The latest From The North bloggerisationism update is very much upon us, dearest blog fiends.
And, we begin this update with the singular most important-est question of the week - what the Hell happened with regard to this blog's daily traffic on Saturday 18 May? That was the day when From The North's usual four-to-six thousand(ish) daily page hits more-or-less trebled for no obvious or discernible reason? What the actual funk?
Just for a little bit of context, here is a graph of From The North's page-hit record covering the last couple of years. So, to each of the fourteen thousand one hundred and ninety one individual page-hitters who rocked up to the gaff to (hopefully) find something of interest hereabouts, welcome you all are. And, if you are new around these parts, pull up a chair and make yourselves entirely comfy. We're all very friendly. Even this blogger. Sometimes.
Next, dearest blog fiends (new and established), this seems about right.
Oh, Keith Telly Topping, you crack us all up with your witty japery and merriment.
Meanwhile, someone's been having fun and discombobulations with their DVD collection, it would appear (not this blogger, he very much hastens to add).
Things that yer actual Keith Telly Topping did on the morning of 2 May which he hadn't done for a while previously (if, indeed, ever); spend over half-an-hour clearing out a blocked-solid-with-gunk hose in his Shark cordless vacuum cleaner (steady). It was, quite literally dear fiends, a dirty job but someone had to do it. And, by someone, yer actual, of course, means Keith Telly Topping his very self. That's definitely forty minutes of this blogger's life that he'll never get back.
Another tasty stash of home-media-style gear arrived at The Stately Telly Topping Manor that very morning during the vacuum fiasco. Which was nice (the arrival of a package of DVDs, that is, not the blocked vacuum malarkey). Edited to add: This is a slightly improved-quality photo since the lighting on this blogger's first effort was so dark it made poor Boris Karloff look like he was from West Africa rather than South-East London. Carry on as you were.
Subsequently that day, this blogger was more than a bit hungry, so he ended up ordering a pizza for delivery to The Stately Telly Topping Manor. Because it was Friday night and, you know, whyever not?
And it was, of course, as one might expect geet lush in this blogger's sight, so it was.
On a similar grub-related theme, at the very crack-of-dawn on the following Bank Holiday Monday, this blogger doing The Stately Telly Topping Manor weekly shopping at Morrisons was preceded by brecky at McDonald's in Byker. And, this blogger will tell you all what, dear blog fiends, they were only bleeding out of barbeque sauce again. This! Will! Not! Stand! This blogger is now, officially, calling on Sir Keir to get this muddyfunker sorted. Pronto. If not sooner. This blogger cares not a smidgen about the environment, the state of education, the benefit system, better relations with Europe, worse relations with the US or the national health service (well, okay, a little bit about the latter, he'll confess, for personal reasons, twice in fact). But this. This silt, is a Major National Emergency Outrage of cosmic proportions. Hell, even the Tories managed to get BBQ sauce into outlets without much fuss (seemingly at the expense of completely knacking-up the economy right good and proper, admittedly - a bit of a drawback). The problem is, of course, should The Liberals get in they will want to replace such sauce with organic, fair-trade, made-by-somebody-other-than-Viet'namese-children-on-four-pence-an-hour-type sauce ... which will, inevitably, put the prices up. And that's not good. As for The Greens, they will want it replaced with a vegan, rocket-and-water-cress-plant-based alternative, which will make yer hash browns taste like the ground when you dip them in. Reform will claim - claim, dearest blog fiends - that they are not only tough on sauces but, also, tough on the causes of sauces. But, the only thing those hideous right-wing scumbags will get from this blogger's McDonald's breakfast menu is a strawberry milkshake all over Mister Farango's greasy heed. And, as for Comrade Corbin's Independents - they want to abolish capitalism and, with it, all of the sauces. So, it's down to you, Mister Prime Minister. This blooger wants his bloody sauce with his bloody Sausage and Egg McMuffin, cappuccino and an extra hash brown (all-in-for £5.98) and you're the only man who can make this blogger's day start in the right way. Get the muddyfunker sorted or come the next General Erection From The North will, collectively, be voting the Tories back-in. You have been warned.
