MUSIC: 'Samba Pa Ti', Santana
VOICE: This isn't just a raspberry pavlova. This is a pavlova with a meringue base made from free-range eggs, separated, and then beaten ... beaten with birch twigs, until they bleed.
Topped with fresh cream, whipped, ... whipped while chained in a dungeon until it begs for mercy.
And raspberries, plucked by hand and pulped beneath the heel of an 8-inch stiletto.
This isn't just food - this is S & M food.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Desolation Row: Bob Dylan's wasteland
Although he now disavows any studious intent in the construction his songs, Dylan's absorption of high and low culture and fashioning it into masterpieces of allusion is undeniable.
"You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images" Wasteland, line 21
I had always thought Desolation Row was his best song in its glorious Highway 61 version, delicately punctuated by acoustic guitar breaks. But now it is bookended by the earlier take, with electric guitar, on the No Direction Home soundtrack CD, and the strummed acoustic Live 1966 version; each is in its way nigh-perfect, but the minor changes in the lyrics emphasise just how precisely right the rest are.
It is a commonplace that the overall shape and structure of the song parallels that of T. S. Eliot's Wasteland, but as I looked at each line possible references came flooding in. This isn't to say that they were in Dylan's head when he wrote it; but they are there in mine when I hear it. I have marked the parallels with ** where I believe they are close enough to represent conscious references, and * the less definite ones.
Lyrics are copyright Bob Dylan.
I
They're selling postcards of the hanging
The bleak thrown-away horror here is masterful. Without the anger driving overt protest, it is as if the commercialisation and celebration of execution were too expected to be worthy of note.
Wasteland reference: line 55 'the Hanged man' [Tarot card reference: tarot=postcard] *
They're painting the passports brown
This line is less clear, although it is notable that the emphasis in this line is on the 'they' at the start: in line 1, it's almost lost, just syaing 'postcards are being sold', but here it is a They who is doing the painting. Brown is associated with soil, shit and death, and 'means noone no good'. My image of this is of visas or identity cards being stamped 'cancelled' before being returned to the now trapped citizens.
Wasteland: line 208 'under the brown fog of a winter noon' and line 211: 'documents at sight'
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
What are the sailors doing there? Presumably being sexually transgressive. The world is turned upside down.
The circus is in town
I connect circus here with carnival and in turn to a feast of the senses, or debauchery, and with the 'freak show' cover photograph of the Basement Tapes.
Wasteland: line 56 "I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring" *
Here comes the blind commissioner
On first hearing, you automatically interpret this as a commissionaire, dressed up in hotel finery: a blind one might not be much good, but unworthy of note. Actually, thouygh, he quite definitely sings and writes 'commissioner', in which case he is presumably meaning some government official with quasi-judicial functions. The 'blind' then presumably relates to his powerlessness or unthinking fairness (blind justice with her scales).
Wasteland: line 46 "(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)" *
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
I connect this with walking the plank: justice is not only blind but imperilled. In the early take, his hand is 'nailed in his pants', perhaps a cricifixion reference, but in the final version it appears the commissioner is choose to keep his hand there, presumably masturbating. And you know that makes you go blind.
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
The 'mob' of riot police is another aspect of the overturning of authority, when those supposed to uphold the law are keen to breach it.
As the Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Wasteland: lines 49/50 "Here is Belladona, the Lady of the Rocks, / The lady of situations" **
II
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
The narrative here starts in the midst of a scene: clearly the singer has just said something while flirting with her, and she appears to respond positively.
Wasteland: line 253 "When lovely woman stoops to folly and / Paces about her room again, alone, / She smooths her hair with automatic hand, / And puts a record on the gramaphone." *
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong To Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave."
He's in the wrong place because love and sincerity of feeling do not operate on Desolation Row. The 'someone' who answers is presumably the singer.
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Obviously Romeo declines to leave quietly, and a fight ensues.
Dylan, "Pledging My Time": "They called for an ambulance, and one was sent / Someone must've got lucky, but it was an accident"
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Sweeping up the broken glass from the fight. No Prince Charmings on Desolation Row.
III
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
Hidden by gathering doom-laden clouds.
The fortunetelling lady
Wasteland: line 43 'Madam Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' *
Has even taken all her things inside
The time to worry is when psychics panic.
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
Cain and Abel are too busy fighting; Quasimodo knows his beloved is dead. But sort of rain can be expected from such an ominous cloud?
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Charity and good fellowship have been replaced by cynicism and hedonism.
IV
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
Because she has gone to the Nunnery.
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
She chooses death rather than devotion only to God.
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
The rainbow is supposed to be a sign of God's ultimate forgiveness, so she hopes for redemption.
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
But she is too aware of reality to succumb.
V
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
Einstein presumably regrets the consequences of his genius.
Wasteland: line 362 "There is always another one walking beside you/ Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded" **
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Einstein is reduced to an idiot savant.
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Fame is transient; nothing endures.
VI
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
The doctor's name hardly inspires confidence, and neither does the reaction of his patients. He sounds like a Nazi doctor in the death camps.
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
The medicinal use of cyanide confirms the interpretation.
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy On His Soul"
Wateland: line 52 "And this card, which is blank, is something he carries on his back, which I am forbidden to see". *
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
VII
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Last Supper.
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
Judas.
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outta Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Casanova is being punished by being crucified.
