worry about how the rest of the book turns out. Where they are particularly effective is when they release a new edition of a book you already have but it features a brand new introduction. This is where Hitch Hiker comes into it, cos a few years back they brought out new editions of the books with intros by the likes of Russell T Davies and Neil Gaiman - yours for free. In fact, it's only just occurred to me that they've done the same with rereleases of a dozen of the Target Doctor Who novelisations, and I have just cracked on and downloaded the new intros to those while enjoying a slightly stale chocolate eclair.

Obviously, the idea is to entice you into buying the whole thing. And there are samples in my Kindle library that I might just do that with. But for now I am enjoying completing the incompletness of books by Tina Fey, Tim Key, Stewart Lee, Haruki Murakami, Caitlin Moran and Mark Kermode. Biographies and factual books are great because not knowing how the book ends doesn't really affect the bits you're reading. I'm getting very clued up on the early childhood of an awful lot of people. 

More soonliest.

Staycation Breakfast Blog* 05 - Home

The Ninth of August Two Thousand and Twelve. Thursday.

*Incorporating Supper News and The Elevenses Argus

Oh, I love the Wizard of Oz. The fillum. Haven't read the book. Heart's will never be practical until they're made unbreakable. Time has been powerless to its kindly philosophy out of fashion. And, of course, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

But as a wee boy one thing I could never really get my head round was why at the end of it all Glinda just pops up and says 'You had the way to get home with you all along.' What!? Why didn't she just tell her that's how the Ruby Slippers worked in the first place? Why did they have to go through all that potentially lethal rigamarole?

Now, as a wiser and more mature individual (I wish...) I know the answer. Not just the smart alec one about narrative necessity and it would have been a very short film if she had. But she had to go on the journey to realise just exactly what was so important about home. If she hadn't gone exploring how could she discover that 'there's no place like home'.

I've had a lovely day today. Very laid back. That was supposed to be the formula for the rest of the week - late starts, no imperatives and the chance to unwind. But I couldn't help myself coming up with a checklist of things to do and places to see. And I think if I hadn't done some of that I wouldn't truly have relaxed. Some part of me would be wondering what it is that I am missing. Well now I know, and while I wouldn't have missed it for the world it's made me glad of what I had all along.

I sat at home and watched a bit of telly (New Girl is my Seventeenth Telly Recommendation) and enjoyed some Weetabix, a bagel, some coffee and some juice. It was ace.

Yesterday was book day. Well, they take a bit longer to get through than a film or comic. So I'm actually still in the middle of the one I started reading. It's the Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles by none other than Michael Moorcock and very entertaining it is too. Lots of musings on the nature of the multiverse (I've not read much Moorcock - the Oswald Bastable books and 3/4 of the Jerry Cornelius ones but it's clearly the same man at the helm), a bit of a Wodehouse pastiche and a namecheck for Meng and Ecker, who I knew I'd heard of but I couldn't remember where. A quick Google reminded me that it was in St Ann's arcade in Manchester. Still a bit to go - I'm not the fastest reader in the world - but it's all good so far.

To conclude the Breakfast Blog I'll mention what I've been up to today. I keeping with a regular breakfast I did what I do most of all - watch telly. So whereas I could have watched the unaired pilot of Sherlock, an episode of The Mind of JG Reeder and The God Complex and The Wedding of River Song (with the commentary) any night on this occasion they were part of my official programme.

That's it for now. I go on proper holiday on Sunday. There might be a blog or two from that, but I think we're all close enough friends now to know what the likelihood of that really is.

Nevertheless...

More soonliest.

To Serve Man

The Seventeenth of April Two Thousand and Twelve. Tuesday.

Oh, man I'm going to have to clean my microwave. My porridge is beginning to taste like the vegetarian hot dogs I regularly zap therein. Why is cooking so hard?

Nacho kit, why have you forsaken me?

I'm going to have to learn to cook properly, aren't I? It always seems like a really hard thing to do. Thank goodness the best cooks are attractive women!

I've already detailed my failed romance with Katy Ashworth.

She caught me borrowing her boots, and then it was all downhill from there. Yeah, that's right. She's got unexpectedly large feet. Stop trying to point out the implausibility of my story. Nobody likes a smart alec.

So I got out the Yellow Pages (the book - I'm having nothing to do with Yell.com after they let me down with my last enquiry) and looked up attractive female cooks and got hold of the email of Rachel Khoo off of The Little Paris Kitchen.

We began to correspond and she kept sending me recipes to try out. This one sounded good: oeufs en cocottes.

