"Oh, No! Not Again!"

Welcome, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, right nice y'are to arrive at From The North's final update for 2024 at what is, without doubt, yer actual Keith Telly Topping's least favourite time of the year. But, in an effort to be ... well 'normal's probably the wrong word to use here but, 'a bit less of a miserable pain-in-the-arse than he usually is' seems appropriate, this blogger is ... no, 'happy's not the right word either, let's go for 'more-or-less adequately satisfied' to wish all dear bloggerisationism fiends a Gary Crimble and very New Year. Even if noisy neighbours bugger up yer Silent Night and the local BNP candidate says 'may all of your Christmases be white'. And various other jokes that weren't ripped-off from an episode of Carrott's Lib in 1984.

This 2024 has been, as t'were, a damned queer year in many regards at yer actual Stately Telly Topping Manor. As discussed on many, many previous occasions, but particularly one (well, no, two. Or, actually, several) this blogger's health situation has been up-and-down more often that a tart's knickers doon Th' Quayside this year. Two hospital stays and a general feeling of massive discombobulation and 'being not-at-all-well' notwithstanding. Though the last month, since the most recent hospital encounter has been, this blogger is sure you're all moderately interested to know (and a snivelling cold aside), much better. In so much as he's had no more bouts of fainting, feeling nauseous and needing a shite every five minutes. So, that's good.

The only other vaguely medical-related nonsense to reveal was that this blogger was somewhat wiped-out last Friday having been down to the doctor's for his three-monthly B-12 injection. Which, as usual, knacked like jimbuggery.

It is interesting to note, is it not, how From The North's 2024 traffic-map looks, unfeasibly, like a graph of this blogger's heart rhythms during the year - particularly in early November.

On the other hand, 2024 has seen this blogger have his first book published in more than a decade, the, even if he does say so himself, slightly-better-than-average Return to the Vault of Horror: A Guide to 58 Great(*) British Horror Movies From 1956 – 1978 (* ... and not-so-great), available from all good-book-sellers ... and some bad ones, now. And remember, dearest bloggerisationism fiends if you are thinking of buying another copy as an unwanted Chrimble gift (for someone you don't like) please, get it from Telos's website and not from Amazon. Not only do David and Stephen make more cash that way (as, indeed, does this blogger - albeit, like pennies), but more importantly, Amazon are a bunch of hateful capitalist bastards who don't pay enough tax. Though their DVDs are undeniably cheaper than HMV's are. Win-some, lose-some.

Then, having not had anything in the shops since 2009, this blogger only went and got himself commissioned for a second one in four months, didn't he? This one in actual fact. Which was nice.

Work continues apace on Island of Terror: Sixty Great(*) British Science-Fiction & Fantasy Movies 1936-1984 (* … and not-so-great) for those delightful people at Telos Publshing ... although whether they'll still be delighted when he delivers it and they see the size of the damned thing is another matter entirely. Thus far this blogger has completed roughly half of the sixty movies he's scheduled to cover and, remarkably, the novelty still hasn't workn off yet!

Progress report, part 2.

And, despite this blogger feeling just a touch 'meh!' one day recently, he still managed to get his shit together enough to assemble the next set of vitally important research materials at The Stately Telly Topping Manor. So, if you're wondering, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, this is where here's going to be during the week up to, included and post-yer actual Gary Crimble.

On Monday of this very week, Keith Telly Topping did a down-the-line interview with his auld BBC mucka Nick Roberts and the lovely Emma Millan for Emma's Radio Newcastle show on the subject of the Chrimble Doctor Who special. This blogger must admit he felt a bit of a fraud since, apart from what's in the trailer, the fact that Nicola Coughlan's in it and that its yer man The Moff doing the writing, this blogger know next-to sod-all about this one. We also, briefly, discussed the proposed spin-off, The War Between The Sea & The Land which this blogger knows even less about (Keith Telly Topping even momentarily forgot the title). He did, however, get in a plug for Return to the Vault of Horror and mentioned the work-in-progress Island of Terror too. The important stuff. Here is the BBC Sounds link to the episode in question for anyone that wishes to check it oot (it'll be available for the next 28 days); this blogger is on in two five-minute chunks (providing the bread for a Robbie Williams sandwich, as it were) from 2hrs 19mins and 20secs into the show (and thanks, as ever, to Nick for editing my ramblings sympathetically!). Be there or, you know be somewhere else.