VIII
Now at midnight all the agents
Wasteland: line 232 "A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits"
W. H. Auden , 'The Fall of Rome': "Agents of the Fisc pursue/ Absconding tax defaulters"
And the superhuman crew
This wraps up Nietzsche's Superman and Shaw's 'Man and Superman', covering both left-and right-wing politics.
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
The hatred for educated people is a good indicator of tyranny, shared by the book-burning Nazis, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the lunacy of Pol Pot's victimisation of anyone wearing glasses.
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Industrial evil: death factories.
Kafka (the insurance clerk): the Castle, the tyranny of bureaucracy
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
IX
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Wasteland: line 56 "Fear death by water" *
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Wasteland: line 261 "The pleasant whining of a mandoline / And a clatter and a chatter from within / Where fishmen lounge at noon" *
Between the windows of the sea
Wasteland: line 47 "the drowned Phoenician sailor" *
Where lovely mermaids flow
Wasteland: line 96 "In which sad light a carved dolphin swam"
Prufrock: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each" *
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
X
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
Wasteland: line 411 "I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only / We think of the key, each in his prison" *
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
Wasteland: line 115 "I never know what you are thinking." *
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
My reality is unique to me and we can't even agree on what to call things that are 'out there'.
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
The letters here are a reference back to postcards at the start, making the song cyclical.
"You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images" Wasteland, line 21
I had always thought Desolation Row was his best song in its glorious Highway 61 version, delicately punctuated by acoustic guitar breaks. But now it is bookended by the earlier take, with electric guitar, on the No Direction Home soundtrack CD, and the strummed acoustic Live 1966 version; each is in its way nigh-perfect, but the minor changes in the lyrics emphasise just how precisely right the rest are.
It is a commonplace that the overall shape and structure of the song parallels that of T. S. Eliot's Wasteland, but as I looked at each line possible references came flooding in. This isn't to say that they were in Dylan's head when he wrote it; but they are there in mine when I hear it. I have marked the parallels with ** where I believe they are close enough to represent conscious references, and * the less definite ones.
Lyrics are copyright Bob Dylan.
I
They're selling postcards of the hanging
The bleak thrown-away horror here is masterful. Without the anger driving overt protest, it is as if the commercialisation and celebration of execution were too expected to be worthy of note.
Wasteland reference: line 55 'the Hanged man' [Tarot card reference: tarot=postcard] *
They're painting the passports brown
This line is less clear, although it is notable that the emphasis in this line is on the 'they' at the start: in line 1, it's almost lost, just syaing 'postcards are being sold', but here it is a They who is doing the painting. Brown is associated with soil, shit and death, and 'means noone no good'. My image of this is of visas or identity cards being stamped 'cancelled' before being returned to the now trapped citizens.
Wasteland: line 208 'under the brown fog of a winter noon' and line 211: 'documents at sight'
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
What are the sailors doing there? Presumably being sexually transgressive. The world is turned upside down.
The circus is in town
I connect circus here with carnival and in turn to a feast of the senses, or debauchery, and with the 'freak show' cover photograph of the Basement Tapes.
Wasteland: line 56 "I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring" *
Here comes the blind commissioner
On first hearing, you automatically interpret this as a commissionaire, dressed up in hotel finery: a blind one might not be much good, but unworthy of note. Actually, thouygh, he quite definitely sings and writes 'commissioner', in which case he is presumably meaning some government official with quasi-judicial functions. The 'blind' then presumably relates to his powerlessness or unthinking fairness (blind justice with her scales).
Wasteland: line 46 "(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)" *
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
I connect this with walking the plank: justice is not only blind but imperilled. In the early take, his hand is 'nailed in his pants', perhaps a cricifixion reference, but in the final version it appears the commissioner is choose to keep his hand there, presumably masturbating. And you know that makes you go blind.
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
The 'mob' of riot police is another aspect of the overturning of authority, when those supposed to uphold the law are keen to breach it.
As the Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Wasteland: lines 49/50 "Here is Belladona, the Lady of the Rocks, / The lady of situations" **
II
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
The narrative here starts in the midst of a scene: clearly the singer has just said something while flirting with her, and she appears to respond positively.
Wasteland: line 253 "When lovely woman stoops to folly and / Paces about her room again, alone, / She smooths her hair with automatic hand, / And puts a record on the gramaphone." *
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong To Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave."
He's in the wrong place because love and sincerity of feeling do not operate on Desolation Row. The 'someone' who answers is presumably the singer.
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Obviously Romeo declines to leave quietly, and a fight ensues.
Dylan, "Pledging My Time": "They called for an ambulance, and one was sent / Someone must've got lucky, but it was an accident"
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Sweeping up the broken glass from the fight. No Prince Charmings on Desolation Row.
III
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
Hidden by gathering doom-laden clouds.
The fortunetelling lady
Wasteland: line 43 'Madam Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' *
Has even taken all her things inside
The time to worry is when psychics panic.
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
Cain and Abel are too busy fighting; Quasimodo knows his beloved is dead. But sort of rain can be expected from such an ominous cloud?
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Charity and good fellowship have been replaced by cynicism and hedonism.
IV
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
Because she has gone to the Nunnery.
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
She chooses death rather than devotion only to God.
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
The rainbow is supposed to be a sign of God's ultimate forgiveness, so she hopes for redemption.
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
But she is too aware of reality to succumb.
V
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
Einstein presumably regrets the consequences of his genius.
Wasteland: line 362 "There is always another one walking beside you/ Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded" **
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Einstein is reduced to an idiot savant.
