Comedy Harmonists, or Medicine for the Soul

The first time I was in Crete, many years ago, saw me sleeping in a hammock, drinking raki, developing a passion for stewed goat and grilled octopus, learning to play airhockey, visiting innumerable ruins, and taking far too many photographs. 

Yes. Trees in the centre of the road. Welcome to Crete.

Riding shotgun in a friend's hire car -- a robust but antiquated Panda -- I was frequently intrigued by an improbable ditty he seemed to relish singing:

'You go as well with me as sugar goes with tea,

You go as well with me as A does go with B...'

After hearing this about seventeen times, in between discussions of the heroism of Patrick Leigh Fermor, I eventually asked what the song was.

Oh, it's a loose translation of a song by a German group called 'The Comedian Harmonists,' I was told, and then my friend told their sad tale.

He told me of how, in the twilight of Weimar and the rise of the Third Reich, the German close-harmony group known as the Comedian Harmonists were one of the most famous groups in the world, prodigiously gifted and astonishingly accomplished, capable of rendering the most diverse range of songs in the most beautiful -- and often hilarious -- of ways.

Half the group were Jewish, and so they fell foul of the Nazis, as one would expect. Eventually they were barred from performing altogether, and the three Jewish members fled abroad, there to form a new group called the Comedy Harmonists, while the non-Jewish ones remained behind to form Das Meistersextett.

Although all six members of the Comedian Harmonists survived the war, the group never reformed.

I spent that New Year in Germany: New Year itself was spent in Berlin, with a couple of days in Frankfurt on either side. In Frankfurt I made sure to pick up a CD of their songs, and to this day their regular medicine for me when I feel down.

They proved very useful on Sunday night just gone, the weekend not having been the jolliest.

It's worth your while exploring their work.

My introduction to them was the hilariously cheesy Du paßt so gut zu mir wie Zucker zum Kaffee, as sung by the Comedy Harmonists exile group -- you'll note that the song refers to coffee, not tea -- but the Comedian Harmonists' most famous songs are probably Mein Kleiner Grüner Kaktus and Veronika, der Lenz ist da.

Wochenend Und Sonnenschein, a German take on Happy Days Are Here Again, is most definitely worth a listen, as are their renditions of Tea for Two and the French Ali Baba.

For sheer beauty, I'd definitely point you to the almost painfully gorgeous Sandmännchen and the delightful An der schönen blauen Donau, while their version of Strauss's Perpetuum Mobile is brilliant.

And of course Ein Freund, ein guter Freund is a particular jaunty little number.

You can pick up what looks like a fine collection of their stuff for £3.99. I've bought pints that cost more than that. Give them a shot. You won't regret it.

Polybius and the X-Factor

Unlike sixteen-and-a-half million other people in the UK, I missed the X-Factor on Sunday, and thus didn't see Jamie Archer being decreed the weakest link, as it were. Still, I was intrigued to hear that yet again the judges had failed to save anyone, and had left it to the people to decide. It's curious that unlike last week there's been no outcry about leaving this decision to the public.

There seems some confusion in X-Factor over where power lies, as was demonstrated in the recent squabble between Louis Walsh and Dermot O'Leary over who the programme's judges are; are they the formal judges, as Louis cried, or are they the voting viewers, as Dermot countered?

Leaving aside what the X-Factor is for -- making money for ITV and for SYCOtv, and, to a lesser extent, giving youngsters a shot at some sort of fame, I can't help but think that the game is more than a little fuzzy, with the rules being unclear and the participants' roles being muddled.

I think some Classical shtuff might help here.


An Ancient Greek Political Primer
Polybius, the second century BC Greek historian of Rome's rise to Mediterranean supremacy, attributes Rome's ultimate victory over Hannibal's Carthage in the Second Punic War to the strength of Rome's political and military systems. The genius of the Roman constitution, he believed, was that it was a mixed constitution, containing elements of the three main constitutional types, all of which, in their pure forms, were liable to become corrupted. As he saw it, Rome was somewhat democratic in that ultimate power in Rome lay with the people, whose popular assemblies made laws and elected magistrates. However, the legislative agenda was effectively shaped by the the state's aristocratic element, the Senate, an assembly of former magistrates whose role was theoretically advisory and who were responsible for Rome's foreign policy. The two most important magistrates were the Consuls, elected on an annual basis and, like monarchs, commanding the armies in the field. The Roman state, as he saw it, was a healthy mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and thus was unlikely to deteriorate into tyranny, oligarchy, or mob rule.

I know, I've oversimplified, and ultimately it all went wrong anyway, but that's the gist of his thesis. Now what's this got to do with the X-Factor?



Lloyd Webber and the Mixed Constitution
Well, take a look at the set of West End Selection shows: How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do, and I'd Do Anything*. They all follow a similar format, which Polybius would regard as being almost perfectly balanced, and the framers of the American Constitution would probably agree.

Once the shortlist of finalists is drawn up by the expert panel, the final decisive stage in the process begins. Every week the finalists perform, and the expert panel express their opinions on them. Following their advice, the public cast their votes. When the public votes are in, the two least popular finalists have to perform again, and this time it's for Andrew Lloyd Webber to decide which one he has to save.

You can surely see how this rhymes with the Roman constitution, can't you? The aristocrats give their advice, the people pass judgement, and then the monarch has an opportunity to pardon one of the condemned. In the grand final, of course, the monarch has no such power, and it becomes a simple process of the experts advising and the people choosing.


Cowell and the Mixed-Up Constitution
X-Factor doesn't come close to this. The 'judges' - the experts in the X-Factor - have a stake in individual contestants, for starters, so their advice is hardly neutral: they don't necessarily have a stake in the best candidate winning; they have a stake in their candidate winning. Not merely does this generate the possibility of bias in their advice, it also generates bias in how they vote when each week's popular stragglers are revealed. What's more, there being an even number of judges means that the judges' decision is often a tie, making the popular choice final, and it's very easy for the final voting judge to choose to go for a popular decision if he or she thinks that will suit him or her than an expert decision. Don't forget too that one of the judges basically owns the show, and thus has interests and implicit powers that are very different from the others.

Leaving aside how the whole system lacks transparency through the voting figures beging kept secret from the voters and -- reportedly -- the judges,** you can surely see the problem here. Powers are anything but separate, and conflicts of interest are rife. Getting upset about it, as with the 3,000 people who complained because Simon Cowell allowed the public to decide on the whole Jedward issue the other week, is pointless. It's only a game, after all, and it's a game that's structurally unfair. Bias is built into it.

If it bothers you, don't watch it. You don't have to, after all. Three quarters of the British population skipped in on Sunday.
_______________________________________________________
* Which was brilliant, purely because it had Barry Humphries in it.
** Though given that Simon Cowell basically owns the show, you might be forgiven for wondering...

Brokeback Times

There's an amusing post over at Heidi's Beat billed as a tribute to 'the Brokeback Pose'. The what? Well, remember a few weeks ago I talked about the astonishing phenomenon that was -- and, sadly, still is -- Rob Liefeld? Liefeld was one of the most successful comic creators in the world in the early and mid-1990s, and he managed this without any discernible drawing ability whatsoever. In particular, he understanding of human anatomy was astonishingly poor, and as these fellas have pointed out, 'the most important thing you need to know before reading about all the terrible things Rob Liefeld has drawn is that he has never seen or talked to a woman in his life and has no idea what they look like or how their bodies operate.'

