I made a video, that you can see above, that got over 25,000 views. Of course the very next one was down to next to none. It just goes to show you, all you have to do is rant about Doctor Who and they're all over you. What else have I been dribbling on about this month, mostly on Facebook to an audience of none? Let's have a look...
Found in a drawer while having a clear out : the best selling t shirt of Christmas 1993, as designed by me.
This would be my complimentary copy. Which, apart from the fifty quid I got paid for that day’s designs, is all I ever earned from this shirt. Still on sale today, I see it regularly at cons.
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May 31: Watched Man With Two Brains. Ever watch an old favourite film for the first time in ages, only to find it’s not as good as you remembered? Last night we watched The Man With Two Brains. Oh dear, not good.
We saw it back in 1984, on video cos it never got a cinema release here, and loved its silliness. We still quote its catchphrases in every day conversation, “into the mud scum queen” being in regular use forty years on. (You’ll also find us quoting Pointy Birds, and laughing at the thought of the “azaleas” and “is that her” gags).
But seeing the whole film for the first time in, I guess, twenty years, was sobering and disappointing. From the start the sexism, objectifying, and “blokey” tone was jarring. The sort of gags that seemed really original, because of their silliness (“get that cat out of here!”) now just seemed like the sort of random stuff an inexperienced writer might throw in for lack of better material.
Steve Martin’s clowning, which was novel and endearing at the time, now just reads like mugging. When we first saw it, we’d only just discovered Steve Martin, and had heard his legendary live album for the first time. (We use the phrase “get a photo of me with it anyway” at pretty well every attraction we visit). At the same time we’d loved Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (the movie we were looking for last night but couldn’t find) and All Of Me, so The Man With Two Brains was part of Steve Martin being on a roll.
But it rolls to a halt and comes across as a dated, disjointed mess. I like the surrealism, eg the tiny apartment that opens into a castle interior, but it’s the sort of novelty that was refreshing at the time and now just feels like something you’ve seen done better.
I never thought I’d be longing for Steve Martin’s later serious acting, but TMWTB has made it happen.
Ironically I sprang to the defence of this movie just a few weeks ago here on FB, bringing my nostalgia to the party. I’ll find it a harder film to stand up for now.
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June 1: Started watching Tip Toe. Enjoyed Tip Toe last night on Channel 4, but I feel a bit like I’m living that “Dr Manhattan on the moon” meme.
It’s 2026 and in Tip Toe Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 60 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
It’s 2015 and in Cucumber Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 50 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
It’s 1999 and in Queer As Folk Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 35 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
He did buck the trend with It’s A Sin, cos it was 2021 and he was asking “what was it like to be a gay man on Canal Street in 1984?”
Someone has to do it, and no one does it better than RTD. It’s an artist revisiting the same painting again and again, and I champion it. He’s earned it.
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more to come...
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