Television: 'The Man From UNCLE: The Project Strigas Affair' (1964) (Aired 1x09, Produced 1x14)

We've missed out 'The Love Affair', which was pretty uninspired.

This is an odd one. It's notable for featuring both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner before the advent of 'Star Trek', but this episode is also a prototype for the gigantic cons that would feature in 'Mission: Impossible'. It's an odd mix, which works but doesn't quite feel like UNCLE. Even Shatner feels a little unformed, as if Captain Kirk was the final resolution of his learning curve as an actor. It's still fun to see him, though. Oh, Shatner... Nimoy plays one of his typical three-dimensional heavies, and almost never intersects with his future acting partner, except for one brief moment.

In 'The Project Strigas Affair', Mr Waverley tasks Napoleon and Ilya with discrediting a troublesome foreign ambassador by any nefarious scheme they can come up with, so they fabricate a completely fictitious and top secret weapons project called 'Strigas', recruit a former top chemist (Shatner) and his wife to act as fake traitors, and then sit back and watch the spies unravel. It's an extremely ambitious hour. Mr Waverley even gets to be chilling and dangerous when seizing and levering a foreign agent to be a double. Sadly, though, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn't quite work.

At least it's interesting, unlike 'The Love Affair', which continued the sequence of Eddie Albert appearances in old television series that don't work. Here, all the performances are good, and the story is intricate and interesting, including a major disaster for our heroes. Maybe it's better than I've made it out to be, with a jaundiced view of things while apparently endlessly sick. The only thing to really be held against it is a certain staginess, and the relative absence of Robert Vaughn. Elevating McCallum and guest starring Shatner means that some of that prized Napoleon Solo time had to be taken away, and so everything is just a little less SMOOTH...

Is this the introduction of Ilya's shoddy disguises?

Next time: 'The Finny Foot Affair', hurrah! Normal service is still far from being resumed, due to exhaustion and illness. It really never does end.

O.

The Rest Interval Continues

As may be freely observed, the Quirky Muffin sabbatical continues. I, as a suffering sick person, burdened with an apparently immortal virus, just don't have the energy to do much of anything. Surely, there will be an eventual recovery? Surely?

The Absence Of Horizontality

The prevailing theory is that the writer of the Quirky Muffin is suffering from a twelve week virus combined with a ripped throat, causing extreme fatigue, endless coughing, and absolutely no sleep due to problems with being horizontal.

Oh, the joy of being horizontal, so long absent. What is sleeping the night through really like? Will there ever be enough energy to get the Quirky Muffin back in full operation? How on Earth do people sleep while sitting up? How?

Next time, it will be the next episode of 'The Man From UNCLE', but for now it is time to rest. Or not rest, but desperately try to, while being increasingly confused.

O.

A Reflected Starscape, AKA We Will Return

The Quirky Muffin will return, once this hideous marathon of ill health has come to an end. However, to write something, if you have your head over a dark bowl of hot water infused with vaporub, all covered over by a dark towel, the points of light that come through the weave can look like a reflected starscape in the water. It's almost romantic...

Recovery is inevitable. Recovery is inevitable.

O.

Note: 'The Worm Ouroboros' seems to be a very good novel. Bold beyond all belief.

Some Disconnected Yarns

After a few more days of coughing and feeling run-down, there's not a lot to write about here in the Quirky Muffin. Admiral Nelson has had a relapse of lycanthropy in 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' as I write, which is proving difficult, and Lady Jane's replacement has been a bit of a letdown in the next episode of 'Lovejoy'. 'Star Trek Logs 5 and 6' by Alan Dean Foster has been pretty good though. It's a set of adaptations of 'Star Trek: The Animated Series'. 

No, there's not an awful lot to write about in the realm of the real world. What about in the land of make believe? Would you believe that nine leprechauns have stolen the keys to the Grotto of Galoomba deep underneath the house? Perhaps they think we've been storing the family treasure there, but in reality it's where we keep the scale models of the Seaview and the Penguin submarine from the 'Batman' movie of the 1960s. The latter is always very popular for rides in the Summer.

