#Mind in Croydon

[insidecroydon]

Active Minds gets busy to receive special award at Guildhall

Boxing clever: members of the Active Minds boxercise class celebrate the news of the London Sport Awards recognition A Croydon-based service which boosts mental well-being through sport and physical activity collected the trophy for the Health and Well-being category at the London Sport Awards at a prestigious ceremony staged at the Guildhall in the City last week. Now in its 16th year, the Mind…

[croydivision]

Crayoladon

Buy the fantastic Croydon Colouring Book here : https://amzn.to/3wd5znC

Embark on a vibrant journey through the heart of Croydon with the Croydon Colouring Book, an artistic masterpiece that captures the essence of this diverse and culturally rich town. This unique colouring book is not just an ordinary collection of pages to fill; it’s a celebration of Croydon’s charm, history, and architectural wonders, all waiting for you to bring them to life with your creative…

[denimbex1986]

'I almost never identify with characters in films. At the moment I can only recall doing so with Phil Connors in Groundhog Day. There’s always something about hanging back, not feeling part of the whole trick of it. That is one of the tremors in Andrew’s Haigh’s film All of Us Strangers, how a whole generation of gay people (I would say queer people, but there’s an exquisite dissection of the difference between the two identities in the film) find themselves subtly apart from the world from a young age, strangers in their own families.

So, I mention that I rarely identify with characters in films just to offset what might now seem like a worrying descent into narcissistic personality disorder. Before I’d even seen the film people who’d seen previews had told me I had to see it, or perhaps, I absolutely should not. Articles I read told me this tale would overlap with so many of my own specific personal experiences. Haigh grew up in a suburban semi in Sanderstead, the actual house featured in the film, in one of the poshest parts of Croydon and also the highest point in the town. This topography Haigh explores early on with vertiginous shots where it feel like we have not just reached the outskirts, but the edge of the world. This is the tipping point, where Andrew Scott’s character Adam – a writer – see-saws from the world of the practical everyday into a ghost world where his long dead parents are still alive, and he can visit them any time he wants to try to achieve the adult relationship he was robbed of. That relationship is particularly important to Adam because as an anxious and bullied gay child he never reconciled his inner and outer lives with them.

So, I grew up in another of Croydon’s highest points, the council estate of New Addington. And my parents died many years back too, when I was in my twenties. Since then I have also become a writer, though one considerably less toned than Andrew Scott. Did I ever feel I reconciled my inner and outer lives with my mum and dad? Well, they never met anyone I dated, and to be honest, at that point I hadn’t really dated anyone. The problem here was, I got on so well with them, too well, really. They acted in some ways as a shield, so that I didn’t have to seek anything other than quick encounters with other men to satisfy the gay part of myself, because all of the other emotional parts were invested in them. They also were terrible at feelings, boxing and hiding everything away. I remember talking to my mum about how sad I was that a guy I liked was going away to Canada. Her response was a brisk don’t be so wet, and that was that. After they died, and I was in my thirties, suddenly I began to have relationships. Had I been hiding this part of myself all along? Why was I now a teenager two decades too late? The first two proper boyfriends I had became an immediate conduit to feelings unconnected to them. My grief at the end of those relationships far outweighed the relationships themselves, feelings I now recognised as entirely displaced from one loss to another. These stunted emotional states are explored in the film, as we see Adam resist opportunities for companionship and love, that part of him seemingly bottled up in the sense of loss he feels for his parents, and an inability to move past it.

What would I feel now, if my parents turned up, still living in our house in Fairchildes Avenue? I passed the house recently, and rather than them waving from the window I saw that the entire front garden they had spent years planting with bits of cuttings from here and there had been ripped up, and a massive SUV sat there on the fresh grey brick paving. Would there be awkwardness reconciling them to my life? Not at all. Would I want to see them again? I think after several decades reconciling myself to their deaths the last thing I could cope with would to be some cheery instant rewind, a matter of fact return to my life. Grief is about distancing yourself, protecting yourself. There can be no distance or protection if the barrier between life and death could be so porous and two-way. Adam handles that side of it remarkably well. Even the thought of that makes me feel a bit shaky.

But there are other currents too. Growing up in the era of the AIDS crisis leaves Adam with a fear of sex that does not easily go away, just as it did for so many of us. You can never really dissolve away something so deeply held, it has to be fought over and again, different situations and people bringing it to the surface in new ways all the time. He summons that era with music that takes us back to that moment of crisis. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love (‘I’ll protect you from the Hooded Claw, keep the vampires from your door’). Blur’s Death of a Party (‘Should have slept alone’). And a banging tale of loneliness, Pet Shop Boys’ I Want a Dog. Loneliness is the upshot of these anxieties. Never trusting or relating to other, shutting yourself away, engaging superficially, but never really there, like a ghost. The club scene was shot at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, a place I went every Saturday night for 15 years, to Duckie. Again and again the film walked over my grave.

Perhaps the most curious aspect for me, is that it is based on a book, Strangers by Taichi Yamada, that I worked on the marketing for when it was first published in English by Faber and Faber. I remember it being a really hard book to talk about, because it was as much an atmosphere piece as it was a story. The ghosts of Hideo Harada’s parents aren’t presented to scare or shock, this isn’t a ghost story for effect, instead using the idea of ghosts as memory to slide in and out of a life story. The ghosts are presented as flatly normal, just as they are in the film. My recollection of the book was its quesy tone of sickness and distortion, and the film starts off so matterof factly I wondered if it might be going for something quite different. But instead Haigh introduces the darker tone gradually. As a ghost story the film is not about the supernatural in the way that traditional horror or genre fiction might be, rather it feels like The Shining or The Innocents, where the memories and the clues suggest this might be all in the head rather than actually literally happening. Strangers was one of the best books I worked on, and it has stayed with me, much as I’m sure this film version will too.

So, now I have another high concept film I can identify with, one with fewer bleak jokes about living your worst life than Groundhog Day. All of Us Strangers is for all of us strangers, I realise that from the reaction it has had. But it can also mean something particularly personal to me, I can allow that too. The book, the place, the time, the era, the anxieties, the lost parents, the club, the grief, the depression, the loneliness, the empty towers, the ghost suburbs. Last year I felt I wrote a lot of maudlin stuff like this, and I decided to stop that. Well, thanks, Andrew Haigh. Thanks a bunch.'

[rushingheadlong]

A (possibly) previously-unseen article about 1984

At least it's new to me :) Very interesting to see the band described as a "psychedelic" group, and there's some nice bits here from Brian and Tim too!

Originally printed in the 17 February 1967 issue of the Middlesex Chronicle. (Open in a new tab for better quality)

Pop Notes by Ray Hammond

(Image caption - The 1984 pop group, left to right: Tim Staffell, Dave Dilloway, Richard Thompson, John Garnham, and Brian May.)

Futuristic group

What will pop music be like in 1984? One group who thinks it has the answer to this question is based in Twickenham and called, of course, "1984".

The group comprises vocalist Tim Staffell, who lives in Teddington, bass man Dave Dilloway, from Whitton, lead guitar Brian (Brimi) May, from Feltham, rhythmist John Garnham, from Teddington, and drummer Richard Thompson, from Hounslow. They are all 19 years old except John, who is 20.

I talked the other evening to the boys about their group, their ideas and their plans for the future. "The psychedelic music is certainly here to stay," said Tim. "It makes more of music than mere sound, it makes it a whole and complete art form."

On stage

The boys told me about their stage performances. Dave said: "We use everything in our act, including things like shaving foam, and plastic bricks that we throw around." Dave, as well as playing bass, also rigs lighting to the group's requirements to provide the "psychedelic experiences".

