Out with the old

Continuing with the festive theme started last entry (and why not?), I think I’d like to talk a little about New Year. Here in London, the New Year tradition is very simple. Go out and get absolutely hammered. If you want to really push the boat out, join the revellers in Trafalgar Square or by the river so you can hear the chimes of Big Ben as they sound. The New Year is obviously a significant day in the calendar, what with it being at the start and all. But I have to say that our tradition is lacking a little compared to those of other countries and even those of other parts of Britain.

First of all, it should be pointed out that the tradition of holding New Year on 1st January is actually not that universal. You’ve no doubt heard of Chinese New Year and are aware that it falls between January 21st and February 21st, depending when the new moon of the first lunar month falls. Well, there’s also the Tamil New Year, the Nepalese New Year, the Balinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, the Eastern Orthodox New Year and so many others that I can’t really be bothered to list them all. Suffice it to say that not everyone goes by the Gregorian calendar. Even in Britain, the New Year was only regarded as starting on 1st January from 1751 onwards. Before that, 25th March was the preferred date.

So anyway, how about the celebrations themselves? Well, we have the fireworks, of course, which are nice. And we have the New Year’s Day parade, which is also nice.

New Year festivities in Rural Scotland (NOTE TO SELF: Check this before pressing "publish.")

If you’re a bit further north, though, you might get something a bit more imaginative and a bit pagan. One tradition in Scotland and the North of England is that of burning out the Old Year. Grampian in particular has some rather interesting traditional customs. In Stonehaven, for instance, there’s a festival known as “Swinging the Fireballs,” where people, um, swing fireballs around and people let off shotguns to let the Old Year know it’s time to leave. However, there’s also the requisite eating and drinking, so it’s all good. In Burghead, there’s the more obscurely-named “Burning the Clavie,” in which a barrel of tar (the Clavie) is set alight, carried around the town and then fixed to a stone altar. The charred remains are considered to keep evil spirits at bay and thus are used as good luck charms. Allendale and Northumberland see similar festivities. Perhaps even the modern-day fireworks owe their origins to such customs as these.

Good fortune is a common theme of New Year celebrations – this may be traced back to the ancient belief that spirits lurked in the dark (and I’m not just talking about the whisky). If you don’t fancy a bit of a blaze, a lot of noise is considered an equally acceptable way to banish evil. A peal of bells from the church is one way of doing things. Another, if you’re a member of  the Berchtesgaden Christmas Shooters (Weinachtschützen des Berchtesgadener Landes) in Germany is to let off a volley of gunfire to symbolically shoot the Old Year. Similar symbolic shootings are held in Philadelphia and were once held in Angus.

After all that noise and merriment, assuming your hangover allows such things, feasting is traditional. The idea of a feast to mark the New Year dates back to the Romans (there’s that pre-Christian thing again). In Greece, a cake is served containing a coin, the finder of which will supposedly have good luck throughout the year, presumably unless  they break a tooth on it. That would be lame. Again in Germany, the eating of doughnuts is a New Year custom, along with lucky marzipan pigs. On the subject of pastry, Parisian bakers traditionally used to bake elaborate shaped pastries to mark the start of the year.

If you want to work all that off, as well as cut through your hangover, you may wish to return to London for one final New Year tradition. Brave or possibly insane souls in the Serpentine Swimming Club, Hyde Park like to go for an early morning dip in the lake. Talk about breaking the ice!!!! No, but seriously, they often do have to literally break the ice.

Anyway, Happy New Year, chums, and all the best for 2012. Show those Mayans who’s boss.

What the heck is Boxing Day, anyway?

Christmas has thus far been a 100% success, and now I’m settling down for the traditional Boxing Day power-down. Many will be out in the sales, fighting for bargains. Personally, I’m a bit old-fashioned, and treat the whole thing as basically “like Christmas Day, only more mellow.” If my choice is between fighting my way up Oxford Street and sitting around eating turkey and drinking port, you know which one I’m going for.

Boxing Day is a holiday that only really exists in Britain and Commonwealth countries, and seems to mystify those from other countries. It’s really quite simple. It’s a bank holday to help you recover from Christmas. It falls on the Feast of Stephen, when Good King Wenceslas looked out (there was nothing on TV except the Bond movie, and he’d already seen Live and Let Die like ten times).

