This and That

Myth Makers: Golden Years

A couple of bits of shameless plugging;

DWIN have just announced the imminent release of their Doctor Who 50th Anniversary short fiction anthology, Myth Makers Presents: Golden Years. 
There are twelve stories from a variety of authors, including myself. My tale is called, With All Awry and here's a teaser;

The Doctor has of late (but wherefore he knows not) lost all his memories and indeed it goes so heavily with his (Eighth) incarnation that this strange, Camden Town flat in which he lives with someone called “Reg” seems to him a sterile promontory.

Other authors include Kelly Hale, Cody Quijano-Schell, Violet Addison & David N Smith, with some other names, new to me, making up a pretty cool collection. It will be available to order from the Myth Makers site any moment now.

Entirely Possible 

Also, later today, I am launching my new, weekly webcomic, Entirely Possible. It will feature the ongoing exploits of Theo Possible.

It's free and will update around 1700 (GMT) every Friday; the Spirit of the Weekend in Sequential Art form. Please check it out and spread the word.

See you Friday!

b

x

Mardi Gras on the Western Front

Festival season is here and so far the weather has been pretty lenient. Download, I understand, was a tad stormy at times, but Glastonbury was blessed with sunshine the vast majority of the time.
Observe...


The British weather being what it is, such scenes can never be guaranteed. Every regular festival attendee will have an anecdote or two involving rain and mud and I am no exception. But, I am not here today to recount my part in the flash-flood of Glastonbury 2005 (it wasn't my fault, despite what anyone says).

My first, published short story (in 2009) was an adventure for Paul Magrs's gin-quaffing time lady, Iris Wildthyme. Iris is exactly the sort of person you could imagine running into, during the frazzled, small hours at Shangri-La. It was obvious to me that the story should be set somewhere similar.

The resulting tale was entitled Party Kill Accelerator! and here's how it opens...

~

It was a moment before dawn or the tail end of twilight and there was music. Iris shushed Panda. Through the staccato rhythm of the rain she could feel the distant bass rumble, a bank of sonic fog on the horizon. Panda felt it too, although it did little to engage his enthusiasm. Such was the uniform greyness of the earth and sky, it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Onwards they schlepped, toward the music, the mud and the incline conspiring against their advance.

Iris re-checked her instructions. Panda eyed this with disdain.

“Directions from the back of a cigarette packet and a hike through miles of oomska, Are you sure it wouldn’t have been more appropriate for me to wear a dinner jacket, Iris?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “Not much further now, music’s getting louder.”

Panda adjusted his sowester. His yellow wellingtons looked grey now, the landscape seemingly contagious. Iris’s transparent mackintosh was leaking, soaking her leopard print outfit beneath. She decided to suffer this discomfort in silence, denying Panda the satisfaction.

They passed clusters of parked vehicles, all as grey as the landscape, drizzle making them indistinct, as though viewed through a badly tuned television. The music grew louder. Over the brow of the hill, a row of lights came into view, set along the top of an imposing steel fence. It stretched the length of the invisible horizon. Iris threw Panda a vindicated smile. Ahead, they spotted a flimsy, canvas gazebo, where a sturdy, bullet-headed figure loomed.

They approached the figure, a slab-faced man grasping a clipboard in his right hand, the little finger of which was missing. The three remaining knuckles were crudely tattooed with the word ‘Ron’.

“Tickets,” Ron murmured in a monotone.

“We’re on the guestlist, lovey. Iris Wildthyme.”

“Plus one,” added Panda.

“Who you guests of?” muttered Ron.

“Jimmy the Mandrill,” Iris confirmed.

The doorman flinched.

“That’s Mandrill as in ‘blue-faced monkey’,” she clarified.

Tilting his head to one side, Ron checked his clipboard.

“Jimmy… The… Mandrill..”