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Fame is transient; nothing endures.
VI
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
The doctor's name hardly inspires confidence, and neither does the reaction of his patients. He sounds like a Nazi doctor in the death camps.
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
The medicinal use of cyanide confirms the interpretation.
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy On His Soul"
Wateland: line 52 "And this card, which is blank, is something he carries on his back, which I am forbidden to see". *
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
VII
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Last Supper.
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
Judas.
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outta Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Casanova is being punished by being crucified.
VIII
Now at midnight all the agents
Wasteland: line 232 "A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits"
W. H. Auden , 'The Fall of Rome': "Agents of the Fisc pursue/ Absconding tax defaulters"
And the superhuman crew
This wraps up Nietzsche's Superman and Shaw's 'Man and Superman', covering both left-and right-wing politics.
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
The hatred for educated people is a good indicator of tyranny, shared by the book-burning Nazis, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the lunacy of Pol Pot's victimisation of anyone wearing glasses.
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Industrial evil: death factories.
Kafka (the insurance clerk): the Castle, the tyranny of bureaucracy
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
IX
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Wasteland: line 56 "Fear death by water" *
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Wasteland: line 261 "The pleasant whining of a mandoline / And a clatter and a chatter from within / Where fishmen lounge at noon" *
Between the windows of the sea
Wasteland: line 47 "the drowned Phoenician sailor" *
Where lovely mermaids flow
Wasteland: line 96 "In which sad light a carved dolphin swam"
Prufrock: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each" *
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
X
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
Wasteland: line 411 "I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only / We think of the key, each in his prison" *
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
Wasteland: line 115 "I never know what you are thinking." *
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
My reality is unique to me and we can't even agree on what to call things that are 'out there'.
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
The letters here are a reference back to postcards at the start, making the song cyclical.
Luck, chance and the perception of coincidence
I have read that it is still inconcievable that a robot can be designed to catch a thrown ball. The casual sophistication of human perception is enormous: to work out from limited sense data not only what is going on in terms of movement, but then to predict and act on it, moving the hand so it is in just the right place. Usually (insert joke about cricketers here). This is achieved by some very clever under-the-bonnet stuff to do with mental spatial models. The human mind is very good at discerning patterns in high-noise data. Sometimes this is meaningful, as when the Greeks observed the planets and calculated their orbits (wrongly, but still); and sometimes it isn't, as when they played joined-the-dots to create the constellations. But being good at making patterns means that we spot 'coincidences' very easily, and are poor at judging probability. That's what keeps astrologers in business: they don't have to be right very often to seem to be on to something. This can be queried: when you look at the people spread-betting on a football match, if 40% bet on each team to win, and 20% bet on a draw, then at least 20% are going to be 'strangely prescient' (this time). And there was also that triumphant moment on the National Lottery when Mystic Meg predicted that those wearing red would be in for a chance tonight etc, but her pyschic powers totally failed to infrom her that that week's draw would be cancelled because of techncial problems.
The reason I raise this is because of the continuing saga of CNPS : Consecutive Number Plate Spotting [up to 48 now- exciting, isn't it?]. And I have borne out Richard Herring's observations on the Gods of CNPS: they are fickle, and they are cruel.
That's the emotional reality of it. Some days, some numbers, they smile, and offer up the numbers like ducks in a row; other days, other numbers, they hide, they cheat, they lurk in shadows, they dive into sidestreets as I approach. And sometimes, to rub in the lack of progress, they arrange parades of the last number, or the one after next, time after time, before getting a glimpse of the right one.
So what's going on, if we start on the basis that the Gods of CNPS (whisper it) don't exist?
Fickleness is easy to explain. As I calculated before, the number of other numbers seen before the right one will vary between 1 and 1000. So some will be long, some short. The long ones of course (duh) last longer, so one's "hours of waiting a long time" seem worse, and so a more memorable. Beyond that, though, I wonder whether the nature of the distribution is disorientating. Most phenomena we experience are bell-curves, where most values occur near the mean (so that rainfall goes up a little, down a little, except this year). But the number-plate probability 'curve' is flat: the extremes are as likely as the mid-range values. This makes it seem even more aribtrary than it is.
The cruelty, the taunting, is even simpler. We are focused on looking for one number, y, but keep seeing the x's we no longer need, or the z's, that we will need next but don't need now. How the Halls of Valhalla must ring with laughter. But, looking at just those three numbers, the likelihood that we see y before z or x is only 1/3. We are more likely to see one of the others. We are just as likely (1/3) to see both of the others before y. No wonder it happens so often. And for repeated numbers: after we have seen an x, there is (again) a 1/3 chance of a y, a 1/3 chance of another x, and 1/3 chance of a z. So building up a conspiracy against me is simple.
I'm not sure how far this gets us, apart from explaining why people are so easily convinced of the workings of fate or luck, and the strength of their convictions, however misplaced.
The reason I raise this is because of the continuing saga of CNPS : Consecutive Number Plate Spotting [up to 48 now- exciting, isn't it?]. And I have borne out Richard Herring's observations on the Gods of CNPS: they are fickle, and they are cruel.
That's the emotional reality of it. Some days, some numbers, they smile, and offer up the numbers like ducks in a row; other days, other numbers, they hide, they cheat, they lurk in shadows, they dive into sidestreets as I approach. And sometimes, to rub in the lack of progress, they arrange parades of the last number, or the one after next, time after time, before getting a glimpse of the right one.
