Et In Arcadia Ego

Today I investigated my new area, Acton, to see what I could find. Its history is much like any other part of London - it used to be a little village, as old as the Domesday book, which got glomped by the growing city.

The name comes from Anglo Saxon ac and tun, meaning "oak farm" or "farm by oak trees", though I suspect oaks are few and far between nowadays. It was known as "soapsud island" in the 19th century, when the soft water lead to the foundation of over 600 laundries in the area. Something to remember when we students are living among two months of unwashed clothing - especially because the discovery of springs in the 17th century made it famous for spas. The remains of this heritage can be seen in the 1904 baths.

Like most little villages, the church was it's heart - St Mary's. It's been there in some form since the 13th century, and was bashed up by Roundheads during the civil war because it's vicar was believed to be Royalist. On the road from Oxford to London, the village's first fame was as a stopover for travellers. In short, it was famous for pubs. What more could a student want? In the Regency and Victorian period, it was an area of retreat from the city and site of country homes. In the 20th Century, Acton was an industrial area and home of companies such as Wilkinson Sword, the razor manufacturers, and T. Wall & Son - who make Walls Ice Cream. It was also the site of the first "Waite, Rose and Taylor" store - now known as Waitrose.

The area has a semi-rich musical heritage, as the birthplace of The Who, and referenced in songs including: Stardom in Acton (Pete Townshend), Henry (The Hit Parade), Orchard Road (Leo Sayer), Acton Art (Art of Noise), Acton Zulus (Carbon/Silicon). It is also something of a small-screen mecca - bits of Monty Python, Only Fools and Horses, The Deal, Sweeney, The Bill, Rose & Mccauley, Towering Alan and Minder were all shot around here. Slightly more highbrow: Aliens and Batman were both shot in a disused power station there, and Ladybird Ladybird was filmed in the surrounding area.

A lot of Doctor Who locations seemed to have been demolished in Acton, including the Wing Commander's HQ from Remembrance of the Daleks which used to stand on Horn Lane! The Seventh Doctor and Ace go on a driving tour there in that episode - some evil policemen cross a road in Attack of the Cybermen - and a warehouse from Evil of the Daleks used to stand nearby too. Double ironic, as Evil of the Daleks was burnt by the BBC - neither the film nor the building remains.


If Wikipedia's priorities are to be believed, it is most famous for death. The first thing it wanted to tell me about my new home was the Massacre of Braybrook Street. Three policemen were shot dead in 1966 by three hardened crooks after noticing - what else! - their car had no tax disk. I don't know if three constitutes a massacre, but there was a huge manhunt. Public outrage called for the return of the death penalty, for British cops to be armed - and others saw them as heroes.

A few other random things:

While not being famous for multiculturism, the area has a population of Poles, Iraquis, Somalis and Japanese - or to put it in student terms, Australian, South African and Irish pubs, Korean, Lebanese, Spanish and Chinese restaurants. I am particularly excited about Vanilla, a home-run vegan-fairtrade-looksbothwaysbeforecrossingtheroad coffee shop and purveyor of sandwiches:
http://www.worldvanilla.co.uk/?page=about/times There is also a weekly Farmers Market

Acton Library has a 100 year history, since being funded by a philanthropist and opened by an American Ambassador. The building cost £6,690, and originally contained 8,000 "volumes of wholesome literature". Here's hoping everything has got a bit grungier since then. Originally the collection was closed - you had to request something from the catalogue. There was also a large technical section, which had a reputation for being the best in London during the 50s and 60s.

On Horn Lane itself, a memorial was set up to Earl James Radcliffe. While the local connection is pretty spurious, he's still an interesting fella: executed in 1715 for leading a Stuart rebellion. The obelisk is now in a local park.

Acton cemetry has a gorgeous stone angel erected to George Lee Temple, the first British Airman to ever fly upside down.

Green parakeets fly wild there. Yes. Really. Greek parakeets.