"Iris threw Panda a vindicated smile"

“ZONA OSCURA FESTIVAL - ACCESS ALL AREAS – VIP - PANDA”

Panda turned the gold laminated lanyard over in his paw. Sheltering beneath the awning of a hot-dog stand, he watched the herds of bedraggled merry-makers shuffling through the slurry. People of every species staggered and splashed their way between tents and stalls, united in filth and inebriation. Iris was getting her bearings. “Right, we’re here…” She pointed to the map on her lanyard, “…and the VIP tent is here. So we need to go…”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, woman! That’s completely the other side of the site!”  Panda’s exasperation had reached critical mass. “Enough is enough! I require a drink. Immediately.”

Iris held her hands up in mock surrender.

The nearest tent with a bar was ‘Madame Moiré’s Burlesque Escapade’. Inside was a suitably louche, satin draped haze of pheromones and smoke. They sat themselves at an empty table, near the front of the stage.

“So, who is this ‘Jimmy the Mandrill’ anyway?” Panda asked again.

“I told you,” said Iris.

“No. You’ve been incredibly vague. Why is he giving us VIP passes to the Zona Oscura Festival anyway?”

“I don’t know. He was showing off probably. He said he was a promoter. Everyone had had a few drinks.” She shrugged. “It was a party.”

“Well, if it was one tenth as ghastly as this place, then I’m glad I stayed at home to watch David Attenborough.”

There was a drum roll and a cymbal splash and a sultry voice from the PA.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for your delectation, please welcome to the stage, Ms Carmen Tranquil!”

The curtain parted and Panda beheld a vision.

Iris, conversely, saw a hefty lass in her smalls take to the stage and decided on a tactical retreat to the bar.

~

...and if you want to find what has Panda so entranced, you'll just have to check out The Panda Book of Horror for the rest of the story.

Hopefully, I've captured some of the flavour the Great British Music Festival. It's an atmosphere which Iris describes as; 'Mardi Gras on the Western Front' (for is it not said; Dulce et decorum est ager et inebriamini et saltatione*?)

Inspired to hit the fields this summer? So far, it looks like you'll need to pack your factor 30 along with your wellies. Whatever the weather, may the road rise with you...


*It is sweet and glorious to get drunk and dance in a field

Fair Enough

Last time I was talking about Underworld and their work on the 2012 Olympics. Ages ago now, I know, but anyway; do you know which was my favourite moment from that whole summer of games?
It was this -


My heart swelled with national pride. Booing George Osbourne at any point is, of course, the correct response. But, to boo him during the oasis of pure, unadulterated good-naturedness that was the Paralympics? At that moment, it was the most appropriate act a human being could undertake.

By some hideous, seemingly impossible twist of fate, the UK has ended up with a Tory government again. I know the election was a few years ago now, but it shows my level of incomprehension at the fact that it has taken me this long to comment on it.

I could say that it was the recent death of Thatcher which has brought about this current appraisal, but that would not be true. I started writing this piece before she shuffled off. In fact, the announcement seemed to stall my thought processes for a time.

What is it with the Tories? Specifically these Tories, this time around. Let's see, shall we?
Check this out -

Mister Terrific & Mister Terrific

Meet Mister Terrific! The white guy at the back is the original, "Golden Age" version of the character, who first appeared in 1941. The black guy in front is the contemporary version, originating in 1997 and still in evidence in the more obscure fringes of the DC Comics multiverse today.

(Yeah, alright. Bear with me. It takes a while to sort this stuff out, OK?)

Known as 'The Man Of a Thousand Talents'; Mister Terrific (in both his incarnations) possesses no super powers. He is an Olympic level athlete, he is a master of martial arts and is a certified genius (the current Terrific describes himself as the world's 'Third Smartest Man', although he has never said who's first or second). He is a self-made multimillionaire. Basically, he's like a more chipper, non-goth, non-posh Batman.
At the age of 42, I have come to accept that by now, my preoccupation with the superhero isn't going anywhere. Subsequently, I've come to the conclusion that there is a metaphysical element to this preoccupation.  The superhero archetype is, for me, about hope, altruism and moral conviction whilst dressing in absurdly gaudy clothing. Mister Terrific, in both his incarnations, sums all this up at a glance.

