Hooray, Hooray, It’s A Holi-Holi-day

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Confused, Friends, Moaning, Money, Pets, Work

I’m on holiday.

Not in a ‘by the pool, excuse the slow typing because I’m holding a pina colada in the other hand’ kind of way. More in a ‘days to use up and rapidly running out of year’ sort of way.

I rather struggle with holidays. In the normal course of events I’m constantly battling with  my instinct towards laziness, but ironically, when I’m actually given licence to be lazy (this isn’t an official licence you understand, I’m not getting it on direct debit or anything) it’s just… Well, it’s too much of a good thing, is what it is.

Maybe I just get bored easily. The start of the day is OK, I can easily pass a leisurely, be-dressing gown-ed breakfast while watching, say, an episode of Friends (I’m now into the final run, and Ross is fine) or some more of The Crown. After that I tend to mooch rather than rush through my bathroom shenanigans before finally getting around to walking the dogs who, long before this point, have rumbled that I’m obviously not going to work.

But when all that’s done and out of the way, and the rest of the day lies open before me, a blank canvas, world’s my oyster, blah blah blah… At that point I feel I really ought to be doing something.

And of course, there’s always plenty to do – cars to wash and windows to clean and ironing to, erm, iron and… Well, there’s an unquantifiable amount of plenty I could be doing; but that makes my time off feels like a wasted opportunity, like I’m fundamentally missing the point if I’m just going to dig out the hoover or scrub something.

I realise, to be fair, that I may be overlooking the obvious in simply BEING on holiday rather than GOING on holiday. And yet, it would just never occur to me that I could get on a plane and fly away from the road where the cars never stop going through the night to a life where I can watch the sun set and–  

No, hold on, I’ve come over a bit Dido there. We don’t live by a road where cars keep on going through the night (the occasional tractor, yes, but not cars) and if I was all that keen on sunsets, there’s one every night just behind the garage block outside our front door.

Nevertheless, slightly-outdated pop cultural references aside, the general point is correct. At least, I think it is, I’m going to have to put down my pina colada and just cast my eye back over the previous couple of paragraphs, just hold on a tic. I realise, overlooking the obvious, capital letters, sunset, tractor…

Yes, yes the general point is correct – which is that I don’t in any way associate ‘being on holiday’ with ‘going away’. Frankly, the heady mix of three dogs, five cats and just the one income has sort of seen to that over the years.

But then, the truth is I’m not really a ‘lying by the pool’ sort of person anyway –  nor a ‘scaling Ben Nevis’ sort either. Maybe what it boils down to is that I’m like Margo in The Good Life, and that I simply don’t know how to enjoy myself.

Some people can, they can switch off from the normal routine, the workaday treadmill, and step away (or fly away) and throw themselves into… well, into whatever it is they do when they’re on holiday. It’s a state of mind, an attitude that seems easy and natural but which I have to conclude, can be very difficult to reach.

Wish I was there.

The Day Before Who Came

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Doctor Who, FICTIONAL!!

Happy Birthday Doctor Who!

It is of course Doctor Who day, 23rd November, 56 years since “the day after Kennedy was assassinated” and the BBC showed the first episode of a ludicrously-improbable programme about a mysterious alien who lives inside an uncontrollable time machine housed inside a rackety old police box.

It’s the sort of concept that can only really be met either with great success or huge derision – so too is regeneration, and the notion of a terrifying master race with sink-plunger arms and who can’t even get upstairs (for their first 25 years anyway). Luckily for millions of fans, not to mention rather a large number of actors, writers, directors, producers, designers, etc, it was option (A) great success.

The rest, as they say, is history.

(Or science-fiction. It depends on which story you’re watching.)

* * * * * * *

So anyway… and in similar vein to ‘The Three Terrances’… this is another Production Notes column (not really) the earliest surviving example in fact (not really) from the 29th October 1963 edition of the BBC’s in-house magazine (very specific but… no, not really) teasing us with what we might expect when Doctor Who finally lands.

Penned perhaps by Russell T Lambert, or possibly Veri T Davies, and with less than a month to go before Kennedy’s assassination, here it is…

The Sound of Music

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Childhood, TV

I blame Jeremy Vine.

Who’d have thought that the biggest revelation from his Radio 2 interview with Hilary and Chelsea Clinton, would be the admission that he’s never seen The Sound of Music? I find that an extraordinary confession for somebody in their fifties.

