Party Tricks

Here's a neat trick question to pose if the opportunity presents itself, in such circumstances as a genteel gathering with family members, one where such pastimes as charades and word games might be practiced:

Who was the first person to be appointed Prime Minister in the British Parliament?

Make sure you write the question down because Robert Walpole, is the answer that will spring forth from all the smart alecs in the room. Although he's is reasonably considered to be the first Prime Minister, the actual title of such, that is: Prime Minister, didn't become official until much later, the official title being, First Lord of the Treasury. You need to write the question down of course, to quell the dissent and quibbling over your wording, when you, oh so graciously, enlighten your companions with the correct answer, that being: Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

Campbell-Bannerman was Scottish of course, so it seemed rather apt to me, on this auspicious day, to highlight his contributions to political life, which were not at all meagre. Campbell-Bannerman was the sane man in the monkey house when the nation was gripped with war fever and its his opposition to and resolution of, the second Boer War that most resonates with me.

I wonder how history would've played out without his contribution? It's impossible to draw any conclusions of course, other than those born from speculation but it seems to me that his, methods of barbarism, speech is a pivotal point in our history.

Jacques Brel

I've been to Brussels and it's a place that doesn't live to the stereotype, at least in my eyes anyway. It was quite a while ago and I'm sure it's changed a lot since, but I witnessed a city of quite eerie contrasts. I'm told the city was built up substantially from the profits of  Belgian colonial exploits and it was interesting to see that, although the northern baroque portion of the city was well tended and restored, the 19th century quarters were left in incongruous state of the decay. Almost as if the city were a living entity trying to leave the past behind, as it chased a future as a modern European hub of commerce, free from the associations of colonialism.

I was there scouting for a project that never took off the ground but it wasn't an altogether fruitless trip, the museum of modern art was well worth the effort alone. Unfortunately though one of the main attractions, Le Théâtre Royal de Toone, Toone's, as we refereed to it on the trip, was inaccessible, being booked solid. 

Name a famous Belgian is a game oft spawned when the subject turns to that nation and although I'm no expert on the country, I know enough to disrupt the anticipated hilarity. The person in question would be Jacques Brel, yeah that's right he's not French but Belgian, there's at least a chance though, that you've never heard of him. If that should be the case, then think of some of those embarrassing songs peddled by the balladeers of yesteryear like: If You Go Away--Dusty Springfield, et al and Seasons in the Sun--Jerry Tacks or would that be Terry Jacks? Well it turns out they're rather mawkish translations of Brel's original works, which, in their original form, are rather more--vibrant. Anyway to prove the point, here's Brel performing one of his own works, that happened to be one work of his that wasn't accompanied with a wobbly chin when performed in English by Alex Harvey, of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

Dirty Helmut

This one's a littler further than a doodle, I even did it on paper. It's for a single page comic strip I've been pondering, I'll probably wont take any further than the pondering, but who knows. If you take a close look at the image you might spot one of the disadvantages inherent with graphite pencils, the metallic sheen that is usually apparent to some degree, it's conspicuous here because I snapped it with a flash.

Sind hier sieben Schüsse raus oder nur sechs?

The doodle files 6

Some doodles again, these were all done on the my desk top again, which is becoming quite grimy with the residue from the various pencils I keep scrbbling on its surface with.

Just some crazy chick.

Steve Zodiac, a doodle executed while pondering an alternative illustration to Fireball.

This would be a sketch of Robert, again for the Fireball story.

This one is a real crazy chick but her left eye is a bit wonky, cos it's really supposed to be covered up.

Fireball (fiction)

About this: A very short story, it's could probably be categorised as fan fiction I've included an updated version of that xl5 illustration and should offer a warning it does throw up some fruity language, mostly confined to the start though.

Fireball

'Z'dayak -- Steve Z'dayak!' Steve enunciated firmly into his communications mike, an image of girl a smirking at his contrived pronunciation wormed through his mind as he waited for a response. Sure enough the girl's tone attested to the amusement she's gleaned during the few seconds she'd stolen to, not quite effectively, quell her chuckling.

'Ehem yes Mr. -- Zed - ay - aher -ak! -- we're waiting for your clearance to the enter the outer traffic control zone. If you can hold your present pattern, we'll give you clearance shortly, control out'.

'Bitch!' Steve Zodiac wasn't sure if he closed his mike in time to mask his petulance as he threw his headset at the console, 'it's Captain Zodiac - you fucking cow!'.

