Xenon's Seventh Circle

I have been YouTubing. Don't you just love rich people, who had video recorders long before the rest of us had even heard of them?! Back in 1982, Children's BBC screened a fifty minute long adaptation of a book called Ghost In The Water, by Edward Chitham. This then disappeared into the bottomless vault of tapes in the BBC basement. I recall finding it brilliantly spooky, and the two and a half other people I've since met who also remember it agreed. I long ago gave up any hope of seeing it again though. And now it's turned up on YouTube! You can watch it here, if you are so inclined. Since it's a one-off film rather than a serial, it keeps the pace up throughout, making it seem almost modern (save for the almost universally brown colour scheme, obviously!), and the cast are terrific. Fourteen year old Tess is assigned a local history project by her teacher, and finds herself haunted by the restless ghost of a young woman who died more than a century before. I didn't find it scary this time, but it is very nicely done, and very atmospheric. So pleased to have seen it again!

Seriously though, check out this school interior:



Who even makes a paint that colour, let alone buys it or uses it?! It may have been 1982, but clearly they were not free of the seventies yet.

And then, also on YouTube, I found East Of Ipswich, which I hadn't seen since the Beeb broadcast it in the late eighties. It's a short film (seventy-odd minutes) written by Michael Palin, and very loosely based on an incident in his early life. Richard is seventeen, and hauled along by his parents on a deathly dull seaside holiday at the tail end of the fifties. It's brilliantly evocative of a particular time and place - rock & roll might have got the big cities hopping, but out in the provinces, a church social was still seen as the height of entertainment; and a seventeen year old boy staying out until ten o'clock at night - in a coffee bar! (gasp!) - was in for a stern telling off.

Though it's roughly based in reality, it's not really autobiographical. In real life he met his future wife, but I'm guessing that two youngsters becoming pen pals, and eventually getting married, was far less likely to be commissioned as a film! Instead, Richard gets tangled up with a naughty Dutch exchange student and some bad boy rockers on motorbikes. And! Guess who turns up as one of the rockers! Yep, looking startlingly young (and not terribly dangerous, it must be said), whilst sporting a quite fabulous DA:



Tip Tipping - one of the many reasons why old telly is better. The other rocker there is fellow stuntman Wayne Michaels, known to fans of Robin Of Sherwood as Michael Praed's regular stand-in. And, telly being what it is, frequently the stand-in for the bloke that Michael Praed was fighting as well. He's also the man behind the infamous bungee jump at the start of GoldenEye.

I'm a well of useful information, aren't I. Who needs sensible facts and figures, when you can end up with a head full of stuntman resumés?

1993! I didn't like 1993. I seem to be saying that sort of thing a lot, I know, but we have at least turned a corner now. I left school in 1993. That was a good bit of the year! No more green socks. No more hideous tie. No more enforced company of homicidal teenagers. I screwed up my A-levels, mind, which wasn't such a good bit of the year; but that will happen, apparently, if you haven't slept since 1989. I can't say as I particularly recommend that as a life choice, incidentally. The (very) late night telly had its upside, but there's a good chance it only seemed good because I was effectively a zombie. So I can't really recommend that either.

1993 was a weird year. A girl I'd sat next to at school for years found out she had cancer that March. She was a few weeks younger than me, so neither of us was eighteen yet. You're still supposed to feel immortal at that age! She got through it, fortunately, but I was still sending her ridiculous cards when I went to university a year later, so it must have been a long slog. Wakes you up, that sort of thing.

Elsewhere, Czechoslovakia ceased to be, which saddened me greatly. I was given an atlas when I was five, and fell in love with that word! I had to learn how to spell it immediately. Kenneth Connor died, which was a shame. I always did like him. Bill Bixby died as well, and so did River Phoenix and Audrey Hepburn. And so did Blockbusters come to that! No more "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob?" (Although I never did hear anybody actually ask that one).

Film-wise, I remember going to see Splitting Heirs with my sister and her fiancé. It starred Eric Idle and John Cleese, which was why I was interested (anything Python-flavoured, still!). I recall almost nothing about it though, barring a gag involving a 2CV. If my quick search around the Net is anything to go by, that's about all that anybody remembers. The former Brat Pack did The Three Musketeers, although rather badly. Seriously, who cast Kiefer Sutherland as Athos?! He clearly should have been Aramis. And Charlie Sheen should have been Athos instead. Still, Paul McGann was good, if only briefly. Oh, and Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau teamed up again for Grumpy Old Men, although I didn't see it for several years. Highly recommended, anyway.

Do I have to mention Dimensions In Time?! Still, it did have a fab cast. Pertwee, Davison, McCoy and both Bakers, plus more companions than you could shake a stick at. Just a shame about the script...

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No, not a crossover, sadly. That would probably have been rather fun. Just witless rambling as I continue my rewatch of both. The guest stars continue to be good. David Warner turned up in Remington Steele, which was nice (as a bad guy - now there's a surprise!). And then Paul Reiser! At his youngest and fluffiest, making him the single most obvious red herring ever in a whodunnit. And Dempsey & Makepeace continues to be filled with a barrage of old British TV faces - and then, in the final episode of series one: jackpot! I knew he was in there somewhere; I just couldn't remember which episode it was. Towards the end of the episode, leaping out of a window and smashing up automobiles, as is his wont, whilst sporting some alarmingly yellow hair. Tip Tipping! Look look look!



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