Archive Classic Movies

Who remembers Black & White Flash Gordon on BBC2? I do. That was back when TV's had three channels: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. You had to push the clunk buttons really hard to change channels. There was white noise between channel changes. Remote control? Use your legs, son. When you you switch the TV off, the picture shrunk into a white dot in the centre of the screen. If the TV had been on a while, the white dot stayed for ages.

Anyway, Archive Classic Movies have got Flash Gordon. They've also got José Ferrer's Cyrano de Bergerac (opinions - is this one or the Gerard Depardieu one better?). They've got La Ciociara - An amazing Sophia Loren movie. There is plenty of pulp, including Reefer Madness - the completely ridiculous film on the perils of smoking weed. Possibly more appropriate now with everyone growing their own strong hydronic versions.

All these movies are free to download. The site is beautifully simple and the amount of content is mind boggling. You can subscribe to the podcasts which makes searching and choosing even easier. It almost makes me want one of those video ipod thingys and commute two hours everyday - almost. I'd much prefer a large Chesterfield, daquiri in hand, watching on a screen that doesn't have tacky silver plastic around it - but these things seem are becoming more difficult to achieve in this modern world.

Well, more soon, I'm off to watch the entire series of Radar Men From the Moon!

Craphone Whorehouse

What can I say? They've done it again! Bollocks in the vice and a smart smack with a hammer. My last phone bill is £163. Okay, I talk a lot, I'm busy and important and live a high profile life. However, I'm on a new deal and I expected my bill to be £35. I used the call timer to check my minutes. I checked the amount of text messages, I didn't phone international, so what happened?

Well, this is what happened. I 'upgraded' as they call it on the 6th February. I have a new phone (which is not as good as my old phone, but that is another story). I was given a new SIM card so that I could video call (I still can't - but that is another story).

I used the phone as you would - like a normal phone. And the… huge phone bill. I upgraded with the customer 'loyalty' department. I was promised the new phone with no obligation for fourteen days. I was promised a copy of the contract by email and by letter. I have the phone, but i do not have a copy of the contract over a month later. I have telephoned them, I have emailed them and last week I was promised a phone call from a manager with an explanation of what is going on. The phone call has not materialised. I should've known better to be honest, they have never, ever returned a phone call. In this instance, they didn't even send me an invoice prior to raiding my bank account, they just swioed the money!

According to the representative that I spoke to, who only very, very reluctantly gave his name, I was on the new contract from the 6th of February, but it didn't start for another few weeks. This means that instead of making calls on my new tariff of a million 'free' minutes, that I was paying full whack for each and every call I made.

Also, I was promised free 0800 calls. These are free from a UK landline anyway, but mobile companies charge for them. I attempted to make an 0800 call and discovered that they are not free at all, but come off my minutes allowance. The loyalty department representative and a person in my local store both told me these calls were free.

I have written my third letter to them and I will let you know what they say if they ever bother to reply.

Craphone Whorehouse are the most deceitful, mealy minded company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with, I cannot recommend them enough.

Tax letters

I have just received a letter from HM Revenue & Customs. It is the normally depresaing brown windowed envelope. The letter is fat as there is a lot of paper in it. It is my tax calculation for last year. Thankfully, I have nothing to pay. According to the letter, a due date has already passed and that I should not wait for my next Statement of Account. What due date is that, I wonder?

I will write to you again if I have any questions about your tax return - if you have any questions my telephone number is above.

There is no name. I do not know who 'I' is. The telephone number is the normal tax enquiry line.

The second sheet shows a tax calculation. It fits into the top third of the sheet of A4. The rest is blank. All the information could have fit on one sheet of A4. The letter also contains a leaflet - How to Pay, even though I don't owe anything. This is normal. I have had hundreds of letters of varying intelligibility from the tax office over the last year. Many letters contain many sheets of paper with just one Dada sentence on it.

The tax office likes to spend all our tax money on paper. They love the stuff. They love it so much the print a little bit of mathematical poetry onto each sheet and send it out to everyone in the land. It has to be asked, if the tax office didn't send out quite so much opaque text, that we would all pay a little less tax, or that the extra tax might go towards something useful?

For me, tax returns are like buses. You wait ages and then five come along all at once. I've just had to do tax returns for the last five years. I spent most of January like Sherlock Holmes on a paper trail. I felt like Starr on Clinton's impeachment - except that I was investigating my own past. It didn't seem like me.

Not only that, there was a cock up with the tax credit system. I was sent about £3,800 by them. I also received a letter explaining that this was money owed for about two years prior. Not only that, they didn't send one cheque, they sent cheques in obscure amounts of £162.17 and £138.48. I received over twenty cheques in brown envelopes - all on the same day. The paper, the postage, the waste…

I telephoned the tax credit people, but they knew nothing about it. This was two days before I went travelling for six months last year. When I got back I had over thirty letters desperately asking for the money back and some very nasty ones threatening me with court action.

The cheques are only valid for thirty days. These letters were sent in December. It should have been perfectly clear that they hadn't been cashed. Also, I had been sent more cheques and a few days later a letter asking for them back!

Anyway, I've had enough of it. All that wasted paper, all my wasted time. Granted that if you call the tax office they are friendly and helpful (hooray!).

Something is obviously a bit out of kilter with the computer system. I understand it must be a very large computer to rememember everyones tax details. Large it may be, but ultimately stupid - spitting out rubbish and sending it to people.

