A Rattling Good Experience

Another Bank Holiday! Not that it made much difference to me - right now every day feels like a Bank Holiday.  But the sun was out and, well, I wasn't much.  I was mainly recovering from the past two days of toiling in the sun in my back garden - it now looks less like a jungle and more like, maybe, an untended thicket.  But hey, it's a start.  So, I was going to do all manner of non-gardening things today but ended up spending a lot of it putting together a podcast.  It's amazing how something which runs just under thirty minutes (and had the main audio segments recorded yesterday) can take so much time to put together.  Mind you, a mildly upset stomach (possibly a result of spending too much time out in the heat over the weekend) didn't help, interrupting progress several times.  But it hasn't all been gardening and podcast editing this weekend - I also took in a goodly quota of schlock, including a minor entry in the seventies 'revenge of nature' cycle, Rattlers, Lucio Fulci's supernatural giallo Seven Black Notes and the truly dreadful The Lucifer Complex, another bottom-of-the barrel poverty row production cobbled together by David L Hewitt.  The latter really lived down to its reputation as one of the worst movies ever made, while Seven Black Notes was a very stylish and intriguingly plotted exercise in giallo and far superior to Fulci's other well known entry in the genre, Lizard in a Woman's Skin.

The stand out, though was, surprisingly, Rattlers.  Although the version i saw was from a typically scratchy looking source with an annoying buzz on the soundtrack, it turned out to be a solidly made 'animal attacks' type of movie popular in the seventies.  Decently directed and with a better than average script for this sort of film, it proved to be an entertaining eighty minutes or so of mad rattlesnake action.  This one threw in military-industrial complex and establishment cover up paranoia for good measure, with the reason for the local rattlesnakes going kill crazy in a small California desert community turning out to be leaking military chemical warfare canisters secretly buried by a rogue Army colonel.  It all ends with a shootout between him and the local Sheriff's department.  The movie is notable for having some well developed and sympathetc characters, who are well played by a less than stellar, but more than competent cast.  Even the villainous colonel isn't played as quite the usual reactionary psychopath.  The whole academic milieu of the herpetologist hero featured early in the film is also nicely and reasonably realistically handled.  All in all, Rattlers, which I went into with few expectations, turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant experience.

Models Past

 

As is undoubtedly apparent, I'm going through one of those phases when both the inspiration and inclination for posting here is low.  Everything I do post has the feel of a place holder until I can get my posting mojo back.  It undoubtedly has to do with my current non-working situation where not only do I have too much time on my hands, but I'm actually doing little with it, leaving me with little to write about.  What I need is to get into some new daily routine and things will improve, I'm sure.  But right now I'm feeling a little directionless.  In the meantime, I thought that for today's post, I'd go back to the model railway and look at a couple of vintage locomotives that I have had in store for years.

Both are ex-LMS machines, so actually have no real place on the current layout.  Like the Black Five I profiled on here a few months ago, they were part of a previous layout based around the long-defunct Somerset and Dorset route, where ex-Southern, LMS and Western Region locos and stock rubbed shoulders.  For some reason, I've been loathe to part with them.  Not that either is worth much, anyway.  On the left, we have a 4F 0-6-0, one of the most numerous freight types produced in the UK.  This model is the old Airfix version (complete with original blue box) and was, back in the day, a fantastic runner compared to its Hornby contemporaries - it was also far more detailed than them.  Hailing from the late seventies, it was part of a new wave of detailed, Hong Kong manufactured, models that appeared in the UK from two new entrants to the model railway world.  Airfix, of course, had been making plastic kits for decades and decided to branch out into model railways.  Its range of rolling stock was never as extensive as Hornby's, but the quality was high.  Most of its locos, like this one, were tender drive, with both tender and loco chassis being composed mainly of plastic.  After a while the range was marketed as GMR (Great Model Railways) rather than under the Airfix brand, but was eventually sold to the other new model railway manufacturer and rival, Mainline Railways.

The loco on the right, a Rebuilt Patriot class 4-6-0, is a Mainline product.  Again, it is far more detailed than its Hornby equivalents of the era.  Unlike the Airfix model, it has loco drive, employing a heavy die cast metal split chassis. While giving excellent running performance, over time the weight of the chassis had a tendency to crack the plastic axles of the driving wheels, rendering them unusable.  Unfortunately, there was no easy way of rectifying this fault (I speak from experience).  Mainline, owned by Palitoy, built up a bigger range of models than Airfix, rivaling Hornby, especially after incorporating the Airfix range.  Many of its steam locos were ex-LMS designs, using common parts.  This Patriot, for instance, was an economical model for them to produce, sharing its chassis and tender with the existing Rebuilt Royal Scot and Jubilee models, while combining the Scot's boiler with the Jubilee cab to produce the body.  Despite its success, the Mainline range was eventually discontinued when Palitoy's parent company decided to divest itself of various non-core businesses.  The ex-Airfix items were sold to Dapol and eventually re-sold to Hornby (who still produce a version of the 4F).  The Mainline moulds reverted to the Hong Kong, (now Chinese) factories that produced the models for Palitoy.  A few years down the line Kader (owner of several US model railway brands), licensed them to produce some of the ex-Mainline range, first imported to the UK under the Replica Railways banner before being launched as the basis of their new Bachmann Branchlines range.  This, of course, is now Hornby's biggest competitor.

