The third episode of the final series of From The North favourite Peaky Fookin' Blinders was the best of the year so far. Some bloke in the Gruniad Morning Star says so, dear blog reader, so it must be true. He's not wrong though (remember, even a broken clock is right twice a day) and - not entirely unrelated to that fact - it was the first Ada-centric episode in nearly whole two series of the BBC's popular period gangster drama. With Tommy off in the mountains with the gypsies in an - ultimately fruitless - search for a magical cure for Ruby's consumption and Arthur facing down a terrifyingly calm Stephen Graham in a Liverpool warehouse (in one of the great scenes in the drama's history) it was left to Sophie Rundle to demonstrate, as she's been denied the opportunity to for much too long, what a stunning actress she is. And, what a great character Ada has always been. Whether it was taking charge - at Tommy's request - of Shelby Co Ltd, having an intense, sexually-charged scene with Isaac Jesus or, in the episode's finest few moments, holding her own in Diana Mitford and Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley's drawing room, Ada was utterly brilliant in everything she did and said and touched and, specific to the Isaac sequence, sprayed. As yer Middle Class hippy Communist chap at the Gruniad noted in relation to Ada and Ms Mitford: 'Barely masking their mutual antipathy beneath a veneer of politeness, the two women swapped delicious barbs about the causes of poverty, Egyptian antiquities and fascist Mitford's repulsive plans for "the great cleansing." She clearly loved to shock, boasting about being a pornography-using, amphetamine-pepped bisexual. Ada was pleasingly unbothered.'
The cast and crew of From The North favourite Vera are back in the region and filming has started on series twelve of the popular crime drama in Tyneside and Northumberland. While fans of the ITV show are still waiting - somewhat impatiently - to find out when they can watch the last two episodes of series eleven, after the new run was paused after the first two episodes had been broadcast to make way for Good Karma Hospital and Trigger Point, Brenda Blethyn did recently announce that she and her Vera co-stars would be back in the region soon to shoot new episodes. And, on Monday, the author responsible for giving the world Vera Stanhope, Ann Cleeves, announced on Twitter that production was beginning on series twelve.
Wor Geet Canny Robson Green has warned fans to expect an 'incredibly dark' series of Grantchester, when the drama returns this week. Grantchester has been pulling in millions of viewers on ITV for eight years, having made its debut in 2014. Wor Get Canny Robson stars as Geordie Keating, with Tom Brittney as his sleuthing partner in crime-solving, Reverend William Davenport. On Instagram on Thursday, Wor Geet Robson informed fans that 'things get incredibly dark' in the new episodes. Next to a photo of him and his co-star, he wrote: 'The Unholy Pleasures of Grantchester are back! Tune in tomorrow 9pm ITV. Likeable, charming and incredibly dark at times, this drama is one of those rare hybrids where levity and humour come from the most challenging situations.'
The Doctor Who Appreciation Society has announced The Terrance Dicks Award For Writers. The award is, of course, in memory of the much-loved and highly-influential scriptwriter, editor and author who died in 2019. Terrance captured the imagination of a generation of children and young adults - very much including this blogger - many of whom are now at the forefront of modern television and publishing. As Mark Gatiss said when Terrance's death was announced: '[It is] very hard to express what Terrance Dicks meant to a whole generation. A brilliant TV professional, a funny and generous soul. Most of all, though, an inspirational writer who took so many of us on unforgettable journeys into space and time.' The award will recognise those whose writing across screen, audio, books and magazines have 'contributed to and enhanced' the worlds of Doctor Who. The inaugural award, which is in the bequest of the Society Executive, will be presented by Elsa Dicks, Terrance's widow, at the sold out Capitol convention being staged at the Crowne Plaza, London-Gatwick across the weekend of 2-3 April. Tony Jordan, the organiser of the event - and Facebook fiend of this blogger - said: 'Terrance was adored by fans across the world as well as being a great friend of the Society. In 2010 he received the Society's Outstanding Contribution to Doctor Who Award and it's lovely to now have an Award in his venerable name. Never was anyone more deserving.'
There has been but one question on Unforgotten fans' minds since From The North favourite Nicola Walker's Cassie Stuart unexpectedly died at the end of series - who would be the new Detective Chief Inspector? Now we know, as ITV has announced that Sinéad Keenan will be joining the cast of the popular crime drama as the new partner of Sunny Khan (From The North favourite Sanjeev Bhaskar). Keenan will play Jessica James with series five of Unforgotten starting with 'an unforeseen and devastating introduction' to Jessica's family life before her first day in her new job.
The first trailer for The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE)'s forthcoming adaptation of The Time Traveller's Wife have been released by HBO and can be viewed here. The series - starring Theo James and Rose Leslie - will premiere 'in the Spring of 2022.'
From The North favourite Star Trek: Discovery ended its fourth series this week with another fine episode, Coming Home. If you wish to be extremely spoilerised, dear blog reader, there's a rather good review of the episode here. For what it's worth, this blogger thought it was great.
On Tuesday, this blogger received an unexpected download of the debut CD by his good fiend Jefferson Hart's band, Secret Monkey Weekend, All The Time In The World. A real family affair, SMW features Jeff - formerly of The Hanks, Jeff Hart & The Ruins, Brown Mountain Lights et cetera - and his adoptive daughters, Ella Brown Hart and Lila Brown Hart. 'Jeff's guitar and songwriting skill made starting a group with his adopted daughters ... a natural - he's been a driving force in Americana music in North Carolina since the 1980s. When he married Laura in 2015, he also began giving her two young daughters instrument lessons, giving rise to a brand-new rock band. Lila follows in her late father Matt Brown's path on drums and vocals and Ella holds down the electric bass as her rhythm section partner,' according Peter Holsapple's charmingly friendly sleevenotes. Guests like Holsapple himself, Jeffrey Dean Foster (guitar), Paul Messinger (harmonica) and Tim Smith (keyboards) join in the fun. R.E.M/The Smitihereens main-man Don Dixon produced the CD and, Jeff tells this blogger, 'we recorded it at Let's Active's Mitch Easter's studio. I co-wrote two songs with The dB's drummer Will Rigby. Ella and Lila wrote 'Fascist Blood Baby' about The Master from season one of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I co-wrote two with our youngest daughter and we both sing lead.' One of the songs, 'Half Moons' actually featured on Jeff debut CD, Jeff Hart: The Singles 1961 - 1990. 'I wrote it thirteen years before Ella was even born - she's nineteen now,' says Jeff. 'They had done it so well live for a number of years that we recorded it as a bonus. The girls were so efficient in the studio on day one, cutting nine of the eleven songs, that we were able to get that down and spend the last two days doing harmonies and my extra guitar and guest keyboards.' Back to Peter Holsapple: 'Secret Monkey Weekend songs are smart, simple and summery, with great grooves like 'Honey Num' that feel cozy and familiar, or maybe a tune like 'Maybelle' that moves your feet before you know it.' This blogger's own favourites from a first playing are the Bo Diddley-groove of 'Candy Station', the twangy surf-guitar dance tune 'Do The Secret Monkey' and the CD's closer 'Laura Jo' a gorgeous Byrds/Beatleseque jangly-guitar love song for Jeff's missus. The CD features all of the standard Jeff Hart trademarks with country, rock and pop influences (all three in the case of the excellent 'Greater Mind To Walk Away'). And the performances of the girls, especially given their studio inexperience and age (Lila is just fourteen but plays like someone who has absorbed her stepfather's love of Ringo, Keith Moon and Clem Burke to the full) is astonishing. 'Live, they cut a confident profile, locked together musically like a jigsaw puzzle. They've played every gig they can, from school carnivals in North Carolina to pubs in England. Along the way, they've written some very cool tunes,' notes Peter Holsapple and, as he's the man who wrote 'New Gun In Town', 'Living A Lie and 'Never Before & Never Again', let's face it, he should know. There's a really good article about Secret Monkey Weekend by David Menconi which can be found at the Walter Magazine website whilst the band's own website - which includes several live You Tube clips to give you a flavour of their oeuvre - is here. Tell 'em this blogger sent you!
