Month: May 2019

PS, the High-Pitched Voice Would Also Like To Say…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Doctor Who

The Podcast in question, as I feel it would be remiss of me not to mention it, is primarily (although not wholly) Doctor Who related, and this specific edition focusses on a range of books collectively called ‘You on Who’ (and its various spin-offs, including one entirely based on the works of Douglas Adams).

There are two main things to point out about the ‘You on Who’ range. The first is that they are a collection of essays from ordinary fans rather than professional authors, giving their personal recollection, or response, to a particular story or element of Doctor Who. They aren’t reviews, or studious academic critiques – they are about what it means to the writer, or what effect it had on them, or why it always reminds them of a particular time in their life.

The most recent volume has just been released, which covers the Peter Capaldi era – so that’s all the Doctor Who stories from 2014 to 2017, from a Prehistoric Dinosaur in Victorian London all the way through to the bit where he turns into Jodie Whittaker (sorry, spoilers). Also included is a wide selection of additional, random entries, on a mix of other stories and aspects of Doctor Who. There’s even a piece by me about the title sequences, but please don’t let that put you off buying it.

The second thing to point out, is that the books’ proceeds all go to charity. For specific details about which charities have been covered in the past, you can listen to the Podcast – but the very first Y&W book in about 2012 was for Children in Need, and the most recent one (which unless you’ve dozed off and missed a whole paragraph, you will know has just been released) supports The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which works to prevent child sexual abuse.

For more information on the books and their contents, you can try here: https://watchingbooks.weebly.com/

For the current Y&W-based Podcast, you can try here: https://player.fm/series/doctor-who-strangers-in-space

And, probably most importantly, for The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, please try here: https://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/

Talking the Talk & Walking the Walk

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Family, Little Bit Of Politics

I’m on a Podcast!

I’ve not become dangerously modern or anything like that, it’s simply a couple of readings that I recorded months ago and then, I must confess, promptly forgot all about.

Until this week, when the podcast for which they were recorded finally aired. Or went live. Or whatever the term is for podcasting. Launched? Popped-Up?

If I may channel Reggie Perrin’s son-in-law for a moment, I’m not a podcast person… but I did of course listen to this one, maybe out of vanity, but also a curiosity after all this time as to what it was I’d actually recorded! As ever when I hear my voice played back, I was struck by how it sounds almost entirely different to how I think it sounds.

On a purely fact-based level, I know that my voice definitely did break, without question, sometime during the 1980s. It’s important to be clear on that, because I sometimes feel that the fact is not entirely backed up by the voice. Certainly, I’ve long been aware that I’m a bit on the high/shrill side, and although I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve got a big hang-up about it, I certainly prefer the long periods of time when I forget all about it. Inside my head it sounds much better, and in general people are good enough not to comment on it. (Unless I’m married to them, or have fathered them, in which case it’s fair game apparently.)

Maybe it’s something genetic? That would certainly explain why, when bumping into a family acquaintance in a hospital lift, they said I sounded like my mother. Just in case that hadn’t properly dented my self-confidence, she felt the need to add, “exactly like!”

Or maybe it’s an indication of some failing in my testosterone levels. My wife, who’s in a position to listen to my voice on a daily basis (whether she likes it or not) and who is, from time to time, in the sort of position(s) where she can assess my testosterone levels, has certainly never made a connection between the two, and it’s never quite seemed the right time to ask. So who can say?

I have to assume everyone has similar hang-ups about themselves, little quirks or perceived defects which are wired into their sense of self. In addition to my voice I’m reliably informed that I have a funny walk. Not in the John Cleese sense (of course not, that would be Silly) but nevertheless a walk that is… I’m going to say ‘distinctive’, which sounds nice, as opposed to ‘odd’ which doesn’t.

I have a vague recollection from Secondary School of a friend observing that I walked like Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served? And while I would never want to downplay the comic genius of John Inman’s creation, that probably wasn’t exactly the style I was going for as I began to navigate my way through those difficult teenage years.

In my head (where, as I’ve already mentioned, my voice sounds a lot more manly (well, a bit anyway)) I think I walk with the distinctive, commanding purpose of Tom Baker in his heyday – but since nobody has ever described it even remotely in those terms, I’m prepared to concede that I may be deluded on that score as well.

I don’t let it get to me (mostly) but goodness knows how anybody in the public eye deals with it, especially the young. In this age of social media, it would be so easy to develop a seriously deep-seated complex on the back of some online idiot’s casual tweet about a spot on your nose, or the hint of a lisp. Even (and I fear another Ben EltonTM little bit of politics coming on) political figures don’t really deserve to be laughed at for their appearance. Mock their policies by all means, berate them for their opinions, but don’t lower yourself to sneering at how they look. Listen to them, and criticise that instead.

Even if you’re listening to them on a Podcast, and it turns out they have an unnaturally high-pitched voice!