My colleague at work has never seen it either – but he’s almost twenty years younger than me so it’s rather more understandable (and forgivable) than with Mr Vine. In fact, he’s never seen any film made from before the nineteen-eighties and can’t stand musicals, so actually it would have been more surprising if he had seen it.

So whereas I was stunned by Vine’s confession, my colleague was stunned by the reference to the Nazis. After all, there aren’t many musicals which involve the Third Reich – other than the Mel Brooks one I think The Sound of Music is pretty much it.

It all goes along quite happily and tunefully, around the two hour mark we reach the inevitable happy ending, the ‘girl gets the guy’ conclusion, there’s a big wedding, a bit of kissing, etc… But after that, the film still has another forty-five or so minutes left in it, during which  Austria has been annexed, there are swastikas hanging off every public building, and finally there is a desperate, nail-biting escape from pursuing officials and a squad of brownshirts.

The first time I saw it, as a kid, I absolutely did not see that coming and frankly it still packs a punch – even when you’re expecting it, which I was as I dug the blu-ray off the shelf and watching it again this past weekend (which is the incredibly lazy Saturday afternoon for which I’m blaming Mr Vine). It’s almost three hours long, yet it never drags, and for those of a certain age and an uncertain bladder capacity, the blu-ray even rather charmingly includes an interlude halfway through. Sadly, my wife didn’t take this as any sort of cue to put on a tarty dress and walk up and down with a tray offering me choc ices or a drink on a stick (no matter how much I begged).

The Sound of Music, although apparently not everybody’s cup of tea if Mr Vine and my work colleague are to be taken as any kind of representative sample, is a superb film, and I have of course been randomly singing Edelweiss, I Am Sixteen and random bits from the opening ‘Comedy Nun’ song all weekend.

In a curious way, there are some elements that still resonate today – for example, when Captain Von Trapp is ‘requested’ to join the German Navy, his grim response is that it would be fatal to refuse, and unthinkable to accept. For a moment this isn’t some twee, sugary, period-piece singalong, it’s a chilling moment of real human jeopardy.

But of course in some ways it has dated. When newly-married ex-nun Maria assures her teenage step-daughter than one day she too will meet a man and that then “you’ll belong to him” I could hear, even over the distant goosesteps of the Anschluss, the sound of a hundred feminists’ jaws hitting the floor.

Never mind that though, and as long as you accept that it’s over fifty years old, and is in turn set twenty-plus years earlier than that, I maintain that it is still a great film, with huge charm. Julie Andrews is of course a delight, but so too is Christopher Plummer, playing the part of Captain Von Trapp with a grin and a twinkle, even early-doors  when he’s supposed to be all stern and fierce and unlovable.

Plus there’s the cheeky puppet song, the scene-stealing Max, a faintly-wicked almost-stepmother; there’s dancing, and singing, there’s the goodnight song, there’s Nuns, there’s Nazis. If ever a film had something for everyone, it’s surely this one.

And those are just a few, of my favourite things. (And the Nazis.)

Life on Mars

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in BBC, TV

I’m not mad, I’ve gone back in time.

I’ve wanted to rewatch Life on Mars for ages, and thanks to iPlayer I’ve finally managed it. Unbelievably, it’s already twelve years since the last episode aired, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it (again).

It’s still as intriguing and compelling a show as it was in 2006/07 – although its celebrated opening monologue (“Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?”) is, with hindsight, a bit of an oddity. Frankly, by the time I’d moved on to rewatching season two I’d taken to heckling the TV every time the titles ran, because it’s made so abundantly clear that it’s (b) in a coma, I’m surprised it was ever up for debate.

To be fair, halfway through the final episode the show tries to convince us that it is in fact (a) he’s mad, that Sam is actually from 1973 but suffering from amnesia, and that his 2006 is just a product of his imagination; but sadly the bluff doesn’t last more than about ten minutes and I can’t help but wonder if it might have been a more effective plot twist if it had featured in the penultimate episode, giving us a whole week to ponder if everything we thought we knew was wrong.

In some ways it feels like no time has passed since the series originally aired… and yet, on the other hand I find it very hard to imagine it even getting made today.