Jeff has been a dear fiend of this blogger for nearly twenty years, of course and let's be brutally honest about it, this blogger is always an easy touch when he gets a freebie. But All The Time In The World is a record that Keith Telly Topping is delighted to recommend to anyone with a love of jangle-pop and a hint of garageband punk. Also, of course, acquiring this record keeps up this blogger's record as a Jeff Hart completest - we're a small, but select, group of people with glorious taste. Just, sayin'.
Meanwhile, dear blog reader, here is today's Thought For The Day. And, it's a good one.
A new Channel Four documentary set out to expose the horrific, sick culture of the former ITV series, The Jeremy Kyle Show, cancelled and shovelled, swiftly, into the gutter along with all the other turds in shame and ignominy after one of its participants tragically committed suicide. In an article in the Gruniad Morning Star, the documentary's executive producer revealed Kyle's show's 'awful mistreatment of guests and staff alike' describing it as 'a catalogue of exploitation.' Another Gruniad article by Dorothy Byrne, the former head of news and current events at Channel Four, was entitled The Channel Four Exposé Of The Jeremy Kyle Show Made Me Ashamed Of The TV Profession and claimed that 'inexperienced young production staff seem to have been under such pressure that they lost their moral compass.' Of course, one tends to expect this sort of hand-wringing, 'won't somebody think of the children' over-the-top Middle Class hippy Communist bollocks from the Gruniad. But, it is interesting that much of the rest of the UK press have followed suit, including several organs of the media which never seemed to have a particular problem with The Odious Kyle and his Odious Show when it was on-air. Take, for example, the Daily Scum Mail's somewhat atypical 'ban this sick filth'-style piece Viewers Demand Jeremy Kyle Is SACKED From TalkRadio Job As He Is Seen Near His Three Million Pound Windsor Home For The First Time Since Channel Four Documentary Aired Harrowing Accounts Of Guests Who Claim He 'Lied' To Them. One, genuinely, has to stand up and salute the genius way in which the Scum Mail manage to shoehorn the cost of someone's home into every single story they print. Similarly, the Daily Mirra's Where Jeremy Kyle Is Now? New Job, 'Abandoned' By Famous Pals & 'Scapegoat' Claim article is scarcely the sort of thing one would expect from a newspaper which once seemed to find both Kyle's scum bullying antics and the pitiful dregs of underclass society that the show managed to attract, quite amusing. Most shocking - and, indeed, stunning - of all, is the Sun, a ... well, one hesitates to describe the odious Murdoch rag as 'a newspaper' but, whatever, a media thing which, in the days immediately after Steve Dymond's untimely death was, seemingly, happy to produce a series of horrifying articles all of which appeared designed to smear his name and criticise ITV's decision to cancel The Jeremy Kyle Show. Like this one, for example. And this one. And this one. None of which, obviously, had anything whatsoever to do with the fact that Sun Bingo was the sponsor of The Jeremy Kyle Show. Their recent article Harsh Reality: Jeremy Kyle Show Counsellor Graham Stanier Breaks His Silence To Defend The Show After Channel Four Doc should, probably, win some sort of award for the most wicked example of 'who guv? Us, guv? No, guv, we never approved of any of that' horseshit imaginable. But then, this is the Sun we're talking about, dear blog reader, nothing should really surprise us.
The owner of Facebook - which, of course, this blogger has only recently rejoined after an, enforced, sabbatical period - and Instagram (that's another Interweb type thing, apparently) will reportedly allow users in some countries to call for violence against the man with the short straw, Vladimir Putin and also Russian soldiers. So, it is now entirely legal for someone to, for example, say 'I think that Vladimir Putin - who has got a really small penis - is a stinking rotter and could do with having a right good, hard, eye-watering kick in the knackers. Till he bubbles and squeals and blares and begs - begs - for mercy. Anyone fancy doing it?' Totally legal, apparently. Meta - the company which owns Facebook - says that it has 'temporarily made allowances' for some violent speech, like 'death to the Russian invaders,' which would, under normal - non-genocide-type - circumstances, break its rules on hate-speech. A bit like, if you will, that period during the Second World War when 'Hitler Has Only Got One Ball (Göring Has Two, But Very Small)' achieved widespread popularity in Great Britain and even got played on the BBC once or twice. Göring, of course, in addition to being a genocidal Nazi slimebag and a junkie was also a big, fat worthless fucker. As many important historians have said. Probably. And, Himmler had something similar. It isa alleged. However, Meta has been at pains to stress it won't permit calls for violence against Russian civilians. In response, Russia immediately called on the US to stop the social media giant's 'extremist activities.' Seemingly, the Russians were unaware that democratic governments have no right to 'stop' media companies (social or otherwise) from doing and saying pretty much whatever they wish. Even if they'd like to. The announcement came after Reuters news agency said that it had 'seen internal e-mails' outlining the policy shift. 'In light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we made a temporary exception for those affected by the war, to express violent sentiments toward invading armed forces,' a Meta spokesperson told the BBC. They then added, 'by the way, did you know that Putin's stick of Blackpool Rock is only a half-incher.' Probably. Under the amended policy, users in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland will also be able to call for the deaths of Putin and Belarusian President Lukashenko. The girth of Mister Lukashenko's whanger is not, at this time, known. But, it's not unreasonable to make an informed guess about that. Russia announced last week that it was blocking Facebook, citing twenty six cases of 'discrimination' against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020. And one case of a dictator with a really titchy prick getting all shirty about criticism. Whilst access to the site had already been restricted in Russia, it was not completely unavailable. Unlike this blogger, who couldn't get into the bugger for eight sodding months due to hackerisation. It was Goddamn annoying, dear blog reader. But, it's all right now.
