Two more very readable articles on the Whitehouse rehabilitaion

Good chum and Atoms colleague Padraig at Liberal Conspiacy -

"Whitehouse was a shrill provocateur on a relentless crusade (or jihad, if you prefer) to stifle, oppress and scare"

and a personal, and far from fond recollection by Anticant -

"Far from being the lilywhite, if sometimes simplistic, crusader for truth, justice and decency perceived by her past and present admirers, she was an artful, devious and quite unscrupulous operator who had no qualms about inflicting totally unwarranted injustice and damage upon those whom she chose to dislike at the behest of her God. Claiming the loftiest Christian principles, she did not hesitate, when it suited her, to be a moral hooligan. Far from practising the high ideals of love and truth which she trumpeted forth, she more than once dragged the level of public debate down into the gutter, flinging blatant lies around with unctuous abandon.
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and, lest we forget, Whitehouse are also a really shit band.

"Whitehouse specialise in what they call "extreme electronic music". They are known for their controversial lyrics and imagery, which portray sadistic sex, misogyny, serial murder, eating disorders, child abuse, and other forms of violence and abjection"

Twerps.

Re: That rather disappointing drama about Mary Whitehouse last night-

What was the name of the bearded transgressive writer who demanded a right to reply to Mrs Whitehouse, and wrote the scripts to several programmes attacking her? Was he a real person, or just a composite "new generation" character to make the plotting easier?

I've done some research but can't find anything.

On the subject of Whitehouse, there's an excellent post on the subject by loveandgarbage.

Also, anybody else remember The Goodies' parody of Mrs W, named "Dierdre Carthorse", if I remember rightly....

EDIT: it was "Desiree Carthorse" and Tim Brooke-Taylor writes about it...

I seem to be watching a lot of telly these days - or to put it more accurately I seem to be watching a lot of good telly these days. The hard-disc recorder has been a real boon in this regard, meaning that instead of wandering in in the hope of catching something interesting, I now watch stuff taped a few days ago (with the added advantage of being able to skip past the adverts)

Quite why ITV 4 is considered so beyond the pale that it rarely features in broadsheet newspaper listings is beyond me. I've been watching the repeat of Nigel Neale's final "Quatermass" series (thanks loveandgarbage for the tip-off) - which is simultaneously creepy and creaky. Then I noticed they were showing an epidode of the Kafka-at-Butlins gem "The Prisoner" and taped it, only to discover it was the first episode - so I can watch the whole lot again.

Then there's ITV3's re-run of the supremely bonkers 90s serial "The Lakes", as well as groovy contemporary shows on other channels like "Mad Men" and "He Kills Coppers" (both of which seem to feature lots of snazzy suits and copious smoking), "Damages" and somewhere or other, the latest work of Jonathan Meades...

I may never leave the house.

Very empty train into work this morning, which helped take the sting out. On getting home tonight we'll commence taking down the Christmas Decos. Never mind Twelfth Night, it's rather depressing coming home from work only to be greeted by decorations reminding you that the holiday is over...

...except it's not quite - there's still Molly Dancing outings for Twelfth Night and Plough Monday, details of which will follow shortly.

The blow of returning to work is also softened by the genuinely enthralling prospect of BBC4's "Thunderbirds Are Go!" night. Highlights include my favourite Thunderbirds episode "Sunprobe" ("Sunshine" 40 years earlier basically), the first Captain Scarlet episode (which reminds me of my theory that al-Qaeda are The Mysterons), there's an hour long documentary on the genius that is Gerry Anderson, and a brand new episode of Stingray. Fantastic.

And if all that wasn't enough there's an Irwin Allen night tomorrow!

Life's not so bad really, is it?

Did anyone else watch the three part series on BBC4*, Dance Britannia? From the trailers, I was expecting it to completely ignore traditional dance in this country. It nearly did, although it was saved by the presence of the saintly Doc Rowe who brought us some film of the Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup, rapper dancing, and some amazing film from Padstow. He also performed a valuable service by pointing out that there's absolutely no evidence that Morris Dancing has any pagan origins - much to the chagrin of many pagans I expect, who've being dying to co-opt morris into their lifestyle for ages (this isn't to say that all morris dancers aren't pagans, but very, very few are, in my experience). As Rowe pointed out, the earliest records of morris dancing go back to the 16th century, which is hardly the dawn of time.

