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Here you can find links to free music, videos and literature by Mike Dickson, Systems Theory, Greg Amov and the Ashley-Dickson Immersive Experience.
Oh god almighty Scotland, stop doing it this way...
We were completely up against it until Finn Russell had that Finn Russell moment and took the restart immediately after the Welsh penalty, pushing Darcy Graham through for what might end up being the try of the tournament. To not only see the opportunity, but to attempt it and to make it work is just genius.
Yet we still couldn't take the lead until 74 dreadful minutes had gone by, after which point it was all one-way traffic. Wales did not look like a team that had lost a barrowload of games up until now - something about the Scottish jersey must do that to them - but they looked bewildered and lost at the end.
Breakage was a real shot in the arm for me - something I have never tried before. In essence, I lined up sounds I thought would go well together, and played the lot live and improvised with some effects here and there but usually nothing more complicated than a shimmer reverb and some slow comb filters. It was as close to a concert experience as I think I will ever get. There were some ideas/sounds left over from this so these can go into Fractures soon enough. And yet again I am proving myself a liar by coming upwith something when I think the well has run dry.
Liking this one from PianoBook for Kontakt a lot...
Breakage now completed, just being polished up. It contains some of the most beautiful things as well as some of the ugliest, all wrapped in some of the blackest black ambient (if such a genre exists) expressed inside 18 relatively short compositions, most of which are played 'live' to the recording - something I have seldom done - and most of which are improvised completely. It's a new venture for me.
I still cannot get a handle on Pariah yet, which makes me feel that it's being built up to something that it is not. It risks being scrapped completely unless something changes. Every time I have an idea for it, the gulf between imagination and practice (or thought and expression) is far too obvious.
Western Civilisation
The King In Yellow
Codex Alexandrinus
Eyebrow check reveals no obvious weaknesses that I can hear. Breakage now released.
Good. Makes me feel almost proud to be British. Almost makes me feel British, in fact. I hope he's staring at a cell wall right now, though I doubt it. I hope the law works slower than his self-awareness, but I doubt that too. I actually doubt it's possible. But I hope it occurs to him.
The statement from the King - who seemingly was unaware of this action - is reassuring:
"I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office.
"What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities.
"In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation.
"Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.
"As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter.
"Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all. Charles R."
Nice one. We all watch with interest.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Rewatching TRUE DETECTIVE 3 which is still absolutely fantastic. And it has a simply stunning title sequence (and T Bone Burnett song), not to mention a terrific cast, not least of whom is the astounding Mahershala Ali whbo steals every scene he is in.
"Your club can be beaten week-in, week-out. They can be humiliated at home and away by the rest of the league. You could be relegated , bankrupted and suffer every shade of humiliation throughout the year to the point that you dread the next season and question why you even follow them, knowing that you only do because you cannot help it and that it's just something you do and that you are personally tied to their fortunes because you and the club are one and the same, and their misfortunaes are inescapably yours. But...if the Scottish team manage to overcome the English then the season is not just compensated, it is forgiven. And that is simply because there is nothing whatsoever like it, and that for all your club and you are bonded on an emotional level, you and Scotland are joined together on something far more profound than this, something far more elemental and something that no other country in the world can possibly understand. It is something that stirs the blood and runs through every cell in your body. It is part of you. It's a physical manifestation of the tie between what it means to belong to this proud and noble nation, and the person that you are. It's not just emotion: it's a force that circulates within you and which informs every particle of your self." -- MJ Addison, 1912
Thoughts on the game:
The most worrying thing here is #2: poor refereeing may have cost us the match, other English errors notwithstanding.
Goodbye, Basil. The Black Cat of the Music Factory.
Doesn't this mean (in subtext) that he is only ready to do something in support of the police and is not actually doing anything (or even supporting them) right now?
Dramatic scenes last night in Edinburgh where a bus caught fire near to the Southern Bar. Immediately it was assumed to be an electric bus but it turns out to be a diesel. Fortunately no one was injured and the fire was quickly extinguished by forefighters.
Weird how the Daily Express find Scottish Labour to be suddenly important when they are turning on the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Not a trace of irony...
Consider the following:
Either (a) someone thinks this is normal, OR (b) they cannot tell normal from abnormal, OR they can tell them apart quite easily but choose not to for reasons of their own. Whichever it is of these possible situations, it's not just the POTUS that has to be ejected from office.
An agonising win if ever there was one. We were lucky, but it all counts.
Reading this right now - it has a remarkable take on Joy Division's Transmission as seen in Anton Corbijn's film Control.
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After a little more than half a minute, Riley - Curtis - begins to sing. 'Radio,' he almost barks in his own monotone. 'Live transmission,' he croons, the words spinning. His voice is deeper than you expect from his slight frame, or the home-cut of his Roman bangs. He looks as if the words are hard to get out, as if they weigh too much - that these three bare words carry too much social or aesthetic meaning, or that they are too burdensome simply as verbal objects, as phonetic facts you must form in your mouth, facts the singer might prefer to deny, but can't. Elvis Costello's 'Radio Radio,' a raging, superbly constructed pop song with a punk heart, would be on the radio that same year, damning everything about the medium from the giant transmitter in London to the little box in the singer's bed-sit as instruments of a zombie culture that will lead to the extinction of all human emotion everywhere on earth - 'I want to bite the hand that feeds me,' the pop singer says, and you believe him - but what is coming out of Curtis is on another plane, closer to a dream, or insomnia. Regardless of the unstoppable ride Costello gave his argument, at bottom he defined a political problem. 'Transmission' is not an argument. It's a dramatization of the realization that the act of listening to the radio is a suicidal gesture. It will kill your mind. It will rob your soul. |
Striking stuff.
