With a week full of teaching, woodworking, French study and general worry ahead, this would probably be a good time to kick back and relax. Yes, we could amble on, chattering about butterflies, arithmetic, the virtues of the colour green, and the greatest aspects of 'Star Trek' for a whole page, couldn't we? Couldn't we? Or would a chuckling appreciation of 'The Six Million Dollar Man' be in order? In the current episode, great tension is being presumed from a scene involving a roller skate jump from a one foot ramp. Yes, it's really that tense! Does it help if I add that the roller skaters are wearing Halloween costumes? No? Oh, such jaded cynicism. It's very interesting to see just how goofy 'The Six Million Dollar Man' could be at times. It's almost as far as out there as Douglas Adams in some cases. Oh, Douglas Adams... Expect some writing on 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' sometime soon. A classic novel, and a formative one, featuring... Oh, never mind. That can be for its own post.
We're halfway through August, one quarter of the way through the lunatic woodwork project, and only a few weeks away from the commencement of a second year of Open University study. There's a lot going on. A dear friend has possibly had her second child in the last few days, a potential conflict is brewing between the madmen running North Korea and the United States, and everyone's getting just a little nervous as xenophobes and bigots raise their slimy but un-numerous heads above their slimy parapets all over the developed world. Who knows where it will all end? Doubtlessly, there will be much confusion about how it all came to pass, and lots of mislabelling of people on all sides of every decision. (Of course, mislabelling can take many forms, ranging from sheer opposites to missing out the 'creepy' in 'creepy weirdo'.)
If we don't all go up in a nuclear armageddon, then what will happen? It seems that we're in the pull of a tidal change in what is bizarrely called 'The West'. Will it result in greater democracy or the corporations grabbing ever more power and forcing an even more entrenched plutocracy? The key will be the influence of what we euphemistically call 'social media'. How possible is it to pull the wool over the eyes of a populace when people can talk to each other instantly and with great fidelity (we presume)? That's a question for another day, along with the accompanying concern of just why do governments always want to crack down on the Internet anyway? Who gets to benefit? Make your own opinions, people of the world, while the Quirky Muffin spins mad conspiracy theories like a fruitcake with an axe to grind about the size of the chip on its shoulder. Are those enough metaphors for now? No? Let's not slip on a banana peel of linguistic ambition.
Every fruitcake needs to rest from time to time, so let's wrap up another edition of the Quirky Muffin for now. 'What happened to Colonel Steve Austin and his rollerskates?', you might be asking. The answer to that must remain unrevealed for now. Check out the episode 'Rollback' from the fifth and final season of 'The Six Million Dollar Man', if you're truly interested. Robert Loggia is certainly confused in it.
O.
Sunday, 13 August 2017
Friday, 11 August 2017
Story: 'Wordspace' Phase II, Part XII
( Part I , XI , XIII )
"You do not understand."
Club looked around at the interruption. Fifth was looking at him, as he in turn looked at First being annoyed and full of worry. "What do I not understand?"
"Something momentous has occurred." Fifth gestured around them.
"A quake?"
"No. Something far more important. He knows." They looked at First, who was staring into the distance. Then he looked at them, and visibly pulled himself together. He motioned to the rest of the group, and they moved on once again.
Club followed on, in fully mystified mode. Fifth walked beside him, and began what seemed to be the preamble for a long story. "We, the Ordinals, counted what was countable and ordered. Our cousins, the Cardinals, were very similar, but different..."
Club realised that it was going to be a long march.
* * *
Mystery and Surprise, riding on the ever reliable Cloud, were buzzing the Invader, who was becoming annoyed. It gave them something to do, while they waited for War and her troop to arrive, and cover the last few steps of their march. Mystery was paying attention to their giant nemesis, and could see that it was beginning to tire. In fact, if it hadn't been for their own aerial activities, the Invader might have stomped away and abandoned its siege on the Zone of Impenetrable Jargon. Why were they hindering it, he wondered.
It was an odd thing to do, to bash away at that grand and inexplicable prison. Perhaps the giant suspected a concealed treasure? A huge fist swung through the space they had been occupying an instant before, and Sorpresa gasped. "¡Dío mio!" Then he threw what looked like a yo-yo, a toy that young words used to play with while learning with School, which promptly and unexpectedly exploded.