Classically, superheroes wear a symbol of a glyph on their chest or belt or wherever; a 'brand' for their particular style of crusade. Superman has a shield to protect us all from harm. Batman has a silhouette to strike fear into the hearts of evil doers. Mister Terrific has the words 'Fair Play'.

'Fair Play' has to be a universally understood mission statement. It's one of the earliest pieces of social awareness anyone is taught - Take turns. Look after your sister/brother/friend. Make sure everyone gets a go. Share your toys, your sweets. Don't forget to look out for the smaller kids, the shy ones. Make sure they get to have a go too. Don't cheat. Play fair. It's an essential part of a human being's hard-wiring in order to be a functioning member of society.

Now, in order to become a Tory, somewhere along the line, this wiring must get tampered with. For those born into wealth, adhering to the notion of 'fairness', on a larger scale, would mean giving up the advantages they acquired by pure chance. Who's to say that redistributing the wealth more evenly would really be the best thing for everybody? We don't want to rock the boat, do we? We need to conserve the status quo.

You can see how they justify it to themselves, can't you? It's vile, but you can see where it comes from.

Look at this -

IDS does NLP!

Yes, it's failed former Tory leader, failed novelist, CV fantasist and current (failing) Work & Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. Listen to his mantra!

'Fairness.'

It's not just him, it's the whole Downing Street cabal of unelected, privately-educated millionaires that are dropping the F word into every other sentence. I find it utterly reprehensible. I don't remember Thatcher ever talking about 'fairness'. She had no interest in even attempting to make things 'fair'. Of course, neither do this current incarnation of Tory, they are just repeating the lie often enough, so it becomes 'true'.

In the late 90's I was searching for an idea for a new tattoo. Something that evoked my idealism and also to remind me of it, during the times I'd forget or didn't feel it. My brother had made me this brilliant bust of the classic Mister Terrific for Christmas, a few years previous and it became my inspiration.
 'Fair Play' has child-like simplicity (some might say naivety) that suited the vibe I was going for. So, I tweaked the letters into a tag and had it etched onto my spine (ouch). An affirmation made flesh.

My 'Fair Play' Tattoo

Terrific bust (heh)

This new breed of Tory has found its own, new, personal way for me to despise them. Not content with merely possessing a repugnant, self-serving ethos at its heart or its shameful history of waging a scorched-earth class-war across the country's manufacturing industry. Its deification of the work of financial spivs, its infecting of the Labour Party, turning them into a grinning, 'New Labour' zombies, its divide-and-conquer innuendo, pitting society's marginalized against one other; none of these calamities were enough for them.

No. They had to steal my affirmation and set it to work for their deceitful cause.

A whole, new way to hate them, just for me!

Fair Play!

(PS, incidentally, when DC comics rebooted Mister Terrific in 2011, they tweaked his costume like this -

<- Look! Now he has 'Fair Play' tattooed on him too!)

English Disco Lover

A few weeks ago, a friend put a shout out for recommendations for the top tracks of 2012. Soon after, another friend listed their Top Ten Albums of 2012.

I don't think I even heard ten albums in 2012.

There was a time when this list-making would have been easy. But, now I am over forty, have two kids and no time.

I have got into the habit of doing mixes occasionally, in order to incite myself to seek out new tunes (I try to keep everything twenty-first century, with room for maybe one to sneak in from previous years).

Here's my Top One Track of 2012



It swaggers, stomps and staggers through the dark. It's minimal and menacing. Sweaty, grimy, glitchy robo-funk for the lock-in at the heat death of the universe.

Not for everybody, perhaps, but just my cup of tea.