Entertainment as it used to be:
In 1961, the later series was brought to an abrupt end by a serious accident which occurred during a live transmission. Drake had arranged for a bookcase to be set up in such a way that it would easily fall apart when he was pulled through it during a slapstick sketch. It was later discovered that a carpenter, unaware of the setup, had 'mended' the bookcase before the broadcast. The actors working with Drake, unaware of what had happened, proceeded with the rest of the sketch which required that they pick him up and throw him through an open window. Drake's skull was fractured and he was unconscious for three days. It would be two years before he returned to the screen.
Just watched this. An extraordinary story about an absolutely extraordinary man.
Still collating the six tracks of Foxhorn from what I have still lying about. Nothing much yet come back for Pariah which is a pity but them's the breaks, I guess. I will finish it, but just not yet.
I have already found a track that will be massively improved by simply cutting it in half. There's a lesson for us all in there.
So I finally watched the Italy match 'highlights' and they are every bit as bad as I suspected. Scotland has a number of big problems: the pack, discipline, their play on the breakdown, and (jesus wept) their play on line outs. These are not just passing issues: these are sporting fundamentals which would shame an amateur XV. (It sure did when I played)
Nothing went well, most things went badly and just about everything fell well for the Italians who both played well and who contained a mediocre opponent who simply could not fight back. We didn;t even get the traditional arse-collapse after an hour to play because we were never going to win it then. The only real motivated movement was when the clock was 100% against us and even thejn it was disjointed and ill-disciplined.
Is this actually for real?
Jesus Fucking Christ
Work in progress...
 | |
Foxhorn 01 | |
Industrial beats, with a Novachord, a synth and an Ondes battling for attention. |
I'd say that this is unbelievable, but it's not.
— mellotronworker (@mellotronworker.bsky.social) February 7, 2026 at 11:35 PM
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"I feel as though me, the Beckhams and my fam, move in different circles, if they think Brooklyn's mum dancing weird ruined the wedding. I've been to a wedding where the bride's mother got her tits out and punched the cake."
You have to love Fesshole
.
Now this looks interesting. Heavocity makes some great stuff and this one sounds really good. By coincidence my latest creation uses their free Foundations library which is something I hadn't touched in a while.
Clearing the decks. I cannot get a handle on Pariah for now. What I have so far will be lumped into this one, the source of the title of which will remain a mystery.
Abstrakt III released. This one is (I think) really rather beautiful. The fourth track is one I particularly like.
One thing I was asked some time ago is how I know when something is right for a particular series: when is a tune a Nocturne, or an Absrakt, or a Coherence ? The truth is that I have an idea what each of these represents, but would find it impossible to articulate in any meaningful way. I just know when something is reflective, rhythmic, melancholic, or uplifting enough to fit a series. And the series is not homogeneous by any stretch: some parts can vary within the same series, with both slow and fast compositions. For the notebooks it was always pretty much what I was doing there and then, but for the rest it was more of a feeling of what I needed and what presented itself.
Well this is on point. You wonder how much of this stuff is left waiting to be found.
And so is this.
Going through one of those periods where a sudden burst of creativity leads to a complete lacuna, so I am going to sit out for a bit and play a lot of This Heat again. (I may push out Abstrakt III, depending on how it occurs to me when I hear it back)
They are one of those bands whose music makes me want to pick up an instrument (or an idea) and just do stuff again. Again, I found Deceit in a local second hand shop having heard of them through Recommended Records and was blown away by the mixtire of punk/new wave energy (and voices) and deeply bizarre compositions. A band I find I cannot tire of listening to, I played their first album almost daily for about a year.
All possible processes. All channels open. Twenty-four-hour alert.
Phantoms released today. Both Pariah and Abstrakt III are being worked on for next month, hopefully.
As much as I'd die on the barricades for them, I'm going nowhere near this one. The whole period of 15 Big Ones, Love You, Adult/Child etc was Brian Wilson at his most mentally feeble, dragged from his bed to croak his way around some awful songs with childishly bad lyrics. They never recovered.
Can we not just pay this twat a swift visit, roofie him, stick him chained up in a box and post the fucker to the US DOJ?
We might even get a bulk discount if we mail off his repellent freeloading ex at the same time.
Another EP churning out. This one is a partial realisation of an earlier idea, with five very strange tracks which are linked by a single idea which I will leave the listener to guess at. Tracks are numbered a bit like this:
No prizes will be awarded for discerning this blithering, but I know what it means.
I'll take that. Hearts still on top, Celtic still looking underpowered and Hibs consigned to oblivion. Not a bad weekend's results, really.
Anyone who is travelling to the World Cup Finals from abroad is walking into a dangerous country.
