Not Mellow Bird's

Yes Mellow Bird's, it's for people who like the idea of coffee but don't actually like coffee, not that I advocate that all samplings of that beverage should be succeeded by the sensation of ants crawling inside your skull for the next five hours, like the cappuccino in my local cafe, but it takes the concept of mellow to a ridiculous level. At one time Joanna Lumley graced the TV ads, as they were trying to lift the brand from its rather sedate customer base, that consisted largely of your granny and her mates at the jam making circle. The ads that established the brand featured Kenneth Moore, whose on screen chemistry was still potent enough to entice his ageing female fan base into the fold. Moore was an interesting screen personality, he's kind of like the British version of Marlon Brando, by that I mean they were both singularly undemonstrative but strangely effective actors. Brando would portray tension and repressed aggression, Moore would represent attributes associated more with a British stereotype, the stiff upper lip and those wounds that don't show on the surface but cut deep in the flesh of the character.

So it's with a certain fondness I remember one of his later outings on the small screen, An Englishman's Castle, written by Philip Mackie. These days it would be called a mini series but I think the term had little coin back then. First shown in 1978 or possibly 79, two - er interesting years if lived in Britain at the time, an Englishman's Castle is one of those alternative history stories ie, what if the Germans won the war. Mackie's take on this topic concerns a TV dramatist, the writer of a historical soap opera -- that concerns itself with the German invasion of Britain. The script is pretty damned clever and Mackie doesn't shy away from the odd stylisation and use of artistic licence to tell his story and it's a bloody good story too, that I recall resonated sharply with the audience. In fact I'm pretty certain that a British comic writer of renown cribbed more than a few ideas from it when he came to publish his own depiction of a dystopian Britain a few years later.

Unfortuantly there's some very bad news concerning An Englishman's Castle, see it was produced by the BBC and their custodianship of Britain's TV legacy is somewhat wanting, so it's no surprise to learn that the master has been long since been whipped. There is whoever some good news, looks like some naughty bod taped a monitor feed and if you can ignore the synchronous time stamp in the upper corner, some other naughty bod has made it available on Youtube, give it a go, it comes highly recommended from DeadSpiderEye.

Banzai, me dearies

Carrot crunchers, I think is the polite term for folk who inhabit Gloucestershire, although there is a more colourful term, pertaining to sheep that sometime gets applied in that context but lets not explore that further here. Notable fact concerning the county, is that it was home to a couple of Britain's foremost aviation concerns, The Bristol Aeroplane company and The Gloster Aircraft Company. Amongst Gloster's notable contributions to British aviation, is the development of Britain's first gas turbine powered aircraft, including the first British production jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor. They also had a contender in the bidding for the RAF's wartime fighter, although development of the project seems to have been slow in comparison to its illustrious rivals for that role. The Gloster project took a rather different approach, developed under the RAF's F 5/34 Specification for an air interceptor/fighter, it was a considerably lighter aircraft than its rivals, something that would have made it ideal for marine applications. This comparatively low weight achieved mainly through the then novel application of an aluminium wing spar, both the Spitfire and Hurricane utilised more conventional steel members.

The project never really fulfilled its potential though, there is certain amount of speculation as to why that should be: the rivalry between the RAF and the RN, could've meant that its suitability as carrier borne fighter, hindered its chances. It's generally believed though that support in the Air Ministry was gathering around the Rolls Royce Merlin and those aircraft designed to fulfil the specification conceived to utilise that engine. So it never made it beyond a few prototypes that flew just before the war, too late to beat the Hurricane into production, as far as it's known the project never even acquired a unique name and the aircraft is ubiquitously known by it's RAF specification number ie. the Gloster F 5/34

Gloster F 5/34

Meanwhile across the other side of the world, something rather odd happened, the Japanese Navy issued a specification for a carrier borne fighter that was considered impossible to fulfil by at least one major manufacture who pulled out of the running. The guy at Mitsubishi, Mr. Jiro Horikoshi, wasn't so faint hearted though, with a we can do that attitude he came with the now famous Mitsubishi A6M, commonly known as the Zero.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

Looks kind of familiar doesn't it? and it's a familiarity that has been noted on more than one occasion. The absence of the turtle deck and the staggered configuration of the tail plain being obvious similarities. It doesn't end there though, guess what its wing spar is made of? that's right, aluminium again. There's a lot of huffing and puffing over this similarity, I'm pretty convinced there's good circumstantial evidence to suggest that the similarity is more than just coincidence. but it would be a mistake to conclude that the Zero was derivative design, there was a heck of lot of transfer of design and technology between nations before and during the war. Most radial engines can be traced back as derivatives of the Gnome Radial, the cooling systems on the Daimler Benz engines were derived from the Roll Royce Kestrel, likewise the fan installation of the Hawker Sea Fury was copied directly from the FW 190, only an idiot wouldn't copy something that worked. The Zero was even lighter that the F 5/34, the airframe being constructed from an aluminium alloy only the Japanese had access to, known as T-7178.

