A Visitor (a Few Weeks Ago)

 

Farewell

 

42 Years

42 years ago yesterday, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was broadcast for the first time.  On Radio 4.  I was at University, and listened to it, I think, with Ken Brown and Andy Crook in Andy's room. 

Pretty damn good.

So, anyway, last night Radio 4 Extra played the first series, with some bonus programmes.  I couldn't listen to it.  But, of course, it is still there on Sounds.

Listening now...

Dawson Quip

A favourite Les Dawson joke appeared on the hated Saturday Live this morning:-

I was sat at the bottom of the garden a week ago, smoking a reflective cheroot, thinking about this and that - mostly that - and I just happened to glance at the night sky, and I marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like little pieces of quicksilver thrown carelessly onto black velvet. In awe, I watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever festooned in all their orbital majesty, and as I looked at all this, I thought to myself, 'I must put a roof on this lavatory.'

- and thanks to h2g2 for the quote...

Gregory's Again

Good to hear Clare Grogan on Radio 4 this morning.  Her voice sounded almost completely unchanged from the 80s.  Rather like all those nice HHGTTG people.

Hitching in Bromley

As I've mentioned before, I first heard the first Hitchhiker when it was first broadcast on the radio, back in 1978. 

And, old fart that I am, I still believe that first radio series was the best, and that the TV wasn't as interesting. Notoriously, and obviously, the pictures weren't as good on telly - but also they messed around with the plot and to my mind simplified it.  And the books (which came in between) were the source for the TV version and shared many of the weaknesses of those shows.

Although, I know, lots of people liked the cartoon versions of the book on TV (and they were cartoons, not digital, back then), and DNA (Douglas Adams) liked the fact that in the books he could add back in a few lines that he'd written but which hadn't made it to the final broadcast on the radio, and he could also lose some John Lloyd-isms.  So in that sense it was purer Adams - but for me at least it wasn't purer Hitchhiker.

I also heartily disliked the Book at Bedtime version of the Eoin Colfer continuation.  And of course the most recent film was vile, despite being based on an Adams' script.

So I'm a bit fussy on this subject.

However, how could I resist an advert for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show... Live!" at the Churchill theatre in Bromley.  It had many of the original radio cast - that is:

Simon Jones as Arthur Dent
Geoffrey Mcgivern as Ford Prefect
Susan Sheridan as Trillian
Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox
and the voice of Stephen Moore as Marvin The Paranoid Android.

Each night the Book would be played by a different guest star.  Like I said, how could I resist, even though there was typical confusion regarding the script to be followed (ie, it seemed to be the original radio series but the teaser video talks of it being based on the novels).

What a strange experience.  A live band - who were quite good - with a light show. At one point they switched to playing the Dr Who theme music - which was allowed, I suppose as Adams did act as script editor for a while and wrote some episodes.  A comfy chair for the Book (we had Andrew Sachs - Manuel to some of you) towards the right rear of the stage, a series of microsphones for the stars to perform the Radio show, and a live version of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  In other words a couple of chaps doing the special effects on stage as the action developed.  And very good they were too - I especially liked their renditions of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and the falling (and landing) Whale.

The show really began when these two grey-haired old blokes tuned up. 

Years ago we used to watch Live & Kicking on BBC on Saturday mornings with our (then) young sons, and I can remember Andi Peters and Emma Forbes beginning one show sitting with a very old, grey-haired, rumpled-looking man on the sofa.  Quite unpreposessing.  Andi explained to the kids that he was amazing, and that their parents would know who this man was as soon as he opened his mouth and said something.  Which he promptly did.  He said 'Good morning children,' or something like that, and not only was it immediately clear that he was Oliver Postgate, but I was transported back to Ivor the Engine and Noggin and Pogles and so forth.

Something very similar happened last night in Bromley.  The two grey-haired blokes started talking and it was immediately obvious that they were Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect.  Their voices were unchanged,  I shut my eyes and it felt like the radio a long time ago.  It was only at that point that I realised one of the old blokes was wearing a dressing gown. 

And it worked.  Finally a new version of H2G2 that I could warm to. 

The first half was a cut down verion of the first four Fits, slightly altered and edited (and with some stuff from the books, but not too intrusive).  the second half was a rather messy selection of good bits from the rest of the stories in a pretty arbitrary order.  Which they recognised ('Arthur according to our records you seem to be missing several chapters from your life').

Toby Longworth was good as Slartibartfast, and the Vogons worked, too.