I’ve heard alternative theories as to the origin of the name. One is that it was the day when boxing matches were held. While there are many sporting events traditionally held on 26th December, including boxing in Italy and several African countries, this explanation has been dismissed by experts as “like totally retarded.” Another is that it’s when the churches broke open their poor boxes for distribution to the needy, or put boxes out for collections. However, the explanation that seems most widely accepted is that it was when households would distribute Christmas gifts of trinkets, food or money – to servants. The name seems to have first appeared in the seventeenth century, when earthenware boxes were the favoured containers. Such servants would largely be household staff, but later on this expanded to include postmen, chimney sweeps and anyone else who had helped the household during the year. Through the twentieth century, households grew smaller, employing fewer servants. Technological innovation also made running a house less labour-intensive, so the tradition of Christmas boxes died out. Except… not entirely. It’s still common to give a little something to your dustman, paper boy, secretary etc., only we don’t call it “boxing” any more.

Although Boxing Day is a largely British and Commonwealth phenomenon, it’s also a Christian festival. St Stephen’s Day also falls on the 26th, and various countries have their own ways of marking the occasion. In Ireland, there’s the Feast of the Wren, when groups of revellers would go from door to door, singing and dancing and carrying a dead wren on a stick. Feathers from this wren were supposed to be a charm against shipwreck. Latterly, a live or fake wren has been used instead, because seriously, guys. In Catalonia, there is a feast where local cuisine as well as the remains of the Christmas feast are served, which sounds more like my kind of party. Returning to Britain, the tradition in Wales was to flog your female servants with branches of holly for no reason. Ironically, there are no celebrations in Serbia, the country for which St Stephen is the patron saint.

I’m not sure exactly when it became this horrendous shopping day, but quite frankly I cannot be arsed with that sort of thing. I did my struggling through the shops in the week before Christmas and have no desire to repeat the experience.

Therefore, my plan is to continue with the gluttony and materialism until I pass out, before going for the traditional Quiet Pint with Friends. Merry Christmas, chums.

Easy Steam

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I’ve started a new blog in response to the level of interest shown in my entries on the subject of steampunk. Here it is.

http://realsteampunk.wordpress.com/

It’s called Real Steampunk and, as the name sort-of implies, it’s dedicated to real life examples of strange machines worthy of steampunk. I’m hoping to update on a weekly basis, although entries will be much shorter than you may be used to here on London Particulars. There’s only so much you can say about machinery before people’s eyes start glazing over, in my experience.

On the bottom of the world

Today marks one hundred years since Roald Amundsen’s expedition reached the South Pole, winning the Race to the Pole and achieving one of the major goals of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Look at this guy!

And heroic it was. There is no environment quite so barren and hostile to human life as the Antarctic. The name literally means “place where there are no polar bears,” so that’s one hazard you don’t have to worry about. There are penguins, though, which survive in the seas around the continent due to their evolutionary adaptations and the fact that they are funny. The continent itself, Antarctica, is the coldest and, perversely given the fact that it’s covered in ice and snow, the driest place on Earth. The phrase “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink” was never more apt. Despite many expeditions south, the continent wasn’t even seen until 1820 and it wasn’t until more than seventy years later that it was considered worth exploring.

The impetus for the Heroic Age of Antarctic Expedition came from London, specifically Professor John Murray of the Royal Geographical Society, who suggested that an exploration of the forbidding continent would be a great boon to science. His suggestion was taken up in 1895 at the Sixth International Geographical Congress, also in London (I have to justify this entry in a London blog somehow) and in 1897 the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Adrien de Gerlache made the first serious attempt at achieving this.

The RRS Discovery, trapped in ice

Attempting a trip to the Pole with Victorian and Edwardian equipment was about the manliest thing you could do short of beating a bear to death with your penis (which, as mentioned earlier, was impossible in the Antarctic). So it’s a testament to human endeavour that there were so many expeditions over the following decades. Each one added a little more to the sum of human knowledge, both in terms of our understanding of this alien terrain and in terms of our ability to survive in such an environment. Meanwhile, they braved such hazards as hypothermia, extreme frostbite, starvation and the ever-present risk of being trapped by ice (several ships were lost in this fashion, and Captain Scott’s Discovery was frozen in for two years before being freed by dynamite and a fortunate thaw).