I got into all sorts of a panic! I couldn't find my ramekins! I knew I'd seen them recently but for the life of me I couldn't find them. I started to lie to Rachel, saying I was making stuff when I was really just knocking back the pot noodles (pots noodle? (actually they're not pot noodles, they're Golden Wonder 'The Nation's Noodle' cos they're on offer at Tesco. They've gone up a bit now, but a couple of weeks ago it cost £1.10 for one and only £1.00 for two! How mad is that? (and here's a bonus: the last one I had had two sachets of mango chutney in it!))). There was no way I was going to be able to knock up Nids de Tartiflette! What was I thinking?

I did have a go at the oeufs en cocottes but somehow I ended up with egg in soup like Doctor Sanchez makes in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, my Sixteenth Telly Recommendation.

 'Here, let me cut up your pork pie...'

Anyway, I think she's cottoned on to my mendacity cos she doesn't respond to my emails anymore. And she's blocked me on Twitter. And then there's the restraining order...

But one of the things I do enjoy about British Cuisine is that we are spoiled with the largest selection of crisp flavours of anywhere in the world. Depending on my mood I can dine on a Prawn Cocktail crisp butty or a Roast Beef Monster Munch sandwich. Maybe I don't have to clean that microwave just yet.

More soonliest.

Next day bonus edit! In an example of the sort of synchronicity you get in these blogs the Radio Times posted a gallery of Rachel here. Bit disappointed about the lack of crisp butties.

Toast and Craig Ferguson

The Fourteenth of September Two Thousand and Eleven. Wednesday.

Oh, hi.

How're you doing?

It's nearly one o'clock and I'm studiously avoiding writing the blog (yet again). Only I'm having such a good time watching clips of Craig Ferguson's American chat show on You Tube and eating toast that I'm not as worried about not doing what I'm supposed to be doing as I usually am. I'm mainly looking at interviews with the cast of The Big Bang Theory (I've just watched three episodes in a row from The Backlog - the digital pile of stuff that needs to be watched on my Humax PVR as mentioned in this entry (incidentally, I still haven't watched any of the stuff from The Backlog that I mention there - I keep meaning to have a Dollhouse-a-thon. Might do that the next Sunday I have off (not this Sunday, then)). Towards the end of the fourth series it seems to have hit a particularly rich seam of comedy gold so I have no hesitation in nominating it as my Fifteenth Telly Recommendation)

It's just I'm in a particularly good mood at the mo. No particular reason - Jim Parsons who plays Big Bang's Sheldon has been giving good value in his interviews on Craig Ferguson. That's been making me smile. (Stating The Obvious Alert!) It's funny how different the cast members are in real life. Yes, I know they're actors, I'm not stupid. It's not like I address the fan letters I send to Coronation Street to Ken Barlow - that would be silly, I know he's a character. No, I address them to "Ken Barlow", my use of quotation marks showing Ken I'm aware of the metatextual conundrum of his existence. What I mean is, the characters in The Big Bang Theory are so exaggerated (expertly so, mind) - perhaps even more so than the heightened performance you normally associate with sitcom - that it taken aback a little to see them as normal human beings.

Hmm, analysing comedy's such a dry biscuit, isn't it? Sorry about that. I'll quickly move on and get back to my toast.

Man City began their opening campaign of the European Champions' League with a 1-1 home draw against Napoli tonight. Hit the woodwork a few times, could have been better. Could have been worse too. A good night's work, I guess.

What I will mention is that the producer of The Big Bang Theory, Chuck Lorre, is also producer of Two and a Half Men - the show that Charlie Sheen left so spectacularly earlier this year. For a number of years he has written down his thoughts on the vanity cards - usually the production company's logo or trademark that appears at the end of a TV programme - that bear his name. You can read them if you freeze frame the credits, or you can check out the archive of them all here. The ones around #329 are the most interesting ones - they relate directly to the Sheen kerfuffle.

Anyway. Craig Ferguson. I was in New York in February and saw the show on the 17th that had Sarah Chalke in (you know, off of Scrubs). She was really good, but here's William Shatner instead:

Right, off to bed and then I've got a day's work in Hull tomorrow (later today... sheesh) Might tell you how that goes for the next blog.

More soonliest.

Some Truths 01

The Twenty-Fifth of August Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

When I came home last night there were children running around in the square at twilight pretending to be dogs.

One of the dumbest things I have ever done is say to the attractive girl in a bookshop that I had been chatting to about The Starlight Barking, Dodie Smith's follow up to 101 Dalmatians where they have weird mental powers (I know! Cool!), when she offered to lend me a copy 'No thanks, I'd like to buy it for myself.'