It holds the distinction of having more railway stations than any other area of London.

Not all is fine and dandy: there is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission graveyard in the area, reminding me uncomfortably of the Canada debacle. We're also home to Wormwood Scrubs prison

The most enigmatic thing I have discovered is one very sinister building, and a brief one line explanation: "The Isolation Hospital in North Acton was opened in 1904, and was closed and demolished about ten years ago." Because we all know exactly what an Isolation Hospital is, right? No - I give up. Tell me about the Isolation Hospital. Photo here:
http://www.actonhistory.co.uk/acton/page9.html



Laundries, The Who, violence and ice cream. Somehow this area seems strangely apt for students.

Dear readers. This weekend I went ghosthunting! Here's a full, fair and accurate report of the experience for your delight and delictation.

The background

Considering we're investigating a very shaky area of pseudoscience, I think it is only fair to state my beliefs upfront. Last week I told you that real is relative, so what I experienced on the ghosthunt is doubtless deeply linked to my preconceptions. When I was a kid, I read a lot of stuff about ghosts.My first ghost investigation outfit was called GASS, which was an acronym for Guernsey Association of Spooky Stuff. The members were me, and whoever I could drag along at the time. We went on a single outing looking for a trapdoor to a castle, which presumably would then have been haunted, and didn't find it. I finally gave it up after a few years because I was scaring myself, and I still don't sleep with scissors in my bedroom thanks to one story which stayed with me.

So this is a topic I do know a lot about - scared more because I am easily frightened than because I genuinely believed we were, at any point in danger. Ghosts have been much beefed up by cinema, probably when producers realised that the don't do anything except hang around and be scary. The Sixth Sense is possibly the most accurate depiction of our ghost mythology around - terrifying, but at the end of the day harmless. Now, Japan and China do have a rich tradition of vengeful ghosts, which maybe explains why all the best horror movies come from there right now, and I would be much more hesitant about ghost hunting there.

But in the west, there are three sorts of ghosts. The first is your regular spirit-who-cannot-depart. Tied to a particular location, whether by guilt, confusion or having a message to pass on, they're just like they were in life - only more dead. Often they want or need something. Casper the friendly ghost is one of these. I don't know whether I believe in these or not.

The second type is residual hauntings - what has become known as "The Stone Tape theory" after the TV event of the same name. No intelligent being is involved, it's just an echo, a footprint, an event so intense (good or bad) that it has been soaked up by the walls and replayed, like a stuck record or a Hiroshima shadow. Communicating with them is as useful as shouting at the TV screen. Because of the way I percieve the world, it actually seems impossible to me that this sort of haunting doesn't exist. You've been to libraries, right? I've always felt that libraries get into the habit of being silent because of the silence that surrounds them. Or when you feel the buzz of excitement in a stadium, or just as the lights go down in the theatre. No one tells you to feel that way - you're picking up on the emotional experience of everyone else in the room. Repeated over thousands of performances, maybe the room would get it. I have an intense feeling for places, all sorts of places, and being very sentimental, have strong associations for places where good or bad things happened. Even without the presence of Grey Ladies and men in sheets, I believe all rooms are haunted by their pasts.

Type three is the bad type. The poltergeists, ghouls and various malevolent beasties which, depending on your personal mythology, are normally denoted as demons. Again, I've got no good reason to either believe or disbelieve in these.

The haunted location

The German Underground Hospital is a warren of concrete tunnels built during the Occupation of Guernsey. It took three and a half years to build, but was only in use for nine months because the Germans soon figured out no one was going to liberate the island - rendering a bomb-proof complex pretty useless. It may not have ever been needed, had they not shipped over hundreds of German wounded from D-Day. They were kept there for twelve weeks, which is just horrible: if I told you the Germans had kept prisoners in a cold, damp underground complex with no access to the sun, you'd tell me it was inhumane. After coming back, it wasn't the supernatural or dead workers that prevented me from sleeping. It was the thought of those poor patients, trapped down there without any sunlight in those big empty halls. I could vividly imagine lying in one in the dark, with the footsteps of nurses and distant hum of artificial light.