When I was fourteen my family went on a holiday to the east coast of the USA (via Freddie Laker, another saga). When we got there it seemed remarkably familiar. No language barriers, the food was not 'strange' but did come in huge and ungraspable portions, people were mostly perfectly nice...all of which accentuated the tiny differences that made it feel really 'foreign': cops with guns, the sound that a ringing phone made, the mixture of races, the cars driving on the right, the scale of the place. Everything made it feel just like the UK, but tilted through a prism at a tiny angle to make it feel like somewhere very, very different. It was almost like an alternative reality. It felt very foreign as a result, far more so than any other place I have been, for that exact reason.
Well, now it feels more foreign than ever.
As usual, George Orwell got it completely right.
Moving onto Pariah now, another EP which will probably be about 30 mins long.
Very accurate...
How do you know when a Tesla is self-driving? It indicates.
— Anon Opin (@anonopin.bsky.social) January 22, 2026 at 10:55 AM
...and then veers alarmingly to the right.
A photo of the racist graffiti painted on a wall outside Edinburgh Central Mosque last Friday has been published by the Muslim Engagement and Development support group.
Anyone who thinks Scotland is free of racism should read the FB comments.
And finally, Esther - here's a quite amazing story about an art find via a house clearance...
Enigma released. This one might be the most overtly destined to become a soundtrack for an imaginary movie since the salad days of Systems Theory. There is something off-world about this one that gives it a very visual quality, for me at least. I think I made it inside three days, which gives a very fleeting but accurate reflection on the mood I was in then, and which is passing already - perhaps because it was expressed here.
I cannot describe the mood any more than I can describe a dream - it's hard for the dreamer and boring for the audience - but this track encapsulates it exactly.
I shit you not. Enigma is almost done. At this rate I'll be making 100 albums in 2026. (Don't worry...I won't be)
Coherence IV released. This year is feeling crazy already.
Dazzled released, somewhat out of sequence. I can feel this being the partial start of a new direction already.
I'll never forget the occasion of my first acquaintance with the music of Danielle Dax. I was travelling back one dark and miserable rainy winter's night in 1984 from an away game at Dundee and put the radio on in my mate's car to hear the strains of Pariah coming over the airwaves.
She was interviewed for the show, so I made a note of her name (which I spelled 'Dacks') and the album 'Jesus Egg That Wept' and made a concerted effort to get it, which I did the following weekend. Never regretted it for a second. This is one of those albums I always keep coming back to (it's also very short, which helps a bit), so much so that I have named a forthcoming album explictly for her:
Enigma being worked on now.
One #Osman (Os) SI unit of measurement of self-loathing, defined as being the amount required to sit through an episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with this babbling ninny, listening to her third-hand tabloid thoughts about a nonentity being a nonentity.
Dazzled deep in progress now. The last track is very odd indeed.
Also, plans for another four recordings have been made, including follow-ups to the Abstrakt and Coherence series.
Retribution released. I really enjoyed making this one.
UPDATE: Just found a mixing error (of my own making) on this. Updated version now loaded onto Bandcamp now.
Skimming through the late Victor Lewis Smith's book TV Reviews and finding this moment of profound hilarity:
I feel it is my solemn duty to reproduce some of the public's tributes to the late Queen Mother, which were made available to me shortly after her death. "I thought she would never die, she has let us all down very badly." D. Holmes, Somerset. "She was a marvellous woman, and a wonderful lover." L. J. Worthington, Penrith. "Once again the Queen is not upset enough for my liking. The woman should have a bit more compassion. How would she feel if it was her mother?" W. Waugh, Richmond. "How refreshing to be able to mourn the death of a member of the Royal family without being accused of being homosexual." J. Fletcher, High Wycombe. "Her death should act as a warning to others who think it is cool to experiment with drugs." E. Franks, Cheshire. "She had such a difficult life, always battling against adversity and misfortune. Let us hope that if there is a next time round she is given a life of privilege and comfort." T. D. Wainwright, Hastings.
In case the gentle reader is concerned that VLS is simply out for cheap laughs - and he is sometimes, but not exclusively - there is this piece on the Armistice Commemoration of 1996:
As a child, I remember tuning around the radio dial and encountering whole sections of the wavebands where (apart from the crackle of static) there really was nothing but silence. Nowadays, every available frequency is crammed with information, entertainment, and sheer noise. Silence has been overwhelmed, like a feeble torchlight on a brilliant summer's day. It is right to remember, but natural to forget, and the two world wars are gradually becoming as remote from the younger generation as the Boer War or Bannockburn. In fact, it's a poignant but tragic irony that many of those who lived through these historic events are now suffering from Alzheimer's, and these remembrance services are being held for people, of whom many cannot remember a thing. For those who gave so much so long ago, what crueller motto could there be than lest we forget?
Phenomenon resleased. This one came together very quickly indeed. In fact it was so quick I can't really make my mind up about it, but I'd sooner stop thinking about it. Another in the Palindrone series.
I see Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has died. I gather from what I can see that he was less than popular, which I didn't realise.
Well that seems....questionable. This next bit is pretty funny.