War arrived on the scene. Her generals, Strategy and Tactics, took contingents off to either side, and then watched as the great Destructive picked up a massive piece of free-lying grammar, and projected it directly at their enemy's most vulnerable syllables. It impacted with a large 'Thunk', and then fell down. War grimaced at the lack of reaction in her target.
"This is going to get rocky." Thought Mystery.
"Look up." Murmured Cloud.
Mystery looked up, and then pointed so Sorpresa would notice too. Finally, some old friends were returning. Zephyr, Breeze, Wind and Air were descending from high altitude.
"Air! We have missed you!" He shouted in wonder at their vast Elemental friend.
"We're not alone." Replied Air, who was rather out of puff. "It took a while to get us together again." A rumble was heard.
The rumble was so loud that it could mean only one thing. Two Elementals? Earth? Then Mystery saw that it was a far more complete set than that.
There will be more.
"You do not understand."
Club looked around at the interruption. Fifth was looking at him, as he in turn looked at First being annoyed and full of worry. "What do I not understand?"
"Something momentous has occurred." Fifth gestured around them.
"A quake?"
"No. Something far more important. He knows." They looked at First, who was staring into the distance. Then he looked at them, and visibly pulled himself together. He motioned to the rest of the group, and they moved on once again.
Club followed on, in fully mystified mode. Fifth walked beside him, and began what seemed to be the preamble for a long story. "We, the Ordinals, counted what was countable and ordered. Our cousins, the Cardinals, were very similar, but different..."
Club realised that it was going to be a long march.
* * *
Mystery and Surprise, riding on the ever reliable Cloud, were buzzing the Invader, who was becoming annoyed. It gave them something to do, while they waited for War and her troop to arrive, and cover the last few steps of their march. Mystery was paying attention to their giant nemesis, and could see that it was beginning to tire. In fact, if it hadn't been for their own aerial activities, the Invader might have stomped away and abandoned its siege on the Zone of Impenetrable Jargon. Why were they hindering it, he wondered.
It was an odd thing to do, to bash away at that grand and inexplicable prison. Perhaps the giant suspected a concealed treasure? A huge fist swung through the space they had been occupying an instant before, and Sorpresa gasped. "¡Dío mio!" Then he threw what looked like a yo-yo, a toy that young words used to play with while learning with School, which promptly and unexpectedly exploded.
War arrived on the scene. Her generals, Strategy and Tactics, took contingents off to either side, and then watched as the great Destructive picked up a massive piece of free-lying grammar, and projected it directly at their enemy's most vulnerable syllables. It impacted with a large 'Thunk', and then fell down. War grimaced at the lack of reaction in her target.
"This is going to get rocky." Thought Mystery.
"Look up." Murmured Cloud.
Mystery looked up, and then pointed so Sorpresa would notice too. Finally, some old friends were returning. Zephyr, Breeze, Wind and Air were descending from high altitude.
"Air! We have missed you!" He shouted in wonder at their vast Elemental friend.
"We're not alone." Replied Air, who was rather out of puff. "It took a while to get us together again." A rumble was heard.
The rumble was so loud that it could mean only one thing. Two Elementals? Earth? Then Mystery saw that it was a far more complete set than that.
There will be more.
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
I Say, This Saddle, It Looks Familiar
A journey has been completed. The first season of 'Supergirl' has been watched. A corner of the first part of the woodwork project has been readied. 'The Hollow Man' has been read in its entirety, and Freud's 'Jokes And Their Relation To The Unconscious' has finally been finished. Both will be read again. Many things have happened. Were any of them real...?
Reality is the great philosophical bugbear. Are our experiences real, or are they interpreted versions of reality. Is there a colour blue, or is it just a neural phenomenon? Is anything actually there, or are we all butterflies dreaming that we're people, who are thinking that we're maybe really butterflies? It goes on forever, and forever, and forever... These are the things that might jump to mind on a long coach journey.
