He Is The Law In These Here Parts.

                 The pen might well be truly mightier than the sword but it is nothing next to a Lawgiver.

Puppy Dog Eyes.

Captain America comes to the rescue of cavaliers In Need (CIN) on the streets of Belfast. It is a great shot and a reminder why everybody looks up and trusts Captain America. He will always do the right thing. Red Skulls and Cosmic Cubes notwithstanding....

Dylan Thomas The Followers.

Look what my chum Mark Mc Keown the Antrim Animator found in one of his book finding expeditions in darkest Belfast. Its a spooky wee tale, well told and beautifully illustrated by artist Meg Stevens. It is a totally immersive experience thanks to the successful marriage of words and imagery. Its a wet windy winter night when two lost boys take a dander into night.They are following a stranger which is really what every reader does I suppose when they sit down to read the words of another.

Chalk.

This new book by Paul Cornell has one great soundtrack. It is not often I get to say that about a book. Yet it really does, it is one of the components which really helps this book beyond your average read about a supernatural revenge scenario set in your average eighties hellhole of a school.Paul Cornell has written some of the very best original fiction about Doctor Who it has been my pleasure to read.
Especially the adaption of his novel Love And War from the McCoy era of the show.A full on high church adaption by Big Finish that just about delivers on every level and which is one of the best Doctor Who stories in any medium.which technically I listened to that rather than read it, it being an audio drama but I did get to read it shortly after it was published in another century.Er, that is not as long ago as it sounds.
              I was under the impression, for some reason I cannot remember now, that I was about to read a fantasy novel that would have something in common or at the very least be atmospherically similar to the stories I remember from my own school age, particularly television series like Children Of The Stones, The Changes or one of Alan Garners mystical tales. it turned out, however, more James Herbert than Herbert g Wells. It has between its covers some terrifying scenarios that quite easily could have played out in some urban nightmare of a school disco, feral places that they were. school bullies really can be the stuff of nightmares, engendering memories that can haunt and last a lifetime.
I say this as someone who was dangled out a school window above a killer drop supported only by an untrustworthy grip on my skinny wee ankles. The only thing stopping me from a fast track to Valhalla, or Elysium or some other fictional waiting room before eternity.
              The school disco and the music referenced is just right on the money for the period ( a bit odd to remember any days of ones life as a "period." Remembrance of days past and all that.) i could not help but wonder if the young Paul Cornell kept lists of the British charts. Actually this book left me wondering about a whole lot of things.
                It is not a story for the fainthearted.
                Very few realistic school stories are.

           
              )

The Hound Of Love.

Look what skilled movie antiquarian Maurice Pinky turned up. A double it was too. Can you have too much of a good thing. My Hero as Holmes. One of the first things he did after Doctor Who. Wish he had picked a story with more actual Holmes in it. Still, I have fond memories of this version and wish all involved had got to do more. I am not sure given the chance Mr Baker would have done more. He is so unpredictable it would have been like trying to catch Gallifreyan lightning in a bottle.

Ten Minutes That Can Last A Lifetime.

Had the pleasure of meeting the writer Jonathan Fisher this week. He had read my piece on his book Ten Minutes On Mars and was kind enough about my boobie-babble which I thought was generous of him.Listening to me can feel like ten minutes being buffeted and torn apart by the planetary forces running rampant in the giant storm raging on Jupiter.
                  Or something like that.

Douglas Wilmer's Holmes.

Was gifted this complete collection of Douglas Wilmer's turn as The Great Detective. It was one I had never seen as much as an episode of before and this was really worth the wait. I men really worth it. I am more familiar with the second series when the legendary Peter Cushing took over the main lead even though not all the episodes he recorded still exist.Even from disc one when one of my favourite Holmes stories is given a most lavish treatment with stunning location filming in stark black and white I knew this was a real treat. It also has a damn fine turn by Patrick Troughton in one of his many one-off character roles as well so it was gravy all round. Not every episode of these lovingly recreated Doyle adaptions have survived but an attempt has been made to finish a couple with linking narration by Wilmer himself.
               Mister Wilmer's Holmes is a most endearing Holmes.Even though he is quick to smile in a way that Conan Doyle would never have intended. I treat different actor's interpretations of Holmes in the same way I approach different versions of the Doctor in that every version is one of a character I admire and trust to the integrity of the performer. I was reminded of the warmth and wisdom displayed by Christopher Plumber as Sherlock Holmes. in the seventies classic movie Murder By Decree. Again, it was not a performance that portrays Holmes as a human calculator and some die-hard Holmes fans have been known to get a bit sniffy but in the context of the various productions they work.
                The game is afoot and what a pleasure it is to follow in his footsteps from foggy old Baker street to the wind swept Cornish coast.All in glorious black and white. Crime never looked better.