Whatever happened to Tempestt Bledsoe?

The Blue Tigers are coming. Turkish Blue Tigers.

I fell into a nettle bush while attempting to impress other children at the Plas Goch caravan park in Llanfair PG, Angelsey. Many years ago...

I have had letters published in the comics Captain Atom and Power Pack.

The most I have ever laughed is at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. The man who shut off the Battersbys' electricity on Coronation Street claimed that James Stewart mouths 'fuck me' (as an exclamation of amazement, not an invitation! This is Jimmy Stewart we're talking about, after all...) when all his friends rally round with the missing money (oops, spoiler alert!). We both watched it, drunk, and exploded when George Bailey actually did mutter a profanity under his breath. Here, have a look at this at about 1.07 -

The blurry resolution helps - as would any booze you may care to have.


Incidentally, talking of James Stewart and drunkenness, as an audition for a drama degree I did a monologue from Harvey. In a Scottish accent.

In an interview on BBC GMR in 1995 I claimed that I had found a rhinoceros in Spotlight, the actors' directory.

The Eighth Best Thing I've ever done is go barefoot in the grass in Tavistock Square.

My (proper) Fourteenth Telly Recommendation (after forgetting that what I'd said is my Fourteenth was actually my Second) is Being Erica. Here's the opening titles to Season 1:

I once gave Anthony H Wilson 'the nod' in the bowels of the Hacienda. And Wayne Sleep 'the nod' at the Crewe Lyceum.

I always open packets of crisps at the bottom, holding them upside down as I eat.

More soonliest

That's an Earth Joke, Uni

The Eleventh of August Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

EDIT: Twenty-Fifth of August

I should really keep up to date with my own tags. The D&D Cartoon was my Second Telly Recommendation, way back when. Let's change that...

Let's just dive straight (back) in to my Second Telly Recommendation the fabulous Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the 1980s.

Blimey, was it that long ago?

I used to play D&D regularly in the 80s and 90s - still got a lot of the rule books, supplements and stuff that I haven't used in ages and should really get rid of. Would do too if they weren't so cool. So when I saw the cartoon listed on broom cupboard era BBC children's telly I poo-pooed it thinking it was just a cheap commercial cash-in. There was a cute unicorn character, for flip's sake. It must be rubbish.

I could not have been more wrong.

I can't remember exactly when I got into it. I remember seeing several episodes from the first series. But I remember loving the first episode from the second: The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow. The titles had been changed, as if to reflect that, like in the game itself, the characters had become more experienced and more powerful.

Oddly though, repeats of episodes from the second series and the DVD releases use only the one title sequence - the one from the earliest episodes. It's a shame as this one's pretty cool.

In fact the whole thing's pretty cool. Back then it was fun to spot specific monsters or other direct references to the game. Now it's recognising some of the writers' names - people like Michael Reaves and Paul Dini who would go on to contribute to the brilliant DC superhero cartoons of the nineties or Steve Gerber and Mark Evanier who were better known for their work in comics. And for a series with fairly basic animation it was surprisingly cinematic - shots would be framed in inventive ways, the action was always edited really tightly. A particular treat was the different ways the arch-villain, Venger, would regularly meet his demise. I think the coolest was at the end of Day of the Dungeon Master when as Venger is trapped in the collapsing remains of the city of Darkhaven a huge dust cloud, rising as if to form the familiar mushroom shape, instead takes on the shape of the demon-like creature. The ghostly cloud then looms threateningly over our heroes only to dissipate as it reaches out toward them. There's loads of great stuff like that throughout the series - most of the episodes are on You Tube - check it out, either as a nostalgia kick or just for some really good fantasy stories.

The boxed set is pretty cheap on Amazon too if you want a few extras added in including the script for the never made 'final' episode. All good stuff.

If all that wasn't enough though, there is one reason why this cartoon is more than a footnote on one of those 'I Remember...' programmes. Two reasons really. There were lots of great characters in this show, from Eric the Cowardly Cavalier to the mysterious Dungeon Master himself. But what really made an impression on my 15 year old mind as a boy was the sight of a redhead in thighboots and an athletic young woman in a fur bikini.

.

Sheila (and Diana) take a bow. Fortunately, at the tender age of 42 such things don't bother me any more. Yeah, I watch cartoons from a much more mature standpoint now. Or something.

More soonliest.

AOB #1

The Thirty-First of July Two Thousand and Eleven. Sunday.