After visiting the Ellis Island Immigration Centre in New York, one of the most uncomfortable buildings I have ever been in, it occured to me that maybe I did have a supernatural ability, and that I should work on refining it. I'm so the type. Then I thought "actually, that would be damn stupid". Movies never really give a thought to how inconvenient having powers like that would be, and assuming developing proper psychic ability is even possible, why the hell would I want to? Despite this, when I went to the Underground Hospital last month I did attempt to see if I could "feel" anything. I didn't really get anything. Nothing beyond the fact it is basically a scary enviroment. In retrospect, I wonder whether this was because I was focused on the fact it was a hospital and therefore fundamentally a nice place.

So I was interested when a friend of the New Number 2 claimed she had found evidence it was haunted, having drawn a blank myself. She had been conducting an interview down there, but on replaying the tapes had found two messages left by a spirit source. The first said "help us", and the second one "closed". I would have liked to hear the messages myself, without being told what to expect, but the first one I did definitely hear a "help" - I am more dubious about the second. I had been researching the backmasked Beatles song for my Paul is Dead article, which is a triumph of hearing voices where there are none, so I couldn't help but be dubious. Especially because I had recently established, on my own criteria, that the place wasn't haunted. Plus, why would forced workers from Russia, France or wherever else be speaking English? ("Yes, why is that Mr Frobisher...?")

Wikipedia on Electric Voice Phenomenon

The team

Strangely enough, then, I was in attendance as the skeptic. Also with us was Professor Summerfield, who had made the recordings; Wolsey, a friend of hers (I'd heard she was going to bring someone along who could hear voices, though whether this was him I didn't know), and my dad a.k.a. the New Number Two. Our equipment was as follows:

> Two digital cameras, with tripods. These were operated by the Professor and Wolsey.

> a digital video camera, operated by the New Number Two

> compass. Despite a whole lifetime of preparation for this event, this was the only bit of technical equipment I could find. No thermometers, no EMF machines. Only a compass, and a dodgy one at that - it came out of a Christmas cracker, and I've been using it for years as proof the polar flip is about to occur because it points anywhere but north.

> tin of mints. Comfort food, and useful at that.

> sonic screwdriver. Don't laugh. My screwdriver incorporates a biro and torch, two items no sane ghosthunt should be without. I also brought a notepad.

The ghosthunt

We meet at 2AM, and spend two hours down there. We started by heading to:

Area 1: the Operating Theatre

On my previous visit, I had felt fairly comfortable in the Hospital and beyond the obvious cold + dark + scariness, I hadn't picked up on the things I would usually use to denote a place unfriendly. There were two exceptions.

As you can see on the diagram below, the Hospital is two long parallel corridors, joined by a series of corridors at regular intervals. One of the corridors was split into a series of rooms. The first two were about 3x3 metres each, sickly yellow and connected to one another. In the corner of room two was a tiny room, slightly wider than a portaloo, with two big metal sinks in it. We referred to it as "the kitchen" the whole time, though it actually turned out to be far more sinister: the operating theatre. At the time I wrote the bad feeling off entirely. A few days earlier, my sister and I had been watching a ludicrously scary episode of Supernatural set in an abandoned asylum, and the look of those three rooms in particular reminded me of it. They were partially furnished, whereas the rest was concrete and bunkerlike. Having said that, from a purely aesthetic standpoint the most terrifying room was the one pictured below - the one with the warped metal beds - and that didn't worry me at all.


The first of the two recordings had been made here: "help us". One of the reasons I had been sceptical about the presence of ghosts was the lack of any good reason for it to be haunted. The Hospital is creepy, yet despite an interesting use as torture chamber in Doctor Who novel Just War, was never more than a hospital - one hardly used, if at all. Professor Summerfield had an explanation that made sense. There is an obvious hole in the pattern of tunnels, indicated by a big red box. A tunnel was being here, but it had collapsed, burying several of the Operation Todt slave workers who had been forced to build it. At this point I wondered in which order everything had happened - discovering the recording, and discovering the history behind this place in particular.

