Barry Keoghan; Die Laughing.

Well, I never saw this coming. A deleted scene from The Batman, released onto the internet while the cinema seats are still warm from those who paid in to see it. And what a scene it is too. Five of the most perfectly formed moments in the on screen life of The Batman.It really is remarkable, with a tightly scripted dialogue between two characters destined to destroy each other. Not a second is wasted. Its a quiet little piece that is also almost umbearably tense. With Robert Pattinson underplaying with a restrained stoicism, its all eyes and tight lip, a caped crusader virtuoso. While Barry Keoghan draws on an altogether different instrument channeling the sights and sounds of bedlam. Both young men emerge as two shining talents on top of their game but knowingly building to some yet to be played rematch that I for one cannot wait to see... If it ever actually happens.

Doctor And The Hood.

Just look at this stunning cover for a Doctor Who original novel coming some time later this year. And it is written by Paul Magrs which is a sign we are in for a treat. Paul Magrs channels Tom Bakers inner loon in a way that bleeds over just lovingly into the character of The Doctor. Which is off course where the character has always really lived. You do not find that on paper, no matter the quality of the script. I am guessing this will be a sequel to the Robin Hood story of the Capaldi era.or at the very least share its DNA. The cover painting mirrors a scene from that very story and off all the incarnations of The Doctor which followed Tom Baker's regeneration Capaldi most reminded me of that Mad Man In A Box From Liverpool.

Leviathan, Or The Whale.

Found this amazing book in a recent book trawl in the Hospice shop. Someone kindly donated this book by Philip Hoare who shares with us his lifelong obsession with the hugely familiar but truthfully unknowable behometh of the seas. Beautifully illustrated with art and photographs and brilliantly written on a quietly compelling subject.Exploring the themes of Moby Dick, the most well known book on the subject of whales and the people who made it their living to bring about their dying, so to speak.Philip Hoare takes us around the world with him. From Nantucket to The Natural History Museum in London, we see what he saw, we hear what he heard. And is genuinely compelling. Its a wonderfully written book which the reader advances through feeling in the company of the author. Gently and humanely observed and not afraid to go deep, so to speak. at times skirting along the surface before taking a poetic deep dive into the history and biology of a species that is just about as alien to the every day as a visitor from another world might be. Its actually a very emotionally written book the heart of which is as deep and at times unfathomable as the great oceans that cover the surface of the world we call home.

Where in ones book collection do you put a book like this? It non-fiction to be sure but it is so artfully crafted that it comes across at times almost dreamlike, a record owing much to REM, what goes on out of sight beneath the here and now and the was and when.So much, if not all, of these creatures lives takes place beneath the waterline, in worlds we can only see in dreams, the seas beneath the surface where mysteries abound. Conclusions about their unseen lives are guessed at, using scant observations about enviroments almost Lovecraftian. And perhaps for me this where the tremendous pull of this book came from. As the reader visualises these giants moving through depths that would crush bone with the grace of bull angels.This world we share which was all theirs long before it was ours.

A big chunk of this book is taken up with the writing of Moby Dick,chronocling not just the strange and meandering path Herbert Mellville took in order to br ready to create the book that would make him one of the best rememberedof American writers. In a time when that nation, the US of A was young enough to be thought off a newish world. It is a strange book to be sure, more of a cuirates Ork egg than your average strange bird. He took some unusual detours along the way, almost Promethean by todays standards of self invention. If the world is what we make it then Herbert Mellville made it a strange one. Quite beautiful at times, quite harrowing at others. There are elemts of erotocism at play beneath and within the text, more pan sexual than home-erotic although there are obvious men at play scenarios amidst all the squalor of life at sea. Twas not a life for the faint hearted, considering most of those who made the sea their life could not infact swim, making it their almost certain death as much as a livelihood. It seemed it was a fateful encounter with and a sustained friendship with Nathanial Hawthorne that pushed his story of high adventure at sea into more esoteric degrees of storytelling. When the dreamy image of a huge white living thing pushing through uncharted and unfathomable depths could well represent somrthing other than a big fish. This unexpected find turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding books I have read in some time. We have shared the planet with these creatures for as long as we have been around. While they were gliding through the darkest corners of the earth hovering up vast amounts of plankton we were doing the same thing to our next door neighbours. Lets hope there is no higher being keeping score of bad behaviour....

Hugh Borg.

Many a night on the way up to blanket street I bump into Hugh Borg who has stood so long at the top of my house stairs he has worn a groove in the hall carpet. I keep forgetting he is there and yet he never grumbles, never makes a fuss, He is just Hugh.I think the neighbours at the back of my house think I have a pale faced lodger who spends all his days and nights staring at the stars.

Sherlock Holmes And Revenge From The Grave.

Moriarity was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that...or is there? After all, if Holmes could somehow survive the maelstrom of The Richebach Falls then surely there exists the merest possibility The Napoleon of Crime could also do so. Emerging, no matter how badly injured from the cauldron of boiling water and rocks to once more plague the world. Well thats the premis of this book and the clues in the title I suppose. It is probably not the only book to suggest that the confrontation at The Richenbach Falls was not the final end for both characters. There are so many Holmes stories produced all over the world it is most likely a subject that has been touched on before. I have been lucky enough to read a number of them and have yet to find one that flat out does not work. The subject matter being so beloved and respected that eveyone rises to the occasion. Even cross over books work where Holmes and Watson meet other fictional characters or historical figures and real world events. Within reason off course. Occasionally the television series almost jumped the shark, for me, especially when they tried to marry that brilliant mind and the process which drove it to, social media or the hand held dvices through which we ourselves access and use it. I suspect that were that reasoning machine that existed between Sherlock's ears applied to social media access the results would be something we have not as yet realised could be accomplished. This one I liked a lot. Holmes really is on the edge for much of it and thus is at his very best. Hunted and hounded by a foe he thought vanquished, at the mercy of villans who thrive in such scenarios, where wickedness and cruelty are as mothers milk and not a drop of mercy is to be found. Yet while Holmes may have many foes he also has many friends and is never more fearful than when he appears beaten down.In this quite epic yarn a complex spider's web is wove around him and he must keep moving before the one who spun that web is to devour him. And Holmes must determine which side of the grave his tormentor is weaving this death trap from.It would not be a Holmes story without a few red herrings and twists and turns aboynd in this story along with a few compelling cliff hangers. I think it is safe to assume if one does not see Conan Doyles name on the cover then what you are reading, no matter how good or bad, will ever be considered canon but surely a cultural icon like Sherlock Holmes transcends such limiting notions. Or does he not ?Not being Canon should not deter the curious. My beloved Doctor Who has a vast timey whimey canon that contradicts and constantly trips attempts to lend it some linear logic. Fortunately it has a very handy and beautifully explanatory built in get out of jail free card; We love it too much to ever castigate it unneccesarily.

Tom Baker. Chairman Of The Board.

Well, he is, is'nt he? Just look at that intergalactic flannuer lounging without a care in the world. Heaven knows we all have so much to worry about these days but sometimes it is nice to just take a moment, strecth ones legs and ...er,count the jelly babies. I actually came across this picture on Philip Morris' twitter feed. I do hope he will not object to me sharing it with you lovely people. He is a very interesting person, is Philip, and we owe him so much for his efforts in tracking down missing episodes and his general support for so many past and believed lost televisual gems. All his adventurous searching and detective work in some quite shady territories marks him as a sort of Indiana Holmes, for want of a better description.