There were no ponderings on reality, or the lack or reality, on the last two coach journeys, though. Instead, much reading was done. A lot of reading in fact. In addition to the two texts already noted, there was also a complete reading of 'The Ascent Of Rum Doodle', which was wonderful. Books are wonderful things, aren't they? It's so easy to believe that paper is still one of the most stable formats for storing information ever devised. Given the right conditions, it can last for centuries, long after your hard drives, DVDs and cloud storage have all disintegrated into complete nonsense. Go, analogue power, go!
It was a nice trip. There was gardening, ceiling painting, much playing of 'Thunderbirds' and 'Schotten Totten', and of course the inevitable misadventures in food land. It happens on every trip to every location. This occasion, it was mostly due to a developing cold making everything taste of nothing. Has there ever been a less lucky traveller? Oh, there have been many, many, innumerable less lucky travellers. Let's get things in context here. Everyone who has ever been robbed, or injured, or caught the wrong bus, or missed a connection, or been caught up in a disaster is a less lucky traveller. Developing a cold is nothing! What will happen on the next occasion, at the end of month, when you are all subjected to another barrage of pre-written reviews? We can only wait and see...
Yes, the Quirky Muffin is live once again. This was not pre-recorded, and the studio audience was real.
O.
Reality is the great philosophical bugbear. Are our experiences real, or are they interpreted versions of reality. Is there a colour blue, or is it just a neural phenomenon? Is anything actually there, or are we all butterflies dreaming that we're people, who are thinking that we're maybe really butterflies? It goes on forever, and forever, and forever... These are the things that might jump to mind on a long coach journey.
There were no ponderings on reality, or the lack or reality, on the last two coach journeys, though. Instead, much reading was done. A lot of reading in fact. In addition to the two texts already noted, there was also a complete reading of 'The Ascent Of Rum Doodle', which was wonderful. Books are wonderful things, aren't they? It's so easy to believe that paper is still one of the most stable formats for storing information ever devised. Given the right conditions, it can last for centuries, long after your hard drives, DVDs and cloud storage have all disintegrated into complete nonsense. Go, analogue power, go!
It was a nice trip. There was gardening, ceiling painting, much playing of 'Thunderbirds' and 'Schotten Totten', and of course the inevitable misadventures in food land. It happens on every trip to every location. This occasion, it was mostly due to a developing cold making everything taste of nothing. Has there ever been a less lucky traveller? Oh, there have been many, many, innumerable less lucky travellers. Let's get things in context here. Everyone who has ever been robbed, or injured, or caught the wrong bus, or missed a connection, or been caught up in a disaster is a less lucky traveller. Developing a cold is nothing! What will happen on the next occasion, at the end of month, when you are all subjected to another barrage of pre-written reviews? We can only wait and see...
Yes, the Quirky Muffin is live once again. This was not pre-recorded, and the studio audience was real.
O.
Monday, 7 August 2017
Television: 'Supergirl: Myriad' (2016) (Episode 1x19)
(Pre-written holiday cover)
If it weren't for the annoying and stereotypical jumping towards each other to fight in the finale, this would be a near perfect episode of 'Supergirl'. It was close to excellent, with Peter Facinelli returning as Maxwell Lord to prop up the cast, and even Alex being interesting while a blondened fugitive, before returning to plot monkey mode halfway through. There were morality questions aplenty, some good surprises, the return of the blue cyber-being Indigo (do all women look better while blue or green?), and even the Non was almost interesting, but not really. The Kryptonian plots have been the most boring part of the season, even as their Myriad mind control scheme unrolled this time.
Apparently, Non and and Kara's aunt Astra had conceived a miraculous mind control program while on Krypton, which led to their banishment to the Phantom Zone. They have now unleashed in on National City, enslaving the entire human population, and oddly Superman who almost makes it to the screen only to succumb and fall into the enthralled army. Why did Superman succumb and not Supergirl? Insert a flailing silly made-up reason here. The best moment of the whole thing is when Cat turns up to work and has to have her automaton staff pointed out to her, by a woman in a cape, before she even notices. This is really Cat's show, as she motivates Kara, defies Max Lord's practical but rather lethal plan to save the human race, and then pushes to get things as close to organised as possible before we hit the unbearably stupid cliffhanger. More on that to follow.