Although the group have been playing for over a year - is [sic] was founded first at Hampton Grammar School - the boys have only recently had enough experience and equipment to become serious semi-professionals.

Last month the group won an area semi-final at Croydon in a national talent search, and it is now awaiting news of the national winners, who will have the chance of a test recording for a major record company.

There are problems that stand in the way of success though. Four of the group are students and in consequence they have not got unlimited time and money to give to group work. Brian stated his personal ambition as being "able to play well enough to respect ourselves," and while this sentiment is echoed by the rest of the group, it was obvious that big success is the wish of most members.

The boys show their many talents on stage. Brian made his own guitar (the product is amazing. It is in many ways superior to the mass-produced instruments, and has a wiring system that Brian has built and designed). All stage electronics are handled by Dave.

New ideas are always formulating in Tim's mind, although he is keeping quiet about some which he calls "the most revolutionary."

After we had finished chatting, the boys went back to their instruments and gave vent to several numbers.

Treatments

Standards like "Heatwave," receive a very original treatment, mostly due to the sounds that Brian coaxes out of his guitar. Jazz chords and electronic sounds add feeling and nuance to numbers that are often churned out wholesale.

Using two bass drums for a fuller sound, Richard's drumming, combined with the full bass riffs and the steady work of John, provides a firm basis for experiments in sound - an opportunity which is not wasted.

Whatever does happen to pop music in 1984, I hope that the teenagers then will have the chance to hear excitement of the type that is generated by "1984", one of the most forward looking groups today.

[march-hare01]

Article by: GTHO bible

“It was love at first sight,” is how Gary Thompson remembers the night he saw his 1970 Falcon GTHO Phase Two for the first time.

“It was up on stands on the lot at John Gigante Motors on Parramatta Road in Croydon,” reminisces Gary today from his home in Mount Annan, New South Wales.

“My friend Paul Bianco and I were headed to the ‘brickies’ for some street racing action.

We had just driven by when the bright orange of the car caught my eye, and we immediately turned around to go drool over it,” remembers Gary. “They wanted around $4,200 for it. The salesman didn’t mind letting a 21 year old behind the wheel of such a powerful beast either!” After the road test, Gary talked turkey with the salesman clinching a deal that afternoon which included a then nine month old Electric Blue 351 XY Falcon 500. “They gave me $3,000 as a trade-in,” smiles Gary. This was fifty one years ago back in 1972, and the barely one-year old Falcon GTHO was just out of warranty and had just been traded-in by its first owner.

*** I’LL NEVER FORGET THE NIGHT THE FLYWHEEL EXPLODED THROUGH THE BONNET! ***

“I’d had the Phase Two for just ten days when my good mate Paul who was the test driver for Jack Brabham Ford where we both worked, lined me up to race his peppermint green Lotus twin-cam Mk1 Escort.” “We’d taken off in a symphony of noise, dust and wheel spin.I was revving the HO to 7,200rpm in 1st gear when I clutched to change to 2nd gear. We were flat out side by side on Newbridge Road at Moorebank, it was just before midnight.”“There was a loud bang! Then everything went pitch black.”“I had no headlights, and no dash lights. The electricals had been cut completely.” “Thunder struck, here I was doing 70 mile per hour trying to steer the big Falcon in complete darkness as I slammed on the brakes.My foot went straight to the floorboards and it took me a second to register that I was steering a runaway freight train!” tells Gary as he relives those harrowing frightening moments gripping the thin steering wheel with white knuckles whilst attempting to pull up a ton and a half of an out of control hunk of metal. If anybody had been watching this event unfold, they would have heard a loud explosion, and witnessed pieces of flywheel shrapnel explode through a bulging bonnet, and sparks coming from under the car where the rear of the engine block was tearing up the road. The gearbox bellhousing had also taken leave with the exploding flywheel, leaving Gary with a gearbox full of neutrals. “I was about a kilometre down the road before I came to a stop.”“Paul’s Escort had also suffered shrapnel wounds lodged from projectile bits of the flywheel embedded in his door panels.”“My ten day old car looked like it had been struck by lightning.”“It’s bonnet bulged upwards with a huge gaping hole where 20 ounces of flywheel had exited like an Apollo 11 rocket. The engine was now pointing skywards pressing against the underside of the bonnet.” A tow truck was quickly called from a nearby phone box, and the damaged Falcon GTHO taken to a local panel beater. “The next morning I was told it would be a write-off,” tells Gary, who then decided to have the car taken to another panel shop instead. “I’ll never forget the night the flywheel exploded,” says Gary. Two weeks later the Falcon was all repaired like new again. “The panel shop had offered me an XY GT style bonnet which came complete with air-scoop shaker assembly left over from a Falcon GT. The original XW grille was left on, but we added later model XY taillights.” Gary opted to remove the original black GT side stripes, “We did this for no other reason than to make it look different.” Mechanics at Jack Brabham Ford rebuilt the original motor with new bearings, and fitted a steel flywheel instead of the cast iron factory unit which had exploded into a million pieces. “They even had to repair the dowels at the back of the engine block which had broken off when the motor scraped along the road! The gearbox input shaft also needed to be replaced because it was bent like a banana. We ended up fitting after-market extractors as the original exhaust manifolds had been severely damaged. Before having the engine repaired, Gary who worked in spare parts at Jack Brabham Ford knew John Goss from McLeod Ford. “I had actually bought his ex-race car motor from his Phase Three GTHO for $300. I was going to rebuild it, but it was cheaper to repair my original engine. I sold this bare motor, less the Phase Three race camshaft which a mate fitted to his car, and broke even getting my money back on the whole deal. Originally registered with GT-187 number plates, the HO was re-registered with GT-388 after the repair. Gary kept his Falcon GTHO for a few years after this, and vividly remembers the first time he took it off the clock winding it past 140 miles per hour. “My wife and I were returning from my in-law’s house in Queanbeyan, and as we went through the township of Collector along the Federal Highway, a small Datsun 1600 was right on my backside along the windey bits.

“On the first open straight of road, I took the HO off the clock!”

“My nervous wife looked at the speedo and said ‘it’s on the H where it reads MPH (miles per hour)’.”“I took her word for it.”

“I wasn’t game to take my eyes off the road at that speed!” laughs Gary now.

Five decades would pass before Gary laid teary eyes on his old bright orange Falcon, which is now in the hands of Melbourne collector Joe Barca.

“I never thought I’d ever see my GTHO again,” says Gary in disbelief.

“I was thunder struck again, this time though by the condition it’s in now which is better than it was new!”

Chris Dent from Falcon GT Restorations in Sydney had completely restored this super-rare Ford for a previous owner to a Gold standard Concours condition, resulting in winning the Grand Champion

‘The Best Car of Show’ at the 2015 Falcon GT Nationals.

The current owner Joe tells,

“It had won every category in the show it was entered in.

It cleaned up every trophy! I had to have it.”

It was this moment that Joe knew he had to buy this outstanding GTHO should it ever come up for sale.

As chance would have it, not long after the Falcon came onto the market for sale by tender, and Joe was the successful bidder paying $500,000 for this very special one-of-a-kind car.

“It’s also my wife Debbie’s favourite colour,” states Joe with a wink, as he justifies this expensive purchase.

This said, the Phase Two isn’t Joe’s first rodeo as he’s owned many Falcon GTs and probably more GTHOs than anyone else on the planet.

Unbeknownst to Joe at the time, Gary Thompson the former owner was also the under-bidder who wanted to get his old car back.

Gary’s son Trent then arranged for his dad to see his old Falcon.

“As you can see Dad was very teary seeing it again,” says Trent.

“At least he got to sit behind the wheel again.”