Now, in the world of comics illustration, Liefeld is hardly the only offender in this regard. There is, after all, a tendency in comic art towards idealised female physiques, just as there is towards idealised male ones, and sometimes people have some pretty peculiar ideals, and with most superhero comics being read by adolescent males, they tend to be strewn with scantily clad athletic girls whose breasts are larger than their heads. To be fair, this happens: I've known one or two girls in my life who are indeed so endowed, and I've tended to frown on looking at them, and wonder how their backs take the strain.

Which brings me to the Brokeback Pose. The first of these pictures I've taken from Heidi's post, and it's a relatively inoffensive variant on the pose. It shows Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, proudly displaying both buttocks and a profiled breast. This, it must be said, is quite difficult to do; as Heidi says, 'unless you are a member of Cirque Du Soleil it’s actually impossible to turn your ass and your tits in the same direction'.

I'd be curious to know when the pose first began to appear in comics, but the second picture here may give a clue. It's a Liefeld, and I neither known nor care who it's meant to be. You can look at it in colour on the 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings site, where it is noted that this shot 'is a catch-all for "any time Rob Liefeld has ever drawn a woman."' Such a typical catch-all is necessary, as otherwise 'the entire list would be broken spines and colossal hooters'. It's not immediately obvious, as the rendering's so poor, but if you squint you'll can just about make out both breasts and both buttocks!

Ben Towle, leaving a comment on Heidi's post, actually points to this very picture, and says credit needs to be given the the great 90s masters who originally broke this pose's eponymous back. 'This,' he says, 'is where the real artistic innovation began. Once the spine was broken (aesthetically speaking), adding the "boob twist" was really just icing on the cake.'

The bizarre thing, though, is that this pose is possible! As another commenter points out, in classical figure drawing, 'This sort of pose is not unusual at all (as far as showing the upper body in profile, and the rear to reveal both cheeks). The spine is capable of enough rotation to capture that pose. In fact, as an artist, it is, in general, it is your duty to twist the spine whenever possible to bring life to your figures, and imply movement. Stiff symmetrical figures are the hallmark of amateur artists. I think what make it in such bad taste is the over arching of the back which serves to lift the buttocks and heave out the bossom.'

And indeed, he illustrates his point by linking to a drawing by none other than Michelangelo, which I've flipped vertically below just so that all my brokebacks can face the same way. If this weren't enough to convinced you, though, the very first comment on the post, from one Steve Flack, was a claim to have witnessed this pose: 'I was shocked when I saw the video for Keri Hilson’s R&B hit, "Love Knocks You Down", and she actually manages to pull off this pose. Of, course, she has to lay down on a bed to accomplish it, but it still happened.'

He's right, too. You can watch the video if you want -- she contorts her callipygous form into this Fortean pose a minute and twenty-seven seconds in -- but to save you time, I've saved the key moment here:

It's amazing the things you can find out with the internet. Who would have thought that such a pathetic comicbook convention could have had such an artistic pedigree? Um.

Aghast at Amazon

I was delighted to discover the other day -- don't ask how -- that some of my favourite Amazon products are still on sale, complete with comedic reviews. They're well worth the inspection. Here are five gems that you might be tempted to buy, with samples from reviews...

The Very Best of David Hasslehoff
'I suppose this could be called a fusion album. As David demonstrates a perfect example of the German sense for melody and delicate phrasing while blending them with American, early 80's, big haired, tight trousered RRRock. I love this album and play it at least 10 times a day, every day throughout what has been a very difficult time for me. My family and then my pets have left me, my neighbours curse at me in the street and birds no longer land in my garden. But through it all I just keep on playing the Hoff. Play this album once and you will never buy another one again.'

The Holy Bible: King James Version
'For those of you who don't know, this is God's second novel after the Old Testament. It's a marked improvement, in my opinion. He got rid of a lot of his previous angst and scorn, and has really begun to show some of the maturity present in his later works. He's become a much more loving and kind God, and, noticeably, he doesn't throw nearly as many tantrums as he did in the first book. '

Oddly, other versions of the Bible don't seem to have attracted the same derision.

Reading Mastery - Level 2 Storybook 1, by Siegfriend Engelmann, a.k.a. The Pet Goat

'This is the stuff that makes great men so great. Should be a required reading for leaders of men. Presidential material. I found it so rich and powerful that I had to take seven minutes to reflect and decide what to do next.'

Penetrating Wagner's Ring: An Anthology, by John L. Digaetani
'Until recently, Wagner's ring has been difficult for most of us to penetrate. Access to his darkest area has traditionally been restricted to those lucky few capable of maintaining strong, determined strokes of scholarly investigation. Happily, DiGaetani provides everyone - including the most intellectually well-endowed amongst us - with the tools needed to effortlessly prize apart Wagner's ring and plunder its forbidden contents. DiGaetani's main thrust shows that perseverance and a firm-hand are all that is needed to enter Wagner. Oiled with this literary lubricant, you will find yourself repeatedly sliding deep into Wagner's ring until a satisfying climax is reached.'

Another review wonders why there is a Klingon on the front cover. Of course, you haven't really heard Wagner unless you've heard him in the original Klingon.

The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, by Don Colbert
'For many years I suffered the agonizing pain that accompanies IBS. Little did I know that the answers to all my problems could be found within the "Good Book" that had been on my bookshelf since I was a child. Although I had read the Bible from cover to cover, it wasn't until I picked up Dr. Colbert's miriculous journal that I realized Jesus wasn't too busy healing cripples and raising from the dead to concern himself with curing explosive diarrhea as well. Taken directly from the pages of the four gospels, as well as the newly discovered Gospel According to Bucky, this book is a must have for anyone who has ever crapped their pants before making it to the John.'

Yep, all true. More tomorrow, while I think of it, in rather more surreal and less offensive vein.

I'm Sorry, I'll Play That Again

So I rang the Kittybrewster this evening, all aflush with excitement.

'I've been dying to call you all day,' I declared, 'I learned a new word, and it's superb!'
Her delight was obvious, as is fitting for someone who so recently exhorted me to save the words*, and a broad grin was quite audible in her 'Oh yes?'
'It's "mondegreen",' I burst out, 'it means a misheard line in a song, like "Gladly, the Cross-eyed bear," or "there's a bathroom on the right". Apparently the word was accepted into the Merriam-Webster dictionary last year, and has been around since the fifties when someone misheard a line in a song about how someone killed Lord So-and-So and laid him on the green as a line that someone killed Lord So-and-So and Lady Mondegreen.'

She was suitably thrilled, and really, who can blame her?

Just for the record, it was 1954, and it was one Sylvia Wright who coined the term, after having misheard a line from the seventeenth century Scottish ballad 'The Bonnie Earl O' Murray', which should read:

'Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And laid him on the green.'

