Et In Arcadia Ego

So here I am, back from my first film noir seminar, and my tutors have just explained that they are "introducing the topic, but also framing it".

I am, in all honesty, a little upset. I appreciate that film can be studied on many, many levels. And the arto-philosophico -totally divorced from any sort of reality approach is an important one. If only in a purely academic context. But if you want to analyse real-world factors, it's important not to move too far away from a populist reading of cinema i.e. it's a product, designed to appeal to consumers. Perhaps noir is "about" class structure, and remapping race, but it's also one of cinema's most self indulgent genres. It's popular because it offers a heady dose of everyone's favourite things, including:

• sex - marvellous femme fatales, rugged grizzled wise guys
• violence - the above, shooting one another in a variety of inventive ways. And film noir offers a particularly brutal, nihilistic form of violence, frequently perpetrated by the heros.
• A combination of the above.
• wish fufilment - men are quick-talking and smooth, women are always terribly glamorous and a little in love with them
• morbid curiosity - anything crime or murder related fufils a desire for "true crime" stories, but they also tend to up the salacious women's mag interest by adding evil cripples, maniac mad women, nymphomaniacs, "bisexuals who kill!" (a genuine essay we get to read later in the term), psychopaths, drug addicts e.t.c.

Obviously, class and race play a part in this. Obviously, as a serious film academic we can't rely on how normal people react to mainstream movies - they're only the intended, paying audience. And then, at the same time, you've got the subtitle to this course -"Geographies of Desire" - which we've had described to us in the following way:

"geography, as a discourse or field is very wide and quite discursive"

Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up. The idea of teaching is, not unsurprisingly, to convey ideas from a wiser individual to a less learned one. This course is being taken jointly by two younger members of the department, and I feel as if they've been chomped up and regurgitated, using lots of long words in place of content. That, or I'm just too stupid to understand - which isn't impossible, but also doesn't seem likely. Noir, we are told, represents the "failure of a capital society" but we need to "constitute other noirs", and discover "how place comes to engender domestic dialogues in film". He capped off this five minute barrage of nonsensical proto-Marxism by apologising: "it sounds a bit reductive and totalising". I'm a Latin student, and I understand "reductive" has something to do with "reduced" which also implies "cut down, simple, shortened. I'd hate to hear the full rendition. We also discussed a bit about what noir is as a genre. I quote:

A first inclusion then would be to contend that...[stopped paying attention,
distracted by the fact that none of those words mean anything]...its most stable
characteristic is its absent centeredness, it's over determiness whose ghostly
discources, instead of cancelling out...[put my pen down in disgust]

Dear Christ, is it too much to ask for a good gunfight?

The most frustrating thing about all this is I disagree with the tutors entirely, in what I think they're trying to say. And I'd love to get to grips with why one of us is wrong, if only they would speak plainly. Last year, I figured I had noir sussed: it's Anti Classical Hollywood Cinema:

• Hollywood heroes are good guys, whose core beliefs are reinforced by the movie.
• Noir heroes are flawed, and if they have core beliefs, they are inevitably destroyed
• Hollywood heroes overcome the odds
• Noir heroes are overcome by the odds
• Hollywood heroes are buoyed by optimism
• Noir heroes are resigned to their inevitable failure
• Hollywood heroes go on a journey and learn
• Noir heroes are doomed to repeat old bad habits and patterns
• Hollywood heroes never give up
• Noir heroes don't know what's good for them, and are habitually stupid
• Hollywood heroes get the girl
• ...do I even need to answer this?

But then, as Pluto pointed out, this also adequately describes South Park, so perhaps it is inaccurate. Perhaps there has to be a sort of "detection narrative" to make it truly noir. I'll never know if they don't start putting context in their lectures, instead of speaking around the topic in a never ending thesaurathon. And there have been some interesting ideas in the reading, particularly comparing noirs and westerns - during the McCarthey era, the downbeat conscience of noir moved away from contemporary movies to ones safely set in the past. I'm also endlessly reminded of Blake's 7, but I suppose anything would. Can we technically count it as noir? It certainly fufills most of my categories.

Film noir is my very favourite genre - I enjoy the pessimism, and how smashed up it leaves people; and I also enjoy the beatings up, and the fantastic hair, and it's bleak outlook on human nature.

And it's multifaceted modalities of heuristic discourse.

I've been trying to write this blog for - one week and two days - but the fact is, I can't really write about, or even refer to, the one big thing I'd like to write and refer about. And this, in turn, has spawned about fifteen half-finished bloglets - I can't seem to complete one.