It was at this time that Joe learnt more about this car’s history from Gary who shared his story and photos about the night the flywheel exploded.

This helped Joe to make sense of some minor existing battle scars in the transmission tunnel on the car.

[companion-showdown]

Most Tragic Departure Contestant list

most tragic departure is sailing ahead, so might as well start working on the list now

note, a companion's departure is considered to be when they stop travelling (or working at UNIT) with the Doctor long term, not the last time we see them, so, for example, Rose's departure is Doomsday, not Journey's End or the End of Time, Jack's the Parting of the Ways, Martha's The Last of the Time Lords, etc

Susan Foreman (maybe she wanted to leave, but the doctor did lock her out, so we'll never know)

Katarina (dead)

Sara Kingdom (dead)

Dodo (sent to the country to recuperate from hypnotism, never seen again)

Jamie McCrimmon (memory wipe)

Zoe Heriot (memory wipe)

Mike Yates (betrayed everyone)

Sarah-Jane Smith (forced to leave because the Doctor got called back to Gallifrey, also she got left in Aberdeen, not Croydon)

Adric (dead)

Peri (???)

Ace (Ground Zero: dies in Nitro-9 explosion, Love and War: The Doctor kills her fiance)

Jack (abandonned)

Rose (stuck on parallel earth)

Astrid Peth (dead)

Donna (memory wipe)

Amy (Dead)

Rory (Dead)

River? (I guess Forest of the Dead counts as her departure, and she basically died, so...)

Clara(limbo between life and death, doctor doesn't remember her)

Nardole (would die shortly after)

Bill (cyberconverted)

Missy (came round to the doctor's way of thinking, got shot by past incarnation before she could go back and help)

Lucie Miller (dead)

Oliver Harper (dead)

C'rizz (dead)

Bret Vyon (dead)

Gillian and John (left behind)

Chris Cwej (left behind on gallifrey, memory wiped)

Roz Forrester (dead)

Fitz Kreiner (left behind)

Samson and Gemma (mind controlled and memory wiped by daleks)

Charley Pollard (going to need more context for this one)

[mariana-oconnor]

The Cardboard Box pt 1

An uninspiring title, but apparently it's controversial? All my brain is thinking (I am still le tired) is 'Big fish, little fish, cardboard box' over and over again.

If you don't get that reference, that's probably for the best. the early noughties were weird.

Anyway. I hereby do swear that this time I shall read the text more carefully and all my claims, accusations and harebrained ideas will be based in textual evidence and not mere vibes alone. One cannot thrive on vibes alone!

I'm going to try anyway. I may still dislike characters on principle, though.

He did however take a particular fancy to some of the paragraphs at the beginning of the tale and urged me adapt them for later revisions of my story ‘The Resident Patient’, which I sent to you in January.

OK, so is this going to be an AU version of The Resident Patient? Because I feel like that gives me a head start on the guessing.

I did a side by side of the two and overall it seems pretty much the same, except we're now in August and it's blazing hot. I shudder to think how Watson would have described August in the UK last year. Then we have the discussion about Holmes reading Watson's mind body language. Until we get to the first significant difference:

"Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?” "No, I saw nothing."

Aha, the titular cardboard box, one wonders?

Watson is really falling behind in his paper reading duties. Holmes is doing all the legwork here. Honestly. You just can't get a good chronicler these days! But he's still making Watson read it aloud.

Holmes does like hearing things read aloud. He'd be all over audiobooks, but he's got Watson for that so it's all good.

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

Ooooh, I think I might remember a bit of this one. I might remember what's in the box, anyway.

Sorry, that was my contractual obligation.

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident."

If it's what I think it is then practical jokes were significantly more aggressive in the Victorian Era. I don't think even TikTok has graduated to this level. We're getting a pretty weird look at the 1800s English sense of humour: beating other children with sticks and... this.

"A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt."

Everyone needs some seasoning on their... "two human ears [...] quite freshly severed".

Okay, poor taste, poor taste. I know it's there for preservation. Also weirdly I thought it was going to be fingers. Don't know why I thought that. But yes, this is quite the jape, my friend. I just cut off some human ears and sent them to you.

How is this a practical joke? These are genuine freshly cut ears. Even if they're from a cadaver, that's theft and criminal damage at the very least. Isn't it? And I thought they were particularly strict on stuff like that in the 1800s. We're a little late for the Resurrection Man and Burke and Hare, but they did not like people messing around with corpses.

Okay, research research: 'The Anatomy Act of 1832 made it legal for corpses from workhouses that remained unclaimed after forty-eight hours to be used to satisfy the demands of the anatomists.'

Welp, I guess it was okay to do anything to corpses if they were the corpses of poor people with no friends or family (or at least no friends/family who could afford to claim them).

I mean, on one hand it stopped people from being murdered and science needed bodies to learn how bodies work better (good lord did we need to learn how bodies work better) but on the other hand, this does make me uncomfortable. Workhouse in life, still put to work in death. Also, from a purely scientific viewpoint, your sample is biased. You need some rich people bodies in there, too.

"There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post."

So, either she's secretly running an underground crime ring. Or the ears were meant for someone else with the name S. Cushing.

"...she let apartments in her house to three young medical students..."

Oh, yeah, fine. All makes sense now. Medical students are fucking feral. I have met literally one in my life who I would have been comfortable to have as a doctor, and I think he was just really good at hiding it. Guy once got 'kidnapped' by an entire female hockey team and ended up in an entirely different city. Another one I know just kept a dead squirrel in the shared freezer so he could do dissection practice on it.

I'd put the Dead Dove, Do Not Eat gif, but he didn't even label the fucker.

"...their noisy and irregular habits..."

Medical students... yeah.

"In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”

Oh hai, Lestrade!

At least the police are putting an actual detective on the case and not just saying 'oh it's a silly prank' and ignoring the transportation of human body parts. Was it illegal to send human remains by the royal mail at that time?

“I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon."

'We're totally going to do this, we just don't have... any idea how. But we totally could!'

"The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way."

Did somebody say... TOBACCO?

A specialist subject has entered the chat.

If Holmes doesn't use his extensive and very detailed knowledge of tobacco to help solve this case, I will be v. disappoint.

Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever...

Watson is contractually obliged to remind you that Lestrade looks like a ferret every time he appears. His publisher insists on it.

I'm informed that an antimacassar is an arm cover for an armchair or sofa. My Nana used to have them. They had tassels and I'd get told off for plaiting the threads in the tassels together. Good times.

“Why in my presence, sir?” “In case he wished to ask any questions.” “What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?”

Miss Cushing has very strong Done With This energy and I am here for it. Those are not her ears. She has perfectly good ones thank you very much, and she does not need any more. Why are you still bothering her?

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”

Holmes once again showing that he does have emotional intelligence no matter what people might think.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”

Oh, not the tobacco knowledge, but the knot knowledge. I see 'peculiar' and 'knot' in the same sentence and I immediately think 'sailing'.

Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has been originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.

Our sender has poor handwriting and poor spelling, then. The 'wrong person' theory is growing stronger. The likelihood that Miss Cushing is a criminal mastermind diminshes. Shame.

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he examined them minutely.

Is he wearing gloves? Please tell me he's wearing gloves.

“Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it."

This feels like something the police should already have noticed. If the questions are 'Where did these ears come from? Has a crime been committed?' you would think someone would have considered whether they were from a preserved corpse or someone fresh. I know that policing has changed a lot since then and forensic medicine wasn't really a thing, but clearly they suspected foul play was a possibility, because Lestrade called for Holmes.

"We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time."