The Pole was one of the ultimate goals, and it came as a bit of a surprise when Roald Amundsen was the one to reach it. Not least because he hadn’t told anyone that was where he was going until he was well on his way. You see, Amundsen, for all he was brave and ingenious, was also something of a rogue. His original plan had been to reach the North Pole. However, his expedition had been held up by a lack of funds – at one point, he begged money from his own mother, claiming that it was for his studies (which makes me feel a bit less guilty about some of the things I spent my student loan on). By the time he had the money, the North Pole had already been reached.

Amundsen at the pole

Unfortunately, the South Pole wasn’t a viable goal either, for the simple reason that Captain Robert Falcon Scott of Britain was already planning such an expedition and a gentleman’s agreement was in place among the international geographic community to let him have his shot. No problem, thought Amundsen, and planned his expedition under the pretence of an Arctic voyage. Not even his men knew that they were aiming South until after they had departed, and he curtly informed Scott by telegram that the Norwegians were coming.

In Britain, we’re often taught about the heroic failure of Scott’s expedition. But the simple fact is that, having started the race, Amundsen was the most likely choice to win it. Whereas earlier expeditions were fortified by woollies and hampers from Fortnum and Mason, Amundsen copied the survival techniques used by natives of colder climes. Not a superstitious man, he planned his journey meticulously and left nothing to chance. Thus, while all the members of Scott’s expedition perished, Amundsen succeeded admirably.

While his voyage was a great acheivement for the newly-independent nation of Norway, his success was not universally celebrated back home. You see, he had broken a gentleman’s agreement, and that was Not the Done Thing.

Expeditions continued, and still do today. Modern equipment has revolutionised polar exploration, but let’s not forget the work of those early pioneers. Anyone for a brandy?

Ten thousand thundering typhoons!

I’m not a huge fan of the concept of heroes. I find them generally rather unsatisfactory – I don’t see what’s so great about a character who’s so very good when it’s quite plain that there’s no other way they could be. I don’t know if that makes any sense. What I suppose I’m trying to say is that all too often, the character lacks any sense of realism. The more flawed the better.

This is why Captain Haddock is a hero of mine. He’s a bad-tempered, clumsy, middle-aged drunk. He’s impulsive, and prey to his own emotional outbursts. He’s a magnet for life’s little annoyances, whether of his own making or pushed upon him by whatever deity governs the Tintin universe. Yet at the same time, he’s also a very loyal individual with a strong sense of morals who is constantly battling his own failings to do what is right. This, I think is the appeal of the character – he is ultimately good, but it’s not easy.

Hergé, creator of the Tintin series, seems to have been Haddock’s biggest fan. The Captain was introduced in the ninth book, The Crab with the Golden Claws. In this, he was a purely supporting player, a pathetic alcoholic who hinders Tintin as much as he helps him. By The Secret of the Unicorn, two volumes later, he’s practically an equal protagonist. It’s quite clear that Hergé saw something of himself in the character, indulging as he did in the author’s own interests in exploration, fashion and the odd tipple. He also gave the rather introverted Hergé a means to work through and laugh at his own frustrations in life.

This is a rather longwinded way of telling you that I went to see The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn last night at Feltham Cineworld, which is perhaps the most un-Tintin location in the world. As you’ve probably gathered, I’m something of a fan of the original books, so this was a film I simply had to see by law.

On the whole, I thought it was a pretty awesome film. It mashes up The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and bits of Red Rackham’s Treasure, with elements of original story to give the whole thing an overarching antagonist.

For a Tintin geek, there was a lot to enjoy. As well as the three books the story is based on, I spotted references to The Black Island, King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Cigars of the Pharoah, Tintin in America, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, The Shooting Star and Land of Black Gold. That’s excluding the overt references in the title sequence. There’s a blink-and-you’ll miss it cameo by Cutts the butcher and an appearance by Le Petit Vingtième, the rarely-seen newspaper that Tintin actually writes for. No doubt a Tintinologist could find many more.

The animation is worthy of note. It utilises motion capture, a form of animation whereby a real life actor’s movements are rendered in CGI. Attempts at full motion-capture animation have an unfortunate tendency to fall into the Uncanny Valley (see The Polar Express), and based on the early trailers I feared this might fall victim to that. However, it’s not so – perhaps because the film doesn’t go for outright realism with its characters, but caricatures. After the initial jolt, you quickly become used to the animation and get absorbed into the world.

The attention to detail in rendering said world is breathtaking. The setting is fairly ambiguous in terms of time and place, but nevertheless a stunning amount of work has gone into every setting. This is very befitting of something based on the stories (if not the ligne claire art style) of Hergé, who researched his artwork intricately. Such is the quality of animation that despite the obviously exaggerated characters, I often found myself forgetting that what I was watching was actually a cartoon.