A woman holding an anti-war sign ran on to the set of a Russian evening news programme on the state-controlled Channel 1 on Monday evening in a - now infamous - moment of broadcasting disobedience. It was quite a sight. Good for her. SAnyway, the sign, clearly visible behind the - really sour-faced and strict-looking presenter, read: 'No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.' No shit? The woman, Marina Ovsyannikova, was an editor at the channel. Russian TV news is tightly controlled by The Kremlin and - usually - reflects only the Russian version of events in Ukraine (and, in Russia for that matter). Ovsyannikova was immediately taken into police custody and, one imagined, her future would involve a lengthy spell in some salt mine in Siberia. Tough break, kid, particular as you were simply telling the truth. Mind you, if you'd had an extra line on your sign referring to the miniscule length and breadth of Mister Putin's dong, it could've been a lot worse. Her voice could be heard during the broadcast saying, 'No to war! Stop the war!' before the programme director cut to a recorded report. One imagines he's probably in deep shit, too, for letting her get that far. The Kremlin denounced her act of protest as 'hooliganism.' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ovsyannikova, appealing to everyone working for what he calls 'Russia's propaganda system' to resign - and, you can just imagine Zelensky doing all that in his Paddington voice (complete with jolly hard stare). Any journalist working in what he calls 'the fourth branch of power' risks sanctions and an international tribunal for 'justifying war crimes,' once the war is over, he warned. Some of Putin's biggest cheerleaders on state-run TV have already faced international sanctions, including Vladimir Solovyov who presents a talk show on Russia's biggest channel Rossiya-1 and Margarita Simonyan who has accused anyone who claims they are 'ashamed' of being Russian as 'not really being Russian.' Before the protest, which happened live on the nightly news programme, Ovsyannikova had recorded an online video in which she called events in Ukraine 'a crime' and said that she was 'ashamed' to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda. 'I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,' she explained. She called on the Russian people to protest against the war, saying that only they could 'stop the madness.' From the moment Ovsyannikova's identity became known, she received dozens of comments on her Facebook page in Ukrainian, Russian and English, thanking her for her actions. In the end, to the surprise of pretty much everyone - including, one suspects, Vladimir Putin and his undersized member - Marina got off with a relatively small fine after several hours of interrogated by the FSB. Presumably, she will also be receiving a painful session getting her bare ass twanked over the knee of that sour-faced and strict-looking presenter she interrupted. That's the way they do thing in Russia, dear blog reader. Tough on hooliganism, tough on the causes of hooliganism. And big on Presidents with a weeny todger. It is alleged.
The BBC's widely-respected World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, believes Putin will search for a way to save face. But, that's going to be somewhat difficult given how diminutive his shaft of delight actually is. It's little wonder, dear blog reader, that Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya could stand his lack-of-length any longer and filed for divorce in 2014, presumably seeking someone with a bit more spunk to them.
Okay, dear blog reader, so whom amongst us is going to be brave enough to inform The Butcher Of Grozny that, not only does he bear an uncanny resemblance to Toby Jones's House Elf in the Harry Potter movies but, also, news of the fact that you need a telescope powerful enough to observe Uranus to catch the tiniest glimpse of his slimline porker has leaked out to the wider world? This blogger will do it but, you know, only from the safe distance of three thousand miles and via an Interweb page which is, probably, banned in Ze Dictatorship. This blogger is brave man in some small ways, dear blog reader, but he has no wish to find a couple of FSB thugs turning up on the doorstep of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House armed with the sort of smiles that sharks give just before they bite you in two. And some novichok. Probably.
'Oh yes, there is is. God, it really is a titchy tiddler, isn't it? It's no wonder, with a dong that small, he wants to compensate by, you know, blowing up Mariupol and murdering children and pregnant women. What a sod.'
Russia Faces Brain Drain As Thousands Flee Abroad according to a piece on the BBC News website. At least those within the Russian Intelligencia who have fled Ze Motherland will be able to read about their new refugee status once they get beyond the borders since, in Russia itself, the Beeb is extremely banned. Probably, because they were among the first to broadcast the shocking - and stunning - news that Vladimir Putin's plonker is on the less-than-large side.
A GB News host has claimed that it's hard to know 'who the good guys are' when it comes to the Russian/Ukraine war and biohazards. In a long and rambling speech broadcast on the shitscum right-wing news channel (and, watched by about four people), host Mark Steyn (no, me neither) claimed - with no supporting evidence other than the accusations of a bloke with half-inch knob - that there are US biolabs in Ukraine which are 'insecure' as Russia invades. Steyn also claimed that Americans 'fund Ukrainian biolabs' in the country where biowarfare agents are researched and called Ukraine the 'most corrupt country in Europe.'
Joe Biden has denounced Small-Penis'd Dictator and Psychotic Lunatic Vladimir Putin as 'a war criminal,' delivering his sharpest rebuke yet of the Russian leader just hours after the Ukrainian president pleaded with Congress to provide more aid to his country. 'I think he is a war criminal,' Biden said of Putin on Wednesday. The president's comment marked a distinct rhetorical shift for The White House, which had deflected previous questions about whether Putin should be considered a war criminal for the Russian military's attacks on Ukrainian civilians. 'There is a process and we have stood up a process internally - an internal team - to assess and look at and evaluate evidence of what we’re seeing happen on the ground,' The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said earlier this month. Of course, the chances of The Butcher Of Grozny being captured and dragged, in handcuffs, to The Hague, to actually answer for his - alleged - war crimes is virtually nil. So, in reality, all of this is empty gesture posturing. Doesn't mean it isn't valid and shouldn't be said, of course, but don't expect to see Putin - and his small willy - standing in a dock saying 'nyet' to the charges any time soon.
The conflict in Ukraine is - geographically - a long way from the UK but it has meant that prices for the ingredients of one of the nation's favourite dishes are, reportedly, soaring. The costs of white fish, potatoes, peas and the energy to cook them with have all sky-rocketed in recent weeks. One chip shop claims they've seen 'hundreds' of shops which haven't been able to cope with price increases. If something isn't done to help 'we're going to see a lot of your local fish and chips shops gone,' Richard Ord of Colmans Fish and Chips added in an interview with the BBC. Horrorshow. Just one more thing, then, to add to the list of sick war crimes committed by Putin (and his teeny Mister Floppy).
A rabbi who helped disgraced Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich obtain his Portuguese citizenship has been told he cannot leave Portugal and must 'present himself to authorities' when required. Daniel Litvak was detained on Thursday as part of an investigation into how Abramovich's citizenship was granted. The naturalisation process of several Jewish people is being extremely investigated. On Friday, Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and had his assets very frozen. Painful at the best of times but, particularly, when you're in the processes of desperately trying to offload a football club into which you've poured billions over the last two decades. Abramovich, is one of seven oligarchs to be hit with fresh sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans. The Premier League has also disqualified him as a director of Moscow Chelski Frozen Assets. Abramovich was granted Portuguese citizenship in April 2021 under a law which offered naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews, who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula more than four hundred years ago during The Spanish Inquisition (which, of course, was unexpected). Applicants for Portuguese citizenship via this route are assessed by 'experts' at one of Portugal's Jewish communities in either Lisbon or Porto. Litvak is the rabbi for Porto (in Northern Portugal) and was responsible for assessing Abramovich's application and approving it. Litvak was detained by authorities as he was preparing to travel to Israel. He was asked to hand over his passport and will have to periodically present himself to authorities. Portugal's Judicial Police and public prosecutor said on Friday that there were 'suspicions' of money laundering, corruption, fraud and falsification of documents in the process of granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews and that the investigation was not, solely, in relation to Abramovich's application.
Meanwhile, in the day immediately after a BBC Panorama investigation allegedly uncovered 'new evidence' about the - allegedly - corrupt deals which made Roman Abramovich's (extremely none-alleged) fortune, Abramovich was spotted at a VIP lounge at an airport in Israel, seemingly about to flee the gaff in his private jet. A photograph obtained by Reuters showed the oligarch with the frozen assets sitting, looking rather disconsolate amd sorry for himself, in the airport's VIP lounge with a face mask pulled down over his chin. The news agency said that it could not independently verify if he boarded the flight to Turkey. One alleged 'source' allegedly told Reuters that the plane used by Abramovich flew into Ben Gurion late on Sunday from Moscow. The flight-tracking website Radarbox said the aircraft, which has the tail number LX-RAY, took off on Monday for Istanbul. Israeli restrictions imposed on private jets since the invasion of Ukraine meant it could not remain on the ground for more than twenty four hours. An - alleged - British transport ministry 'source' told Reuters on Friday that the UK was 'searching for helicopters and jets' belonging to the oligarchs named in last week's sanctions since, unlike several European countries, they haven't be able to find any yachts. It was later reported - by Sky News if not anyone more reliable - that Abramovich was 'thought to have landed in Moscow.' Having, seemingly, pissed off back to the only place on the planet where what money he has left which hasn't been frozen can, actually, buy him anything.