Every now and then when my poor brain is too fried to go into too much detail on stuff we'll just have a quick recap of some of the nonsense that has just flicked through my brain recently.

Ok, so I've been catching up on watching Castle today (yes it's got the guy from Firefly in it, but it's good fun in its own right so, ping! Thirteenth Telly Recommendation). By a bizarre stroke of fate (heh - they're always saying that in the 60s Legion of Super Heroes comics No1 son and I have been reading) I watched two episodes back to back that were shown a fortnight apart - I'd watched the one in between 'live'. Both of them had references to a 'Sleestak', something I had only heard for the first time recently on the track 'Cloisonné' from They Might Be Giants' new album Join Us (I call upon the power of the Sword of Omens to extend the Third Music Recommendation to include all the tracks off that album, not just Can't Keep Johnny Down as mentioned here).

Yes, it doesn't take much effort to google something, but it must only be done when it's mentioned three times in fairly quick succession. It's a bit like Beetlejuice in that way. Or something.

Hands up who knew a 'Sleestak' was one of these from Land of the Lost?

I'd heard of the series, but had never seen it, its 90s remake or the film with Will Ferrell from a few years back. I don't know how well known it is in this country, but I checked with my friend the American Pop Cultural Attaché in London and she remembered 'em with barely a prompt. The Wikipedia entry makes it sound really odd for what was essentially a kids' series which makes it right up my street. Will look out for it, I think.

Oh, and this guy does Monet pictures featuring Sleestaks. Cool.

Re the Wankel Rotary engine that I mentioned the other night. Well, walking home from work what was on the corner but a Mazda RX8 that is powered by... Ah, you're way ahead of me.

Pity I didn't see it in motion. I'd be curious to hear what its engine sounds like.

I can't find the photo from work that states 'NO UNATHORISED ENTRY' - I'll have to take another one tomorrow. But yesterday I came across a couple of odd misspellings. We all do this, so I'm not pointing any fingers, but they stood out a bit.

On the ticket office-cum-shop for the North Bay miniature railway:

And this was on my orange juice carton:

And that's July over and done with. Not the best there's been. Join me for a much better August.

More soonliest.

Adonai Vasu Baragas

The Thirtieth of July Two Thousand and Eleven. Saturday.

Salamé!

Among the many disappointments in my life is discovering that Whitley Streiber - the horror author who penned the 'true' account of his UFO abduction experience in 1987's Communion - pronounced his surname as 'Streeber' rather than 'Stryber'.

Thus Streibernaut - my name for the famous grey alien that featured on the cover of his book (the name was a riff on the Cybernauts from the TV series The Avengers (my Twelfth Telly Recommendation)) didn't sound half as cool.

I don't think I believe in UFOs any more. When I was little I thought 'The truth is out there' and it would only be a matter of time before conclusive proof of the existence of flying saucers turned up. But what sounded like exciting encounters to my infant mind now come across as either outright fibs or some sort of delusion. Streiber in his book hedges his bets between the physical and psychological, going to great pains to be as vague as possible over what he believes to be the origin of his encounters.There's no mention of hubcaps spinning or otherwise.

I love that photo. It's of a Venusian scout ship as seen by famous 50s contactee George Adamski (as far as I know, no relation to the bloke who had a hit in the early 90s with Killer). The website I've linked to shows his films of these ships in action. They're not very convincing, but I can't help thinking how cool they would be if they were real. That's the appeal of the UFO phenomenon - the possibility that all doubts could one day be swept away if you were lucky enough to make contact yourself.  I think it's all nonsense now, but part of me still longs for a close encounter.

If I do, at least I'll have some idea what to say to the visitors. The title of today's blog is spaceman talk for 'Farewell Good Brothers'. It comes from tape recordings made by one Philip Rodgers at his home in Grindleford in the Peak District. He goes into great detail about them, and the translations he deciphered here. Again, it's nonsense but the level of detail is compelling. We fill in the gaps in plausibility because we dearly want it to be true.

Mind you, I still haven't managed to explain those dreams I had of owls at the bottom of my bed when I was a child. Strange.

More soonliest.

What No Angel Knows

The Twenty-Fourth of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Friday.

Peter Falk passed away today. Sad news - he was 83 and had been ill for some time.

I think we both know Columbo has to be my Eleventh Telly Recommendation.

I won't go into detail about the best detective show ever made - a little googling will tell you everything you need to know (or read his collection of anecdotes Just One More Thing, there's plenty of stuff in there). Heck, it's on ITV3 on this Saturday at 2.15 (repeated Sunday morning at 10.40) - just sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy it. I've got the box set of the original 70s run and I still end up watching it when it's on.