Background: Operation Todt was an army of slave workers cobbled together from POWs from all over the world. They were kept on point of starvation and forced to build bunkers and the like. Nobody in Guernsey really talks about them. According to the leaflet, six Frenchmen were killed in a rockfall at one point, seventeen in an explosion later on, and it suggests many more are still there in the concrete. It sounds like a fine justification for a haunting, particularly if "closed" was related to it. Shut in behind the rocks and a long way from home.

The regularity of the German building made it easy to find where the tunnel should have been, in the corridor out the other end. We spent about ten minutes here, all separately doing our things. I didn't experience any unusual coldness, and touching various areas of wall didn't produce a result. There was one particular point that drew my attention, and kept drawing my attention, but nothing conclusive. The compass didn't register anything unusual and seemed very definite where North was. Though, considering how unreliable that compass was, maybe we should have taken this as a sinister sign. It did wobble every now and then, but never impressively, and never enough to convince me it wasn't my hand shaking instead.

Professor Summerfield then attempted to contact whatever had attempted to communicate, asking it to speak to her and with the dictaphone ready to catch the response. She did this in about three areas - this produced no results. As everyone else took photos and film, I thought I heard a "help us" from the Operating Theatre. I put it down to my ears catching the same sound that we had misinterpreted on the tape, or my overactive imagination latching on to what I expected to hear. If I had been certain, I would have told someone. I also would have stayed in the corridor, instead of doing what I did do: returning to the Operating Theatre, and pacing up and down it with the compass for a result.

No result. When I next looked around, Dad was filming in the "kitchen" with the sinks. Walking through the adjoining rooms was an unavoidable part of getting around the hospital, but I had avoided going into that little room. I figured if we were looking for sinister, and there was a room I wanted to avoid, then that was the best bet. The compass said nothing, but something else strange happened there. The "please charge me" light on the side of dad's camera started winking, and apparently he has never seen it do that before. I certainly haven't, but I don't use it too often. This didn't impede its use at all, but continued to blink erratically for the rest of the trip. I am also positive that as we stood there suprised at the camera, the electric lightbulbs lighting that room also briefly flickered. To my mind, this is the most convincing proof of haunting we found all day - in that room which I had always felt strongly about, on the opposite side of that wall that had attracted my attention, the famous malfunctioning of electrical equipment.

We found no cold spots - no one had found a thermometer, but the cold seemed fairly consistant - and no one had phantom smells.

Here's a plan of the hospital, with the two operating theatres marked by the red arrow. A red square marks the collapsed section, obviously missing. The green arrow points to the mortuary. The munitions area isn't on the map, but we got to it by following the blue arrow. It is about the same size and shape as the hospital.



Area 2: the Mortuary


Ah, charming. This was the second place I had refused to go in last time, though again put it down to mundane reasons. When I was younger and going through my ghost phase, I read a book by a psychic investigator who had seen bloody bodies in the mortuary of the Jersey Underground Hospital. Plus, it was big, dark, scary and had the word MORTUARY slapped onto the concrete in dribbling black paint. Enough reason to put anyone off.

It transpired that the second recording had been made here: "closed". If not for the two recordings, I'd have said Professor Summerfield was picking up on the same instinctive wrongness of the rooms that I had. Still, I feel this is an interesting coincidence worth noting: the two rooms that had last month creeped me out happened to be the two she had had ghosty contact in.