If that was funny, then this is mildly incredible. From Scott Adam's blog:
Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has become the latest senior Conservative to defect to Reform UK, as Tories claim the move came after he was rebuffed for a peerage.
Zahawi, who is a former MP, said he felt the UK had reached a "dark and dangerous" moment, and the country needed "a glorious revolution", as he outlined why he was joining Nigel Farage's party.
However, Conservative chairman Kevin Hollinrake said the move came after he made "a number of approaches" to party leader Kemi Badenoch, pressing his case to be nominated for the House of Lords, but was rejected.
What an unpleasant man.
What a forgetful man.
Well, this settles everything...and he even calls her a 'fucking bitch' at the end after he murdered her.
Blackwater released. Today - a surprise album to me too, with a surprise behind its birth too.?? NEW VIDEO ????This puts an end to all the lies. Horrific. They were having a calm exchange seconds before he murdered Renee Good, and she was barely moving and clearly avoiding him. Stop the lies.
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) 9 January 2026 at 18:12
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Something else to annoy me now...
Cartoonists who use 'cappers' like this in the last frame of their rather lame cartoons, as though they can hear the hysterical laughter from the punchline and wasnt to ride that wave back again with a follow-up. Lesson: first of all, make the punchline actually funny. Then maybe just leave it at that.
You have to admire the invention of some of the gritter lorry names:
Every local news outlet seems to think that I am buried under ten feet of snow and fighting for my life. It's pissing with rain right now. What do they predict the weather patterns with? Have they tried looking out the window? It's the same every year - predictions of civilisation coming to a halt are usually shown to be the onset of yet more rain in a country made of rain. And thn they fail to predict when it actually happens.
Checkmate is next, an episode which is less about the plot and much more about the look. It also shows No 6 in defeat as a result of him trying to be far too clever for his own good.
The episode is best remembered for the scenes involving the chess match as played using real people as chess pieces, a routine reenacted by the dutiful and somewhat odd members of Six Of One - the Prisoner appreciation society - on a nearly annual basis. No 6 takes the role of the Queens pawn to Rosalie Crutchley's Queen, who is a very jolly hockey sticks type of person who seems to think she'd be a useful person with whom he could escape.
Meanwhile, the Rook (played by Ronald Radd) takes it upon himself to make a checking move on his own and, in this display of self initiative, earns himself a trip to the psychiatric ward.
No 6 is taken there by No 2 - a pre-Jason King Peter Wyngarde - who shows that the Rook is being reconditioned in a very Pavlovian manner.
No 6 recognises the Rook's rebelliousness and finds him, to convince him that he too a his own mind and that they might want to work together. In this, No 6 reveals his strategy: that those in the Village who speak back to you in a haughty or self-important manner are likely to be the keepers, whilst those more timid are likely to be the prisoners and hence could be trusted to assist in a breakout.
As per his speech in Free For All, No 6 is determined to find out who are the prisoners and who are the warders.
They tour the Village and identify those who might be able to assist them.
Meanwhile, the White Queen is brainwashed into thinking that she is in love with No 6 and hates to be parted from him, being given a locket which is in fact a tracking device. If she is with him - and she will seek him if she is not - then they can locate No 6. (My questions here are (a) with all the advanced tech they have, the best they can hope for is a locket? Why not some kind of implant? And if they can do that, why don't implant such a device in No 6 in the first place?)
Meanwhile the Rook goes about stealing all he can from the Village to be able to make a radio transmitter.
No 6 uses this to make a fake mayday call apparently from a plane coming down in the hope of attracting a boat to take him and his fellow conspirators away. (One of them is the shopkeeper from Arrival who might be a surprising find of a prisoner as he seemed to be completely under the Village spell in that episode)
The breakout happens but No 6 finds himself alone, so he takes a raft to the boat approaching the Village and gets on it, only to find it is a Village plant. (It's actually the same vessel from Many Happy Returns)
The Rook is revealed as the person who informed on No 6, only he did so for a different reason: he applied No 6's reasoning to No 6 and concluded from his arrogant manner that he was a warden, and informed on him. (Though why the Rook would inform No 2 of this if he thinks No 6 is on No 2's side is a mystery and a bit of a plot hole)
I've always loved the look of anguish on the Rook's face when he finds out the truth. A real I done fucked up look.
It ends wonderfully with a close up of the Butler putting the Queens pawn back in his place, where he belongs.
This episode isn't a great story and has plot holes you could drive a truck through, but it looks phenomenal and the supporting cast are all superb in it. Ronald Radd is excellent as the Rook and Wyngarde is convincing as an oily No 2, which is a fair distance from the horrific character he played in Department S later on.
Next up is Hammer Into Anvil, another of my favourites and dominated by a compelling performance by Patrick Cargill.
Cargill was aiming for a career in the military but after being demobbed at the end of the war he returned to England to join a rep, performing before the Queen and on the West End for some years.
Cargill plays a superb psychotic No 2 here, far removed from the comedy that audiences may have been more familiar with in his performances, notably with Tony Hancock. After this appearances he returned to comedy. He was also a capable singer an recorded several albums and even released singles, all of which tanked.
