Stimulated emissions

"You know, I have one simple request! And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads." - Dr. Evil

When Ian Fleming wrote 'Goldfinger' he had the villain try to kill Bond with a circular saw, because that was the highest level of technology they had back then in the dark ages. In 1964 the makers of the film wanted to appear more modern and so replaced the saw with an industrial metal-cutting laser beam; it seemed as much of a fantasy at the time as the Aston Martin with the ejector seat and the machine guns behind the headlights. That is of course because it really was fantasy; such things did not actually exist. Even someone as imaginative as my eight year old self would not have dreamed that I would one day be able to twist a knob and turn the power of a laser beam up to 11, but lo, it has come to pass. Slightly disappointingly, it's done by entering a number on to a screen rather than yanking a lever, and to be precise I didn't so much increase the energy as slow down the speed at which the beam travelled over the surface. Still, and as you would expect, I did wear a dinner jacket and bow tie.

It's been about three weeks since I first mentioned the laser cutter, so why the delay? And what have I actually done with it? Well, at first there was obviously the impact of my operatic tour to North Wales, and since then I have been concentrating on the design phase. That is a euphemism for 'I have been struggling with the software'. As regular readers will appreciate, I am of a frugal nature and so have been using a free CAD programme which I found online, with all the concomitant problems. In addition the control software for the machine itself is both old and clunky which hasn't helped. However, and after a couple of false starts, I have now produced the following:

As a proof of concept I am very happy with it. I just need to finalise the dimensions, design all the complicated bits like corners and towers, and buy some better glue, following which the walls of Constantinople - and everywhere else because I am only going to make one set - will be ready for the games table.

My name is Jeeves, Reginald Jeeves

The comment by nundanket (I have never been sure why there is no capital letter in that name) about Fry and Laurie being the definitive Jeeves and Wooster raises a couple of questions in my mind.

The first is that as this list appears to be getting longer, do we have any rules as to what qualifications character and actor need in order to be on it. I would suggest the following:

• The original character needs to have appeared in a book or books which have subsequently been adapted for radio, television or film.
• Several different adaptations need to have been made featuring different actors in the role.
• One actor needs to stand out from the others to such an extent that when one reads the original literary work it is that actor whom one sees in ones mind's eye.

So, even though he clearly qualifies for the last point no one would claim that Ian McKellen is the definitive Gandalf, because let's be honest he's the only Gandalf; ditto Daniel Radcliffe et al. Colin Firth might well make the list as Mr Darcy, as we all know there have been many adaptations even if we don't know who was in them, but I'm going to disallow Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. I also won't include any of the Bonds, James Bonds because even if one has a favourite (Sean Connery obviously) the books and films are so different that visualising actor from printed page isn't by any means automatic.

That issue - congruence between book and adaptation - was raised by David Suchet when he spoke about being offered the role of Poirot in the first place. After mentioning that his brother advised him not to touch it with a barge pole, he said that his own reaction was that although it had been interpreted many times before (and rather bizarrely Suchet once played Inspector Japp to Peter Ustinov's Poirot) no one had ever really portrayed the Belgian detective as Agatha Christie wrote him; and so that's what he set out to do. Indeed it was that which caused him to decline to appear in dramatisations of those Poirot novels commissioned in the last few years by Christie's estate and written by Sophie Hannah. 

What Fry and Laurie's Jeeves and Wooster shares with Suchet's Poirot, Brett's Holmes etc is fidelity to the character even when the transfer to a different medium requires the plot to be messed about somewhat. So do I concur with nundanket's view that they are also definitive? No, and the reason is because I am so very old. I have fond memories of listening to the 1970's Radio 4 dramatisations featuring Richard Briars and Sir Michael Horden and so, despite Fry having been a much more appropriate age to have played Jeeves than Horden, it is Horden's voice I hear when I read P.G. Wodehouse.

And being as old as I am, the black and white television Wooster of my youth was Ian Carmichael (with Dennis Price as Jeeves), which reminds me of another entry for my list: Ian Carmichael is the definitive Lord Peter Wimsey.

Suddenly I See

I have been to see KT Tunstall, and it was, well, it was OK; which is to say that I was a bit disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more. I hope that makes sense. She has an engaging stage presence, plays a mean guitar and was wearing a pair of shiny trousers that looked as if they had been sprayed on, but somehow it all fell a bit flat. She has abandoned playing with a band, instead using a loop pedal arrangement to accompany herself taking what she does away from folk/blues into folktronica or techno-folk or something similarly made up. Other than one or two highlights - notably 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' - it didn't really float my boat.

