May 29th - June 4th 2006
Sunday Lisson Grove
Saturday Who?
Friday Sezer naked
Thursday Two Rs
Wednesday Westminster
Tuesday Casanova in Hell
Monday After Dawn
Sunday 4th June
Lisson Grove, Summer 2006
Saturday 3rd June
Sticking with the TV theme, I haven't been especially impressed with this second series of Doctor Who - until tonight.
The Impossible Planet, whilst treading faithfully within time-honoured parameters (Tardis materialises in beleaguered space station whose crew-members are picked off one by one as Doctor hurtles towards face-off with mysterious entity) nonethless displayed a certain extra edge in the quality of the acting, the direction and, above all, the script that put it head and shoulders above the other episodes so far.
When the basic plot-line became clear (Doctor Who meets: Satan), I was impressed enough to go looking for the name of the writer, who turns out to be Matt Jones.
Not a name that rang any bells, but his Wikipedia entry reveals an impressive, and unusual, track record: script editor on Queer as Folk, a writer on Coronation Street, script editor on Clocking Off, executive producer on Shameless...
Not exactly the career path you'd expect to lie behind a writer on what is still, essentially, a children's tea-time show. (But then again, who has tea-times these days?)
Turns out Jones is a long-time Doctor Who fan, and began his career as a columnist on Doctor Who magazine.
A labour of love, then. And all the better for it.
Friday 2nd June
Farewell, then, Sezer Yurtseven (or 'Fail Sezer!" as the Sun prefers it).
The widespread disdain for Yurtseven - a name or an address? - has been largely attributed to his laddish attitude to women, 'naked ambition' being a taboo topic these days.
Big Brother's Cypriot 'entrepreneur' (a riposte to Apprentice Syed?) was ejected with a massive 92% of the vote; personally, I was just happy to see the back of him.
Thursday 1st June
Greater minds than mine have written more words than you'll ever care to read attempting to explain the mysterious relationship between writers and readers.
Readers rarely get to physically encounter a writer they have read. They form, instead, a vague mental picture based on what the writer writes - or fails to write (aka 'reading between the lines').
One of the few exceptions to this rule is the book-signing event, where the ten seconds it takes for the reader to proffer her newly-purchased tome and the writer to inscribe his name is fraught with unspoken dialogue.
Writers, ideally, need to envisage not just one reader but a whole crowd of them; hordes, if they're truly successful.
If they're popular enough to justify a public reading, writers may get to make a survey of their audience - though 'tweed.. spectacles.. faint smell of biscuits' is not much to go on when attempting to calculate what will, or will not, go down well next time out.
Very bizarre business, writing, when you think about it: an attempt to communicate in considerable depth with a host of people you're practically guaranteed never to meet.
The decision as to what to explain - and what to take for granted - rapidly becomes part of a writer's style, instinctively steering a course between saying too much (aka 'patronising bastard') or too little (aka 'wtf?!').
Blogging presents similar problems, although there are feedback mechanisms in place that provide for slightly more physical contact, up to and including regular readers coming up to you in the pub (with the exception of my loyal Spanish reader, I find they're never quite as attractive in the flesh as I'd imagined them).
As with Tuesday's entry, where I could have spent some time explaining that these were the lyrics from a song on the current Pet Shop Boys album, that they recently gave the song to Rufus Wainwright to sing at a concert, that Rufus made a good job of it, that Rufus is nonetheless about twenty years to young to really know what they're talking about, or what I take them to be talking about, and that certain people, no names, no pack-drill, are better placed, especially when they're a bit pissed having come hot-foot from The Swan, and feeling relaxed enough, having stumbled across said lyrics, to simply post them without any tedious explanation.
That might all have come out (if it needed to) in subsequent direct communication between me and my readers, ideally via a Comments system.
But, as you'll know by now, there is no such feedback here at Blogadoon: mostly because it's difficult to implement on what is still, bless, a hand-rolled blog, but partly because it doesn't somehow fit with my aesthetic concept of what a blog should be - like it or not, my image of myself was always more along the lines of a lone prophet ranting in the wilderness than as some kind of furrow-browed group facilitator.
(Actually, it struck me lately that my self-image has been nine parts cool sixth-former for about twenty years too long - but that's another story.)
But this was not supposed to be about me (or no more so than usual): this was about newspaper columnists in general, and Telegraph columnists in particular.
Even with all the readership surveys in the world, it's very difficult for the Telegraph to visualise its readers: the retired colonels of legend are still around, still vituperating over the marmalade, but in ever decreasing numbers.
In their place, theoretically, comes a new breed of post-yuppie young professionals, culturally aware whilst still instinctually conservative.
Or that, at least, is my theory.
Because how else to explain the yawning cultural divide between a fleeting reference to Stan Collymore in yesterday's TV review (inexplicably unavailable online) which puns on his 'dogged' devotion to something or other and, on the other hand, this careful explication by star columnist Alice Thomson:
Metrosexuals are young males, generally graduates. They are environmentally friendly, know how to change nappies, cook pasta, listen to iPods, wear designer trainers, ride bikes and go to such films as Brokeback Mountain.
They are not to be confused with chavs, who are younger and can only afford a pay-as-you-go mobile phone...
Can there really be people who know what dogging is - but don't know their chavs from their metrosexuals?
Not in my readership, I think.
Wednesday 31st May
Westminster, Spring 2006
Tuesday 30th May
The girl's perfection
inspires affection
It's queer that here
he can't cast his spell
in her direction
Somewhere near
One senses fear
Casanova in Hell
The girl is naked
The boy is naked
He hides inside
a secret chamber
There to gape
through a velvet drape
and dream of rape
Casanova in Hell
Her sharp suggestion
he couldn't get an erection
came as a shock
He finds himself
a laughing-stock
His ageing fate
to contemplate
Casanova in Hell
Back in the library
his revenge is his story
What he will write
will recall the bite
of his wit
and legendary appetite
The sybarite
Casanova is well
For Casanova has
the last laugh
Creates the myth and vindication
of his sexual vocation
Makes the definitive collection
His lives and lovers and above all
his erection
will live in history
Monday 29th May
Ironically - and, therefore, predictably - no sooner had I written an end to DawnOverCanaryWharf than I found myself walking, at dawn, through deserted streets, into the most stunningly roseate cloudscape. Bliss. In Walworth, of all places.
Shame I've fallen into the (pretentious?) habit of naming photos after mere places and seasons: this would have been 'A New Day on the Old Kent Road'.
Twenty-four hours later and, old habits being hard to break, I was off out again down to the river - and another gorgeous dawn. But no means no, so you won't be seeing that here. For a while. Probably.
And then to top it all, someone at the office whose opinion I respect said how much he'd liked the series - and then suggested a simple credible-sounding Photoshop technique that sounds if it would improve things immeasurably.
Not that I'd dream of showing you here. Just yet.
......previous week