Oh, Lestrade. The things you can do without leaving your home. She might have anyone buried under the floorboards. She might have been sending blackmail letters to her neighbours. She might have been doing any number of things. I still think the wrong person got the parcel, but saying that she's just too respectable for this is very optimistic of you.

I do agree that if she knew what the ears were about, she probably wouldn't have told anyone about them. Unless she's in such a secure position that she doesn't think anyone would ever trace anything back to her. In most situations, it wouldn't be the best move.

"One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring."

Did no men wear earrings in Victorian times? Admittedly, probably not 'respectable' men, but the knot's already pointing me at sailor (as is the tarring on the string, tbh) and it used to be a thing that tattoos were mostly a sailor thing over here, and piercing is a similar kind of body art. So a woman or a sailor with small ears.

omg. pirates.

"The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring."

Oh, okay, so the earring wasn't the thing. Doesn't prevent the first ear from belonging to a small pirate, though. Sunburned also makes me think sailors. They have to be outside a lot with no shade. Sunburn on your ears is the worst. They have my sincere sympathy.

Also, y'know, cause they got their ear cut off - with a blunt blade, which... eesh.

"These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now."

I mean, they could have been kidnapped and this could be proof of life. These days if you get an unsolicited body part in the real life mail the mind does go to kidnapping. Maybe that originates here - but they have no way of knowing whether the ear was detached ante or post mortem at this point, do they? So it's more proof of having, rather than proof of life. And I don't think I'd recognise my friends or family by their ears, so it's not even really that. If the earrings had been attached then I might recognise them.

Yeah... s'weird. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're dead. Although... Victorian hygiene and understanding of germ theory.

...

Yeah, they've got sepsis. They're dead.

Question spiral! Holmes just asking himself question after question is very relatable. And bringing up all relevant points about how if Miss Cushing knows what's going on, taking the ears to the police but telling them nothing is the weirdest possible response.

I'm assuming that the subject of this email is wrong, because if this is part 1 of 1, there is no conclusion to this story and so without further evidence, I am forced to believe that one large pirate and one small pirate, genders unknown, are currently dead/dying of sepsis and the true recipient of these ears, M. S Cushing (any or all letters interchangeable) has heard nothing of their fate. Although, given it was in the newspaper, they probably have heard about it by now. So maybe they don't need the ears.

No idea why the ears were sent though. Proof of a hit? Proof of life? Just a creepy serial killer who likes to send the ears of their past victim to their next victim? Probably not that one, seems a bit Criminal Minds for a Sherlock Holmes story, but you never know.

[natequarter]

a more detailed version of my era shift au:

the captain is a roman soldier. he's the oldest ghost around, and the rest of the ghosts know fuck all about him, including how he got the name captain, or why he's not wearing roman armour, or, you know, how he died...

pat is an anglo-saxon bard who went to the trouble of writing his own poems - but his wife's lover stole it from him, and he's spent the last thousand or so years angry at that rather than fact that he was murdered after getting caught up in a tavern brawl. priorities, man

fanny (originally stephanie, centuries later dubbed fanny by kitty) is a medieval noblewoman married off to (insert title here) george. her cause of death is a mystery lost to history - was it an accident? was it murder? was it a suicide? if they'd just look in a mirror, they would quite literally see the answer staring back at them and yelling at them to wear their hair up properly, disgraceful whores!

thomas thorne is a young nobleman of the 1490s, determined to prove his worth to the lady isabelle in a jousting tournament. too bad that francis clanged him over the head with some heavy metal object. he fell face-forwards and died. convinced that if he just practices enough, he might someday become good at jousting (this is not true)

julian is also a nobleman - a stuart under charles ii this time. it's a bit too early for the time period, but picture the earl of croydon in bill, and you've more or less got the vibe. not actually the owner of button house: he was caught sleeping with the real owner's wife, and beheaded in a fit of rage

mary is a servant from the 1850s. the east wing of button house burnt down after some idiot left a candle burning during the night by accident; nobody else died, because the rest of the household awoke in time to put the fire out, but mary choked on the smoke, and has been very bitter that no one managed to save her ever since

kitty is a stylish young woman of the 1930s. she was invited to a dinner party in the style of an agatha christie murder mystery... unfortunately, this took a far too literal turn when her sister actually did poison her. kitty is half annoyed at being murdered and half kind of vibing with the whole real life murder mystery vibe she has going on, and has been enthusiastically following the attempts to solve the kitty case (as she likes to put it)

humphrey is an ex-soldier and painter who died in the mid-1950s. he was unwillingly drafted into ww2, but managed to survive, go back home, and eventually escape to the countryside and rent out heather button's gatehouse, a welcome break from a post-war world which for a post-war mind was incredibly stressful. he painted and sold landscapes for several years. things were finally looking up! oh, and then he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. absolutely shit way to go after living through two world wars

and finally there's robin, an early 2000s conspiracy theorist who thought gravity wasn't real, tested his hypothesis by jumping out a window, and was very, fatally wrong. his nokia brick is still going strong though

[rachelchinouriri]

I’m making it clear rn. Don’t play with my people

I’ll be honest, yesterday I started feeling angry, it was very small but it was anger. Nowadays I only get angry if things affects me from people I know well in real life or the people around me that I love. The darlings are people that surround me. To be honest, my darlings consume my life every single day in weird and wacky ways and I love them for it. It’s the reason I keep going even on a bad day. But I got angry after noticing one of my darlings might have been getting cyber bullied and anyone who knows me knows, I very rarely/it takes a lot for me to be mad… but damn.

I handled it well for sure, but it made me reflect on what will happen as this fandom grows. I took a mature route yesterday as the situation was minor and stopped quickly, but if in the future, anyone came for my fans… I discovered yesterday … I’d probably lose my shit in an ugly way. I need to work on that for sure because that stems from the environment I grew up in aka being from croydon LOL. Trauma is so funny. Trauma has always taught me to prepare for the worst, nothings even happened but I’m already thinking about future scenarios and weighing the options of how far I’d take it to defend my people lol. Isn’t it so strange how the brain works

I’ve wrote this whole thing in 5 minutes and I will probably forget it ever exists in a few months. This thought is barely even a fragment of my mind… it’s so far back in my mind right now but has the potential to grow and I’m choosing to entertain the thought right now, because I like to pick at my brain and have the ability to tap into different parts of it. Tomorrow I might completely change my mind about this post and disagree with it… but the internet just doesn’t seem to get that the mind works in such weird and wacky ways and my thoughts and mind can change in an instant

That’s the beauty of humans, all humans have a beauty to them at their core even if they make fucked up decisions. I’m giving scorpio right now. I’m a scorpio, Pisces, Scorpio, scorpio, scorpio LOL. Deep af. But I guess that’s why any little story can be made into a song for me. I love that trait about me on the good days. But anyways, gonna go about my day now

Moral of the story: don’t fuck with my darlings idc who you are I will cuss you out then forgive you after x

[insidecroydon]

Charities shocked to find council set to sell their buildings

Under threat: Mind in Croydon fear the council could soon sell the building in South Croydon that their rent Not content with withdrawing all grant aid from the borough’s voluntary groups, cash-strapped Croydon Council is now looking at making 17 charities and community groups effectively homeless by selling the buildings that they currently use. At the start of the year, as well as hiking…

[ailendolin]

for the prompts, maybe 9 for Gabrian, please~?

Thank you so much for the prompt "Trust" for these two! I hope you enjoy this little post-movie ficlet!

List of prompts is here. Filled prompts are here, here, here and here on AO3.

Prompts are closed.

