Ramble on

[altariel]

toft_froggy said she was missing my posts, which was a nice thing to say, so here is a post, just for toft_froggy.

I am reading The Castle of Yew, by Lucy Boston, she of the Green Knowe books. It is a Young Puffin, aimed at readers of 6-8 (perfect), about a little boy who enters the garden of an old lady's house, sees some giant chessmen made from yew, and climbs inside the castle. The setting is Lucy's house, of course; pictures of my most recent visit are here, including one of the yew chessmen. I wish it had been sunnier that day, or I had managed to capture better light: it doesn't do the fens justice.

As ever, I have several books on the go, some of which I might finish. To celebrate Doris Lessing's Nobel, and following matildabj's shattered illusions, I have started The Golden Notebook. And I'm reading The Female Eunuch, also for the first time. All these things I haven't read, I really am a massive old fraud.

The Pertwee story 'Planet of the Spiders' is on the telly as I type. 'Planet of the Spiders' is my first memory of Doctor Who, when I was, presumably, about two years old. All the people saying "Om" made me scared, so my dad added, "-lette" every time to make me laugh. I'm half-watching and only have it on for the regeneration, and to marvel at Sarah-Jane's remarkably awful beige flares. Aren't The Sarah-Jane Adventures smashing and infinitely superior to Torchwood? It'd better not get the chop with these BBC cuts, about which I am very cross.

I was going to post a picture of the tree in my back garden, the leaves on which are currently a beautiful shade of pale orange, but the batteries have run out. On the camera, not the tree. I'll try to get one later, if there aren't sudden gusts of wind. Ooh, hang on, the regeneration is about to happen...

Goodbye Worzel, hello Tom! All is right with the world - well, until 'Robot' starts. It's not the flashiest regeneration, is it?

We're on the last season of Upstairs, Downstairs, the post-war period. Gareth "Mike Gambit" Hunt is now a regular. It's a great performance: the character is a former trooper, now a footman, says hardly anything and moves around with all this controlled power. I've started watching Neverwhere too, while I'm using the exercise bike. I like it. I wonder what I'll watch when I'm done with these? Secret Army? Hmm, quite depressing. The Sweeney? Hmm, rather a lot of it. Rome season 2? Yes, I think we might have a winner there.

My NaNoWrimo poll was a tie, so I'm sort of doing it, but don't intend to kill myself over it. I planned it in great detail last year, this year I'm going to be a bit more free-form. To be honest, my problem at the moment is not producing words, it's connecting words. Lots of stuff is coming out of my head, but very little of it is forming a coherent whole. And even less is coming to completion. Oh, I did get a short story rejected the other day. I'm going to tinker with it after some great feedback from my writing group and try it somewhere else. I quite like it. It was a cross response to an episode of Without A Trace in which a transsexual character got badly beaten up.

For some reason, I continue to watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I think it's one of the worst television shows I have ever seen - entirely devoid of charm, wit, merit, purpose. I can't even care enough to rant about it. ETA: Oh, all right, while I'm here. The credits go on for 15, 20 minutes. This happens with other US shows, but Studio 60 doesn't have enough goodwill to trade on. So cut it out! Also, all those people barking about business make me think of those sketches in A Bit of Fry and Laurie: "Damn damn and a triple dose of DAMN! If it wasn't for Marjorie, we'd have the best damn night-time comedy sketch show in Uttoxeter!" Preposterous.

Young people appear to be wearing drainpipe jeans. It's giving me early 80s flashbacks, which is unkind. What next? Ra-ra skirts? Oh, yes, apparently.

Comments

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks to 'Allo, 'Allo, I think if I was to watch Secret Army again I would have some difficulty in taking it seriously.

Sadly, I'm just old enough to remember drainpipe trousers from the first time round, with the Teddy Boys of the 1950s. I suppose most fashions tend to repeat every 20 to 30 years. As for the ra-ra skirts, I'm sure you'd look divine in one of those. :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I saw 'Allo, 'Allo before ever seeing Secret Army, and it does make it quite tricky at first. But some of the episodes are so depressing that it helps to be able to cry, "But what about the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies?!" at the television.

