Whilst most of the country has been spending a past few days, to paraphrase Oasis, out in the sun-she-ayn (something which, almost inevitably, some Middle Class hippy Communist lice at the Gruniad Morning Star found an angle to have a right good, hard whinge about). Or, gurning into their breakfast muesli about the rail strike (this blogger's view: Up The Workers), this blogger has barely left the safety, tranquillity and, steaming Turkish bath-atmosphere of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Except for medical appointments and the purchase of some necessary supplies, of course. Both of which, as usual, left him utterly exhausted. Fatigued. Dog-tired. Pure-dead shagged-out. Knackered. Ready for a kip in his pit. Et cetera.
The facts are these, dear blog reader. Simply speaking, it's too damned hot in Britain at the moment. We're all stewing in our own juices. And, as usual in these sort of situations, the drums never cease.
Meanwhile, dear blog reader, it is reported that numerous 'hippie types' have been spotted in the vicinity of the West Country (despite the rail strike).
But, anyway, Thursday saw the arrival of incoming preview discs at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Which was nice. Thus, it's review time. Starting with Strange New Worlds: The Elysian Kingdom. 'What the Hell ...?' Pike uses the phrase 'a nice change of pace' in an early scene and that's, actually, a pretty accurate(ish) summation of this strange new episode. Overtly sentimental and extremely silly in places (not that either are, necessarily, a problem - Star Trek has often encompassed both, often simultaneously), replacing the standard technobabble with a fairy tale told by a child was, in fact, curiously effective. Plus, 'The Swamp Of Instant Death'! ('That's not a good swamp!'), mythical journeys and a sprinkling of heroic adventure. And, it's Christina Chong's finest forty minutes so far, by a country mile (her being out-acted by a small yappy-type dog notwithstanding).
The Man Who Fell To Earth: The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell. 'Our choices are, now, time sensitive.' This blogger is aware that he says this pretty much every week, dear blog reader, but once again TMWFTE was achingly, outrageously beautiful. All the way from its explosive opening (quite literally) to the final, torturously sad flickers of an episode touch by magnificence. An allegory, told in metaphysical terms, with Biblical allusions and much pondering on the - subjective - nature of consciousness. Plus the best dialogue on TV at the moment ('it's going to get a bit weird so, everybody, keep your shit together!') Action, beauty, horror and, most importantly, nuns with guns. Knock-out.
It's been over a month since Doctor Who fandom was, collectively, shocked - and stunned - by the revelation that national heartthrob David Tennant and Catherine Tate would be returning to their roles as The Doctor and Donna Noble for the BBC's popular, long-running family SF drama's sixtieth anniversary episode.
Ever since, fans with more time on their hands than is, truly, good for them have been trying to work out just how the pair might come back. Now returning showrunner Russell Davies has given them some new theories to mull over. Writing in this month's issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Big Rusty put forward a few potential explainers for how this happenstance could be possible. He said: 'A mysteriously forgotten excursion for the TARDIS in between Planet Of The Ood and The Sontaran Stratagem? Or maybe a multiverse thing, they're all the rage these days. Maybe this is The Doctor and Donna from Universe Five Five Seven, all set to collide with our own. 'Then again, maybe ... this return is so impossible that it's actually an intricate illusion created by an old enemy of The Doctor's. Or maybe an old enemy of Donna's. Nerys! Of course, I wouldn't give that away in the pages of DWM, would I? But then again. This magazine is the first place I ever revealed the name of Billie Piper's Rose (in issue 340). So read carefully. There are truths in here.'
Meanwhile, somewhere on location ...
A new report by Screen Scotland shows the TV and film industry contributed almost five hundred and sixty eight million knicker to Scotland's economy in 2019 and the Scottish government hopes it can double to one billion quid by the end of the decade. Almost as much as sales of Irn Bru and Porridge Oats contribute in other words. One imagines First Minister Wee Jimmy Krankie will be delighted. At the FirstStage Studios in Leith Docks the vast main space is now empty but until a week ago it was humming with activity as Anansi Boys, one of two major drama adaptations being made for Amazon Prime, was about to wrap. Douglas Mackinnon, who hails from Skye, is a director and showrunner for both Anansi Boys and Good Omens, both of which were made in Scotland. He said: 'We were ready to do the second season of Good Omens and a first season of Anansi Boys, both based on books by Neil Gaiman and then the pandemic happened. Everything shut down and then at the tail end of 2020, Amazon said we'd like you to do both. I told them the only way was if they were done alongside each other and suggested we do that in Scotland. There were lots of discussions, and of course it all came down to money and practicalities but the bottom line was we could make it in Scotland, and at the top level.' A report - published by Screen Scotland - focuses on 2019, before the pandemic and long before the FirstStage studio was in action, or indeed any of the recent productions. It found that five hundred and sixty eight million notes was spent in the industry that year thanks to various productions including Outlander series five, No Time To Die and series four of The Crown. It also included Our Ladies, directed by Michael Caton Jones, The Cry and Netflix's Eurovision film with Will Ferrell. Scottish lack of culture secretary Angus Robertson says the report shows the value of the industry is now three times larger than was previously thought to be the case. 'If the growth trend continues, it will grow from half-a-billion ... by the year 2030,' he said. 'This is tremendous news for the Scottish economy in general.' Mackinnon added: 'It certainly feels like it's booming and I'm pleased if the two productions I've been working with have helped that boom to happen. But it's a slightly annoying word because we know what happens after a boom is a bust. So I'm hoping it's not a boom but something we can keep going and that our productions contribute to that, but others come along behind them.'