Gene Hunt was possibly controversial even in 2006, but despite his deliberately offensive old-fashioned attitudes towards sex and race and the occasional bit of gratuitous violence in the pursuit of his enquiries… Despite all that, the show always lands him on the side of the angels (albeit sometimes only just). Several times he styles Manchester as ‘his city’ and casts himself in the role of its sheriff, doing the dirty work so that ordinary people can sleep safely in their beds.

I don’t think today we (although by ‘we’ I mean the militantly offended (often on Twitter)) would be so accepting of the ambiguity, the grey morality of such a character. And although Sam Tyler is clearly the hero of the piece, likely he would come in for criticism too. Not because of his own attitudes, but because of the many occasions when he lets Hunt ‘get away with it’. Sam never treats Annie as anything but an equal, but he rarely if ever calls Gene out on his far more sexist and dismissive behaviour towards her. That sort of ‘tacit acceptance’ would definitely not sit well with the Twitterati.

Then there’s the final episode which ends (spoiler warning) with Sam killing himself. The production ascribes a nobility and a triumph to the act, beguiling us into all-but cheering him on – but in strictly ‘factual’ terms this is an ending where a man, clearly suffering from far more trauma than the medical experts assigned to him have identified, takes his own life, in the deluded belief it will return him to a better place where he can be with the (entirely fictional) woman he (believes he) loves.

It also, in one sense, vindicates Gene Hunt. Sam rejects modern policing (represented in a colourless scene of dull people in suits discussing suspects’ rights) in favour of a time where he can gun down a criminal during an unauthorised undercover operation, without fear of disciplinary action of any sort.

Maybe it’s trying to claim the world of imagination is as important as the daily reality? Or is it the opposite, a cautionary tale warning us against the more alluring, more seductive, more dangerous inner world?

It’s very hard to be sure, and actually whether it was deliberate or not, the ambiguity, the grey and murky morality, really appealed to me, in a way that I don’t recall being aware of first time around. It’s been a very enjoyable rewatch, and (unless you’re likely to be offended and take to Twitter) I’d definitely recommend firing up the iPlayer. Just be prepared for what you might see, that’s all.

Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy…

It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Brexit, Confused, Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning, Money, Trump

Labour should be the obvious choice… Shouldn’t it?

Just across the house from the grim prospect of the Tory Government sits the main Opposition Party, and in the normal course of events I’d have expected them to seen by now like our great golden salvation, a no-brainer option, confidently in line for a clear victory. Like in 1997, when we were so fed up of the Tories after 18 years that of course Labour won by a landslide.

Yet somehow, they… well, he mainly if I’m honest… seem such an unpalatable alternative. Either Corbyn has a plan for Brexit or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he probably ought to admit that, rather than making rash “I’ll sort it within 6 months” claims. And if he does… then by crikey, he ought to have shared it long before now. Brexit is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be) a party issue, it’s a national one.

Then there’s the whole antisemitism controversy. I must confess I don’t entirely understand it, but the fact that the story hasn’t been quashed, and that it seems to come from so many sources suggests that even if it’s not Corbyn himself that’s riddled with it, the party under him certainly is. It’s just too wide-ranging, too long-lived to be ‘fake news’. What sort of man would we be letting into Downing Street? I don’t mind him snubbing Trump, but I do wonder what sort of people he would be happy pallying up to.

And then there’s his policies. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something laudable about the suggestion of reduced working hours, about a less-punitive benefits system, about perhaps renationalising the railways (although it’s come too late for our local station, alas, they’ve built a bloody great Waitrose over it), about scrapping university fees…

But there’s also a huge streak of naivete in the old fallback of promising to fund it by putting higher taxes on the rich and on corporations. That’s fine if they have no option but to pay up… but last time I checked, there were other countries with other tax rates, so the chances are that many of the very, very rich who’d be in line to pay very, very high taxes will just hop in their private jets and find somewhere less-taxing to live instead.  

So far, so bad. I’ve talked myself out of the Conservatives – now the Labour Party too!

I wouldn’t want to be accused of favouritism though, so let’s quickly rule the Lib Dems out as well. No doubt they have lots of policies (well, I assume they probably do) but as far as I can see they’re only really standing on a policy of simply scrapping Brexit.

Now, as it happens, I think the decision to leave the EU was the wrong one, but cancelling it is not the same as turning the clock back and undoing the vote – and it is an enormous leap from wishing you could do that, to a political party actually deciding they can choose to ignore it.