This is a very good hour, as previously mentioned. J'Onn and Alex visit her mother, while on the run, find out about the disasters back home, and then... J'Onn lets Alex go back with him to the city, ready to be mind-controlled at the first lapse in his mental shield? Really? He gets badly wounded, and she ends up in a kryptonite battle suit ready to lock horns with her sister, who doesn't actually need to fight her at all, because she's got superpowers. It's all just silly. It reeks of stupid writing, because J'Onn would have just dumped her there, no questions asked. However, as with the previous episode, we have a solid story, with intrusive aspects from the serialised aspects of the rest of the season. It's really very good. Calista Flockhart, Melissa Benoist and Peter Facinelli form a great triangle. David Harewood and Helen Slater work well together. Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan are relegated to automata but do fulfil a vital plot function. Chyler Leigh looks remarkably different in a blonde wig, but mostly does what she consistently does all the time.
It's really all about the Cat, Max and Kara triangle, though. You don't even doubt the credibility of Cat just wandering in despite the Myriad scheme, before it's revealed that Max proofed his gift of earrings to her in the same way he proofed his odd techno-gizmo-thingamabob. Yes, if anyone could resist alien mind control, it would be the unbearably stubborn Cat Grant! When those three are around, it works, and Laura Vandervoort is pretty good as the occasionally clawed blue Indigo too. If the finale can have maximum Cat/Max/Kara time, and minimal dumb fights, which latter thing Cat declaimed in the text of the episode itself, it might be a classic. We will have to see...
O.
If it weren't for the annoying and stereotypical jumping towards each other to fight in the finale, this would be a near perfect episode of 'Supergirl'. It was close to excellent, with Peter Facinelli returning as Maxwell Lord to prop up the cast, and even Alex being interesting while a blondened fugitive, before returning to plot monkey mode halfway through. There were morality questions aplenty, some good surprises, the return of the blue cyber-being Indigo (do all women look better while blue or green?), and even the Non was almost interesting, but not really. The Kryptonian plots have been the most boring part of the season, even as their Myriad mind control scheme unrolled this time.
Apparently, Non and and Kara's aunt Astra had conceived a miraculous mind control program while on Krypton, which led to their banishment to the Phantom Zone. They have now unleashed in on National City, enslaving the entire human population, and oddly Superman who almost makes it to the screen only to succumb and fall into the enthralled army. Why did Superman succumb and not Supergirl? Insert a flailing silly made-up reason here. The best moment of the whole thing is when Cat turns up to work and has to have her automaton staff pointed out to her, by a woman in a cape, before she even notices. This is really Cat's show, as she motivates Kara, defies Max Lord's practical but rather lethal plan to save the human race, and then pushes to get things as close to organised as possible before we hit the unbearably stupid cliffhanger. More on that to follow.
This is a very good hour, as previously mentioned. J'Onn and Alex visit her mother, while on the run, find out about the disasters back home, and then... J'Onn lets Alex go back with him to the city, ready to be mind-controlled at the first lapse in his mental shield? Really? He gets badly wounded, and she ends up in a kryptonite battle suit ready to lock horns with her sister, who doesn't actually need to fight her at all, because she's got superpowers. It's all just silly. It reeks of stupid writing, because J'Onn would have just dumped her there, no questions asked. However, as with the previous episode, we have a solid story, with intrusive aspects from the serialised aspects of the rest of the season. It's really very good. Calista Flockhart, Melissa Benoist and Peter Facinelli form a great triangle. David Harewood and Helen Slater work well together. Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan are relegated to automata but do fulfil a vital plot function. Chyler Leigh looks remarkably different in a blonde wig, but mostly does what she consistently does all the time.
It's really all about the Cat, Max and Kara triangle, though. You don't even doubt the credibility of Cat just wandering in despite the Myriad scheme, before it's revealed that Max proofed his gift of earrings to her in the same way he proofed his odd techno-gizmo-thingamabob. Yes, if anyone could resist alien mind control, it would be the unbearably stubborn Cat Grant! When those three are around, it works, and Laura Vandervoort is pretty good as the occasionally clawed blue Indigo too. If the finale can have maximum Cat/Max/Kara time, and minimal dumb fights, which latter thing Cat declaimed in the text of the episode itself, it might be a classic. We will have to see...