This blogger can't be certain of the exact date, dear blog reader - it was twenty five years ago, after all - but it would have been either 14, 15 or 16 March 1997 that a videotape (if you're under thirty, look it up on Google) rocked up at Stately Telly Topping Manor (it wasn't a Plague House in those happy, far-off days); it had been sent by the marvellously wonderful and lovely Professor Kathryn Sullivan and contained the most recent episode of The X-Files to be broadcast in the US (which would've been, checking on Wikipedia, Momento Mori - definitely not one of the better ones, admittedly). This was because Paul Cornell, Martin Day and this blogger were busy at the time writing the second edition of X-Treme Possibilities for Virgin Publishing. Kathy had nobly volunteered to supply fresh episodes for us which wouldn't be shown in the UK for several weeks, if not months (she didn't know what she was letting herself in for over the next decade!) She often used to fill up the tapes with some other US TV shows which had recently been broadcast, so there might be an episode of The Simpsons or Deep Space Nine, for example. On this particular tape was something called Welcome To The Hellmouth. That tape, needless to say, changed this blogger's life - not only did he subsequently get an entire career out of writing pretty much the same book - Slayer - over and over and over again(!) but also, for years afterwards this blogger dined out at conventions and in interviews and articles on the story that he was, if not actually the first then, certainly, one of the first people in the UK to be exposed to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, this being a mere five or six days after its US debut. Given the plethora of Buffy At Twenty Five retrospectives which have been appearing in both the genre media and newspapers over the last week, Keith Telly Topping could, at this point, ask 'where have the last twenty five years gone?' dear blog reader. But, actually, truth be told, he knows exactly where they've gone and barely a day goes by where he don't think 'has it only been twenty five years? It seems so much longer.' Anyway, as someone far wiser than this blogger once said, 'You're like a textbook with arms. I know this.'
And, speaking of long-term From The North favourites, Our Fiends In The North is - rightly - regarded as one of the greatest British TV dramas ever made and launched the careers of its main cast including Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig and Mark Strong. Although, it should be remembered that some Middle Class hippy Communists of no importance at the Gruniad Morning Star were openly sneering about the first couple of episodes until they realised that everyone else thought it was great and rapidly fell into line. It has now been adapted for the radio and brought up to date with a new episode set in 2020. The original series was a landmark of British television, weaving together the fortunes of four friends from Newcastle over nine episodes, each set in a different year between 1964 and 1995. You knew that, right? When the show was broadcast in 1996, it made stars of Eccleston as the idealistic, defiantly Socialist Nicky, Gina McKee as the pragmatic, strong-willed Mary, Strong as the upwardly mobile Tosker and Daniel Craig as the downtrodden Geordie. 'I hadn't looked at it for years and years,' says its writer, the playwright Peter Flannery, who has now revisited it to adapt it for Radio 4. 'I thought it stood up pretty well. The writing was good, the production was exceptionally good and the strength of the acting has kept it young.' The show's characters were buffeted by state-of-the-nation storylines which painted a bleak picture of a country with rotten political and policing machines. Much was inspired by real-life events, such as the infamous 1970s bribery scandal involving local politicians in the North-East, a housing developer and the Home Secretary and the 1990s Westminster cash-for-questions affair. Not much has changed, Flannery believes. 'The major themes of sleaze and corruption in local and national government have never gone away,' he suggests. 'I think the spread of pornography and violence towards women have got worse. And the thing I still find the most worrying and I did at the time, is the awful state that the Metropolitan Police is in.' Flannery often described Our Fiends In The North as 'a posh soap opera with something to say.' A decent description, actually - although the soundtrack was infinitely better than the average episode of Corrie or Emmerdale. But, he has not written the new episode himself. 'I'd finished what I had to say.' Instead, the tenth and final; episode, which takes the story to 2020, has been written by Manchester-born author Adam Usden. At thirty three, Usden was too young to appreciate the series when it first went out, but now recognises it as 'a stone-cold masterpiece.' Also a decent description. He says: 'The scope and the scale of it is stunning. Not just the timeframe, but that the breadth of the issues that [Flannery] deals with. At the same time, it is incredibly intimate. Its heart is the focus on these hugely compelling, hugely personal stories. It's like a photograph - you've somehow got the background and the foreground in focus at the same time.' Writing in the Gruniad Morning Star - which, remember, was not-so-positive about the drama on initial broadcast but now, of course, loves it is mostest, baby - when the show turned twenty five last year, Stuart Heritage agreed it had stood the test of time. 'Boy, does it hold up: as drama, as a piece of commentary, as a time capsule, as a showcase for young talent.' He added: 'At times, watching a show about how bad things were in the last third of the Twentieth-Century from the perspective of 2021 make you want to shout at the characters about how good they have it.' The original episodes took place against the backdrop of a different social or political event, like general erections and the 1984 miners' strike. In his 2020 book The Age Of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain, Phil Harrison wrote that 'the quartet felt like living, breathing representatives of us, as we grappled with the dilemmas of the era.' The show 'remains a resonant work to this day,' he added, 'partly because as it concluded the sense lingered that the generation of baby-boomers at its heart hadn't quite finished their upheavals. Two decades later - at the EU referendum in June 2016, to be precise - this suspicion would prove to be well-founded. The referendum would probably have split the four friends down the middle.' It would, indeed, not be much of a stretch to imagine Nicky and Mary arguing with Tosker over Brexit in the 2020 episode, with Geordie oblivious that there had even been a referendum in the first place, but probably feeling the effects more than the other three put together. 'Those debates certainly do creep into it,' Usden says. 'One of the main story threads of this episode follows Tosker's grandson, who was in the last scene of the of the TV series [as a child]. He has a factory that does shipping parts and has very much been affected by the red tape is coming in.' Like Flannery, Usden has tried to balance the personal and the political. One of the other big themes of the original was about how parents affect - in other words, as Philip Larkin noted, fuck up - their kids lives. 'I wanted to build on this sense of how the previous generation had shaped and impacted the people who had come after them in ways that neither generation always fully understood,' Usden says. 'It was almost the perfect story to be able to pick up twenty five years later and to be able to take those core characters of Tosker, Mary, Nicky and Geordie and show how they had shaped the next generation, sometimes intentionally and lots of times in ways that perhaps they didn't intend.' Flannery says he 'never really thought about' what might have happened to his four fiends after the series ended. 'When I was asked at the time what happened to Geordie, I think my stock reply was, "He'll probably be dead in a doorway within a couple of months." He was a busted flush. He's got nothing to sustain him. He's lost all his friends again. But I hadn't really thought that through.' If they are still alive, the foursome would be in their seventies by 2020. But Usden is reluctant to reveal what has become of them in his new episode. 'All of them at the very least are referenced in some way, and throughout, because it's about their influence and their impact on those that have come after them,' he says. 'I do absolutely pick up on characters and story threads from the original series, but hopefully in some surprising ways and perhaps not always the characters or the stories you might expect.' The first episode of the radio series - set in 1964 with all of the wonderful optimism of the era's youth - can be heard of BBC iPlayer here with further episodes going out each Thursday. You really owe it to yourselves, dear blog reader, to, if you will, get with the programme. Fiends are for life not just for nine weeks in 1996 ending with 'Don't Look Back In Anger'.