So what's going on, if we start on the basis that the Gods of CNPS (whisper it) don't exist?
Fickleness is easy to explain. As I calculated before, the number of other numbers seen before the right one will vary between 1 and 1000. So some will be long, some short. The long ones of course (duh) last longer, so one's "hours of waiting a long time" seem worse, and so a more memorable. Beyond that, though, I wonder whether the nature of the distribution is disorientating. Most phenomena we experience are bell-curves, where most values occur near the mean (so that rainfall goes up a little, down a little, except this year). But the number-plate probability 'curve' is flat: the extremes are as likely as the mid-range values. This makes it seem even more aribtrary than it is.
The cruelty, the taunting, is even simpler. We are focused on looking for one number, y, but keep seeing the x's we no longer need, or the z's, that we will need next but don't need now. How the Halls of Valhalla must ring with laughter. But, looking at just those three numbers, the likelihood that we see y before z or x is only 1/3. We are more likely to see one of the others. We are just as likely (1/3) to see both of the others before y. No wonder it happens so often. And for repeated numbers: after we have seen an x, there is (again) a 1/3 chance of a y, a 1/3 chance of another x, and 1/3 chance of a z. So building up a conspiracy against me is simple.
I'm not sure how far this gets us, apart from explaining why people are so easily convinced of the workings of fate or luck, and the strength of their convictions, however misplaced.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Overheard
"Have you seen my shower cap?"
"No- what were doing when you last had it?"
"Having a shower"
"No- what were doing when you last had it?"
"Having a shower"
How to increase your blog traffic
I have posted before about Jakob Nielsen and his comments on blogs, written from the perspective of business-to-business web design. I concurred with most of his recommendations, in a theoretical way. Recently, though, I've noticed that my hit counter has, for the first time ever, shown signs of life (10 a day may not seem like many, but try saying that to someone who got three!). Here are my (experience based) suggestions:
- Give posts clear titles. After half a lifetime reading British newspapers, it seems wrong somehow to just say what something is, without trying to twist it somehow, use a quotation, or make it ironic. Wrong it may be, but nobody will be Googling for your play on words, so you'll be buried deep in page 10,000 of "Big Brother 7" or whatever.
- Guide newbies. Almost all your visitors will be visting only once, to look at a specific subject they are currently interested in. Most will move on. But make it easy for them to explore by having links to your best or most popular posts as part of the sidebar.
- Post often, or regularly. This is where I fall down, because my blog isn't the No. 1 thing in my life- it's down there at number 75 or so. Repeat visitors like to see new content. And of course, the more content there is, the more archive there is to be picked up by searches.
- Don't bother with carnivals, webrings etc. There are 100 million webistes out there. Sharing links and passing around a handful of readers from site to site makes no difference. That's not quite true, but in general I'd say if you're going to invest your time, put it into writing more content rather than chasing links.
- Be topical. My review of Not Going Out might not be very good, or thorough, or even a proper review, but it's currently Google's No. 1 hit for "Not Going Out review". Maybe you can't always be right- but you can always be first.
- Review things. Why? Because one of the great uses for the Web is for people to find out what a film/book/album is like. So people like reviews. Much better than hearing about shoe shopping or your favourite breakfast cereal.
- Link out. Links are helpful to the reader, and raise Google rank. Win, win.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Overheard
Manager 1: Are you going to the training course on Bullying and Harassment?
Manager 2: No, I'm good enough at those already.
Manager 2: No, I'm good enough at those already.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Radio comedy sketch: Venus and Mars
FX: PUB BACKGROUND
RICK: There’s your pint.
HARRY: Cheers. Oh- I’ve been reading “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”.
RICK: It’s rubbish, isn’t it?
HARRY: No, it’s not, you’d be surprised.
RICK: Why?
HARRY: Well, it seems men’s minds are programmed differently to women’s.
RICK: How do you mean?
HARRY: Men focus on one thing, completely, but women are always multi-tasking, doing several things at once.
RICK: I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed that.
HARRY: Surely you have?
RICK: No, I don’t think so.
HARRY: Well, I’ve noticed that when Sue and I are, you know…
RICK: Having sex?
HARRY: Yes. I’m always concentrating, in the zone, giving it all that.
RICK: Yeah?
HARRY: But she’s watching TV, or checking her nails, or doing the crossword, at the same time.
RICK: That’s odd. She doesn’t with me.
FX: PUB BACKGROUND
RICK: There’s your pint.
HARRY: Cheers. Oh- I’ve been reading “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”.
RICK: It’s rubbish, isn’t it?
HARRY: No, it’s not, you’d be surprised.
RICK: Why?
HARRY: Well, it seems men’s minds are programmed differently to women’s.
RICK: How do you mean?
HARRY: Men focus on one thing, completely, but women are always multi-tasking, doing several things at once.
RICK: I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed that.
HARRY: Surely you have?
RICK: No, I don’t think so.
HARRY: Well, I’ve noticed that when Sue and I are, you know…
RICK: Having sex?
HARRY: Yes. I’m always concentrating, in the zone, giving it all that.
RICK: Yeah?
HARRY: But she’s watching TV, or checking her nails, or doing the crossword, at the same time.
RICK: That’s odd. She doesn’t with me.
FX: PUB BACKGROUND
Radio comedy sketch: Help desk
FX: RINGING TONE
BOB: Hello? Help Desk here.
ANGIE: Ah, good. Can you help me?
BOB: That’s what we’re here for.