Live living-type-things, meanwhile, were (and, still are) live-and-living at The Stately Telly Topping Manor. Look at the evidence.
As previously mentioned on this very blog, in early April when this blogger's current contract was about to expire, Keith Telly Topping rang up Sky to see if they could do him a new deal on The Stately Telly Topping Manor TV and/or Broadband (or, at least, if they could keep his monthly payments at around the same rate). He spoke to, this blogger joshes y'all not, a young lady called Ncuti (this blogger even checked the spelling, just to make sure). 'Just like Ncuti Gatwa?' he asked. 'Who?' she queried. 'Yeah, that's exactly right,' this blogger replied. Before adding: 'You set 'em up, sweetheart, this blogger will stick 'em away!' So, anyway, Mister Sky Q chappie (the very nice Gavin) finally arrived on that Bank Holiday Monday afternoon to do the Sky-TV cable upgrade. The Stately Telly Topping Manor, dear blog fiends, used to look like this.
But, after Gavin his done all his stuff, including drilling a smallish hole in The Stately Telly Topping Manor front-room wall to get the new cable in, it now looks very much like this.
So, the installation of The Stately Telly Topping Manor TV cable-upgrade went swimmingly (and, surprisingly) well; it was quickly done and left astonishingly little mess, plus Gavin was a nice chap and we had a lengthy chat about football and yer actual Keith Telly Topping sometimes being unable to watch Th' Toon's live games due to nerves. The installation of the Interweb fibre-cable-upgrade, on the following Wednesday however was, by contrast, a complete and total sodding nightmare. And it still wasn't completed by that evening due to ... stuff. According to the rather gruff and not-particularly-helpful engineer (who didn't turn up to do the job in the first place at shortly before 5pm), at least they would not need access to the actual gaff itself to finish the job (which happened the next day whilst this blogger out out having a nice time with a fiend). A bit of The Stately Telly Topping Manor front room (mercifully, hidden by a CD-stack most of the time) now resembles spaghetti and/or worms. It's a health-and-safety nightmare. Or, it would be if it wasn't hidden by the CD-stack. Out of sight, dear blog fiend, out of mind.
That Thursday, in fact, whilst The Stately Telly Topping Manor Interweb was being reconnected, upgraded and generally fiddled-with, yer actual Keith Telly Topping was with his excellent fiend Young Malcolm for the usual, periodic, luncheon-style malarkey, shenanigans and kerfuffle. A change of scene, a change of style (... as Joy Division) once said. This was the general locale - scarily close to The Cathedral of Dreams.
Here was the actual place of the actual incident its very self (we'd decided to move down the road from The Little Asia just for a change). A class gaff, The King Neptune, this blogger has always enjoyed the scran here on the occasions that he's dined there previously.
This was how it all began (the soup was so tasty, dear blog fiend, that it was all gone by the time yer actual Keith Telly Topping got his silt together and got the camera out).
The main event was a - very cush - chicken garlic, salt and chilli thingy. And it was, in fact, niiiice.
Followed by a furiously necessary puddin' as a palate-cleanser.
And, finally, a steamin'-hot-cup of sweet-creamy-Joe a'fore we got chucked out the gaff because they were ready to close(!), paid the bill and then adjourned to HMV for some, meandering, Blu-ray shopping.
Arriving home, post-luncheonette with Young Malcolm, this blogger had himself another steamin'-hot-cup of sweet-creamy-Joe - this time with The Divine Goddess That Is Caroline Munro giving this blogger a saucy 'come-hither stare' - courtesy of this blogger's Facebook fiend the very excellent Steve Cannell who was kind enough to, quite literally, mug-this-blogger-up (see below). And there was also the latest home media purchase (nabbed el-cheapo in an HMV sale). It was, dearest blog fiends, a tidy day all round. And the Interweb was working fine so he didn't need to ring up Sky and shout at them. Which is, always, a bonus.
