I-Spy People

Hullo! Hope you all had a nice Christmas. Well forget about it now, back to the brutal misery of January and what better way to ease us into 2012 than a look at The Dickens Press' 'I-Spy' series. I'd like to get a look at some of the others; 'On the Pavement' sounds particularly riveting (or stomach-churning) while 'In Hospital' could be particularly poignant (or stomach-churning). Anyway, you know how it works - see the person (or pavement detritus) and simply add up the points. Let's go!

OK let's see. From the cover I spy Buster Keaton and Peters from Peters & Lee behind the stewardess, and the looming, cloaked figure of death loitering by the aircraft's tail.

Just look at that toff! Look at that swell! Ten points! I like the quote from Pope, and the slightly dispiriting news that you need a grand and a halfs-worth of points to become an 'Anthropologist First Class'. That's like, 150 toffs! It'll take me years!

Where did you see yours? In my dreams, in a deserted seventies shopping arcade underpass, slowly lowering his fiddle as I pass him before starting to walk behind me with a sure-footedness that belies his disability...

"What's the Civil Defence man for, Mummy?"
"Hush now darling, and let me take you to the matinee - you haven't seen 'The War Game' yet have you?"

Yeah, just look at them. Watch them carefully. Just watch them. And when you've seen them, just let me know. Alright? Good lad.

Score for a blind person - nothing. Score for a Morris dancer - forty. That's more than the toff!

I may well have found my new headed notepaper design. Thick as a forest! Fifteen points!

"Um, excuse me mister - are you.."
"Yes my child! Twenty five points!"

That's nice. It's a good message to send to children - the world is better for difference. In fact it should be celebrated, and it's all the better that this message is disseminated to the young. For it is they who hold the key to the future.

Aw. I feel good now. Let's see who else we can spot. Look, there's a Guide with her saxe blue blouse and pleated skirt. And there's a Brownie, with her ni... Jesus.

Well there we are. Who won? All of us, as that word is not used as an adjective anymore. Let me know if you get 1500 points: I'll send you the address to write off to. I'm going onto a popular auction site to look for 'I-Spy On the Pavement'. Be seeing you!

Christmas on Mars

So here it is - Merry Christmas! Everybody in these pictures is guaranteed to be having fun. But they can't look to the future now. Something something about it's only just begun.

I don't know where these places are. The photographs have no identifying text on the back, and have been sourced from various sets. They do have one thing in common though - they all encapsulate the festive joy that is the Christmas period.

Muffled against the cold and driving rain, she presses gamely on, the pram cutting through the puddles like the bow of a destroyer on the Arctic convoys. Her quilted anorak is soaked through, and her heel is sore after the inattentive gentleman behind her trod on it. The shops don't have what she wants and little Frank is crying somewhere beneath the transparent plastic cover on the pram. If only his father were here. Then again he'd probably be craning round to look at that dolly bird in the black boots' legs. Trollop. The only comfort she has is that this moment of ordinary misery will never be captured for the world to see. That would be awful.

The problem with modern towns is traffic. High streets that were laid out before the age of the motor car just can't cope with modern traffic volumes. That wasn't the case in the old days. Oh no. Take a look at this - all the Tizer lorry has to do to progress up the street is drive round the Mini van, slalom past the Austin 1100 and the other thing, and then pass through the generous gaps left by the three lorries entirely blocking the road. Piece of piss, or indeed, Tizer. They're probably all going to the Town Centre Exhibition. Yay. Two things of note; it's a shame that you don't get shops called 'Hump' anymore and secondly, the photographer took this picture whilst attached to the bonnet of a P6 Rover, having absent mindedly wandered into the road.

The twins liked nothing better than a day out at the precinct. All day they'd just hang about, looking at all the half-masts.

If you want to get your Christmas shopping done, there's always the arcade just down the road. It's nice, honest. You could place a bet for your loved one (William Hill hasn't had to spend its profits re-designing its shop fronts) or go to John Fane and get, well, whatever John Fane sells. John Fane, incidentally, was the tenth earl of Westmoreland so perhaps it sells grouse or ermines or something. The area is also, for the Christmas period only, suffused in a poisonous brown mist.

Terraforming on Mars was not easy.

A lot of the colonists got a bit depressed.

Feel free to print any of these images out to send as Christmas cards. Though only for work colleagues, not friends or family. If I don't post anything before, have a very Merry Christmas and don't go back in time to any of the places shown above.