'Now now, you know that military designations are optional for civilian flight control, Captain -- Z'dayak,' said Venus as she stepped into the flight deck. Steve didn't have to turn to witness the smirk on his female colleague's face. The fact that she'd caught him out pronouncing the name he'd been baptised with would certainly have accentuated that expression which seemed to be permanently stamped onto her fizog.

'What is it?' he inquired, he kept his face turned towards the flight console with faux attentiveness.

'Oh I've just come to ask Robert if he'd like to watch a movie in the leisure suit, we are holding for flight control -- aren't we?' Venus made it perfectly clear she was aware that Steve's apparent preoccupation with the flight controls was a pantomime.

'MOVIE -- MOVIE!' Robert piped as he sat in the copilot's chair.

'I need the robot here, clearance will be through in a few minutes!'

'Captain, with all due respect...' does anyone use that phrase, thought Steve, when they have an ounce of respect for the person they're addressing, '...according to Space Patrol guidelines, Robert...' she pronounced the name with deliberate emphasis '...should be afforded the same working practices as human crew members, to ensure optimum effectiveness. He's been on the flight deck for four hours, which mean he's due for a twenty minute break'. Yeah twenty minutes with which you do what together, thought Steve, watch a movie? Venus's and Robert's relationship was a source of constant ire to Steve, Robert was a true Robot, a synthetic human of sorts but with a rather limited personality, a limitation imposed by the current state of the art of robotics. The state of that art though, was advanced enough to endow Robert with the full complement of human physical characteristics.

'I've been here six hours!'.

'Yes Captain, I'm aware rank does come with certain commitments,' said Venus 'but I really must insist, we don't want to make an issue out of this -- do we?'.

'ISSUE -- ISSUE, DON'T WANT TO MAKE ISSUE!' Robert bleeped, somehow I don't think that'll be a problem, thought Steve.

Steve festered inwardly at Venus's veiled threat, his reprimand for his conduct with her predecessor had already put a break on his career. He was stuck on this rust bucket XL5, known by the name Fireball by the rest of Space Patrol, an ironic reference to its reputation as being the slowest ship in the fleet. He was going to put his foot down this time though. 'No -- we're not going to make an issue out of this, he's needed on the flight deck. Regulations give me prerogative to override scheduled breaks when there's a clear imperative for a crew member to remain at his station'.

'REMAIN AT STATION!' Steve thought he could detect a hint of disappointment in Robert's metallic synthesized drone, 'REMAIN AT STATION!' Randy bastard.

'Fireball, Fireball, Fireball XL5' the communicator rattled with the voice of the female flight controller, abruptly interrupting the discourse.

Steve fumbled for his headset, 'What?' he barked into his mike a he placed it on his head, then his gathered his composure quickly, 'Er, Xl5, Xl5, Xl5 -- responding, control'.

'Please observe voice communications protocol, Fireball'.
'The call sign's Xl5 control' Steve was eager to reciprocate the supercilious tone.

Undeterred the faceless controller continued, 'We have a delay here -- FIREBALL, you need to hold for another two hours, can you acknowledge?'.

'Roger -- two hours delay,' he said with a grunt that betrayed his exasperation.

'Thank you Fireball, control out'.

'So -- no imperative then, Robert's free to come with me,' Venus smirked.

'FREE TO COME -- FREE TO COME,' yeah I bet you are.

'Yes -- you go, just leave me here' Robert jumped from his his flight seat with something too akin to eagerness for Steve's comfort, then they left the flight deck together. 'Have fun,' he uttered when he felt sure they were out of earshot.

'Two hours,' Steve moaned to himself, 'two hours of staring into bloody blackness, why did they make the observation canopies on these bloody flight decks so huge? what the bloody hell is there to look at. That bloody robot better be back here in twenty minutes,' he said as he checked the chronograph on the flight control panel. He started to absent mindedly strum his fingers on the instrument panel, as he did so he accidentally flipped the cover of the main retro switch, 'Oh bugger!'. He folded his arms and sat silently for a few moments, then lapsed into daydream.

To pass the time on such occasions, Steve had fostered a elaborate but a rather unimaginative fantasy life. He was Colonel Zodiac and no one laughed at his name in his world. Somewhat incongruously for someone of such advanced rank, he was still an acting Space Patrol pilot, an inconsistency he never bothered to reconcile. Instead of exercising his imagination to explore The Lost Planet of Nubile Nymphomaniacs, he'd concern his meandering thoughts with petty revenge on those who frustrated him or drew his envy in reality. Venus was a compliant ingénue, attentive to his every word, Matt his able chief engineer, a myopic scatterbrain, Robert a grotesque android constructed from waste perspex and yoghurt cartons. This time though, the inadequacies that plagued his reality permeated his subconscious and the strings he'd tug to manipulate the characters of his fantasy coalesced into a physical form. His characters turned into marionettes and inside his mind he couldn't stem the transformation, it continued until his entire world was populated exclusively with caricatures hopping around on strings. When he looked into his fantasy world mirror and saw the comically furtive eyes of a puppet staring back at him, his fantasy concluded abruptly.