Yes, somehow it seems more poetic if the poor Earl had shared his terrible fate with Lady Mondegreen, whoever she was, but alas, no.

I'm sure we've all got our favourite ones. Sister the eldest used always to wonder why Macy Gray would sing 'I wear goggles when you're not here.' A friend at home used to sing along to the Beatles with the words 'pay per bike rider'. Me? Well, as a child I used to hear songs in a muddied form, being played by the Brother in the room below my bedroom, so is it any wonder that I used to think the Pogues sang a song called 'Dirty Old Man', or that I always thought Kate Bush opened Peter Gabriel's 'Games without Frontiers' with the words 'she's so popular.'

Yes, I know it's jeux san frontieres. I only learned that a few months ago. All my life I've misheard that. The Brother's still disgusted with me. Ah well.

*I like 'slimikin', and keep meaning to use it when chatting to a fair damosel or two with whom I occasionally witter. Look it up.

The Jackson 5 on Albert Square

I'm not really sure what's going on with television nowadays. Have you seen the adverts for Coronation Street? All bleak and grey, with a voiceover from the sinister young David, looking like he's about to kill himself, presumably because people are starting to realise how he hurled his mother down the stairs, shortly after using the delightfully ominous phrase 'the spawn of David'.

That's not Coronation Street, is it? That's more Eastenders, the BBC's epic drama of miserable people living miserable lives, somehow defying the British trend by never once mentioning football. But Eastenders is changing too, it seems, as I discovered in the aftermath of Doctor Who when this came on.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

They should make this a regular part of the show. It'd be so much better.

I want you back indeed.

One Egg is Un Oeuf

Well, it would have been. Today, however, was an egg-free day for me. I don't just mean a day free of chocolate eggs -- it has been several years since I've had one of those -- rather it's been a day free of your regular common-or-garden eggs. I'm not quite sure why, as they'd been one of the things I gave up for Lent. Shouldn't I have been indulging today, in a frenzied orgy of yoke and albumen?

That's a mental picture you'd probably rather do without. Well, too late for you, my friend, too late for you.

So anyway, last night I went to the Vigil Mass at the Pro-Cathedral. I'd been to Vigil masses in Manchester in 2004 and 2005, but had never been to one at home; I'm glad to say that my first Irish Vigil Mass didn't disappoint, being just as beautiful and as prayerful as those I'd previously participated in.

Thomas Howard, in Evangelical is Not Enough, which I read a few weeks ago, in the aftermath of Bleak House, does rather more justice to the celebration than I could hope to, so I think it's probably best just to quote his description in full:

On Holy Saturday in most churches no rites occur until the end of the day when the highest feast of the Christian year is celebrated. It is the ancient Paschal Vigil, leading up to the First Mass of Easter.

It is a rite that seems to go back to the earliest years of the Church, perhaps even to years when the apostles were still alive. Toward the end of the day (afternoon, evening, ery late evening, or, in some churches, just before dawn on Easter morning itself) the Christians assemble in the darkened church. The procession of clergy, servers, and choir assembles at the rear of the church, in darkness. Then fire is struck, from which the Paschal Candle is lighted. This is an immense candle, sometimes as tall as a man and several inches in diameter. There are affixed to the side of this candle five grains of incense, representing the five wounds of Christ. Then the deacon moves into the dark aisle with this single, flickering light. The procession follows him. Presently he stops. "The light of Christ!" he sings, and all the people respond singing, "Thanks be to God!" Again he proceeds, and again he stops. "The light of Christ!" this time on a higher note. "Thanks be to God!" we sing. Yet a third time it happens, on a higher note still. Then, from that candle tapers are lighted, and the flame is passed to all the people, who have been given unlighted candles.

Here is the church, glimmering now with this light from candles that are themselves almost perfect symbols of what Christ is, since a candle's light comes from its own self-giving.

Presently the deacon sings the Exsultet:

Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels,
and let your trumpets shout Salvation
for the victory of our mighty King.

Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth,
brought with a glorious splendor,
for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.

Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church,
and let your holy courts, in radiant light,
resound with the praises of your people.

All you who stand near this marvelous and holy flame,
pray with me to God the Almighty
for the Grace to sing the worthy praise of this great light.

Scripture readings follow, tracing the history of Redemption: the Spirit of God moving on the face of the waters, Noah, the Red Sea, and other milestones leading to Christ.

Eventually comes the most blissful moment of all. Alone the priest sings, "Glory be to God on high!" Suddenly all the lights in the church blaze on, bells are jangled merrily by the servers, the organ thunders out its triumph, and Easter has begun! He is risen! He is risen! The First Mass of Easter!

... I grew up in a household and a tradition that loved the Resurrection of the Lord. Evangelicals felt that they were almost alone in defending the doctrine against the modernists and unbelievers. But here was the Church, celebrating this event with an amplitude of joy that finally seemed not only to answer to what I had loved and believed all along, but unfurl it for me. If we could blow horns at New Year's and wave flags on July 4 and have a picnic on Labor Day, why -- oh why -- were we denied celebration, ceremony, hilarity, and an extravagance of pageantry on this feast, next to which these mere national holidays were literally nothing -- nothing at all? What religion was it that said to us, "No. Sit still. Or stand and sing, 'Up from the grave He arose.' But your main job is to think about the event and hear a sermon about it. Don't do anything."

I have often thought, in the years since those days at St. Mary's, "Oh, my own crowd, the wonderful evangelicals, with their love for the gospel and their zeal; for God -- how they would leap for joy if ever they returned to the ancient Church and thronged in by their hundreds and thousands, singing, praising, and bursting with pure joy at the discovery of the liturgy!"

The mass itself was beautiful, with the litany of the saints being chanted at the two baptisms that took place, Archbishop Martin's homily being a real call to arms, the Sanctus -- like the Gloria -- coming from Mozart's Missa Solemnis in C, the Agnus Dei coming from the beautifully simple Mass XVIII, and the Recessional Hymn being the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from Handel's Messiah, to my knowledge the only part of the Classical canon that was first performed in Dublin.

And so, suitably fortified by the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord, I filed out of the Church and pelted down O'Connell Street as fast as I could go, only to see the last bus rounding Westmoreland Street and cruising off down the Quays. If I were to make one suggestion to the Archbishop of Dublin, it'd be that he bring the Vigil forward from half past nine to nine o'clock. Considering that the whole mass ran for two hours, getting the last bus would have been a miracle.

I coped, though. I only had an hour to wait till the Nitelink. And me being me, I had a book.

How do you make a Rick-Roll?

You push him down a hill, presumably.

It's Brother the Elder's birthday today, and since I doubt there'll be any cake on the go in the Gargoyle house today, I hope he'll enjoy this charming pie chart. I first saw it, thanks to Mr Linehan, resplendent in glorious technicolor over at Why, That's Delightful!

I'm quite taken by the diagram, I have to say, and have been proliferating it a bit since I saw it the other day. Not surprising, I suppose, considering my weakness for ingenious pie charts and Venn diagrams.