Both of the models still run, despite their age, although the Patriot's valve gear sometimes sticks.  They have some historical significance as they represent the first generation of the new, detailed models that revolutionised British railway modelling, forcing Hornby into upping its game (and eventually moving production to China).  Without them, the super-detailed models people now take for granted wouldn't exist.

Apocalyptic Gardening

Why does You Tube seem to think that I might need the services of a solicitor?  Videos from lawyers on such subjects as which bladed weapons you are legally allowed to carry in the UK and what to do if the police want to speak to you have been turning up in my watch recommendations of late.  While it makes a change from bird videos and Norman Wisdom films, (both of which video types, thankfully, seem to have vanished), I'm still left befuddled as to what could have triggered these legal videos.  Perhaps it is down to my recent bingeing on Norwegian Black metal videos - the algorithm producing the recommendations probably equates an interest in such music with stabbing band mates to death and burning down churches, so provides legal advice as a precaution.  Sadly though, my life simply isn't exciting enough at present to warrant having lawyers on speed dial.  I'm lying the lowest I've ever laid in terms of profile right now.  Indeed, the law is currently a distant memory for me, having finally walked away from my hellish former job - my daily round of having to contend with solicitors, judges, claimants and defendants is a rapidly receding memory.  (I say that I've walked away, but I'm only assuming that my notice period has finally ended as there has been no contact since I submitted my resignrtion - I'm still waiting to hear what they want to do about the equipment of theirs I still have.  I don't want it and wish they'd just get on and collect it).

So, I guess that, technically, I'm now unemployed, although I'm not registered as such and not claiming any benefits.  I have the financial means to just loaf around for a long while yet, but I really must get down to seeking some kind of part-time work soon, even if it is only temporary.  (That's right folks, if you are interested, right now I'm for hire).  In the meantime, I made the mistake today of going out into my back garden.  Jesus!  It's back to being a jungle!  Which means that I'm going to have to spend the Bank Holiday weekend hacking it all back.  God, how I hate gardening.  No sooner do you get it all under control, than it bloody grows back again.  It's depressing, really.  If I had the energy, I'd just get it all concreted over and be done with it.  But for now, I'm going to have to see if I can find my old lawn strimmer and get it working again - with luck, I can speed up the hacking down process with it.  Then douse the whole garden with weed killer.  I really do think that an apocalyptic solution is needed this time - I'm sick and tired of having to do this at regular intervals, so a 'scorched earth' policy is definitely called for.  Perhaps that's what my new career could be:'apocalyptic gardener'.

Horrors of Spider Island (1960)

A West German B-movie dubbed )badly) into English, Horrors of Spider Island is strictly formula: party of beautiful models stranded on remote island with manager get stalked by mutated monster.  The only 'twist' is that the monster doing the stalking isn't the mutated spider which has already killed the island's resident scientist/uranium prospector in its giant web, but rather their manager who has been bitten by said spider, (which then dies).  The whole thing is incredibly lazily plotted - not only do they quickly find the conveniently well-stocked cabin of the prospector, but also learn there that his supply ship is due back in less than a month, thereby removing much of the tension inherent in the idea of being stranded on an island with a ravening monster.  Moreover, after a couple of initial attacks, the monster pretty much vanishes until nearly the end of the movie, after the supply ship's advance party has arrived.  There is then a flurry of action before the creature's inevitable demise.

But, in reality, Horrors of Spider Island isn't really a monster movie so much as an excuse for the various women to strip down to their underwear for a bit of early sixties Euro titillation.  (Some prints also include a brief nude swimming scene near the end - not that you can see anything: it was still 1960, after all).  With the emphasis firmly on the girls, it isn't surprising that the pace is lackadaisical and the monster make up underwhelming.  The mutant spider looks like it was made from pipe cleaners and other left overs and the bad dubbing makes the lame dialogue seem even more hilarious than it actually is.  On the plus side, the image of the scientist's body hanging in the giant web is striking and the black and white photography gives the film a certain moody atmosphere.  I have to say, though, that despite its faults, Horrors of Spider Island retains a certain charm and is surprisingly enjoyable in a creaky sort of way.

The Abominable Against the Unspeakable

You know, for me, this current political spat between Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson is rather like when Chelsea play Arsenal - I vehemently hope that, somehow, they can both lose.  The recasting of Scummings as some kind of righteous. avenging angel, championing the 'truth' surrounding the government's (mis)handling of the Covid crisis really sticks in my craw.  I mean, yes, the government's conduct has been appalling and Johnson nothing less than utterly incompetent, but the fact of it is that Scummings was, at the time, at the heart of it all.  He was advising Johnson, for God's sake.  His Road to Damascus conversion is down, not to any sincere belief that he and the government were criminally wrong, or any genuine regret over the unnecessary deaths and suffering that resulted from their shambolic approach, but rather is entirely driven by personal bitterness over the nature of his departure from the heart of government.  Much as I'd like to see Johnson skewered by one of his former buddies, it doesn't change the fact that Scummings is, well, an utter scumbag who advocated 'herd immunity' despite knowing the probable casualty rates among the old and vulnerable and was also quite happy to blatantly and arrogantly flaunt the lockdown rules the rest of us felt compelled to follow.  Like I said - Chelsea vs Arsenal: the abominable against the unspeakable.

