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Carry on …

Posted by on in FilmsLeave a comment

A couple of weeks before Christmas I picked up the entire Carry On movies collection for just £5. That’s 30 movies on DVD. Not a bad deal I thought. I bought it at a bric-a-brac stall at a local Christmas Tree Festival, so I felt I’d done a little for the community and got a bargain into the bag.

I’ve always like a few of the Carry On movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them all. However, I decided that now was the time to watch the entire collection in order.

It’s been fun and difficult at the same time. The early movies are much more like Ealing comedies, and it took a while for signature Carry On style to emerge. Some of those early movies are my favourites, especially “Carry On Cabby”, which has to be my all time favourite. It wasn’t originally supposed to be called “Carry On Cabby”, in fact its original title was “Call me a cab”, which you can clearly hear in the title music. For me it is by far the best.

As you progress through the movies chronologically the style develops and, sadly, the quality drops off. I knew this when I started, but, for £5 it seemed like an interesting experiment.

But there are a few greats in my opinion. “Carry on up the Khyber” for instance. That is still one of my favourites. There are others too, but that one, along with Cabby really stand out for me.

The box set doesn’t include the reboot “Carry on Columbus”, which was pretty poor in my opinion. There was a plan to restart around 10 years ago, but this never came to anything, and I think that’s probably a blessing too.

Goodbye Allihoopa

Posted by on in MusicLeave a comment
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It’s a great shame that Allihoopa has now gone dark. It was a great service. I made some good use of it, but not as much as I would’ve liked. I guess that’s a bit of a reminder for me. That is just the way it goes of course.

So I thought I’d grab all of my content from the site before it went down. I rendered all of my tracks to video, and then I added them to a 1 second video mash up. So here’s one minute and 20 seconds of tracks I uploaded to Allihoopa.

Citizen Smith

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Tooting Popular Front

If you don’t remember Citizen Smith (and you’d need to be of a certain age to do so), then this post is probably not for you. Citizen Smith was a sitcom back in the late 1970’s. It ran for about 3 years and was probably quite good for its time.

A couple of years ago I posted about its return, but it seems that hasn’t happened. I can’t even remember where I heard about it.

The other night I got the DVD out of seasons 1 and 2 and started to watch them. I’d started this before, when I bought the DVDs, but hadn’t got very far. Once again I didn’t get very far. Why? Mainly because it was really awful.

When I say awful, I don’t mean awful by 1970’s standards, I mean by today’s standards, which is of course totally unfair. Judging this show by today’s criteria makes no sense at all. It wasn’t written or performed by those standards and it shouldn’t be watched by those either. That’s hard though. When I watch this I simply can’t help but see it in terms of what is in my opinion good for now.

In reality it was a great show for its day. I can remember enjoying it back then, and the fact that I can’t really enjoy it now shouldn’t damage that memory.

I’d still like to see a reboot of it though. I think that could be fun.

For now, I don’t think I’ll be putting those DVDs back in the player.

The Black Hole

Posted by on in Books and Audiobooks, Films1 Comment

Disney’s film “The Black Hole” was their response to “Star Wars”. I can remember going to the cinema to see it, and the memory of it has always stayed with me. So much so that I found a copy of the film on eBay a few years ago and watched it again.

More recently I thought I’d get hold of a copy of the book, or rather, the novelisation of the film and try that. I finished reading it just the other day, and, on the whole, it is a fairly true reflection of the film itself. However, just as in the film, the ending, leaves quite a lot to be desired.

But the most confusing thing was the ending. The end sequence of the film seems to suggest that there is somewhere inside the black hole, and that’s where Dr Reinhardt and his evil robot Maximilian appear to be merged. It pretty much looks like hell though. The ending also seems to suggest that the crew of the Palomino make it through the black hole (can you go through a black hole?) and come out the other side.

One of the things that was a bit odd about the story were several references to how much things cost. This was in the film and the book. On a series of occasions characters referred to how much the Cygnus (the huge spaceship in the picture above) cost the tax payer. I felt that this was a bit strange and kind of out of place.