Jules Dassin and his luck

On the Criterion DVD of his film Rififi, Jules Dassin talks of extraordinary luck in his film making career. A notable time was in Cannes. He was there with his wife. They were almost broke after Dassin was blacklisted by HUAC (see Jules Dassin and the Hollywood Blacklist). The producer and Dassin were in a casino. Dassin didn't have any money of his own and begged for some from his friend. "What day did we start filming?", Dassin asked. The producer replied "On the 18th". Dassin put all the money he had been given on the number 18. He won and lived for several months on that money.

Jules Dassin and the Hollywood Blacklist

The Hollywood blacklist destroyed the lives and careers of many actors, writers and fimmakers during the McCarthy 'Red Scare' era in America.

Having just watched Rififi again - a gripping film noir heist movie from 1955, I got thinking about Jules Dassin, the director. Dassin. He was brought in front of House Comittee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) after a fellow director, Edward Dmytryk - denounced Dassin. Dmytrk himself became known as one of the Hollywood Ten, when he and nine other film industry professionals were put in prison for a year for alleged un-american activities. The number ten is misleading as there were more.

Dassin was no longer able to work as a film maker for five years. However, the story of the last film he made before this exile is an interesting one. Dassin's friend and producer, Darryl F. Zanuck had assigned Dassin the film Night and the City. Aware of Dassin's impending interview with HUAC, Zanuck urged Dassin to start shooting - and start with the expensive scenes, so that the studio would be more likely to let him complete the film - having already shelled out the bulk of the production money. The gambit worked. However, with the heat on from HUAC, Dassin moved to France and was trying to work there. European film producers were informed by HUAC that any films in which Dassin worked on would not be allowed to be released in America.

It was the film Rififi that Dassin made after this enforced hiatus. Apparently, Dassin was a little reluctant to take on the film, but did so needing the work. The original book by Auguste le Breton was adapted to include the cinematically and stylistically famous safe breaking scene. In the book, the actual crime is fairly brief, but in the movie it is a tense half hour with no dialogue and no background music. The scene caused a stir with the gendarmes in France, where it was temporarily banned - fearing copycat safe breaks. The film enjoyed box office success as well as now being seen as an excellent example of Film Noir.

Weather with you

World of Clara

This is a fun myspace site. My friend Clara sent me a link to her site: www.myspace.com/clarasofie. Check out the music and go and see them - if you are in Denmark!

However, I noticed another Clara added as a friend. Clara, is not the most common name, and myspace being what it is, I clicked through. The World of Clara! Clara's of the world unite! Fabulous stuff:

www.myspace.com/world_of_clara

Judy Garland

Cole Porter Medley. She looks a bit spaced out to be honest, but I love the set. You can see the Liza Minelli look - Liza looks like her mum did later in life, when she was younger - if you get what I mean.

Pecker

Pecker is Ged and Bev's fabulous cat. When I make an fairly infrequent visit to Liverpool, he has the same routine every time.

1) Have a big cuddle - upside down

2) Bite me (gently) for making him dance on two legs like he is doing the moonwalk

3) Go and shit next to the cat litter tray

4) Get in my travel bag and go to sleep

Top of the Pops

This is my new brown tank top. It's from the seventies. It has a round neck which is unusual. It's acrylic and keeps me hot.

What?

Miss Something?

After the Duke of Uke show, I head home. Feeling a little hungry and having no food at home, I reluctantly venture into the local kebab shop. They are nearly closed and have nothing to eat. There is a drunk girl sitting at the back table barking at me. I think she is saying "Get chips and salad!". It seems like good advice, but they are mopping the floor and the bleach smell quells any appetite I have.
This girl, dripping lettuce, sauce and strips of meat from her mouth whilst speaking has a certain charm about her. We talk and it turned out she was a long way from home. When the smell of bleach becomes too overpowering for both of us, we walk back to mine and talked. The kebab girl, who is really named Stephanie, has been to see here friend's band, called The Horrors play. The Horrors seem to be in The Beano* rather a lot lately, but I haven't heard them yet. Stephanie tries to describe them to me, but we are walking fast and she is drunk and has the hiccups.

Well, I know what you are all thinking. However, Stephanie and I have a nice glass of wine together before I put her in a taxi home.

Stephanie writes beautifully and has some fun songs at:

www.myspace.com/stephaniesomething

*The NME

Last night in Spain

Last night in Spain,
Saint James threw his hat in the ring.

Threw the towel in, and laid his bones down
into the sands of Spain.

Last night in Spain
I lost my name
I hit the wall
I swam the flood
and came aground

Last night in Spain
I lost my head
I sailed the seas
With a chorus of angels
to Santiago

© mm7 Rob Vandeven and Nathan Jones

Total Lunar Eclipse of the Heart

Tony and I, dressed in our usual sartorial splendour, alighted in Brixton for the evening's entertainment. We saw a fine trio of players who are known under the moniker The Fratellis. This rather exotic sounding group made splendid ditties and finely crafted melodies and appropriated them to electrical instruments. The ambience of the Academy was, as usual, elegant. The company jovial, if rather scruffy looking and coarse of character.

Following the excitable atmosphere of the Academy, the honourable Mr Mitchell and myself sought refreshment for our arid thirst. We found a suitable hostelry on the Coldharbour Lane, known as the Prince Albert. At this adjunct, we turned our eyes skyward, ever careful not to tilt our glasses, to look at the fair moon. She was the colour of a fair maid's lips. A deep and rosy red. Increasingly darkening like the wing of a rook, until eclipsing completely.

We stood, gentleman and paupers alike, humbled at the spectacle before us. There, our majestic sun, veiled by distant lands, held its shadow clasped upon the maiden of the sky.

The observation of the phenomena caused great strain to our noble necks, turned upwards at an unnatural angle. We sought lubrication of said anatomy, before arriving at the omnibus stand for the journey home.