There are a couple of loose ends I'd like to go over with you, though (if you don't mind).

First off, how brilliant is the format. You see the murder right at the beginning and the story, instead of being a whodunnit, becomes a study of the methods Columbo uses to wear down and trap the murderer. I like to guess at what point Columbo is certain that the murderer is guilty. Does he always know from the start? I'm not sure, and it's testament to Falk's performances that that ambiguity is maintained - it's not certain whether he's playing the murderer along or is still working it out.

The recurring guest stars are always good value too. Falk's wife, Shera Danese appears several times and there's more than one appearance by the likes of Robert Culp, William Shatner and the Prisoner himself Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan directed a few episodes too. Here's the end of one of his, featuring another recurring element - the tune 'This Old Man' turning up somewhere.

Columbo will always loom large in any account of Falk's career but he did lots of other ace stuff.

He was an accomplished artist.

There's a gallery of his work on his website.

It's as an actor that he's best known, though and he made many films throughout his career. One that made a big impression on me as a child was The Great Race. The evil Professor Fate (played by Jack Lemmon) had a gimmick-laden car called the Hannibal Twin 8 that was awesomesauce. Falk played his sidekick, Max and whenever one of the Hannibal's many gadgets had to be deployed Fate would give the order: 'Push the Button, Max!'

I still say this today when urging No1 son to push the button on a pelican crossing!

Among the many reasons that make The Princess Bride the best film ever is that it has Peter Falk in it. In fact the title of Wednesday's blog, 'Television Was Called Books' is one of his lines.

One of his most peculiar roles is in Wim Wenders Wings of Desire, a film summarised very neatly in this short review here. In it Falk plays himself, an actor making a film in the divided Berlin of the 80s. The city is populated by unseen angels watching over - but never truly experiencing - the lives of its people. It later transpires that Falk himself was once an angel who became mortal so that he could live in the 'real' world and he encourages Bruno Ganz - an angel who has fallen in love with a human trapeze artist - to do the same. It's a hypnotic, ethereal film and Falk's role straddles the different realities within and outside the film.

A very beautiful film.

I think I'll leave the last word to John Cassavetes, Falk's friend who directed him in a couple of his movies and went on to return the favour by appearing in Columbo.

A Matter of Record

The Sixteenth of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

I'm thinking of reading The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy again. It's years since the last time I did - I think my last encounter with the Hitch-Hiker universe was with the film from a few years ago. Didn't really cut it for me. But I was in Waterstone's the other day and I had a quick flick through the latest edition, reading the new foreword penned by Russell T Davies (the genius writer behind Bob and Rose - oh, Ninth Telly Recommendation ahoy. Joyous, joyous telly. Ninth and Tenth Telly Recommendation actually, that's how good it is). I was quite young the first time a read it (an American hardback copy that my next door neighbour's dad had brought back from working overseas. I orginally thought it was an American book), and as funny as I found it it's only as I've gotten older that I've started to understand some of the jokes in there.

In fact there's one joke in particular - in another book written by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - that has only relatively recently made sense to me. There's a section featuring an Electric Monk, a robot that saves you the effort of believing in things by believing them on your behalf. A comparison is made with the way a video recorder will watch programmes for you so you don't have to.

In my younger days this didn't make sense to me. Surely you got a video to record the programmes you wanted to watch most of all. In the twenty-plus years since I first read that I have now realised the truth - Douglas was right.

I love my Humax PVR.

You can record off digital radio, the EPG has a search function, you can trim recorded programmes and you can upload files onto your computer. It's ace. But it's also full of telly I haven't got round to watching. The oldest is from 2 years ago - there's Series 4 and 5 of The Wire on there. Also Series 3 of Weeds, Series 2 of Dollhouse. I still intend to get around to watching all that at some point. It's all the stuff that I've recorded, didn't watch and subsequently deleted - stuff from Christmas, various films. The hard drive is more or less full so as soon as something new comes along that I might want to watch space has to be made and quite often the stuff that goes hasn't been watched yet. The most telling thing is when a film that's been on your recorder for a long time gets reshown. And you still don't get around to watching it. I think I've recorded Pan's Labyrinth  3 times - still haven't seen it. But the recorder must think it's good to have watched it again and again like that...

In fact, I'm saving up my pennies at the mo so I can afford to upgrade to a recorder that can watch in HD the things I'll never get around to seeing. So at least if I don't see it, I'm not seeing it with the best possible picture quality.