Anyway,talking of football, it's amazing how one's inner soccer tribalism comes to the surface on the last day of the season.  Yesterday I found myself snarling with despair as Leicester went ahead of Spurs with a couple of dodgy penalties and Arsenal went two up against Brighton, which would have put them above us and into Europe t our expense, before leaping around in ecstasy as Bale scored those two late goals to snatch a win for us.  Not only did that stop those Leicester wankers from getting into the Champions League, but it kept Arsenal below us in the table and out of Europe altogether for the first time in twenty five years.  What made the last minute nature of Spurs' win even sweeter was that the Arsenal trolls had already started celebrating their 'St Totteringham's Day' shit on social media in anticipation of finishing above us.  Hah!  I'll b e frank, I don't really know what the Europa Conference League (which we've qualified for) actually is, but we're in it and Arsenal aren't.  Which is all that matters.  Not that all so-called Spurs 'fans' were as Euphoric as myself - there is a segment of fandom, mainly based around certain blogs, which is never satisfied.  The Europa Conference League qualification, for instance, was dubbed by one of the most notorious of these walking piles of shit as 'the final humiliation' of the season.  Really?  I hate to think what his headline would have been if we hadn't won and finished out of Europe and behind Arsenal?  Is that what these dicks really want?  Just fuck and support Arsenal if you feel that way, you colossal turds.  See what I mean about the tribalism?

Losing Patience

Maybe it is because I'm still feeling a bit of pain from my back, or perhaps it is because of the reaction to my second Covid vaccine dose, which left me feeling exhausted for most of the week, but I've found myself losing patience with various groups and people.  In particular, I've decided that I'm tired of arguing with anti-vaxxers.  Unfortunately, I know a few and from now on, if they start spouting their nonsense, I'm just going to tell the straight: that they are ignorant, selfish idiots.  The time for trying to reason with them is over.  I really am weary of their pathetic excuses for avoiding vaccination and the way they will clutch at anything to justify their stupidity.  Most recently I was told that the fact that some people have contracted Covid even after being vaccinated 'proves' that they are right in shunning the vaccine.  All that shows is that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccines work - they can't stop you from actually contracting a virus.  They don't set up an impenetrable force field around your body.  What they actually do is to prepare your immune system to fight specific viruses - if you are lucky (which most people are), you'll barely notice that you've contracted the virus as it will be neutralised almost immediately.  In other cases, you'll get symptoms, but at a far milder level than if you hadn't been vaccinated - you'll probably avoid the risk of hospitalisation and certainly the risk of death.  But these idiots don't care about facts - they are typical conspiracy freaks who just want to be able to point at some 'evidence' and shout 'Hah! See - I was right all along.  All you sheep went along with the man, but they couldn't fool me!  I'm just too smart!'.  Which is simply infantile.

I've similarly lost all patience for what passes as sports journalism in this country.  Well, to be specific, football reporting.  If, like me, you are, for your sins, a follower of the spurs, then these past few weeks have been made virtually unendurable.  Not so much by the erratic performances of the team on the pitch, but rather by the endless 'reporting' of the 'crisis' at the club.  I'm tired of reading how many managers have apparently 'snubbed' the club in the search for a new manager.  Really?  I'm not sure how they can have 'snubbed' Spurs when the job hasn't, so far, actually been offered to anyone.  Sure, several individuals identified by the press as candidates have taken up other offers or been linked to other vacancies, but that isn't the same thing at all.  Likewise all those 'short lists' of candidates the club is supposedly considering - all different, yet still confidently offered up by pundits as if they were fact.  The reality is that nobody outside of Daniel Levy and his closest aides have any idea as to they might be considering for the post.  But hey - here's a manager who is a free agent or rumoured to be leaving their current club, Spurs have a vacancy, so they must be a candidate, seems to be the 'logic' employed.  This, along with the other game of linking any manager previously rumoured to have been considered by the club for previous vacancies, really is the epitome of lazy journalism: it involves the bare minimum of research and no thought whatsoever.  As for the current circus currently surrounding Harry Kane - well, I'm doing my very best to avoid the latest completely made up transfer speculation.  Regardless of what Kane and/or his agent choose to leak to the press, the reality is that he is in the middle of a six year contract, meaning that Spurs don't have to sell him and that other clubs can't approach him, making all this transfer talk nothing more than pure speculation.  But why let facts get in the way of a headline?  But I'm just not listening any more.

The Phantom Detective

 

Another striking pulp cover featuring a skeleton.  Well, a skull.  We'll just have to assume that the rest of the skeleton is hanging around there somewhere.  The Phantom Detective, of which this is the May 1936 issue, was one of the earliest 'hero pulps', focusing on a single character, often some kind of masked crime fighter, along with the better remembered The Shadow and Doc Savage. Despite the higher profiles of these other two pulp heroes, The Phantom Detective outlasted them both, the magazine being continuously published for twenty years between 1933 and 1953.  In common with other genre entries, each issue featured a short novel chronicling the titular character's latest adventures, backed up by a selection of non-related, stand alone, short stories.  All of these were usually authored pseudonymously by various house writers.

