Once Again We Leap Into The Wild Brown Yonder
We have covered Bill Sikes and Bill Of Sale and Friends Of Bill (Clinton), skirting Bill Gates along the way, because who wants to hear or learn of a chap who invented doors or windows or whatever. Not us*! Instead we are up for the incredibly entertaining list of 'Bill's that my 'Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable' lists. Art!
Yes, that it the magisterial Bill Nighy, appearing in an episode of the premier BBC dramamentary 'Doctor Who' where they feature Genghis Van Gogh, who cuts off the ears of everyone he conquered, until a Yellow Monster representing
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Sorry, normal service has been resumed. Bill looks about 80 in the photo above, but he's always looked about 80 since he was 20. Just one of those faces. Art!
Bill when he was 12
BLOCK A BILL: From the Allotment of Eden's parliamentary practices, this is to either postpone or prevent the passage of a bill by giving notice of opposition. This means it can not be debated, discussed or do anything with after 22:00 hours, as this is when the bars close. Art!
FOOT THE BILL: To pay said bill. This goes back a looong way, to when people signed at the bottom of a bill as a guarantee that they could and would pay it. Art!
This will annoy a certain Orange Land Whale
PRIVATE MEMBERS BILL: Dear me, this is dull stuff indeed, isn't it? Again, a legislative measure introduced in the Mother Of All Parliaments, except by an individual rather than as part of a government measure. Such Bills, such as the 'Requirement to wear a silly hat and eat kippered anchovies on September 13th Bill' rarely gain approval and become Acts. Thankfully. Art!
BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE: Ah, this is more like it! When Bill 'William' S. Preston and Ted Theodore Logan journey through time in a telephone box (see Paragraph One for homage) they accumulate historical figures - well, not to be too blunt, they kidnap them - in order to pass a history exam and allow their band, Wyld Stallyns, to continue on and positively influence the future. Art!
Bill and Ted are likeable, even loveable, but good lord aloft, are they dim. Collectively they have less intellectual firepower than a 15-watt bulb. And you know what? The film is okay with this. Neither becomes any more clever over the film, though probably much wiser. At the time - 1989 - it's interesting to see Keanu Reeves playing a one-dimensional character because people thought he, too, was one-dimensional. This is now the guy who is currently known throughout Hollywood as the personification of 'Nice' and he still has a career in film over 30 years later. When you are pleasant and humble to the cast and crew, casting directors remember you fondly.
BILL TIDY: This one might mystify foreign viewers, so I shall explicate. Bill was a cartoonist, author and (that ghastly phrase) television personality, whose work was published in the British press of the time. He was noted for 'The Cloggies' serial and 'The Fosdyke Saga', which requires further explication. Art!
This was a portrayal of Northern folk laid on with, not a trowel, but a JCB excavator bucket. Conrad has probably seen a few strips and remembers nothing. Art!
Dog Buns. Now I'm wondering if I should purchase any of them. Wallet squeaks in anguish. Art!
What I recall is Bill being one of the end-of-week turns on 'Look North', a local television magazine program of the Seventies. He would be given a classical painting with lots of space to east, west and south, and would talk the presenter and audience through What Came Next, drawing it as he made it up. I don't think any television program of today would DARE to allow an artist such freedom lest they produce what was indictable or litigious. Days that were happy.
Next up: we get silly about 'BILLY'. You heard it here first.
The Roasting Continues
Yet another Plot Point to make about 'The 100'. which I am nevertheless enjoying immensely, having seen Season One so long ago that I remember only the ending of the last episode. Art!
Meet Dax. a villain who emerges from the background for a couple of episodes, and who does his best to kill Bellamy. Being an unskilled 17-year old deficient in the skills for murder, he doesn't get very far. Bellamy, on the other hand, fatally stabs him in the neck with a bullet, that well-known unarmed fighting technique. Art!
Um no. Bullets, you see, derive their effect from travelling at hundreds of feet per second, not being wielded as a stabbing tool.
These Plot Points are great! They keep providing blog content, for which Conrad is grateful.
Look What I Found At The Back Of The Bookcase
A charity shop find I guess, this has been untouched and unread for at least 6 months. Art!
How very serendipitous, when we here at BOOJUM! are whanging on about trains and railways in wartime. I have already taken a series of photos to put up later on as illos, because once I've snapped it, you're going to get it. Art!
This, lest ye be unaware, is what happens when there's a derailment on the line; one of these monster cranes on wheels is required to recover the rolling stock or locomotive. Here's the one at York Rail Museum. Art!
More to come, promise. I bet you can hardly wait.
"The War Illustrated Edition 211 22nd July 1945"
More of the central montage, which concentrates on the Pacific theatre and carrier operations, which had replaced the battleship as the dominant form of naval life. Art!
This photograph is an evocative illustration of why Japan lost the war. Here five of the smaller South Canadian 'escort' carriers are returning to base for resupply, clearly out of the war zone as their decks are crammed with their aircraft. This is only a fraction of the total South Canadian aircraft carrier complement; they began the war with just 7 very large carriers and went on to build and deploy over 90 more, making everyone else's naval construction look a bit sick. The Japanese began the conflict with 10 and managed to build 25 in total, most of which ended up at the bottom of the Pacific.
A Moment's Silence If You Please
We mourn the passing of Mister Ray Brooks, an British actor who finally succumbed to illness and old age at the age of 86. Ray had been around for fifty years in showbiz, and Conrad well remembers his likeable rogue character in 'Big Deal'. Art!
Allow me to cheat a bit and copy a list of television shows he appeared in during the Sixties and Seventies.
They included roles in Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, Emergency-Ward 10, The Avengers, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Z Cars.
An impressive CV. Conrad had no idea that Ray was the voice behind 'Mr Benn', that perpetual favourite of children and adults who ought to know better. Art!
They only ever made 13 episodes, but the Beeb repeated them twice a year for decades, so Ray's residuals must have kept him in Chocolate Hob Nobs, and the proper McVitie's brand, no cheap supermarket knock off.
ANYWAY what Ray is really known for in The Mansion is his role as the gung-ho youngster David Campbell in "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2165". Art!
There's one bit where he does a back-flip to shoot a Robo-Man - what do you mean, I should know better?
With that, Vulnavia, we are so very DONE!
* He may be a BILLionare but we are not swayed by coarse material wealth.
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