Whilst 2012 saw me failing to harvest much in the way of new music, it also saw my favorite band of all time returning. Not only returning, but commanding an audience of a scale they have never previously known. The thing is, the audience themselves probably weren't aware of this at the time.

You may have noticed that London ran a sports event during the summer. No?



Underworld were responsible for the music of Danny Boyle's universally-lauded opening ceremony to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

I first came into contact with Underworld twenty years ago. I remember walking into The Rocket on Holloway Road in North London for a Megadog all-nighter and seeing three guys on stage. The two blokes on the left-hand side wrestled with infernal machines, producing a thunderous, pulsing, clanging, bleeping cacophony, whilst on the right-hand side, the third guy accompanied them on the harmonica.

Tunes didn't begin and end. Sections slid across one another. After a while, the guy on the harmonica stopped playing his mouth-organ and sung for a bit. Then he danced. Then he picked up a guitar and jammed. It was a glorious, controlled chaos. It was, as the song goes, a beautiful thing. It was Underworld.



I bought my first piece of Underworld vinyl soon after and then it was really just a case of finding things to do with my life until it was time to see them play live again. It's hard to believe that Spikee is twenty years old. It still sounds fresh. Both alien and unlike anything else, yet warm and familiar.

Underworld became the background to everything (everything) I have done since; truly, the world beneath the "real" world. Where the everyday and the strange are one of the same. I met my wife partly through a shared love of this music. The tracks To Heal and Two Months Off (Our song!) were played at our wedding. Both our children have been to Underworld gigs in utero.

When they announced that they were working with Danny Boyle on the opening ceremony, it made perfect sense (they had collaborated several times before) but, for a devotee like myself, it also seemed unreal. To have them sneak to the cultural foreground, still hidden, but in plain sight, was a perfectly Underworld type thing to do.

And I Will Kiss, from the Pandemonium section of the show (with Evelyn Glennie) has licks recycled from one of their earliest tunes, Rez.



The 'pealing bells' at the climax of the performance were lifted straight from Two Months Off.



Underworld's DNA was spliced right into the show. Not only that, but the arrival of the athletes was accompanied by swathes of their back catalogue, some having been remixed especially for the occasion.  For those who already loved Underworld, it was simultaneously surprising and obvious. Their music had already entwined itself with my own life in much the same way. Why shouldn't it do the same in this celebration of the Best of Blighty?

2013 has begun and already Underworld have resurfaced from two different directions in space and time. Karl Hyde has announced a solo album and small tour this year. Amongst the work from the new album, he's promised to perform some of the more esoteric Underworld tunes, not normally performed live. Meanwhile, from the distant past, an audio recording of Underworld's Experimental Sound Field from the 1992 Glastonbury festival has materialised. A tantalizing taste of a show from a few months before I first came into contact with them.

Some new, old stuff and some old, new stuff.

Everything everything everything everything everything everything everything...

Here Comes The Summer

It's the winter solstice, so we can take our feet off the pedals and freewheel from here.




"Here comes the summer" is also the last thing that King Mob says in the last panel of the last page in issue #5 of volume 3 of The Invisibles.

The Invisibles Volume 3, #5

That particular issue had a... thing on the cover that looked a bit like a Venusian, coincidentally enough. But then, that's The Invisibles for you.

I decided to reread this most sacred 1990's texts on the run up to human race's reintegration with the Supercontext, scheduled to occur, according to the story, on the 22nd December, 2012.

(I know everywhere else seems to be saying that the end of the Mayan 13th Baktun is on the 21st December; but that's probably just disinformation from 333rd Level Anti-Masons or something)

Anyhoo; How does it hold up? It's hard for me to be objective about The Invisibles. The time when it was originally published was such a heady and transitional period for me, personally. It's as ingrained in my own history as Underworld's entire back catalogue.

If you've never read it, it's hard to say what it's about, because pretty much everything gets a look-in at some point. Morrison, at this juncture in his writing career is grabbing the reader by the lapels, violently shaking them and saying; "Don't you see!?"

