GOSH

The blog has a new title.
It's been bothering me (in the style of Columbo) that I was unable to remember this man's name:

You may recall, he was responsible for the continuity in between TVS programmes in the early 80s, later his disembodied voice would tell you it was time for Worzel Gummidge or whatever else was on.

The other thing that bothered me this week was that I had lost a comic shop.

GOSH is/was a comic shop that used to be on Great Russell Street opposite the British Museum.  It always suffered a bit from being 'Not Forbidden Planet' but it was good enough that you'd go out of your way to visit both if you were in the area.
And it's not there anymore.
I hope it's just moved, I really do. It started in my lifetime, not long after Forbidden Planet had moved out of Denmark Street and was trying to look like a business rather than a place where 14 year old boys went to buy magazines under plain covers or you'd gone in there by mistake thinking it was a guitar shop.  It sold comics but things you couldn't get elsewhere and the owners took a wider view of what was a comic rather than the Beano at one end of the spectrum and American imports at the other.
Its disappearance wasn't helped by what they'd replaced it with:
'Excuse me, but didn't this used to be GOSH comics.'
'Yes but now it is Sass-Bell.'
I know this, because, well, I can read but it doesn't really help me much.  Not unless I want to buy a paper butterfly or a ceramic owl which to be fair, they have a lot of.
So it's a slightly sadder me that heads towards the big Waterstones, and there I do a bad thing.
I'm not going to say I wasn't thinking because I was.

I'm in the bookshop browsing away quite happily.  I've read the first few pages of the latest book from the ginger Scotsman with a big beard, his name will come to me, Mock the Week - I was enjoying the first few pages - it's a heartwarming story about a boy and former slave in the Deep South, they're producing a botany encyclopaedia or something, there's aliens in it.
I decided to buy it.
On Kindle.
Now I couldn't in all conscience buy it on Kindle in the bookshop, so I just popped outside to download it.  And that's the death of bookshops right there.  Just like Gosh, and just like continuity presenter whose name I can't remember.
You can browse in a bookshop, in a way you can't on Kindle, but Kindle weighs less and cheaper and just easier.  I'm not sure I am not the only one - it makes sense - look in the bookshop and then buy it on Kindle, but that's the death knell for bookshops.  Unless of course the bookshops pursue some sort of luddite anti-technological warfare.  Wireless deadzones around every bookshop so you have to walk for miles to download what you've just looked at.

Though if bookshops close, how long 'til Amazon hikes the prices of e-books ? Then all you'll be able to buy in shops is strong drink and ceramic owls and no one wants that, do they ?

The Box of Delights - Closed.

POSTSCRIPT

Turned out GOSH hadn't closed - just moved to Berwick Street in Soho - because the area around the British Museum had lost its bohemian, literary quality - all the bookshops were being replaced with tourist tat and the British Library had left the building.  It moved nearly a year ago, I just hadn't noticed.

Still the continuity presenter's name is Brian Nissen.  He retired in 1987 and died in 2001.
The Scottish author was Frank Boyle.

An Evening With Gerald

Has it been so long. Oh mes petites, how I have missed you. Everywhere I am told, write all the time, else you are nothing. So for a while I have been nothing and you will have to wait to hear of The Misery of Cornwall, The Haunted Bedroom, and Cheese-Making of the Apocalypse. Maybe I will never tell you of Garth and the Submarine and perhaps it is for the best. For I was in training to run half a marathon, but that is done for another year and as is traditional my exertions left me gasping and wheezing with a man-flu of my own invention. But today I am filled with excitement. I must confess I grew tired of my own inactivity , it is not nothing to be nothing, but it is not pleasurable. So tonight I embarked on a short evening course called Starting to Write Fiction. I do not know if it’s any good, but I did enjoy it. We were given an exercise to do in class: a postcard at random. Write its story for 5 minutes. Then after that what happened before (for 5 minutes), then what happened after (for 5 minutes). We had the opportunity to read them out; it felt strangely confessional like being a nudist who has gone to the beach for the first time. Anyway at the risk of wafting my fictional endeavours in your direction and then holding your head under my creative duvet, here’s what I got up to.

Two On The Aisle by Edward Hopper (1927)

‘Are you sure that the concert is this evening ?’
‘Quite sure. I’ve got the tickets right here. You see, Wednesday the 25th.’
‘It’s just that the seats are all empty and there was no one at the ticket office. Even the orchestra pit is covered in dust.’
‘Here are our seats. Why don’t you sit down ? Look we’re not even the first ones here: there’s a lady over there in a box.’
‘Where ?’
‘Just up there. Don’t stare Muriel, it’s very rude. Actually I rather fancy, I said don’t stare, I rather fancy that’s Grace Kelly.’
‘No George, it’s a mannequin.’