'What would your occupation be if you had followed your childhood dreams?' asked one of this blogger's Facebook fiends idly and was probably not expecting the answer which they got from this blogger: 'The Lunar Module Commander of Apollo 32, or the tambourine player in Slade. Whilst, simultaneously, spending Saturday afternoon's playing on the left-wing for Newcastle United and Saturday evening's starring as The Doctor.' Interesting career choices for someone that ended up in the Civil Service, you might say. It would've been a tightly-packed schedule, admittedly, dear blog reader. But, the pay would've probably been quite good ...
Another very odd question which cropped up on this blogger's Facebook timeline - for obscure reasons which totally baffles this blogger - was 'what scares you most when you're on the golf course?' To which, of course, this blogger replied: 'The inherently ludicrous nature of existence.'
Keith Telly Topping must admit, he'd quite forgotten how much he missed certain aspects of Facebook until he got back on it; profundity and sheer daftness mixing equally, being one of the best aspects of the platform. For example, earlier this week, this blogger engaged in a - to be honest, completely pointless but also fascinating and impeccably polite - discussion with his excellent fiend Christian Wheeldon about what the best of the first three Tears For Fears LPs was (it's Songs From The Big Chair if anyone's wondering - and, that's definitive). You don't get that via e-mail.
The Hurting is, of course, The Fearies' 'The Pink Floyd in 1967 if they'd been a synthpop band' record. Musically, it's Kraftwerk/OMD but, lyrically and conceptually, half the songs are about childhood trauma ('Suffer The Children', 'Memories Fade', 'Pale Shelter', 'The Hurting') and the other half are about depression in all its forms ('Start Of The Breakdown', 'Mad World', 'The Prisoner', 'Watch Me Bleed'). So one half is pure Syd Barrett and the other half is pure Roger Waters. Throw in a bit of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and you have a recipe for a nice, depressing, evening in with a bottle of wine and a curry. This blogger thinks it's great. With Songs, it's odd, but it's an LP which has sort of been a bit forgotten, despite it being one of the biggest selling records of the 1980s (particularly in America where it really seemed to find a niche). It's detractors claim that it's merely 'a big fuck-off Stadium Pop LP', which, to be fair, it is. It's also, probably, the best example of 'a big fuck-off Stadium Pop LP' ever made. By anyone. This blogger also likes the third one with all of its Beatles references; Roland 'getting in touch with his inner-Gandalf' as this blogger's fiend Danny Blythe noted. There was a man who'd overdosed on Magical Mystery Tour in the six months leading up to that record and thought 'yeah, we could do that.' A very under-rated band, The Fearies. Plus, there's that great story about Roland and his wife going out for a meal one night in London and getting seated right next to Joe Strummer and his wife; after a few minutes Joe leans over and says 'oi, Tears For Fears, you owe me a fiver!' 'How so?' asks Roland to which Joe replies: 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World', 'Charlie Don't Surf', second verse, first line!' 'Oh yeah' says Roland, gets his wallet out and hands over a fiver. After that, apparently, they got on like a house on fire.
Yer actual Sir Rockin' Rod The Mod Stewart has filmed himself fixing potholes on a road near his home and complaining about the state of it. Videos on the singer's Instagram account showed him shovelling gravel in Harlow, claiming 'no-one can be bothered to do it.' In one, he said: 'People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all.' Oh, the inherent tragedy of it all. An Essex County Council cabinet member promised to 'investigate the situation' though the council later issued a warning to others not to follow Sir Rockin' Rod The Mod's example because, if you will, they don't want anyone to change a thing. In the post, Sir Rockin' Rod The Mod is seen dressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest - and, he wore it well, let it be noted - while singing and shovelling. 'The First Hole Is The Deepest', presumably. He said: 'This is the state of the road near where I live in Harlow and it's been like this for ages. So me and the boys thought we would come and do it ourselves.' They boys were unavailable for comment since Sir Rockin' Rod The Mod was somewhat hogging the camera, just like used to when he was in The Faces.
Now, dear blog reader, here is a picture of a fourteen year old Sigourney Weaver at The Hollywood Bowl concert of The Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them) in 1965. And, seemingly, diggin' it the mostest, baby.
Well, dear blog reader, at least this one appears to be factually accurate if nothing else.
Decades before Peter Jackson directed his movie adaptations of The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien was involved with the first ever dramatisation of his trilogy, but its significance was not realised in the 1950s and the BBC's audio recordings are believed to have been destroyed. Now an Oxford academic has delved into the BBC archives and discovered the original scripts for the two series of twelve radio episodes broadcast on The Third Programme in 1955 and 1956, to the excitement of fellow scholars. Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece was dramatised by producer Terence Tiller, whose scribbled markings on the manuscript no doubt reflect his detailed discussions with the author in correspondence and meetings. Among the typed pages is a sheet in Tolkien's hand, with red crossings-out, showing his own reworking of a scene. Stuart Lee, a reader in the English faculty at Oxford University, said: 'They said the scripts had been lost, but they have survived - the only professional dramatisation of The Lord Of The Rings made during [Tolkien's] lifetime. It was not seen as important by the BBC then. It shows how reception of the book has changed - minor interest in 1955-56, now a global phenomenon, with Amazon reportedly investing more than one billion dollars in the latest series.' Lee's discovery will feature in a forthcoming book, The Great Tales Never End: Essays In Memory Of Christopher Tolkien, in which academics pay tribute to the scholarship of Tolkien's devoted son and literary executor, who died in 2020.
Shortly after the last From The North bloggerisationism update early on Saturday, this blogger went all domestic in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House kitchen. For a kick-off, the fortnightly washing of yer actual Keith Telly Topping's smalls was totally sorted.
Then, it was an omelette, bacon and toast (not in-shot) for us brecky at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Who really deserved that, dear blog readers? Why, yer actual Keith Telly Topping - who, remember, remains 'not very well' at the moment - really deserved that. No question.
Then, there was Sunday's battered King Prawn with chips for us dinner at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. This blogger really deserved that as well. And you should know, dear blog reader, that one was particularly geet lush.
And, on Tuesday, it was an old standard, Curry King Prawn with Boiled Rice. Needless to say, you can bet your bottom that this blogger really deserved that. Just for a change, instead of ordering his Chinese food from Tam's (which was closed that night, anyway) or The Royal Sky (which wasn't), this blogger went for something from The Happy Chef in Waalsend. Which, of course, as many may know is the takeaway directly below the flat in which The Odious Sting was born (it's next to Waalsend Metro Station if you're ever in the area, have a low tolerance threshold for lute-stylings and want to take it out on a building).
So, if this blogger happens to die as a result of eating this, dear blog reader, you all know whom to blame and where he can be found (either in New York or his four hundred acre estate in Tuscany. But, never Waalsend, obviously. That would be ridiculous).