I think that makes sense.

More soonliest.

Go to Bed, Spotty

The Fifteenth of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Wednesday.

I've sought advice from Shu-Shu, she being a marathon runner and all that, and apparently this is what is known as 'The Wall'.

My solemn promise to you, faithful viewer, is that there will be some sort of nonsense or other for you to digest every day come rain or shine. Current plans have it that I will have a one week break every six weeks. Let's see how that pans out.

In this world of rolling news and RSS feeds, digital channels out the wahoo and that there Twitter it behoves an old soul like myself to remember a gentler, quieter time when if there was nothing to say then everybody would shut up instead. Yes, this is all a bit self-reflexive - talking about not having anything to talk about (and then pointing out that that is what you're doing) - but I checked and you're allowed to do this whenever there's a red moon (just popped outside and it's too cloudy to see if it really is red, but everyone's been saying it is so that's good enough for me).

So tonight we're going to pad things out with a celebration of closedown - back in the day when people weren't afraid to admit they had nothing more to say. As Neil in The Young Ones (to this day, still my favourite TV comedy and thus my Eighth Telly Recommendation) once said, 'It's a sign. It means there's no more telly. It's time to go to bed'.

I grew up in Granadaland and so this is how the day used to end for those of us who lived on the banks of the Irwell. I hope you experience the same tears of nostalgia that I did upon hearing the swell of harp strings at the end of the Granada theme.

Times past, times we will never see again...

However, when we moved barely quarter of a mile up the road the signal from Winter Hill was blocked by the trees in the nearby park (I think) and so we had to retune our telly to pick up HTV Wales from the other direction. Swings and roundabouts, though. While keeping abreast of what was going down in Cardiff Town wasn't that useful it did mean that we got this rather stirring closedown music which evokes memories of a later, perhaps less innocent, time in my life.

(By the way, there's lot's of brilliant stuff like this at TV Ark, where you can easily lose an hour or two wandering through all sorts of long-forgotten gems)

Right, now it is time for bed. I'll leave you with this final closedown clock, which by a weird coincidence is showing the exact time I'm finishing typing this. Freaky.

Goodnight all.

More soonliest.

Ossie's Dream

The Tenth of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Friday.

The Flat's quite tidy at the mo. It's quite pleasant, really. So this is why people keep their homes clean. Nice, but I don't think it'll catch on.

Oh it was the last episode of series 3 of The Mentalist tonight (or as it is known in the MH family El Mentalista) and it was a good one. Yes, faithful viewer, this is my Seventh Telly Recommendation.

Now the creator of El Mentalista is a chap by the name of Bruno Heller. He's British, the brother of novelist Zoe Heller and I have a feeling he's a Spurs fan. Why?

In tonight's episode there were 5 possible suspects for the bad guy. One of whom was named Osvaldo Ardiles. A perfectly ordinary sounding name among the Hispanic population of California, but to those of us who remember our 80s footballers more famously the Tottenham and Argentina midfielder.

Of course, 30 years ago Ossie helped Spurs to win the FA Cup. Oh, that hurt for a long time. In fact it's only this year that the pain has subsided. Oh, Tommy Hutch scoring at both ends - that's still one of the fate's great injustices. I don't know if there is such a thing as Karma but surely some was reclaimed by the way that this season Peter Crouch, the man whose goal effectively prevented Man City from making the Champions' League last year, scored the own goal that helped us on our way to Europe this year. Is that a bit of a stretch? I don't think so.

(Last minute edit: and I've just realised that one of the scorers from the 1981 replay was Garth Crooks, born in the Potteries and a successful Stoke City player before joining Tottenham. Is this why Stoke were the sacrificial lambs to Man City's victory this year? Well, is it? Think about it...)

I had some vague notion that Ossie wore the No1 shirt in the Argentina squad that won the World Cup as hosts in 1978 - unusual for a player other than a goalkeeper to wear that number. I was 9 during that World Cup - of all the things to stick in my mind. A bit of Googling reveals that's not quite right. Ardiles was No2, but No1 was worn by an outfield player: midfielder Norberto Alonso. I can't ever recall seeing that anywhere else.

Right. Always end on a song. Here's Ardiles and the rest of the accursed 81 FA Cup squad along with Chas and Dave. May their shells be blighted.

More soonliest

Personnel on the Forecourt

The First of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Wednesday.