Speaking of Neil Gaiman TV adaptations, dear blog reader, the release date of Netflix's version of From The North favourite The Sandman has been announced as 5 August. And, whilst Neil's legion of fans worldwide eagerly await to see whether the makers have managed to capture the spirit and beauty of the original comics or have screwed it up big style we, at least, have a trailer. To give us an early idea that this might, actually, be ... quite good.
The last From The North bloggerisationisms update, which included a brief mentionette of Rosemary Nicols in the 'ladies whom this blogger thought were pure-dead-lush when he was eight' section led, over the following few days, to yer actual Keith Telly Topping having his first almost-complete Department S rewatch marathon in 'kin years. Several 'kin years, in fact (even though he'd obtained the DVD box-set in 2010). And, astonishingly, the series actually still stands up really well in 2022. Far better, in fact, than several of its - supposedly, more impressive and influential - contemporary or near-contemporary ITC series. This blogger had quite forgotten what a properly fantastic (and, frequently, surprising) little borderline telefantasy-drama it was.
From the off, it had a sharp (and very-Modish) premise. The titular Department S is a, Paris-based, branch of Interpol concerned with the investigation of unsolved mysteries which baffle other branches of law enforcement - a sort of provisional wing of Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World, if you like. As veteran scriptwriter and co-creator Dennis Spooner envisaged them, they were the people who would investigate The Marie Celeste if the ship was found abandoned in the Thames in the 1960s. Each episode started with a date and place caption, an indicator to the general level of realism that the show attempted to maintain and a set-up for the cases that Sir Curtis Seretse (the marvellously dignified Gambian actor Dennis Alaba Peters) assigned the team to look into. Fascinated by oddball stories from the Second World War, Spooner had been keeping notes for a potential treatment about Winston Churchill having his friend, the author Dennis Wheatley, head a small team of fiction writers who would dream up strange ideas to help win the war. Spooner's initial idea for one of the Department S characters was of an ageing Wheatley-style eccentric tweed-wearing Oxbridge academic. Kenneth More and Guy Rolfe were both suggested to play the role before the idea changed to something considerably more up-to-date.
This was the heyday of ITC, Lew Grade's production company. They had already chalked-up big hits (in the UK and elsewhere) with The Saint, Danger Man, Gideon's Way, The Baron, The Champions and Man In A Suitcase as well as most of the Gerry Anderson supermarionation series (all of which, to a greater or lesser degree, this blogger was/remains a huge fan of). They had become experts at producing quasi-international settings on a back-lot at Borehamwood with second unit and stock footage providing establishing shots of that week's location. Department S was filmed between April 1968 and June 1969, back-to-back with another of ITC's most fondly-remembered series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), also created by Spooner and Monty Berman. There was a kind of repertory company of actors, directors and writers who featured on most of these series thus giving an ITC 'flavour' to whatever was being produced. (Contrary to widespread belief, The Avengers wasn't an ITC series, it was made a separate production company, ABC Television, although it was filmed at the same studios and shared many of the same writers, directors and actors with the ITC dramas.) Forever trying to crack the American market, there was usually a transatlantic air to most of these works. On two grounds, then, Department S was a different kettle of fish to the majority of its contemporaries. It certainly wasn't bland, the style of the mysteries being deliberately outrageous. Secondly, it may have 'officially' starred a straightforward American character, former FBI agent and the team's nominal leader, Stewart Sullivan (hobbies, golf and punching people and played by the terrific Joel Fabiani), but he (and, indeed, everyone else) was continually upstaged by someone very British.
Jason King (played by the late, great Peter Wyngarde) was very much a product of the times; a slightly too-old Carnaby Street playboy who is - in the style of the day - 'a man of independent financial means' and is, basically, part of the Department because he enjoys it and the opportunities that it gives him to meet loads of beautiful women and solve complex intellectual puzzles. In the episode A Fish Out Of Water, it is revealed that Jason is a widower whose wife, Marion (a film actress), was killed in a plane crash some years earlier. He wears incredible facial hair ('Get your 'air cut!' Michael Balfour's workman shouts after him in The Trojan Tanker) and some of the most outrageous shirts on television, most of his expensive suits coming from the fashionable Chelsea tailors' Allsop, Brindle & Boyle.
Besides the usual international jet-set interests such as driving racing cars, sky-diving, skiing, worldwide travel and eating at very expensive restaurants, Jason is a crime writer whose massively successful Mark Caine novels give him a continual champagne and caviar fund and the ability to look at any presented mystery with an author's quizzical eye. No wonder the Department S writers gave him all the best lines. Jason once keeeps a bottle of champagne from Stewart, saying: 'I would offer you a glass, but it's bad for you in small doses, nor in this heat!' The titles of several Mark Caine novels are mentioned within the series although only one, Index Finger, Left Hand, is regularly shown on-screen ('the writing's really rather good,' Sir Curtis confesses when Stewart claims never to have read it. 'I don't know where he gets his plots from'). At one point Stewart suggests that one of Jason's outlandish theories about their current case is the sort of thing he'd expect to see in a Caine novel. 'You will, Oscar, you will' replies Jason! In Handicap Dead, when the apparently accidental death of a professional golfer turns out to be murder, Jason indignantly points out that exactly such a conceit is drawn directly from the pages of his recent novel, From China, Most Sincerely. 'If you catch him, remind me to sue for copyright!' Jason's occasionally bizarre behaviour (the time he gets dosed with nerve gas in the excellent Last Train To Redbridge notwithstanding) and oft-disaplyed bouts of chronic hypochondria are, frequently, a cover for a brilliant, investigative mind.