I have to say, the film falls down a little where it departs from the original books. Trying not to give too much away, the flashback to Francis Haddock’s confrontation with Red Rackham in The Secret of the Unicorn differs significantly from the original album, abandoning Hergé’s meticulously-researched and historically-accurate sea battle in favour of a conflict in which, how can I put this, a ship swings over another ship by the rigging. Red Rackham’s treasure is no longer brought over to the captured Unicorn from the damaged pirate ship, but is a secret cargo aboard the man o’ war (how much cargo space does a warship have, anyway?) – that’s fine, but if we’re saying the treasure isn’t Rackham’s to begin with, the film’s major antagonist doesn’t exactly have the motivation to go after it. Given that the antagonist was basically invented for the film, this is a slightly bizarre point. Complicating matters further is that by the end of the film, they’ve decided that the treasure actually was Rackham’s, from “plunder[ing] half of South America.” I’m guessing this line was to set up a sequel centred around The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun, but it complicates further a plot that doesn’t make much sense.

That being said, there’s a lot to enjoy about this film. It’s a fun old-school action adventure reminiscent that stands out from the kids’ movie crowd. It’s more cartoony than the original comics, certainly, but if you can let that go it’s a fresh take on Hergé’s world. And if audience reaction is anything to go by, your kids will love it.

If I were a rich man…

I hate money. Whoever said that money can’t buy you happiness was either a liar or very literally-minded.

You see, without going into too much boring detail, the nature of my employment is such that there is, occasionally, the possibility of my being without work. Now, to understand the significance of this, I’d like to take you on a journey across time and space, to a period long ago, back when it was… er, five years ago.

At that time, I also found myself unemployed, and went – for a very brief period – on the dole. Frankly, for the amount I got, it hardly seemed worth the effort. Anyway, a few months after I’d come off, I got a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions. It was a sinister thing in which they told me, quite sternly, that I was under suspicion of having committed fraud.

Well, this was a serious allegation, but I was quite sure there had been some misunderstanding. I went along to a little interview at which a middle-aged and slightly nervous-looking woman tried to act like a badass interrogator. She presented me with a letter in a manner that was possibly intended to be confrontational, but came off as if she thought it was about to explode. In this letter, National Savings and Investments confirmed that I had an account with them and, without getting too specific, there was quite a bit of money in it. This is a thing the DWP tend to frown upon when you’re applying for the dole.

Frankly, the whole thing took me by surprise. I’d never heard of this account, I’d never had any correspondence regarding it, even my parents weren’t familiar with it. I was asked why I hadn’t declared it, and I explained that I honestly didn’t know it was there. I also pointed out that there had been no activity on the account since 1994, and that it was unlikely, having been both unemployed and a student, that I would have gone without dipping into it. Unless I’d been planning to defraud the DWP since primary school, which is unlikely but possible.

Eventually I was free to go, it being determined that I had not been a child mastermind. My first move, as you might imagine, was to find out all I could about the account. Its origins were determined – it had been set up shortly after my birth and forgotten about. Next step was to get at that money.

Now, let me make this clear – National Savings and Investments hate you. I rang them up and explained the situation. They told me that I needed “a book” to get the money out. I asked how I could get this… “book.” They replied that I just had to tell them the last two transactions. I patiently reminded them that I hadn’t even known this account existed, and the chap happily explained that he could do nothing for me. So I tried writing, and received no reply. Eventually I gave up on the whole thing.

A few months ago – roughly five, in fact – it occurred to me that it might be sensible to try to get that money again. I was reminded of this by a call from my bank, reminding me of the existence of my credit card and overdraft, pointing out that these were costing me money every month and offering me a loan (which presumably would also cost me money every month). This NS&I account could take care of both of those, and isn’t that what those financial-advisor-type people are always telling us we should do with pecuniary windfalls?

So I went on the NS&I website to find out how I could get a new book. This had no information whatsoever. So I went to the Post Office (who run NS&I) and asked. I was told I had to write to the main office. Actually write. Compose a letter and send it. Now, I know the Post Office aren’t fans of the Internet, but for Christ’s sake.

So I did that. I included all the information I had. I didn’t know if it would be enough, because I had no idea what they required. The Post Office bods I spoke to seemed a little uncertain. I waited, and waited, and waited. After about three months, I was ready to write an angry letter, but then – at long last – I got a response.