'The Phantom', as he was referred to in the stories, was the usual masked crime fighter who was actually the secret identity of a wealthy playboy - a formula which would quickly translate into the world of superhero comics.  His main ally was a newspaper publisher - who, in one story, even had a 'Bat-signal' type beacon set up on the roof of his newspaper offices to alert 'The Phantom'.  Part of the Thrilling Publications stable, The Phantom Detective - in common with several other Thrilling characters - also had an equivalent comic strip in the publisher's comic book line.  While The Phantom Detective might have outlasted rivals The Shadow and Doc Savage in terms of its length of publication as a pulp, the character - aside from the comic strip - didn't translate into other media.  Both The Shadow and Doc Savage had radio series and films based on the characters, giving them a life beyond the pulps, whereas The Phantom Detective effectively died with the pulp as far as the public were concerned.  Except that perhaps he too had an afterlife of sorts, in the form of the ostensibly unrelated (and still extant) comic strip The Phantom.  The latter bears more than a passing resemblance to our 'Phantom' and the strip's creator may, indeed, have been inspired by the pulp character, (as originally conceived, rather than being a jungle-dwelling hereditary hero, the comic strip character had been the Manhattan-based secret identity of a wealthy playboy).

Wrong Turnings

People often talk about how their lives have reached a 'crossroads' and they are left with a decision as to which route to take.  Carry straight on as before, or turn left or right, onto lesser known roads and uncertain routes?  Well, I often feel like my life is constantly at a crossroads, or maybe even a roundabout, with all manner of possible paths being offered, but I'm seemingly incapable of making a decision as to which exit to take, so usually just carry straight on.  And inevitably find myself enduring another crisis of confidence as that road proves bumpy and another junction looms up almost immediately.  I thought that by effectively closing off that 'straight ahead' route by parting company with my hated job, making a choice with regard to a change of direction would be easier.  If anything, it has become more difficult.  The problem is that. much as I enjoy not having to endure the pure Hell that my working life had become, (my physical and mental health have improved immeasurably), I find myself effectively rudderless and unmotivated.  It is scary the part that work routines play in our lives, defining our activity, sleeping patterns, socialising and so much more.  But right now, I can pretty much do what I like, when I like, but generally end up doing very little because, well, time is no longer a precious commodity: there's always tomorrow.

Of course, another disincentive to actively seek a new direction is that, right now and for the foreseeable future, I'm not under any financial pressure.  I spent those years of working the job from Hell to set myself up very securely in financial terms.  It isn't that I don't want to do anything else work wise - I've still got a long way to go before I can collect my pension, for one thing, I just still don't feel sure as to what it is I want to do.  Ideally, I don't want to work full-time again - just two or three days a week would be sufficient.  I thought that teaching was the route, but now I'm not too sure.  I've had plenty of agencies contact me with promises of possible work from September, but it is mainly in the Secondary School sector, which I'm not really qualified for (my teaching qualifications are for the post compulsory sector) and wouldn't necessarily be my first choice.  Promises of supply-teaching work from one agency have failed to materialise.  I'm beginning to look into the whole 'life long learning' sector (what we used to call 'Adult Education') which seems to present some interesting opportunities.  Another possibility would be just to find something casual and undemanding to do two or three days a week: years ago, between proper jobs, I spent a few weeks delivering and picking up rental cars for the local Hertz office, it helped keep my work discipline and routines, it was relatively stimulating (I met different people and went to different places) and it paid.  

So, clearly I have to start getting off my arse and doing stuff, rather than procrastinating about it.  Even if it isn't actual paid work, I really do need to start doing something creative again, (not just posting here and The Sleaze), even if it is just getting back to the model railway.  Then there's the work around the house I keep putting off.  Or, I could finally get to grips with some of those bloody solo wargames that have previously defeated me.  If it would just stop raining, I could get out of the house and take some walks - which, if nothing else, might clear my mind and focus my attention more on how I'm going to move forward.  As ever, we'll see.

Black Metal Blues

My recent detour through Norwegian Black Metal has finally yielded results in terms of You Tube's suggested videos on my home page.  After wading through numerous Mayhem, Immortal and Black Satans (amongst others) videos, I now have a healthy number of Black Metal videos turning up there, (although, for some reason it also turns up a Paul Weller video - about as far from Black Metal as you can get, even if he whines a lot during his songs - and some Judas Priest - who are just pussies in the metal stakes when compared to say, Mayhem).  Which makes a nice change for all that random stuff - Guinea Pigs and birds, etc - which recently kept turning up for no discernible reason.  The Black Metal is especially welcome as an alternative to all the right wing 'news' sites whose videos have been appearing near the bottom of my You Tube home page of late, (although, to be fair, there has always been a neo-Nazi element to the Norwegian Black Metal scene).  I really don't understand their presence - I just don't look at any other stuff which might be construed as showing an interest in their shit.  Then again, for a while You Tube persisted in trying to get me to subscribe to Arsenal related channels - despite the fact that I never watch football videos on YouTube and I'm a Spurs supporter.  

But back to the Norwegian Black Metal.  Why? I hear you ask.  Well, why not?  Any musical genre which expresses a contempt for organised religion and moves some of its fans to burn down churches immediately has an appeal to me.  Plus, the people who perform it don't seem the usual poseurs you find on the music scene: they seem not just to believe the shit they sing about, but they live it too.  I mean, let's not forget that Mayhem's original vocalist, 'Dead', blew his brains out with a shotgun.  OK, I know what you are thinking, so what?  That isn't unique to Black Metal.  Didn't Kurt Cobain do the same thing?  Yeah, sure he did - but did Courteney Love then gather up some of the skull fragments and make them into necklaces?  Because that's what Mayhem's guitarist did.  Oh, and I bet that Cobain didn't leave a note apologising for the mess and for discharging a firearm in the house?  You see, you can't make this stuff up.  But it gets better - a while later the bass player stabbed the aforementioned guitarist to death in a contract dispute.  (He served time for the murder, burning down two churches and possession of illegal explosives).