I passed it on to NMRBoy, himself a big fan of Ben Fold's rather delightful take on perhaps the most offensive song known to man - many's the time I dared him to play it at a formal hall concert, and even now I think that should be part of any ultimate deal we have to make. Trust me, it's not the weirdest dining hall fantasy I've had.

Anyway, on looking at the Rick Astley diagram, NMRBoy replied with the cryptic observation that he had once seen something similar on a wildlife park sign, before adding 'And had you heard the term "rickrolling"?'
'Er... no?'
'It's deceiving someone into clicking a link that points to Rick. Quite the sport, I believe.'
'Hoho,' I chortled, as one does on t'internet.
'I think Rick Astley is the poor man's equivalent of Bill Watterson,' he added. 'Never jumped the shark; quit while he was ahead.'
'Wow, ' I replied, thinking this a comparison more audacious than calling Suzanne Shaw the poor man's Hannah Spearritt, 'That's quite an analogy.'
'It may be stretching a bit,' he conceded.
'Ever so slightly.'

Anyway, as is the way of these things, yesterday's Guardian had a fine feature on Rick-Rolling, culminating in an amusing tale of how the unassuming Mr Astley is being deployed as a human bomb against the forces of Scientology.

'...Rick-rolling has begun to permeate the mainstream. It comes mostly courtesy of Anonymous, a diffuse group of hackers and activists who have declared war on the Church of Scientology in an initiative called Project Chanology. Organised without official leaders or hierarchy, Project Chanology manifests itself in Denial Of Service attacks against Scientologist websites, stupid YouTube videos, and in-person protests at Scientologist centres worldwide.

At recent protests in New York, Washington, London and Seattle, masked protesters held up boomboxes and chanted the Stock Aitken Waterman lyrics which Astley made famous. "Never gonna let you down!" they roared, in a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology.

Their cleverest move however is at AnonymousExposed.org, a website created this week that perfectly mimics the subtly different Anonymous-Exposed.org, created by Scientologists as an indictment of Anonymous' "cyber-crimes". Of course instead of showing an anti-Anonymous documentary, the mimic site displays - well, we'll let you have a guess.

But the final word goes to Rick Astley himself. Click here to watch our exclusive interview with Astley. The singer, now 42, has forceful words for Anonymous, Scientologists, and all those who have prolonged the rick-roll phenomenon.'

Click here indeed.

A Perfect Sentence

I'm afraid I've not heard much of Goldfrapp's oeuvre, but what I've heard I've liked, especially the incessant pulsating sexiness of their cover version of Baccara's melancholy 1977 dance classic 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie'.

It seems from today's Guardian that Alison and her sidekick Will Gregory have decided to change direction, a change that the Guardian reckons was inevitable if they weren't to go stale.

When you've appeared on stage playing a theremin with your crotch while dressed as a kind of besequinned Nazi air hostess, as Goldfrapp did after the release of 2005's Supernature, you could reasonably argue that you've explored the possibilities of camply sexualised glam-influenced electro-pop pretty thoroughly.

That may be one of the greatest sentences ever written. It's up there with 'Kat's hamster's called Mouse.'

And what's wrong with the term 'Toast Bitch'?

Having overindulged to a frightening degree last night at Nigella's, I felt that this morning it'd be only prudent in Trof to sample their healthy breakfast; fasting for Lent from eggs, cheese, and butter and its ilk was a factor in my decision, I have to admit, but today being a Sunday it wasn't the decisive one. No, I simply felt some common-or-garden gastronomic virtue was called for, and so had a bowl of yoghurt with honey and fruit, topped with sprinkling of oats, with a glass of orange juice on the side. It was a deliciously healthy start to the day.

For an encore, I spent most of the afternoon drinking water in Solomon's with the Ginger Beast, before being chauffered to St Augustine's for mass, after which I fear I managed to earn nonchalantly the undying hatred of one of our new altar servers.

On then to the Chinese Buffet, there to continue my nostalgic trip through Manchester's culinary establishments, this time in less abstemious fashion than earlier in the day, and then back to the girls' house, there to delight them with some of my favourite Muppet Show scenes ever...


Not quite a top ten, but nonetheless, allow me to introduce 'Ten' Moments of Muppet Genius:

1. There was the infamous 'Muppera' by the Fuzz Brothers -- that's from Season Four, episode Nine, trivia fans, hitherto only featured on the mindbogglingly brilliant Muppet Weird Stuff as presented by The Great Gonzo and available to rent in a video library near you, assuming you live in Frankfurt.

2. Having mentioned everyone's favourite Weirdo, you need to watch him sabotaging Fozzie's attempt at reading Robert Frost's most famous poem and singing the classic 'Act Naturally', not least for apt deployment of the phrase 'ludicrous things'.

3. 'Hugga Wugga' evolved from the Sclrap Flyapp sketch Jim Henson performed on the Today Show in the sixties, but sure -- surely -- it's intended as a comment on repression in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in general? Look at the big red monster with those Brezhnev eyebrows!

4. I don't know if you're a fan of The Thomas Crown Affair whether in its original incarnation or in its more recent Brosnan and Russo version, complete with improbable-sex-on-a cold-marble-stairway sequence, but I'll bet you'll not have seen a better take on 'Windmills of Your Mind' than the Muppets'.

5. Of course, when it comes to upstaging originals, Beaker rather pulled out all the stops with his rendition of what many consider to be the worst song of all time. You should listen to everyone's favourite lab technician attempt 'Feelings' before you rush to the same conclusion. You may just enjoy the funniest two minutes of your life. Hell, it's worth it even for Zoot's sax...

6. Yes, the Muppets had their poignant moments. Take Robin's recitation of A.A. Milne's 'Halfway Down the Stairs', for example. An old girlfriend once asked me whether this was included for all the sensitive boys that used to watch. I could but blush and look abashed.

7. There were a whole subgenre on Muppet songs that were basically crap puns embraced with relish. Of these, my favourite has to be this hilarious version of 'I've Got You Under My Skin'. There are plenty more where that came from...

(I'd especially recommend 'All Of Me', 'I Feel Pretty', and Cole Porter's classic 'You Do Something To Me'.)

8. Believe it or not, not every Muppet Show sketch involved a song. I don't think I need to justify why the Koozebanian Mating Ritual should be on this list. If this really affects you, you can get a dustcatcher to commemorate it. And isn't she a beauty? It's all about the Galley-oh-hoop-hoop, really.

9. Rowlf was always my favourite muppet when I was young, while I always had a soft spot for Fozzie. I'm sad to say that my own sense of humour is sadly what you get when you crossbreed those of said dog and bear. Be that as it may, I've always loved their 'English Country Garden' duet. As for Rowlf himself, it's worth reminding yourselves of his love of Beethoven.

10. And finally, because my own resurgence of interest in Jim Henson's greatest creations largely coincided with the short-lived Muppets Tonight, I think you should really make the time to watch Miss Piggy auditioning with Billy Crystal for a part in When Harry Met Sally. The sequence starts about three minutes in. You'll like the Rob Reiner muppet.

If you don't enjoy those, you might as well sit in a box and scowl.

And with that, goodnight.