I wonder whether there were drainpipes in the 1920s?! I would look appalling in a ra-ra skirt, I don't do skirts.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Not only are there drainpipes and ra-ra skirts, there are tulip skirts and long sweaters with leggings.

I'm hiding behind the sofa in case silk blazers in loud colors or loud patterns with gigantic shoulder pads and gold buttons re-emerge.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

OH GOD THE SHOULDER PADS!

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

I was missing your posts too, Alt. Nice to read you again!

Secret Army - My memories are hazy. Wasn't there an episode where they all caught Bubonic Plague? My sister watched it, i thought it was pants.

Fairly Secret Army with Geoffrey Palmer (early C4) was hilarious though. Steaming kettles of Ooojamafip!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ta muchly!

The one with Bubonic Plague is surely Survivors: the one where most of the population gets wiped out by something like the flu. There's an episode where one of the characters gets plague. Secret Army is the one about the Belgian Resistance that 'Allo 'Allo was based on.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

You are quite right - there is an episode where they contract Bubonic Plague, and are locked into an attic room to live-or-die. It is quite tense...

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

Thought so - that's one of the few things i remember about it.

I also remember the opening sequence - avenues of trees becoming tighter and darker as the 'camera' moves through. Depressing stuff indeed.

I also never 'got' the references in 'Allo 'Allo, probably because of my aforementioned loathing of 'Secret Army' - I just never made the connection until it was pointed out on telly.

And IIRC, the sister of the lead actress who played the Resistance leader played Pella in B7's 'Power' - that i read in a Horizon mag.

Alt, I don't remember 'Survivors' orignal broadcast - i think either we weren't allowed to watch it or it was past my bedtime. Ah, the vagaries of memory... :-)

[communicator.livejournal.com]

more posts from altariel reqd

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*salutes*

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Yay, you are doing words! I always love to read your words.

I haven't read Castle of Yew - I must look out for it. I am not surprised that it has the same setting as Green Knowe - I can't imagine living somewhere as fabulous as that and not telling or writing stories about it. It's a place that just haunts the imagination.

Your Dad sounds a smashing person, taking care that little altariel would not be too scared.

Good luck with the story tinkering!

Sarah Jane is lovely. We missed it this week just gone, but will catch the repeats on the Beeb.

Studio 60 is making me grumpier and grumpier. I think we should just re-watchThe West Wing instead.

I'll admit to drainpipe jeans, but I was never allowed a ra-ra skirt. And fashion pundits to the contrary, I like the leggings, floaty dress and ballet flats look. Not on me for I was never the right shape for it, but seeing it on the right person makes me smile.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The Haunted Bookshop periodically has hardback copies of The Castle of Yew, but they're a little out of my price range. This was a paperback.

I think there aren't many episode of Studio 60 left, if that's any consolation. The first one I saw out in the US was really, really good: the rest has been such a disappointment.

I was admiring someone's ballet flats in town yesterday! They were black with bits of red and white embroidery on them, and really suited her.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I shall keep a look out up here for the Castle of Yew too.

It's a shame Studio 60 hasn't lived up to its promise. It could have been good.

Those ballet flats sound lovely! The 80s revival isn't all bad.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

EEEEE, A SPECIAL POST JUST FOR ME!!! I am verklempt. I'd really like to read that book about the yew chessmen, it sounds creepy. I am interested to know you don't like Studio 60, I'd heard good - or at least better - things about it from others, but it doesn't sound that great.

The trees around here are still beautiful - I look at them in wonder every day. I've been meaning to pictures of them too, I should do that. I'd like to see your garden tree, I've forgotten what colours trees go in Britain so it would be good to get a comparison.

All clothes now are hideous. Pregnancy tops! Low-slung jeans that are designed to make rolls of fat hang over the top! I'm hunkering down and buying as few as possible and waiting for the styles to change. If they're eighties styles,t hat explains a lot. I always thought the eighties were rubbish. Clearly it's because I wasn't born yet*.