O.
Sunday, 6 August 2017
Film: 'The First Men In The Moon' (1964)
(Pre-written holiday cover)
Now, fresh in the aftermath of watching this for the first time, this movie can be safely classified as being fascinating. For an extremely long stretch of time, it is actually brilliant, but then suffers from the HG Wells effect and becomes merely good as horror acquires a greater prominence. However, it is still a great film, and one which is definitely anachronistic for its time.
In this adaptation of the HG Wells story, a moon landing in 1964 (yes, five years early!) is confused when the astronauts discover a small British flag spiked into the ground through a claim paper made in 1899. Radioing this news back to the Earth, a team tracks down one of the people who were on the expedition, who recounts a fantastical tale. Yes, three people did go to the Moon, and they saw amazing things, but only two returned. The surviving early astronaut, an Arnold Bedford, reveals it all.
The main reason to check out this movie was originally the presence of the legendary Lionel Jeffries, who played the crackpot scientist Professor Cavor, inventor of the gravity-defying substance Cavorite. Bedford, who is not a particularly nice person, cons his fiancée Kate Callender into a dodgy deal involving his rented cottage and then invests the money into Cavorite. However, Cavor has something he wants to do first, which is a trip to the Moon! Needless to say, all three principal characters end up on the voyage, which leads to an encounter with an alien race living beneath the surface and a host of Ray Harryhausen effects. Sadly, it doesn't end well, with the humans' aggression causing misunderstandings, and the so-called Selenites becoming worrying inquisitive about the military operations and unity of the Earth peoples.
'First Men In The Moon' is not, however, a perfect film. There are character problems during the establishment of the 1899 storyline, with dear Lionel Jeffries apparently floundering for a little while until he finds his way through the role, and Edward Juff and Martha Hyer not being a particularly convincing couple, but it does pick up. There are some bona fide Harryhausen effects during the Selenite sequence on the Moon, which will probably polarise viewers, and the downer ending is frustrating and a little repetitive for those who have knowledge of other HG Wells stories. The framing device works wonderfully, though, and Jeffries does save the film. Ah, he was a great performer. There is also a great attention to some of the details, and not to others, but the general effect is to add authenticity to the goofy origins of the story.
Overall, a very solid science fiction movie, which could have been better but for it's doom-laden climax. Good.
O.
Now, fresh in the aftermath of watching this for the first time, this movie can be safely classified as being fascinating. For an extremely long stretch of time, it is actually brilliant, but then suffers from the HG Wells effect and becomes merely good as horror acquires a greater prominence. However, it is still a great film, and one which is definitely anachronistic for its time.
In this adaptation of the HG Wells story, a moon landing in 1964 (yes, five years early!) is confused when the astronauts discover a small British flag spiked into the ground through a claim paper made in 1899. Radioing this news back to the Earth, a team tracks down one of the people who were on the expedition, who recounts a fantastical tale. Yes, three people did go to the Moon, and they saw amazing things, but only two returned. The surviving early astronaut, an Arnold Bedford, reveals it all.
The main reason to check out this movie was originally the presence of the legendary Lionel Jeffries, who played the crackpot scientist Professor Cavor, inventor of the gravity-defying substance Cavorite. Bedford, who is not a particularly nice person, cons his fiancée Kate Callender into a dodgy deal involving his rented cottage and then invests the money into Cavorite. However, Cavor has something he wants to do first, which is a trip to the Moon! Needless to say, all three principal characters end up on the voyage, which leads to an encounter with an alien race living beneath the surface and a host of Ray Harryhausen effects. Sadly, it doesn't end well, with the humans' aggression causing misunderstandings, and the so-called Selenites becoming worrying inquisitive about the military operations and unity of the Earth peoples.