Now Nostalgia Is Past Its Prime

Meeting a friend in Manchester for coffee back in May, I was greeted with a wry smile and the rueful suggestion that it would probably be best if we didn't discuss the Eurovision. Ireland had come last, with John Water's mawkish 'They Can't Stop the Spring' having won a mere five points; the United Kingdom hadn't done much better, the uebercamp 'Flying the Flag (For You)' having come second-last with a dismal nineteen points, despite having been awarded an inexplicable maximum twelve points from Malta.

My prudent friend needn't have worried; I'd had no intention of discussing our national fiascos, as unlike Brother the Elder, I've never seen the charm of the Eurovision Song Contest. I'll concede that the Brother's right when he says it's 'a much preferable way to learn geography than a World War', but, well, so are atlases, travel books, and holidays.

(I enjoy the scoring, I must admit, but that's the part of the show that concentrates on international dynamics rather than bad songs. Many have been the years when that's been the only part of the contest I've watched. indeed, one of my favourite Mancunian days during my domicile there featured just that, having been preceded by my Fairy Blogmother and I exploring the secret stairway, watching a play in the Royal Exchange Theatre, dining in the marvellous Gurkha Grill, and having a drink in Fuel, and followed by our eventually settling in to enjoy Run Lola Run. Good times.)

Following last year's humiliation, the Brother remarked that this year 'Ireland will have to qualify for the final because they finished outside the top 10 [...], but short of a strategic population plantation of Irish people to smaller countries where their vote would make a difference like FYR Macedonia, Slovenia, and the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, it’s hard to see Ireland ever winning again.'

I happen to think that might not be a bad thing, but one way or another it seems that the powers that be at our national broadcaster think that the entire formula needs a vigorous shake. It seems that RTÉ received 150 or so submissions this year of would-be entries, and they've winnowed down this mass to just six. The six will be broadcast as 'Eurosong' on 23 February, with voting lines opening after the six performances to allow people to vote for our 2008 Eurovision Song.

So far so ordinary, until you realise that among the six entrants is a song called 'Irelande Douze Pointe', to be performed by Dustin the Turkey, one-time comrade in arms of Zig and Zag, from when they were funny. Dustin's had quite a musical career over the years, with highlights including 'Born Greasy', 'Funky Ford Cortina', and his observations of Bob Geldof's shaving practices when duetting with him on 'Rat Trap', while surely his finest moment was running for the Irish Presidency back in 1990, apparently getting more votes than the Fine Gael candidate in my constituency. Assuming that's not just a bit of suburban folklore, it's pretty good going, seeing as Dustin Hoffman -- for so he was originally billed -- is a puppet.

So anyway, it seems that 'Irlande Douze Pointe' is a send-up of all things Eurovision, complete with references to Terry Wogan and an apology for Riverdance. RTÉ's Liveline earlier today featured a song featuring all the promised ingredients, but even if you listen to the show you should make a point of disregarding the alternative 'Irland Douze Pointe'. The show was a heated affair anyway, with Shay Healy and Frank McNamara ranting about RTÉ's decision being a disgrace and a 'two fingers' to the contest, claiming this was an insult to Irish songwriters and asking how could a turkey represent the Irish people.

There are far too many answers to that last point, so I'll say nothing except to point out that the song might not get picked -- it won't be RTÉ's decision, after all, as it'll be a national phone-ballot with five alternatives on offer on 23 February. And we all know that he'll definitely be picked then. Whether this is an example of the wisdom of crowds or the madness of crowds is a different matter altogether...

Whether Dustin will make it through the semi-final on 20 May is a different matter altogether, though. Me, I'm hoping that next year we can get Ardal O'Hanlon and Neil Hannon to perform 'My Lovely Horse'.

Indistinguishable from Magic

It seems pretty obvious that Grey's Law, which I was talking about yesterday, owes more than a little to Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law of Prediction, which states that 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'

Clarke is one of those writers of whose work I've read far too little -- just 2001: A Space Odyssey, I think -- but of whom I've been aware for basically as long as I've been aware of authors. I think this may have owed less to his books than to his TV series about Fortean phenomena, so hilariously spoofed in this marvellously funny scene from The Goodies, which opens with the introductory spiel: 'The Mysterious World of Arthur C. Clarke -- strange monsters, unexplained things in the sky, bizarre happenings, out-of-focus photographs...' If I remember rightly, the episode involves Clarke himself being declared not to exist, and the three lads setting out, determined to find him and prove his existence. They don't manage that, but Tim has the misfortune of becoming a real-life Bigfoot in the course of their expedition.

Clarke also has the memorable distinction of being namechecked in an extremely funny and really rather sweet song from The Divine Comedy. 'Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World', for so the song is named, begins as follows:

Do you remember that old T.V. show
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World?
Well if ITV make a new series
They ought to come take a look at my girl

I don't understand her
She doesn't make any sense to me
I don't understand her
It's like she's speaking in Swahili.

Don't worry, the song moves on from just saying how little sense this poor girl makes, as the singer accepts that he'll never understand her and embraces her contradictions. It's really a fine song, and surely one the best I was introduced to while on last year's Hellenic road trip.

Offhand I think it probably bettered only by Nick Cave's 'Into My Arms', which surely has one of the most beguiling opening couplets ever written, two magnificent lines that stormed right into my heart.

I'm not sure how well the lyrics work in isolation, though. Songs are designed to be sung, after all, and so much of their meaning comes from timing, phrasing, and intonation. That's kind of why I always feel a little uneasy when people talk of Bob Dylan or Shane MacGowan as poets -- there's a sense in which it's true, of course, but I'm not sure that poets and songwriters are really the same thing.

The point being: if you can find a way of listening to these, you really ought to. Really.

In the Company of Wolves

The other day, talking about Christopher Hitchens, morality, and the 'Golden Rule', I raised the question of whether being nice is the same thing as being good; I might as easily have asked whether it's the same thing as being right. I'm inclined to agree with Little Red in Sondheim's Into the Woods who -- chastened by her experiences -- declares that 'nice is different than good'.

Into the Woods was my introduction to Sondheim, long before I was captivated by Sweeney Todd; a musicologist friend of mine loaned me her copy, after raving about it for months, and washed away all my ingrained contempt towards musicals. Heavily influenced by The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim's fascinating study of the importance of fairy tales, it's immensely clever and really quite hilarious in how it interweaves and interprets the stories of Rapunzel, Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty to enthralling and enlightening effect. If you ever get an opportunity to see it -- whether in the theatre or in the American Playhouse version -- you shouldn't miss that chance.

Bettelheim's analysis of the Red Riding Hood story is primarily based -- like pretty much all modern retellings -- on 'Little Red-Cap', as the Brothers Grimm version of the tale in entitled. He sees this as a fairy tale for inquistive children who've outgrown 'Hansel and Gretel', and sees its value in how it allows children to give vent to their oedipal fantasies while ensuring that the natural order is ultimately restored.