The third member of the team is Annabelle Hurst (hobbies, being captured and worrying about Jason and/or Stewart getting hurt and played by the talented, previously-mentioned, Rosemary Nicols - actress, singer and author), a computer expert, analyst and field agent. She forms the other half of a rather Avengers-ish double act with Jason, both of them quipping wittily at each other in their frilly shirts while Stewart slugs it out with that week's villain in his mohair suit. 'Annabelle, there are times when I ... quite like you!' Jason tells her, not in the least bit patronisingly, in A Small War Of Nerves, an episode featuring a marvellously twitchy guest performance by Anthony Hopkins. There are occasional hints about a prior 'have-they-or-haven't-they?' relationship between Annabelle and Stewart (he has a key to her apartment, 'for emergencies' and, in Black Out, the pair reminisce about 'romantic' locations they have visited - it is implied something significant happened in Hamburg) although both are now, clearly, dedicated career professionals with little time for much of a private life. Unlike Jason who has time for little else (odd moments of investigating or dictating the contents of his next novel to a pretty secretary, aside). One or two other members of the Department show up very occasionally - besides 'Auntie', Annabelle's ticker-tape spewing computer of which Jason has a very low opinion; there are, for example, a couple of pretty typists working for Annabelle in The Pied Piper of Hambledown with whom, needless to say, Jason flirts outrageously.
Co-creator Monty Berman began his career as a camera assistant at Twickenham Studios when he was seventeen in the early thirties. He later became cinematographer, working for the Associated British Pictures at Teddington and, later, for the comedy producers Ealing Studios. When World War II began, Berman continued his craft in an army film unit. There, he met and befriended Robert S Baker, with whom he would go on to form a lifelong business partnership. In 1948, they founded Tempean Films, which produced more than thirty B-movies in the 1950s, including The Frightened Man (1952), Three Steps To The Gallows (1953), Impulse (1954), Kill Me Tomorrow (1957), The Blind Spot (1958) and several others covered in this blog's forthcoming essay on the British B-movie. They subsequently moved into the horror field, producing Blood Of The Vampire (1958), The Trollenberg Terror (1958), The Hellfire Club (1960) and The Flesh & The Fiends (1961). Trainspotter footnote: The Hellfire Club is the movie that the about-to-be-murdered character of Kolliatis is watching in bed at the beginning of the episode The Man Who Got A New Face. Berman had also previously worked with Peter Wyngarde on Regal Films' The Siege Of Sidney Street (1960). In 1962, Berman and Baker obtained the television rights to Leslie Charteris's character Simon Templar. Unable to sell a series to Associated-Rediffusion, then Britain's largest commercial television company, Berman and Baker turned to Lew Grade's ITC. This company was, at that time, a sister company to ATV and had access to important export markets (particularly the US). Over the next few years the team enjoyed huge success with The Saint, staring Roger Moore and, also, Gideon's Way with John Gregson. Berman then created more ITC productions, starting with The Baron (from John Creasey's series of novels), which led to the beginnings of his partnership with Dennis Spooner.
Following a brief spell as a professional footballer with Leyton Orient, Spooner completed his National Service with the RAF where he first met Tony Williamson, with whom he formed a writing partnership. Dennis also tried his hand at stand-up comedy, in a double act with Benny Davis. They worked the London circuit but found only moderate success. Spooner instead turned to writing and began selling half-hour scripts to Harry Worth. This eventually led to his writing several scripts for Coronation Street in 1961. He also contributed to the ITV police procedural series No Hiding Place and Ghost Squad as well as to Bootsie & Snudge and to ATV's attempt to revive Tony Hancock's career, Hancock (1963) where he worked with Terry Nation. Around this time Spooner met Brian Clemens; they struck up a friendship which lasted for the rest of Spooner's career, working first together on The Avengers in 1962. Spooner also made several key contributions to children's drama, contributing to the Gerry Anderson series Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds and working as script editor on Doctor Who in 1965. Following the success of The Baron, he co-created The Champions with Berman and Man In A Suitcase with Richard Harris, both for ITC.
The third member of the central Department S creative team was the director Cyril Frankel - credited as Creative Consultant - who was behind the camera on the first episode into production (Terry Nation's The Man In The Elegant Room) to establish the series' visual look (he did a similar job on Randall & Hopkirk's pilot episode, My Late, Lamented Partner & Friend). He would return to helm a further eight episodes whilst reliable veterans such as Roy Ward Baker, Leslie Norman, John Gilling and Ray Austin also directed episodes. Most of the writers, too, were ITV regulars; Philip Broadley wrote ten episodes, Spooner's old friend Tony Williamson three and Harry W Junkin, fresh from script-editing The Saint, a further three. Spooner stuck to supervising the scripts of others although it has been suggested that many (though not all) of the pre-title set-ups for the mysteries to be explained were written by Spooner and then given to writers to develop into a story. The series' dramatic theme music was also the work of a highly-regarded ITC veteran, Edwin Astley, creator of the famous theme for The Saint.
