The Big Red White And Blue One.

Years ago at a San Diego Comic convention I nervously approached the artist Jim Steranko and asked him to sigh a print for me celebrating his amazing time on Capatain America. He did and I still have it hanging on a wall in the Steptoe And Son shambles I call a home. Thought the oppurtunity to get a shot with Belfast Cap was too good to pass up. Hence my goofy fan boy face. Cap even struck a pose in the Steranko Stylee. He looks cool. I look my usual barnacle self.
          He was raising money for a charity combating a terrible condition called Vanishing White Matter. It is a quite rare condition but two kids from the same family here in northern Ireland have been struck by it. Their family do the best the can but it is a tough fight against a merciless unforgiving opponent. The Good Captain and his ever reliable (honest, he is.) chum Deadpool hit the Belfast streets yesterday selling raffle tickets in an attempt to raise money on behalf of this good cause, raising money to help the family through this tough time.Check it out on Caps Facebook page.
           Sometimes the good fight is not always a clear cut one but this one is. A terrible bully is threatening a good family and the good guys are doing all they can to help them.
            If you can do anything to support them please do.

Slayer Two Decades Young.

Has it really been that long. Were we all ever so young? Not me, I remember at the time of transmission someone asking me if I got any royalties from the Giles The Librarian figure. Bloody cheek. Literally. I met a few cast members from the show over the years and have particularly fond memories of the Magnificent Amber (That is a knowing Orson Welles reference, boom,boom!) Benson. She was so bohemian and her dear old ma was a real hoot too. For a time we traveled through space and time together and had many adventures(mostly during tea breaks and entirely in my head.).
               The trouble with having a time and space traveling companion who is an actress is that all adventures are subject to unexpected filming commitments.
                Whatever your feelings are about this very enjoyable television series then and now you cannot take away the fact it helped reinvigorate genre television for a generation or two. Showing that well written and performed stories told in an engaging and optimistic fashion will have legs and travel.
                  Happy Birthday to a much loved slice of genre telly. Though the cast and creative team are scattered to the four winds there are still nights when they all come together after the opening chords..

Doddy King Of Cool.

Look what my chums Frank and Steph found at a car boot sale on the Crumlin Rd. A London Palladium programme from those long ago days . How glam it all looks. The photographs inside are amazing. Lines of entertainers waiting in rows in their Sunday best to meet and greet some royal personage as they drift by dishing out approval. It looks so terribly respectful. One cannot help feeling wistfully nostalgic for a time when a Sunday night at the Palladium was an innocent and shared pastime. There is a charming run down end of the pier acts quality to it all. That is no bad thing. There was a lot of love and talent to be found at the end of the pier.

Lost On A Dark Sea.

Such a beautiful piece this. Sorry, went all Yoda speak there. I meant to say what a curious and beautiful thing this performance by Kate Bush this is;And Dream Of Sheep. A woman is lost and alone on a cold dark sea at night. The little light shining on her life jacket just a twinkle on a ceaseless and merciless stretch of dark water. The surprising frailty of the performance caught me. There are soft moments between her sung lines when her breath catches as she draws the words forth. It quite crippled me for moments as my own breath mirrored the emotions she gasped out.
            I have not to the best of my knowledge ever suffered recurring bad dreams or nightmares but I did have a dream more than once when I was growing where I was floating on dark water while some unseen but threatening shape glided through the water beneath my feet. I would feel myself rise up as it moved beneath me displaced in the water by its passing. I always woke up as it broke surface so I never knew what it was.
            Check this video out for yourself. Get lost at sea for a few moments. Try not to get mistaken for a buoy. Think of warm breath and poppies. Heavy with seed. Let them take you home.
         

Remember You Are Not a Womble But He Is.

(Sketch from one of my notebooks.) Uncle Bulgaria is a rum old cove. He might be considered old school these days by those with a more incendiary and mercurial frame of mind but it was the school of hard knocks. This is a womble who can tell a goose berry from a pomegranate.
             The Wombles would probably find Wimbledon a different place these days.
             Sorting human beings discarded garbage would be a bit of a horror show these daysI suspect.

John Hurt.

Was saddened to hear of the passing of John Hurt. An amazing actor who over the meandering course of a long and sustained career played so many different roles and who never lost the ability to entertain, illuminate and surprise. Hard to believe that other actors warned him "You'll never work again, " after taking the round breaking and arguably society changing role of Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. His Caligula in the magnificent BBC adaption of Robert Graves I, Claudius is an equally unforgettable turn.Beyond his obvious highs there were many lesser known roles but none where he did not give his all. I always had a soft spot for his turn in Mister Forbush And The Penguins.Think I first saw it at just the right age on just the right Monday night.
            His War Doctor will always have a special resonance for me. I had been listening to the third volume of stories the night before the news broke of his death. I had been lost in the performances of all involved. Taken out of myself for a couple of hours in a sound stream of storytelling.
            That is when the real magic occurs , I suppose.

Polarity In A Spin.

That Missy was up to no good as usual. She had loaded Napoleons Nose above the Cavehill in Belfast with a legion of flesh eating nano-bots! One sneeze from that stoney orifice and the greater part of Belfast would be dinner for swarms of little man eating robots. For Rassilon's sake what ever happened to straight forward extinction level invasions by Daleks and Cybermen. Its like the universe is ruled over by Monty Python's Flying Circus.