'So, I said, "What about Breakfast At Morrisons?" And, she said, "I don't I remember that film!"' Or something like that, anyway. This blogger didn't bother with any egg this time around but the sausages were great. As, indeed, was the tea. The mushroom? Meh. Keith Telly Topping was doing the Metro crossword whilst having his brecky at Morrisons. Usually it's no problem - this blogger has, after all, famously got a brain the size of an Adidas Telstar®™ - as indeed, it was on that day. At least, until he got to twenty nine down, 'Tea Urn, seven letters' starting in S and ending in R. Well, of course, it's 'samovar' any fule know dat. But, could this blogger think of that word whilst in Morrisons, eating sausages? Could he ... flip. That's the first time this blogger has started a Metro crossword in months (admittedly, it's usually only about once per week on trips either to the medical centre or to do some shopping in Byker) where he hasn't finished it and, as a consequence, he was Goddamn cross. Well, they don't call it a cross word for nothing, I guess. And, according to the same newspaper's horoscope for Scorpio, 'you could have a lot of fun with those in your social circle.' Since this blogger doesn't have any real fiends, dear blog reader, you lot are - effectively - his social circle. So, the question needs to be asked, is anybody up for some 'fun'? This blogger is asking because there are some gullible suckers out there who believe in this crap!
Disney World's much-hyped Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser Hotel, which has but one hundred rooms, is 'not even close to selling out,' Disney's availability calendar suggests. The SF Gate website notes that guests who check the 'start planning your voyage' page will 'nearly have their pick of dates through the second-half of 2022.' Almost every day in August, September, October, November and December is available. There are still 'voyages' in June and July, too, including a number of weekends. The 'immersive' Star Wars 'experience' opened 1 March. For two adults, the starting price is about five thousand bucks. For three adults and one child, it's nearly six thousand. How much? Jesus, it's little wonder there are spaces available. Guests must book a minimum of a two-night stay, which includes admission to Hollywood Studios on the second day to visit the Star Wars-Land Galaxy's Edge attraction. Reviews of the hotel - if not the, staggering, prices - have generally been positive, with some caveats. Most reviewers noted that people who aren't willing to 'let go of self-consciousness' and 'engage fully in the storylines' probably won't find the experience worth the - outrageously expensive - cost. The hotel is supposed to replicate a galactic cruise liner called The Halcyon and lodgings are small and only have windows looking out onto a screen replicating outer space. To be fair, though, this blogger has stayed in many hotels over the years which've had a similar cold, bleak, desolate view from the windows. Particularly several in London. Reviewers likened rooms in the Star Wars hotel to 'a windowless bunker' and a 'suburban junior high school built in the mid-1970s.' It also lacks the amenities usually expected in hotels with this price tag, like a pool and spa.
Adult website Stripchat is, reportedly, offering a new perk to its employees, masturbation breaks during working hours, complete with custom-built 'wank pods' and VR headsets. The company is an adult website and social network and currently employs two hundred wankers, sorry, employees. The four high-tech 'wank pods' will be located at the company's Cyprus office and will be equipped with an Oculus Quest VR headset and 4K LED screen to watch X-rated films on the masturbation breaks. Of course, dear blog reader, if you're self employed or, currently, working from home you can also take advantage of a masturbation break. You don't get a wank pod, though. You just have to do it on the carpet, like everyone else.
A judge hearing a defamation lawsuit brought against FAUX News by a voting software company has said that the network's case 'may suffer' because one of its own hosts, the Odious Right-Wing Nutjob Tucker Carlson, himself dismissed claims at the centre of the case. In an opinion handed down in response to several motions to dismiss the lawsuit, New York State Supreme Court Judge David Cohen wrote that Smartmatic USA can continue pursuing its claims against the network and several of its hosts over the reporting of claims made by lawyer, conspiracy theorist and certified mental Sidney Powell about the company's systems. He also wrote that 'ironically, the statements of Tucker Carlson, perhaps the most popular FOX News host, militate most strongly in favour of a possible finding that there is a substantial basis that FOX News acted with actual malice' by repeatedly broadcasting claims that Smartmatic's software was 'compromised', allowing the erection to be 'stolen' in Joe Biden's favour. As Judge Cohen puts it, even as network hosts - including Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and others - were still claiming that the company's software 'played a role' in the - entirely fictional - 'theft' of the erection, Carlson was reporting, in writing and on-air, that 'Powell never demonstrated that a single vote was flipped' from now extremely former President Rump to President Biden. As a result, he added, 'there are sufficient allegations that FOX News knew, or should have known, that Powell's claim was false and purposefully ignored the efforts of its most prominent anchor to obtain substantiation of claims of wrongdoing' by Smartmatic. Carlson did, indeed, dismiss Powell's barmy claims on-air in a segment not long after the final 2020 erection result was announced. Following up on a madcap news conference Powell held with Rump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, Carlson specifically addressed Powell's claims about compromised software. 'We invited Sidney Powell on the show,' Carlson said in November 2020. 'But she never sent us any evidence, despite a lot of requests, polite requests - not a page. When we kept pressing, she got angry and asked us to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given them any evidence either. Nor did she provide any today at the press conference. Powell did say that electronic voting is dangerous and she's right, we're with her there. But she never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one. We're telling you this because it's true. And in the end, that's all that matters.'
The Rolling Stones have announced their first UK rock and/or roll jigs since the death of Charlie Watts last year. The band will play in Liverpool and London as part of their sixtieth anniversary tour of Europe this summer. As with their US dates last year, Watts will be replaced by Steve Jordan, a musician who has played with Keith Richards since the 1980s. Watts, who joined the band in 1963, died last August at the age of eighty. When the band returned to the stage the following month, Sir Mick The Jag dedicated the show to his old friend. 'We all miss Charlie so much. We miss him as a band, we miss him as friends - on and off the stage,' he told an audience in Massachusetts.
The RSPCA says it has started prosecution proceedings against Kurt Zouma and his brother, Yoan, for their roles in the filming of Kurt kicking a cat. Dagenham & Redbridge's Yoan, filmed Kurt kicking and slapping one of his pets. The pair seemed to find their abusive actions vastly amusing. Few others did. After the video appeared, the RSPCA removed two cats from Kurt's home and began liaising with Essex Police about the sick and sordid incident. Disgracefully, Kurt continued to play for West Hamsters United despite the controversy having been defended by his manager, the odious David Moyes, a man with his own history of threatening abusive behaviour. An RSPCA spokesperson said: 'Following a full and thorough investigation, we have started the process of bringing a prosecution against Kurt Zouma and Yoan Zouma under the Animal Welfare Act. The two cats continue to be cared for by the RSPCA. We will be in a position to release more information once a court date is confirmed.' West Hamsters United said that they were 'aware of the RSPCA statement in relation to its investigation.' The club added: 'Kurt continues to co-operate fully, supported by the club. It is our understanding that Kurt's cats have been checked by a vet, are in good health and have suffered no physical injuries. For legal reasons, neither Kurt or the club will be making any further comment at this time.' Following the incident, West Hamsters United said they had fined the elder brother 'the maximum amount possible' and the fee would be donated to animal welfare charities. However, Hamsters sponsor Experience Kissimmee said it would end its deal with the club and another sponsor, Vitality, suspended its deal. German sportswear firm Adidas also announced it had ended its deal with Kurt Zouma. National League club Dagenham & Redbridge said Yoan, who has not been picked since 29 January, would now return to their squad.
