Look at me all over the Showmaster LFCC ads, thanks to Tony Lee for having me along again. I really am trying to be famous enough to merit this.
Who the kids in schools used to say I looked like
v
Who the kids in schools say I look like now!
I have had half a dozen kids say I look like The Green Goblin. Dammit!
March 6: The Gold
Having completed the excellent The Gold on iPlayer I have a definite front runner for best TV writing of the year.
Neil Forsyth had previously written the brilliant Guilty for BBC Scotland, but I hadn’t seen his other stuff cos it was on Sky, when we couldn’t get that.
I am enamoured of his style, where characters essentially go into soliloquies, Shakespeare style, right in the middle of action which might, otherwise, be rather tedious. So good I want to watch it again.
Meanwhile my big takeaway question is: are The Masons behind everything? Jimmy Savile and all the paedo and MeToo pop stars who escape justice, is that the Masons? That cop in todays news who was a flasher for years and no one arrested him until he killed someone? Once you start thinking “it could be the Masons” you start suspecting their hand everywhere. Brexit? The roadworks on Clevedon seafront? Is it all them?
Anyway, that aside, watch the Gold if you haven’t yet.
Separated at birth: the poster advertising the new Squid tour, and the Edinburgh Fringe programme 1984.
Feb 24: Netflix Shows Get Cancelled
It’s an interesting time, coming to the end of a Golden Age. But since, on the tenth anniversary of Netflix’s first original show, that’s where we are this year, the big question is: Did You Enjoy It?
We won’t see a telly-rich high-quality high-budget decade of TV like the one we’ve just had, not for a while yet, so did you appreciate it while you had it? I have to say I did.
I am reminded of other Golden Ages that I was lucky enough to live through:
The Sitcom Decade - the 1970s. This fills a dozen TV channels still.
The Golden Age of Pop Music - late 1950s to early 2000s. I arrived in the middle of this and still have walls of vinyl and CDs to show for it.
That time when comics grew up - the 1980s. I’d already enjoyed the comics of the 70s and reprints of the comics of the 60s. Then my lucky generation got treated to Alan Moore, Frank Miller and, if you wanted it, Todd MacFarlane. I have shelves of this stuff still, and some of it is as good as it seemed at the time.
Now we have the televisual equivalent of the sitcoms of the 80s, the comics of the 90s, and the pop music of the last 20 years to look forward to. Brace yourselves.
Let’s face it, we’re not all Leigh Bowery.
Some are more Leigh On Sea. #BRITs
UPDATE: I feel so shamed by today. I thought I'd crack a gag at Sam Smith's costume's expense, which I didn't think was bad. Suddenly, after a dozen post from comics (all referring to other peoples comments, not mine) I'm suddenly all "Hans, are we the bad guys?"
Feb 26: Scott Adams of Dilbert goes racist
I don’t get how genuinely funny writers can become bigoted and narrow minded. Graham Linehan, and now Scott Adams, are a mystery to me.
I always thought that comedians, in order to write funny things, had to be an awareness level above normal folk. They have to stay wise, informed, essentially cleverer than the people who laugh at the jokes. Cos if you’re less well-informed you’re likely not to get the joke.
Adams’ Dilbert cartoons are genius, not just gags but with genuine insight into people and society. And Linehan was, I think, the single best TV comedy writer of the 2000s. How can those beautiful minds get so ugly?
Sensationalists: The Bad Girls and Boys of British Art
Belatedly catching up with this very good documentary about the YBAs of the 90s, can I once more commiserate with the poor sods who graduated from Goldsmiths in 1986?
The YBAs who got famous and rich mainly come from the BA graduates of 1987 to 1989, when Damian Hirst was there.
Anyone know what happened to their poor, overlooked predecessors?
(For the record, we graduated in 1983, never stood a chance. Also we graduated from Exeter College of Art & Design which is so prestigious they closed it down ten years ago).
Feb 27: Last Night In Soho
Finally caught up with this excellent Edgar Wright film last night. Brilliant and visually rich, with great twists and surprises, and a good hit rate of flattering the audience’s intelligence.
With only one fault: the Mummerset accents. Why oh why have Rita Tushingham do a mock Cornish accent? She was, I felt, perfect casting, because of how the film chimed with her 1960s "ingenue in Soho" movies, like A Taste Of Honey and Smashing Time. If she’d have had the same accent as then, there would have been a feeling of this being in the same universe as those.
Still a great movie, despite that.
(Update: I've just discovered Taste Of Honey isn't set in London at all. I may have been conflating it with The Knack. Rita also played the lost outsider coming to the city in The Girl With Green Eyes, and Straight On Till Morning.)
That moment when you've finished watching two episodes of The Gold and only just realised the actor who did the robbery isn't Rory off of Doctor Who. #lookeylikey
Enjoyed Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis last night. And what did I keep thinking all the way through?