ANGIE: OK, I’m just setting up my home network.
BOB: Fine.
ANGIE: Yes, I’ve unpacked the monitor, the keyboard, the scanner, the printer, the cables, the mouse, the speakers, the power socket and the surge protector.
BOB: And what is the problem?
ANGIE: I can’t reach the door!
FX CALL END TONE. RINGING TONE
SOPHIE: Hello? Help desk here.
MICHAEL: Hi. I’m having some trouble with my system. I can’t install the virus scanner.
SOPHIE: Ok, I’ll see what we can do. Can I take the details?
MICHAEL: It’s a Windows NT system, Intel Pentium, 340 megahertz.
SOPHIE: And the software?
MICHAEL: Version 4.5, SE.
SOPHIE: That should be ok. (PAUSE) What’s your date of birth?
MICHAEL: What? Oh, 2nd March 1980.
SOPHIE: Oh, I see.
MICHAEL: What?
SOPHIE: You haven’t really done your homework, have you?
MICHAEL: How do you mean?
SOPHIE: [READING] “Pisces should avoid IT applications while Mars is in the ascendant”
MICHAEL: I don’t remember seeing that.
SOPHIE: [READING] “... and beware periods of forgetfulness”. You should wait for a more propitious time.
MICHAEL: Are you seriously telling me that in the 21st century I need to wait for my stars to align correctly before I can use one of your products?
SOPHIE: [DREAMILY] Expect good news in the Spring, and get ready to upload Windows-based software when Aquarius rises.
MICHAEL: I’m sorry, I don’t believe in astrology.
FX: HANGS UP
SOPHIE: I’m fed up with all these Pisces.
BOB: They’re so sceptical.
FX: RINGING TONE
BOB: Hello, Help Desk here.
GEORGE: [SHOUTS] Help! Help!
FX: SPLASHING SOUNDS
BOB: Hello, can you hear me?
GEORGE: [SHOUTS] Help! I’m drowning! Please - help!
FX: HANGS UP
SOPHIE: Was that another shouter?
BOB: Yes. It’s just rude, isn’t it?
BOB: Hello? Help Desk here.
ANGIE: Ah, good. Can you help me?
BOB: That’s what we’re here for.
ANGIE: OK, I’m just setting up my home network.
BOB: Fine.
ANGIE: Yes, I’ve unpacked the monitor, the keyboard, the scanner, the printer, the cables, the mouse, the speakers, the power socket and the surge protector.
BOB: And what is the problem?
ANGIE: I can’t reach the door!
FX CALL END TONE. RINGING TONE
SOPHIE: Hello? Help desk here.
MICHAEL: Hi. I’m having some trouble with my system. I can’t install the virus scanner.
SOPHIE: Ok, I’ll see what we can do. Can I take the details?
MICHAEL: It’s a Windows NT system, Intel Pentium, 340 megahertz.
SOPHIE: And the software?
MICHAEL: Version 4.5, SE.
SOPHIE: That should be ok. (PAUSE) What’s your date of birth?
MICHAEL: What? Oh, 2nd March 1980.
SOPHIE: Oh, I see.
MICHAEL: What?
SOPHIE: You haven’t really done your homework, have you?
MICHAEL: How do you mean?
SOPHIE: [READING] “Pisces should avoid IT applications while Mars is in the ascendant”
MICHAEL: I don’t remember seeing that.
SOPHIE: [READING] “... and beware periods of forgetfulness”. You should wait for a more propitious time.
MICHAEL: Are you seriously telling me that in the 21st century I need to wait for my stars to align correctly before I can use one of your products?
SOPHIE: [DREAMILY] Expect good news in the Spring, and get ready to upload Windows-based software when Aquarius rises.
MICHAEL: I’m sorry, I don’t believe in astrology.
FX: HANGS UP
SOPHIE: I’m fed up with all these Pisces.
BOB: They’re so sceptical.
FX: RINGING TONE
BOB: Hello, Help Desk here.
GEORGE: [SHOUTS] Help! Help!
FX: SPLASHING SOUNDS
BOB: Hello, can you hear me?
GEORGE: [SHOUTS] Help! I’m drowning! Please - help!
FX: HANGS UP
SOPHIE: Was that another shouter?
BOB: Yes. It’s just rude, isn’t it?
Friday, October 20, 2006
I'm going to count from 1 to 1000 while I'm driving
Richard Herring's excellent website introduced me to the strange world of CNPS: that is Consecutive Number Plate Spotting. He explains it better and funnier than I can here, but as a pointless longwinded harmelss taks, I felt inspired as I read. He took a year to spot the 1,000 numerical elements of number plates in the right order.
In trying to work out whether that was a good or bad time, I started looking at the probability, assuming at the start that there was a random distribution of numbers. My first approach was to think in terms of the probability that the next car would have the number required (1 in 1000 or 0.1%), or the second (1 in 999 or a tiny bit more than 0.1%), but then I realised that if I ignored duplicates, there was an elegant solution: for a given number (say 123), it could be encountered anywhere between 1st and 1000th, which neatly gives a mean order of 500th. So in order to complete the challenge, you might expect to have to see 500 x 1,000 = 0.5 million cars (about all the cars in Wales).