It was a form. A form saying, “Yeah, you know that account, the one you sent us details about? Are these the details of that account?” Yes, I said, and posted it back. Then I got another form basically saying, “Are you sure these are the details of that account?”

This form also demanded a witness signature. No proof of identity, date of birth or address, they didn’t even specify who the witness should be. In other words, if an unscrupulous individual (other than me) got hold of the letter, they could just change the address details, fake a witness signature and get my book.

Eventually, a week and a half ago, the book finally arrived. I let out a whoop, as I was at that time living on beans on toast and the surprisingly nutritious gunk I’d scraped from under the fridge. I held off on buying a solid gold top hat, and went down to the Post Office. The photo of Postman Pat giving the finger should have clued me in that it wouldn’t be as simple as I thought, and so it was not. The woman at the counter explained that I would have to fill out a form, post it off and I would get the money in roughly two weeks. And I did ask – there is again no online facility for doing this, nor could I just give the form to them. Interesting fact – trying to get through a pane of reinforced glass really hurts.

After I’d recovered, I filled out the form. It asked for account details but again, no actual proof of ID beyond the book (which I’d have to physically send). Last week I got… a form identical to the second one, i.e. asking for my address, date of birth and an easily-faked witness signature. So I sent it off. Who knows what the next step will be? I tried reading some Kafka, but it offered little by way of practical tips. I’m starting to think maybe the Great Train Robbers weren’t bad men, just regular people trying to get hold of their savings who got pushed too far.

So here I am. I’ve been unemployed for four weeks, but I’m back in work on Monday. Going on the dole wasn’t an option, because of this account. But this account was of no physical use, because I couldn’t get to it. Meanwhile, I’ve been leading an existence of student-level poverty, with enough money to solve all my problems seemingly just out of reach. I don’t quite understand how my life turned into a 1980s sitcom, but there you go.

Anyway, to return to my starting point – money can’t buy you happiness, but I’d feel a lot happier knowing I can pay the rent next week.

The name’s Bond

This weekend found me back West at the parents’ place for a specific task. The Da has been streamlining his car collection, and my assistance was required to move one of them. The vehicle being disposed of was a Bond Minicar.

Now, you say “a Bond” in a car context, people automatically assume you mean an Aston Martin. A Bond Minicar is actually pretty much the opposite of an Aston Martin. It looks like what you’d get if you didn’t bother to get your Reliant Robin neutered and it mounted a Ford Anglia.

The vehicle on the left is a Bond Minicar. Not the Da’s one, but very similar. As you can see, it’s tiny. The chap who took the Da’s one described them as “the original Mini.” Actually, they’re smaller than that. We were able to fit it into the back of a Transit van for its trip to its new home. Four of us were able to physically pick it up with ease. Picking a car up is the manliest thing I’ve done since that time I ate a steak while smoking a cigar and wearing a Stetson.

To understand the appeal of the Minicar, you need to know a little about the history of motoring in Britain. In 1949, when the first Bonds were built, car ownership in Britain was nothing like as widespread as it is now – cars were simply not affordable for most families. Often, the family runabout, if you had one, would be a motorbike and sidecar (Dad driving, Mum riding pillion, two kids crammed in the sidecar, God hopefully on your side).

Enter Lawrie Bond, an engineer who had made military components during the Second World War. He aimed to produce a small, economical car for the average family, and the Minicar was the result. Period advertisements show a family of four happily chuntering along in their spacious automobile, which suggests that either people were about half the size back then or the publicity department was being economical with the truth. In reality, the Minicar was a very basic vehicle. It used a Villiers motorbike engine with no reverse gear which was actually mounted on the single front wheel. Due to the car’s tiny turning circle, however, the lack of a reverse gear wasn’t a huge issue. The Deluxe version had electric windscreen wipers (believe me, chums, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to clear a windscreen in the driving rain with a manual windscreen wiper).

This basic nature was the main attraction of the vehicle. You see, with its tiny engine and its three wheels, it wasn’t technically a car. Technically, it was a motorbike. You only needed a motorcycle licence to drive one and, crucially, you only had to pay a motorcycle’s road tax, purchase tax and insurance. For all I joke about them, you can see the appeal of such a car to the motorbike-and-sidecar families.