Norwegian Black Metal is probably the most brutal and extreme form of music ever devised by man - lots of guys in corpse make up running around forests screaming and growling while drums and guitars thrash in the background, (sometimes, just for variety, they run along mountain tops with their guitars).  It is, I suppose, the musical equivalent of those bottom-of-the-barrel schlock movies I watch.  I can't deny that listening to it can be a bit of an endurance test.  But, you know, while I was going through my recent experience of extreme back pain, all that was brutal and extreme appealed to me.  Besides, at base, Norwegian Black Metal is really a an agonised scream of existential angst.  Its rejection of all that is mundane, ordinary and established appeals to someone who has finally, after years of unhappiness, parted company with an employer that spent those years crushing the life and ambitions from its employees.  Trust me, that was an experience that would drive anyone to embrace nihilism.  But hey, as Matthias Backward of Witch Taint observed, 'no man can go through life being grim and extreme - just try applying for a mortgage and you'll see what I mean'.  (Yes, I know that Witch Taint are a parody of a Norwegian Black Metal band, but coming across their videos was what got me interested in the real thing in the first place).  So, my dalliance with Black Metal - the climax of which coincided with the past weekend being spent in a state of physical exhaustion, apparently in reaction to my second Covid jab - is now winding down.  Although I'll still enjoy seeing those Mayhem and Immortal videos sitting shoulder to shoulder with model railway videos, schlock movie trailers and PG Wodehouse readings on my You Tube home page.

The Black Scorpion (1957)

I mentioned the other day that I'd recently watched this one on a double bill with Monster That Challenged the World.  In many ways The Black Scorpion is a pretty standard fifties Hollywood monster movie, with giant prehistoric arachnids on the rampage.  Where it differs from many of its contemporaries is in its Mexican setting (it was a US/Mexico co-production) and the fact that the title monsters are released from an underground cave system by a volcanic eruption, rather than being awakened or mutated by nuclear tests.  The film's main distinguishing feature, though is the fact that the stop-motion effects for the scorpions was supervised by Willis O'Brien, creator of King Kong. Interestingly, some aspects of the film - principally the investigations into cattle disappearances from a local ranch which leads to the discovery of the monsters - is vaguely reminiscent of another Mexican-filmed monster move: the previous year's Beast of Hollow Mountain, which was based on an earlier Willis O'Brien story idea, although he didn't provide the special effects.  There, it turns out to be a living dinosaur that is eating the cattle, rather than giant scorpions (the story concept was reworked again as the basis for 1969's Valley of the Gwangi, where O'Brien's one-time protege provided the animated prehistoric creatures).

But to return to the effects work in The Black Scorpion: for what is essentially a low-budget monster movie, they are surprisingly good, (although compromised in some sequences by the money running out before production was complete).  The scorpions themselves are pretty convincing and there is great sequence in their underground lair featuring them fighting with what look like giant clawed worms.  A giant trap-door spider type thing also puts in an appearance.  The whole scene is reminiscent of the Skull Island segment of King Kong, where Kong battles various prehistoric beasts.  The scene where the scorpions attack a train is also quite impressive, until you notice that the locomotive has 'Lionel Trains' on its tender (which is also the wrong way around), making it all too obvious that it is just a model train.  While, perhaps, not as well remembered as other fifties monster movies, like Beast From Twenty Thousand Fathoms and Them! (both fellow Warner releases name-checked in the trailer), The Black Scorpion remains a worthwhile watch, particularly for fans of Willis O'Brien who, despite the success of King Kong, found it increasingly difficult to set up productions which could fully utilise his talents.

Seeing is Not Believing

There are certain films which tend to turn up over and over again on the free-to-air streaming services, many are from the late seventies and eighties and fall into the category of movies which look like they were big in their day but, in reality, underperformed, only gaining a cult following after the event.  The time travel drama The Final Countdown falls into this category, as does Capricorn One, a film which seems to be showing on one or other of Pluto TV's film channels every five minutes, (along with the pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan action thriller Taffin).  I have to say that Capricorn One is a film I hate with a vengeance.  Quite apart from being poorly cast, badly structured and lacking in any concept of pace, let alone delivering any suspense or thrills, I hold it responsible for helping to popularise and sustain the idiotic conspiracy theory that the moon landings were faked.  Most people's ideas on the subject - the TV studio landing site (faking Mars rather than the moon in this case), the idea of NASA being some kind of sinister organisation employing hit men rather than being a scientific agency and the whole concept of the US government being so ruthless that it is prepared to engage in a massive hoax and murder its own citizens in order to cover up a technical error - seem to have been informed by this misbegotten piece of cinema.

But Capricorn One isn't unique in perpetuating, or even creating, myths which then enter the  popular consciousness.  Patton, for instance, in presenting a fictionalised account of the eponymous US general's World War Two service, has informed most casual observers' view of the man.  A frightening number of people believe, for instance, the scene during the battle for Sicily, where Montgomery's triumphant arrival in Messina is disrupted by the fact that Patton has taken the town already, against orders, actually happened.  It didn't - Montgomery actually requested Patton take he town as he was being delayed by fiercer than expected resistance in his advance along the opposite side of the island.  Damn it, these same people also believe that Patton, in real life, sounded like George C Scott's gravelly voiced interpretation of the man - just watch actual newsreel of Patton and you'll find that he sounded nothing like that.  But at least Patton is a good film whose makers' intent was to use the historical figure to try and explore the mind sets of the kind of people who make successful war leaders, thereby justifying, to some extent, its fabrications and historical inaccuracies.  

