I Know What You're Thinking
"The senile old boakbag is going to be rabbiting on about that film from the Polite Australians, you know, where there's only three people left alive in the whole of New Zealand. Sad, you know. He once had a promising career in nitrification enhancement processes."
YES THANK YOU. Pausing only to insist that I am not senile, let me explicate. Your Humble Scribe had indeed scribbled an entry in his notebook "T.Q.E." and you might be forgiven/won't be forgiven/will be sent to the uranium mines <delete where applicable> in seeing this as a reference to "The Quiet Earth", except you are, of course - indubitably! - wrong. Art!
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| "The Quatermass Experiment" |
This antiquity from the dawn of television in This Sceptred Isle is being referred to as I have just reached it in my edition of "Into The Unknown", a biography of Nigel Kneale, the chap who wrote it in a tearing hurry to fill a gap in the television broadcast schedules. Art!
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| Bernard Quatermass to port; doomed astronaut Carroon with - er - astronaut gear |
If you have only seen the (admittedly excellent) film version then you are missing out. Sadly, only the two first episodes of all six survive, and then only in a rather rubbish version that was filmed off a television monitor. Unlike later television serials like "Doctor Who" or "Steptoe And Son" there is nil possibility of obtaining the missing episodes because they were never recorded in the first place <sobs quietly> Art!
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| Carroon, as played by Duncan Lamont (and very well, too, according to Nigel) |
You see, back in 1953, as is made clear in ITU, they performed live in the studio in front of the cameras. Of course they rehearsed extensively to ensure they hit their marks, didn't blot out the studio lights or tread on anyone's toes, but what you saw on Sunday was subtly different from what you saw on Thursday; these being, as Kneale explains, the two weekdays that actors were unlikely to have previous commitments to. Art!
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| The hands of |
The scene above is from the serial's climax and I shan't spoil it by revealing how it ends. What you are seeing are Nigel's hands, wearing gloves covered in twigs and shrubbery and leaves and mold, gesticulating mildly against an enlarged photograph of Westminster Abbey. Even in those days the BBC loved to cut corners and if an
ANYWAY it pulled in an audience of 5 million viewers, no mean feat when television sets were uncommon (10% of the population watching, actually ), and, more importantly, IT SCARED THE LIVING **** OUT OF ANYONE WHO WATCHED IT. Art!
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| Prof saves the world*. Not for the last time! |
Motley! We've composed a chemical cocktail akin to that which Carroon sups, and we'd like to see what it does to you. Don't worry, it's perfectly safe, you don't have an alien parasite taking over your mind and body**.
And Now For Something Considerably Lighter
If you have been following the blog with any regularity, then you know we bow the knee and tug the forelock to Professor Anne Reardon, stolid champion of truth and seeker after veracity, which is just truth dressed in a different banana skin. She has another video up on Youtube, debunking the toxic tat put out by content farms, especially when it concerns 'life hacks' that tell fibs about cooking. Let us examine one such. Art!
All these people are taking part in attempts to use a Sodastream or generic equivalent to - er - make carbonated milk. I don't know, perhaps they're rich and bored. The process requires one to only fill the bottle one-third full of milk, otherwise you get the explosive shower effect in picture three. The end result? Well, step up Anne's valiant husband Dave, to test a batch she made. Art!
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| Rave for brave Dave! |
Anne almost - but not quite! - feels guilty for inflicting this horrid concoction on Dave. As she explains, the carbonation process creates carbonic acid, which effectively spoils the milk and so it tastes rank. So now you know.
Currently listening to The Doors and "Strange Days" for the first time, and do you know, it's a corker, especially the title track. Just for your information.
"King's Lead Hat"
It's a song by Brian Eno, you snapping whippers, from the musically prehistoric days of 1977. Conrad has no idea why it popped up in his consciousness, only that it did. The title is an anagram of 'Talking Heads' who also happened to be a band only just emerging onto the music scene at the time, and Your Humble Scribe could kick himself that he's never realised in all that time. I just thought it was a rather uncomfortable piece of headwear. Art!
I know what you're thinking, "Time for a little musical critique!" hmmmm no, or at least not yet, as there are pages and pages of lyrics, and brevity is the sole of wit, last I heard.
Scarcely Credible
Some celebrities turn out to be prodigies in other fields entirely un-associated with their primary claim to fame. Will Hay, for example, was a talented amateur astronomer. Jeff Goldblum is a talented musician. Steve Buscemi is a volunteer firefighter.
ANYWAY - Edmund Crispin, the author of murder mysteries, whom we were whanging on about last week?
It transpires that he was actually Robert Montgomery, Oxford don, and a talented musician, to the extent that he was their official organist and choirmaster during his tenure. Art!
Not only that, he was much in demand to score films in the Fifties, so much so that the first six "Carry On" films were all scored by him. He scored about forty in all, but it was the sheer incongruity of an Oxford don known for MURDER (fictional, but still) being the composer of such lightweight stuff. Art!
Finally -
Your Humble Scribe is breaking out into a sweat, his limbs are quivering, and a nasty case of hives is imminent. Still, I have managed to go yet another BOOJUM! without ladling vitriol onto a set of Codeword definitions. Lulling the compilers into a false sense of security, don't you know. Then, when they are complacent and sluggish after a seven-course meal with port and nuts, I shall POUNCE! In metaphor only, I know MI5 read this stuff to see if there's any chance of a prosecution. Not today, chaps.
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| "MI5 were disappointed yet still resolute. They knew they'd get the evil alien swine one day." |
And with that, Vulnavia, we are jolly well done!
* Ah, but I'm not saying how.
** Not at last medical examination, anyway.
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