The Da’s is a Mark G, which was first manufactured in 1961. This included such luxuries as opening windows and door locks. The Da’s is notable for the fact that it was the first one with an opening boot (which raises the question of whether early Mark Gs had boots you couldn’t get into) and is thus An Historic Vehicle. Unfortunately, in 1962 a crippling blow was dealt to Bond when the government reduced the tax on four-wheeled cars. Thus, immediately, much of the appeal of the Minicar was gone, and people started to favour cars that might actually get you laid.

Bond produced a follow-up, the 875, which (worryingly) could do up to 100mph. Bond Cars Ltd. was bought up in 1970 by Reliant, whose name is legendary (notorious?) in British motoring circles for the three-wheeled Robin and Regal (best known as Del Boy’s van from Only Fools and Horses) models. However, the Bond name lived on in the form of the utterly bizarre Bond Bug, seen above. This was essentially a sports version of a Reliant Robin, and one can’t help wondering if there was one guy at Reliant who was a bit embarrassed that they’d taken his joke suggestion seriously.

These days, all these three-wheelers – the Minicar, the Robin, the Regal, the 875, the Bug – have a cult following. Perhaps because they’re so unusual, perhaps because they represent a niche market, perhaps because they appeal to the British sense of the ridiculous. If any car personifies the “lovable loser,” it’s the three-wheeler.

"You plonker, 3PO."

One final note. The chap who designed the Bug, Tom Karen, would go on to design the Landspeeder from Star Wars. This means that technically, the Bond Minicar is the ancestor of the Landspeeder. Next time George Lucas decides to tinker with the original films, do you think he could be persuaded to put Luke Skywalker in a Minicar? That would be so awesome.

Oh no! Mutants!

Did I mention that I went to see X-Men: First Class last week? Odd. That sounds like the sort of thing I would have mentioned by now. Well, anyway, I had a period stuck between contracts last week which, long story short, meant I basically had a week off work. What do you do with all that time? Fortunately, Hurricane Jack had a solution: round up all the unemployed, student-types and late shift workers we could get our hands on, hot-foot it over to Kingston and catch an early viewing of a silly film.

The silly film we decided to see was, as you’ve probably gathered from the first sentence of this entry, X-Men: First Class. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s a prequel to the X-Men film franchise set in the early 1960s, examining the early years of Professor X, Magneto, Beast, Mystique and a bunch of X-Men who weren’t in the other films. Still no sign of Dazzler, though.

Comic book movies are always a fine line to tread. Superhero comics are attractive properties – they have lots of wham-bam action, good-looking characters, opportunities for spectacular special effects and as for publicity, well – just let it leak that you’re making a movie based on Green Arrow or Swamp Thing and watch the Internet light up.

Of course, it is possible to screw things up very badly, usually when some director decides that they’re going to ignore everything that made the original character so popular and do their own thing, because they know better. The result tends to be a flop akin to Judge Dredd or (O Christ) Catwoman. Here’s a hint – when you can’t sell Halle Berry in a leather bikini to teenage boys, you are a bad director.

I’m not saying you can’t make changes to the source material – Christopher Nolan’s Batman films take major liberties with the character and his universe, but he also keeps the substantial essence of what makes Batman so enduring. The Dark Knight is not only possibly the best superhero film ever made, but one of the greatest action films of all time.

On the other hand, if you keep things too loyal, you run the risk of encountering what I call “Otto Octavius syndrome.” The thing with a lot of these characters is that they were created in the 1940s or the 1960s, when you could be a little bit campier and a bit sillier. As a result, when you try to adapt them to the modern era and a different medium, you have to try to make that silliness work. So you have to, for instance, add a bit in Spider-Man 2 where a character has to observe, concerning Dr Octopus’ real identity, “Guy named Otto Octavius ends up with eight arms – what are the odds?”

The X-Men franchise has, generally, done pretty well so far. The first two films kept pretty well to the premise of the original comic, which I was surprised to learn had nothing to do with gender reassignment surgery (I made the same mistake with Transmetropolitan). They had all the requisite action and spectacle, but were also intelligent enough to make it acceptable for snobs to watch thanks to their top-notch cast and parallels with the civil and gay rights movements. I liked the scene in the second movie where Iceman “comes out.”

Anyway, then the third movie came out, and that was… less good. Then Wolverine: Origins was released, and I’ve not seen that. I’m told it’s shite, but I’m not going to judge it until I’ve actually seen it. What I do know is that there’s no way Hugh Jackman could have topped his performance in the National’s production of Oklahoma!, which was absolutely superb.