And Marvin was wonderful.  A puppet Marvin, with an operator in black, based on old bits of radio and a tape recorder - with Stephen Moore doing the voice, what's not to love.  Not the horrible Marvins from the TV and film, this one fitted in and worked!

OK, so they changed the name of the worst poet in the Universe for the obvious reason, I assume, and they referred to the 'Big Bang Burger Chef' rather than 'Bar', losing some of the aliteration to no discernible benefit.  And Sachs struggled with the script occasionally (some reviews on the Web suggest that other Books were more into the Guide and did better).

But other innovations worked well.  For example the extended scene with an increasingly frustrated Arthur trying to get a cup of tea out of a nutrimatic drink dispenser.  And failing.  And then the nutrimatic machine leading the audience in community singing - of "Share and Enjoy".  The Crikkit song and Marvin's song also stood up - just about.

Mostly however what made the show was these weird old people, who for some obscure reason had these remembered and much-loved voices from over thirty years ago, and were happily sharing them with us.

It could have been some kind of rock-show retrospective - like how John Cleese described performing the Parrot Sketch on tour (first silence, and then applause (but few laughs)).  But it didn't feel like that at all, and the audience laughed at many of the jokes (as well as mouthing them along with the performers).

Ah, the audience.  You would expect a fair number of grey haired old fogies out there as well.  And there were certainly some - with towels, and '42' and 'Don't talk to me about life' tee shirts, and dressing gowns.  But gratifyingly, there seemed to be quite a lot of people of all ages there and enjoying themselves, including some quite young children.

Anyway - I was won over.  Finally.  By Hitchhiker (sort of) away from the radio.

Here is the teaser from Youtube.

Everyone needs to know where theirs is...

It appears that today is officially Towel Day.  I didn't know.  Certainly worth marking...

Asimov and Pope

Of course the mere posting of big fat Popes does not mean I agree with them. 

Isaac Asimov disagreed with - or at least rigorously explored and re-positioned - Pope's argument in the first part of the second Epistle of the Essay on Man, in his introduction to his 1978 book, Life and Time.

He pushes against the antithesis that Pope presents, while arguing for a liberal humanism.  In particular he makes the case that 'the study of Man' is equivalent to studying, rigorously, Life, the Universe and Everything (unfortunately not the phrase he uses....). 

When I first read that piece (I must have been around fourteen or fifteen), I remember agreeing with him very much indeed. 

Perhaps I should have another look at it...

Scientific Cryptic

Just to register a very satisfying science and technology-based Cryptic from Arachne on Wednesday.  Very pleasurable! 
(And because I have that kind of background it was a point of honour to finish it!)

Poem of the Day

Share and Enjoy
Douglas Adams

Share and Enjoy
Share and Enjoy
Journey through life
With a plastic boy
Or Girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down
Or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
Cos it's eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your floor
Or ripped off your door
You get to the point
You can't stand any more
Bring it to us, we won't give a fig
We'll tell you, 'Go stick your head in a pig'.

Sirius Cybernetic Hallowe'en Treat

As it is Hallowe'en, and as the Brits around here all seem to have learned the US rite of "Trick or Treat", we bought some packets of sweets to hand out to young callers.

On turning to the back of an M&M's pack (another American import), I found the large message: SHARE AND ENJOY.

Don't you think someone should tell them?

Balconies

Balconies, I’ve come to believe, are mostly unnecessary excrescences - fragile add-ons to buildings. Bits of ugly frippery, which are in no way essential to the rest of the structure, they are basically pointless accretions.

Now this, of course, isn’t meant to include the wooden balconies at the Globe; they are an integral part of that building, and fulfil a useful function: that of letting the audience safely see the stage. Nor do I necessarily mean the occasional rococo continental balcony sitting comfortably on a plump white building. They just seem to fit.  Especially overseas.

Also, a flat roof covering part of a house such as a kitchen extension, with a balustrade, is not a balcony; it’s just someone using their roof more efficiently.

To help with further explanations, here is a guide from 'artisiticrail'.

Balconies are classified in to 3 styles Faux, False & True. Faux styles are used to decorate a window and are for ornamentation. A False Balcony has a deck projection of approximately 4" to 6" and are mainly designed and installed to block off an open doorway. True Balconies are designed and installed to be walked on and comprised of (sic) a deck and the railing”

So the main targets of my mild aesthetic distaste are those “True” balconies (according to the above analysis) stuck on to modernist, high-rise buildings. Oh, I admit that there is a possible argument in their favour – that people cooped up in horrible high-rise blocks need a sense of the ‘outside,’ and that balconies can in part provide this. And that this is especially true of residential high-rises.