Although the book suggests that they have some kind of merged consciousness by the time they come through it.

All parts of this ending are pretty much unsatisfactory though. Even as a kid I wasn’t happy with this, and I’m still not happy with it. I felt like it required something more in terms of an outcome that could be comprehended. Of course, there will never be a remake now, or at least that’s very unlikely I would think. Depending on which source you check the remake was being considered in 2006 or 2009, but by 2016 was ruled out.

It’s a shame, it’s a missed opportunity I think, but never mind. The music was awesome.

Robots and not-so robots of The Black Hole

The Edinburgh Festival

Posted by on in Festivals, TheatreLeave a comment
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Once again I visited the Edinburgh Fringe this year. It was, as always, great fun, with some truly excellent shows, and of course, some really quite terrible ones too. But overall it was great.

There were a few shows that stuck out, but only a few. But that’s kind of what matters at the fringe. You find a few things that make you sit up and think, and the rest, whilst fun, is just a part of the trip.

One thing that stood out was a production about Delia Derbyshire, which I quite enjoyed, but I actually knew a lot of the content was before I went to it. It was good to see a show about her anyway, and it was good to see people talking about her work.

A bit more about using Kastle synths live

Posted by on in Creative Process, Music, SoundsLeave a comment

I thought I’d post a little more about the set up for the gig I played at Cafe Oto earlier in the week. I thought it might be useful or interesting to see the devices I used.

Originally, when Robyn asked me to do this, I thought I would use these plus an Olegtron 4060 (MK I). In the end the Olegtron was too complex and difficult to change patches with any speed.

So ended up with the 2 Kastle synths, a 1.0 and a 1.5. Actually the mix of the two is really good and works very well. Patching across the two devices makes for some very interesting possibilities.

What I’ve realised is that I really need a simpler way to load patches. Not physically of course, but a way to record patches. I thought that taking pictures would help, and it did, but it wasn’t the easiest way to recreate a patch. My next thoughts were to write down the patched information. That was my solution for the Cafe Oto gig, and it worked ok. But only ok.

So now I think I’m going to have to create my own patch sheets for the Kastle 1.0/1.5, and, when I do, I will post some templates here.

Robyn’s Rocket at Cafe Oto

Posted by on in Events, Music, Places1 Comment

On Wednesday I had the rare privilege of playing live at Cafe Oto with the amazingly talented Robyn. She is a gifted trumpet player and had a whole night of acts at Cafe Oto. I’ve been there many times and seen some amazing artists, so to play there myself was incredible.

It was a really great night too. Robyn was, of course, amazing. My small part was to bring some improvised electronics in the form of a couple of Bastl Instruments Kastle synths. To be precise a 1.0 and a new 1.5 Kastle. These little synths are amazing and incredibly versatile. There’s so much you can do with them.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some of the footage and sound from the gig. When I do, I’ll be sharing that.

Museum of Human Rights, Winnipeg

Posted by on in History, PlacesLeave a comment

I didn’t have much time on my visit to this amazing building. But it was worth every minute I was there. I really enjoyed it a great deal. The architecture is amazing and very beautiful, as are the exhibits and everything about this place.

I’d love to go back, but my guess is that’s probably not very likely.

Spending some time at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Posted by on in Exhibitions, PlacesLeave a comment

This is a beautiful place. I was only in Toronto for a few days but this was on the top of my list of my places to go. My visit was back in July and it was really hot and humid, which was another great reason to go to the gallery as it has great air con!

I wasn’t really interested in the European art there, and much keener to see that First Nation art on show. I wasn’t disappointed. There are some stunning pieces there, and the volunteer guide who showed a group of us around was very good and had a lot of information on hand.

The Rebecca Belmore exhibition was stunning, and at times, disturbing. Whilst I can’t say that I enjoyed all of her work, I can say that it gave me more insight into First Nation issues.