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Post by ropardoe on Jul 13, 2020 17:31:51 GMT
One of the guest G&S editors ought to persuade you to write a piece on the Jamesian aspects! That would be fascinating. Now there's a thought I hadn't considered. With his recent 'Grim's Ditch' intended as a Jamesian homage, his stage adaptation of 'Oh, Whistle' from a few years back (which I didn't see, admittedly), and his adaptation of 'The Ash-Tree', there's a certainly a thread through Rudkin's work that 'Artemis 81' forms part of (I'm inclined to think of A81 as being formed from a series of interlinked fictions and gleefully embraced homages). I may have to give this some thought... Do please. Shall I have a word with the appropriate people at the appropriate time? This would probably be for the Helen Kemp edited issue next Spring, if you could manage it.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 13, 2020 18:42:33 GMT
Do please. Shall I have a word with the appropriate people at the appropriate time? This would probably be for the Helen Kemp edited issue next Spring, if you could manage it. I'll give it some serious thought - and will no doubt email you with anything I come up with as I work through the ideas. If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to watch it all again, and I'm due another visit to 'Penda's Fen' - which has certain thematic ties via talk of underground installations beneath the sleeping countryside. Meanwhile, my dystopian archive TV marathon has reached a bleak little point with 1980's 'Noah's Castle', a Southern Television adaptation of a children's novel by John Rowe Townsend (whose book, 'Gumble's Yard', was one I studied in English classes in secondary school) from the production team behind 'The Flockton Flyer', a fairly jolly series about a family of steam railway enthusiasts whizzing around the picturesque countryside. There's nothing jolly or picturesque about this - a tale of a crumbling Britain where hyper-inflation has led to food shortages and riots that feels very close to the bleak landscape of the previous year's 'Quatermass'... only here the threat isn't from outer space, it's from looters and small-time fascists, and food hoarders. 'Flockton Flyer' dad David Neal plays the martinet ex-military family head, 'Lost Hearts' star Simon Gipps-Kent is the son who narrates events, 'Runaround' era Mike Reid is a gang-leader, and some other familiar faces - Chris Fairbanks, Jack May, even a primary-school-aged Zammo from 'Grange Hill' - crop up, though familiarity doesn't add any comfort. Two episodes in, and it's already proving a grim little gem - like so much that made up children's TV of the time. And the theme music is cracking... www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_1W8U5W8g
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 25, 2020 11:06:13 GMT
I can recommend Relic, the best Australian horror movie I've seen for a while.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 25, 2020 16:00:05 GMT
Watched 'The Mad Death', the three part BBC Scotland drama about a rabies outbreak that was broadcast in 1983. Brought back childhood memories of the days when thoughts of being bitten by a rabid dog were up there with the fear of suddenly wandering into a patch of quicksand. Not one for anyone who watches a horror film with a dog in and hopes the dog will make it to the end credits (though I'm sure the animals involved had a great time charging about the countryside). Some nicely surreal and nightmarish visions for Ed Bishop's infected businessman.
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Post by samdawson on Jul 25, 2020 16:42:23 GMT
Can you add lockjaw to rabies and quicksand as childhood fears? My grandmother told me that you would get fatal tetanus if cut between the thumb and forefinger (which as a boy playing in the unsupervised 60s was a virtual certainty). She also said a swan could break your arm with one flap of its wings, but that lacked the same level of threat.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 25, 2020 16:59:50 GMT
Can you add lockjaw to rabies and quicksand as childhood fears? My grandmother told me that you would get fatal tetanus if cut between the thumb and forefinger (which as a boy playing in the unsupervised 60s was a virtual certainty). She also said a swan could break your arm with one flap of its wings, but that lacked the same level of threat. Oh, yes, lockjaw was a definite risk if you cut yourself on anything rusty, now you mention it, right through the 70s. And swans were to be avoided. Also jellyfish - didn't matter how far from the seaside you lived. And pike. Thankfully the ongoing fear of imminent nuclear annihilation put all these things into perspective during my teenage years.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 25, 2020 18:57:38 GMT
Sam Dawson, re Seventies childhood fears, if you haven't ever looked at this blog, you should check it out: scarfolk.blogspot.com/A lot of it is pretty sick.. I sometimes wonder at myself for laughing. cheers, Helrunar
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 26, 2020 18:37:07 GMT
Last night I went for a triple bill of '70s television dramas with the shared theme of moving out to the countryside and renovating home and garden. They were the 'Dead of Night' episode 'The Exorcism' by Don Taylor, the 'Beasts' episode 'Baby' by Nigel Kneale, and Clive Exton's 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' entry, 'Stigma'.
It did make me wish that, with the number of home improvement, property development, and rural relocation shows that fill hours of TV schedules these days, someone in one of these shows would uncover a witch's bottle, or desiccated claw, or scratched inscription among the foundations, and have to face the consequences if they are foolish or arrogant enough to disturb things best left put.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 26, 2020 19:01:43 GMT
It did make me wish that, with the number of home improvement, property development, and rural relocation shows that fill hours of TV schedules these days, someone in one of these shows would uncover a witch's bottle, or desiccated claw, or scratched inscription among the foundations, and have to face the consequences if they are foolish or arrogant enough to disturb things best left put. When they renovated my bathroom two years ago, they found asbestos!
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 27, 2020 5:48:05 GMT
It did make me wish that, with the number of home improvement, property development, and rural relocation shows that fill hours of TV schedules these days, someone in one of these shows would uncover a witch's bottle, or desiccated claw, or scratched inscription among the foundations, and have to face the consequences if they are foolish or arrogant enough to disturb things best left put. When they renovated my bathroom two years ago, they found asbestos! If this is of any relevance my father once found something in a well. A dead man! I am not making this up. I saw the newspaper report.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 27, 2020 8:01:11 GMT
Sam Dawson, re Seventies childhood fears, if you haven't ever looked at this blog, you should check it out: scarfolk.blogspot.com/A lot of it is pretty sick.. I sometimes wonder at myself for laughing. cheers, Helrunar The Scarfolk Council stuff is the work of genius. Exactly as I remember the 1970s in a small town in the North Of England...
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 27, 2020 13:58:03 GMT
The two Scarfolk books - 'Discovering Scarfolk' and 'The Scarfolk Annual' - are also fantastic. Littler really catches the authentic feel of old pamphlets, public information films, and kids' annuals. So much so that a government agency accidentally used one of his posters alongside genuine ones in an official magazine piece on the history of government information posters.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 27, 2020 17:00:23 GMT
If this is of any relevance my father once found something in a well. A dead man! I am not making this up. I saw the newspaper report. An aunt and uncle of mine found a dead body floating in Peasholm Park boating lake, while on holiday in Scarborough. It ruined their honeymoon...
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 27, 2020 20:40:58 GMT
If this is of any relevance my father once found something in a well. A dead man! I am not making this up. I saw the newspaper report. An aunt and uncle of mine found a dead body floating in Peasholm Park boating lake, while on holiday in Scarborough. It ruined their honeymoon... What if it was the same dead man?
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Post by Swampirella on Jul 27, 2020 20:44:44 GMT
An aunt and uncle of mine found a dead body floating in Peasholm Park boating lake, while on holiday in Scarborough. It ruined their honeymoon... What if it was the same dead man? Now that would make a good short story! My sympathies to all the family members who found dead bodies
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