Another seventies war film, A Bridge Too Far, has no such excuses.  Despite having a British director and stars it seems intent upon using its re-telling of the Arnhem Campaign to pursue an Anglo-phobic agenda,  This reaches a crescendo when we see British tank crews stopping and brewing tea rather than advancing after Robert Redford and his heroic US paratroopers had just taken the bridge they had crossed.  A completely fabricated scenario - the real life officer Redford played hated the sequence claiming it bore no resemblance to what had actually happened, while the British tanks had been sent across the bridge specifically to secure that end of it and dug in to defend it against possible counter attacks.  Yet many people take it as being true.  It is a pity, as in most other respects A Bridge Too Far strives for greater realism and accuracy than most other World War Two movies.  As it stands, though, it serves as another warning that viewers should never believe anything they see on screen - especially when it is being presented as history.

Cow Dung Therapy

'Government advises against use of cow dung as treatment for Coronavirus' - Jesus, I thought when I first saw that headline, those anti-Vaxxers are really getting desperate now with their 'alternative' natural cures.  As it turned out, of course, the headline concerned India, where the situation with regard to Covid is now dire and stands as a warning to all of the perils of complacency and inadequate containment strategies in the face of a pandemic.  Although there are undoubtedly still people out there claiming that it is all a hoax and all the stuff from India is faked.  But, sadly, I've come to the conclusion that these whacked out conspiracy nuts are lost causes, unwilling or unable to accept overwhelming evidence that contradicts their crackpot world view.  With luck they'll keep using the cow dung and die.  Harsh, I know, but the world really would be a better place without them.  Luckily for the rest of us, here in the UK we don't have to rely on cow dung, having access to vaccines.  I'm due my second shot on Friday, just in time for the next phase of lockdown easing.  According to the media, this will mean that casual sex will again be 'allowed' in England.  Which begs the question as to what they think is happening right now: formal sex only?  The sort where you have to keep your hat on and remain standing up and even then only after being properly introduced?

Mind you, my main health concern right now isn't Covid, but my back, which I put out shifting around washing machines the other weekend.  There has been a marked improvement - getting out of bed has become easier and putting on my socks has gone from being an ordeal to merely being a challenge.  Heavy lifting is still out and walking any distance is still painful and tiring.  So my activity is still limited.  In the course of the last week I've tried all manner of pain relief from Voltarol to heat pads.  The former does work to a limited degree - I didn't end up restoring a vintage motor cycle or running a marathon, as the TV adverts imply you will be able to do after applying it, but I did get some mobility back.  Heat pads have been quite effective first thing in the morning, increasing the flexibility of my back.  But the most effective measure by far has involved taking a bath as hot as I can endure - it leaves me relatively pain free for several hours afterward, (as well as exhausting me and leaving me dehydrated). I'm hoping that by the beginning of next week my back will have healed sufficiently that I can start getting back to normal activities.  We'll see.

Inexpert Analysis

So, we're into the post-mortems now, all the pundits lining up to tell us what went wrong and what should be done next to avoid a repeat performance, all delivered with a tone of absolute confidence and authority.  I speak, of course, of last week's local government elections. Although I could describe the weekend's football programme in the same terms.  Sport and politics: both cursed by a coterie of supposed experts applying the benefit of hindsight to their analyses.  It's amazing how clearly they can see what everyone did wrong, how their strategies were flawed and approaches misguided after the event.  Pity they didn't say anything in advance.  But getting back to those local election results - they are all busy picking over Labour's disappointing showing and trying to extrapolate the future collapse of the party on their basis.  The problems with their analyses are manifold.  Most fundamentally, they are trying to pretend that the conditions these elections took place in are 'normal'.  They weren't.  Thanks to the pandemic, we are still living in extraordinary times.  Despite the Tory government's culpability with regard to the mismanagement of the pandemic overall, the fact is that they have, in the run up to this contest, presided over a highly successful roll-out of vaccines, which are helping us edge closer to some form of normality.  Consequently, it wasn't unreasonable to expect them to benefit from the 'feel good' factor with a bounce at the polls.  Moreover, local elections aren't necessarily fought on the same issues as national elections: a Tory council, for instance, won't necessarily be held responsible for the misdemeanors of a Tory government.  All matter of local factors will play into these contests.

As for extrapolating national trends from local elections, the results of one will rarely reflect the results of the other.  If it were the case then, back in the nineties the Liberal Democrats would have been romping home to form, at the very least, a coalition government, such was their success at local level.  But it never happened.  Quite apart from the fact that, as already mentioned, local elections are usually fought primarily on local agendas, they also use a different electoral system, with voters able to rank candidates i order of preference, allowing smaller parties and local independent candidates a route to election.  By contrast, the first-past-the-post system still used for parliamentary elections effectively shuts out smaller parties, regardless of their strength at local levels.  So, really, there is no clear way to predict national results based on these local results.  Besides, by the time of the next general election, the issues will have changed, events will have come out of left field to influence voters, the global economy could have crashed or boomed.  Right now, it is impossible to accurately predict this future political landscape.  Not that you would know that from the confident pronouncements being made by the political 'experts' in the media right now.  The truth s that they have no more idea than the rest of us.  It is rather like all the speculation about who the next Tottenham manager will be - we have all the 'in the know' sports writers confidently bandying around names and drawing up shortlists, but the truth is that they know no more than I do.  The only person with any idea is Spurs chairman Daniel Levy - and he isn't sharing.