Thinking about the question of duplicates, it doesn't actually matter that much if there is a peak (say 100 extra cars with 101 in the number): it would mean that searching for 101 will be much quicker, but on the other hand other numbers would take longer to find since there would be extra 101 duplicates to go through. As far as I can, see this cancels out.*Update below
More problematic, and what gives the game its urgency and charm, is that the world has changed. In 2001, the old three-random-digit number elements plus year-denoting letter were replaced by a two-digit number denoting year + letters, which makes 01-06 easy to do, but also means that the pool of larger numbers is restricted to older cars : it may already be the case that there are no longer any cars with some numbers on the road, and there is no way to find out.
There is an odd apsect to the way the statistics work: it doesn't actually matter how long you spend looking on any particular day: fatalistically, if you only see 300 cars you're unlikely to see the number you need, but then, you might see 900 and still not see it.
There is, at a low level, a bit of the thrill of gambling: you sink into a depressed torpor as one wrong number after another flies by, until suddenly you see the one you need: surprise and joy, almost disbelief, lasts for a few seconds, and then it fades, you switch to the new number, hoping this time it'll be quick... in its own way, it's as addictive as nicotine.**Update below
UPDATES
* This is wrong, further thought has shown. The initial assumption is that there are 1000 numbers, equally distributed, and therefore there is 1/1000 = 0.1 % chance that any given number will be that required. If we then inflate the figure by making 5 numbers represented by 200 rather than 1 per thousand, then the likelihood of 995 numbers when being searched for is 1/2000 = 0.05%, and the likelihood of the five numbers is 200/2000 = 10%. Unfortunately, the higher probability only operates when looking for those five numbers; for all the other 995, there are more, twice as many, wrong numbers to go through. So no, it doesn't cancel out, it makes it harder.
** Having gone through this a few times now, and not being a gambler, I can see why they go on about lucky streaks. After initial hope, you fall into a stupor of near-despair- is that number ever going to come up? That's why, when it does, it is as much a surprise as a joy. Now comes the critical point: any logical view would be that having just won, you are almost bound to endure the long period of loss before you win again, and therefore you would think twice about betting again. Except the voice of hope tells you that you are on a roll, that no way will it be so long to the next win, it's worth trying for a bit at least-- and then in no time at all you have lost so much that it would be foolish to give up when you were 'due' a win again. My view on gambling is that you should look carefully at the people who want you to do it: experienced gamblers, gambling companies, the government. Do these often give away money?
In trying to work out whether that was a good or bad time, I started looking at the probability, assuming at the start that there was a random distribution of numbers. My first approach was to think in terms of the probability that the next car would have the number required (1 in 1000 or 0.1%), or the second (1 in 999 or a tiny bit more than 0.1%), but then I realised that if I ignored duplicates, there was an elegant solution: for a given number (say 123), it could be encountered anywhere between 1st and 1000th, which neatly gives a mean order of 500th. So in order to complete the challenge, you might expect to have to see 500 x 1,000 = 0.5 million cars (about all the cars in Wales).
Thinking about the question of duplicates, it doesn't actually matter that much if there is a peak (say 100 extra cars with 101 in the number): it would mean that searching for 101 will be much quicker, but on the other hand other numbers would take longer to find since there would be extra 101 duplicates to go through. As far as I can, see this cancels out.*Update below
More problematic, and what gives the game its urgency and charm, is that the world has changed. In 2001, the old three-random-digit number elements plus year-denoting letter were replaced by a two-digit number denoting year + letters, which makes 01-06 easy to do, but also means that the pool of larger numbers is restricted to older cars : it may already be the case that there are no longer any cars with some numbers on the road, and there is no way to find out.
There is an odd apsect to the way the statistics work: it doesn't actually matter how long you spend looking on any particular day: fatalistically, if you only see 300 cars you're unlikely to see the number you need, but then, you might see 900 and still not see it.
There is, at a low level, a bit of the thrill of gambling: you sink into a depressed torpor as one wrong number after another flies by, until suddenly you see the one you need: surprise and joy, almost disbelief, lasts for a few seconds, and then it fades, you switch to the new number, hoping this time it'll be quick... in its own way, it's as addictive as nicotine.**Update below
UPDATES
* This is wrong, further thought has shown. The initial assumption is that there are 1000 numbers, equally distributed, and therefore there is 1/1000 = 0.1 % chance that any given number will be that required. If we then inflate the figure by making 5 numbers represented by 200 rather than 1 per thousand, then the likelihood of 995 numbers when being searched for is 1/2000 = 0.05%, and the likelihood of the five numbers is 200/2000 = 10%. Unfortunately, the higher probability only operates when looking for those five numbers; for all the other 995, there are more, twice as many, wrong numbers to go through. So no, it doesn't cancel out, it makes it harder.
** Having gone through this a few times now, and not being a gambler, I can see why they go on about lucky streaks. After initial hope, you fall into a stupor of near-despair- is that number ever going to come up? That's why, when it does, it is as much a surprise as a joy. Now comes the critical point: any logical view would be that having just won, you are almost bound to endure the long period of loss before you win again, and therefore you would think twice about betting again. Except the voice of hope tells you that you are on a roll, that no way will it be so long to the next win, it's worth trying for a bit at least-- and then in no time at all you have lost so much that it would be foolish to give up when you were 'due' a win again. My view on gambling is that you should look carefully at the people who want you to do it: experienced gamblers, gambling companies, the government. Do these often give away money?
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The heart of darkness: Review of Martin Amis, House of Meetings
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Amis is unafraid of the big issues. His obsession with politics, totalitarianism and corporate evil is sometimes interpreted as a bid for greatness, for respect; more likely it arises from a lively moral sense, triggered partly by concern for his burgeoning family, and partly from a feeling that in comparison to modern history the domestic arrangements of middle class Londoners are trivial as a topic.