A Song For Europe

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Carlisle, Doctor Who, Family, Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning, TV

When I was a kid, Eurovision was huge.

That’s not to say that it isn’t still huge (nowadays it’s probably huger than ever, if ‘huger’ is a word) only that, at some point, it stopped being appointment television in our family. Clearly it used to be a thing: my Grandparents went as far as buying 1976’s Save All Your Kisses For Me on 45, and similarly my parents’ record collection boasted Sandie Shaw’s Puppet on a String (which won in 1967).

We never had a copy of Bucks Fizz’s 1981 winner, though, so maybe even by then the magic had begun to fade. (My brother did get the single of their The Land of Make Believe. Curiously my overriding memory of that, even above the intoxicating image of Cheryl Baker wearing what’s barely even half a dress on the record sleeve, is that he bought it on a Saturday afternoon during which I became increasingly irritable that I couldn’t find the book of Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive anywhere in Carlisle City Centre.)

In fact it wasn’t until recently, which perhaps shows just how much Eurovision has slipped under the Curnow radar, that I discovered 1981 wasn’t the last time we won. Apparently, the UK was the winner in 1997 too. Who knew? (Apart from the 150-plus million people watching.)

I’ve not watched the whole thing since 1995, and even then it was the first time in about 10 years, as an exercise in nostalgia. To be honest, even in the days when I did sit through it all, the scoring at the end was generally the best bit, even though you had to put up with interminable filler acts posing as the half-time entertainment before you got to it. (To be fair this year they’ve got Madonna which is a definite improvement on the half-remembered earnest retellings of ancient folk legends represented in interpretative dance which nearly finished me off as a child).

When we used to flat-share, my brother would quite happily watch ‘just the end’ of things. Just the Death Star battle at the end of Star Wars, or just the trial at the end of Oliver Stone’s JFK. Even just the last episode of Tom Baker’s Logopolis (now available in glorious blu-ray as part of the season 18 boxset apparently (grumble grumble)).

So even now, although I never bother with the Song part of the Song Contest, I still like to watch the scoring, and if nothing else it’s a good chance for a bit of mental arithmetic. It always seems to get to that desperate stage where I’m saying things like, “If nobody gives Finland any more points, and if the remaining countries all give us twelve, we can still win.”

I wish (checks Google) Michael Rice well, but I don’t think we’re very likely to win, not really. After last year, he’ll have done well if he just manages to bring in a few “douze points” for the good old “royaume-uni”. But we’ll see.

Of course, there’s further European voting to be done later in the week isn’t there. I don’t know who’ll be covering the results show for that, although presumably not Graham Norton. Maybe it’ll be David Dimblebly again. I’m sure I heard he was retiring from it after the 2015 election but since then he’s covered 2016’s referendum, the US Presidential election of the same year, and 2017’s general election, so it could well be him. (He’s second in the ‘seemingly impossible to get rid of’ stakes only to Theresa May.)

I must admit, although it’s the first time that any of us have actually been in any way interested in the European elections (ironically, given that we’re coming out) I’m still uncertain of how to vote. I feel like I’m being pulled in various conflicting directions, none of which are especially palatable, and it may well be one of those grim elections where I have to go with ‘the least worst’ candidate.

I’d better get thinking about it, because voting day is this coming Thursday. Soon I’ll find that there comes a time, for making my mind up!

(And there goes my skirt…)

No News Is Not Good News…?

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in BBC, Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning, Trump

It’s not been a great week for the BBC.

I don’t mean the hugely disappointing last episode of Line of Duty, although mother o’God the already-commissioned sixth season will need to go some to restore its reputation.

No, I mean things like Thursday’s sacking of Danny Baker, an extraordinary example of a stupid action being met with an even more stupid reaction. (This modern trend of a kneejerk response driven by the outrage of the online mob is a very scary thing – and although it seems to be largely a ‘celebrity’ thing at the moment, what do we do if one day it’s us the mob is outraged by?)

The Baker furore, though, had settled down enough to be made light of in the announcement the following day, of the decision to pull Have I Got News For You? at the last minute. The reason given was that Change UK’s leader Heidi Allen was on the show, and because we are now into the European Election Campaign, that breaches the Beeb’s impartiality rules.

There has of course been a backlash >ahem< the outrage of the online mob >ahem< with people pointing out that Nigel Farage was on Question Time only the day before. As if in some way a politician appearing alongside three other politicians in a political debate talking about political issues… is the same as a comedy news quiz.

It’s not. And although it probably reflects badly on our society, a public figure’s reputation can be dealt a considerable blow, or given a huge boost, by a ‘simple’ appearance on a light-entertainment show. Boris Johnson’s otherwise-inexplicable popularity, for example, is in no small part due to appearances as a baffled but entertaining minor political figure on Have I Got News For You?