The other major talking-point round this neck-of-the-woods parts over the last months has been a weather. Which has been ... variable, let's put it that way. Firstly there was a period of quasi-Biblical deluging. Here's a visual representation.

Just by how wet it was, this blogger is forced to concluded that Swithin's Day came a bit late this year.

Here, meanwhile, is a visual representation of what the weather was like for most of December.

But if you want a truly horrifying thought, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, technically speaking, last Saturday was but the start of Winter. So, those six or seven weeks of bitingly cold (and, occasionally, wet) weather we'd been having? They were just an unseasonably chilly Autumn. Technically.

Don't take it from just yer actual Keith Telly Topping, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, ask Google. They know.

Things Yer Actual Keith Telly Topping likes least, in all the world, bar none. Number Forty Seven (in an on-going series): Shopping on, or even near, Christmas Eve. That's right up there with Phil Collins, Prog Rock, cabbage, hippies, the smell of Bananas and anything involving Noel Edmonds.

Still, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, there is a bright side. A cuppa, fr instance. Ah, tea. Is there anything it can't cure? Sickness? Torpor? Depression? Lethargy? Distemper? Auto-erotic asphyxiation? A pimple on the bum? It's always there for you.

And now, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, something Fab for your consideration.

'He wasn't the best saviour in the world. He wasn't even the best saviour in The Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them).' And, they were bigger than him, seemingly. Beethoven too. Roll over, mate.

Meanwhile, thank you all, them-there Doctors. What would we do without your perfectly invaluable knowledge? Because, frankly, this blogger was just thinking about taking a few King Edward's from Frankie, The Stately Telly Topping Manor Freezer and ramming them, harshly, up this own Gary Glitter. Sideways. You know, for a laugh.

Who are these people, anyway? We want to know. If you have any knowledge of this phenomena, please write as a matter of urgency, to: 'I Know Who Shoves Frozen Tetties Up Their Ringpiece, c/o The Stately Telly Topping Manor, The Estate, Groovetown (near Gatesheed), The World, so we can expose the wrongdoers in all their naughty, cold-botty doings. It has to be done, dearest bloggerisationism fiends.

This blogger's thanks go to his good fiend Candy Gent for the following. 'Mummmeeeee!'

Anyway, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, here's a jolly picture of Newcastle's Eldon Square Christmas Village (including, presumably, Santa's very own grotty).

That was taken on the very day that yer actual Keith Telly Topping met up for his monthly 'pleasant day oot' with his close and dear fiend Young Malcolm. Photographic evidence was, this blogger is sure you'll be delighted to learn, extremely taken. Here, for instances, is the very scene of the crime.

Means, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, motive and - definitely - opportunity.

The evidence.

'You'll never take me alive, copper!' (Young Malcolm stabbing the table with his finger at this juncture was, clearly, making a vitally important point about Hammer Films, it would appear.)

'It's a fair cop, guv, I'll come quietly. And, somewhat sleepily after all that quality nosh. '

This blogger was going to start work on the Island of Terror piece for From The North favourite The Day the Earth Caught Fire that very evening but, in the end, he was far too tired after all that really nice Chinese food earlier. So he did that the next day instead. But, he had done all the prep-work which included this blogger's favourite line of the book so far:- 'Although listed as cut by the BBFC, the then-censor John Trevelyan passed the film uncut according to his memoirs. The film was rated 'X' on its initial release (almost entirely due to a blink-and-you'll miss it shot of one of Janet Munro's nipples). The 2001 DVD was given a '15'. A 2014 BFI re-release saw this reduced to '12'. Give it another few years, it'll be down to a 'U'!'

When this blogger got home from The Little Asia, one of the first things he did was to open a Fortune Cookie. It said 'everyone knows you are best.' Excuse me, guys, that's not a 'fortune', that's 'a statement of fact.' It's also an inaccurate statement of fact. At least twelve people don't think this blogger is 'best' or anything even remotely like it. Though, to be fair, they're all wankers so, you know ... Nevertheless, when this blogger spends a quid at the Chinese Supoermarket on Stowell Street for twelve Fortune Cookies, he expects twelve actual fortunes for his money.

To a far more serious subject, now and Keith Telly Topping was truly horrified to hear of the recent, highly untimely death of Dave McIntee his former Virgin and BBC Books colleague. We had some good times together at Gally, on a cruise in 2006 and at many other conventions over the years. This blogger thoughts are with his partner, Lesley and David's family and many good friends in fandom. He was decent, smart, dryly-funny bloke and a damned good writer and his is gone long before his time.