Not that any of this means that Labour doesn't have a lot of work to do - with the pandemic in the UK apparently drawing to a close, it has to end all its pussyfooting around the issue, trying to be bilateral and support, most of the time, government measures.  Now is the time to go back on the offensive against this bunch of corrupt incompetents.  It is also the time to start coming up with some bold and radical policy proposals that reconnect with traditional voters and clearly differentiate them from the Tories.  I recall, back in the nineties, on the back of three successive election defeats, people earnestly telling me how there would never be another Labour majority government, how they were a spent force electorally.  Then, in 1997, they won a landslide victory.  It really is dangerous to extrapolate on the basis of current, temporary, conditions.  Things can and do change very quickly.  (Oh, as for those fucking Corbynites smugly rejoicing in Starmer's relative failure at his first electoral test, let's just remember that he is still doing better than your guy, who couldn't win anything and took the party to record lows n terms of poll share.  As for the sudden surge in support for the idea of Andy Burnham as leader - well, you had a chance to do this, but plumped for Corbyn instead, resulting in the current situation). 

'Ship of Flaming Death'

Black Book Detective Magazine from its pre-'Black Bat' days.  This February 1935 issue features a very prominent skeleton, as did several others from the era.  A very striking illustration typical of its time.  Other than it concerns the sinking of a passenger ship (obviously), I have no idea what 'Ship of Flaming Death', the lead story, is about.  Clearly, there is a high casualty rate among the passengers going by that menacing skeleton, (obviously symbolic of death).  

These old pulp covers are a constant source of fascination for me - it is the sheer raw vigour they exhibit.  Illustrations like that just want to make you open up the issue and the stories, even though you know that, nine times out of ten, they will never live up to the promise of the cover.  But those covers really do the job, no matter how crudely drawn they are (and some were pretty crude), intriguing and sometimes even shocking the potential reader, firing the imagination with their promise of sleaze, shock, sex, horror and/or romance. 

Moto Psycho (2012)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I sit through some absolute shite at times.  Sometimes I find myself enduring some God awful film and I have no idea why I'm inflicting such torture upon myself - why don't I just switch it off, why do I feel this urge to see it through to the bitter end?  Well, it's the curse we lovers of low-rent cinema suffer from - the desire to see if it can get any worse, or whether any redeeming features might turn up.  Besides, there's a certain sense of achievement when you make it to the end of some barely comprehensible jumble of scenes masquerading as a movie - which is what I felt yesterday when, at the second attempt, I made it all the way through Moto Psycho (2012).  I suppose, if one was feeling generous, it could be described as a 'semi-professional' direct-to-video production.  But, in truth, it is effectively somebody's home movie which has somehow escaped, rather than being released.  Judging by the credits, it is a family production, headed up by one Mark Gudsnuk, who is credited as writer and director and plays the title role, with various members of his family filling out the other roles, joined by what I guess are his friends and neighbours.  Looking as if it was filmed on a mobile phone, Moto Psycho involves as fright mask wearing farmhand in Connecticut, who goes around murdering locals and stealing parts of their bodies, with which he is stitching together some kind of Frankenstein monster as part of a scheme to resurrect his dead sister.  He is instructed and guided by a mysterious doctor who apparently communicates with him via TV screens.

As the bodies stack up, the local cops, (who are played by a pair of grey haired dudes who look like they've stepped out of a country and western music video), are hot on his trail.  Well, they drive along rural back roads and have meandering conversations with elderly residents a lot, that is.  There are lots of confusing flashbacks, shaky and blurred camera work, stilted dialogue and what appear to be improvised performances from the non-professional cast, but eventually the crazy farm hand reanimates his patchwork creation, which does come to life and rips his head off.  She then rides off on his motorcycle, wearing his mask and sporting his severed head in place of a headlamp.  Presumably to carry on the killings for some unspecified reason.  Then, mercifully, the titles roll.  But wait!  It isn't over yet! We are then treated to what seems an unending series of pseudo-documentary sequences chronicling the misdeeds and mysterious disappearance of that crazy doctor on the TV, ending with the threat of a sequel.  It truly is crap, attempting to stitch together several sub-genres into a single narrative, but failing to generate any suspense, tension or scares along the way.  Much of it shot, unsteadily, in close up with light levels too high,  while the editing is rudimentary and the performances, not surprisingly, flat and unconvincing.  The director claimed that the film 'is a throw back to the horror films of the 1960's and 70's'. To be fair, I can see what he is getting at - I've seen plenty of ultra-low budget movies of not dissimilar ilk, with bargain basement production values, fuzzy photography and tangled narratives, often directed by the likes of David L Hewitt.  But they all were all made by professional filmmakers who brought a certain bottom-of-barrel professional sheen to them.  Moto Psycho does have some of the sense of sheer delirium the best schlock movies of that era possess.  But it is difficult to discern whether that is intentional or merely the result of bad film making

And yet - I can't completely dismiss Moto Psycho as irredeemable shite.  As is often the case with schlock, there is the kernel of a good idea in there.  The whole business of the TV doctor and his experiments at direct mental communication - manifested in the recipients mind as seeing him on the TV screen - has possibilities.  These are hinted at in those post-credits sequences, which give further glimpses into experiments with children and belief in the existence of dual universes.  You can't help but feel that this should have been the film and Moto Psycho relegated to a series of post-credits snippets.  An interesting foot note contained in the credits tells us that the film was shot between 2005 and 2011, meaning that several of the older cast members had died before its completion.