We made another attempt to record a message in here, which also didn't work. I experienced a serious convulsive shiver while standing outside the entrance, although I think the cold best explains that. What is less easy to explain was the sudden feeling of sickness that hit me, as if I was going to hurl. The best mundane excuse I could find was that I was more creeped out than I was letting on, even to myself. At no point did I genuinely feel afraid beyond what you would expect in that enviroment, but maybe my external calmness was misdirecting those feelings to my gut instead. Or maybe it was an outlet for the cold-and-wetness. In any case, this seemed like the best lead we had had, so I started concentrating on that instead of the temperature, compass or hunches. My rationale was throwing up then passing out would be a fairly impressive display of ghostly presence. So I did go into the Mortuary and walked about half way down. The feeling lessened the further in I got, but when I returned to the corridor outside it felt even stronger. I decided to return to the Operating Theatre. I felt fine for the walk back, and entering some of the other rooms, but when I got back to that piece of wall that had attracted my attention it became overpowering. I moved away worrying that I might actually spew on the historical monument. I don't know what this means, if anything. Perhaps it felt so bad next to the collapsed corridor because I expected it to, though the fact it was smaller in the Mortuary maybe counters that. I'm sure there are plenty of rational reasons why that dank atmosphere would make you feel that ill - the fact I still feel pretty ropey now suggests it was mundane. Mind you, it could also have been the drain on my third eye. Professor Summerfield confessed to a constricted feeling in her throat when making the recordings. We had mints at this point, in case it was a passing thing, but those feelings returned when I went back to those areas.


Here's basically the same plan again, from a different angle. I have added two purple spots for the areas which made me feel violently ill. To the right of the lower purple spot is a small box - that's the kitchen-with-sinks I keep mentioning.


Other places

It was here I heard my second "help me", near the unfinished tunnel, but no more convincing than the first. We found some footprints in the concrete, presumably from the builders - one clearly a German hobnailed boot - but nothing especially exciting happened there. We continued to the second half of the compex - the munitions store. This definitely felt markedly less sinister than the hospital, and not just because of what they were: I only found out there was a difference between the two since getting home. It continued to get gradually colder, but I'm fairly sure this was because we had been down there for two hours. In one room near the end my knees siezed up and almost gave way, but again I believe that was due to the cold. I left with a headache and a sore ear - for the third time, it was very cold down there.

The only other area that deserves mention is the car park. Don't laugh. There was a stillness and quietness outside that seemed far more otherworldly and strange than anything I had experienced inside.

Aftermath

We returned to the car to look at the evidence. Nothing as yet - the recordings were all silent, and the video had turned up nothing. I echo Professor Summerfield's comment: not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Overall analysis? Unconclusive. Despite one or two interesting happenings, I did not experience anything which couldn't have had a perfectly mundane explaination. If there was anything, then it was clearly in the Hospital area and not the later halls of Munitions. I'm so darn sensitive I just feel I should know.

I think the most interesting area was that strange bit of wall, especially combined with the light flicker, camera malfunction and my general ill feeling. Any of those would only be evidence in the company of something more solid.

In an ideal world, I would like to reconduct the experience with proper equipment, overnight when there was no one around. On the other hand, you could argue that a ghost-hunting team all alone down there at night would have a greater chance of contacting the spirit world, not because we could all get into a Ritual State and tune in our Psychic Eyes, but because of the psychological kick being in the Underground Hospital overnight and talking about ghosts would tend to give your imagination.

In any case, that's fufilled a lifelong ambition - and boy do I want to do it again!

Ah, autumn! It’s like good movies go into hibernation over summer - but as the night curls back in, the warmth of those sitting in dark rooms lets them know it is time to return. Here's the cream of the coming crop, so take it as a warning: expect to be invited to any or all of these in a month near you.