What had, in fact, prompted Young Steve to send this blogger the Dracula AD 1972-themed mug was the following popping-up in this blogger's Facebook 'Memories' page when this blogger noted: 'I can never make up my mind whether AD 1972 is the greatest "bad" movie ever made or the worst "great" movie ever made. Depending on the day, I tend to shuttle backwards-and-forwards between the two options. Today, it's the former!' And, you know what dear blog fiends? This blogger still stand by his confusion of three years previously, despite having written, extensively, on the subject and watched the damn thing, on average, once-a-week for the last thirty years. To quote the bloke that said it: 'One of the most hilariously dated movies of any era - by having a specific date as part of the film’s title, it is forever trapped within a time capsule. Yet, perhaps because of this, Dracula AD 1972 has aged so utterly terribly that it has transcended its humble origins to become little short of a comedy masterpiece. Exploitation cinema is always at its finest when polemic and dogma meet head-on and, instead of producing the expected gestalt of social-comment, ends up with a mélange of clashing and fractious statements. Dracula AD 1972's like that. It so desperately wants to be a serious, po-faced observation on important youth culture issues. Instead, by the sheer banality of its construction, the film comes over as Carry On Biting, full of unexpected laughs at, literally, every turn. However, that said, a word of genuine praise: Dick Bush's cinematography, particularly during the title sequence with zoom-lens shots of the concrete jungle that London had become, is just gorgeous. Watch this one with a few friends, a bottle of wine and a Chinese takeaway and, simply, thank God that you weren't born in the 1870s and, thus, never got a chance to see incompetent genius like this.' Oh, hang on, that was this blogger writing all that, wasn't it?
This blogger has said it before, dear blog fiends, but if life was party, this blogger still wants his party to have Stoneground playing 'Alligator Man' in the front-room of The Stately Telly Topping Manor and Caroline Munro dancing on the sideboard. Shake it till it drops, Caroline, baby. And, to the guy dancin' with her - oi, Moody Chops, get yer bloody hair cut, hippy.
That Facebook posting, incidentally, promptly prompted a right-good-and-proper thread with lots of amusing comments, incisive critique, side-alleys, cul-de-sacs and dead-ends. For instance, this blogger's fine Facebook fiend Simon (himself a terrific horror critic and author) noted that there is far more that the movie gets right than wrong and that most of the criticisms of it doesn't stand up to close examination. 'The actors were too old to play teenagers, apparently, despite their ages never given!' This blogger confirmed that AD 72 is, in fact, the prefect time-capsule of a era which never existed except in the heads of the bunch of middle-aged, middle-class white men at Hammer that made it. And, therein lies its true, epic, genius. Plus, the fact that within eighteen months Janet Key would be playing Jack Regan's ex-trouble-and-strife and the mother of a ten-year-old daughter on The Sweeney is the cherry on the cake. Even Johnny Alucard would be baffled by that.
Simon also noted that he had once written that Johnny's Cavern crowd may be a bunch of entitled kids who have joined the fag-end of the counterculture movement. Which is, perhaps, why they get the hip dialogue so very wrong. 'Fascinating,' this blogger replied. 'But, does that explain the obsession with "jazz" though?' The film is no more 'dated' or 'an old bloke's idea of what the Youth are really like' than Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, which doesn't get half-as-much stick claimed this another of this blogger's excellent - horror film-critic and author - fiends, Yer Man Ken. 'Also, I reckon that Don Houghton - an experienced screenwriter - was typing all of that material out with a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek. Plus, Sir Lee! The Cush! Murray and his wonderful detective sergeant.' Ken added that this was the first Hammer film he had watched on his own and, therefore, although it's not a 'good' film, per se, 'it is and-ever-shall-be a hugely enjoyable one.' That's 'a fair point re-other "old blokes idea of what The Kidz are into, man"', this blogger conceded. 'It's not even the only example of this in British horror cinema of the era (Tower of Evil, The Haunted House of Horror, Psychomania - all terrible films in one way and utterly, mind-bogglingly brilliant films in another - or, if they're not, at least maddeningly entertaining),' the blogger continued.
'Oi, Sir Christopher, cheer-the-funk-up, matey. You're in a movie with Marsha Hunt, for God's sake!'