While it's the Grimm version that interests him most, Bettelheim doesn't ignore the tale's prehistory and devotes special attention to Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, Charles Perrault's 1697 French version of the tale, the earliest published form of the story. Unlike the Grimm version, Perrault's version is a cautionary tale that ends with the girl being devoured. There's no rescue by a woodman, no snipping open of the wolf's belly with a scissors, no filling of the wolf's belly with deadening stones. Nope. The girl and her grandmother are eaten, that being the end of them, and in case Perrault's point isn't blindingly obvious, he hammers it home by tagging on a moral:

Children, especially young ladies – attractive, courteous, and well-bred – do very wrong to listen to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide a wolf with dinner. I saw ‘wolf’, for there are various kinds of wolf. There is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy nor hateful nor angry, but tame, obliging, and gentle – who pursues young women in the streets, even into their homes. And alas! Everyone must know that it its these gentle wolves that are the most dangerous wolves of all!

Perrault also seems to have been responsible for introducing the red hood itself to the story; it doesn't appear to have been part of the oral tales from which he drew his Tales of Mother Goose, at least insofar as they can be established, although there was a tale current in the Eleventh Century of a red-capped girl found in the company of wolves.


It seems that Perrault may have toned the story down a bit too, removing elements he apparently deemed unsuitable for his polite audience; this rendering of the tale, taken with just one adjustment from Robert Darnton's The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, is representative:

Once a little girl was told by her mother to bring some bread and milk to her grandmother. As the girl was walking through the forest, a wolf came up to her and asked where she was going.
"To grandmother's house," she replied.

"Which path are you taking, the path of the pins or the path of the needles?"

"The path of the pins."

So the wolf took the path of the needles and arrived first at the house. He killed grandmother, poured her blood into a bottle, and sliced her flesh onto a platter. Then he got into her nightclothes and waited in bed.

"Knock, knock."

"Come in, my dear."

"Hello, grandmother. I've brought you some bread and milk."

"Have something yourself, my dear. There is meat and wine in the pantry."

So the little girl ate what was offered; and as she did, a little cat said, "Slut! To eat the flesh and drink the blood of your grandmother!"

Then the wolf said, "Undress, and get into bed with me."
"Where shall I put my apron?"

"Throw it on the fire; you won't need it any more."

For each garment -- bodice, skirt, petticoat, and stockings -- the girl asked the same question; and each time the wolf answered, "Throw it on the fire; you won't need it any more."

When the girl got into bed, she said, "Oh, grandmother! How hairy you are!"

"It's to keep me warmer, my dear."

"Oh, grandmother! What big shoulders you have!"

"It's for better carrying firewood, my dear."

"Oh, grandmother! What long nails you have!"

"It's for scratching myself better, my dear."

"Oh, grandmother! What big teeth you have!"

"It's for eating you better, my dear."

And he ate her.

Darnton has the girl taking the path of the needles rather than the path of the pins, but Bettelheim notes that early versions of the story describe the girl choosing the path of the pins, and explain the significance of the choice by saying that it is easier to fasten things together with pins than to sew them together with needles; as such the girl is choosing the pleasure principle over the reality principle, and suffers accordingly.

I first read this version of the story in a slightly abridged form in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, as told by Gilbert -- Gaiman's Chestertonian embodiment of a very special place -- to Rose Walker, the heroine of The Doll's House. It's apparently a pretty accurate reflection of the story as it was told among the peasantry of Eighteenth Century France, at around the same time as Perrault's somewhat sanitised version was gaining popularity among the literate classes; you'll probably have been rather startled both its cannibalistic element and by what Darnton describes as 'the strip-tease prelude to the devouring of the girl'.


Marina Warner, in From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers, notes that other retellings seem to preserve a different tradition again. She describes how some versions indeed have the wolf tricking the girl into eating the flesh and drinking the blood of her grandmother, but with the girl refusing to get into bed with the wolf, saying that she needs to relieve herself. The wolf encourages her to join her anyway, saying she can relieve herself in the bed, but as the girl persists in her refusal he ties her to the bed post with a long cord that allows her to leave the cottage but go no further; once outside, the girl undoes the knot and escapes.

Warner makes much of how the wolf takes the place of the grandmother in the story, eschewing Bettelheim's psychoanalyical interpretation to point out that both the wolf and the grandmother are marginal figures in the story: both dwell in the woods away from people and are in need of food. This parallel seems to reflect and embody the peasant fantasies of early modern Europe, where the werewolf was a male counterpart to the female witch or crone.

If you've seen The Brotherhood of the Wolf, you might be familiar with the story of the 'Beast of Gévaudan', upon which the film is loosely based. The Beast terrorised a part of south-central France between 1764 and 1767, killing at least sixty people. More than a hundred years later, Robert Louis Stevenson described it as 'the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves':

What a career was his! He lived ten months at free quarters in Gévaudan and Vivarais; he ate women and children and ‘shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty’; he pursued armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noonday chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the king’s high-road, and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and ten thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small for that.

It's not surprising that the locals had been so terrified, and indeed superstitious. The nightmare of the loup-garou -- the werewolf -- was deeply embedded in the collective psyche of the peasantry of early modern France. Throughout the Sixteenth Century, with the countryside apparently being plagued by lycanthropic attacks, thousands of people were accused of being werewolves. Although torture was often used to educe confessions, there were cases where the evidence against the accused was clear in relation to charges of murder and cannibalism, albeit not to association with wolves!

The whole phenomenon, strikingly similar to the witch-trials that were so common throughout Europe at the time, petered out after it was decreed in a 1603 trial that 'the change of shape existed only in the disorganised brain of the insane'. With lycanthropy now seen as a delusion rather than a real supernatural phenomenon, werewolves faded from the French courtroom, but they clearly remained fixed in the French popular imagination, being trasmitted down through the centuries through folklore, fairy tales, films, and even parlour games.

Attending the tale of Sweeney Todd, rather than watching the Watchmen

One of the topics that came up after the Murder Mystery dinner the other evening was the coming Watchmen film, with the prospect of it being met with much muttering and shaking of heads. Pretty much everyone agreed that there's no way this is going to work, even if Dave Gibbons seems to be having a blast on the set, marvelling at how his creations are being brought to life. Leaving aside the fact that purely in terms of structure and storytelling, Zak Snyder's surely not the man to attempt this, I'm with the jaundiced Terry Gilliams on this one in a broader sense:

This nightmare began back in 1988 or 89 when Joel Silver, the producer of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, The Matrix suggested that we make a film of the Watchmen. "The what?" I said. He thrust a fat hardback comic book in my hand and said read. I read. I loved.

But how to make a film of a masterpiece? Always a problem. So far no one has made a good version of War and Peace, and to me Watchmen is the W and P of comics ... sorry, graphic novels.

I sat down with Charles McKeown, my writing partner on Baron Munchausen and Brazil, to squeeze out a script. Time passed. Frustration increased. How do you condense this monster book into a 2 - 2½ hour film? What goes? What stays? Therein lies the problem. I talked to Alan Moore. He didn't know how to do it. He seemed relieved that i had taken on the responsibility of fucking up his work rather than leaving it to him. I suggested perhaps a 5 part mini series would be better. I still believe that.

With every bit of narrative tightening, we were losing character detail... and without their neuroses and complex relationships the characters were becoming more like normal run-of-the-mill-quirky-super-heroes. There wasn't time to tell all their stories. The Comedian was reduced to someone who dies at the beginning. That's all, just a convenient corpse to kick off the action. None of this was satisfying to me. I was wasn't happy with our results.