I was just watching the Blakes 7 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life' vid on youtube and had a terrible bout of nostalgia for B7. I'll have to watch some tonight, and maybe introduce my flatmates to it... I can't decide which to show them first. I generally never show episode 1 to anyone, because it's really not that great, or at least not until you've watched more; 1.02 and 3 are great, but I've seen them so many times. If only I had S2 with me, I'd show them Gambit.

*Or was too young to make a difference.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The first episode of Studio 60 that I saw was absolutely brilliant: it's near the end of the run. So the rest of the show has been a huge disappointment. The big problem is that the comedy sketch show it's about isn't funny. If they'd made it about making a bad comedy show, it would probably have been a lot better.
I got some piccies of the tree this morning: now I have to find where I put all my gubbins (technical term) for getting piccies onto my computer. I took it out to the US and can't remember where I unpacked them... Here's one from last autumn.

Did you pick a good B7 episode?! What have you got with you, season 1? I really like the first episode, but it's not the speediest hour of television known to man. I like all the mad hallucinatory shit. 'Seek-Locate-Destroy' covers all the bases, perhaps? Mad mission, Travis and Servie, and one of my favourite stupid technologies, the thing that Prell listens to and then shoves up against his throat to talk into. Oh, and a quite nasty implied interrogation of Cally. What more can a girl ask for? Either that or 'Bounty' would be my choice. Tyce! Amagons! Blow the Wind Southerly! T.P. MCKENNA! - the thinking man's Brian Blessed!

[kathyh]

Secret Army? Hmm, quite depressing.

We tried to rewatch it a few years ago and had to give up because it was just too depressing for us to cope with. Obviously we aren't the hardy TV viewers we used to be because late 70s/early 80s TV was gruelling stuff!

I saw ra-ra skirts in a shop the other day and ran out screaming...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Quite sympathize about Secret Army: we watch a couple of episodes and then have to stop and leave it for six months.


I saw ra-ra skirts in a shop the other day and ran out screaming...

It was bad enough the first time round...

[klose.livejournal.com]

Ah, so that's what they're called. Ra-ra skirts, I mean. I thought they were in fashion back in - 2004, was it? (In Singapore, anyway, a friend commented that they're we're ahead of fashion trends there. :P) I've seen some nice denim skirts in that style.

I still don't get the difference between drainpipe jeans and skinny jeans, though.

I enjoyed looking through the pictures you linked to, by the way. Is the place open to viewing by anyone? I've not read the books, but the greenery is so pretty.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

a friend commented that they're we're ahead of fashion trends there. :P

:-D

No, I don't get the difference between drainpipe and skinny jeans either. Probably a marketing ploy.

Yes, the Manor is open to the public, details of the house here and opening times here. The garden is open at any time, but visits to the house are by appointment. It's a short drive from Cambridge. I think it has the distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited private house in England. It's very atmospheric.

The books are quite wonderful (they're children's books); the house is now owned by Lucy Boston's daughter-in-law and she does the tour.

Ra-ra skirt!

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

I loved my ra-ra skirt! That was in 1981 or 2. It was white, with big and little spots in primary colours. Size 10...

But drainpipes made me look like a doughnut on stilts.

Re: Ra-ra skirt!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Polka dots! My ra-ra skirt was plain jersey grey, and I was never entirely happy in it.

[kerravonsen]

It's not the flashiest regeneration, is it?

They seem to get flashier as they go on.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

We'll end up with fireworks and dancing elephants.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Ra-ra skirts have been in for about three years now. I have a £3-inna-sale glittery purple one I thought might make a good bellydance belt. Never worn it yet.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Fashion passes me by. I want my clothes black, and not requring ironing.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

Not requiring ironing. Now there's a happy thought...

[metamorphosa.livejournal.com]

You just reminded me of the time my mother bought me a ra-ra skirt. It was white with big pink spots on it *cries into hands*. And the pattern and style aside, it was *never* good on my shape!

The BBC cuts are a pain - they seem to have gone to town with me in particular, as since two weeks ago I no longer receive any BBC channels through my sky!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, those polka dots...

That is a bit excessive on the part of the BBC! (I assume there's some behind-the-scenes wrangling about rights going on... although we haven't lost the BBC on our Sky box.)