As I mentioned, I'm personally pretty sure there was some kind of transfer on the design and it probably wasn't just one way either, Gloster was a the British company with quite bit of presence in Japan. It would be interesting to really have the resources and dig into this story and not just mull over suspicions and speculation.

Esther's grin

Way back in the 70's and probably some distance into the 80's too there was this evening BBC television show, I think it was a Sunday evening thing but I'm not sure, it could've been Friday. That's Life it was called, a magazine show hosted by various inconspicuous male presenters but chiefly by Esther Rantzen and interspersed with skits and whimsical items, like dogs that could speak and hilarious clippings from the classifieds of local newspapers. In fact my local rag would feature regularly, the proprietor of a local second hand car dealer had a habit of including a candid description of one of his less desirable offerings. I think we would call 'em basket cases these days, honesty, it seems, is sufficiently amusing to warrant inclusion in such a context.

It wasn't all fun and games though, not by a long shot, the show was concerned itself rather earnestly with the malfeasance and shady practises of the commercial world: misleading adverts in the Sundays that promised a silver tea service for £5, dodgy bucket shops that ripped off unwary travellers, that kind of thing. Rooting out perfidy in the cause of the consumer, seems a great idea until you realise that the unforgiving nature of television scheduling demands that suitable candidates be offered up for the tumbrel according to a strict time table, which is where Esther, her show and I crossed paths, albeit indirectly.

I didn't watch the show myself, I'd given up watching most weekend telly by that time but I did form a picture of the kind article it was, that concerned itself with the issue in question, through vicarious means. Some clipping from the classifieds in London's Evening News probably and maybe a few interviews with disgruntled members of the public, who'd been, ripped off by unscrupulous traders. I learnt about this particular scandal as I sounded out a prospective venture with some associates, we were about to make a pick up as we embarked on a trip to London. Tea chests from the factory just outside town, unfortuantly when we arrived to make the pick up, we found the asking price for the merchandise had risen by 500%. You've guessed it, Esther had concerned herself with the shocking price asked for tea chests in London's classifieds. Unfortuantly the practical upshot was that although we did manage to offload this consignment at an inflated price, it barely covered the cost of the diesel and it certainly wasn't worth making a trip for it. It also put the kybosh on the business venture, without the profit from the tea chests to mitigate the risks it wasn't worth taking on. I'm not sure what they did with the tea chests at the factory after that, I think they burnt them in the boiler room. It was an interesting lesson in the power of the media, I spoke to a number of people who'd seen the item on tea chests and they were all, without exception, absolutely convinced that the price of tea chests was a criminal disgrace. The realities of costs like transport and mark ups levied by middle men, seemed to completely escape them. I wonder if those people in London moving house, who had fork out for crates or the ludicrous prices charged for corrugated card gave much thought to those realities afterwards?

I am legend

Back in the old days there were three countries which presented problems over issues of intellectual property these were, in no particular order: The Soviet Union, West Germany and the United States. The reasons for the difficulties presented by the Soviet Union are obvious, they didn't recognise any copyright or patents, Germany and the US presented rather more subtle and complex problems, Germany because she was out of step with the rest of the world insisting on an extra twenty years of copyright protection, the problem with the US was even more difficult though. They had and probably still do have, a habit of granting property rights to native interests, i.e. corporate entities and private individuals, that they properly had no rights to. The main instance I cite of this practice involves a song that people of my age will recall with a certain discomfort, that song being: The Okey Cokey. Scarcely a wedding or any family event from earlier years passed by without descending a into demonstrably rumbustious rendition of this song, which came with  actions all participants were expected to perform. Which was okay until I was about nine, at which age, engaging in such antics with your aunty Vi become the focus of some embarrassment when your focus of attention at such events is getting a dance with your elder cousin's girlfriend Mary. Hang on a second -- Mary ahhh, flaxen haired Irish girl with big, soft -- eyes. Anyway I digress, the point is some Herbert in the US decided to claim authorship of this song after he'd heard it here, it being unknown in the US at the time. Thing is, they granted it to him and he actually earned royalties from it by the simple expedient of changing the chorus from Okey Cokey to Okey Pokey -- unbelievable!