Oh, good grief. Will they never catch that werewolf? Now, they've locked him in the circuitry room! Not the circuitry room! That's where every goon causes problems!

The main problem with being sleep-deprived is that you don't get to be very creative, just incoherent. Since reality is something we create or interpret by our consciousness, does that mean reality is itself distorted when we get sick? That could get rather interesting, couldn't it?

Ah, lycanthropy is cured by deep water pressure or maybe the Bends. That's okay, then. Jolly good. What madness!

O.

Books: A Curious Blend

It's a curious set of books that can be seen around the lair of the Quirky Muffin. It's a genuine hodge-podge, in fact! There are Arthur Conan Doyle and Jasper Fforde, Frederick Pohl and GK Chesterton, Douglas Adams and Roger Zelazny, John Dickson Carr and Woody Allen, William Shatner and James Blish, and piles and piles of 'Star Trek' and 'Discworld'. The only significant absence is of anything very contemporary. That needs to be assessed. Is it a problem, or just a result? A modern author with that level of interesting prose hasn't stumbled across my path in quite a while.

It really is a strange set of novels. Would you like a comedic Chinese ghost fantasy, with a gigantic twist? Then you should really read 'Bridge Of Birds' by Barry Hughart. What about a truly mystifying mystery? 'The Hollow Man' by John Dickson Carr. A classic fantasy adventure series for boys? 'The Belgariad' by David Eddings. Something bizarre and totally unclassifiable? How about 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams or 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' by Connie Willis.

The 'Star Trek' novels were a lifeline while growing up, a window to a different universe, and a series I hadn't really seen very much of at that point. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' was on the rise back then, but it was never as interesting or as solid as the old series, and sometimes even 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' reflected well in comparison! Oh, that reminds me that Bob 'Chip Morton' Dowdell died last month, which fact was discovered here yesterday or the previous day. Goodbye. Dowdell, you could definitely pull off a serious face. It's a shame that there weren't a significant load of 'Voyage' books.

There is a prevailing theme in the books around here, now that some thought has been squandered tangentially. There is humour everywhere, coupled with strong leanings toward fantasy and mystery. Oh, and there is almost no swearing or gratuitous sleaziness. Hence, there are strong presences for Glen Cook, Terry Pratchett, GK Chesterton, John Dickson Carr, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Dunsany, Douglas Adams, Jasper Fforde, David Eddings, and PG Wodehouse, amongst many others. Oh, and Patrick O'Brian, even if I did conk out before the last few novels due to the gloom permeating the end of the sequence. There are also the one-offs, like 'Gateway', 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution', 'Bride Of Birds', 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog', 'The Master And Margarita', 'Three Hearts And Three Lions' and 'The Three Musketeers'.

It's a nice mix. Books are good. Read more, people of the world.

Oliver.

Note: I missed off a few names: Jules Verne, Roger Zelazny, Donald E Westlake, Dorothy L Sayers, Wilkie Collins and probably more.

A Taxing Day

Wow. After several nights of barely sleeping, a student with an associated hike, the holiday board game afternoon, and the departure of the beloved Lady Jane Felsham from 'Lovejoy' in today's episode, this has definitely been a taxing day.

It was a nice board game session too, despite a hideously low attendance. We actually played games! There were 'Rhino Hero: Super Battle', 'Anomia', 'Twin Tin Bots' and a fill-in at the end of 'Fluxx'. Good grief! Four! Or two and two bits! That was a nice thing. It's a shame that I'm inwardly asleep most of the time, due to sickness. Ah, will this thing ever go away? Will it? Argh. All thank yous to my deputy, who will go nameless.

Lady Jane's last (regular) episode of 'Lovejoy' was pretty harsh. The series, which is phenomenally patchy after the first run, has a horrible tendency of pulling off its handbrake turns with all the subtlety of a boulder rolling through a greenhouse. You actually feel physically yanked around after some of the messing around that has been pulled to affect changes. However, this time it was done pretty well, although it still doesn't really make any sense. Tissues were needed aplenty. She's gone, and now we head into the twilight of the series.

With that, and with exhaustion knocking at the door, it is time to close up another Quirky Muffin. Goodbye, Lady Jane Felsham.

O.