Creative Masks

Oh, hello! You know how it is when you compile a load of old photographs and books to put up on your blog and then they just disappear from your house? No? Oh. I do. I just can't find anything. Its all gone. Disappeared. Apart from 'Creative Masks for Stage and School' by Joan Peters and Anna Sutcliffe (pub. Plays Inc, Boston 1976). And something about shopping centres which I'll put up once I've ripped the floorboards from the house in search of my stash. Anyway, lets get on with it.

According to wikijustmakeitupedia masks are worn for 'protection, disguise, performance or entertainment'. I'm wondering which one of those functions this one performs. All four probably.

That's not a mask! It's a sweater and a half though.

All teachers wear glasses do they, Jenny? Well actually I do, but that's not the point. Actresses and spies are fair game though. None of these are masks by the way.

These haven't come up very well, although rest assured she is holding a pair of scissors in front of her face in one picture, and wearing a pair of tights with two chocolate digestives stuffed down them in the other.

Now THEY are masks. A stately home garden setting, although it looks a bit damp underfoot for leotards and bare feet. If you can name the performance these are for, I will give you a biscuit and an M&S Frosty Ball.

(Note - I do not know what performance these masks are for).

Well that has eased me back into the whole posting on my own site thing. If I find the other bits and pieces I'll let you know (I say bits and pieces - two months worth of yellowing instamatics!), in the meantime I'll meet you in the shopping centre for the crippled children's bangers and mash party. And I'm not joking.

David Bedford / Bert Jansch

The Hanging Gardens of Redditch

Me - Welcome to the Kingfisher Centre, Redditch. Fancy a look around the shops?

You - Um, no. I'm actually quite thirsty. Is there a pub in the Kingfisher Centre? Why are you walking off towards the shops?

Me - It's hard to imagine shiny tiles and prefabricated pebble-dashed concrete panels as being the materials of the future, but that's what they were once upon a time. What have we got beneath this lovely cladding? There's Martins (THE newsagent). Who's that anxiously stepping out?

You - I suppose you're going to tell me. Fred West?

Me - I thought it was Peter Green with Holger Czukay in the background. But now you mention it ... anyway, my favourite feature is the vacuum tube system for transporting old ladies to the upper levels.

Me - There they are - the Hanging Gardens of Redditch as promised. Pretty impressive actually, with a huge prehistoric fern in the middle of each concrete cylinder, with a spotlight shining down from underneath. It's better than a fountain or a poor likeness of a dead local celebrity (who in this case would be John Bonham, although when Nigel from Dodgy drops from the twig I'm sure they'd form a statuary supergroup). I also like the various yooves 'angin round the benches, with the White Panther guy on the left being by far the best. To balance it out there are five menacing old ladies who resemble the Batley Townswomen's Guild. There'll be no bother today.

You - It's all very good but I bet there isn't a pub here.

Me - There is actually. It's called The Swinging Sporran. I don't have a picture of it.

You - That's disappointing. Did you take these photographs yourself?

Me - Thanks for asking - no I didn't actually. They were taken by Peter Moss Ltd of Halesowen. That should deflect any anonymous cheese-paring in the comments section.

You - I'm off to The Swinging Sporran. Meet you under the giant, swinging concrete flower baskets.

Me - Bye!

Happy Birthday?

It was my birthday recently, and I thought I would mark the occasion with a celebratory post. Something with a fun birthday flavour eh?

Then my laptop suffered a nervous breakdown, and the new laptop doesn't recognise the scanner and Oh Lord, what a to do. Luckily, being a resilient sort I think I've ironed out the problems and here we are.

Old fun can look pretty creepy, although my favourite detail is the small sausage lying on the tray of my high chair. I'm assured that it is a sausage, by the way, by two very reliable sources. I believe the stardate is 1979 but oddly enough I don't remember being there.

Now that we're back on track I should see a little bit more of you. Right. Where are the rest of those photos?

Intermission

Hello there. Apologies for the recent inactivity on the site, but my work takes pretty much one hundred per cent of my time at present, and although I am still stockpiling things to post I just never seem to get an evening to do anything productive, let alone compose the sparkling comments to go with the pictures. Ah well. Soon, soon.

As an interim measure I will share some of the top beat sounds currently reverberating throughout the concrete walls of bc towers.













Be seeing you!