If you’re a remainer and you support the Lib Dems in this, then fine – but  next time, when somebody wants to arbitrarily overturn a decision that you agree with, you won’t have much of a leg to stand on. Once there’s a precedent… In effect, and rather ironically, the Liberal Democrats are standing on a ticket of abandoning Democracy for this election.

Alas, my own arbitrary and undemocratic, self-imposed word limit means I don’t have much space left to bemoan the Brexit Party, but in a nutshell my main issues with it are:

1) Nigel Farage

2) The telling fact that Trump likes him

3) Anne Widdecombe

I suppose I should mention the Green Party too, but to be honest I’ve all but lost the will to live – anyway, it’s not like I’m the BBC or anything, obliged to be impartial. They may all be sane, lovely people, but they probably won’t get many votes. (Sorry Greens.)

So that’s the election. Uncaring Tories, amateur-hour Labour, undemocratic Lib Dems, and the hideous Brexit Party. Oh, and the Greens. (Sorry Greens.)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Struggling to Maintain an Election

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Brexit, Confused, Little Bit Of Politics, Moaning, Trump

So… we’re having an election. (What, another one??!)

I find myself even more than usually conflicted this time, so in a (probably doomed) attempt to bring some clarity to my confusion, I thought I’d spend a little time assessing (by which I expect I probably mean, complaining) about the various options.

In the blue corner, of course, the current Government, Boris Johnson and the Tories. For the record, I didn’t vote for them, and of course never even had the option of voting for him. I think it unfair and simplistic to say he’s our version of Trump (Trump is stupid enough to think he knows everything, but Boris is at least clever enough to know that he doesn’t) but even so I don’t like him. In any normal scenario, it would be a new low to even consider him for the role of PM.

And yet part of me can’t help but wonder… Is he the man for the moment?

His approach to Brexit, coming into number 10, seemed to be to put his head down and charge full-pelt at it, do anything to push it through and leave on 31st October. Considering how divisive it’s all become, how polarised opinions are, how antagonistic and aggressive the opposing sides seem to be, maybe that is the way to go: deal, no deal, whatever, it doesn’t matter, just Leave. (And then work around the clock to solve whatever problems arise.)

‘It’ (by which I mean the constitutional act of leaving the EU) would at least be done. The Leavers would no longer be able to moan about the referendum being ignored; and the Remainers would be perfectly entitled to start the long campaign for a referendum on joining the EU. (And the huge swathe of us who aren’t really all that bothered either way can finally get on with our lives again.) Maybe that’s not a pleasant scenario, but it would at least mean we could begin the long, painful process of getting over it.

The downside of course is that, setting aside Brexit, in every other sense what possible reason could there be to vote Tory?! Punitive reforms to the Welfare State, the constant threat of at least partially-privatising the NHS (fundamentally misunderstanding the word ‘Service’ I think), the constant swingeing cuts to libraries and schools and support services, the huge increase in food banks, the huge decrease in police numbers, an almost complete disinterest and, worse, a fundamental lack of awareness of people’s lives, etc, etc. The track record is hardly encouraging.

Obviously the point of the December 12th exercise is the hope (by the politicians) that the election will deliver a clear result, that it will give one party a majority – meaning in effect that whoever wins can then push their preferred version of Brexit through the Commons regardless of the opposition.

But there’s a strong expectation (by the non-politicians) that there won’t be a definitive result, that we’ll be in for a hung parliament, no clear majority, and a frantic pre-Christmas scrabbling around to form uneasy alliances, maybe even another coalition.

The Lib Dems have already ruled out ‘doing it’ with Labour. Boris has ruled out making any kind of deal with the Brexit Party. And, surely, there can’t be enough billions left in the public coffers to sling the awful DUP and the ghastly Arlene Foster another bribe for their support.

(Maybe I should apologise for that unkind slur, because of course the DUP have only objected to Boris’ deal out of principle, perish the suggestion that they might just be holding out for more money. Because, of course, they’ve always made it abundantly clear that they will not countenance being treated in any way whatsoever differently to any other part of the UK. Well, except when it suits them obviously, you know, little things. Abortion, equal marriage, any civil liberties they don’t take a particular shine to…)

Hmm… I can’t honestly say this has in any way helped sort out my confusion. And I haven’t even insulted the Opposition Parties yet (well, not much).