I can also admit that I have a deep and abiding dislike (alright then, fear) of heights and sheer drops that does nothing to endear balconies to me (and stories like this are distinctly unhelpful).

Also, I fear I am coming across all Howard Roark from The Fountainhead (and also like a famously-wooden Gary Cooper in the famously-poor film of the same). Dynamiting the balconies that had been added to his otherwise clinically modern architecture.

Well sorry, but unlike him I see these balconies as part of, and not opposed to, the modernist aesthetic. I really don’t like modernist architecture much either.

And in any case, if a building requires balconies to provide these outside areas, perhaps it is too big already.  And poorly designed, to boot.

And finally, balconies connect in my mind with the waves - I mean the waving - of the powerful. Kings and Popes, leaders to the led.  I bet they waved from a balcony at some point during the recent Royal Wedding farrago (we didn't watch). So balconies are also symbols of dull, earthly overlordship.

And yet...

And yet I can remember when we lived in a low-rise block, and had a balcony.

I can remember sitting out on that balcony at night, and looking at the sky.

I was 14 or 15, and not terrifically happy at school. And the balcony on our flat became for a while (I have to admit through gritted teeth) something of a personal private space.

It was a council flat – but new, and although small it was OK for us. And the balcony was cramped, but it would take me, a chair and my two and a bit inch refractor.

We were on the first floor, and the balcony looked South towards the Seven Sisters Road, over a featureless, flat, muddy green playing field – and to the right, in the small industrial estate, was the bakery that Mum hated (the Jewish Grodzinski’s, which she insisted on calling 'Grodstinksy’s' because of the perpetual smell of baking bread).  At the time there were a lot of small businesses around that area - once my brother fell through the roof of one  of these while he was out larking about with a gang (resulting in just a busted arm and being grounded, thankfully).

But it was South facing. Which meant in the Winter I could see the Orion nebula (M42), Saturn's rings and Jupiter with his moons. The telescope was just big enough to resolve the rings and hint at one of the divisions, while Jupiter’s Galilean satellites, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, appeared as tiny pinpoint flecks of light. (And looking them up, I’ve just spotted that last year was the 400th anniversary of their discovery. Amazing!).  I never did repeat what Galileo did, and estimate the periods of the moons, nor did I polish my own mirror and build my own relfector.  But Mars, when it was visible, still appeared as the tiniest of red discs in the telescope I did have, and I gazed at that.  And I moon-gazed too, concentrating (like I was told you should) on the terminator to get the most starling view.

I had books on space and spaceflight by Patrick Moore, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, and a cheap star atlas, but mostly I just enjoyed looking at the sky.

In my head this is all connected to the Astronomical Society of Haringey, the moon landings, reading SF (this was all pre-Star Wars, pre-Hitchhiker and pre-Neuromancer, of course) and learning (some) science.  But   it is connected not so much by content, as by a common feeling of astonished awe and pleasure in the numinous (as I wrote earlier this year). And I could look out at all that stuff from our balcony.

I suspect I should reflect upon language, too. I wouln't have said 'numinous'.  Because in all important aspects the numinous is the same as sensawunda.  And the Keats poem is also about sensawunda, (and not only because of the "watcher of the skies/When a new planet swims into his ken" - although he does help to illustrate it)  - just as Patrick Moore’s 700th episode is, because he too tapped into the numinous in his own gruff, crotchety way.

So I suppose that there are balconies, and balconies…

Happy 42

So apparently, because today was October 10th, 2010 (10/10/10 on both sides of the Atlantic), it was 42 day today?   Or something like that...
Because binary 101010 is...

The DNA of Dr Who

A nice, if navel-gazing, piece on BBC Radio 4 just now.  About Douglas Adams' time as a writer and then script editor on Dr Who.  Introduced by John Culshaw who slipped from time-to-time into Dead Ringers mode to impersonate Tom Baker.  (Adams was part of the show during the tenure of the Fourth Doctor).

Several good stories, including John Lloyd remembering that DNA had asked Tom Stoppard to write an episode of the show - apparently he gave a very short reply.  Lloyd describe it as one of the few times that Stoppard turned down a commission from a writer better than he is.