A deeply private man (not unlike Patrick McGoohan, whose views on privacy bordered on mania at times) he avoided any awards ceremonies and was wary of 'celebrity' status of any kind. He also drove a very rare type of Bentley of which only six were made. One day he saw another one and waved to it like a madman, only to realise that he was driving his Mini that day.
Whether or not he drew on secret or repressed anger for the role of this barbaric No 2 is unknown. It is certainly true that he was a repressed individual, concealing his homosexuality to the very end.
His barbarism is nowhere on better display than in this clip where he forces a woman to look at photographs of her husband's infidelity, compelling her to jump from a hospital window to her death. McGoohan is equally menacing here.
No 2 drags No 6 to the Green Dome where he lectures him about how he will break No 6 for his 'interference' in his interrogation of the girl. No 6 observes that this No 2 is a professional sadist, but spots a weakness in him: when No 1 calls he is a toadying supplicant who is clearly afraid of those above him. No 6 files this one away.
The rest of the show is No 6 playing tricks with No 2 and causing him to lose all support in the Village, leaving him utterly isolated. He performs a bizarre examination of Bizet records in the Village shop, marks the Tally Ho headline about No 2 suspiciously, leaves blank papers in the Stone Boat, places a cryptic message in the paper and confuses the Village's psychiatrist (what a job that must have been to hold down).
He then makes an odd request at the interminable brass band concert, leaves a bizarre message from a deceased resident of the Village for the Supervisor to read out over the tannoy (which gets the Supervisor suspended), buys a cuckoo clock which No 2 assumes is a bomb, releases a pigeon with a coded messages attached to it, and is then seen signalling morse (which translates to a nursery rhyme) to an unseen target offshore.
No 6 then ropes in No 14, No 2's henchman by whispering something baffling to him which plays right into No 2's rampant paranoia and gets him dismissed, thinking that he too was part of a grand conspiracy against him. (He also dismisses the butler)
The butler was played by Angelo Muscat, a Maltese actor who was forever grateful to McGoohan for giving him the part. This awful and heartbreaking quotation was actually part of ITC's publicity:
I always feel lonely, I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my 30s. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever.
In the last years of his short life, Angelo lived alone and penniless in a basement in London making birdcages to eke out a living, but dying of pneumonia at the age of 47. Some enthusiasts celebrate his life every 10th October, calling themselves The Friends of Angelo Muscat (FOAM).
There then follows a great fight scene between No 6 and No 14 to th strains of Vivaldi coming from No 6's record player which emerges unscathed from the ordeal which the rest of the room is destroyed.
No 6 then visits a completely isolated No 2 where he persuades him to report himself to No 1 due to a breakdown in command.
This probably represents the most complete success No 6 has had so far, although it is less about getting back against the Village and more about this psychopathic No 2 with whom he has a score to settle after causing the woman's death earlier.
I'd keep this one in for Cargill alone, probably. It's a magnetic and mesmerising performance from a truly skilled actor at the peak of his powers. He even manages to edge McGoohan out of the picture at times, it's that good.
This one was always one of my very favourites because it's so mysterious, but in a way quite different to Dance of the Dead. Not only do you get to see the Village from different point of view, you also get to see London again.
In this one, the Prisoner wakes up to find nothing in his apartment working and, even more sinisterly, no one in the Village at all, aside from a cat.
Even No 2's chair is deserted, occupied only by that umbrella.
Without a trace of any working tech (or Rover) No 6 raids the Village for supplies, takes photos of the Village, builds a raft and then sails off using home made navigation equipment whilst keeping a daily log of movements. Despite encounters with gun runners (who converse in unsubtitled Russian) he breaks away from them and then washes up on the southern shore of the UK with his photographs and log intact.
It's not until we are nearly 23 minutes into this episode that we hear the first English dialogue, which is followed up with a meeting with friendly Romanies, whose dialogue in the shooting script is perhaps uncomplimentary:
(The truly eagle-eyed will recognise that the Romany woman is played by Nike Arrighi who later turned up as Tanith in The Devil Rides Out). A gifted artist and humanitarian, Harpers Bazaar chose her as one of the ten most Beautiful Women in England in 1965.
Nevertheless, they feed him and direct him to London by stealing a lift in the back of a lorry which drops him right in the middle of the city. He makes his way to him old residence at 1 Buckingham Place where he finds a woman - Mrs Butterworth - driving his Lotus Caterham Seven KAR120C up and walk inside.
She seems amused by him and feeds and clothes him (again). I always found her casual belief to be odd to the point of gullibility, but I guess this was London in The Swinging Sixties for you. Not that Mrs Butterworth looks like she could swing much any more. Georgina Cookson was only 48 when she played this role but looked far older than this, or at least so it looked to me. (She also appeared as an unnamed party-goer in A, B and C)
She inexplicably loans him back his own car which he uses to travel to his old place of work to meet his bosses. This includes a memorable but brief reunion with The Man At The Desk (played by George Markstein, the series script editor who tried to take a lot of credit for creating the series and who ended up falling out with McGoohan in calamitous terms which lasted to the end of their lives)
(There is also a remark from No 6 to Mrs Butterworth that he built that car 'with his own hands'. If you owned this car it was likely true - they were sold as kit cars at a reduced rate of tax. However, to keep the taxes down they came without instructions. Something of a health and safety issue, I'd say.)