How much Elvis’s Dad looks like Jon Pertwee.
Feb 16: Re Sky's Funny Woman
Has anyone watched this yet? The most disappointing show, especially when you watch it straight after watching Nolly.
If you want to see a script full of jokes you have literally heard before, and a plot where whatever you think is about to happen that is exactly what happens every time, then try Funny Woman.
If you imagine it was a movie made in 1967 that you just caught on Talking Pictures TV you'd say "ooh, you wouldn't get away with nonsense this thin nowadays". You'd also wonder where all the racism had gone, and how they'd got away with the swearing.
March 12: Game Of Thrones
Having been unable to see it for years, and resisted it for a while, last night we finally watched episode 1 of Game Of Thrones.
Let’s just say we didn’t like it.
Dialogue like a 1970s kids TV show, spoken by an all white cast of mostly blokes, either from the Home Counties or the North, with the most exploitative “and then her clothes fell off” treatment of women I’ve seen since the 70s. I find the character names silly, the characters cliched, the whole premise unengaging. We saw it through to the end of ep 1, but even that was a challenge.
If ever there was a show for which the phrase “it gets better” was made, it must be Game Of Thrones. Sadly, I fear, I shall live without seeing how it improves.
Feb 24: The Last Of Us
So last night we finally watched that Episode 3 of The Last of Us that you’d all raved about being so legendary and “best TV ever”.
It was ok. But I’d seen episodes of Walking Dead that were as good. Can’t see why so many people (here at least) made such a big noise about it.
Won’t be watching the rest of the series.
Just bought in the antiques shop in Kibworth. I fear it might “reflect attitudes of the time that some may find offensive.”
It’s from October 1939.
Feb 28: Read The Room
When did the phrase "Read the room" pass into common parlance?
I'm in a cafe (supposed to be writing so, obviously, I'm looking at Facebook) and a civilian just used the phrase in conversation. I'm using to "reading the room" being a comedians' turn of phrase, cos it's a thing you have to do as part of your job. But has it also been used by the general public for a long time, and I'd just not noticed?
Feb 23: Quantumania
“Watching a Marvel movie used to be fun; now, it just feels like homework.” A good piece, and I agree.
It seems to me that the content of ongoing Marvel “content” is not as important as its existence. The whole thing is now a very popular theme park, and every movie just the next ride.
Nobody reviews a ride*
So no one likes The Eternals, it still can’t lose money. Ms Marvel, Moon Knight, Falcon & Winter Soldier, Black Widow et al come and go and, the day after watching them, nobody can tell you what happened in them. Of course not. Who remembers 99% of a theme park ride. Mostly you remember whether you screamed or vomited.
Marvel movies in the 20s have got to where Marvel comics were in the 80s. An occasional one is okay, but most are trading on their glorious past. And nobody’s creating anything new. Nothing that you’d make a theme park ride out of**
*I realise there are people who review theme park rides. Luckily they live in a different bit of the multiverse from me.
** I realise that, in the 80s, Marvel made Secret Wars which some people think is more than just a badly written crass advert for a line of toys. I respectfully disagree. Thank god no one would be so creatively bankrupt as to turn Secret Wars into a movie. Eh?
Feb 17: TV
The good news? Party Down, my Top TV Show of 2009, totally unfindable since, is finally being streamed.
The less good news? “On Lionsgate+”.
What the hell is Lionsgate+? I’ve got used to skipping over a review when it recommends something on Paramount+ or AppleTV, surely we’re forking out enough for Disney, Prime, Now, and Netflix (not to mention that the Top 5 TV we’re watching at the moment is on BBC (Better, The Gold, Our Flag Means Death, The Traitors) and ITV (Nolly)). When will it end?
So, who’s heard of Lionsgate+? (As a channel, I’m well aware of the TV production company).
To be fair it was lucky to last this long! Most people’s broke on the night.
Who else remembers the National Comics Awards 1997, sculpted by Mark Buckingham, and cast in plaster by me? That disintegrated in the winners hands, if not on the podium, then in the bar later that night.
Presented at UKCAC in London by Jonathan Ross. Who else was there?
March 2: Movies List
Is this a thing? Ok then…
MOVIE I HATE: Love Actually
MOVIE I THINK IS OVERRATED: Inception
MOVIE I THINK IS UNDERRATED: Jabberwocky
MOVIE I CAN WATCH OVER & OVER: Planes Trains and Automobiles
MOVIE THAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH MOVIES: Alien
MOVIE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: American Werewolf in London
MOVIE THAT SURPRISED ME: Dirty Dancing
GUILTY PLEASURE: Woody Allen
MOVIE I SHOULD HAVE SEEN BY NOW BUT HAVEN'T: Doctor Strangelove
MOVIE TRILOGY MASTERPIECE: Carry On Screaming, Cleo, Up The Khyber
MOVIE MASTERPIECE: Citizen Kane
MOVIE ACTOR (MALE): Cary Grant
MOVIE ACTOR (FEMALE): Marilyn Monroe
MOVIE DIRECTOR: Hitchcock
Comic Collectables
Optimistic, and slightly naff, idea I had for selling my old comics, way back in 2002. By packaging them as Classic Comic Collectables I thought they might appeal to non comics readers, as frameable curios or some such.
