Sunday 25 June 2017

Parking Tickets & Only Connects - my Facebook posts


Well done BBC, his name was Roy! (They've fixed it since I took the grab)


June 9: Just filed a challenge against a car parking Penalty Notice. What do we think are my chances? Has anyone ever challenged a parking fine and got off it?

1) Okay, got a Tea-Time Theme-Time for you. What do these 3 songs have in common?

Rock DJ - Robbie Williams 

Tubthumping - Chumbawumba

Guantanamera - The Sandpipers


Reading Giles cartoons of a Sunday morning, as is our wont, stumbled across this gem from the Edinburgh Festival 1955 and, most delightfully, recognised its location. Giles has set the scene at the top of The Vennel in Edinburgh, which is where Hev and I stayed in 2015. Edinburghians should recognise it, the path that leads from Art College to the Grassmarket. Any other Giles fans out there? Ever spotted your street used as a backdrop?




June 10:
Adam West remains my Batman. I mean, you can hear what he says (yes, that's you Whispering Bale), he wasn't better in everything else he did (hello George Clooney), he wasn't hard to work with (oh Val Kilmer, you're surprised you're not in everything these days?), and he wasn't just totally wrong to play Batman (seriously, who cast Michael Keaton?). Adam West, we'll miss you at the Pigeon Toed Orange Peel.

What? I didn't mention Ben Affleck? I did not realise I had not done that.

2) Okay, got an Only Connect for you. What comes 4th in this sequence and why? (Imagine this as a picture round, that'd make it harder)

Dinah Shore

Bill Bailey

Martin Clunes
What comes 4th and why?


Doctor Who fans cover your ears. I was teaching comics to a Year 5 group today in Manchester, and on the flipchart I'd already drawn a character that would be familiar to all of you. "We know who this is?" I said, obviously. The first guess was C3PO, the next was BB8. Guesses ranged from "a alien" to something out of Spongebob. It was at least half a dozen guesses before one kid got that it was something from Doctor Who. Another piped up, "it's a Tardis!". I settled for that.
It was a Dalek! A class of thirty 9 and 10 year old kids in Manchester did not recognise a Dalek! It's the end of the world as we know it.

(Here's that flipchart itself (above). Not the best Dalek drawing ever, but come on!)

Drones

Am I the only person who's getting a bit tired of the Lazy Drone Shot that's become a new cliche in film & TV making? 3 shows we watched in the last 2 days - Handmaids Tale, Durrells and The Lobster - all did it, and you've seen it 100 times more.

Once upon a time it used to be hard work and expensive to get an aerial shot - I'm remembering the opening of The Shining for example - or to get the camera to start on high and come down low - that would need a Cherry Picker or a Jimmy-Jib. And film makers used these things deliberately, knowing how they worked within the language of film.

Now I'm worried too many directors are getting on location and thinking "and wouldn't it be cool if we had a drone shot too?" so you get a shot which creates the wrong mood, looking more dramatic than called for, or worse looking like every other film or TV show made since the Drone Boom of 2015. A bit like all those TV shows from the early 70s with experimental (rubbish) green-screen. Is it just me?

3) Okay, got a Teatime Theme Time/ Only Connect for you. What links these four songs?

California Girls by Katy Perry & Snoop Dogg

Thankyou For Letting Me Be Myself Again by Sly & The Family Stone

Back Street Love by Curved Air

Goodbye To Jane by Slade


Has the word Immigration changed its use? I ask because I'm working on a job for the Milton Keynes 50th anniversary, and did a splash referring to "Immigration", as per the brief. The client's suggested I should use the word Migration instead, as people might not understand immigration. And I realised, as we were talking, that I hear people talk of Migration and Migrants, but rarely hear the use of the terms Immigration and Emigration, which have clear and obvious meanings (the thing I'm doing is about immigration into MK, rather than emigration out of it) but maybe not to everyone. Is it a generational thing?

Just caught a Tales Of The Unexpected on Sky Arts and, Googling it as you do, discovered this unknown (to me) gem. Roald Dahl hosted a similar series, for CBS in 1961, called Way Out. Some of the stories in Way Out were re-done for TOTU. Who knew?



Can I recommend this fascinating find, recently broadcast on 6Music, now on iPlayer - The Rolling Stones Story. A documentary from 1973, presented by Alexis Korner, with an amazing array of interviews with people I've never heard speak before, inc Mick, Keith, Andrew Oldman, club runners, label owners, the lot. I thought I'd heard a lot about the Stones, but I knew next to none of this. Do you know where the Crawdaddy club got its name? Do you know who Chancery Lane and Sandy Beach were and the part they played in the Stones success? Want to hear Brian Matthews' candid impression of his first encounter with the band? This excellent doc, which must originally have been on Radio 1, has it all. And it's only Part One.


4) OK, got an Only Connect for you. What do the following items have in common?
A banana
A tin of Heinz Baked Beans
A Topic bar
A black pudding

June 14: UPDATE to my parking ticket of June 9th. This from North Somerset Council today: "I am pleased to advise you that on this occasion the notice in question has been cancelled." Thanks everyone for the reassurance. Let's spread the word, challenge your parking tickets.


Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video 


August 16 & 17 Camden Fringe

Only Connect / Tea Time answers:
1 - You only sing when you're winning
2 - eg Pam St Clements (Oranges & Lemons)
3 - Mis-spelled titles
4 - The Goodies

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