The titling on the map behind the desk always amused me - as though it could be anything else. If the UK secret services really needed to be reminded of this then no wonder their geopolitical meddling never worked.
The Prisoner convinces his old bosses he is telling the truth and so, by working backwards using his primitive charts they estimate the Village is located somewhere on the south coast of Spain.
Flying over to find it, the Prisoner spots it but just as he does so the pilot cheerily waves him goodbye and ejects him back to the Village again, much to No 6's surprise. Shortly after landing, everything starts working, the people are back and Mrs Butterworth - now revealed as No 2 - emerges with a birthday cake for No 6, as she promised in London.
I love this episode for the lack of dialogue in the first half, which is incredibly brave, but also for the appearance of Patrick Cargill and Donald Sinden as No 6's former bosses. Their dialogue is sharp, aggressive and exactly on point, even if all three of them seem to intent on overpronouncing their dialogue in the best traditions of the theatre.
But here is the thing that gets me: the Village was emptied completely for No 6. No cries in the night or protestations. Nothing. Even the power was cut for him. And look back previously: the way that No 2's spoke about No 6 being a prize. The way the entire Village was plotted against him in Dance of the Dead (and which happens again in A Change of Mind). This all makes me thing of a startling possibility: that the entire Village was constructed just for No 6 and that everything they are doing is to break him and him alone . Or here is maybe a better one: maybe the whole thing exists only in No 6's head. That said, if the latter was true the it would all be a dream and that level of deus ex machina would be too much to bear for such a brilliant series.
But it's a thought I cannot shake off. It all seems to be against No 6, even right up to the Degree Absolute of Once Upon a Time. I can see how McGoohan wrote himself into a corner for Fall Out, but there must have been a better way to end it than that. In a way Fall Out sort of confirms this idea, but at the same time it sort of doesn't. Maybe a better idea would be for the 'big reveal' to be that there was no No 1 at all and that it was simply a ruse to confuse, and that it was all about No 6 all along. (But then who was successive No 2s talking to - and referring to as 'Sir' - on that big red telephone?)
There is certainly a lot to like about this one, and an awful lot to get confused about. It certainly looks terrific, and once again the Village itself is a bit of a star of the show. In some ways the script is simple - No 6 is threatened with death (twice - once actual and one symbolic) and gets away with it, to some extent. On the other hand, the story winds its way around the holding of a carnival and a masked ball and seems incredibly contrived, also having a couple of pretty huge plot holes in it. It's pretty clear by the end of it that this episode is a nearly complete defeat for No 6, despite scoring some small measures of success along the way.
The phone conversation with Dutton at the start is convincing (as is McGoohan who may be reflecting the strains the show was already placing on him) but the amount attention No 2 (played by the superbly androgynous Mary Morris) is placing on him hints at something that I only really realised in Many Happy Returns - more on that later.
There are a some iconic shots of the Village throughout the episode and a genuine sense of mystery about it, not least of which is the section where he meets Dutton (this time knowing he was doing so) in the cave by the shore. Shortly before doing this, No 6 happens to find a (convenient) body in the water which he sows with his own identity documents (why?) and puts back to sea as a sort of 'message in a bottle' which makes little sense to me.
Why did he use such a vague method to communicate. Further, who outside of the Village would know who No 6 even was? And surely even if they did they would realise by an autopsy that this was not him?
The shots of the Carnival and ball are excellent, even if No 6 dances with Little Bo Peep in the weirdest way with his arms crossed throughout, one assumes as a result of McGoohan's notorious prudishness on set (which he maintained was to avoid upsetting his wife, who would have to be about as fragile as a human being could possibly be to feel that way, hence my doubts) and the presentation of Dutton as a lobotomised court jester at the end during the trial is terrific.
There's a subsequent and predictable chase (which No 6 escapes by going down a trapdoor that no one else seems to be able to see) which ends up with No 2 telling No 6 some baffling stuff about life and death and which involves a telex machine bursting back into life despite No 6 having just destroyed it. (No reason for either is given).
When one reads the story about how this episode was made, you might realise why it seems so odd. McGoohan flew into one of his (many) rages when he saw the final edit and decided to re-edit it himself. This might explain why it feels like there is so much of the episode which is simply 'missing'. In some way it feels like a feature-length episode edited down to 48 minutes without ny thought for what might be missing from it.
The business about the radio is only half explained (and the broadcast is unexplained too) but why this transgression of 'the rules' should warrant a death sentence is also very unclear.
A view of the original script shows some more dialogue at the end but a different ending, with the tele simply lying broken whilst No 6 goes off to dance with Little Bo Peep (was this what incensed him so much?).
It's a confusing episode alright, but it as a 'feel' (much of which is down to the Village at Mary Morris) which is so compelling that it warrants inclusion into the pantheon of essential episodes.
Dance of the Dead does have a feature concerning the idea of sending a message across the sea, albeit within a dead body as opposed to being in a bottle or something more conventional. Well, I have my own experience of this - sort of - which links exactly to this TV series.