Sherlock Holmes

You already know how excited I am about this. I adore my Victoriana, and this could only be more so if Dracula, Jack the Ripper and Alan Quartermain fought with sword-canes in corsets on the set of Ghost Light while each smoking a pipe. I'll pause to let you digest that mental image. Lovely, lovely Victoriana. A buddy movie set in sepia is always going to float my boat - add in cravats, London and the promise of violence, and it really has to be very shoddy for me not to have fun:



I am less hopeful since seeing the trailer. It looks more blockbustery and less classy than I had hoped. It's honestly not just distaste at them getting a woman involved, and fogging up my invisible slash goggles. Honestly. It's the black magic and world ending which makes me rather more sceptical. To my mind, this can go two ways. It could be awesome, and if it isn’t, it’s bound to be awesome in that other way. I like the Sherlock Holmes books a lot, but am not a fangirl. Therefore, while I’ll have sympathy if cinema shits all over it, it won’t touch me personally (but see below…). One thing to be sure: it is not going to be dull.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam makes films by turns. For every Tideland, there is a Brother's Grimm (or if you are a fan of mainstream movies, or my mum, for every Brother's Grimm there is a Tideland) - in other words, he alternates between good ones and bad ones. He is due a bad one. Despite that, he is still my favourite director, and I can't help but be excited about anything he produces. Particularly when it features the word "doctor" in the title:




Disreputable fact of the day. Mr Gilliam also has a reputation for films going belly up on him. His Watchmen went nowhere, and illness and flooding conspired to kill The Man Who Killed Don Quxiote. I am ashamed to confess that my first reaction to hearing about Heath Ledger's death was "Oh no! What about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus!", not something more humane, like "what about his family and his daughter?". Obviously I did think that next, but I hope as a professional, he would understand my priorities. As you doubtless know, his character has been recast with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law, and it can't help but give one a shiver up the spine to hear Depp say "nothing is permenant, not even death".

As I've already commented, it's time for Terry Gilliam to make another bad movie. My feelings on it are much like that of Sherlock Holmes. It might not be good, indeed probably won't be, but it will be very entertaining. All the visual flair, the cartwheeling imagination, the scenes of inappropriate violence towards cats will be there - even if it doesn't hang together into a satisfying whole.

Alice in Wonderland

One of the most hotly anticipated upcoming films, and I couldn't be less excited if I tried. Watch the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWsZ2b_pK4&feature=fvw

I have seen Tim Burton movies, I've seen Alice in Wonderland, and I already feel like I've seen this. Yes, it will be beautiful and creative - I like the design of the White Queen in particular - but I am having difficulty caring.

The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan is my other favourite director, and I am excited for this like you wouldn't believe. Not in a good way either. I have come to understand that a great director must work across genres, not just remake the same movie for his entire career. Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott - yes, I confess Steven Spielburg too. The same level of quality and style, but telling different stories. To an extent, you do want to see what you saw in the film that made you love them repeated - one of my frustrations with Tarantino is that he never made anything else with the rawness, the tension or emotion that I appreciated in Reservoir Dogs. So I have been lucky with Shyamalan - but even I must draw the line at having seen the one about the unhappy man living in Pennsylvania who rediscovers his faith through the supernatural four times. I enjoyed Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Lady in the Water and Signs, but I didn't bother seeing The Happening because I knew exactly what it'd be like. Even if he set it somewhere else, it'd seem different.

So I have high hopes for The Last Airbender, because it is so drastically different to what came before. If he cinches this, he'll be freed up to work on anything, and back on the road to acclaim as a great director. And even if it isn't good, James Newton Howard is doing the music. In terms of plotting, characters, all I' ve heard about this film is casting controversy. In brief: the actors are too white. In theory I have no problem with this. In theory. I passionately believe in colourblind casting (and, incidentally, genderblind casting...), and I believe in having the best actor for a role even if the look isn't right. But that's for the future, when true equality has been achieved - and it's clear this isn't about integrity but paranoid companies dabbling in a bit of casual racism on the assumption no one will notice. It's a shame to have that overhanging the movie, and it's a shame that Hollywood is insistant on casting causican actors even when doing so is really stupid. It's not excusable, but perhaps understandable, that they want a white-straight-American man to head up their movies and TV shows. After all, most of the world is white, straight, American and male, right? I don't like it, but for now that is just how the world works. It's sad that, given an easy chance to make things better, they still aren't brave enough to do so.