Hurricane Jack assured me that First Class would be nothing like Wolverine, so along we went. My overall verdict was that it wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t a superb movie either. I don’t regret losing the money I paid for it (well, due to a screw-up at the cinema we got in for free, but I wouldn’t regret losing the theoretical money I would have paid for it).

I did like the 1960s setting and the allusions to the culture of that era, so that was good. And there were some excellent performances - I particularly liked James McAvoy’s starring role as Professor X. Patrick Stewart is a hard act to follow, but McAvoy’s portrayal of the character felt convincingly like a younger version without being a slavish imitation.

There were faults, to be sure. Some of the dialogue was embarrassingly clunky (“Would you cover up a tiger?”) and the script tried to cram way too much into the runtime – I know the prequel is supposed to set things up for the original film, but does it have to explain everything? And there was some stuff that was just plain silly. I know Hank McCoy (or Beast, as he’s better known) is supposed to be a genius, but for God’s sake he’s in his early twenties and demonstrates expertise in medicine, aerospace engineering, genetics, chemistry and tailoring. Even I can’t do all that. Or any of it.

From a nerd perspective, there’s the problem of superhero movie diminishing returns – to keep the franchise exciting and appealing, you have to make use of the best characters early on. That shouldn’t be a problem with X-Men, where there are about twelve million characters anyway. Unfortunately, after four films later they’ve used up most of the good ones and so we’re left with characters like Havok (who can fire destructive hula-hoops) and Angel Salvadore (who has insect wings, vomit corrosive chemicals and, presumably, not find her way out of an open window). In the next movie, we’ll be down to Skin and Maggott. Yes, those characters are every bit as awesome as their names make them sound.

The tragic origin of Maggott involves someone thinking of the character, then writing him, then nobody stopping him from being published.

Basically, it’s a pleasing way to spend a couple of hours, but if you didn’t like X-Men already, this probably won’t be the movie to convert you. Still, at least it’s better than bloody Catwoman.

Shameless

Well, the play’s over and done with and now normal service on this blog can be resumed. I was pleased to see that many of the old traditions of the theatre group have been maintained, most notably rather anarchic parties. Speaking personally, I take the business of partying very seriously, and so to this end I attended in the following outfit:

And yes, I am drinking Fosters in that photo. I apologise for nothing. Not even the shirt. Especially not the shirt. Following a rather downer speech to the cast from the director, I was personally in the mood to drink responsibly, in the sense that I wanted to be responsible for a beer shortage. God dammit I went all the way into Soho to get that present, I don’t want no downer speeches. What was my point?

Ah yes. The cast party was held in a flat in Whitton, which regular readers will recall is not far from where the ‘rents live. This meant that, after a short nap on the floor, I was within walking distance of a place to get changed, have a shower and generally recover from my hangover.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the concept of the “walk of shame,” allow me to explain it to you. It’s basically the situation where, following a heavy night, one has to make one’s way home. Of course, unless your home has been repossessed overnight, you’re bound to head home at some point, so allow me to qualify. To qualify for the walk of shame, you must be in a hell of a state. You should be wearing your outfit from the previous night, disshevelled, bonus points if it’s someone else’s outfit. You should ideally be hungover. Hair should be worn lank and in all directions. If female, makeup should be smeared and if male the face should be unshaven. Complexion should be an unhealthy, consumptive shade and staggering is considered highly desirable. You may well be occupying that netherworld where you’re still drunk enough to lack coordination, but hungover enough to be nauseous and in pain. Overall, the effect should be that every drink, every dance move, every inadvisable snog is discernable to the casual passer-by.

I have to say, I’ve always considered the “shame” element to be a misnomer. Now, it’s true that most walks-of-shame happen (for me at least) on a Sunday morning. People out and about that time tend to be, well, the sort of people who get up early on a Sunday morning. You can well imagine how such people in suburban West London react to the above outfit. Today, there were an awful lot of people who, upon seeing me coming, decided they were actually going to walk their dog a different route, or figured that maybe the other side of the road was where they want to be. But here’s my point – why should I be ashamed of the reactions of other people? In one night, I’ve had more fun than they’ve had in their entire life. Screw ‘em, I say. I’m reminded very much of the last few lines of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan:

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Except, you know, instead of “milk of Paradise,” substitute “inexpensive Australian lager.”