Startled by this exit from his fantasy world, he tried to think of something to take his mind off the experience and pass the time. Then it occurred to him that he could review the Space Patrol bulletins, the last thing he normally choose to occupy himself, although he was supposed to attend to that task daily. 'Let me see,' he said as he thumbed through the bulletins on his clipboard, 'new procedures for engine maintenance, Oh I'll have to tell Matt about that. Nutritional guidelines, blah blah, Oh what's this -- product warning for XK2ooo robot personnel'. After a few moments reading Steve flipped on the internal communication switch, 'Venus, call the flight deck please'.

Moments later Venus's voiced broke in over the communications system, 'Yes!' she didn't sound too pleased.

'Look, I don't need Robert here for an hour or so, tell him to take an extended break, Oh and by the way, I've released the lockout on the zero g facility for the leisure suite'. Steve knew the prospect of zero g gymnastics would ensure that Venus and Robert availed themselves of that facility, his face broke into a wicked smile.

--*--

ITEM 9 PRODUCT WARNING XK2000 ROBOT PERSONNEL

As a result of a notification from the manufacturer, Cyberdrone Systems Inc. The following additional operational parameters for the XK2000 robot have been set:

1. The XK2000 should at no time be operated in zero g environment, doing so can seriously compromise the XK2000's operational effectiveness.

2. Crew members, should refrain from certain: recreational practices in the presence of the XK2000 while there is a risk of encountering a zero g environment.

Note:
Failure to comply with the above will seriously compromise the fabric of the unit's dermal component, causing the chemical bonds of a constituent of that component to break down. Subsequent to component failure the unit's skin will revert to a gelatinous form. While this fault does not represent a hazard to crew members, several units have already failed in this manner and crew members report that the adhesive properties of the consequent gelatinous mass are such that it will adhere to human skin with a bond of indeterminate but substantial strength. This bond can not be safely broken until the skin's decomposition is complete, a process that takes approximately four days. This failure is accompanied by a strong odour, similar to that of decomposing herring.

ITEM 10 XK KIPPER

The following directive has been issued by the Space Patrol working practices committee:

1. The use of the, Term, "XK Kipper" in relation to crew members...

Good grief

Just spend a couple of days exiled from this blog, Google decided there was some suspicious activity regarding people trying to log in to it, blah blah blah. I got round it eventually but what a pain, imagine the consternation that would cause if this was a worthy blog.

Questions that need to be answered, no. 1

Blue Peter, Christopher Trace and Valerie Singleton are the first presenters I recall, somewhere along the line Trace left and the show acquired two more presenters, with some overlap between the first arrival and Trace's leaving. Those presenters were John Noakes and Peter Purves, I think it was Noakes who arrived first, his arrival announced after appearing in a swimming related article but I may have got those events confused. Back in the 60's, when this transition occurred, children's TV presenters were pretty much like their counterparts serving an adult audience, with maybe  slightly informal dress, roll necks and monkey boots taking the place of collars, ties and shoes with a shine so perfect you could use them for a shaving mirror. The style of presentation was pretty much the same though, steady diction with clear pronunciation and a gently modulated tone, just like a normal person would speak to any other of the same, providing they'd benefited from elocution lessons or been brought up with received pronunciation, that is.

With the arrival of Noakes however something changed, I think it's fair to say that if you spoke to anyone in everyday life in the manner of Noakes presentation style, you'd find yourself in room with no windows, probably within the week. Yes, Noakes effected this style, where ever sentence was spoken in manner that inflected a vigorous portent, much in the manner of a music hall recitation or The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. Time passed and Noakes's s style became something of a new standard for children's TV, the Saturday morning schedules became clogged with presenters acting as if they were having a fit. This state of affairs continued for some time and then David Belemy happened, Belemy bridged the gap between children's and adult's TV because he was featured in both. Unfortuantly for the sanity of the nation, he chose to adopt the Noakes manner in both contexts. Time Passed again, guess what happened, uh--yeah adult presenters are now also unnecessarily gesticulating twerps, presenting with a chaotically modulated speech pattern. I don't know any adults who can abide this trend, without the aid of a soporific, so the question is: Why---just bloody WHY?