Summer might be the best time to hit the beach, but spring isn't a bad time for a trip to the coast either, at least, this is according to the Evening Crocodile. But, instead of sunbathing and ice creams, you may want to take advantage of the longer days with a bracing walk followed by some fish and chips or coffee and cake in a cosy café with a nice sea view. All of which sounds lovely to this blogger - apart, maybe, from the 'bracing walk' thing since this blogger still finds it difficult to manage more than the trip down the street from The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House to the nearest bus stop without the aid of a stick and several stops for breath en-route. For those who do like the sound of that (or, most of it), a Northumberland fishing village has been named one of the best spots to escape to this spring. Gorgeous Seahouses is the second most sought-after coastal town for a spring holiday in the UK, beaten only by Tenby in Pembrokeshire, according to searches on HolidayCottages.co.uk since the New Year. The website, which describes itself as 'a self-catering specialist,' has also launched its Great British Coast Hub, to provide information for anyone considering a holiday by the sea. And it's not just the fishing village itself that is popular, there's plenty nearby too. Bamburgh was named as one of the top ten beaches in Europe by Tripadvisor in February and Beadnell dubbed one of the top destinations both to holiday and to live in 2022. And, if you get as far as Bamburgh, your only a spit away (if the tide is out and the causeway isn't under-water) from Lindisfarne. Or, coming inland, from beautiful Alnmouth, another of this blogger's favourite places on God's good Earth. Matt Brayley, the Marketing Director at holidaycottages.co.uk, said: 'More than ever, people are feeling the draw of being by the sea and realising that you don't need to travel far to experience the benefits of a revitalising coastal break. Here in the UK, we're lucky enough to have an amazing coastline full of beautiful beaches and secluded coves, which offer something for all our guests.' Indeed. There's The Long Sands at Tynemouth, of course. And, Embleton Bay, Druridge Bay and South Blyth all of which feature on Tripadvisor's Top Ten Northumberland Beaches list. This is a staggeringly beautiful part of the world, dear blog reader. Providing the weather is decent. Which it can be. Sometimes. Although, it's always worth remembering that the gorgeous azure blue water out there off these fantastic stretches of firm sands is The North Sea and directly opposite this is Norway. So, if you're planning on taking a dip, do please be aware, it can be fekking cold in there. Frequently.
Two men have been extremely arrested on suspicion of burglary at a mansion which has featured in major films. The pair both from Leicester, were detained early on Sunday at Mentmore Towers, in Buckinghamshire. The Grade II listed building has been used for films including Batman Begins - in which it played the part of Stately Wayne Manor - and Eyes Wide Shut. Thames Valley Police said nothing of any value was taken and the men had been released on police bail and told not to be so daft in future. Mentmore Towers was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Rothschild banking family in the Nineteenth Century. It has also featured in Ali G Indahouse and Johnny English. Although, we can't really blame it for those twenty four carat disasters any more than we can blame The Happy Chef in Waalsend for its, unfortunate, connection to The Odious Sting. Sometimes, dear blog reader, guilt-by-association is just, plain wrong.
And then again, sometimes it isn't. Dominic Cummings - a really good example of that old truism 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn'd.' Only. he's male - has accused his former boss, Boris Johnson of being a naughty lying liar over claims that intelligence officers' security concerns about giving a peerage to a Russian media magnate and son of a former KGB officer were 'overridden.' The Prime Minister - and hairdo - dismissed as 'simply incorrect' reports last week that he, allegedly, 'tried to intervene' to hand Evgeny Lebedev a seat in the House of Lords and law-making powers for life against the advice of UK spy agencies. While Johnson was on a trip to the Middle East, Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister (and, a classic example if ever there was one of The Peter Principle of over-promotion), stood in at Prime Minister's Questions and dismissed as 'sheer nonsense' concerns raised over the appointment process. But, Cummings said Raab had been 'given duff lines' and that Cummings knew that the suggestion there was 'no wrongdoing' was false. 'I was in the room when the PM was told by Cabinet Office officials that the intelligence services and other parts of the deep state had, let's say, serious reservations about the PM's plan,' Cummings, the Prime Minister's former chief aide before he got the Old Tin-Tack and became extremely bitter about it, claimed in a blogpost. 'I supported these concerns and said to the PM in his study explicitly that he should not go ahead. He was very cross and as he does when cross he blustered nonsense.' Cummings said the Prime Minister 'stopped talking to him' about the issue and 'got a stooge to creep into the Cabinet Office labyrinth and cut a deal,' citing similarities with Johnson's alleged behaviour over attempts to get Tory donors to pay for his flat refurbishment. The House of Lords appointments committee, which is meant to scrutinise the nomination of new peers, was given a 'sanitised/edited/redacted' version of the security reports, Cummings claimed. 'I am confident in predicting nobody would swear under oath the PM is telling the truth - including the PM,' he added. The controversy around Lord Lebedev's appointment was reignited last week with a Sunday Times story headlined Lebedev Got Peerage After Spies Dropped Warning, which followed previous reporting in the Gruniad Morning Star and Byline Times. Lebedev insisted in the aftermath that he was not an 'agent of Russia.' One or two people even believed him.
Weeks after the 2020 US erection, at least one extremely former President Rump White House aide was named as 'secretly' producing a report which alleged extremely former President Rump lost to Joe Biden because of Dominion Voting Systems - research which formed the basis of the former President's wider efforts to overturn the results of the erection. The Gruniad Morning Star claims that the Dominion report, subtitled OVERVIEW 12/2/20 - History, Executives, Vote Manipulation Ability and Design, Foreign Ties, was initially prepared so that it 'could be sent to legislatures in states' where the Rump White House 'was trying to have Biden's win reversed.' But, top Rump officials would also use the research which stemmed from the White House aide-produced report, to weigh other options to return Rump to the presidency, including having the extremely former President sign an executive orders to 'authorise sweeping emergency powers.' 'The previously unreported involvement of the Rump White House aide in the preparation of the Dominion report raises the extraordinary situation of at least one administration official being among the original sources of Rump's efforts to overturn the 2020 erection,' the Gruniad states. The publicly available version of the Dominion report, which first surfaced in early December 2020 on the conservative outlet The Gateway Pundit, names on the cover and in metadata as its author Katherine Friess, a volunteer on the Rump post-erection legal team. But the Dominion report was, in fact, produced by the senior Rump White House policy aide Joanna Miller, according to the original version of the document reviewed by the Gruniad and an alleged - though suspiciously anonymous and, therefore, possibly fictitious - 'source' allegedly 'familiar with the matter,' who 'spoke on the condition of anonymity.' In case they got their knee-caps done, presumably. The original version of the Dominion report named Miller - who worked for the senior Rump adviser Peter Navarro - as the author on the cover page, until her name was abruptly replaced with that of Friess before the document was to be released publicly, the alleged 'source' allegedly said. The involvement of a number of other Rump White House aides who worked in Navarro's office was also scrubbed around that time, the 'source' allegedly added. Friess has told The Daily Beast that she 'had nothing to do with the report' and did not know how her name came to be on the document. It was not clear why Miller's name was removed from the report, which was sent to Rump's former attorney Certified Loon Rudy Giuliani on 29 November 2020, or why The White House aide's involvement was obfuscated in the final 2 December version. Though one can, perhaps legitimately, speculate that all manner of shenanigans and malarkey were at work in these doings.
NASA's new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision: a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies. The image, released on Wednesday from the James Webb Space telescope, was a test shot - not an official science observation - to see how its eighteen hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken one million miles away from Earth. Officials said it 'worked better than expected.' Last month, NASA looked at a much closer star with eighteen separate images from its mirror segments. Scientists said they were 'giddy' as they watched the latest test photos arrive. NASA's test image was aimed at a star one hundred times fainter than the human eye can see - two thousand light years from home.