————

Chance Meeting

It was a coincidence, really, that Gabriel was passing by the Earl of Croydon’s house just when Ian was roughly being shoved out of the front door by a guard. She had been on her way to the market but all thoughts of buying fabrics for Bill’s latest play fled her mind when she saw Ian stumble down the stairs and land hard on his knees in the mud. A small bag of belongings landed next to him in the street.

“Now get lost!” the guard growled before he carefully locked the house behind him. He left without sparing Ian a second glance and Gabriel stood there for a moment, shocked. She’d known Croydon’s house was to be cleared out this week and that Ian, being Croydon’s former servant, had been tasked with doing the packing up – Bill had told her as much after his latest talk with the Earl of Southampton. She hadn’t known that Ian would be treated like a common thief, though. Seeing him get kicked out of what was, essentially, his home by a stranger as if he were no better than a common household pest made her blood boil.  

She had half a mind of going after the guard and giving him a piece of her mind when movement across the street caught her attention. Ian was shakily getting to his feet and the slow way in which he moved made it glaringly obvious that that poor leg of his hadn’t gotten a chance to heal over the last few days. It took him far longer than it should have to find his balance and when he finally did, his leg trembled visibly. He made quite a sorry sight as he stood there, dripping mud and with his few belongings lying at his feet. Gabriel had been in his place once, a long time ago, and when his attempt to retrieve his bag made him wince in barely suppressed pain her old back injury twinged in sympathy.

“Wait, let me help you,” she said and hurried across the street. She picked up the bag – it was awfully light – and handed it to him.

“You’re – you’re one of them,” Ian said shakily and took an unsteady step backwards. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost and Gabriel didn’t blame him. She’d still been an assassin the last time they’d met, and he didn’t seem to have heard that the queen had granted her asylum.

“Not anymore,” she said with her best reassuring smile. “I’m working for Bill now – Bill Shakespeare? The man who wrote the play?”

Ian swallowed hard and clutched his belongings more tightly against his chest. “I – I had nothing to do with what happened with Mr Shakespeare’s wife or – or Mr Marlow, I swear!”

He took another step away from her and his injured leg slipped on the muddy ground. Acting purely on instinct, Gabriel’s arms shot out to steady him.

“Careful,” she said softly and released him once she was sure his leg would bear his weight.

“Thank you,” Ian whispered without looking at her. “Are you going to stab me now?”

Gabriel laughed because otherwise she might cry. “Of course not. I tried to tell you: I work for Bill now – as a seamstress.”

“Oh,” Ian said and finally dared to look at her. “Congratulations?”

This time, Gabriel’s laugh was more genuine. “Thank you. They’re really good people – and they happen to be looking for someone to take care of their house here in London.”

Ian blinked. “You – you can’t mean me.”

“Why not?” Gabriel asked. “You’re a hard worker. I’ve seen that myself. And you’re out of a job, are you not?”

“Yes, but – I’ve worked for Croydon,” Ian said, resigned. “No one in their right mind would want to employ me after what happened. And Mr Shakespeare has more reason than most not to want me under his roof.”

Gabriel shook her head. “If Anne and Bill can forgive me for the part I played in the plot, they can certainly forgive you for just doing your job.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Ian mumbled, looking down at his feet.

“Well, I am,” Gabriel said and, taking matters into her own hands – literally – gently took hold of his arm. “Please, just come and have dinner with us. Trust me: they’ll be glad to see you.”

“No one is ever glad to see me,” Ian muttered.

Gabriel knew what that felt like only too well.  

“That’s not true,” she said softly. “I was glad to see you, just now. We’ve been wondering what had happened to you – Anne, Bill and I.” She paused. “I did not lie when I said you would be welcome in their home.”

She knew it would take a long time for Ian to trust her – to trust anyone, really, after the way he had been treated by Croydon for years – but when he tentatively nodded and allowed her to lead him down the street, Gabriel felt her heart lift with hope. Hope that he would let them help him, that he might stay–

That perhaps one day, he would look at her and see a friend rather than someone he should fear.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, as people know, I watched a lot of panel shows during lockdown. Too many panel shows during lockdown. My friends were all sending messages about mentally suffering from the lack of human contact, and I was saying I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve seen every single episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats in the last month and I’m fine. Do you want to hear about it? No? Fine, I’ll create a Tumblr blog and tell them about it instead and the only cost will be that by a couple of years later I’ll have totally emotionally disconnected from the real life I used to have. Like I said, my mental health responded really well to lockdowns.

Anyway, that had some less dark effects on my mind as well, one of which is that at some point, British accents started to be the ones I expected to hear. Because I was listening to them all day, and never interacting with anyone in person, I didn’t hear the Canadian accent of myself or the people I know for ages, I just heard these British ones. It maybe didn’t help that I got so focused on the accents specifically, as I tried to overcome my tone-deafness and learn to tell the difference among the 300,000 known British accents that are out there so I could get the jokes based on them, and I mostly failed in my quest but I can at least reliably tell Scottish apart from Welsh apart from Yorkshire apart from Croydon these days. Also I know what Croydon is. (I already knew what Yorkshire was, due to the Monty Python sketch.)

Anyway, I spent so much time buried in that media that when I did start occasionally interacting with humans again (not even when most restrictions were lifted, but when I went to stay with my parents for a while because they were worried about the agoraphobia I was developing/the lockdowns were clearly validating the agoraphobia I had always been prone to but hadn’t been able to enforce due to my lifestyle), I realized their accents sounded slightly strange to me. Not really weird or anything, I’d just hear them and get a tiny sense of “Oh, that’s different from how most people talk.” Even though it is how I talk and how everyone I know talks.

(Please note: I did not actually say this to anyone I knew, including my parents. Because I am aware of the stereotype of a person who goes to Europe for a few weeks and comes back pretending that they’re European now. And the only thing I can think of that would be worse than that is someone who manages to have picked that up by not even going over there, just spending many months locked in a room watching their TV shows. I did not walk around telling people they sound funny because I’m used to British accents now. I am also pleased to say I can confirm that no amount of concentrated panel show watching is enough for me to pick up a British accent myself, though I have normalized a few of their phrases in my head from all the Britcom, I have to stop myself from saying “football” instead of “soccer��� on the rare occasions when that word comes up in my real life because I do not want to sound like I think I’m British now. I just genuinely hear that sport referenced constantly in my British media and almost never in my Canadian life, so the word for it in my head has changed. There are two or three other things like that, where my own vocabulary’s drifted toward British-isms as a result of the last few years, but mostly, any British-isms in my vocabulary are there because I read a lot of Phillip Pullman and Harry Potter and CS Lewis and Douglas Adams as a kid, and I picked up words from there, not thinking I was trying to “talk British”, I was just young enough to still frequently learn new words and expressions and I thought the stuff I came across in those books were just regular things I didn’t already know so I incorporated them into my speech and by the time I realized they’re not used here I’d already solidified the habit. Point being that I’ve been saying “brilliant” since long before 2020, and I can get away with little things like that because “brilliant” is a word that means the same thing in Canada and just isn’t used as often – it’s not like I use a word like “trousers” or something that we don’t have here at all. As for the actual accents, the only British accent I can sort of do a tiny bit is Glaswegian, but I can only do it while saying words that Jamie MacDonald said in The Thick of It, because I’ve spent so much time quoting him over the years that I think I can imitate him a bit. If you heard my Glaswegian accent you’d think it was bad, and you’d be right, but it would still be true that I can do it better than any other accents I’ve ever tried. It’s the tone deafness again. People have asked me before why I’ve never tried making music when deep love of music has always been such a big part of my life, and I tell them I don’t even have the auditory processing capability to tell an English from an Australian accent, I sure as hell can’t sing or play an instrument. I realize I’m getting quite far off the point by now. Back to the post.)