It's interesting to think that Michael Armstrong was only twenty three when he made The Haunted House of Horror, noted Simon, 'and yet the yoof [sic] speech seems just as awkward' in that. This blogger agreed, but noted that what ended up on-screen in the latter movie was 'more Tony Tenser and Gerry Levy's idea of what The Kidz were up to, man,' than Michael's - his take was, according to his original, published, script, The Dark far more cynical; albeit, as Kim Newman and Sean Hogan's DVD commentary makes very clear, it was written when Michael was at school in the early 1960s and half-a-dozen pop-culture subgenres and been-and-gone by the time it finally got made. The Beatles, a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them, for example had gone from playing Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers at Litherland Town Hall and The Kaiserkeller to 'Revolution 9' for a kick-off. And yet, again, this blogger loves that particular film. The same company's The Curse of the Crimson Alter is another example of Tony Tenser desperately trying to keep up with The Kidz and another one which, nicely, falls into the so-wrong-it's-brilliant column. 'We were very good for a few years in the British horror industry at reaching for decadence and finding, instead, only (and I say only advisedly) slapstick. Which isn't, genuinely, damning with faint praise. For that, let's all be thankful.'
Another of this blogger's fiends, James, also noted that he's a fan of AD 72 adding that whilst he believes it's nowhere near the best of the series, he still enjoys the film far more than Risen From The Grave and Scars both of which felt 'formulaic and tired.' This blogger replied that he's said, in Return to the Vault of Horror, that Scars of Dracula is - horribly - the nadir of the entire series and that, compared to it, the subsequent three movies in the franchise need a major (and, by major, this blogger means Brigadier-General) re-evaluation; in comparison to Scars, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires is a jolly decent effort and AD 72 is the twenty four-carat masterpiece. 'I do love Risen From The Grave, though,' this blogger added. '[It was the] first horror film I ever saw on TV (Friday 18 October 1974, fact-fans) and, as a consequence, it looms large in my legend!' It was, as noted in at least two books this blogger has written, a night which, in a way, changed Keith Telly Topping's life.
The Haunted House of Horror, incidentally, was the third horror movie this blogger ever saw on TV (after Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and, the following week, The Blood-Beast Terror). Is it, therefore, any wonder that Keith Telly Topping ended up so warped and sexy and just a little bit dangerous and, in all likelihood, will come to a jolly bad end? Tyne-Tess Television and their Appointment With Fear Friday-night strand have a Hell of a lot to answer for. Just ask everyone whom has ever met this blogger. Incidentally, you have to love the Evening Chronicle synopsis for The Haunted House of Horror, quoted hereafter. '... They are having a good time until one of their number is found hacked to death.' Yeah, that'd probably put a bit of a dampener on things ...
'I remember a double-bill of Twins Of Evil and Terror From The year 5000,' added Simon as one of his first memories of watching horror movies on TV. 'I still don't know what reality really is.' Ah, The Twins of Evil, noted this blogger fondly. '9 September 1977. The day where I learned about breasts (or, at least, had their importance confirmed, anyway). Happy memories.'
Don't merely take this blogger's word for it, dear blog fiends ...