The series began transmission in March 1969 (whilst later episodes were still being filmed) and, although not networked by ITV, ran for twenty eight episodes; most of them very good indeed: The Man Who Got A New Face with its terrifying pre-title sequence, The Shift That Never Was, The Bones Of Byrom Blain, One Of Our Aircraft Is Empty, The Man In The Elegant Room, The Pied-Piper Of Hambledown, A Ticket To Nowhere, The Ghost Of Mary Burnham and more. There's even one episode, Spencer Bodily Is Sixty Years Old, in which Jason and Stewart are so disgusted by the implications of the creation of a drug which stops the ageing process that they, effectively, defy Sir Curtis and walk off the case. The opening episode (filmed sixth in production order), Six Days, gives the audience a perfect flavour of the kind of fiendishly clever mysteries with which the series intended to deal with on a weekly basis; a scheduled BOAC flight from Karachi via Rome (with Sir Curtis on-board) arrives at Heathrow, not half-an-hour early as the crew and passengers all believe but, rather, late - having been missing-presumed-lost for the titular six days.
'Are you a profesional?' 'No, just a naturally-gifted amateur!' Wyngarde's performance as King was described by one critic at the time as being 'in the manner of a cat walking on tiptoe, with an air of self-satisfaction.' By 1971 it was reported that 'more babies [had been] christened Jason during the last twelve months than ever before' and, after the series finished, the character was spun-off into a series of his own - Jason King - by the same production team (also very good and with Wyngarde often in spectacularly over-the-top form). Mike Myers has claimed that Wyngarde-as-King was one of the main inspirations behind the creation of Austin Powers. Indeed, in The Man From X an undercover Jason at a with-it discotheque (The Shake N' Shout), even uses the phrase 'groovy, baby!' in casual conversation. That same episode, incidentally, includes possibly the most 'way out' 1960s scene imaginable - Jason, in his outrageous, sheepskin-coated medallion-man gear, attempting to seduce 'a switched-on blonde', the sister of a missing safe-cracker, played by Wanda Ventham. When Annabelle arrives and interrupts them, Wanda's character is indignant: 'Your wife?' she asks. 'Perish the thought!' replies Jason, horrified at the very suggestion. 'I have the misfortune to be associated with her, professionally!' The Jason/Annabelle dynamic is, perhaps, best exemplified by her jolly clever solution to the mystery of the The Trojan Tanker. 'She stuck in her thumb and pulled out a plum and said "what a clever girl am I"' notes Jason as she fits all the pieces together before he can. 'Well,' Annabelle replies with a coquettish grin, 'I am!'
Department S, in short, has pretty much everything that one would expect from an ITC series of the late 1960s, like a plethora of extremely cool cars (notably Jason's stylish red 1959 Bentley Continental, Stewart's Vauxhall Victor and Annabelle driving a tasty red E-Type Jag, a Lancia Fulvia and, later in the series, a Lotus Elan).
'I hate to quote Mark Caine to you at a time like this but there was a time he just shelved everything and called in the polizia. Of course, I never published it!' It also had much amusing dialogue ('Stealing? It's a sure sign of frustration in a woman!' Or, when Jason tells Annabelle he's spent all day trying to escape from the room he's been locked in: 'How did you manage it?' 'If you're prepared to wait, read the book!'), interesting guest stars (most notably in Soup Of The Day) and pan-continental settings (even if almost all of the series was filmed within a ten mile radius of Elstree; several car chases through the twisting country lanes of Southern France, Campagna or the outskirts of Athens looking, uncannily, like green-belt Hertfordshire on a wet afternoon in October).
Occasional nods towards the hoped-for American market do appear (Annabelle telling Stewart at one point that someone has died in 'an automobile accident' rather than 'a car crash' for example) but they're few-and-far-between and the series usually managed to maintain an air of delightful British whimsey for the majority of the time. If you've never caught it previously, dear blog reader (or, you have, but have only vague and distant memories of it), the complete series DVD is still available and well-worth a re-visit.
Mentioning this blogger's Department S marathon malarkey on Facebook on Monday, somewhat inevitably, led to several references by dear Facebook fiends to the 1980s band of the same name. Although, given that they only released about three singles during their heyday (the magnificent 'Is Vic There?', the, if anything even better 'Going Left Right' and ... the other one) this blogger doesn't reckon that a 'the late Vaughn Toulouse-and-His-Chums marathon' would've lasted half-an-hour, let alone an entire weekend. This blogger always liked Department S, let it be noted. He saw them supporting The Jam twice on The Gift Tour and they were a very tight unit indeed. Though, they could've done with at least one member featuring Peter Wyngrade-style facial hair. That would've gone down well on Top Of The Pops in 1981.
Now, moving on swiftly to a question for which this blogger, sadly, has no answer, dear blog readers. How on Earth did yer actual Keith Telly Topping manage to tear his very self away from the previously mentioned all-weekend Department S marathon and Monday morning's UFO episode on The Horror Channel (The Square Triangle, a tasty, morally ambiguous murder mystery with good old Patrick Mower acting his little cotton socks off)?