Mostly sycophantic responses about what a wonderful writer Adams was, and ending with a puff piece for the more recent (2005 onwards) sequence, which was claimed as being in the mode of City of Death. That is, with a strong leavening of humour.  Stephen Moffat was very happy with the idea.  However it was also said that Adams did something only he could get away with - he broke a cardinal rule, allowing a funny Doctor in a funny situation.

One piece of information I hadn't known: Lalla Ward (Romana II) is married to Richard Dawkins, after meeting him at a party thrown by Adams. (Something like "He and Stephen Fry were having a head-in-the-clouds conversation two or three feet above our heads, so I had to talk to him"). 

More famously - not mentioned on the radio she was also briefly married to Tom Baker.

So anyway, I looked on the InterWeb which confirmed the story, also stating that it was Adams' 40th birthday party, and that Dawkins and Ward were the only ones who only turned up on time. 

And IMDb asserts that she had an uncredited part as Romana in The End of Time: Part 1.

Sigh.

It must be a Meme

Tueday, I think, this week, I went to a conference. Quite hard work, it lasted all day. One thing I noticed though - and which kept me awake in the longeurs, were the intermittent references to, and quotations from, The HithchHikers Guide To The Galaxy.

So one speaker asked all of us 'carbon-based life forms' to settle down, while another one referred to his role as 'Vogon guard' (as in 'I'm just in it for the shouting'). I realised that quite a few people there must have stayed up late to catch the recent dire film, when it was broadcast on BBC3 a day or so earlier. And it had stuck in their minds. And they were relaxed about sharing. Lovely.

Of course, I switched it off after about half an hour (still couldn't take what they'd done to Marvin), and in any case I'd always preferred the radio series to every other manifestation. But actually, since they were mostly quoting stuff from the original scripts, what the hell. I enjoyed it anyway.

On Continuity

Memory is notoriously untrustworthy and fragile. Be that as it may, I do trust to a strange rememberance of a time when Andy Crook acted as a sort of sensitive cultural pilot. Although it seems odd now, I distincly recall that he was the person who lent me the first of the Discworld novels, when it first came out, and who got us all sitting around the radio in college one evening in 1978 to listen to the first ever broadcast episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And now in the space of a few days we have Radio 4 broadcasting Eoin Colfer's authorised sequel to Hitchhiker and a brand new Discworld novel. I really need Andy to tell me what to think about them, but as he isn't here right now (he's in SW London), here goes...

Unseen Academicals - 37th in the Discworld series. Its about football and the wizards. It is pretty good. Somehow, it reminds me of Monstrous Regiment (perhps because when Pterry writes about the working classes and violence there is a certain similarity?). I'm not going to talk about plot, character or jokes. If you are interested you will have already read it - or be about to. So in either case I'd be doing a disservice. But there is one other area where it reads as typical Pratchett. He has never been that interested in the detailed consistency of the series from book to book. In fact I always thought the whole point of Thief of Time was to allow him to do pretty much as he wanted in that regard, without the fans getting niggled.

And yet. In this book, football is reinvented, and indeed a new, air-filled ball is introduced. The game is made more civilised. All fine, except that it seems to ignore the byplay around Captain Carrot and his inflated pig's bladder in Jingo. The Captain Carrot who doesn't appear in the latest book at all, because of course he would be the ideal referee, and the main plot just wouldn't quite work. Now it is clear that Pratchett knows and understands this discontinuity and just doesn't want to let it get in the way of his story. Fair enough - its his universe, after all. It's just that this time I felt the gap a little bit more clearly...

Anyway, on to And Another Thing. The next bit of HHGTTG. Part six of three. I haven't bought the book (yet - I probably will for completeness), and I admire Colfer (Artemis Fowl, The Wish List, etc). But first and foremost Hitchhiker was a radio series, and that is the form where it worked best, so when Radio 4 announced that they would broadcast it as Book at Bedtime I decided I just had to listen to it first.

A big mistake. A huge mistake.

Because it was Book at Bedtime. A solitary voice reading a condensed version of the book. Dull. No Peter Jones (or Stephen Fry). No music. No BBC Radiophonic Workshop. No Simon Jones. Nothing. I suspect that if in my mind Hitchhiker wasn't actually all of those things, and more, it would have been OK. But it is. So it wasn't.

I just couldn't listen to it and had to switch it off.

There was no continuity with the past, no sense that this followed on from the earlier stuff; it just fell depressingly flat. Either it is just me, or the BBC got this one horribly wrong. Once upon a time, I feel sure, Andy Crook would have warned me.