If you're interested in all that, a nice easy primer is here:
http://www.racebending.com/v2/about/
http://www.racebending.com/v2/why-does-racebending-com-exist/

If you don't care two hoots and just want to watch the moive (and believe me, I would be happier if I didn't care...), here is the trailer. It sent a shiver up my spine.


The Vampire's Assistant

I have blogged at length about the Cirque du Freak series of books: their sensitive treatment of adult concepts, their suprisingly mature attitude towards character, their engagement with darkness and refusal to patronise their young audience. And also about the way I would do it. I don't want this to be a normal kids movie, because these weren't normal kids books, and I cared about them so very much. Of course, as a fan of cinema I do understand that changes must be made, and I am open to the idea so long as the tone remains the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPC-5VoCkNE

Possibly the most positive reaction to a trailer I've seen all afternoon. The look is perfect, perfect, perfect. Not exactly as I imagined, but close enough. You can't really judge a film by it's trailer but this looks good. A tad concerned by the implication Darren is enthusiastic to become a vampire. Boy that's going to screw things up when they get to movie number 4. I'm actually...looking forward to it?

Dorian Gray

I have left this one till last.

I am fairly sure you know why.



In case you had any false impressions, I am not unbiased on this film and I am not trying to be. Au contraire, I fully intend to nitpick. Little things like the fact Ben Barnes' voice is all wrong and, while his face is good, still fundamentally wrong. I have faith he can act the role, but he looks too evil. The whole point is that he's angelic. Like the design, with all those cold blues, is just strange, or the choral trailer music. Like the fact I've always been concerned about Colin Firth's casting, and always will be unless they go 100% for the homosexual undertones and feature a big shagging scene. (Digression: Although Henry is clearly interested in Dorian, to my reading it's a mutually obsessive relationship, but never a sexual one. Partly because of Henry's ultimate belief in Dorian's innocence and good behavior, and partly because Dorian is a cruel fiend and denying him would be such deliberately tormenting thing to do. Still, I need a reason to dislike this film, and that trailer (with its bevys of hot young women, and absence of hot young men)
makes it look uncomfortably mainstream...in other words, if the two tumble into bed, to my mind it'll be more out of character than in. But it'll demonstrate that the film has a committment to being properly dark and is engaging with the source material.)

Like the fact that at moments in that trailer, it looked like a good film - every now and then, I started getting excited, and then remembered it couldn't possibly live up to my understandably ludicrous expectations. Even the fact that Basil wasn't featured in the trailer. What's that about?
Some of what I said about Sherlock Holmes stands: Victorian London + cravats + debauched gentlemen = a certain amount of enjoyment. But I am resigned to the fact there is no sane way I will enjoy this film.

I don't even know if I will watch it. I'll enjoy complaining about it more than seeing it, and yet my complaints will be basically meaningless. Because I am sure it will be acceptable and enjoyable to 98% of the population, and I won't be arguing for the majority - merely myself. I've never seen an adaptation before because I've never wanted to risk my imaginings of the book. It'd be too high a price. My main quandry is this: do I buy a copy of the tie in novel for my collection of 43+ Dorians?





And that ends the anticipointment. Anticipointment is when something turns out to be exactly as bad as you expect it to be. I am looking forward to these films, but it doesn't necessarily mean I have high hopes for them. The most any of these films can hope for is a good soundtrack. At the point a film becomes beautiful, both visually and aurally, I forgive just about anything. Peversely, post-trailer, it is Vampire's Assistant which I think will be the best, which is odd considering I'd basically written it off. What do I do about Dorian Gray? Anyone feel like going to see it first, to see whether it's safe? I worry if I go to the cinema I might walk out.