Furthermore, his having done so, a further question rears its ugly head. How, did he then manage to make it down to ALDI and then struggle all the way back to The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House (on the bus) lumping this lot whilst feeling aal grotty and discombobulated? It's something that, perhaps, only minds with a far greater tolerance for the absurd and the illogical can determine. Where are you, Mister Einstein, when Keith Telly Topping needs you the mostest, baby?
And then, to top it all, Keith Telly Topping arrived home, laden with his - necessary - supplies, only to discover that he'd left the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House TV on whilst he was out and was confronted with the horrific sight of possibly the worst Space: 1999 episode of the lot, Full Circle (the one with the cavemen). After that, he really needed a lie down to recover.
Speaking of watching UFO episodes, dear blog reader, Wednesday's episode of The Horror Channel's welcome breakfast-time re-run was the splendidly bonkers The Psychobombs with lovely Vladek Sheybal going so far over the top he was down the other side. This blogger's thanks, incidentally, go to his old mucka Nick - who specialises in exactly this sort of research - for digging out Vladek's Naturalisation Certificate from The National Archives. Proving that, when he played Doctor so-called 'Jackson' in UFO, he'd already been a naturalised British citizen for four years. Though, this blogger was somewhat surprised to discover a Pole with a German middle name (Rudolf). No wonder he wanted to leave.
Immediately after that had finished, in urgent need of getting to the bank to pay in some money, this blogger was forced once again to leave The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House and go out into the muggy, quasi-tropical heat. He caught the bus into Th' Toon, did what was necessary and took this rather lovely photo of Gallowgate's The Chinese Gate (with The Cathedral Of Dreams behind) as this blogger was about to be homeward bound.
The downside of all this was, on the way back, this blogger was subject to one of the worst curses of modern life, finding his very self stuck next to The Nutter On The Bus. Or, in this particular case, The Woman With A Really Loud And Shrill Voice Who, Seemingly, Believed That If She Shut Her Gob For One Second, Her Brain Would Stop Working And Wanted To Share Her Life Story With Everyone Else. God, it was annoying.
Thankfully, it was only a short journey. Any more than ten minutes of that and this blogger would've been gnawing his own foot off to stay sane (or, as close as Keith Telly Topping can get to sanity these days). Still, there was one, minor and really deserved compensation ...
Friday's UFO episode, incidentally, was the reliably shit-weird Mindbender. Just, frankly, what any viewer needs at 8am on a sticky, red-hot and humid morning, an episode about hallucinatory alien malarkey and very bad trips. And Mexicans.
Plus, of course, The Big White Hand. One has to love The Big White Hand, dear blog reader. It's The Law.
For Us Dinner at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House on Tuesday evening, it was only bleedin' pork and prawn garlic curry with mushrooms, spring onions and black pepper, wasn't it? And basmati rice, obviously. Plus, yet another outing for Walter The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House wok. And, lo, there was much rejoicing in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House as this was, also, really deserved.
We come, now, to the inexcusably regular part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's on-going medical shenanigans. For those dear blog readers who haven't been following this on-going saga (where've you been?) which seems to have been on-going longer than The Hundred Years War: This blogger spent some weeks feeling wretched; had five days in hospital; was discharged; received B12 injections; then more injections; recovered his appetite; got a diagnosis; had a consultants meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a second endoscopy; had another consultation; got toothache; had an extraction; which took ages to heal; had yet another consultation; spent a whole week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; was given further - really painful - injections and did another hospital visit for an echocardiogram. Tragically, the latter didn't sound like this. Which is, trust me dear blog reader, as much of a disappointment to this blogger as it, no doubt, is to you.
This time around, there's been one further visit to the local medical centre for yet another bit of blood extraction as yer actual Keith Telly Topping's medical team continue to search, seemingly in vain, for the reasons behind this blogger's current incapacity. This blogger is clearly, dear blog reader, a case unique to medical science.
Thursday saw two by-erections taking place and two effin' 'uge defeats for the government. You might've heard about them; there was Labout taking back Wakefield which they had lost at the last erection and the Lib Dems achieving a stunning victory Tiverton & Honiton a, traditionally, safe-as-the-Bank-of-England Tory seat. Both of which leaves Bashing Boris - already, effectively a dead man walking - clinging onto his position of power by his fingernails as many Tory MPs speculate on whether Bashing Boris is an erection liability or not. All of which, of course, was extremely funny to behold.
When asked, by the BBC, about his limp erection performance, Bashing Boris was quoted as saying that the two by-erection results were 'not brilliant.' Jesus, what a once-in-a-generation mind that clown has, dear blog reader. Mind you, he is correct in so much as, on a scale of one-to-ten, with one being 'totally brilliant' and ten being 'not even slightly brilliant or anything even remotely like it,' this was, what a twenty? More like a fifty. Bashing Boris also claimed that 'I will not undergo psychological transformation after poll defeat.' Which, to be fair, is probably a blessing for all concerned. God only knows what he'd transform into next.