By now, actors were fluttering around Watchmen like crazed moths beating at a dirty street lamp. Robin Williams was keen to play Rorschach. Was that Richard Gere knocking on the door? The pressure on me was building. Thank god, Joel solved the problem. he failed to convince the studios to hand over enough money to make the film. Brilliant! I was saved! And, perhaps, Watchmen as well!

Certain works should be left alone... in their original form. Everything does not have to become a movie. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was alwats best in its original manifestation... a radio show.

So forget about the movie. Ley your imagination animate the characters. Do your own sound effects. Your own camera moves. Dave Gibbons' artwork is perfect. From my first reading of Watchmen, it felt like a movie. Why does it have to be a movie?

Think of what will have to be lost. Is it worth it?

That's from Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, in case you're curious. If you read William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade, or better yet in this context, the chapter on Absolute Power in Which Lie Did I Tell?, you'll get a terrifyingly vivid picture of just the kind of butchery that will need to be done to Watchmen in order to turn it into a credible film. I just can't see anyone managing that.

That's not to say that butchery is always a bad thing when it comes to making films, I must admit. After all, it seems that the Sweeney Todd that shall be hitting British and Irish screens in a month or so has had more than the odd note shaved off it; Sondheim wasn't remotely precious about his masterpiece, fully recognising that it would need serious surgery to become truly cinematic, and as a result from what I can gather barely ten songs are performed in anything even close to their stage versions.

Having seen the show four times on stage at this point, and with a DVD and a couple of CDs of it floating around, I obviously have an absurd amount invested in the film working, so Neil Gaiman's verdict was more than a little encouraging, especially with his own weakness for the show:

I took the family to see Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd last night, which I absolutely loved (even down to a couple of grace notes, the St Dunstan's market and the Bell Court street sign -- in the earliest versions of the Penny Dreadful, Sweeney's shop was part of St Dunstan's Church and Mrs Lovett's was around the corner, in Bell Yard). I even loved Johnny Depp's early-Bowie-when-he-was-still-doing-Anthony-Newley singing style. (At least until, on the way out, I found myself trying to imagine a blood-spattered Sweeney Todd singing "The Laughing Gnome" as he waited for customers, and was unable to explain to anyone else why this was funny.) I think it just edged out Ed Wood as my favourite Tim Burton movie.

Ed Wood is a masterpiece in its own right, of course, a hilarious, poignant, heartbreaking masterpiece, so for Neil to regard this as eclipsing that is high praise. I've been looking at some clips over at the New York Times site, and they just fill me with delight. You should check them out. Really. This looks as though it's very very very good indeed.

Here below, to live is to change...

And so 2007 ends. It's been a quiet year in a lot of ways, certainly less tumultuous than 2006, thank God. I'm off to wrap it up at a friends' house in a few minutes. We're having a murder mystery dinner. I have narrowly escaped having to go in drag. There are some ways one really shouldn't start a new year, after all.


I was struck the other day by a passage in Father Martin Tierney's article in this week's Irish Catholic -- I'm rarely caught by Fr Tierney's column, but this one was a little different.

We come to the end of another year.
John Moriarty, the philosopher, was asked in a radio interview: 'are you happy?'
'That's not the question,' answered John.
'So what is the question?' asked the interviewer.
'The question is -- "have I grown?"'
If we have grown in holiness, wisdom, charity, and patience, this has been a good year.

Have I grown? It's a good question, and I really don't know the answer, though I think I have. I hope so, at any rate.

Certainly I've done so in how I've handled the ongoing mess in my life I tend to refer to as 'the War', and in terms of the decisions I've made regarding leaving academia and taking a new path. As for which path I'll follow, there are a couple of options that are foremost in my mind, and one of my main tasks in the next year will involve discerning which one's for me. I have hopes, but we don't always get what we want.

So what has the old year held? Well, I haven't got the work done I'd hoped to do, but then the war has rather been my priority -- justice needs to be done, I'm afraid, and to be seen to be done, and people need to be protected, so I've had to leave my own interests aside to focus on that. Yes, I know that my studies, my career, and my life have all been hurt in ways by this, but really, what option have I had? Could I have let things go, and still be who I am? And even if I could, should I?

Other than that, how does the year stack up?


Sister the Elder got married, and a new Brother-in-Law and a new niece joined the clan. Sister the Elder's wedding saw the Gargoyle clan in one exact spot for the first time in nearly ten years; once the photos were taken we dispersed, though not very far. Brother the Elder returned from America, and though I'd rather he hadn't had to come home, it's good to have him around.

Several of my friends enriched the world by bringing new people into it, though so far I've encountered only one of the offspring, who I'll be seeing again this evening; with luck I'll see the others soon enough. Two of my closest friends got together, following my nudging one of them into action. With nearly a year down, things are still going well, which pleases me more than I can say.

I had a lovely trip to Greece, where I tramped around battlefield after battlefield, renewed old friendships, spoke to one of my dearest friends while on the site of the 300's last stand, revisited a hill where my eyes filled with tears for the only time all year, and consumed far too much alcohol and not nearly enough octopus. And on the way back I had a decidedly strange night in Zurich.

I spent a few wonderful summer days in London, on the way there hearing a marvellous quote from Mother Teresa that has stayed in my head since, challenging me as much as it consoles. London was magical, with me seeing my niece for my first time, staying with one of the most attractive girls I know and lunching with another, catching up with a very old friend, falling in love with Westminster Cathedral, and saying goodbye for now to three people -- all of whom mean the world to me in very different ways, and none of whom I've seen since.

(I haven't had my hair cut since that week. This is a coincidence, I assure you, and since my barber offered me a charity haircut when I bumped into him on Christmas Eve, I shall probably be rectifying this soon enough. Five months of growth, would, I feel, be extravagant.)

I fixed a portrait that I'd been unhappy with last year and gave it to its subject, and managed my first ever mass-produced Christmas card, and smiled to see how my cartoons had been acknowledged in my old school's fiftieth anniversary yearbook. I made my radio debut, which was fun, and is still online if you know where to look, and I marvelled at the discovery that people are still buying my book.

I let my old blog die with a whimper, and started this one with rather more sense of what I was doing than I ever had with my old one. If nothing else, I think I deserve some plaudits for the colour scheme. I've started a couple of other blogs too, but I'm keeping them under wraps unless things turn really nasty in the war. It does no harm to have a few nuclear options.

Speaking of which, I visited the Oireachtas, and addressed a very old acquaintance as Deputy, and just a week or so ago I addressed an old friend and travelling buddy as Counsellor. Times have changed; all these things were new to me. Also for the first time, I made the front page of a newspaper; considering my story was on the front page the reporter did a remarkably discreet job in relating my vindication.

And for all my thoughts of old friends, I made some fine new ones too, especially one cloak-and-dagger evening where truths were told. Along the way I've helped celebrate a few birthdays in style, and bestowed a couple of Claddagh rings to mark two angels' comings of age, telling them what they mean. If I've returned even the tiniest amount of the kindness, the patience, the generosity, the love, and the loyalty that's been shown to me over the last couple of years then I'll have done some good.