Naked Truth?

Apparently naturism has seen an uptick in popularity during the lockdown, with all manner of virtual events being held online.  Now, I'd say that there have always been a not insignificant number of people getting their cocks and whatever out live on the web, so I'm not convinced that this can be taken as evidence of a new enthusiasm for nudism.  I suppose that the lockdowns of the last year have given people plenty of opportunities to wander around their houses naked, secure in the knowledge tat they aren't going to have anyone round.  (Possibly good news for the energy suppliers there, as wandering around naked, eve indoors, can be bloody cold in the winter months, resulting in the central heating being turned up to full all day).  As I've noted before, I'm afraid that I fail to see the appeal of naturism - not only is it cold but, outside, it can be bloody hazardous with the danger of all sorts of bits catching on bushes, barbed wire fences and the like.  There is a reason why, as part of the evolutionary process leading to civilisation, humanity began to wear clothes.  

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I found myself watching one of those old sixties nudie films the other day.  Don't ask why.  Curiosity, I guess.  It dated from the days when they were marketed as 'naturist' films with the implication that they served some public information function by informing audiences of the supposed benefits of naturism.  Consequently, there was nothing sexual in them and no full frontal nudity - just lots of bare bums and boobs bouncing around as we are treated to endless sequences of nude people playing various sports, or just sitting around swimming pools drinking cocktails.  This one, Diary of a Nudist (1961), from Doris Wishman, serial purveyor of such nudie pics, has as a scenario an apparently prudish newspaper editor stumbling across a nearby nudist colony and sending in his top girl reporter to go in undercover (or uncovered, to be precise) to get the goods on the place and write a sensational expose for the paper.  Inevitably, of course, she finds herself converted to the cause of nudism after spending a few days wandering around starkers and the story she files reflects this.  The editor hot foots it to cam, apparently to confront her, but, amazingly, her copy has converted him too, so he throws off his clothes and lets it all hang out.  Except that he doesn't.  In a curious double standard, while the girl reporter bares all, he gets to wander around in a pair of swimming trunks, not even forced to flash his arse for the cameras.

I have to say that it was all pretty tedious and seemed to drag on interminably.  Which, I suppose, all goes to show that nudity without eroticism is actually pretty dull.  Which, of course, is what the naturists have been telling us all along.

Painful Viewing

My shifting about of washing machines the other weekend has finally caught up with me.  Despite thinking that I had gotten away with it in the first days after installing the new washing machine and moving the old one, (thanks to the pandemic, companies will only deliver and take away white goods just inside your front door - leaving you to do the rest of the shifting),  by the end of last week, my right hip was in agony and it just got worse over the weekend.  Currently, my back is so bad that just getting out of bed is a major undertaking - as for getting my socks on, well, I have to allocate half the morning to that.  I finally gave in this afternoon and took some aspirin to try and ease the pain - with all the other drugs I take for my blood pressure and diabetes, I'm loath these days to pop any other pills - which, while not killing the pain completely, has given me a bit more movement.  Right now, it doesn't feel as if this is going to get better any time soon, so all my plans are off.  

Despite the agony, I did manage to get through a number of B-movies this weekend, including a double bill of The Black Scorpion and The Monster That Challenged the World.  I enjoyed these two so much that I sat down, (as best I could), and followed them up with the grand-daddy of the prehistoric-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-tests-on-the-loose movies, The Beast From Twenty Thousand Fathoms.  It seems like an age since I last saw a youthful Lee Van Cleef shoot the Beast with the radioactive bullet from atop that roller coaster.  (That's the main lesson I took away from the film as a kid - prehistoric monsters don't like roller coasters - even before he was shot, he was tearing the whole thing up, in a manner reminiscent of the way the cat used to demolish my clockwork train set when I was a child).  A change of pace for Sunday when I caught up with The Passage (1979), a long unavailable war movie which has recently resurfaced on Sony Movies Action.  A curious attempt to blend the traditional war-adventure film with latter day sadistic nastiness, it isn't difficult to see why, despite an all star cast - Anthony Quinn, James Mason, Malcolm McDowell, Patricia Neal, Christopher Lee - it was a huge box office flop which then vanished from public view.  The photography is murky to the point that, in some scenes, it is difficult to see what is going on, the action confusingly directed, the budget so restricted that, for a climactic avalanche sequence it lifts stock footage from On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the script lacklustre.  Only a scenery chewing McDowell as a nasty Nazi gives a memorable performance, (for all the wrong reasons).  For director J Lee Thompson it was pretty much the last gasp of his career (he had directed far more successful war movies like Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone).  Always a pedestrian director with little sense of pace, here he pretty much grinds to a halt.  As a completest, I'm glad that I've finally seen it (it was one of those movies I remember being released, but never saw at the time) I'm surely glad that I didn't pay to watch The Passage.