That this occurred in the same week as the death was announced of another of Keith Telly Topping's old fandom chums, Siobhan Gallichan, was a double-blow. And, a necessary reminder of the transient nature of existence, dear blog reader. We're none-of-us getting any younger but the beat goes on as we, however reluctantly, have to go on with it.

To a, thankfully, lighter topic now. May His Majesty suggest that a stream a bats-piss could put this particular fire out?

There's some terrible news for all Stranglers fans who also shop as Tesco.

The final From The North Headline Of The Week Award nominees kick-off with the Clacton & Frinton Gazette's impassioned Rotary Club Disappointed To Not Bring Christmas Sleigh To Frinton. Not angry, you'll notice, merely 'disappointed.'

It's the time of year for anger, though, is it not? Take Cornwall's Legendary Action-Nan Stung By 'Obscene' Fine from Cornwall Live. If that doesn't make you at the very least 'mildly-irked', if not 'a bit stroppy and discombobulated', dearest bloggerisationism fiends, this blogger doesn't know what will.

From 'mildly-irked-if-not-a-bit-stroppy-and-discombobulated' to 'quite-a-bit-cross-and-downright-livid' over the Liverpool Echo's Black Liquid Is Oozing Onto A Merseyside Beach & Nobody Knows What It Is. Whatever it is, though, this being Merseyside, some miscreant will have soon thieved it.

Then, we move from 'quite-a-bit-cross-and-downright-livid' to 'extremely-cheesed-off-if-not-actually-fummin' for the Birmingham Mail's Fuming Motorist Drives 150 Miles To Protest After Wolverhampton City Council 'Spoils His 69th Birthday'. The funky bastards.

Now, we're even past 'fummin' and into 'what-the-actual-funking-funk?' territory with the Huddersfield Examiner's Van Driver Caught Eating Bowl Of Cereal While Speeding Along Motorway. But, what makes it worse is that the media outlet in question didn't even bother to tell us what the bowl of cereal was. Cocoa-Pops? Shredded Wheat? Crunchy-Nut-Corn-Flakes? Cheerios? We just don't know. And that makes this blogger mad, dearest bloggersiationism fiends. And, you wouldn't like this blogger when he's mad.

This one is an oldie-but-goodie from the Metro (so, not a real newspaper, then) in 2018. Mum Realises Daughter's Advent Calendar Is Meant For Cats Far Too Late. Yes, this blogger thinks that the bit on the back of the packaging saying 'Advent Calendar For Cats' was the giveaway, sweetheart. Though, to be honest, the most spectacularly annoying thing about this particular article is that the author, one Kate Buck, actually got paid for writing such banal horseshit. That, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, is a funking disgrace.

Moving, swiftly, into 'WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!' territory, the East Lothian Courier's North Berwick: Protesters Gather To Oppose Parking Charges. Including Santa, seemingly. Blimey, where's he gonna park his sleigh without Rudolph getting a ticket stuck on his nose-so-bright?

Now, we've reached the 'Jesus Wouldn't Like It, No!' strand with Family's £3.5k No-Snow Lapland Holiday Misery from, checks ... the BBC News website. Does anybody remember when the BBC used to be 'an actual news organisation' rather than a Heat magazine wannabe who begin an article with 'A family who spent their life savings on a holiday to Lapland were left "stressed and disappointed" after the husky ride, snowmobile trip and reindeer encounter they had travelled for were cancelled because of a lack of snow'? Federica Bedendo, apparently, got paid to write this absolute twatty, punchable bollocks. And if that also doesn't make you angry, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, then nothing will.

'Oh, Keith Telly Topping, you're always bringing religion into everything. Even Christmas.' Don't blame this blogger, blame the Southampton Daily Echo for Hampshire: Reverend Tells School Kids Santa Is Not Real. Which constitutes 'news' on the South Coast, seemingly.

Oh, by the way, he isn't. Keith Telly Topping hates to be the one to break it to you all, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, but you had to find out sooner or later. Best it comes from a fiend like this blogger.

Public Service Announcement Of The Week goes to Kent Online for Herne Bay Mum Furious After Road Sign Breaks Off Post In William Street. 'A mum is furious a damaged road sign was not fixed before smashing to the ground saying it could have decapitated someone.' Yeah. But it didn't.