I did one comic fair, sold very little, and forgot about the idea. Mind you, at £20 for an old Tiger comic, I was maybe a bit ambitious. (It was the early days of Ebay, I was guessing at prices).
Update: Hev has reminded me i displayed these at an exhibition of her artwork, at Centre Space in Bristol in the run up to Christmas, and we sold more of these than we did her work.
Bill Tidy
Ah, there goes Bill Tidy, aged 89. Fond memories of him as a kid, on ITV’s Quick On The Draw. And he cropped up regularly in the local paper cos he lived, like we did, in Leicestershire. I have a vague notion I might even have met him as a kid.
Ironically Bill used to tell the story of how his debut cartoon appeared on the day of Churchill’s death, so got widely ignored. Today his own death coincides with local hero Gary Lineker being the biggest story in the country, meaning he probably won’t get the Leicester Mercury and Midlands Today coverage he deserves.
March 4: Socks in Scotland
Thanks to the good people of Peebles and Paisley for giving the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre two brilliant outings of Eurovision
And well done us for surmounting a technical cock up - forgetting half the set! Well, not quite. But I had failed to pack the fitted tartan front of the set, and the black sheet full of pockets that goes behind it. And I flew up, so no chance of nipping home for it. Wednesday we improvised with the loan of a travelling rug, and Friday I’d bought some new material and stuck it together with gaffer tape and clothes pegs.
Next show is Aberystwyth. I shall pack properly.
March 10: Gary Lineker
I’m still Proud of the BBC. Just not the quisling Director General and chairman who are causing this division.
Someone better sort out the mess at the top before the BBC loses any last vestiges of respect.
The people are not all Daily Mail readers. We don’t need our Attenborough documentaries censored because they offend greedy people, and we don’t need our intelligent broadcasters censored because they point out every time nazis behave like nazis.
“If liberty means anything at it all means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” says George Orwell, in a statue that stands outside…
*checks notes*
… the BBC.
A big PS from Leicester (where I grew up) about the Gary Lineker story. “Migrants welcome “. Durrr.
If there’s any city in Britain that knows about being a migrant it’s Leicester. Half the city’s ancestry is Indian. And Pakistani. Leicester has the first Jain temple in Europe. Leicester’s Windrush population is a major part of the city. And that’s only people who arrived over fifty years ago. People have been arriving, from everywhere, ever since. Even me, from Scotland, knew about being (slightly) foreign in Leicester. There is no Leicester in 2023 without its people who came from somewhere else.
How does someone like Suella Braverman not get this?
People Suella Braverman Would Send Back
No 387: Ke Huy Quan
Nice point, John Boorman, except that the Americans don’t call films “films”. They’ve always called them movies. Which doesn’t need updating.
Film has long struck me as a peculiar word to have been using all these years. Who even knows why a strip of celluloid acetate was called ‘film’ in the first place? Film is the scum that forms on the top of a liquid. So, in an obscure reference to its manufacturing process, we Brits found ourselves calling moving pictures “films”. We might as well have called them slimes or scum.
For a long time, 100 years ago or so, you’d find most people calling films The Pictures, or The Flicks. Both of which are a better description of what you were watching.
Meanwhile the main bodies in the industry are the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, the Screen Writers and Screen Actors guild. Only in the UK do you get BAFTA, with an F for Film in its name. And in Team America World Police, which had the Film Actors Guild, just so they could have a joke acronym.
Film was good while it lasted. I used it a lot at art college, and still have 35mm cameras hanging around the house unused for years. But its inconvenience will make up most of the anecdotes about it, as the years go by. A bit like anecdotes about how we managed before someone invented printing.
My Books and where to get them:
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon - Etsy
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy
Midsummer Nights Dream Team - Amazon - Etsy
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy
Midsummer Nights Dream Team - Amazon - Etsy
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon
Eurovision French edition - édition en français
Eurovision Spanish edition - Libro para colorear
Eurovision German edition - Popstar Malbuch
Eurovision Italian edition - il libro da colorare
Eurovision Swedish edition - Popstjärna Målarbok
Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
80s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon
80s Superstars - Amazon
90s Pop Star Colouring - Lulu
2020s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon
Scottish Pop Star Colouring - Amazon
Rom Com Colouring - Amazon
NB: Etsy editions are signed and posted by me, and generally cheaper
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