Anyway I've wandered a bit because there's another aspect of US copyright practice that needs addressing and that is their requirement that Films need to be catalogued with a copyright registry, something which incurs a not insubstantial fee. So not insubstantial, that it's common practice to let this registration slip when a film becomes unprofitable or in some instances not to bother with registration at all. When this happens, such films are considered to be in the public domain within US federal Jurisdiction, this is what I believe to be the case with the first adaptation of Richard Matheson's seminal novel, I am Legend. Called, The Last man on Earth and starring Vincent Price, it's a cheap Italian production, filmed entirely it seems without synchronised sound, common practice in a cinematic tradition that sees most of it's work dubbed in to other languages. There is one other striking clue to its origin outside the US, a shot that included a row parked cars, all of 'em Fiat 500's.

I always hesitate to recommend the novel because it's not everyone's cup of tea and that's especially true if you're not familiar with the pulp idiom but it has one of most choke inducing endings of any story. It's an ending that prompted me to immediately re-read the book because it casts the narrative in a completely different light. Of course, I am Legend was remade as the cult classic, The Omega Man with Charlton Heston and once again with the, not so classic, film starring Wil Smith in the lead role. While I do love the Omega man, The last man on Earth is much closer to the novel, it still doesn't quite do justice to the ending though. Still here it is, courtesy of the curious copyright practices of the US, that deem (I believe) this film to be in the public domain, at least in that country, which in practical terms means everywhere there's an internet connection. This particular version has been colourised, quite effectively I have to say and I it think works to enhance the film in this case.

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FIREBALL!

Do you recognise this person?

Here's an interesting find, this little chap is on the run from Germans, thankfully by the time this snap was taken, he'd arrived in Canada. Amongst things awaiting him in his future is a notable if mercurial career in television, where he featured in such iconic shows as UFO. He's probably best known now, for his contribution to Patrick McGoohan's cult vehicle, The Prisoner, where he featured prominently in the episodes: Living in Harmony and Fallout. Those with long memories though, will remember him from the Z Cars spin off, Softly Softly. Have you guessed who is it is yet?

Alexis Kanner

Show don't tell

Show don't tell, how many times have you heard that axiom? If you're a fan of cinema you probably relate it to the mistaken notion that it refers to rendering scenes on the screen rather describing them in dialogue, "Look, the tidal wave is about to engulf the city! Gosh I wonder how much that would cost to recreate with special effects?".  No it has a rather more profound bearing on narrative technique than that and it involves two very old concepts, so old in fact that they pre-date concerns over special effects budgets by a couple of millennia, These would be: diegesis and mimesis, unfortuantly there's nothing like impressive sounding Greek or Latin  vocabulary to spawn misapplication of terms, borne from their association with a particular context. Diegetic sound, may be a term applied as short hand in cinematic jargon but it's rather inaccurate and somewhat ironic considering its true meaning. A diegenic approach to narrative can be summarised as the: once upon a time approach, it's relaying a narrative through the means of recounting events, "Jack and Jill ran up the hill to fetch a pale of water..." that kind of thing. mimesis is relaying a narrative through mimicking the events of that narrative, acting them out, like in a play or film. The obvious implication is that mimesis is exclusive to dramatic forms and diegesis likewise to literal forms, yeah, obvious but mistaken again.

Mimesis is essential to contemporary narrative forms including literature, I commonly identify it as being manifest on two levels, the first regards how certain events are relayed, consider the two examples below.

Jake pulled out his 45 automatic and fired two shots, Emile fell to the floor like a sack of spuds

Jake's heart pounded so fiercely, he could feel his pulse throbbing as he clasped the handle of his 45 automatic. The impulse of the recoil from his two shots jolted the frame of his weapon violently and he felt the knurled handle rasp the heel of his palm as the noise of his shots sang in his head. He heard a stifled mew and then a crump, as if a sack spuds had fallen from shoulder height, when the smoke cleared he saw Emile's body laying motionless on the floor.

The first example is self explanatory but I think we can see it falls into the, once upon a time technique of relaying events. The second one doesn't describe the events as explicitly, events are implied rather than recounted but it includes more detail in an effort to evoke an image inside a reader's head, in other words to mimic that scene in the reader's imagination, mimesis!

The second form that mimesis manifests itself in narrative, is way that a the broader elements of narrative, that is: plot, unfold or the method used to reveal them to a reader or audience. This is where, show don't tell comes in. If you have a character that undergoes some change, be it a positive epiphany or some negative metamorphosis of a virtuous person into a malicious one, you don't leave it with someone uttering: "Oh yeah, Darth used to be a nice guy then he fell into a volcano".  No what you do is, you show that story, because as human beings, what we're told means almost nothing, what we learn means everything.

Right, is that clear? probably not I imagine, so I'm going to include a clip from a rather excellent animated tv show that epitomises this concept rather succinctly, not least because, show don't tell is its central theme. Or rather link to that clip because it's one where embedding has been disabled.

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