Maybe this is why I don’t normally do politics…

The Sound of Silence

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, Doctor Who

No more Doctor Who, oh dear.

I’ve spent the past 18 months (even now, it’s hard as a Doctor Who fan to see the phrase ’18 months’ and not get a bit of a shudder) listening to the audio releases of the Missing Episodes of Doctor Who, from the 1960s. They’ve been an ideal accompaniment to many steamy hours of ironing, and to really seal the deal they’ve been available for free. (Well, free with Mrs Curnow’s £7.99 monthly subscription to Audible – in other words, free to me, which is what I’m interested in.)

I’ve not done ALL the missing episodes, to be tediously nitpicky. Those stories which are largely complete but just missing a bit here and there, and which in most cases have been animated/reconstructed to allow the ‘complete’ story to be released on DVD, I’ve not bothered with those. But where the stories are almost entirely, or indeed entirely entirely, absent, I’ve worked my way through them, which means that not only have I been thoroughly entertained (most of the time) but by crikey we’ve been up to date with our ironing, for the past year and a half.

So anyway, now, I’ve finished them.

I started with Marco Polo, the earliest missing story of all, but after that I was determined to plot a random course through the miscellaneous selection of monster fests and history lessons. Abominable Snowmen, Ancient Trojans, Space Pirates, and even the odd Dalek or two, I’ve heard them all.

In most cases I knew the gist of the story but nothing more, and while a couple of stories have disappointed (Galaxy 4 and, especially, the seemingly never-ending Dalek Masterplan) in most cases it’s been a real thrill to hear them. In fact the last two, which have been the generally-unregarded (or, if regarded, generally-abused) The Space Pirates and The Smugglers, were both far more enjoyable than their reputations suggested.

To Doctor Who fans there’s something very tantalising about these missing episodes. There are some people who seem unable to get past the fact that they’re missing at all, but that way can only lead to unhappiness because I think it safe to say the chances of them all reappearing are very very slim indeed.

Granted, it was certainly a shock to this 10 year old’s system to discover that anything was missing (and how much!) when our old friend Doctor Who Magazine first broached the subject back in 1981 – but it did at least explain why the BBC had chosen to repeat The Krotons rather than The Tomb of the Cybermen earlier that year.

Since then, of course, Tomb has turned up (as any keen Doctor Who fan, or indeed avid follower of the very early episodes of Eldorado will know) so to anybody under the age of 30 it’s never really been a ‘lost’ story at all. There were about 140 episodes missing back in 1981, but the best part of four decades has knocked that down to double figures (just) with the current missing tally standing at 97.

For all that this means there’s a whole heap of absent material, I must admit I sort of like it like that. There’s a whole array of exciting memories in the discovery of Tomb; or a couple of episodes of The Dalek Masterplan being found in a Mormon Church; or The Celestial Toymaker’s last episode popping up in Australia. Not to mention the nine mid-Troughton episodes which were dramatically unveiled to the world just in time for the 50th Anniversary in 2013 – Yeti in the Underground, what could be more Doctor Who than that?!

We might never find any more, although the exciting possibility of spotting some unexamined, overlooked film can has got me through more than one otherwise-tedious car boot sale – just as the lovingly-recorded soundtracks have got me through more than one session of ironing!

The search (and, alas, the laundry) goes on…

Catch Up? Head Down

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Family, Friends

I managed to avoid Curnow’s First Law of Shopping today.

For anybody unfamiliar with this it’s not, alas, anything to do with getting out without paying. I think there probably is some kind of Law relating to that too; but no, Curnow’s First Law of Shopping is, simply put, if you spot somebody that you want to avoid, you will then inevitably bump into them on your way around the shop.

It’s occurred often enough to be an established, if not exactly scientifically-recognised, fact – and it of course leads on to Curnow’s related Second Law which is, the amount of time the person you don’t want to bump into wants to spend talking to you when you do inevitably bump into them, will be inversely proportional to how much time you have available to talk.

Having established all that then, and as my opening line has already indicated, in an ‘exception proves the rule’ kind of scenario I managed to (a) spot somebody I knew but didn’t really want to spend time talking to; but also (b) managed to avoid them, both in the shop and also (which is sometimes the place where you least expect it, just as you’re thinking you’ve got away with it) the car park outside.