Difficult Riders

Now, y’all know I like me some old-fashioned machinery, right? Steam trains, early cars, ships, pumping engines, whatever you got. If it’s weird and mechanical, I’m probably into it.

Epsom. Really early. Sunday.

So when the Da asked if I fancied coming along on the Pioneer Motorcycle  Run last Sunday, you may imagine I fairly leapt at the chance. Or at least, said, “Yeah, cool.” The run, I was informed, was from London to Brighton. As it turns out, it in fact starts from Epsom. On Sunday. At 8am.

The run is, basically, a motorbike-based equivalent of the Veteran Car Run that takes place every November (see Yr. Humble Chronicler’s entry on that subject linked above). It’s organised by the Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club, and this year is the 73rd anniversary. Only bikes built before 1915 may participate (although as you might imagine, there were plenty of more recent classics ridden by the spectators).

Morgan tricycles, really pushing it on the bike classification there.

I have to confess to a lamentable lack of knowledge when it comes to motorcycles – even less than I know about cars - so apologies if this account comes across as the ramblings of an ignorant maniac. But I had no idea of how much variety there was in those early bikes. For instance, on the left you may see a Morgan cyclecar. These were essentially a tax dodge – cars that, by virtue of their engine size and weight were classed as bikes by the Ministry of Transport. They were also cheaper to buy and run. The Reliant Robin and the bubble car are direct descendents of the cyclecar, although small, economical vehicles such as the Mini and the Citroen 2CV pretty much put paid to them.

These days, when cars are nigh-universal, it’s often forgotten that widespread car ownership is a relatively recent phenomenon. Motorbikes with sidecars are something of a novelty these days, but well into the 1960s it was common for such a thing to be the family runabout – Dad in the saddle, Mum riding pillion and the kids crammed into the sidecar. It was just that much more affordable than the latest offering from Morris or Rover. Cyclecars were something of a step up, and the AC Sociable on the right (made at Thames Ditton, London fans) played up in its name the virtues of the cyclecar over the motorcycle combination.

An alternative solution, if you want to carry more than one person, is to stick a seat on the front. Actually, these are car enough to participate in the aforementioned Veteran Car Club run, and several do. Am I the only one who keeps imagining a sort of Edwardian version of Death Proof involving one of these?

I include this photo and the next to illustrate two more varieties of tricycle, but they also coincidentally depict another of my favourite veteran vehicle phenomena – dressing the part. After all, if you’ve gone to all the trouble to get your 190-something bike exactly as it was a century ago, why not go the whole hog and make yourself period-authentic too?

 I think my favourite such item was the deerstalker crash helmet, but alas, the chap wearing it was moving too fast to be photographed. It’s exactly what it sounds like – a tweed-covered crash helmet with earflaps and brim to make it look like the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes didn’t wear.

I also rather liked the names of the manufacturers whose products were participating. Obviously you had the likes of Sunbeam, Norton and Harley Davidson. But then you had companies whose names verged on cockiness – Triumph, Matchless, Zenith Gradua, Premier, Favourite. In some cases, they weren’t just fronting. BSA and Royal Enfield, both of whom were represented here, were actually arms manufacturers for whom motorbikes were just a sideline.

If you were a little more humble or at any rate poorer, you might consider the vehicle depicted on the right. Well, not the entire vehicle. The actual entrant is the thing bolted to the back wheel – the Wall Auto-Wheel. Basically just a wheel with a petrol engine, you’d attach this to your existing bike and zoom away, leaving people agape at your badassery. Until you came to a hill and had to pedal, of course. There’s a rather good article on riding one of these little devils here.

Unfortunately, my ruminations were somewhat spoiled by a sudden feeling of nausea that overcame me. I assumed this was a hangover, before remembering I’d not had anything to drink. It was swiftly followed by a headache, dizziness, loss of vision and a slightly wussy collapse. Apparently I was overcome with the fumes, which is crap.

However, I am assured that the rest of the run went as normal – people zooming around surprisingly fast, a few breakdowns, a lot of running repairs and a massive queue at the bacon roll stand. Nothing to do with the bikes, it’s just that on a Sunday morning when it’s freezing cold, sometimes you just need some bacon in you.

To finish, here are some more photos. Born to be wild, &c.

The Mayor or Epsom and Ewell, Clive Smitheram, sends 'em off.

"Are you sure the BSA van ought to only have a single wheel supporting the cargo space, sir?" "No, but I am sure I have thousands of guns in this room here, so get on with it."