Closely followed by another important piece from Cornwall Live (they're having a real run-of-form at the moment): Uproar In Cornwall Parish As Closure Of Toilets Will 'Force People To Poo On The Beach'. Whaddya mean 'force'? For some, that's a fun day out down the coast. Police are on the case, of course, but they say they have nothing to go on. What? What?

And finally, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, Isle of Man Today's FC Isle Of Man Issues Statement After 'Sweary Santa' Allegation. It took thirteen years between Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2. Now, eight years later and just in time for Christmas ...

See you all in 2025, dearest bloggerisationism fiends. Remember, at this time of year, avoid eating too much on Gary Chrimble Day and spending all of Boxing Day squatting on the netty. Also avoid strong drink, loose women (or loose men if that's your choice), anything on TV involving David Walliums and absolutely anyone who thinks 'Happy XMas (War is Over)' is, like, 'the best Christmas song, like, ever.' It's not, it's a horrible, puke-inducing dirge full of sickly-sweet Hallmark Card-style crass, sentimental platitude. And then, just when you think it can't possibly get any worse, Yoko Bloody Ono starts singing. And, on that bombshell ...

"Science-Friction Hurts My Brain"

Now that a contract has been well-and-truly signed and returned, dear blog reader, a tale can be told.

As revealed during the last-but-one From The North update, with Return to the Vault of Horror now published (and available from the publisher's website and Amazon for Kindle), this blogger was busy working on a pitch for the next Stately Telly Topping meisterwerk of (alleged) literary genius a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, what with him ending up spending five days in the hospital and all that, this somewhat delayed the completion and submission of said pitch. However, by Friday of last week, Keith Telly Topping felt enthused enough to chance his arm and send, to his publisher, a five-paragraph outline complete with a mysterious opening paragraph, a list of proposed contents and a couple of (not particularly funny) jokes for good measure. In the most recent From The North update, this blogger promised to reveal more to all of you, dear fiends, when the time was right. That time ... is now.

The blogger was expecting it would be, maybe, a week or two before he got a reply, that's usually about average. But, that-there David J Howe, bless his little cotton socks, e-mailed back within an hour of getting the pitch to ask, in all seriousness, 'is this the fastest acceptance in publishing history? Yes please!' Now that's how publishing should always work but seldom does, dear blog fiends. In fact, for 'seldom', read 'pretty much never.'

This was the full pitch, which began with the following question: 'What do 1936's acclaimed HG Wells adaptation Things to Come, the greatest film ever made - Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life & Death, the Oscar-winning 1950 nuclear terrorism thriller Seven Days to Noon, the 1953 Hammer double-bill Four Sided Triangle and Spaceways, two prime examples of the 'aliens down the pub'-strand of British-SF, the magnificently daft Devil Girl from Mars and the somewhat more earnest Stranger from Venus (both 1954), The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2 and what is, quite possibly, the worst film ever made by anyone, ever (bar none), Fire Maidens from Outer Space, have in common?'

This blogger then provided a helpful answer to his own, rhetorical, question: 'They will be among the first movies to be considered by Telos-regular yer actual Keith Telly Topping in a brand-spanking-new Sexy Stately Telly Topping Manor production-type thing, Island of Terror: Sixty Great(*) British Science-Fiction & Fantasy Movies 1936-1984 (* … and not-so-great). Island of Terror will look at almost fifty years of a curiously British vision of where we are going to in days to come. And, what we'll find when we get there.' (A mock-up cover which this blogger also sent along, incidentally, was just something this blogger quickly knocked-up himself for a bit of a laugh and as a visual aid to go along with the pitch. He'll leave the actual design of the actual cover to the actual professionals. He knows his place.)

'The book,' this blogger continued, 'will also include (and the list in not all-inclusive) reviews of Behemoth, the Sea Monster, The Strange World of Planet X, First Men into Space, BAFTA-winner and a particular favourite of this author The Day the Earth Caught Fire, The Day of the Triffids, The Earth Dies Screaming, Dr Who & The Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150AD (big selling point there), Help! (featuring a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them plus a 'hackneyed, trite Mad Scientist' who wants to rule the world ... 'if he can get a government grant'), Fahrenheit 451, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the downright ruddy bonkers They Came from Beyond Space, the magnificent John Wyndham adaptation Quest for Love (another major favourite), Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme, Nic Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Boys from Brazil, Alien, Flash Gordon and many others. It will conclude with 1984's utterly terrible, but curiously endearing, Lifeforce. Five decades of various examples of British SF and fantasy, Island of Terror will, by necessity, also include around a few movies which have already been covered in the two Vault of Horror volumes - The Trollenberg Terror, Village of the Damned, Invasion, Night of the Big Heat, Scream & Scream Again, Doomwatch et cetera - albeit in suitably different ways with far more emphasis on the SF aspects of the films in question.'