Of course, all this unproven nonsense is really just me skirting around the issue – which is, surely, how terribly antisocial and unfriendly I must be (misanthropic even, if you want to go there) to be actively avoiding people in such a manner.

I certainly can’t imagine my grandparents sneaking around the shop hoping to avoid people. Indeed, both sets of grandparents (in all ways, a better breed of men/women) had bungalows laid out with a huge sitting-room window right beside the front door – which meant that anybody calling on them, would see them sat there before they even got as far as ringing/knocking… which also meant it was quite impossible to pretend you weren’t in and just wait for them to go away!

In part, I think it’s because my brain works in a very ‘pigeon-holed’ manner. That is, I expect to see certain people in certain places and am prepared accordingly. When I see the ‘wrong’ people in the ‘wrong’ place, when/where I’m not expecting them (when, in other words, they’re in the wrong pigeon-hole) it throws my brain into a state of confusion which only serves to ramp up my natural tendency towards social (or maybe I mean, sociable?) awkwardness and a general lack of chit-chattery.

Also, though, in a probably less-than-rational way, I feel the constant pressure of time. Today, accompanied by my other half, it took almost six hours for us to ‘pop to the shops’ so I accept that other opinions are available – but my own take is that I’m not there for pleasure, I’m there to get in, get the job done, and get home, with the minimum of fuss and spending. And time.

That’s why, while I was keeping my head discretely down today in le café Morrisons, I was also worrying over the vast collection of work clothing and bedding waiting back home to go through the wash. Of stairs in need of hoovering and dogs in need of feeding.

I suppose, to unexpectedly bung in a Biblical analogy at this late stage, I’m more a Martha than a Mary (I’ve been called worse) and although I’ve always thought it unfair in that story to label the former as entirely in the wrong, the general sense that sometimes what we think is the most important thing actually isn’t, is a fair comment. I probably oughtn’t to go too long before feeding the dogs, but hoovering the stairs can maybe wait if somebody pops up for a chat.

Although… maybe it’s not the pigeon-hole mentality at all, or the ticking clock. Maybe I just don’t care enough to stop and chat. I don’t think that’s the case, but it is true that I’m not really a people person, mainly because of… No, never mind.

I don’t want to talk about it.

The C-Word

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Childhood, Christmas, Doctor Who, Family, Writing

I’ve been thinking, whisper it, about Christmas.

For the past couple of years, I’ve posted a daily ‘advent blog’ on Facebook, mixing Christmas thoughts and memories with the occasional moan and the odd gag or two. It’s something I’d been thinking about, in a rather casual and disorganised way, for a few years before finally getting my act together in 2017 – and my ego was sufficiently flattered by some of the responses, to give it another spin last year.

As it turned out, some of what I thought I remembered from the Christmasses of my youth was entirely wrong – meaning, for example, that there is now a cloud of uncertainty over the exact nature of my Gran’s stuffing recipe; and it would also appear I entirely imagined what I had previously considered a firm, even eidetic memory of the late-70s, of my Dad measuring the boot of our car to see if my brother’s new Pot Black table would fit in it. I can’t recall whether it did or didn’t, but apparently that trip back home to spend Christmas with family in Cornwall never happened either, so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Nevertheless, there’s fun to be had – in part, it’s been interesting to see what does and doesn’t grab people’s attention. Morecambe & Wise in 2017 got barely a reaction at all, much to my surprise; whereas what I thought would be greeted with little more than a polite shrug, the fact that I’d never seen the ‘Batman & Robin’ episode of Only Fools, turned into a full blown debate on the Trotters.

So, and anyway, I’m in the throes of debating with myself whether or not to do it all again this year. On the one hand, I’m not certain that I have enough thoughts and topics and complaints and opinions, to fill 24 days. But… on the other hand, doing a third batch and billing it as definitely the last might allow me to riff off Peter Davison’s “I met Patrick Troughton in a car park” anecdote, which is sinfully tempting.

Hence I’ve been thinking, and occasionally writing, about Christmas today, from musing over when exactly calendars became such huge business, to what mince pies are made of, to who invented pigs in blankets. A cursory glance over those three topics sort of highlights my problem I feel – namely, that the really big subjects (Father Christmas/Nativity Plays/Putting the tree up) have already been done.