House of Meetings takes Amis back to Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, and the corrosive effects of Stalin on his subjects. Unlike the broad factual account given in the earlier Koba the Dread, here he provides a narrative of a single family's experience as they attempt to live ordinary lives while being bent out of shape by the demands of the state. The anonymous memoirist who tells the story is met first as an angry dying man, touring the ruins of the Arctic labour camp in which he had been imprisoned; he writes a letter to his stepdaughter explaining his life, describing his loss of conscience. There follows a vivid description of life and death in the Gulag of the 1940s, whence he had been sent following the War, in which he had raped and fought his way into Germany. His uneasy accommodation with camp life is then disturbed by the arrival of his half-brother, Lev, and the news that Lev has married Zoya, a Jewess they both had pursued in their youth. The brothers fight to survive the camp as its regime changes following the death of Stalin, culminating in the provision for conjugal visits in the House of Meetings. Lev's assignation with Zoya leaves his spirit broken, and much of the rest of the book comprises speculation as to the cause. They are eventually released and find themselves marginalised under the Brezhnev regime; Lev chooses moral rectitude and material squalor; the memoirist material wealth, travel, and a series of unsatisfactory love affairs, culminating in the post-glasnost torpor of a society that believes so little in its future that people are reluctant to have children.
Thus the story is that of the nation, in microcosm. In Koba the Dread, Amis took care to show that Stalin was merely the most extreme and arbitrary tyrant produced by October: here, it would appear that Stalin was the sole cause of all woe. It was Stalin's camps that denatured his citizens, rendered them fearful, untrustworthy, and brutal. Nevertheless, Amis argues that the danger from the Russians is different in kind, not scale, from that of present-day Islamists, as represented here by the Chechen attack on School No. 1.
A conventional narrative structure would expose the unbalanced nature of the treatment: the memoirist's shifts in time and focus, and the giving and withholding of confidences, force the reader to grant him a hearing. They do, however, lead to a sense of anticlimax, since the impact of the camp section leaves the post-release saga as a minor addendum, echoing the exhaustion of the brothers. The plot is almost absurdly melodramatic, with its twins, death-bed confessions, and letters from the dead.
This would matter less is the characterisation of the memoirist was clearer. The descriptive style throughout is vintage Amis: clear, startling, elegant, poetic (contact with English culture is unconvincingly explained by the plot). The tension between this tone and his actions is an unresolved issue: we are perhaps half convinced by the evocation of what it feels like to kill, in the wild days when he takes the breakdown in order in the camp to murder the hated informers; but we are unconvinced by the interior view of the rapist, at either end of his life.
Amis expects his readers to know a lot of Russian history; he provides footnotes to identify Russian presidents, referred to by the memoirist by unfamiliar names, but does not elucidate the political developments for those unversed in the country's tragic arc.
But to write an encycopledic narrative would have taken a book much bigger than these 200 pages, which share with the short stories of Heavy Water an inexplicable luminosity, a subtle charge that leaves them resonating in your mind long after you have finished. A similar effect is derived from reading Time's Arrow, and of all Amis's works, it is that first-person narrative, of the other great European tragedy, which is closest in tone to this. A serious book for serious times.
Review of Not Going Out
Not Going Out is a new comedy on BBC1 for Friday evenings. And if that sentence doesn't make your spirits sink, you haven't been watching Blessed, or My Hero, or the under-powered Worst Week of My Life, or My Family, or that My Family clone so bad that my brain froze rather than allowing its name to reach the cerebral cortex. The bar for success is not set high.
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Is he having a laugh? Extras, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Lead Balloon
It is ironic that Ricky Gervaise, who saves his sharpest barbs for what he dismisses as catchphrase comedy, has unleashed a catchphrase himself: in the last week I have heard at least three broadcasters say "Is he having a laugh?", in contexts where it is clear that the phrase has risen from their subsconcious, without any deliberate attempt to reference its source. So people are watching the new series of Extras. It's hard to see why exactly: the three main jokes are repeated each episode:
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Change and decay 7
Selections from the Littleworth Estate Papers
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 102 Telex LITTLEWORTH[Typescript]
Herr Goering
Reichsluftfahrtministerium
Wlihelmstraße 79
Berlin
Deutchsland
21st April 1937
Dear Herr Goering
Further to your enquiry concerning availability of aluminium and magnesium for your Ministry, I am pleased to confirm that we hold substantial stocks of these materials.
It is our understanding that under the recent international agreements restricting the trading of munitions and related raw materials to Spain, it would be advantageous to both parties to handle delivery via Eire, since it is not a signatory and remains open as an entrepot.
We await your instructions
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant
H Eldon
[manuscript] P.S. You must visit us again for the grouse season!
---
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 2 [manuscript]
Lt H. Eldon
2nd King’s Rifles
South Africa
10th March 1902
My dear Harry
I’m pleased to hear that you are now back ‘in the field’. I trust you are fully recovered – one hears such terrible things of military hospitals. The newspapers here report nothing but victories. You should watch for the arrival of a shipment of barbed wire in the Province, from our mills – we have been contracted to supply 88 tons to the War Dept for use in civilian detention camps. This was most opportune, since we had been contemplating selling the works – there has been much agitation amongst the men over pay and hours of late, and it has been all the police could do to break up their protests. I have sent a parcel of food which no doubt will arrive in a few weeks.