Some really sad news, now, William Hurt, the Oscar-winning US actor whose roles ranged from acclaimed 1980s dramas to Marvel films, has died at the age of seventy one. A great favourite of all of us here at From The North, Hurt won the best actor Oscar in 1986 for playing a prisoner in a Brazilian jail in Kiss Of The Spider Woman. He was nominated twice more in the next two years, for two of this blogger's favourite movies, Children Of A Lesser God and Broadcast News. In recent years, he has been known as General Thunderbolt Ross in five Marvel blockbusters. Hollywood website Deadline quoted a statement from Hurt's son Will as saying: 'It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar winning actor, on 13 March 2022, one week before his Seventy Second birthday. He died peacefully, among family, of natural causes. The family requests privacy at this time.' Hurt began acting on stage in the 1970s before making his big-screen breakthrough as an obsessed scientist in Ken Russell's Altered States, which earned him a best newcomer nomination at the Golden Globes in 1981. That year, he also starred as a womanising lawyer in erotic thriller Body Heat, before being cast in The Big Chill and Gorky Park. Winning an Oscar for playing a gay man who shares a cell with a political prisoner in Kiss Of The Spider Woman was 'very isolating,' he later told the Los Angeles Times.' The instant they gave it to me, I thought, "God, what do I do now? How am I going to walk into a room and have any other actor trust me?"' That did not stop him getting two more consecutive nominations, though, before roles in The Accidental Tourist, Lost In Space (we should probably try to forgive him for that one), Contagion and AI. Then came a fourth Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg's A History Of Violence in 2006. He also received EMMY nominations for playing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2011's Too Big To Fail and for the legal TV drama Damages. He also received great acclaimed for his performance as the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman in the 2013 TV movie The Challenger Disaster.
One of this blogger's favourite actors, Peter Bowles, famous for starring opposite That Awful Keith Woman in the BBC comedy series To The Manor Born, has died at the age of eighty five, his agent has confirmed. He also appeared in movies such as The Bank Job, Eyewitness and The Steal as well as TV shows including The Irish RM, Magnolia Street and Only When I Laugh. The actor's agent said Bowles had 'sadly passed away from cancer. He leaves his wife of over sixty years, Sue and their three children Guy, Adam and Sasha.' The statement continued: 'Starting his career at The Old Vic Theatre in 1956, he starred in forty five theatrical productions ending at the age of eighty one in The Exorcist at The Phoenix Theatre. He worked consistently on stage and screen, becoming a household name on TV as the archetypal English gent in To The Manor Born, Only When I Laugh, The Bounder and Lytton's Diary, which he devised himself.' Devilishly handsome and with a velvety voice and wry, witty ability to deliver a pithy quip, Bowles was - sadly - best known to the wider public for his role as Richard DeVere in To The Manor Born which broadcast from 1979 to 1981, starring as the self-made businessman alongside That Awful Keith Woman, with the pair subsequently reprising their roles in a one-off - and, really not very good - 2007 special. But, his career was a long and glorious one taking in a wide range of comedy and drama. He told the Daily Scum Mail in 2018 that he became 'something of an overnight success' in his forties after starring in To The Manor Born, having not even been invited to the show's press launch. The paper said that the day after it screened he was 'tooted at in the street by fans driving past and, later, given a standing ovation when he walked on stage in The West End.' 'It did not go down well with the rest of the cast!' he added. He told the Scum Mail that he was 'trained to be a leading Shakespearean actor. The voice! The presence! The size! But I never had a lead.' In 2013 he was offered King Lear, but he explained it had come too late: 'I turned it down - I was too old!'
Born in London in 1936, Peter grew up in Nottingham and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He cut his teeth on stage with the Old Vic Company before embarking on a successful TV career as a reliable and versatile character actor. His astonishing CV included appearances in Doctor Knock, The Great War, Danger Man, Crane, No Hiding Place, The Edgar Wallace Mysteries, Six Of The Best, Out Of The Unknown, Emergency Ward Ten, Redcap, The Baron, The Saint, several Armchair Theatre's (including playing Toby Meres in A Magnum For Schneider, the pilot for Callan), Adam Adamant Lives!, The Troubleshooters, The Prisoner, Doctor Finlay's Casebook, The Avengers (four times, including two of the series best episodes, Dial A Deadly Number and Escape In Time), Champion House, Department S, Softly Softly, Take Three Girls, The Main Chance, Hadleigh, Brett, The Persuaders!, Shelley, Harriet's Back In Town, Crown Court, Napoleon & Love, Good Girl, Special Branch, Public Eye, Survivors, Space: 1999, The Crezz, I, Claudius, Rising Damp, Pennies From Heaven, Tales Of The Unexpected, Visa Versa, Executive Stress, Perfect Scoundrels, Rumpole Of The Bailey, Jericho, Poirot, Sarah Jane Interferes and The Life Of Rock With Brian Pern. And, in movies such as Three Hats For Lisa, Isadora, Blow-Up, The Charge Of The Light Brigade, The Assassination Bureau, A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg, The Legend Of Hell House, The Offence and Colour Me Kubrick ... A Tru-ish Story. That's a career. Speaking about his success in sitcoms, Peter told the PA news agency in 2010: 'If you have a great popular TV success, particularly in comedy, people don't think you can act on stage. People thought I was just a sitcom actor and the BBC told me I'd never work in drama again. I didn't realise there were two worlds. It was new to me. I found it very odd and frustrating.' During the Second World War his father had worked as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and when Bowles was six the family moved to one of the poorest working-class districts of Nottingham. Their house had an outside toilet and no bath. 'We were in a Coronation Street environment but everyone was extremely friendly and there were lots of kids. It was terrific,' he said. After appearing in amateur plays in Nottingham, when he won his RADA scholarship and lost his Northern accent. He made his screen debut in 1956 as an uncredited extra in the movie The Extra Day. His first TV appearance came two years later in an episode of The Last Chronicle Of Barset. In 2016, he starred in the BBC series Murder, which delved into the psyches of everyone involved in a murder case through testimony delivered straight to camera by each character. He recently played the role of The Duke Of Wellington alongside Jenna Coleman in the popular ITV period drama Victoria.
Lookin' Trendy, perhaps ... But, clearly, not that trendy, it would seem. Hence the closing down sale.
As noted in the last couple of From The North bloggerisationism updates, ever since this blogger was released from hospital following his recent nasty health scare, From The North has seen a significant increase in its daily traffic and page-hits. And, the past week has seen this growth trend continue. Once again, this blogger would like to thank all dear blog readers - both long-term and newly-arrived - for their continued patronage and support of From The North. A blog which, seemingly, refused to die when its time appeared to be up (or, nearly up, anyway). It's nice to know, is it not, that in a depressingly certain world, some things remain splendidly unpredictable.
And, finally, dear blog reader, From The North's Headline Of The Week award, this week, goes to the Daily Mirra for this marvellous example of quality journalism. Susan Knox, 'showbiz and TV reporter', one trusts your parents are ever so proud of your achievements and, presumably, your many awards.
That said, this piece of exceptional quality reportage does bring up a couple of important points. Firstly, this blogger himself has been guilty of spending considerable bandwidth on this blog going on about his own recent diarrhoea issues. Nevertheless, the depth on information give about Paddy's knackers being a'fire suggests that someone jolly close to the source has been snitching up this stuff to the Mirra, complete with quotes. Does anyone else detect the faint, but lingering, whiff of rank bullshit coming from this story? And, secondly; if true, what lessons can be learned from this fiasco by the ordinary man in the street? Apart from the obvious - try to avoid being an odious professional, unfunny Northern berk who sits on his own chillis. Thanks Paddy (and Susan), we'll all attempt to do that.