The countdown to the millennium contributes to the urgency and if you don't like a specific idea that's being presented at any given point, hold on because there'll be another five along in a second.

On this revisit, the barrage of Big Ideas was now further back in the mix; due to familiarity, I suppose. This time, I really noticed the relationships between the characters more. I love how the Dane's animosity towards Fanny slowly changes over time, until they become, probably the closest friends in the team. Sir Miles seemed a far more lost character, more a victim of circumstance than out-an-out 'bad' than before.

It's an interesting experience to view something so militantly of the Now in retrospect.

I feel prepared.

A Very Happy Recontextualization to one and all!

b

x

The Difficult Forty Ninth Album

It's the 23rd November, 2012 as I type. Doctor Who is 49 today.

The big five-oh next year, with 2013 promising to be a year of Doctor Who reflection, analysis and celebration like no other. 

I thought I'd get in early before everyone is completely sick of it and (hopefully) come at it from a slightly different angle.

I mean; what? Why? Why is this thing still with me? 

Maybe Harry Hill and William Roache can explain...


"I am Ken Barlow and I am the only constant in your life"

If you are not from the UK you may not understand this reference. In short, Bill Roache has played the character, Ken Barlow, in Britain's longest running soap opera, Coronation Street, since 1960 - a world record for the longest serving actor in the same role.
He was playing Ken Barlow ten years before I was born. My family watched Coronation Street when I was a child. I still watch Coronation Street today.

A thrice weekly ritual, observed by one generation and passed on to the next. 

Doctor Who fits this too. 

So, at least part of my preoccupation is to do with a sense of continuity. The World is in constant flux, but Ken Barlow and Doctor Who remain. Although, Doctor Who has the edge on Ken Barlow, because you can change his location and the period where events take place. You can change the bloke who plays him. You can change the tone, the genre and the medium of the stories.

Doctor Who remains, but, like the World, he too is in flux. 

Look at this.

So Vile A Sin

It's the cover of the book I am currently reading. So Vile A Sin was published in 1997 and co-written by Ben Aaronovitch (latterly the author of the Peter Grant novels) and Kate Orman. 
Aaronovitch started it, suffered a catastrophic PC crash, losing most of what he had written and finding himself unable to pick up the peices, Orman took over and finished it. I have been enjoying the book, despite it reading a bit like a book started by someone, been lost in a catastrophic PC crash and finished by someone else.

It's a Doctor Who book. An official one. Doctor Who is in it. There's a TARDIS and everything.

Where's the Doctor Who logo?

Well, this was published by Virgin Books at the tail end of their licence to produce the ongoing  Doctor Who: The New Adventures from 1992 to 1997 - when there was no TV version.
The BBC took the book series in-house when the US TV movie was made, expecting a television revival that wouldn't happen until they had the bottle to do it themselves in 2005.

When Virgin's licence was revoked, the publisher decided to carry on without the Doctor, the TARDIS or any of the BBC owned properties. They had created their own characters (like Bernice Summerfield, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester) during the New Adventures run and felt that the series was strong enough to survive on its own merit and removed the Doctor Who logo, five books before the character himself left.

Now, Matt Smith in the current TV version of Doctor Who is great. I love it. My family, my wife, my kids all enjoy watching the show together, much in the same way as I watched it with my parents and siblings when I was a kid.

For me the TV show is sort of like the Greatest Hits of your favourite band. All killer material, for sure. The heavy hitters. The million sellers. The one that even your Grandma knows the words to. The three-minute floor-filling, crowd-pleasers. I love that shit.

But, what I love just as much, and in some cases even more so, is the esoteric stuff. The novels (like sprawling album tracks), the comic strips (genre experimentations), the novelizations (remixes and 'live' versions of old classics) and the spin-offs (solo & side projects).

Maybe I'll do you a compilation of my favourite oddities?

49 and counting.

Happy Birthday.