Since then, I’m pleased to say I’ve stopped having that feeling in real life, and have gone back to expecting the people around me to talk with Canadian accents, with no little twinge of “oh, that’s a bit different” when I hear it. However, I do still get that with media. I watch British TV and think they’re all talking normally, for how people on TV are meant to talk. I almost never watch American or Canadian TV anymore, so when I do occasionally put on an episode of 30 Rock or something, my brain will have a brief little jolt of “Oh, that’s a notably different accent” when the characters start talking in the exact same exact that I and everyone I know have (non-region-specific American accents = the same as non-region-specific Canadian accents, I’m almost sure, though I’ve had some people tell me there’s a slight difference and maybe I just don’t hear it due to the tone-deafness).

There is one exception to this, as I realized yesterday. I was watching a British TV show that featured children, and that sounded odd to me. It gave me that brief moment of thinking “Oh, that’s interesting, that’s a bit of a different way of speaking than I’m used to.” And I realized that while I’ve gotten very used to hearing adults be British on TV – so used to it that it sounds a bit weird when anyone on TV isn’t British now – I have rarely heard a British accent in a child’s voice. That still sounds like a surprising foreign accent to me.

Anyway, this was an overly long post in which I was just trying to give enough context to say: it turns out that I don’t expect children to be British, and my brain is slightly shocked by the idea. I am travelling to London and Edinburgh this summer, and as much as I think I have obsessively learned about British culture to the point where it's normalized in my head, I'm kind of looking forward to finding out what other things exist in British real life but not in British comedic media so I'll be surprised to see them when I get there. Things like children being British.

[denimbex1986]

'Is it possible to look forward to something that you know is going to emotionally destroy you? That’s the un-namable feeling that was stirred in many upon watching the trailer for Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers; which features Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in a haunted love story.

As it turns out, watching the full film is an even more white-knuckle assault on the soul, and long after stepping out from the cinema, All Of Us Strangers will haunt you like the spectres that appear in the story. But once you’ve picked through all the emotional rubble, what happened in the ending, and what does it all mean? Spoilers, obviously, ahead…

Adapted from the 1987 Japanese novel, Strangers, by Taichi Yamada, Scott plays Adam, a gay scriptwriter who lives – almost – alone in a Ballardian high-rise building in London. As he struggles to write a story, based on his family, he revisits his family home in the suburbs near Croydon (actually Haigh’s own childhood home), only to find his deceased parents (played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) – who died when he was 12 in a car crash – still living there, stuck in the ‘80s era in which he last saw them. They invite him in to catch up on the years past between them.

Running concurrent to these apparitions, he then meets Harry (Mescal), a man who lives in the same apartment block, and who, once Adam lets in, both literally and emotionally, they go on to have a passionate yet nurturing relationship. Both men address their sexuality: Adam lets his guard down, and Harry appears to be an antidote to his insecurity about his queerness, the loss of his parents and his loneliness.

Ending explained

After the clubbing scene – one of the most realistic on-screen depictions of a hedonistic night out in recent memory – Adam’s reverie in having his parents “back” and being secure in a loving relationship with Harry all starts to unravel.

He’s told by Harry that, while high on ketamine in the club, he had a meltdown, screaming out for his mum and dad, and that Harry had to take him home. Adam then decides to let Harry in on his visits, taking him home to see his parents. Though Harry appears to catch a glimpse of them, he tells Adam that it’s all in his mind.

The crux of the film comes when Adam’s parents tell him that he can no longer visit him, that he has to let go and get on with his own life, stressing in particular that he needs to take care of Harry, who his mum points out, has a sadness in his face.

Adam returns to his flat in London, but for the first time, heads to Harry’s apartment on the sixth floor. When he enters, he’s greeted by a stench, and he goes in to find Harry, dead, in his bedroom, clutching the same bottle of Japanese whiskey that he was drinking the first night he came to Adam’s door, and was rejected by him.

And here’s the plot twist: Harry died that night, and the entire relationship between him and Adam was all a figment of Adam’s imagination. Adam has been Sixth Sensing throughout the whole film, either as a mental breakdown, disassociating, or a coping mechanism for the deep-seated trauma he still feels from the loss of his parents as a child. The almost maternal way Harry cared for Adam when he had a fever, for example, was wish fulfilment on Adam’s part: he wants a partner to care for him how his mother did, and he projected this role onto a fantasy version of Harry.

But it doesn’t end there, as Harry reappears, in the same pink jumper he wore when he first visited Adam, and confirms that he’s dead (“I was so lonely that night”, he explains mournfully). The pair head back to Adam’s apartment. If this is the reality, Adam appears to reason, he wants to continue the delusion and live in his fantasy world. He has had to say goodbye to his parents – again – but he’s not letting go of the ghost of Harry, who never truly existed in the real-world relationship with Adam, and who seems to represent Adam’s inability to move on in life, and let people in.

The past is where Adam wants to stay – or is he stuck in purgatory, as he’s also dead, as perhaps he has been right from the start? – and as he cosies up to Harry on his bed, the ending gets cosmic. As the pair form a heart formation, cuddled up to each other, a light begins to shine between them, which gets brighter as they recede into the blackness, and other stars begin to shine beside them. As Frankie Goes To Hollywood blares out, it’s “The Power Of Love” indeed, a force from above.

What does the director say about it?

Andrew Haigh spoke with the journalist Evan Ross Katz about the ambiguous ending in his newsletter, Shut Up Evan: “I kind of go back and forth with all of that. I certainly knew that I wanted this film to feel like when you wake up from a dream and you think you understood it but you’re not sure if you did, and you find that the more that you pick at the dream, the more it raises new questions.

“And on the logical front, your sense of the film is correct, but everyone has different interpretations. People have come to me and said, ‘Is Adam dead all along?’ and ‘Is this purgatory’ and ‘Is any of it real?’ I mean, it's a film, so none of it's actually real, but it’s all the manifestation of a feeling, so if people see different things in that, they should. And I'm aware that some people will want a much happier ending and I'm aware of the things that people instinctively want — including myself.”'

[blindrapture]

WEDNESDAY MAY 25TH, 2011 ("world with empty eye sockets")

12:24 AM I think they’ve passed. I think we’re safe. ..I think I’m going to fucking sleep.

3:30 AM Donnie woke me up, she couldn’t sleep. Guess we’re heading off already.

3:41 AM Okay, I’ve put my CDs into one of those CD folder things. This is much easier to carry. I’ve got bags, I’ve got Tiger Stripes, I’ve got my Pot Noodles and my soda; I’m completely ready. Donnie, still tired, has got her share of snacks and drinks. She’s got a steel frying pan, too. And a T-shirt from something called “Bloomsday.” Isn’t that a department store? ..anyway, uh, we’re setting off now. Good luck to us?

3:45 AM Out of the neighbourhood. No sign of spidercats or anything yet. God, it’s bright for 4 in the morning.

4:18 AM We’re going towards the motorway. It’s the fastest way to London. ..I think. The high street is quiet, as always.

4:30 AM We’re nearing the motorway. Donnie’s quiet. Tired. I can hear a faint cawing noise. Like a crow.

4:42 AM The cawing seems to be getting louder.

4:59 AM Okay. I’m hiding behind a car. I don’t think the Big One saw me hiFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

5:01 AM It stopped. It’s turning back. What the fuck. YEAH YOU’D BETTER RUN. Okay, where’s Donnie, there she is, she’s behind that car, got it. We got everything? Good, good, good.

5:32 AM We’ve been walking down this motorway for a while now. We haven’t seen a single soul, just miles and miles of busted cars. I admit, I was kinda expecting to run into some other travelers or something.