Anyway, back to AD 72. 'I thought it was great' said another of this blogger's fiend Matt (rather cheekily infringing on this blogger's copyrighted phrase). 'When I did my epic-watchathon - those two contemporary Hammer Draculas were such relief after the repeated attempts to regurgitate the original in a period setting and the turgid dead end of The Karnstein Trilogy. They played like pilots for an Avengers-style TV series - original, energetic and brave.' Spot on. They both, of course, have a reputation lower than rattlesnakes piss amongst men with stroke-y beards who 'take their British horror very seriously', this blogger added. Which, is probably only but one of the many reasons why Keith Telly Topping loves both of them so very much. 'There's also something about how the stroke-y beard fans tend to be stuck in a particular time,' Matt continued. 'I felt the same about the two contemporary Dracula movies now as I do about the unfairly-derided 1998 Avengers film - in the 1990s when the fashion was all grim and sincere, they were sneered at. Now, we're in a more ironic mode after Edgar Wright, Taika Waititi, James Gunn et cetera, they feel almost ahead of their time.' That, of course, is down to the general conservatism of many fandoms, this blogger conceded. 'We're Doctor Who fans, do we need to be told about people who take their subject more seriously than it needs to be? Or, indeed, more seriously than the people that made the damn thing in the first place probably intended? Horror fans, like comics fans and SF fans, tend to fall into two categories - the sort that spend five hours in an online conversation whinging about how something has utterly reaped their Dalek-lovin' childhood; and then there's people like us who spend an - admittedly equal - amount of time online finding something "fun" and wanting to tell the world and its dog about it. Neither position is, inherently, wrong per se - but, some of us get invited to much cooler parties. See, also, every other fandom under The Sun (except Star Wars fans, they're all serious). And, for anyone taking notes (and if you are, why?), here is the first time this blogger saw AD 72. Keith Telly Topping was fourteen. The perfect age to have your mind well-and-truly blown, baby. 'If we do get to summon up the Big Daddy with the horns and the tail, he gets to bring his own liquor, his own bird and his own pot!'
'I think the biggest problem is not so much that it feels like a middle-aged man's hazy conception of the Youth Today, but that it feels like a middle-aged man's hazy conception of the Youth in circa-1966,' suggested this blogger's fiend Joel. 'Which is a bit of a problem when you proudly brag about the release year in the title itself.' An excellent point, this blogger's replied. 'But, to be honest, it's more like a middle-aged man's hazy conception of the Youth Today circa 1958 (with a few elements of post-1966 thrown in via the more hysterically salacious pages of the News of the World).' That's enough to scare even the lead singer of Stoneground.
Incidentally, if anyone fancies a Dracula AD 1972 mug just like this blogger's (or, indeed, a slightly different one), check out Steve's excellent Midnight Mugs Facebook page. Tell him this blogger sent you, when you order something.
A few days later, this blogger was idly flicking through channels on his new, spanky, Sky Q box when he stumbled across a repeat of an episode of The Ambassadors of Death on U&Eden (no, me neither) and was reminded of an age-old truism that all but a very-select-handful of yer actual Doctor Who four-parters are three really good episodes and then another less-really-good one (usually episode three) with lots of running up-and-down corridors and capture-escape-recapture-reescape. Then, there's The Ambassadors of Death which is three really good episodes and four funking awful ones with lots of running up-and-down corridors and capture-escape-recapture-reescape (see also, Silurians, The).
And, speaking of that from The North favourite particular television series about a-madman-in-a-box, since last this blogger bloggerised like a big bloggerisationism-thing, the Beeb has only been and gone and broadcast three further episodes of the current series; Lucky Day - which this blogger thought was great.
The Story & The Engine - which this blogger thought was really great.
And, The Intersteller Song Contest - which he also thought was great.
... Though, admittedly, this blogger could've done with significantly less Funking-Bucks-Funking-Fizz. Listen, dear blog reader, it's yer actual Keith Telly Topping's problem, he'll be the one that deals with it.
The two-part series finale, Well World and The Reality War will be shown over the next two Saturdays.
After that, the wait for confirmation of the next series begins. So, until that happens, here's a picture of a cat in a field of flowers. Ooo ... pretty.
'Surprise Replacement Bassist Announced For The Forthcoming Slade Reunion Tour.' That bloody From The North favourite Yer Man Mark Kermode, he gets everywhere and hangs out with all the groovy funkers. Some (hopefully, well-meant) advice to Nod, Dave and Don - take absolutely no lip from the geezer if he gets the bassline to 'Gudbye T'Jane' wrong. Sorry, Mark, but it's The Law.
Speaking of 1970s rock and/or roll icons, 'she's the Queen of Northern Soul', apparently.
And finally, dear blog fiends, there is only but one nomination for the latest From The North's Headline Of The Week award. And it goes to From The North ... whatever the opposite of favourite is, the Gruniad Morning Star. Blimey, he's hard. But, what was the Polar Bear doing with the saucepan in the first place? Answer that and remain fashionable.