Not enough, I know. But some.


I've spent much of the last year making feeble progress with Bleak House, but have along the way -- aside from academic books and sundry bits of the Bible -- read The Names by Don DeLillo, Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI, Rome Sweet Home, Letter and Spirit, and Reasons to Believe, all by Scott Hahn, Persian Fire by Tom Holland, John Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, By What Authority? and Making Senses of Scripture by Mark Shea, The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene, Garry Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess, Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney, Ethan M. Rasiel's The McKinsey Way, William Poundstone's How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, The Complete Bone by Jeff Smith, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Volume 1, and John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Carlos Ezquerra's Strontium Dog Casefiles, Volume 1. I've also reread Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and The Man Who was Thursday, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Orthodoxy, and The Everlasting Man, all by G.K. Chesterton.

I graced the cinema with my presence eighteen times, making this my most cinematic year in quite a while, taking in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, London to Brighton, The Maltese Falcon, Into Great Silence, Black Book, Perfume, The Man Who Would Be King, Blood Diamond, 300, Amazing Grace, Spider-Man 3, Magicians, The Lives of Others, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Stardust, Beowulf, and I Am Legend. It's an obvious call, but just as Pan's Labyrinth was my favourite film of 2006, so The Lives of Others was the film that impressed me most in the last year.

I'm afraid that a peculiar combination of necessity and opportunity saw me going to a concert alone for my first time, to see Ani DiFranco in what used to be The Red Box. It was the sixth time for me to see her play, and I was delighted to see that she hadn't lost her touch.

I also wound up seeing Henry V on my own too, enraptured for the best part of three hours in Manchester's Exchange Theatre. Don Pasquale in the RDS was rather more of a group outing, as were Julius Caesar in the Abbey and both trips to the breathtaking gate production of Sweeney Todd. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was a delight in Manchester's Library, as was The Tempest in the Royal Exchange. I'm afraid that The Vortex was just as uninspiring as my Fairy Blogmother had warned me it would be, while Things of Dry Hours proved rather surprising, not least in how it developed in the second half.

Oh, and then there was Alton Towers.


Any regrets? Quite a few actually, but barring my failures to finish my thesis or to master straight-razor shaving, not getting to see The Police or Ireland play in Croke Park, seeing only one decidedly uninspiring football match all year, and not managing to meet up with Josh and Clare anywhere, I think they'll be staying strictly offline, except to say that insofar as I can do anything about them next year, I plan to do so.

He'd seen how civilized men behaved...

I have a weakness, as I remarked to a friend the other evening, for stories of redemption and revenge. I'll take either any day, and both together given a choice.

Both? Well, yes. revenge may be a dish best served cold, but it's rarely filling. In the end, revenge is empty, as Inigo Montoya realised having finally slain the six-fingered man - redemption beats it hands down. Think of Orestes, or the Beast in whatever version of the fairy tale you care you sample, or Darth Vader, or best of all Edmond Dantès, the eponymous antihero of The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, for all that that masterpiece of nineteenth century pulp fiction is focused on revenge, it ultimately gains much of its power from Edmond's eventual rediscovery of the humanity that he had lost in the darkness of the Château d'If. It is only through learning how to forgive and remembering how to love that he finds peace.

But sometimes, sometimes, you can get a hell of a story just focused on revenge. Or justice. There can be times when it's difficult to tell which is which. That's just one of the ways that friends come in handy - if you're in danger of losing your moral compass it's useful to have a few stars to navigate by. Life without friends can be as perilous as it can be dull.

All of which leads me neatly to the great Stephen Sondheim's greatest masterpiece.

Sweeney Todd, due to be hitting our screens in a month or two, depending on where you are, and surely not to be missed, is an astounding story of a wronged man who, consumed by a desire for vengeance, becomes a monster.

By turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and horrifying, it is about as profound a study of greed, hypocrisy, and obsession as you'll ever see. It's magnificently written and thrillingly scored, and features at its centrepiece what must be the finest and funniest attempt at linking cannibalism and capitalism in the history of music.

(I've no idea if there are others, but if so, I'm confident they pale next to the wonderfully witty wordplay of 'A Little Priest'.)

To say I'm a fan of the show is to put it mildly. I've seen it twice in Manchester, the first production there being probably the best thing I've ever seen on the stage, and twice just a few months ago in Dublin, a production described by the Guardian as a 'miracle'. Not content with occasionally seeing it in the theatre, though, I have a DVD of a 2001 concert performance, and two versions of it on CD.

Yes, I know, I've yet to acquire the DVD of the show with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury as Todd and Mrs Lovett, but I'll get round to it eventually. There's no rush.

With so much invested in the show, I have to admit that I've been a little bit worried about the prospect of the film. Granted, all the ingredients seemed fine - I can't imagine a director better suited to this than Tim Burton, and the likes of Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall look perfectly cast. Even Sacha Baron Cohen could prove an inspired choice as Pirelli. But what of Jonny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? They look great, and can certainly act, but can they sing? That's where this will stand or fall, after all, as unlike the kind of musicals I grew up hating on telly, Sondheim's shows don't involve people strolling along chatting and then unaccountably bursting into song; they're almost entirely sung, with only the occasional bit of spoken dialogue bridging the songs.

I'm not worried anymore. The early word is good, and the trailers look encouraging. I have a feeling that this is a tale we can look forward to attending.

Mancunian Icon to save Britain's Blushes?

So there are rumours afoot that the BBC is cunningly attempting to recruit one Steven Patrick Morrissey to pen and perhaps perform the next United Kingdom Eurovision entry. I can't help but laugh at this eagerness to win the Eurovision, as it's almost as ludicrous as the Irish lust for Eurovision glory back in the mid-nineties, when it wasn't the winning that counted, just the beating of the English.* I don't know which is the more ridiculous phenomenon.

So, as we all know, Eurovision is a spectacular waste of space, where the only bit that really counts is the scoring. Oh, and Limerick's favourite son warbling away, I suppose, but he only gets going after his third brandy or so.

Still, I guess it matters to some people, and the real challenge will be for Moz to live up to the new criteria established last year. The Guardian suggests an interesting approach:

I humbly suggest that the BBC consider the following strategy: Morrissey emerges from the wings cloaked in the union flag to the sound of John Betjeman reading lines from Slough at deafening volume. Behind him stands a vast portrait of Ena Sharples. He performs a glam-inspired number which condemns Britain's involvement in Iraq, the continuing wretchedness of the royal family, the declining standards of the British sitcom, Jade Goody, Bernard Matthews and former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce. It is called Why Oh Why Must England Always Let Me Down?. As the song reaches its finale, Morrissey sets fire to the flag and hurls it into the crowd. Cut to Wogan.

Do you know, I think that might just work. I reckon it'd get twelve points from Ireland, at any rate, which would be something of a change. But then, we'd basically be voting for one of us anyway. Irish blood, English heart, and all that...

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* As, in truth, our habitual victories on such a kitschy stage got rather embarrassing.