"Let's put on our Classics and we'll have a little dance shall we?"

Venus In Transit

As mention previously, my e-novella, By The Time I Get To Venus, was published last week by Manleigh Books. It's part of their ongoing series; The Periodic Adventures Of Señor 105.

This is me giving a little context to the story. I am not going to include anything that might be considered a spoiler as such, but one might like to consider my previous blog before reading on.

Señor 105

OK? Right...

Who is Señor 105?

He is the creation of Cody Quijano-Schell and has featured in various short stories published by Obverse Books, both as an associate of the trans-temporal adventuress; Iris Wildthyme and as the central protagonist in his own adventures.

As such, he partially inhabits the stranger fringes of the expanded Doctor Who universe, but that is only one thread of an altogether more elaborate, more psychedelic tapestry.


The character was initially inspired from the Mexican Wrestler movies of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Cody has created an amazing video introduction to the genre here -




When Cody approached me to pitch ideas for the Periodic Adventures, I said pretty early on that I wanted to do an Enter The Dragon type scenario. A tournament or maybe even a flashback to Señor 105's early days, training somewhere. Given the exotic nature of the wrestler's adventures, the location of the training would need to be suitably unusual, on another planet or something.

This chimed with Cody's over-arching plans for the series (he has big, big plans!); other planets in the solar system would be featured prominently.

Then it clicked; Enter The Dragon... on Venus!

Why Venus? Check it out...



What we have here is Doctor Who calming an enraged Aggedor with a Venusian lullaby (roughly translated, the rhyme starts; "Close your eyes, my darling. Well, three of them at least")

Now, during this period of the show; Jon Pertwee's Doctor used martial arts, referred to as "Venusian Akido" or "Venusian Karate". There were a several other allusions to Venus and its inhabitants, mainly as comedic asides. These references eventually disappeared with Pertwee's departure from the role.

Venusian Lullaby 

Twenty years later, Paul Leonard wrote the novel Venusian Lullaby.

In his book, Leonard took the sparse, sometimes quite bizarre information given about Venus in the TV series and imagined what this Venusian civilisation might actually be like.

The result was a novel depicting a compelling, complex and truly alien civilisation; depicted in such a detail as to probably be unique in all of Doctor Who.

I could go on at length about how much I love this book, instead I'll just urge you to track down a copy and see for yourself.

Almost another twenty years later, Cody and I wondered if Paul Leonard would let me borrow his world? Just a small corner of it. It made perfect sense that Señor 105 would have trained in Venusian Martial Arts, had the opportunity arisen.

Paul graciously agreed and I was good to go.

The Enter The Dragon on Venus concept bubbled away in the back of my brain, Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme playing in my head twenty four seven. It occurred to me that Señor 105 would need a sparring partner; someone of equal stature, but a differing motivation. Someone with whom he could forge an uneasy alliance (my absolute favourite sort of alliance!)

Theo Possible

I had just the man.

Theo Possible was a character I had originally created for my short story, Party Kill Accelerator! In that story, he was the mysterious curator of an eerie festival. Possible turned up again, hitching a lift across The City of The Saved in the story; Happily Ever After Is A High Risk Strategy.

Like Señor 105, Possible is a senior character; over fifty at least. Unlike Señor 105, his motivations are unclear, perhaps even dubious. Both characters have mysterious personal histories. It isn't much of a leap to suppose that at least part of their respective mysterious histories might, in fact, be one.

It wasn't until I was half way through writing By The Time I Get To Venus that I remembered in Party Kill Accelerator! that there is a reference to Possible having studied something called "Klatch-Ki" - the ancient Venusian art of style over content!

Clearly, this was all meant to happen!

I hope that that's enough background to inspire you to purchase the book. I haven't even touched on what the story is actually about. You shouldn't need to know anything of the above to enjoy the book.

(Also, it's cheap and quite short)

Let me know what you thought of it and tell your friends!

By The Time I Get To Venus