5:50 AM Getting light. Very light. No sun, though. Just red.

6:13 AM We played “I Spy.”

6:38 AM Found a car, a big SUV, filled with good food and drink and whatnot. Time for a picnic!

6:40 AM “So why do you wear that.. outfit, anyway?” Good question. I dunno, really. I like to look distinguished, I guess. Makes me feel comfortable. And cool. Kinda like the Doctor or something! “Looks more like the Blues Brothers.” Yeah, there’s a bit of Blues Brothers influence, but that was really more of a coincidence. I wear the coat because of the slender man, and the hat’s inspired by Yahtzee Croshaw. But it’s all just influences, not really that important. “I think I’ve heard of Yahtzee. What’s the slender man?” Oh! Haha, the slender man! Goodness. It’s an urban legend, this tale of a man who’s seen in the backgrounds of photographs. He’s tall and faceless and wears a business suit and tie. Hella creepy when you read all about him late at night. Left a big impression on me. “Sounds cool. What does he do?” Nobody’s really sure. Usually, the people in the photographs with him go missing. Sometimes they’ll turn up later, disemboweled and strung up on trees. Sometimes they’ll turn up insane, sometimes wearing masks and being violent and unstable. Sometimes they simply won’t ever be seen again. ”..he’s not real, is he?” He’s not supposed to be. He’s entirely fictional; his creation was well documented on a Something Awful thread.

6:45 PM Moving out again!

7:02 AM We’ve still got a long way to go. I’d forgotten how tedious and monotonous motorways were. We’re probably gonna stop and rest soon. Maybe.

7:37 AM OH GOD NO WAY NO FUCKING WAY NO NO NO THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE oh, it’s just a dead guy in a business suit. Never mind. Hahahaaaa, never mind. Nothing, never mind!

7:45 AM Donnie’s getting tired. I mean, she seemed pretty tired when we first set out, but now she just looks exhausted. And I admit, I’m pretty tired, myself. We’ll stop soon.

8:11 AM We just passed Croydon. We’re closer than I thought. We’ll rest iHOLY COCK

8:13 AM WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYTHING WANT MY POT NOODLES

8:16 AM OHHHHHHHHHHHH GOD THIS IS BAD THIS IS VERY VERY BAD WHERE’S DONNIE OH MY GOD WHERE IS DONNIE There she is, next to me, never mind.

8:20 AM …it’s gotten quiet, so I’m going to write. You’re not going to believe this. …actually, you might. We were walking along when all of a sudden, BAM. All the cars on the motorway started to move. They moved into one giant mass, and they have formed a giant motherfucking cobra. Made of cars. I’m going to call it the Carbra. Getting past this thing isn’t going to be easy. We’re hiding behind a tree.

8:23 AM Maybe we should try talking to it. “….you want to try talking to it.” ..okay wow that was stupid.

8:27 AM Okay. Okay. I’m going to make a mad dash for the next tree. Tiger Stripes, give me strength.

8:28 AM fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckmade it.

8:31 AM Okay, now Donnie’s got the courage. She’s gonna make the dash.

8:32 AM YOU MOTHERFUCKER EAT PLASTIC GUITAR

8:35 AM OKAY WELL EAT POT NOODLE

8:38 AM EAT MORE PLASTIC GUITAR YOU MOTHERFUCKEasdfgh I just got smacked in the face with a tire

8:43 AM We’re running we’re running I got Donnie and we’re running we’re running oh my god AHHHHH

8:47 AM We’re hiding. Behind a truck. I sure as hell hope this isn’t, like… the Carbra’s penis or something. I hope it’s just a truck. Either way, we’ve got more problems. Motherfuckers can fly now. The zombies. The motherfucking zombies can motherfucking fly. They have wings now. ..motherfucker.

8:49 AM God, the sound of their wings flapping where the hell can we go

8:50 AM Donnie’s got an idea. I’m following.

8:51 AM FUCK YOU FLYING ZOMBIES FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF RUN RUN RUN RUN

8:52 AM I WISH I HAD A FUCKING GUN

8:55 AM Donnie led me to a shed on a hill. She’s locked the door. I like where this is going. >w>

9:01 AM Sitting by the door, listening for the flying zombies to go away. Yeah, this isn’t quite where I thought it was going.

9:05 AM We’re both yawning several times a minute. I don’t know how much longer we can stay awake.

9:07 AM Now that I’ve gotten a chance to really listen to those damn things, I’m less annoyed and more.. unnerved. The sound of the wings, that is. The flapping.. it sounds like.. swishing. Liquid swishing. But it also sounds like breathing. I’m gonna try to zone it out.

9:13 AM ….she fell asleep and is now across my lap. Shit. I’ve never, uh.. looked up what I’m supposed to do now. Do I.. do I feel her up? Do I kiss her? ..why am I writing in my journal when I could be doing all sorts of— fuck it, I’m just gonna sleep, too.

5:59 PM Note to self: “You have nice pants” isn’t a good compliment. It’s a bit weird.

6:14 PM This place has a stove. Had a Pot Noodle. It was tasty.

6:32 PM Fucking shitcrabs, they’re still out there.

6:38 PM There’s a basement door in this shed. It leads to a long staircase. I think it’s a rabbit hole. I brought this up to Donnie, and I think she wants to check it out. She’s nervous, though. Never been down one of these before. Then again, it’s hardly like I’ve been down more than once.

6:43 PM Led us to a shed that looks pretty similar to the one we were previously in, though the front door is now large and steel. I’m gonna break it down.

6:44 PM We’re in a small blue room. There’s nothing in here. WHERE’D THE EXIT GO Okay, we might be trapped. I’m gonna see if I can break the walls down OH GOD FLOOR OPENED UP

9:40 PM awake ow hey donnie Eah. Hi. We seem to be in a void. A black void. In front of us, a good five or ten feet away, is a lone door. But directly in front of us is the void; there’s no floor. Well, there are, uh… patches? Patches of floor here and there. I don’t know how safe they are to step on, though. NO NO NO WAIT DONNIE DON’T oh. Kay, the ‘patches’ are very safe to step on. Kay, we can easily cross, then.

9:42 PM The door led to a small office. There are several doors around us.

9:44 PM Upon trying a door, I was presented with a long corridor. At the other end of the corridor, I could see a giant screaming face approaching me at terminal velocity. I quickly shut the door. I hate this place. It’s all so typical horror shit but I hate it all the same.

9:45 PM Donnie opened a door and found some rotting corpses. She wants to open any more doors, either. So what are we gonna do?

9:48 PM We’ve looked all over. There aren’t any other options. We’re gonna have to open another door. Fuck.

9:49 PM We drew straws. I got the shortest one. Okaaaay here goes.

10:01 PM We climbed out of a manhole. In a street.

10:05 PM LONDON WE’RE IN LONDON OH MY GOD

10:12 PM We found a stationery store! Oh my god, they have tons of journals! I am so taking one. Perfect timing, too. This journal was just about to run out of

10:20 PM I got myself a new journal. Fancy. Pretty. Huge, too. Nobody’s here, so Donnie and I thought we’d just.. take stuff. We’re gonna look for a map. HMV’s gotta be close.

10:24 PM This street’s pretty weird. I can hear the laughter of little children. YEAH I HEAR YOU GUYS, THIS STUFF WASN’T SCARY IN THE SHINING, IT WILL NEVER BE SCARY

10:27 PM Found a bus station. Had a map. It says we’re at the wrong side of the Thames. Fuck. I can see Piccadilly on here, though. Should be there in an hour, I’d say.

10:31 PM Donnie’s been awfully quiet. Then again, so have these streets. Where is anybody?