One of the spin-off shows had some extraordinary footage of the Abbotts Bromley Horn Dancers, rather insultingly in a programme about how the British Can't Dance, but wonderful to see all the same. A noticeable absence though, especially in the last programme covering the period from the 80s to the present, was any coverage at all the burgeoning e-ceilidh scene.

Elsewhere the programme had much to recommend it - from footage of grumpy mods on the "Ready Steady Go" set, to pogoing punks and (stretching the definition of dance somewhat) headbanging metal fans.

*BBC4 is so good! Why weren't there stations like this in the olden days? Oh, wait a minute there was; BBC2 and Channel 4. This was before reality TV though....

The whole of Stewart Lee's "Don't Get Me Started" on Blasphemy is now online.
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Thanks to everybody who joined me for my birthday yesterday- The food was yummy and the beer flowed. Once again I was touched by your friendship. And now I've got a copy of Dawkin's "The God Delusion" and a fabulous collage sleeved compilation CD, a pair of binoculars, the music to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and a 9 disc complete set of "Supercar".


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Tonight I'm going to see Steve Reich with spoombung, markhammonds amongst others, the plan seems to be to meet at "a pub on the corner of Silk and White Cross St right by the entrance to the Hall, at about 6.30" (I might be there earlier)

If anyone knows the name of this pub, please stick it up here, as I can't seem to get www.fancyapint.com to work.

That new new Jack Dee sitcom that the BBC are plugging like mad looks totally cack.

and "Lead Balloon" may prove to be an unwise title.

"Jack Dee stars as a curmudgeonly comedian in this new sitcom..."

give me strength.

The excellent news is that the Anna Homler, Steve Beresford, Me trio have got the gig at a festival in Portugal. Very exciting, it's a while since I've done any foreign gigs- the last was the same trio at the Berlin Jazz Festival in November 2003 (We're not jazz though). I'm working on knocking up a quick MySpace page for the trio, so that the Festival has something to link to.
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Yesterday morning I managed to stub my little toe very hard. Now it's gone black and I have to walk with a distinct lop-sided gait. This was the source of much hilarity for spoombung on our walk to the pub last night, but also means I'm going to be pretty useless at morris practice tomorrow.
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This fiasco couldn't have come at a worse time, what with the local elections next week- not that I had high hopes for Labour in them anyway to be honest- What a mess.
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It's White Dot's "Turn Off TV Week" or something. I have some sympathy with White Dot, my TV viewing is getting to very minimal levels- and even when I watch an "event" programme like Doctor Who, I've missed so much of the previous series I haven't a clue what's going on; who's Cassandra? What's "the Face of Klomm"? (or whatever it was...)

If it broke tomorrow, I wouldn't be that bothered.

I wandered into the lounge today while Mrs Bagrec was watching TV, the news was on- a cheery item about music in hospitals. A harpist played in a ward seemingly full of very old ladies- "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!" said one.

(Which when you think about it, might not be the best thing to put into people's minds when they're in hospital)

More surprising was that the harpist was my friend Rhodri Davies, an improviser I'm more used to seeing sticking a cymbal between the strings of his harp and bowing it energetically.

It was even more of a surprise to hear him playing "Angels".

Yes that "Angels".
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I've gone a bit YouTube barmy, and uploaded loads of stuff - including me being all experimental and that, a load of very short London films I shot with my 30 quid camera between 2003 and 2005, all run together, and a very short and sweet clip of the Copper Family singing at the King and Queen.

The London Shorts one had had over 200 veiwings within an hour, for no apparent reason.

ITV 4 have just shown the very first episode of UFO, another favourite of my pre-teen self. It's got a completely ludicrous plot concerning humanoid liquid breathing aliens coming from another solar system to steal human body parts, and a huge hyper-technical secret organisation which tries to stop them, whilst continually keeping it from the general public. Surely nobody could take such a preposterous plot seriously, even 1969?

However the special effects have stood up rather well, and it has moments of swinging 60's oddness that make it extremely cool.

Best of all though is the music by the late great Barry Gray, one of the most consistantly under-rated film and TV composers. His UFO score is the best- a cracking theme able to be arranged into a myriad styles from 60's discotheque, through military marches, jazz solemnity, and top notch and irresistable lounge snippets like this.

If that tickles your fancy, here's the main theme

and there's loads more here

Barry Gray=Genius.