'First Men In The Moon' is not, however, a perfect film. There are character problems during the establishment of the 1899 storyline, with dear Lionel Jeffries apparently floundering for a little while until he finds his way through the role, and Edward Juff and Martha Hyer not being a particularly convincing couple, but it does pick up. There are some bona fide Harryhausen effects during the Selenite sequence on the Moon, which will probably polarise viewers, and the downer ending is frustrating and a little repetitive for those who have knowledge of other HG Wells stories. The framing device works wonderfully, though, and Jeffries does save the film. Ah, he was a great performer. There is also a great attention to some of the details, and not to others, but the general effect is to add authenticity to the goofy origins of the story.
Overall, a very solid science fiction movie, which could have been better but for it's doom-laden climax. Good.
O.
Friday, 4 August 2017
Television: 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea: The Phantom Strikes' (1966) (Episode 2x17)
(Pre-written holiday cover)
'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' was a great and strange television series. Over four years it morphed from over-serious spy show, through adventure series and kiddie monster series and finally came back to semi-serious science fiction. It also went from black and white to colour, and suffered through the incredibly bad influence of the 'Batman' craze in 1966, but it still plodded on and produced a few stellar episodes. This is one of them.
'The Phantom Strikes' is an excellent little theatrical piece, written to show off star Richard Basehart's acting talents, as well as that of the serial 1960s ambivalent villain Alfred Ryder. Oh, Alfred Ryder, you never did any wrong! He plays the ghost of a Second World War u-boat commander, which the Seaview discovers at... the bottom of the sea! First, the u-boat haunts the Seaview, and then its captain does, under the guise of being recovered from the sea as a wrecked sailor. The ghostly Captain Krueger is intent on forcing Admiral Nelson to kill Captain Crane, so that the ghost can claim his body and restart his naval career from that point onward. It turns into a tense battle of wills, as Nelson tries to save both his captain, and the crew's lives that are being threatened as a bargaining chip.
There's something very nice about a two-hander. Yes, the other actors get some things to do, but it is really a two-hander between Basehart and Ryder in almost all the key scenes. There's a classical buildup in tension as Nelson begins to believe the supernatural reality that he had previously hardly dared to admit even as a possibility, and a great ruthlessness to Krueger as he continues to pile on the pressure and unnerve the crew, who unravel almost instantly. To be dar, the selection of the crew of the Seaview does seem to to favour the emotionally unstable and nervously erratic. They can be set off by Christmas crackers on even their best days! In any case, they get very unnerved and add to pressure nicely.
The nicest thing about 'The Phantom Strikes' is the ending, which was retconned by its sequel, where the ghostly Krueger isn't defeated but instead surrenders and moves on, impressed by how much technology has moved on and left him behind. It's a very poetic moment, a theatrical exit, as the phantom walks out through the bow of the submarine and into the depths of the ocean. Yes, the episode is still standard 'Voyage' material for the most part, and very cheesy in places, but it is one of the highpoints of the series and gets respect for pushing further into its strengths than usual. More Basehart usually meant better episode, and that was true here too. Also, alas, it has the usual zero number of women, but that couldn't really be helped due to the naval setting. There were loads of actresses in the first season of espionage shows.
'The Phantom Strikes' is highly recommended for people who can watch old television and not cynically smirk. A great example of the show.
O.
'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' was a great and strange television series. Over four years it morphed from over-serious spy show, through adventure series and kiddie monster series and finally came back to semi-serious science fiction. It also went from black and white to colour, and suffered through the incredibly bad influence of the 'Batman' craze in 1966, but it still plodded on and produced a few stellar episodes. This is one of them.
'The Phantom Strikes' is an excellent little theatrical piece, written to show off star Richard Basehart's acting talents, as well as that of the serial 1960s ambivalent villain Alfred Ryder. Oh, Alfred Ryder, you never did any wrong! He plays the ghost of a Second World War u-boat commander, which the Seaview discovers at... the bottom of the sea! First, the u-boat haunts the Seaview, and then its captain does, under the guise of being recovered from the sea as a wrecked sailor. The ghostly Captain Krueger is intent on forcing Admiral Nelson to kill Captain Crane, so that the ghost can claim his body and restart his naval career from that point onward. It turns into a tense battle of wills, as Nelson tries to save both his captain, and the crew's lives that are being threatened as a bargaining chip.