 What Happened Before 
‘George ?’
‘Martha, my love ?’
‘Are you sure we’re going the right way ?’
‘Of course, look, here’s the A to Z. We’re going down this street and then we take a left.’
‘I do wish we’d taken a taxi.’
‘Well there was only one and Frank Sinatra needed it.’
‘You know George, I am not so very sure that that man was Frank Sinatra.’
‘He was the very spit of him and I should know, I saw him before, when I went to Las Vegas. On holiday. We shared the same urinal. He sang ‘My Way.’
‘When did you ever go to Las Vegas ?’
‘The summer of 1978, I went on a gambling holiday before I met you. I believe this is the place.’
‘It doesn’t look open.’

What Happened After

‘I’ve had enough George My feet hurt and we’ve been going ‘round in circles. Just admit that we’re lost.’
‘I am absolutely certain that we are on the right track Mabel.’
‘What time did the tickets say the performance starts ?’
‘Seven thirty on the nose.’
‘That’s only four minutes away.’
‘Worry not my dove. Your proverbial knight in shining armour will get you there in time.’
‘George there’s a taxi, please let’s take it.’
‘Very well my rose. Taxi ?’ ‘The Royal Albert Hall please.’
‘Shhh don’t say anything Mildred, but I think our driver is Clark Gable.’

Page 132

There’s a joke I am fond of, somewhat ironically given my inability to finish anything more than a bowl of soup: two men propping up a bar, one says to the other:
‘I’m writing a novel,’
‘Neither am I,’ replies his companion.
I know a lot of people like that. Me included.
And I’ve found another one in my front garden. Well a fragment, the top half of page 132.

Now it’s not my place to say whether it’s any good, clearly the author was dissatisfied, which is why they threw it away, and the wind has carried it to me.
Should I throw it away ? Or do I have a duty to a wider audience ? In years to come the relationship between Tom and Carol could be the literary mystery of the 21st century and here I hold the answer. Is this the work of a new Dickens, a Shakespeare, a Jackie Collins, maybe even, the next Dan Brown.
And who wrote it ? Is it the silver fox with his wine import business on the left ? Or his smiling but enigmatic partner, who knows what she does with her days. Are they the template for Tom and Carol ? Does he smoke discreetly out of the window and admire her for the way she hides her despair ?
Or is it the nut-brown hiker and his soft faced boyfriend ? Which one is responsible ? Why the two shades of ink and what is the guilt Tom carries with him. Has he lost Carol ? Will he get her back ?
Who is the secret novelist of No. 21 or No. 17 ?
If I go through their bins, is there more to be found ?
So many questions and no answers. It’s bad enough that I’ve stolen a bit of their novel (except it did end up on my property). And a new and terrible thought plagues me. What if the wind carried it from further away. It could be anyone in the road, or maybe it flew out of a car window.
So anyway, if you’ve lost the top of page 132, pop in to collect it, think of me as the literary equivalent of Bagpuss. Though please, stop underlining stuff, and don’t use the word despair in the same sentence, whoever you are. I know what I’m talking about you know, after all,‘I’m writing a novel.’

Sherlock - fake death nonsense

That's me finger on the pulse of the nation (pay attention now pulses are important).
I just watched the DVD and thought I'd commit my own theory to posterity before they reveal all.

1. He asks Molly for help. He then sits there playing with a tennis/squash ball (pay attention this is important too)
2. Up on the roof he tells John to stay where he is (the other side of the lower building) - obscuring his view of the landing
3. He jumps, he lands in the hospital laundry truck - rolls out complete with fake blood etc.
4. John comes around the corner, he gets hit by the cyclist just in time for the laundry truck to pull away so it doesn't register with the good Dr.
5. John gets over to the body - note he only takes his pulse from the wrist - remember your tennis balls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC97Uie7IVM (how to fake your pulse with a tennis ball - only works if you are taking a wrist pulse)
6. Cue Molly's confederates who turn up and bundle the body off.

The only think bothering me is the rectangular marking s on the street and they may be irrelevant.

Of course the real triumph of Moffat and Gatiss is that in a mere 6 episodes they have managed to convert me to referring to Dr. Watson as John. Now that's the real trickery.

Of course the actual mystery is why, when the Post Office are making cutbacks and redundancies, a provincial Postman has been trained to fly a helicopter ? I thought it was only Royals in the armed services that got to learn how to fly. Though a closer inspection of Pat - big-eared ginger, looks a bit like Prince Harry in specs if he'd really let himself go.

The Royal Order of the Spaz

As we enter the end of days - it's good to see the slender pillars of salt upon which our society has been propped up for the last two decades crumble - the electorate turn on the politicians who turn on the journalists and everyone turns on the bankers. The dawning realisation, not that there is no society as someone with big hair once claimed, but that most people have known it for a long time but didn't care as long as they got their bonus/stolen trainers whilst rioting/moat paid for out of the public purse - because there's not a great deal of difference between any of them (as any fule who's read the end of Animal Farm will know).
It's important to blame someone. That, we can all agree on, blame in this century rallies us, it unifies the nation. The divestiture of Fred Goodwin's knighthood is a start, but does it go far enough ?
I was disappointed to learn that Fred doesn't actually have to go back to Buckingham Palace to hand the award back personally. This seems like a missed opportunity for pomp and shaming - two things we still do best. I imagined a cermony in which Goodwin is made to hop down the red carpet in a clown outfit whilst being pelted with rancid haggis. He then kneels, hands back the gong, whereupon the Queen will kosh him with the pommel of the sword. He is then given the option of having his knuckles rapped or being given a smack on the arse with the flat of the blade. A royal corgi will then ceremonially piss on his real clothes which he has to put on before being chased down Pall Mall. It doesn't matter who by.