One of the pleasures of coming home after a few days away is seeing what your Personal Video Recorder has chosen to 'tape' in your absence (do you still say 'tape' even though everything's digital these days? I do. Always a sucker for an inaccurate archaism that still adequately conveys the sense of what you're trying to say). I have an Humax PR9200 (I think) and it gained sentience around the time Skynet was supposed to be switched on earlier this year (Google: April 19, apparently) and instead of destroying the human race (that might be still on the cards, the full extent of its plans is not yet certain) it merely picks out good programmes to watch.


Hmm, it's gone for Adam Curtis' All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Well, it would do, wouldn't it? It is good, though and so it does qualify as my Fifth Telly Recommendation. A bit of Archer on 5 Asterisk, a bit of Bob's Burgers on Ee Four (I've been on Ee Four. Might tell you about that one day...) What exceptional taste the particular artificial intelligence that animates this otherwise everyday piece of electrickery possesses. What else has it gone for?

Oh, here we go. Trying to be wilfully obscure I feel - it's gone for BBC4's top Icelandic sitcom The Night Shift. I don't like to be dictated to by a machine, but I will grudgingly endorse it as the Sixth Telly Recommendation principally for the the character of Georg Bjarnfreðarson as played by Jón Gnarr.

A bit of half-hearted research on t'internet reveals that The Night Shift was succeeded by two sequel series, The Day Shift and The Prison Shift. But most interestingly, there's been a spin-off movie entitled Bjarnfreðarson that upon its release was more popular in Iceland than that Avatar movie thing.

Gnarr's an interesting character himself. A well-known comic actor in Iceland, he moved into politics forming the Best Party with a view to running in Reykjavík's mayoral elections. Among the best party's election promises were Free towels for every spa, a polar bear for the city zoo and a drug free parliament by 2020. It remains to be seen if they will follow up on this or suffer from a Lib Dem style amnesia attack as would you belive it they won and Gnarr has been mayor of Reykjavík since last year. 

And now, in a Look North linky style, I'd better bring my own night shift to an end. It's way past bed time...

More soonliest
 

Superhamster und Mäuseorgel

The Twenty-Seventh of May Two Thousand and Eleven. Friday.


Man, I'm all over the place at the mo. It all started to go a bit weird this morning when I discovered a fourth part of the psychischer Apparat that make up Freud's structural model of the psyche. In addition to the Id, Ego and Super-Ego it turns out that there is also the Ulm. Not sure what it does for now, but it's a pretty radical development and I've had clinical psychologists on the phone all morning.

Now that all might sound like nonsense, but I'd like you to consider this: Freud's original Deutsche terms for the structural model were 'das Es', 'das Ich' und 'das Über-Ich'. When reaching into my head for a term for the fourth part of the model, without any conscious effort I stumbled upon the word 'Ulm'. Sounds a bit Germanic - odd that I should settle for that when the translated terms are latinate - and indeed as I ruminated upon it I realised that it is an actual place in Germany. I had probably heard it from the Monty Python's Flying Circus (do I really need to cite this landmark comedy programme as my Third Telly Recommendation? I do. Ok, done. (oh, and while I'm here I'll confess that I much prefer the series to the films. No, always have done. Not even sure if I've seen Life of Brian all the way through. Like the sketches more, so that's why And Now For Something Completely Different is my favourite Python film (I guess that makes it the Second Film Recommendation (the version of the Mouse Organ (not to be confused with the Mouse Organ from Fourth Telly Recommendation Bagpuss) in it is better than the TV one, I think (Is that contradicting what I said about the telly being better than the films? (no)))))) sketch featuring Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfernschplendenschlittercrasscrenbonfrieddiggerdangledungleburstein von Knackerthrasherapplebangerhorowitzticolensicgranderknottyspelltinklegrandlichgrumblemeyerspelterwasserkurstlichhimbleeisenbahnwagengutenabendbitteeinnürnburgerbratwustlegerspurtenmitzweimacheauuberhundsfutgumberabershönendankerkalbsfleischmittleraucher von Hautkopft of Ulm.

But get this. In the Film Forbidden Planet (hmm, that's pretty good, I'd better make it my Third Film Recommendation (featuring 'electronic tonalities' by Louis and Bebe Barron)) there is an Id monster. 

And in Germany there is an Ulm Münster.

It's the tallest church in the world! And Leslie Nielsen sounds like a German name! Everything is connected!

What? You think that's a bit of a stretch? Then I'll leave you with German choir The Happy Disharmonists doing their version of an Abba song and a Monty Python sketch. You see, I'm not as mad as you think.

Or am I?