There's something very nice about a two-hander. Yes, the other actors get some things to do, but it is really a two-hander between Basehart and Ryder in almost all the key scenes. There's a classical buildup in tension as Nelson begins to believe the supernatural reality that he had previously hardly dared to admit even as a possibility, and a great ruthlessness to Krueger as he continues to pile on the pressure and unnerve the crew, who unravel almost instantly. To be dar, the selection of the crew of the Seaview does seem to to favour the emotionally unstable and nervously erratic. They can be set off by Christmas crackers on even their best days! In any case, they get very unnerved and add to pressure nicely.
The nicest thing about 'The Phantom Strikes' is the ending, which was retconned by its sequel, where the ghostly Krueger isn't defeated but instead surrenders and moves on, impressed by how much technology has moved on and left him behind. It's a very poetic moment, a theatrical exit, as the phantom walks out through the bow of the submarine and into the depths of the ocean. Yes, the episode is still standard 'Voyage' material for the most part, and very cheesy in places, but it is one of the highpoints of the series and gets respect for pushing further into its strengths than usual. More Basehart usually meant better episode, and that was true here too. Also, alas, it has the usual zero number of women, but that couldn't really be helped due to the naval setting. There were loads of actresses in the first season of espionage shows.
'The Phantom Strikes' is highly recommended for people who can watch old television and not cynically smirk. A great example of the show.
O.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
A Few Days Sojourn
It's time to go away again, for a few days, and so you, the notional and perhaps unhinged readers of the Quirky Muffin, will have to make do with some pre-written posts. A few television reviews will certainly keep the blog ticking over until The Story picks up again next week. 'Wordspace' could well be the one thing that transcends the rest of the blog, if it doesn't run itself into a cul-de-sac first!
Yes, there shall be a brief sojourn far, far away. A long coach journey awaits, with all the wonderful enforced isolation and reading that that entails. Long coach journeys are little bubbles of slow time in between the manic bubbles of every day activity that we call life. Sometimes, I wonder just how we all manage to bodge our lives to the extent that there's rarely time to read a book without a thousand chores hanging over your head and upsetting your mental state. On the other hand, this post is being written to the accompaniment of a lovely and silly episode of 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea', which is a sign of decadent free time, isn't it? Yes? No, for it is multi-tasking, but it could be far, far worse.
So, what do people do on a long coach trip? Well, you stare out the front window, read books, edit down serial stories into single pieces, catch up on French, and think about whatever tangential nonsense comes to mind. Chasing down tangents is a fine and traditional means of passing the time. It can easily be imagined that stagecoach drivers had more inventive and diverse thoughts in a few days of historical journeying than most other people had in whole years of their lives! For my part, I might be getting on with sorting out the compiled version of 'The Disappearance' or be caught in eight hours of dozing or even trying to do puzzles. Only time will tell.
Normal service will resume in the middle of next week.
O.
Yes, there shall be a brief sojourn far, far away. A long coach journey awaits, with all the wonderful enforced isolation and reading that that entails. Long coach journeys are little bubbles of slow time in between the manic bubbles of every day activity that we call life. Sometimes, I wonder just how we all manage to bodge our lives to the extent that there's rarely time to read a book without a thousand chores hanging over your head and upsetting your mental state. On the other hand, this post is being written to the accompaniment of a lovely and silly episode of 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea', which is a sign of decadent free time, isn't it? Yes? No, for it is multi-tasking, but it could be far, far worse.
So, what do people do on a long coach trip? Well, you stare out the front window, read books, edit down serial stories into single pieces, catch up on French, and think about whatever tangential nonsense comes to mind. Chasing down tangents is a fine and traditional means of passing the time. It can easily be imagined that stagecoach drivers had more inventive and diverse thoughts in a few days of historical journeying than most other people had in whole years of their lives! For my part, I might be getting on with sorting out the compiled version of 'The Disappearance' or be caught in eight hours of dozing or even trying to do puzzles. Only time will tell.
Normal service will resume in the middle of next week.
O.
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