In the mid 1990s I was an avid fan of BBSes, as the Internet was not really a thing which was within the grasp of your average mortal. Some of these seemed incredibly strange, like a little glimpse into the workings of someone's mind. Others were niche. Others were just file repositories. Sometimes the latter were the best - you could lose yourself in film scripts, 'secret' documents, conspiracy tripe and the likes. I went on the hunt on one such BBS for anything to do with The Prisoner and found a few things, not least being a transcript of an interview that Patrick McGoohan had with a Canadian journalist with the fabulous name of Warner Troyer. In it, he discusses the series very openly with an invited audience of what appears to be Prisoner geeks and explains a good deal of it.
The video of the interview did not surface until much later - mostly because in the 1990s PCs could hardly play videos due to the 486SX processor being just about incapable of doing so. Here is a clip from it. Have a careful listen:
Quotes from this interview surface all the time in writing about The Prisoner, particularly in connection with Leo McKern's breakdown. Here it is quoted in 'Not A Number: Patrick McGoohan - A Life' by Rupert Booth:
Notice the difference? In the film clip McGoohan says that McKern said "Go away Go away! I don't want to see you again." whereas in the book Booth says that McKern said "Go away! Go away you bastard! I don't want to see you again." (my emphasis)
Why is this important?
Because back in the 1990s I thought it might be fun to drop a message in a bottle and see if it ever came back to me, so I edited the file to add 'you bastard' and reuploaded it, thereby overwriting the older version. And it did come back. Here is my edited version of the text of the interview that I downloaded, with my two word addition:
McGoohan: Well, that was very interesting that one...(which was
probably my favourite earlier on, Warner. That was probably
it.) That was one that was written in the 36 hour period.
And Leo McKern, who was a very good friend of mine and a
very fine actor I think, came in on short notice to do it,
and it was mainly a two hander. The brainwashing thing, he
was trying to brainwash me and in the end No. 6 turns the
tables. And the dialogue was very peculiar because all it
consisted of was mainly "Six, Six, Six," and five pages of
that at one time. And Leo, one lunchtime, went up to his
dressing room and I went to see the rushes and I knew he was
tired. I went up to the dressing room to tell him how good I
thought he'd been in the rushes. And he was curled up in the
fetus position on his couch there, and he says, "Go away! Go
away you bastard! I don't want to see you again." I said,
"What are you talking about?" He says, "I've just ordered
two doctors," he says, "and they're comin' over as soon as
they can." He says, "Go away." And he had. He'd ordered two
doctors and they come over that afternoon and he didn't work
for 3 days. He's gone! He'd cracked, which was very
interesting. He'd truly cracked. And so I had to use a
double, the back of a guy's head for a lot and eventually
Leo did come back and we completed them and also he was in
the final episode, so he forgave me for everything, but he
did crack, very interesting, I thought....
The 'bastard' version is found all over the place now. In fact I don't think I can find a non-bastard version of it anywhere. My message in a bottle came sailing right back, 30 years after I let it go.
Now inspired again by watching these episodes, I've come up with a list of nine episodes of The Prisoner that (to me) are essential, the others either being superfluous or awful. Here they are:
It was actually quite hard to miss some of them out, but some more or less offered themselves up. The series does feel at times to have overreached itself. Several times in interviews you can read about the entire cast and crew being asked for ideas for more episodes, and sometimes this clearly did not go anywhere near 'to plan'.
I also don't buy into the fact that PMG knew where the series would end up in the end. Lew Grade even said as much - Pat came to him saying that he had got in too deep and didn't have an idea for the ending, so he locked himself away until he did.
I also have to say that I don;t buy into the idea that No 6 was not John Drake of Danger Man. Crew speak about having clear memories of the first scripts having the main character called 'Drake' as opposed to 'P' or '6', so the assumption is that it had more to do with rights and payments than actual storytelling. (I do like PMG's much later rebuttal of the theory that No 6 is John Drake when he said that could not possibly be the same person as John Drake would likely have escaped)
Next episode to watch is therefore Dance of the Dead. It's complicated and convoluted and was heavily recut by PMG when he found he hated the initial results, and it really shows. There are times it feels like a feature film recut for a one hour slot late at night. But then I like that feeling of mystery that lurks over it. I'll watch it tomorrow.
Inspired by my enjoyment in viewing 'Arrival' I have now rewatched 'Free For All' which is maybe my favourite episode of The Prisoner. This is the one where No 6 is encouraged by No 2 to stand for office in the Village, an election which he eventually wins.
It contains all manner of the most memorable tropes from the series, including some shots that define the mystery and weirdness of the show in general. In it there is one character who cannot speak a word of English (sort of) and another who seems at one point to be conspiring with No 6 against the Village and all that it stands for. It also gives a sneaking view that suggests something far broader than you might imagine and which is further hinted at in a future episode - but I am not sure if everyone else makes that connection.
The scripting is fast paced - for dramatic reasons as much as for reasons of the plot - but sometimes it gets a bit weak. The opening dialogue between No 6 and No 2 (Eric Portman) is just a bit too arch for my liking really:
- So would we. Fancy a chat? - The mountain can come to Mahomet. - Mahomet? - Everest, I presume? - I've never liked heights! - How's Number One? - At the summit. - Play it according to Hoyle? - All cards on the table. - Rely on that. - Hmm. - Um, whose move? - Yours only. - Confide and we concede.