Why stop there. There should be a regular Dishonours List - each year, those who have disgraced themselves in public life should be forced to endure some sort of ritual humiliation. The classical Athenians had a similar (rather more severe) mechanism - those who sought public office could be privately prosecuted for the decisions they took on behalf of the state. It meant some thought twice before even running for office.
Anyway I propose the Order of the Spaz. Spaz - derived from the Greek 'spastikos' - meaning pulling in or tugging - the medal or 'spastika' would come in the shape of a clenched hand - denoting the universal sign for tosser. Recipients would be forced to wear these medals whilst in public.
Failing that - they could start including more stringent ethical requirements in their terms of service upon which their pension pots were calculated or include pension and bonus forfeiture clause in their contracts. Sadly it's even less likely than the Order of the Spaz or The Venerable Merkin Order.

TV Obituary: Tim Lovejoy & Something For The Weekend

It's with a warm pint of joy that we bid farewell to BBC 2s horrible Something For The Weekend, a show so at home with its inability to deliver anything other than mild nausea and a rapid changeover that it's incomprehensible that it has lasted as long as it did.
Lazy television at its zenith, as if a bored producer whilst picking someones nose (maybe their own) had thought for several seconds:"What do people like on the telly ? Cookery programmes and celebrities" and had then vomited this non-idea every week into a bucket which presenter Tim Lovejoy then threw mirthlessly in our faces every Sunday.
You may be blissfully unaware of Tim; he once declined an award due to his 'hatred of long words'. Tim was named after the Reverend Tim Lovejoy in the Simpsons (despite being born before he'd been created) in a desperate attempt to make him funnier, he's a result of the embarrassed coupling of Lovejoy (off of the Antiques Roadshow) and the actress Phyllis Logan (as played by Joyce Grenfell when she was 15) in the back of a converted horsebox.

Tim has a proven track record in making unwatchable television that little bit less exciting and he goes at his job with all the zeal of a fucked corpse. The only presenter I've ever seen who's clearly counting the seconds until the end of the programme under his breath, which is more than can be said for the audience.

There's some lazy football chatter between him and resident chef Simon Rimmer, a tired swipe at students, 'taxdodgers' one of them declares hilariously, Rimmer can at least cook but it's as nothing next to the visible onscreen chemistry of the two. Simon sympathises with TIm after he went skiing and paid '40 euros for a burger.' Scandalous, their bored, dead eyes both seem to say, but it's alright because Tim reveals, 'it included drinks too.' Phew. Those of us holding out for the payoff aren't disappointed when Tim confides that the cycling he's doing is, 'hard work.' It is difficult to see why ChannelBee - the internet tv channel that was TIm's idea, failed after a year (2008-2009) given that a mainstay was a forum called The Banter Pit.
But there's a diamond in the rough, halfway through an interview Tim interjects: "We do a lot of offal on this show." There's a pause, the entire studio goes quiet - the camera goes to Tim. Has Tim said something funny ? There's not a hint of recognition from Lovejoy, everyone is relieved, the moment passes - he was simply making a factual statement that a lot of the cooking does involve the use of internal organs. And now, gentle reader, we can share the tv crew's relief because the production of offal is about to stop.

In the Garden of the Night

"The night is black,
And the stars are bright,
And the sea is dark and deep

And someone I know is safe
And snug, and the're drifting
Off to sleep
Round and round, a little boat no bigger
Than you're hand, out on the ocean, far away from land.

Take the little sail down,
Light the little light.
This is the way to the
Garden of the night"

Or Isle of the Dead as it should be known. Iggle Piggle (clearly an offshoot from the Hills Have Eyes Clan) guides you there as the eponymous ferryman - you'll notice he never sleeps until the end, ever watchful is Charon. There you are met and judged by Minos (Father Christmas), Sobek (the Crocodile from Punch & Judy/Peter Pan)
and probably Macca Pacca (a suspicious creature with the bodyshape of uncle Jesse from Dukes of Hazard who looks like he has had mouldering dog turds glued to him and then painted pink). If you have been very good you can spend eternity in Nigel Slater's herb garden eating his simple meals and pissing all over the rosemary.

For the rest of us it is the Night Garden itself - an endless purgatory populated by those whose souls hang in balance and their wardens.


With snakes for hair one of the Erinnyes pursues the denizens of the garden.

The Hahoos - imprisoned there by the gods of Olympus after their revolt lead by Typhon.

The Pontipines and the Wottingers - two houses alike in dignity, perhaps once known as Montagues and Capulets

The three-headed guard - Tombliboos - a grim wide-eyed Cerberus

All under the watchful eyes of Macca Pacca from his cave.

Lucky it's only for children or I'd be terrified.