Less hi-tech and all the better for it were Coope, Boyes and Simpson. A male acapella trio they are definitely within the folk tradition despite writing much of their own material, often political in nature. They have become associated in the last few years with songs about the Great War and did a selection of such material, including a couple of self-penned numbers about Major Valentine Fleming of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars. Fleming was in many ways the epitome of the sort of person they - and your bloggist - dislike on principle (Eton and Oxford, Conservative MP etc), but there is no denying his bravery, which ultimately was to cost him his life. Apparently he and his fellow officers tried hard to ensure that those one hundred years on would have strongly mixed feelings about them despite their heroism, by transporting their horses and hounds to northern France and spending their time when not in the trenches by hunting; there is no record of whether or not they hunted for monkeys. Fleming, whose son was of course the creator of James Bond, was born on the banks of the Tay and another of the songs the threesome sang, written by Michael Marra, was about an imagined trip by Frida Kahlo to Dundee. Other, perhaps more likely, subjects varied from the refugee crisis to the return of fascists to political power (a song which reminded me, and probably only me, musically of 'Yours Is No Disgrace') via a lament for Kurt Cobain. A mention must also be made of a song about the environment, which concluded with the refrain 'one million plastic bottles' sung to the tune of 'ten green bottles', but which thankfully they didn't sing to a conclusion.

We ourselves must walk the path

So, what happened this year then? I should first apologise for the content of the blog, which was consistently neither relevant nor interesting. If it's any consolation, the comments that I have left on other people's blogs have generally been even worse; bloggers must wince when they see my username appear. All I can do is quote Rudyard Kipling: "You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance."

Anyway, on to the much sought after Epictetus annual awards:

• Opera of the year:  'The Flying Dutchman' with an honourable mention for  'Tales of Hoffman'
• Theatre of the year: 'Beryl' with an honourable mention for 'The History Boys'.
• Gig of the year: I've seen an awful lot of excellent gigs, but it's a toss up between  Nils Lofgren and Tom Russell with an honourable mention for Gigspanner (which good as it was I don't seem to have posted about before), plus of course the Ilkley Blues Festival for sheer value for money.
• Film of the year: 'Lunchbox' with a dishonourable mention for 'Spectre'; once again I haven't actually been to see that many films.
• Book of the year: City of Wisdom and Blood, the second in the Fortune of War series by Robert Merle, the first volume of which was my book of the year for 2014. There's a pattern developing.
• Wargame of the year: There's been a lot of Seven Years War this year and I'm going to go for the large game in the summer where James got all his Prussians and Russians out on the table.
• Boardgame of the year: Quartermaster General, no doubt at all, but there have been a lot of very good ones among the 265 plays of 134 different games that I've managed this year.
• Cake of the year: I think pear and chocolate although the elder Miss Epictetus is a firm champion of the spiced fruit loaf.
• Event of the year: I'm tempted to cheat and choose every time that the big, bouncy woman came and sat on my lap; or possibly the Otley Wool Fair (I really enjoyed that day); or perhaps a truly memorable afternoon in the Victoria Hotel (definitely my pub of the year). However, instead I'm opting for a walk up to Top Withens that I took at the end of August, during which we got wet, the past was laid to rest and the future mapped out. As Christina Rossetti wrote in the poem of the year:

I loved you first: but afterwards your love 

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

Pot46pouri

Did I mention that I have seen Spectre? What a terrible film; if you haven't yet had the misfortune to see it, then don't bother. I'll grant you that the five minutes before the credits are rather good, but after that it's just rubbish. How they can drag the thing out for so interminably long and still leave countless plot elements completely unexplained is beyond me. The script takes itself very seriously (except for the joke about the allocation of the car, which did make me laugh), raising all sorts of political, ethical and psychological issues and the treating them all in a trivial, superficial, intelligence-insulting manner. I feel somewhat conned by all the glowing reviews in the media, but I think thay can be explained by the repeated, self-referential allusions to other films, mainly Bond although others such as Indiana Jones get a look in; critics love to display their esoteric knowledge (yes I know, I know!). And why is the state of the art global surveillance system accessed via a VDU of the type that no one has used for thirty years or more, displaying big coloured typeface on a black background?

MI6 fights cyber-crime

On a more positive note I have been to see the Jon Palmer Acoustic Band, who are very famous if you happen to live in Otley. Despite that they are very good, in a Waterboys, Pogues, Billy Bragg sort of stylie and well worth checking out. Here's one of their songs, in honour of today's Prime Minister's Questions:

Posh boys talking bollocks indeed. They did a very fine version of Steve Earle's Copperhead Road, but I'm actually going to leave you with another JP written song and then some Waterboys, both just for Crumb:

A Feast Of Fiddles

My long day of celebratory perambulation, of extramural terpsichorean carousal, ended in the City Varieties; an arena to which ingress is impossible without succumbing to sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

A despicable human being and Jimmy Savile

Anyway, enough politics, and back to the City Varieties. The entertainment was Feast Of Fiddles who were both bizarre and wonderful. Basically consisting of a front line of six traditional folk violinists (including amongst others, if I have my facts straight, those from Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and the Battlefield Band) and a melodeon player, they somewhat unexpectedly opened with a version of 'Pick Up The Pieces' the old Average White Band number. Their musical tour d'horizon then took in Mexico's bandit country, Parisian jazz and the world of supermarionation. The rock style rhythm section featured the mighty Dave Mattacks on drums and they also featured a sax player who had backed Graham Parker amongst others. The latter looked exactly as I have always imagined Magersfontein Lugg to look: essentially one should try to picture the love child of Jaws from the James Bond films and Lurch from the original Adams family TV series. Suffice it to say that the concert was excellent and, being suffused with a spirit of goodwill to all men, I even bought a CD.

The excellent Peter Knight

My non transitive dice have arrived. Now I just need to find a use for them.