10:35 PM We’ve hit the Thames. Bridge nearby.

10:39 PM Donnie says she’s been seeing things. Strings around corners, nearby, moving. Personally, I’m pretty sure that strings are the least of our concerns right now.

10:40 PM Hit the bridge. Crossing the Thames.

10:42 PM God, the Thames is a huge river.

10:45 PM I just heard a splash. Donnie’s here, she’s okay. Looked over the edge, nothing.

10:47 PM strings everywhere in the corner of my eyes

10:49 PM Past the Thames, we’re on the wrong other side of London now, no strings anywhere.

10:55 PM …gotta admit. This sure doesn’t seem like the right side of London. At least we know where everybody is now: They’re all inside the buildings! Looking out at us from the windows! Most of them look like zombies. Let’s.. keep our eyes on the road. <:D

11:00 PM Graffiti says “HMV this way.” Thank you, hoodlums!

11:03 PM The zombies are definitely very creepy. They’re all standing in the windows, staring out at us. 11:07 PM Hit Trafalgar Square. I know this place. We’re close.

11:11 PM Did I say “close?” I meant “halfway.” I wish it wasn’t so far away, dammit. Hey, where’d that door come from? urp

(Attached: “I live in a world with empty eye sockets. Countries grope for light switches, assisted by no one. Nature calls this ‘politics.’ I call it 'aftermath.’ Then again, I’ve been called much worse. I carry, in my hands, a book larger than life itself. A god handed it to me as a sort of graduation present. We’ve passed the final exams and now it’s time to leap blindly into the real world. I have seen this book time and time again in my travels– one could almost say my coming of age, if one so ancient as I am could have a definite age– but never have I had the chance to read it. Now that I finally have it, my eyesight is long gone. It was taken in one of my moments of passion, a rare time where I dared step up to nature. Back then, I had only one name: Derek Taylor, the name I was born with. Now my names could fill a book of their own. If ever they did, and for all I know they might, I’d keep it here in my library for others to see. And if they ever asked me the time of day, I’d say to them the same thing I said to the gods when they dared call me 'eternity’s historian:’ Nothing at all. There is no time of day, not now that the apocalypse has come and gone. There’s only the sound of rain to assure us of our existence, and the faint approaching red shapes in the void that even we the blind can see.”)

(Attached, other side: "Disclaimer: The logs go down a certain path here. If you are not comfortable with unconsensual sexual themes, skip to June 18th. This is the cleanest way to do this.")

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Storia Di Musica #265 - Family, Anyway..., 1970

Il filo rosso delle storie di musica di Marzo nasce per puro caso, mentre stavo ripulendo il mio scaffale dei dischi. Sul tavolino erano allineate tre copertine, finite per caso lì, che avevano la strana coincidenza di essere accumunate da un particolare niente male, cioè usavano in tutto o in parte un famoso dipinto del Rinascimento come cover. Mi è partita quindi la curiosità di indagare un po’ più a fondo ed ecco le scelte marzoline. Iniziamo dalla prima, uno di quei tre dischi che accennavo prima. In copertina ha un particolare nientemeno che di un disegno di Leonardo da Vinci, conservato alla Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, che raffigura Mortai Con Proiettili Esplosivi, databile al 1485. Gli autori di questa scelta erano uno dei gruppi più interessanti del periodo, e sono una di quelle band che nella mia lista di quelle “fenomenali ma di poco successo” (almeno nella memoria rispetto ad altre) stanno nei primi posti. Tutto inizia al Leicester Art College quando si formano i Farinas, nel 1962: lo compongono Charlie Whitney alla chitarra, Jim King, che suona il sassofono e anche il flauto, Harry Overnall alla batteria, Tim Kirchin alle tastiere e soprattutto Roger “Chappo” Chapman, vocalist furioso e struggente. Poco dopo Kirchin se ne va sostituito da Ric Grech. Registrano un primo singolo nel 1964, poi cambiano nome in Roaring Sixties, e nel 1966 con l’ingresso di Rob Townsend al posto di Overnall cambiano definitivamente in Family. Diventano in breve una delle band più acclamate del circuito dei locali di Londra, dove si sono trasferiti, soprattutto grazie alla ruvida e magnifica voce di Chapman. Registrano il primo singolo Through The Eye Of A Lens nel 1967, firmano per la Reprise che gli mette a disposizione come produttore Dave Mason dei Traffic, con cui nel 1968 pubblicano un disco capolavoro: Music In A Doll’s House. Il disco è un culto per due motivi: uno contingente, perchè anticipò di poche settimane con il suo titolo, ispirato al famoso testo teatrale di Ibsen, la stessa idea che aveva John Lennon per l’album dei Beatles, che per quel motivo diventerà il White Album del 1968, che si intitola ufficialmente The Beatles; il secondo è perchè dal punto di vista musicale il disco anticipa quello che diventerà il progressive più bello e spettacolare, mischiando in modo magnifico blues e canto gregoriano (Old Songs New Songs) , r&b da manuale (Hey Mr. Policeman), epica barocca (Me My Friend), meraviglioso folk rock (Peace Of Mind) il tutto con echi di oriente e l’utilizzo di strumenti inusuali (oltre al sassofono di King, sitar, archi e così via). Anche nel primo disco, spicca la voce animalesca di Chappo, che influenzerà una intera generazione. Nel 1969 Family Entertainment e l’anno successivo A Song For Me consolidano il successo, con quest’ultimo in Top Five, tanto che la band chiede alla Reprise di pubblicare un doppio album. La casa discografica nicchia, e ci fu anche un avvicendamento in formazione, con Ric Grech che va ai Blind Faith di Ginger Baker e Eric Clapton sostituito da John Weider. Si arrivò al compromesso di un disco singolo di inediti metà in studio e metà dal vivo, che esce nel 1970 prodotto dalla stessa band. Anyway... fu registrato per metà al Fairfield Halls di Croydon, un teatro usato dalla BBC per spettacoli, registrazioni di programmi e concerti per la Radio, e per metà agli Olympic Studios di Londra. La parte live parte con la forza magnetica di Good News, Bad News, belluina e con uno spiazzante assolo di vibrafono, poi si smorza nelle delicate Willow Tree e Holding The Compass, davvero bellissima, per poi finire con i fuochi d’artificio di Strange Band. L’avvicendamento di Weider al posto di Grech portò ad un suono più rock e meno “esoterico”, e anche ad un sapore musicale più “americano”, con echi country e della The Band. La parte in studio dedica alla vita on the road la quasi funk Part Of The Load, continua cone la complessa e misteriosa Anyway, con echi psichedelici, c’è uno strumentale, Normans, che era un nomignolo che la band ebbe e che vuol dire “scemi”, ma soprattutto c’è la splendida Lives And Ladies, scelta dal leggendario dj John Peel una delle più belle canzoni contro la guerra, che nell’ultima strofa dice: He loves his lady and baby\And he's sure that you love yours\So don't go pulling your switches\They don't need your wars. Il disco venderà molto bene, e il periodo stupendo continuerà con il bellissimo disco Fearless del 1971, che sbalordisce per l’audacia nel mescolare stili, timbri e sfumature, con quel tocco, unico, di coniugare eleganza e aggressività, il loro marchio di fabbrica (da ascoltare la bellissima Between Blue And Me, uno dei gioielli della riserva Family). La band resisterà fino al 1973, quando finita la verve creativa si scioglie, sebbene le pubblicazioni di rarità e live continuerà per decenni, anche fino ai giorni nostri; lasciando però un segno in tutti coloro che li hanno ascoltati, sia dal vivo che sul disco, come una band dal successo mai del tutto espresso, e colpevolmente dimenticata.