This blogger's beloved and now, thankfully, sold Newcastle United have signed England goalkeeper Nick Pope from extremely relegated Burnley for an undisclosed fee. The thirty-year-old moves to St James' Park on a four-year contract after spending six seasons at Turf Moor. Magpies boss Wor Geet Canny Eddie Howe called Pope 'an exceptional Premier League and international-level goalkeeper. I'm very pleased to be adding strong competition to a very important position,' Steady Eddie added. Pope joined Burnley in 2016 when the club was newly promoted to the top flight and made one hundred and fifty five appearances, including playing thirty six times last season. He played an integral part in helping the club qualify for the Europa League during the 2017-18 campaign when The Clarets finished seventh. Pope's England debut came in 2018 as a substitute against Costa Rica in a friendly. Then in March 2021 he became the first goalkeeper to keep a clean sheet in his first six appearances for England following a two-nil win over Albania. On his move to Newcastle, Pope said: 'Now I'm here, I can't wait to get started. The deal has taken a couple of weeks to come to fruition, but it got over the line really quickly and I'm delighted to be here and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it.' Pope is Howe's second summer deal after The Magpies completed the signing of Aston Villains left-back Matt Targett for fifteen million smackers on a four-year contract after he'd spent the second-half of last season on loan at United. Newcastle open their Premier League campaign against newly promoted Nottingham Forest on 6 August.
The Magpies have also reportedly agreed a deal with Lille for the Netherlands Under-Twenty One defender Sven Botman. Wor Geet Canny Eddie Howe's side tried to sign the twenty two-year-old in January and faced stiff competition from AC Milan. Landing the centre-back for a fee believed to in the region of thirty million knicker means that Howe has recruited right across his defence since taking charge of United last November. Botman is expected on Tyneside next week for his medical, with agreement on personal terms said to be 'close to being finalised' according to media reports.
Five major planets in the solar system are currently, as Shriekback once said, all lined up in a row for a rare planetary conjunction visible with and, to quote another popular beat combo, The Whom, looking fine to the naked eye. In a clear sky, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can all be seen shining before dawn. It is a special opportunity to see Mercury, which is usually obscured from view by The Sun's bright light. The conjunction was brightest on Friday morning but will remain visible until Monday from most parts of the world. The last time this conjunction occurred was 2004 and it won't be seen again until 2040. The planets appear 'like a string of pearls spread out from close to the horizon,' explained space scientist, chief stargazer at the Society for Popular Astronomy and regular contributor to The Sky At Night Professor Lucie Green. It is also a special event because the planets appear in the order they are positioned from The Sun. That isn't always the case for planetary conjunctions because of our perspective on Earth looking into the solar system, Professor Green says. On Friday a crescent Moon also joined the line-up, appearing between Venus and Mars. Both of whom are, according to some Octogenarian who's headlining Glastonbury this weekend, 'all right, tonight.' Which is nice to know. The Northern hemisphere, where this blogger lives (you might've noticed), can get the best views between forty five and ninety minutes before sunrise. Looking Eastwards and very close to the horizon, ideally from a high spot like a hill. Large buildings or trees will obscure the view. As will, as another popular beat combo, The Pink Floyd once noted, clouds.
You, dear blog reader, will need to be oot of yer stinkin' pits early however, because as soon as The Sun comes up (the opposite of what Level 42 talked about. But, they didn't want to go to war, do you follow them? Which was, obviously, to their credit) it will wash out the sky, obscuring the planets. But they can be seen with the naked eye - Professor Green advises sky-gazers not to use equipment like binoculars or telescopes because of the risk of looking directly into The Sun. Can being, you know, blinded. Start by looking for the planet furthest away, which will be Saturn. Then count back through the planets until you find Venus, which is usually very bright. The final planet in the line-up should then be Mercury. Professor Green says it took her 'many years' to see Mercury because it's a hard planet to spot. 'It is very satisfying if you can see this faint twinkling planet,' she says. Observers in the tropics and the Southern hemisphere should get better views because the planets will rise higher in the pre-dawn sky, but an early start will still be needed.
For many, after-work drinks are a common way of relaxing after a busy week. But one worker in Japan could be nursing a protracted hangover after he lost a USB memory stick following a night out with colleagues. It contained the personal details of nearly half-a-million people. One imagines the chap involved felt a right pillock when he discovered he'd lost it and, indeed, needed a swift change of underwear. The unnamed man placed the memory stick in his bag before an evening's drinking in the city of Amagasaki, North of Osaka. He spent several hours out of the lash in a local restaurant before eventually passing out on the the street, local media reported. When he eventually came around, he realised that his bag - and the memory stick - were missing. The Japanese broadcaster NHK reports that the man, said to be in his forties and therefore, in theory, old enough to know better, works for a company tasked with providing benefits to tax-exempt households. He had transferred the personal information of the entire city's residents onto the drive on Tuesday evening before meeting colleagues for a night on the town. City officials said that the memory stick included the names, birth dates and addresses of all the city's residents. It also included more sensitive information, including tax details, bank account numbers and information on families receiving social security. Luckily for the man, city officials said the data contained on the drive is encrypted and locked with a password. Although if it's 'password' as many passwords are, then it might not be quite as safe as they seem to believe it is. They added that there has been 'no sign' that anyone has attempted to access the information. 'So far.' Because, to be honest, that sounds like a challenge. But the embarrassing incident prompted an apology from officials, with the city's mayor and other leaders bowing in shame and ignominy to residents. 'We deeply regret that we have profoundly harmed the public's trust in the administration of the city,' an Amagasaki city official told a press conference.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised after research showed the Church of England's investment fund has links to the slave trade. Which was big of him. The investigation, initiated by The Church Commissioners, a charity managing the Church's investment portfolio (and not, as their chosen title may suggest, the latest version of The Spanish Inquisition), revealed that for more than one hundred years the fund invested large sums of money in a company responsible for transporting slaves. This, no doubt, shocked - and stunned - the CoE because, as we all know, 'no one expects The Church Commissioners' (their chief weapon is, after all, surprise).