So unquestionably, Heidi Allen’s reputation would either have been enhanced or… um… or the opposite of enhanced. And whichever way that bias went, it could be legitimately pointed at as being unfair. (Of course, one might argue that even a non-appearance has done her profile some good, as until yesterday I had never even heard of her, and certainly didn’t know she was the leader of the Change party!)

The trouble in these ‘personality politics’ days, especially with figures as divisive as Mr Farage, is that his detractors too often come across as attacking the person, rather than  his views. And because they do it so often…

Well, it’s as though they’ve never heard of the Boy who cried Wolf. Or even its modern-day remake, the Democrats who cried Trump.

Despite their fervent hopes, and although not quite the whole-hearted exoneration the President claims, the Mueller Report has not uncovered any ‘smoking guns’. As far as the electorate is concerned, it’s done – if we’ve already heard enough about it at a distance of however wide the Atlantic Ocean is, how much more fed up is the average US voter by now? The Democrats need to stop raking over the election of three years ago, and start focussing on the one happening next year – their approach ought to be why people should vote for their candidate and NOT why people shouldn’t vote for Trump. Sadly it doesn’t look like that’s where they’re going, which means even more sadly they’re probably losing the next election as we speak.

Similarly, hopping back across the pond, vocal opponents of Farage run the risk of putting people’s backs up when they complain even at his presence on a TV show. It could be argued that he appears quite a lot (I’ve name-checked him three times already myself) but you could counter-argue that there aren’t all that many members of the Brexit party to choose from, so the odds are that when it is represented, it’s going to be by him.

Stuck in the middle, then, is the poor BBC. Accused of obvious far-right pro-Brexit bias AND of blatant lefty Remainer liberalism. I’m famously no expert on politics, but if the BBC is managing to annoy all sides, I’d say that’s a reasonable indication that it’s being even-handed and fair to all parties.

Unless you’re a middle-aged DJ with some monkey pictures, obviously.

Photographic Memories

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Carlisle, Childhood, Friends, Work

We had our photo taken at work this week.

I won’t bore you with the details, it was simply a group shot for Facebook purposes, but my main takeaway from the finished picture was the sheer amount of forehead I have these days. Fortunately my wife was at hand with a comforting word: “How could you not know?!” she said.

Inevitably, it reminded me of the last time I featured in a work photograph. When that particular company closed down a few years later, simply on the basis of being the last man standing I ended up with about twenty odd copies of the finished picture. I still have them, hoping that somebody in it will one day become a huge superstar and I’ll be able to make a small fortune selling ‘before they were famous’ pictures on eBay.

The same is true of the ‘class of 87’ photo taken during our last term at secondary school. You would have thought that, with close to a hundred and fifty people in it, somebody surely would have made it big? And yet… Well, it’s now close to thirty-two years since it was taken, so it seems increasingly unlikely.

Mind you, it’s entirely possible that it’s already happened and I just haven’t realised it. I could probably name everybody in that work photo (I mean blimey, it was only taken last Tuesday!) but I would struggle now to put a name to more than a handful of the faces in that school group.

Conversely, though, there are photographs where I can still name everyone, even after forty years. Somewhere in one of my parents’ many photo albums is a picture of half a dozen of us from Primary School, all woollen jumpers, short trousers, and gappy teeth. Robert Campbell is in it, so is Melanie Harper. So am I.

I don’t actually remember the picture being taken I’ll admit – but I do remember the occasion, which was a prize presentation to our group at the local CoOp. We got the afternoon off school for it, and since I know we were in Mrs Lamb’s class at the time that pins it down to 1979. I also remember that whatever prize money I got (possibly a postal order) was very soon spent on a Han Solo action figure. (It was the second version, fact fans, the one with the larger head, and the one which my brother subsequently held too close to the gas fire, meaning that the Corellian scoundrel forever after sported two unsightly melted sections on his cranium. (Although at least he didn’t have a huge mountain of forehead to contend with.))

I don’t know whether it’s something unique to the memories of childhood or if it’s just that, personally, I preferred it, but I’m confident I could still name most if not all of the pupils in my class at Primary School; as opposed to not being able to name very many at all of the crowd from Secondary School (not even the (possibly) really famous ones).

Our last ever day at Primary School, although there were some games, mainly involved a lot of ‘end of term housekeeping’ and our teacher of the time (with no apparent regard either for posterity or for recycling) made us all throw our exercise books into the huge wheeled bins at the back of the school.

With that simple act, alas, I lost forever the details of the slimy, slithering constructions  of a far-distant alien world. Trashed along with it was ‘the history of a house’ through two wars. And I’ll never be able to check just how I managed to fill a whole page on the uninspiring topic of ‘a World without Oil’.

But amid all the cultural vandalism, there was a pause where we posed for a class photo, altogether on the climbing frame, just a few hours before it dawned on me (rather late in the day, I’ll admit) that I probably wouldn’t see any of those friends ever again – which has indeed turned out to be the case.

I can remember that too, the moment when that bombshell really hit me.

I bet my face was a picture.