In which everything is a bit puzzling

[alexsarll]

It's not often I find myself wishing PG Wodehouse books had footnotes, but as I sat reading the first Blandings in the twilight of Stationer's Park, I found myself deeply puzzled. A young lady suggests to the protagonist that if he looks at the ads in the paper, he may find something more congenial than the job he hates. He looks, but is disappointed to find only a series of philanthropists, keen to share their fortunes. How is that a bad thing? Was this the 1915 equivalent of a Nigerian email scam?

I've already mentioned that, given the acclaim Alan Bleasdale's received as a social realist, I was surprised to find less moral ambiguity in his GBH than in Torchwood: Children of Earth. I'm now more than halfway through GBH and would further add that Torchwood was much more psychologically realistic in its portrayal of how power corrupts, and how the struggles of political entities destroy the little human lives caught between them. But what really astonished me was that Children of Earth also had significantly less Doctor Who fanw@nk than GBH, in whose fourth episode crucial scenes in a hotel take place against the background of a fan convention, with drunken Earth Reptiles and Cybermen cavorting around, and eventually a Dalek pulling Polly while chanting "FOR-NI-CATE'.
I'm still watching, mind. It may be a pantomime, but Robert Lindsay and Michael Palin are giving such performances that it still compels.

Even in this age of reunions and reissues, I never thought 2009 would find me writing about Angelica, not least because I was never that bothered about them in the first place. But lo and behold, the headliners at last night's 18 Carat Love Affair gig (not entirely convinced by the whole drummer-in-front-of-stage idea, though I appreciate their reasoning) were the Angelica singer's new band. Just her and a drummer, who had a bike basket on the front of his kit, and a harness thing with recorders in so he could blow and drum at the same time. At one stage she hit the drums too with what appeared to be a skipping rope. Yes, they were fairly twee, as it happens. If you wish to investigate further, they're called The Lovely Eggs.

On Monday, in a charity shop, for 99p (well, a quid since they had no pennies) I found a copy of the old Neil Gaiman-conceived shared-world anthology The Weerde: Book of the Ancients. Which has an early Charles Stross story* I fancied rereading, and which I also knew was worth rather more than a quid. This copy was further signed by one of the authors, Liz Holliday, "To Alison, with thanks".
Between the pages of the Stross story, I found an autumn leaf. On which, in silver ink, "To Jess, Happy Xmas, love from Alison".
Now I don't think I can bear for it to be passed on again. Which is why, among the careers closed to me, is that of eBay trader.

*Interesting to read something of his from 1993, before he could write about the internet and expect anyone to have a clue what he was talking about. Yet his 'Red, Hot & Dark' nicely prefigures the Laundry books, with its intersection of ancient horrors, bureaucracy and espionage. Some of the themes of 'The Missile Gap' are here too, in particular the idea of communism as another preconception about the world which can be shattered by alien contact.

Comments

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Ah, the Lovely Eggs (the drummer's her husband). Otherwise known as Violet Elizabeth Bott as a band. Lovely people, but I had to walk out when they played up here, I was getting angry.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I only managed three songs. And they're pretty short songs.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Philanthropist ads in the Times are classic old scams - often used as a pushing off point in themselves by the 'good guys' viz tommy and tuppence and about a billion others whose names i can't remember...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Which good guys are these? And how did the scam work before they invented transfer fees &c?

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

yeah, one half of the angelica front line went twee, the other went rawk goth. Give me twee any day.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

What was the rawk goth project called?

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

The Adventures Of Loki. They're actually more punky than I described. still, neither is a patch on the first Angelica album which is bloody marvellous. FACT.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They weren't for me but I have no problem with them, y'know?

Have I complained to you yet about how someone who was four years below me at Pembroke is playing Loki in the upcoming film? Sob.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

What film? What the fuck is Loki? WHAT THE FUCK IS PEMBROKE?

Fucking geek.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Pembroke was my college. That's not a geek thing. And the Thor film, obviously. Fvck's sake, Rob, sort it out.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'obviously' if you're a mongtard.

Thor. Thaw, more like.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I would totally watch a film about the superhero adventures of John Thaw.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

Word, man.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Ooo me and Rick watched GBH a couple of years ago - I really enjoyed it although some bits were kind of over-egged (also I have v limited knowledge of historically what was going on re: SWP dudes in the 80s so I spent the first half going 'er hmmm what?' a fair bit)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The other weird thing is that it actually came out in the nineties! Which you wouldn't think to look at it, what with it being set in the mid-eighties except for someone at the con dressing as Sylvester McCoy...
I was expecting something where two apparently good but flawed men, both with valid points, found themselves in tragic opposition. Instead, it's made clear right from the start that Lindsay is a dangerous nutjob and utter bastard, while Palin is stronger than he thinks and an all-round good egg. Unless there's a reversal coming in which Palin suddenly starts bumming the special needs children, but somehow I doubt it.