The fund, known in the Eighteenth Century as Queen Anne's Bounty, has now developed into a ten billion knicker investment trust. The Most Reverend Justin Welby claimed that he was 'deeply sorry for the links.' One or two people even believed him. However, he did go on to suggests that, basically, the devil made them do it.
Queen Anne's Bounty was formed in 1704 to 'help support poor clergy.' By getting involved in slavery. Which, just as a side bar, the Bible has absolutely no problem with - see, for example, Leviticus 25:44-46. Or with sexual and conjugal slavery - see, for example, Genesis 25:1, 30:4 and 31:17. Apologists for this outrage claim that slavery 'was a common practice in antiquity' and that, anyway, since the Bible is alleged to be 'God's word' and God is, according to Christian theology, infallible, then q.e.d what's the problem, pal? An examination of Queen Anne's Bounty accounts from 1739 showed two hundred and four thousand smackers (estimated to be worth over four hundred and forty million notes today) had been invested in the South Sea Company who had an exclusive contract to transport slaves from Africa to Spanish colonies in South America for more than thirty years from the 1710s. It shipped tens of thousands of slaves, with the research suggesting that an estimated fifteen per cent of them died en route.
Church investments in the South Sea Company continued well into the Nineteenth Century. Because, of course, if there was one thing the pious and repressed Victorians revered more than abasing themselves in The Sight Of The Lord, it was profit. And then Tories wonder why anyone with a conscience hates them and everything they stand for. The Bish said: 'This abominable trade took men, women and children created in God's image and stripped them of their dignity and freedom. The fact that some within the Church actively supported and profited from it is a source of shame. It is only by facing this painful reality that we can take steps towards genuine healing and reconciliation - the path that Jesus Christ calls us to walk.' When asked if he agreed with these sentiments, Christ said: 'Nowt to do with me, mate, I was in Heaven at the time.'
The Church of England has, in the past, celebrated its role in helping bring about an end to slavery in Britain, citing the role played by Anglican Evangelical, William Wilberforce. On the other hand, in recent years the Church has apologised for dozens of its clergymen having been revealed to have owned slaves. It has said sorry because its missionary organisation, The Society For The Propagation Of The Gospel, owned a plantation in Barbados, branding its slaves across the chest with the word SOCIETY. Now, by its own research, it has acknowledged that for decades its investment fund poured almost all its money - aside from what it used to buy land - into a company that had a monopoly on transporting slaves to South America. With more than half of the worldwide Anglican communion now based in Africa, these admissions will be made all the more uncomfortable.
The research also found that the fund received 'numerous' contributions from individuals linked to, or who profited from, transatlantic slavery and the plantation economy. The Bish added: 'I pray for those affected by this news and hope that we may work together to discern a new way forward.'
Convicted naughty sex criminal Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are fighting to keep several accusers from providing victim impact statements at her sentencing for sex trafficking on Tuesday. The British socialite and sex offender's legal team argued in court filings on Friday that four accusers' ages meant that they were not 'statutory crime victims' who would have the right to speak at sentencing. In making their arguments, Maxwell's legal team publicly included three impact statements, which were submitted to Judge Alison Nathan in advance of sentencing; this appears to be an unusual move, as prosecutors typically file these remarks. This, seemingly unusual, move also means that Maxwell's lawyers - not the victims and not those representing them - made the decision about when the victims' words would be public. Maxwell's team said that they were provided with statements from Annie Farmer, 'Kate', Virginia Giuffre, Maria Farmer, Sarah Ransome, Teresa Helm and Juliette Bryant. Annie Farmer and 'Kate', who both testified at trial, were victims in the indictment against Maxwell; Giuffre was a minor during her interactions with her and Jeffrey Epstein. The defence has taken issue with Maria Farmer, Ransome, Helm and Byrant providing statements, arguing that Maxwell was not charged and convicted based upon their allegations. They contend that Maria Farmer, Ransome and Helm were adults during their alleged encounters with Maxwell - and that Bryant's then age 'remains unknown' - further undermining their legal right to speak at sentencing. 'Allegations alone do not serve to automatically qualify the individuals as statutory victims under the CVRA,' Maxwell's team wrote, referring to the Crime Victims Rights Act, later arguing, 'Neither the superseding indictment nor the court's jury instructions support a position that anyone who was not a minor is a "victim" of the counts of conviction. The involvement of a minor is an essential element of the federal offense conduct,' they added. 'None of these individuals testified at trial and their credibility remains unexamined. Regarding the charges in this case, they do not qualify as victims under the CVRA.' Maxwell was extremely convicted on 29 December of sex trafficking and related charges in her Manhattan federal court case for procuring girls, some as young as fourteen, for Epstein to abuse. She faces up to fifty five years' in The Joint when Nathan hands down her punishment. Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, was arrested in July 2019 for sex trafficking; he killed himself in jail about one month later. Allegedly. Maxwell was arrested a year after his arrest. The victim statements submitted to Nathan that were made public describe the harrowing emotional impact of the abuse. Annie Farmer, who testified that Maxwell gave her a nude massage at Epstein's New Mexico ranch when she was sixteen, said: 'This toxic combination of being sexually exposed and exploited, feeling confused and naïve, blaming myself all resulted in significant shame. That sickening feeling that makes you want to disappear. Once arrested, Maxwell faced another choice. She could admit her participation in this scheme, acknowledge the harm caused or even provide information that could have helped hold others accountable,' Farmer wrote. 'Instead, she again chose to lie about her behavior, causing additional harm to all of those she victimised.' 'Kate', who testified that Maxwell lured her into sexual encounters with Epstein at age seventeen, said: 'The many acts that were perpetrated on me by Epstein, including [redacted] sexual assault, were never consensual and would have never occurred, had it not been for the cunning and premeditated role Ghislaine Maxwell played. The consequences of what Ghislaine Maxwell did have been far reaching for me. I have struggled with and eventually triumphed over, substance use disorder,' she wrote. 'I have suffered panic attacks and night terrors, with which I still struggle. I have suffered low self-esteem, loss of career opportunities.' Giuffre did not testify, but trial evidence supported that she was a minor when Maxwell and Epstein's abuse occurred. 'Together, you damaged me physically, mentally, sexually, and emotionally,' said Giuffre, who as sixteen when Maxwell brought her into Epstein's orbit. 'Together, you did unthinkable things that still have a corrosive impact on me to this day. I want to be clear about one thing: without question, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible pedophile. But I never would have met Jeffrey Epstein if not for you,' she said. 'For me and for so many others, you opened the door to Hell. And then, Ghislaine, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, you used your femininity to betray us and you led us all through it.' In their filing, Maxwell's team also included blacked-out versions of statements from those whom they allege are not victims and argued that they should remain secret. 'Their victim impact statements are unduly prejudicial, contain allegations not previously before the court which serve to inflame the emotions of the court and public. Their airing during sentencing or any consideration by the court in imposing sentence, would violate Ms Maxwell's due process rights,' they added. 'We object to the publication of the impact statement of the individuals.' Convicted sex offender Maxwell maintains her innocence. Though, to paraphrase the late Mandy Rice Davies, 'well, she would, wouldn't she?'
We have a real bumper crop of nominees for the From The North Headline Of The Week award, dear blog reader. Starting with BBC News who, seemingly, believe that the number one question about this week's by-erection(s) that Britons have is ...
One imagines, they needed every single one of their 'search specialists' to answer that and may, indeed, have needed to called in reinforcements from Sky News. Next, another gem from, the BBC's by-erection coverage.
A bit over-the-top, frankly, given what Hasbro always used to tell us about Weebles®™. Next, this twenty four carat classic from the Daily Lies Of Scotland.
And, if one of the 'stranger things' we allegedly didn't know about Kate Bush is that she reads the Daily Lies, this blogger intends to resign from the human race forthwith. Moving, quickly, onto Cheshire-Live and their staggeringly important scoop, Chester MP Warns Floating Barbecue Boats On River Dee Could Cause 'Mayhem'. Fascinating word 'could'. In politics and, indeed, in life in general.
The Hull Daily Mail, like its Fleet Street namesake the Daily Scum Mail, appears to have something of a fetish concerning crowbarring house prices into its headlines. Take, Women Fear Thirty Foot 'Smelly' Pole Will Affect Value Of Three Hundred & Twenty Five Thousand Pound Homes. I say, dear blog reader, that's a very uncharitable way to refer to a, presumably, hard-working and tax-paying Central European migrant worker.
The Irish Examiner's Cork Man, Eighty One, Chains Himself To Water Pump In Macroom In Protest Against Council leaves many, many unanswered questions.
When it comes to Headline(s) Of The Week, one can always depend on the good old, reliable, not-a-real-paper Metro. With its, admittedly, decent crossword but it's staggeringly nothing stories. Like McDonald's Burger With 'Only Ketamine' Label Delivered To Hungover Student. And then, in the article, they helpfully explain to their readers, whom they clearly believe are all as thick as pig's shite and twice as nasty, that ketamine is a 'Class A drug was spelt incorrectly without the "e"'. Listen Metro, most of your regular readers are likely on ketamine, it's the only way they can consume your daily horseshit without passing out.
The Ayr Advertiser, meanwhile, gave its readers Ayr Sheriff Court: Big Bumblebee Attacks Procurator Fiscal. Which occurred in the same week that Netflix released Man Versus Bee. What are the chances? This blogger believes it's the use of the word 'big' in this headline that makes it art. Because, as any fule know, 'small' bumblebees, well, they're as soft as shit.
And, finally, Derbyshire-Live need a spot of praise of the classy investigative journalism involved in Hermes Courier Takes Pic Of Dog 'Accepting' Parcel As Proof Of Delivery. This, dear blog reader, constitutes 'news'. Well, in Derbyshire, anyway.