You are much in our thoughts
Best wishes
Edward
---
[manuscript; copy letter in letterbook]
T. Osprey, esquire
Deptmt of Supply
Richmond
Virginia
American Confederacy
10th January 1863
Sir
We are obliged for your letter of 1st ultimo and beg to tender these prices for your consideration:
Swords, forged and tempered £1 per dozen
Daggers, 6” blade 6 shillings per dozen
Bayonets, 8” blade 10 shillings per dozen
We can supply leatherwork, scabbards, & cetera, at little additional cost, but believe that these may be more readily obtained by yourselves locally.
Our company does not manufacture rifles; we would be willing to act as agents on your behalf in securing the same, tho’ our govt’s intransigence would entail some difficulties on our part.
I beg to remain your most obedient servant
Edward Eldon
---
[manuscript]
From: Tom Eldon
Cold Harbour Hall
Kingston
Jamaica
To: Miss Frances Eldon
Littleworth Hall
Littleworth
1st October 1803
Dearest Cousin Frances
You inquired after our situation here. You may have read in the Gazette that the Negro rebels have been defeated and captured at last. The ringleader, styling himself “Captain Moses”, was an escapee from Mr Jones’ estate, just over the creek from us. Jones tells us that he had been making an experiment in educating the savages, but has resolved to desist in such efforts. Captain Moses was hanged by the militia in the Town Square this last week, although our niggers mutter that it was another man and that Moses lives. We have whipped them and keep them locked up at night, yet they do not apply themselves to their work.
We anticipate the arrival of a new shipment within the month, wch will be sorely needed, so many of our current complement having died from malarial contagion. Alas, prices are rising now that supplies are short, the Navy’s patrols having dislocated the traffic.
You should soon receive at the Hall a delivery of Wedgwood’s porcelain – I would be obliged if you would inspect it as to condition, since the factory disclaims any control of its carters. I am as yet undecided where it is best to place; if you let me know it has arrived I shall be put upon to chuse!
I trust that you will not find me importunate in allotting you such a task
And remain
Your loving cousin
Tom
---
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 102 Telex LITTLEWORTH[Typescript]
Herr Goering
Reichsluftfahrtministerium
Wlihelmstraße 79
Berlin
Deutchsland
21st April 1937
Dear Herr Goering
Further to your enquiry concerning availability of aluminium and magnesium for your Ministry, I am pleased to confirm that we hold substantial stocks of these materials.
It is our understanding that under the recent international agreements restricting the trading of munitions and related raw materials to Spain, it would be advantageous to both parties to handle delivery via Eire, since it is not a signatory and remains open as an entrepot.
We await your instructions
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant
H Eldon
[manuscript] P.S. You must visit us again for the grouse season!
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Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 2 [manuscript]
Lt H. Eldon
2nd King’s Rifles
South Africa
10th March 1902
My dear Harry
I’m pleased to hear that you are now back ‘in the field’. I trust you are fully recovered – one hears such terrible things of military hospitals. The newspapers here report nothing but victories. You should watch for the arrival of a shipment of barbed wire in the Province, from our mills – we have been contracted to supply 88 tons to the War Dept for use in civilian detention camps. This was most opportune, since we had been contemplating selling the works – there has been much agitation amongst the men over pay and hours of late, and it has been all the police could do to break up their protests. I have sent a parcel of food which no doubt will arrive in a few weeks.
You are much in our thoughts
Best wishes
Edward
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[manuscript; copy letter in letterbook]
T. Osprey, esquire
Deptmt of Supply
Richmond
Virginia
American Confederacy
10th January 1863
Sir
We are obliged for your letter of 1st ultimo and beg to tender these prices for your consideration:
Swords, forged and tempered £1 per dozen
Daggers, 6” blade 6 shillings per dozen
Bayonets, 8” blade 10 shillings per dozen
We can supply leatherwork, scabbards, & cetera, at little additional cost, but believe that these may be more readily obtained by yourselves locally.
Our company does not manufacture rifles; we would be willing to act as agents on your behalf in securing the same, tho’ our govt’s intransigence would entail some difficulties on our part.
I beg to remain your most obedient servant
Edward Eldon
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[manuscript]
From: Tom Eldon
Cold Harbour Hall
Kingston
Jamaica
To: Miss Frances Eldon
Littleworth Hall
Littleworth
1st October 1803
Dearest Cousin Frances
You inquired after our situation here. You may have read in the Gazette that the Negro rebels have been defeated and captured at last. The ringleader, styling himself “Captain Moses”, was an escapee from Mr Jones’ estate, just over the creek from us. Jones tells us that he had been making an experiment in educating the savages, but has resolved to desist in such efforts. Captain Moses was hanged by the militia in the Town Square this last week, although our niggers mutter that it was another man and that Moses lives. We have whipped them and keep them locked up at night, yet they do not apply themselves to their work.
We anticipate the arrival of a new shipment within the month, wch will be sorely needed, so many of our current complement having died from malarial contagion. Alas, prices are rising now that supplies are short, the Navy’s patrols having dislocated the traffic.
You should soon receive at the Hall a delivery of Wedgwood’s porcelain – I would be obliged if you would inspect it as to condition, since the factory disclaims any control of its carters. I am as yet undecided where it is best to place; if you let me know it has arrived I shall be put upon to chuse!
I trust that you will not find me importunate in allotting you such a task
And remain
Your loving cousin
Tom
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