'Most of the popular categories from A Vault of Horror and Return to the Vault of Horror will remain, but there will be some new ones added specially for this volume - 'They're Here & They Want ... (goes along with 'Themes' and details whom these particular naughty aliens invaders are and what their plans are for Earth and its inhabitants - 'battery sex-bunnies' in the case of Devil Girl From Mars, for example), 'Aliens Down The Pub?' (somewhat self-explanatory - and there are far more examples of this conceit than you might think!), 'Science-Friction?' (the twin sister of 'Logic, Let Me Introduce You To This Window', specifically detailing all the utterly bollocks science conceits on display) and 'Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll' (a new title for 'Soundtrack', looking at the music).'

'The book will begin with an introduction - Invasion: Albion - in which the author discusses - in addition to his ambitions to be a flying left-winger for his beloved United and pilot Thunderbird 2 and (in the evenings) be the tambourine-player with Slade - how he became fascinated with SF as a child of 'The Space Age' in the late 1960s; a time of the real-world Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions and the launching of communication satellites (including the British Ariel programme), mind-expanding TV series like Doctor Who, The Avengers, UFO and Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons and the imported delights of Batman, Star Trek, The Time Tunnel and The Invaders. Plus the era's space-influenced pop-music ('I'm the Urban Spaceman', 'Space Oddity', 'Rocket Man', 'Starman' et al). And, during the 1970s, by the BBC's regular Saturday Night at the Movies showings of many classic US SF (The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Blob, The Andromeda Stain, Colossus: The Forbin Project). Yet, interestingly, British cinematic SF tended to be rather ghettoised on TV; more of a BBC2 staple, often included in those memorable Saturday late-night horror double bills of the mid-1970s. Unlike horror, SF movies didn't acquire their own regular slot on the ITV regions either - often, you had to search quite hard to find these films when they did, occasionally, turned up on television. The introduction will also discuss the development of British science-fiction literature during the late-Nineteenth and into the Twentieth-Century and the themes of the genre. How, for example, British SF of the 1950s and 1960s was - like their US counterpart - heavily informed by the fears generated by The Cold War but, unlike most American movies, also included many direct references to British's experiences during the Second World War.'

'There will also be a, brief, discussion on whether "sci-fi" is, as some genre fans seemingly believe, a sneeringly insulting term for the genre (this author doesn't believe it is, but he does tend to use 'SF' as an preferred alternative. Because he's like that). Another essay, More or Less Discovered in a Junkyard, discusses the parallel development of the BBC's (and early ITV's) interest in SF from 1938 and the first TV performance of R.U.R. through adaptations of the works of important authors like HG Wells, JB Priestly and John Wyndham, to 1963 and something sinister stirring in Totter's Lane.'

'Overall,' the pitch concluded, 'the book will be of a similar size and dimensions to Return to the Vault of Horror, approximately sixty titles covered, two hundred thousand words, four hundred to four hundred and fifty pages; it will include a dedication, many acknowledgements, extensive footnotes, a full bibliography and the usual (highly self-indulgent) About The Author piece. Keith Telly Topping remains a self-unemployed award-winning author, novelist, journalist and broadcaster and is, like, totally groovy and just a little bit dangerous. In his mind. As well you know.'

So, here's where this blogger is likely to be over the next few weeks, dearest fiends. If you want him, you'll have to shout loudly over the noise of all the spaceship. 

Meanwhile, on a somewhat-related theme, on Saturday of this week it was exactly sixty one years ago that very evening that the greatest TV format in the history of the medium (bar none) began. But, enough about The Chars starring Elsie and Doris Waters, much has already been said and written. There was also some right old toot about a madman in a box which started that night, apparently. Wonder whatever happened to that.

According to this website, a man in Mobile, Alabama, was attacked by owls twice in less-than-a-week. Maybe it was something he said? Well, they're vicious funkers, them owls. Just ask some voles. They're also not what they seem, apparently.