It has, though, given me just a small insight into the world of entertainment. Not, I hasten to add, that I’d want anybody to confuse my Facebook posts with entertainment (I suspect there’s probably no danger of that, but even so). What I mean is, it reminded me that many of the Christmas TV shows we’ll be watching later this year are probably already in the can.

I recall Steven Moffat writing in Doctor Who Magazine (see, Magazine, it doesn’t even call itself a comic) during the Summer of 2010, to say that it was a glorious Summers day, but that he was sat inside listening to Carols and other Festive music, desperately trying to get into the right frame of mind to write the Christmas Special that was soon to start filming.

Now obviously, I’ve not got Matt Smith impatiently waiting for my words of wisdom (and frankly if Karen Gillan was here, it’d be an awful waste to spend my time writing on a laptop) but even so, I can’t exactly wait until 1st December and then spend three and a half weeks just winging it.

So, reluctant as I am to admit it, and although I sometimes (by which I mean, specifically, in 1st December 2018’s Facebook post) moan about it starting earlier every year, Christmas is already underway.

May the Lord have mercy on my soul.

It Was Fifty Years Ago Today…

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, 1980s, The Beatles

Abbey Road is 50 years old.

Despite such a confident opening statement I must confess that, until about three weeks ago when Radio 2 first started banging on about the anniversary, I’d never even realised that The Beatles had taken their studio name for the title of their last album.

In the interests of full disclosure: my ignorance runs a lot deeper than that. I went through the entire seventies almost entirely unaware of ‘the Fab Four’. I knew the name Paul McCartney, but only because of Wings’ Mull of Kintyre and his being arrested for possession of pot in an episode of John Craven’s Newsround. I didn’t know him as one of The Beatles; and I went nine and a half years without ever hearing the name John Lennon.

The first time I heard of him was, again, an edition of Newsround, in December 1980, and the story’s high placing in the bulletin clearly marked him out as being somebody pretty famous (even though I’d no idea who he was). A few weeks later, when Imagine topped the charts, I remember thinking how sad it was that he should have been killed just before his new record came out – clearly, I’d also gone the best part of a decade without coming across the notion of a mercenary/commemorative reissue in the wake of a celebrity death. (I can only assume I’d slept through Way on Down’s five weeks at number one during Jubilee year.)

As the 1980s rolled on, I filled at least a few gaps. Thanks to the efforts of my Art and Music teachers, who between them taught us When I’m 64 and Michelle, I became aware of The Beatles as an ensemble. And, through their ongoing solo careers, I became more aware of Paul McCartney (because of The Frog Chorus) and of George Harrison (because of Stuck On You) and of Ringo Starr (because of, erm, Thomas the Tank Engine).

So anyway, with my credentials established, and to recap in case you’ve come in late, the final album by The Beatles, which was called Abbey Road, was released 50 years ago. Radio 2 has made, I think it’s fair to say, quite a big thing of it, with a separate ‘pop-up’ station, a host of special programming, and various regular shows broadcasting for the occasion from Abbey Road itself. I’m not convinced anything was added to the breakfast show’s traffic reports by having them delivered from outside by the zebra crossing but that’s showbiz for you.

There is, for all my ignorance on the subject, something about The Beatles. In their most ‘famous’ stuff (by which I really mean their most successful singles, I’ve never listened to any of their albums) there is almost a poet’s or a journalist’s sense of commentary and observation, the detail of life, its minutiae. Yes, they did their fair share of perfectly acceptable ‘my baby loves me’ songs, but it’s little character sketches, insights like Lady Madonna, or Eleanor Rigby, or Penny Lane that seem especially unique and distinctive.

Mind you, nobody’s perfect. Hey Jude is a beautiful song, apparently simple but somehow deeply moving – but then when they run out of actual song it carries on for what feels like forever in a drunken sprawl of sound. I can’t help thinking a more judicious editor might just have smiled politely and then cut it off the master tape when the boys weren’t looking. (All You Need Is Love similarly runs out of song before it actually stops, although you’ve got to admire the cheek of putting a snatch of their own She Loves You into its long fadeout.)

Fifty years on from their last album (last recorded, but not last released so Wikipedia has just told me, but anyway…) and we’re still talking about The Beatles, still listening to their music. So I think we can tentatively begin describing it as timeless, and not just an exercise in nostalgia. Some of it is of its time, but some of it doesn’t sound like a particular era or even a particular genre, it just does its own thing.

It could have been recorded… Yesterday.