In today's issue: how to get a house in London, a five word film review and some local intrigue

We are but days away from aquring our new house! Calypso has done a stellar, nay, epic job of making everything work, the Citizen Kane of home-aquiral. For future reference, here's a note of all the documents I've sent in. The following had to be sent by pigeon to the agent, the agent's ex-wife, the agent's dentist, the agent's favourite actor and the keeper of the agent's local zoo:

• Birth certificate, countersigned by the Pope and witnessed by Elvis


• 3 months bank statements from a total stranger. May only be posted between the tick and the tock at the time 1:08 AM.


• Reference of good character by a parish priest. Doesn't even need to be your parish priest, just a parish priest. We followed one for three days in the Heathen Wastes of Tortival before kidnapping him, and beating a good reference out of him with a tire iron.


• Passport, wrapped in vellum flayed from the skin of a first born child.


• Proof of studentship: will accept any item stained by own vomit, so long as it has been verified both by a barkeeper and forensics at Scotland Yard. In emergencies, also accepting used condoms, half-finished reefers or specimens of new biological cultures scraped from old food.


• In addition, bank references for a year and a day must be buried in a secret location divined from the Key of Solomon, or other suitable grimores, and not confessed under pain of death.

Only then will we be able to sign the contract, in our own blood at a crossroads under the full moon, at which point we will be given the map of secret paths leading to the heart of a dying star, where we must forge our own keys from silver filigree taken from the belly of a yearling ewe, using a hammer wrest from the Threefold Child - only then may we enter our house and be at peace.

In terms of name, I'm now leaning towards "Crack O'The Map" after a comment from my mater - our house is on the split between pages 86 and 87 of the London A-Z. This must be significant somehow. Numerology reduces those numbers to 5 and 6, which subtracted from each other give 1, and which added together makes 2 - giving us the perfect number of 1. I don't have time to apply the letter numbers of the square to this reasoning, but I am sure it is important.

Now follows my five word film review:

Mamma Mia. Don't watch it.

I could expand, but I couldn't define my feelings any more suitably.

Finally, a bit of local news. The context is this: a patch of land has been the Cobo village car park for a long, long time. Sometime last year the "true owner" stepped forward and wants rent from the shops for them to use it. He even tried putting boulders across the entrance to prevent people getting in. All this is on bizzare legal ground: even if it is his land, he's still being demonstrably mean and greedy, and it's in the best interests of everyone other than him that the carpark stays free and open. His newest trick was gradually filling the car park spaces with scrapped up cars - again, something he is entitled to do if it is his land, but still very base and irritating. Hurrah then:


http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2009/08/06/cobo-strikes-back/

Can they prosecute people for doing something against the law, if every single person in Guernsey is on their side?

Music takes you back. I've been mulling over for a long time making a CD of songs yearby year, but I was put off by the fact I hadn't started earlier on. Which is stupid, but that's how my brain rolls. So here's my first one: 2008 in sound, a mix of the first time I heard favourite songs, and the times when songs became special, people, places, days out, moments. As much as I'd like to provide it with a commentary, the whole point of a songmix year as opposed to a summary is the subtle shades of inexplicable stuff. So if these songs mean something to you too, then you were probably there at the time, and if not then just enjoy it as music.

Here is 2008:

0. Get Over It - The Guillemots

1. Mr Brightside - The Killers

2. The Water is Wide (trad)

3. God only Knows - The Beach Boys

4. Black and Gold - Sam Sparro

5. Electric Feel - MGMT

6. Sister Winter - Sufjan Stevens

7. Bowie - Flight of the Conchords

8. She's Electric - Oasis

9. Girl Anachronism - the Dresden Dolls

10. Estonia - Marillion

11. Daniel - Elton John

12. The Beginning is the End is the Beginning - The Smashing Pumpkins

Spotty link: http://open.spotify.com/user/unmutual/playlist/5oe0nWk9uufePT4xsDl9pC

I'm fairly sure 2009 will be about twice this long. This filler post to make up for the fact I have been too whatever to post for a few days.