That said, the plotting is excellent and there are some outstanding moments in it:
No 2's speech after which No 6 decides to stand for election and immediately there are placards bearing his number and likeness with many supporters clamouring around him
The interview No 6 gives on the minimoke en route to the Town Hall, which is printed in the Tally Ho even before the reporter and photographer disappear from sight
The Town Hall meeting where he asks the 'tailor's dummies' 'is this how they tried to break you?' showing them the Tally Ho article - is this all pre-prepared because it's a common strategy?
The 'Truth Test' given to No 6 by a typical civil servant No 23, with the profile on the screen with the mysterious sliding shapes - possibly one of the most enduring images of the entire series.
(When the character on the right on the screen behind No 2 moves I think everyone gives an inward gasp)
No 2's conversation with No 1 where he says that risking No 6 (because he is 'valuable') risked the 'entire project falling apart'. What project? The whole Village? (This is something worth considering in relation to examination of the Episode 'Many Happy returns')
No 58's inspired gibberish language (invented - according to some - entirely by the actor Rachel Herbert who played her - she died within the last year at the age of 90) which seems to make some sense now and then but which never does.
No 2 and No 6 meeting at the shebeen and seemingly getting drunk together - another ruse: 'to hell with the Village'
The abortive escape and return - including the men in the 'Rover Cave' who are never explained.
And of course, the denouement - probably one of the best surprise endings to the entire series.
All of this makes me think about McGoohan's assessment that there were only seven essential episodes to the series. Was this one of them? I will ponder this further...
Work has now commenced on the next one, to be called Dazzled. It's a really odd mixture that deserves the miscellaneous title that has been applied to it and the preceding recent releases. The first track is almost totally percussion (and mostly 'found percussion' at that) and the second is treated so deeply that its musical sources cannot really be recognised.
I sat up and watched this on YouTube last night and enjoyed it enormously. I'm suitably inspired to read McGoohan's biography by Rupert Booth which of course focuses heavily on the making of this series. I don't know his sources for all of this, but Our Pat comes across as a bit of a bully at times, not to mention a grade one drunk. But then he created all of this, and that forgives him a lot. According to Alexis Kanner (and others) everything about the look of the series was down to McGoohan. According to the author he was even responsible for composing the theme tune...
I have to admit that made me sit up a bit. McGoohan did that? Here is what the book says:
"However, according to film librarian Tony Sloman, the basic melody for the new theme came from McGoohan himself. Apparently, he had walked into one of the film editor's cutting rooms one day, whistled the tune and asked for the editor's opinion before passing it on to Grainer. Originally, Grainer composed a version of this theme, known as 'The Age of Elegance', a light track based on harpsichords; but McGoohan, while liking the basic melody, wanted the music to have a great deal more power".
That sounds...odd. Discogs has this to say:
Next up, he produced an unforgettable theme for "The Prisoner (1967). What's often not related is the fact that Grainer was originally ITC's third choice as composer for the cult series, after they rejected earlier efforts from Robert Farnon & Wilfred Josephs. Moreover, Grainer's own original attempt, Age of Elegance, was deemed inappropriate by producer and star, Patrick McGoohan, who initially disliked the tempo, deeming it far too languorous. Grainer's swift response was to speed it up. What transpired was precisely the type of theme McGoohan envisaged and is the one which eventually graced each episode.
I have never seen any credit that expresses any otherfact than Grainer write the theme music, so where did this tale come into it? Neither have I heard anything that suggests that McGoohan had any musical abilities, but that may of course be wrong. I do think it's a great theme tune, though. It has almost no hummable melody to it and is so percussive and free from reverb that it feels totally in your face - almost confrontational.
We're all pawns, my dear...
A properly dramatic shot of Virginia Maskell as it sinks in that she has been played. A wonderful cinematic moment.
Sad to know that she was deep in the pit of post-natal depression when this was being filmed and took her own life less than two years after this was made. She was 31. She was married to Sir Geoffrey Adam Shakerley, 6th Baronet of Somerfield Park whose coat of arms bears the curious motto 'Moriendo Vivam' ('By Dying I Shall Live') which not only seems unnecessarily melodramatic but also plain wrong. Virginia was once quoted as saying "I love acting, but I also want to be alive. [...] Ambition? To be a big, big star...on the stage."
UK 'not involved in any way' in US strike on Venezuela, Starmer says
The UK was not involved "in any way" in the US-led strikes on Venezuela, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Sir Keir said he had not yet spoken to US President Donald Trump about the US operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro in the country's capital, Caracas.
Asked if he condemned the US action, as a number of other UK politicians have, he told reporters he wanted to "establish facts" and speak to Trump first about the "fast moving situation".
TRANSLATION: I have to find out the script before I try to act my part.
When will Jools Holland ever get round to inviting a different bunch to his New Years programme? Or are these the only people who are free in May every year? I thought Ronnie Wood looked much better than he did the last time I saw him, but then I realised that time was live and not pre-recorded.
Sanctuary once again sought in East Lothian. Edinburgh must have been a hellhole last night.
Attempting a dry spell. Wish me luck.
Sophistry released.