[johnny-vertigen.livejournal.com]

I liked the first Angelica mini album thingy. Christ knows why, as it's not remotely my thing normally.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you weren't the first person I expected to be responding on that point, I have to admit.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

I buy a lot of tat in charity shops but find it very hard to buy any book (or CD for that matter) that has writing on, in particular personal greetings. Part of me is angry at the person for essentially defacing art. Another part of just feels uncomfortable with how personal it feels.....it's as if, reading the greeting, you're intruding in someone's life. If someone ever wrote in a book that was a present for me, once I'd got over my anger with the scrawl, I'd find it terribly difficult to give away, even if the book was rubbish.

Talking charity shops and 90s indie....the other day I saw a Fluffy CD in Oxfam. (Viewing the cover, I was surprised at how aesthetically boring they were).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're forever cropping up! One of those cases where it took a couple of singles for everyone to realise that actually, they were neither hot nor talented, and could they please go away now. Like, what was that rockier equivalent - Kittie?

I think there can be something lovely in an inscribed gift, the memories it brings back when you come across it yourself - but yes, I suppose if it's at all mischosen, there does come an element of emotional blackmail too. Still, the main reason I so seldom do it is fear that they might already have the item and wish to trade in the new one for something else.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember Kittie....there was also Tampasm, though I think they were more punk-sounding.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes. Also, I quite liked them (in both senses).

[oneofthose.livejournal.com]

I believe that some of the actual events may have been more of a pantomime (though I think it was Bleasdale's intention to portray it as a classic farce, rather than realism. He's never been Ken Loach. Blackstuff had elements of farce and grotesque, and Scully even broke the fourth wall. But I digress).

I attended my first and last Labour conference while it was all kicking off and Kinnock had just begun to worm out the loony left. I went to see Billy Bragg and Derek Hatton went too, flanked by two police officers as bodyguards. No other MP in attendance, including front benchers had any security; his paranoia had clearly reached Lindsay-esque proportions.

Phil Jupitus was the MC for the evening. That's incidental to the story.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Incidental, but brilliant.

This is the first Bleasdale I've seen - or at least the first one I've consciously watched, I'd be surprised if there'd never been any on in the background when I was a kid (was Yosser from one of his?), so I am going here from the consensus summary of the guy (ie my own vague conceptions, bolstered by Wikipedia).

It's works better as farce than realism, this last episde I watched (the fourth) in particular. But still, it's terribly dark for a farce. I mean, we never saw Roderick Spode's thugs actually kicking any immigrants in...

[oneofthose.livejournal.com]

Yosser is from Blackstuff, yes. When I say farce, obviously I mean he uses it as a dramatic device for his agitprop, rather than wanting you to laugh at it. I don't think GBH was entirely successful but the hotel scene kind of made up for the rest of it.

I was a big fan but he's unavoidably an 80s writer, when it felt important to have dramas on telly pointing out that bad things were bad. Blackstuff is the classic but I think you could probably get all you needed from best bits on YouTube. I loved Scully as a kid but don't know how it would stand up now. It had Elvis Costello in it as a mental.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously nothing else in his acting career would ever be able to compare to his barman turn in Spiceworld.

What surprises me with GBH is the degree to which it goes along, albeit I presume not deliberately, with a hardcore Tory analysis of bad things being bad - Labour leaders are interested in power not the real working man, trade unions are rentamobs, and even apparent police brutality is in fact the result of false flag operations by commies.

[oneofthose.livejournal.com]

Turned out to be true though, to some extent. I think it is deliberate, on Bleasdale's part. It represents his feelings of betrayal by a council he voted for, and the realisation it wasn't all bread & roses in the 80s.

I went to the Tolpuddle Martyrs festival at the weekend. It was really odd seeing so many conflicting beliefs at a pro-unionism/leftist event. I saw people with Vote Labour stickers, which seemed completely absurd since the same party are currently abusing anti-terror legislation in pretty much the same way as the Martyrs were stitched up under the Combination Acts.

Then there were tons of pro-Cuba delusionists, old school 'honest working man' types (like my cousin and his Post Office mates) and then Billy Bragg heading it up - a man who now campaigns for the Liberals in order to keep the BNP out of his district.

I didn't know who to march for!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Indeed. A friend was recently trying to convince me that I should really vote Labour on the grounds that Labour are 'my people', ie mostly I hang out with people who are/vote Labour. Which even aside from how many Lib Dems I know, rather ignores how many Labour members seem violently to hate other factions within the party, to a degree none of the other parties could match within living memory.