When Rights Are Wrongs

I'm Feeling Clever Again

Apologies about what follows, for spontaneous creativity knows no limits, and all I have is a vague outline, a star to guide me and a can of Old Speckled Hen.

     Okay, Your Humble Scribe is currently making his way through "Into The Unknown", a biography of the talented and productive Nigel Kneale, probably the most famous Manxman ever*.  You would know him as the creator of the 'Quatermass' television serials, above all else.  Art!

Quatermass and a friend.  And a Martian.

     When Ol' Nige had created Quatermass for the ground-breaking first serial and it's sequel, he'd been an employee of the BBC <stands up and salutes noble British institution> and they were not about to let him forget this since he was under contract to them.  When both serials were made into films, he was contacted by the BBC and brusquely informed that they had done a deal with Hammer studios, that was it, and he wouldn't receive a single penny for either film.  And we're talking 1953 pennies, which are worth at least 37p today <sits back down again and blows raspberries at the wretches>.  Art!

The Hammer film and it's edgy title

     Although Ol' Nige didn't like the film, it is an entertaining ride in it's own right, and Richard Wordsworth, playing the doomed astronaut Carroon, is a wonder.   

     When Ol' Nige bashed up QATP he was a freelancer, able to both demand a higher wage than when he'd been a humble civil servant and retain the rights to his own creation.  When Hammer made it into a film the BBC got nothing.  Heh!

     Here an aside.  QATP is one of the creepiest television shows ever made**, even if it was at the dawn of the television era almost seventy years ago.  Conrad dares you to watch it on All Hallow's Eve with the lights off.

     What struck Your Humble Scribe was the similarity with creators, their creations and the rights held to same here in This Sceptred Isle.  Ol' Nige worked in television, not comics, yet the situation he endured at the BBC mirrors that of British comic artists: anything they created was always the property of their publishers, not themselves.  This is why so many British comic artists departed these shores for South Canada, where they were at least accorded the rights and privileges of ownership.  And the $$$ that followed.

Brian Bolland we are looking at you

     Not a particularly deep observation but one I thought you'd like to share with me.  Okay, clouds have now occluded the star, my can of OSH is empty and my vague outline has been somewhat defined.

     Motley!  You can be the hideously-mutated Carroon (if you can still call him that), and I'll be the Lord High Electrocutioner, with a pair of cattle-prods.  Yes yes yes, you do have to lie on all that steel scaffolding.  Verisimilitude, you know.

"Mister Carroon's hangover proved to be quite transformative."

From The Terrifying To The Mundane

Hmmmm kind of mundane.  It depends how far they take it.

     Okay, Conrad followed a BBC <who are going to have to work hard to get back in my good books> website article about - get this - following a real-life real live Robocop on patrol.  I know what you're thinking, who did they get to play the lead? except NO!  This is real life, not fiction.  Art!

     Sorry to ruin your expectations of blood and thunder.  This is a robot patrolling a park in South Canada that had been having problems with yahoos and gangs, except it doesn't bristle with ordnance.  Art!

     The creators were vehement about it not being armed, since it's duty is to observe and report, and they held very hard to the principle that you need a human being present when there is the possibility of deadly force in issue.  One observer declared that it looked as if they'd booked it straight from the props department of "Star Wars"  and thanks to it's slow gait, he's not far wrong.

     

     "Hi?  Is that the cops?  Yeah, we've got your multi-million dollar robot and we're gonna drop it onto the highway unless we get five hundred grand ..."

     Right.  I mean, what can possibly go wrong?

Conrad Is ANGRY!  O So ANGRY!  FURIOUSLY ANGRY!!

Yes, things have become so bad that I am resorting to TWO exclamation marks.  For those curious about criteria, I will only use three when the Ruffian ICBMs are about to hit.   Art!

     As you can see from the overlaid Sharpie in black and the fudged solution boxes at the bottom, Conrad was severely embarrassed by this Codeword, and I think you can see why.  "ZYMOLOGY" as a solution?  <Mister Hand redacts a lot of swearing>  WHAT THE DOG BUNS IS ZYMOLOGY!

     My Collins Concise informs that it is the scientific study of fermentation.  Go on, how many of you out there had ever heard of ZYMOLOGY before scanning these lines?  Exactly none, unless you're a brewer.  And - "ZINGY"?  What the Kreplach is that supposed to be?  This is hardly legitimate use of the English language.

Go on, rub it in why don't you.
O YOU ARE DOING.

     I dare not continue with Codeword condemnation as my blood pressure is already at tropospheric levels and were I to continue the Remote Nuclear Detonator button would be glowing white hot.

I need to pop down to box up my Bigos for next week, and scrub the pan, too, as it will be rather grubby after steeping Polish stew for hours.

Finally -

Work continues apace on the 3D Empire State Building, even if I don't have a photograph to show you of current status - should I lay stuff out and take a picture?  O go on then, just because you lot are skeptics who don't believe anything without proof.  Hang on -

    Whilst this may not look impressive, there were originally only 7 pieces to work from, and now there are 42 here, which means completing about 3% of the overall total.  There are still a worryingly large number of missing pieces, which might perhaps still turn up in the still equally-numerous pieces still to add in.

     We shall see!

      And with that Conrad flew out the window on his pocket-Roc and travelled to the land of the Jub-Jub trees.

*  Apart from the ship.

**  Thanks partly to the sound design.