More soonliest

As Played By Simon Callow in 'The Unquiet Dead'

The Twenty-Fifth of May Two Thousand and Eleven. Wednesday.

I thought it might be quirky to write out the date on each entry in long hand like that but after the first one I saw that the blog automatically puts the date at the top anyhoo so it does look a bit dumb. But it does set an interesting tension between products of the mechanism and the will so I might continue to do it nevertheless.

Let's be honest, I'm as surprised as you are to see me here 2 days on the trot so that might not even be an issue in the long run.

Oh my waistline. I think the best bakery chain in North Yorkshire (my adopted home and location for (in this order) spawning no1, nuptials, spawning no2 and imminent divorce) is Thomas the Baker. Two reasons: their Veg-able pasties (and 'Yorkshire Pizza' now I think about it - three! Three reasons! (tips hat in direction of Cardinal Biggles and the rest of the Inquisition) and the fact that their name is a bit like Tom Baker - a little-known actor who was in Life and Loves of a She-Devil and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. And the Dungeons and Dragons film (pronounced 'fillum') (which is rubbish - even though I haven't seen it - and is not to be confused with the cartoon - which is awesome (and I mean that in a completely non-arch, unironic way - some of it is simply brilliant, and thus it becomes my Second Telly Recommendation). My plan today was to go to Thomas for a pasty for my brunch (Vin's working day: start at 6, finish at 2, feed at 10) but I had forgotten that they had closed for refurbishment. So off to Hardies (other Scarborough baker) for an egg mayonnaise barm (and yes, a mushroom quiche thing as well - there's a reason the opening of this paragraph reads what it does). All well and good (although the bread was a little dry) but here is the point of this ramble.

On my way back to work I passed Pizza Hut and there was a blue plaque on the outside that said that Charles Dickens had performed readings there.

I'll say that again.

Charles Dickens performed readings in Pizza Hut, Scarborough.

I think that's what it said. I meant to take a photo to post here (I will do - somebody remind me if I don't) but I forgot and picked up 8 small bottles of Irn Bru from Poundland instead.

I told this to my homeboy, Jon Eves (yo, Jeves! Respec', blood) (the thing about Dickens and pizza, not the Irn Bru bit. Come on!) and he suggested that his visit was probably where the great author received the inspiration to write 'please sir - I want some more.' (Do they still do free refills on pop there?)

Hey, I've just realised! Not just Dickens, but 'Thomas' and 'Hardies'. Cool.

More soonliest

Also Available in 2D

The Twenty-Fourth of May Two Thousand and Eleven. Tuesday.

Right. Going to start a blog. Never had one before - most probably kill it in the morning (ah, begin the whole enterprise with a Princess Bride misquote. Maybe this is what writers are going on about when they talk about someone finding their voice. Maybe this blogging lark is going to work out after all - a phrase that makes me think of Danny Baker After All, the late-Saturday zoo format show that wasn't quite as successful as Morning Edition (which was fab - it featured Janet Ellis reading out extracts from her teenage diary), his breakfast show on Radio 5 (no Live in those days). DBAA featured Mark Kermode's skiffle group (Google - what were they called? The Railtown Bottlers? Thank you. Good search engine) as the house band. Mark Kermode was mean about Avenue Q on Newsnight Review. I am going to see Avenue Q at The Lowry on Tuesday. I have already seen it in New York, of all places.

Haven't really settled on a tone for this lark yet, but the digression and the untidy use of dashes and parentheses in the paragraph above is a fairly accurate representation of my thought processes (like Dug, the dog in Up ('Squirrel!' (an excellent film that I think will count as the First Film Recommendation of this blog))). Incidentally, this is the second time I've written out all this nonsense as I navigated away from this page and this was all deleted the first time round. You haven't missed much. It was more or less the same.

And the '2D' bit in the title of today's entry was just a bit of 'found object' guff to fill in a bit of space but it occurs to me that this blog will be two-dimensional. Sometimes based in reality - as, for all its wiggles this first entry is - and sometimes telling tales, asking 'what if?' or just outright lying.

Okay, that'll do for now. I want to watch Archer on 5* before I go to bed (and lo, my First Telly Recommendation comes into being. Sweet.) 'cos I'm up at 6 in the morning and I didn't sleep too well last night because I had a nightmare about having a Geography exam where everybody was using pencils (2B, 2H and HB) to draw maps of America but I hadn't done any revision/homework and had to keep telling myself 'I've left school - I don't have to do this stuff any more' in order to try and get myself to wake up...

But that's another story.

More soonliest.