Luckily, I found a fantastic nerdy quiz - match up the famous last words with the minor B7 characters who utter them before expiring. I could only identify 67% of them - I don't know whether to be proud or embarassed of how high that is. But together and out of context, provide some utterly fantastic sci-fi trash. It also, necessarily, comes with a very low level spoiler rating - but should only be a problem for people with photographic memories, as it's normally safe to assume minor characters never make it...

This fufils my B7 quota, hopefully destroys my writers block, and shall prove entertaining:

A roundup of sorts.

Firstly, if the text on this blog is too small for you to read easily, hold ctrl and + or - until it is better. This seems to me far easier than the horrors of tweaking the code.

Now then:

1. There is a skeeling in the house! Dad's sketches, and work jumper; the front door key, my epic kirby grip stash, and one of the telephones, have just walked. I kinda hope they're all together somewhere, contributing to some fantastical machine.

2. Settled down to watch, at long last, City of Vice - the TV show about the Bow Street Runners. Despite being set in the 1750s, and starring Iain Glen, it is not the greatest thing ever, as I'd hoped. Instead sort-of frustrating, proving that there's little separating police procedurals, no matter how elegantly dressed. It's obviously cheap, and trying hard to be edgy - and we could forgive both, but it's padded out with lazy scriptwriting. If I never have to see another Dead Whore (TM), it'll be too soon - fictionally speaking, that's all prostitutes are there for. To be killed, unpleasantly. We Know You're In London, We Know You're In The Past, but what right have they to invent serial killing some 150 years early? Like all movies with a historical basis, I'd like some solid information on exactly how accurate it is. I may not bother seeing a second episode. I don't know. I am sure it won't turn into the show I want it to be, but maybe it's worth a try.

3. I love Hamlet. And found this marvellous blog, which makes me rather wish I had got there first. It makes me think, though: I have still never seen a great Ophelia. Not one I've entirely bought. I believe she is an impossible role to play - no backstory, no development, easy to be too cute, easy to reinvent badly as kickass.

4. I've started considering charging a nominal amount for charity Tarot readings. Why not? It's fun, and for a good cause. I've been practicing on people around me - mostly TV shows, it must be said - but Friend 2 has accused me of doing some dubious stuff like attempting to read her reactions, which intrigued me because it wasn't conscious. With that in mind, I sat down and read the book on cold reading, and was astonished to discover how many of their techniques I already use, just on reflex. Including the Skeptic's Gambit: "No, I Don't Really Believe This, But It's Useful For Psychological Investigation, Like A Rorschach Test". That was the one that really stood out, but a lot of their examples are almost verbatim things I've said.

I can't work out whether to change my game or not. There are two ways this can go. I can become a "proper Tarot reader" of sorts, and I'd want to deliberately not cold read in the name of accuracy and justice. Or I can become a Mentalist/Derren Brown type of performer, in which case I'd want to cold read the hell out of people. It'd always be for fun, of course, just a party trick - but I feel I should pick one or the other and stick with it. I suppose I'll go for the former, as you can't cold read friends - that destroys the point. But after this investigation, I am far more concerned about the ethics full stop, even in a fun context.

5. I have now bought several items of costume for That Blake Costume I'm Not Making. And thinking about the reboot has made me think, why not just do a gender-swap version? And making a sign reading "Starring Katie Sackhoff as Blake" - Katie Sackhoff being the gal who kickstarted this Edgy Reboot With Male Characters Recast As Women thing in Battlestar Galactica. It'd be geekily funny too. With that in mind, fashion advisors, here is a two-page gallery of options - which costume should I go for? Which has the greatest chance of actually suiting me?

6. Token cooing, skip this if you're really bored. You probably should be, I've been doing this for a year now - but it's OK, I've only got four days of it left. Then it's just aftermath, recovery and almost certainly moving on to something else, just as irritating...but frankly, I can't believe I saw what I just saw, I can't believe it's taken quite this long and I can't believe I can still be shocked. There was a point about a season back when I experienced a kind of darkness overdose. They hit us with a very cruel triple whammy that almost bounced off, I'd got so resigned. There are a whole bunch of blog updates, I know, expressing the same sentiment, and several episodes I remember feeling strongly "I know this show began with a betrayal, massacre, legal shenanigans, mental conditioning, all implied twice over, plus the destruction of three kids, but somehow this has just got worse".

In short, I am having a fantastic time - not sarcastic, totally genuine. Obsessions always feel like the One True Obsession, but I have been proud and honoured to be a B7 fan. As you're probably aware from my almost constant wittering. And long may it remain, however bad it has yet to get, because I'm very upset, but also overjoyed that it has stayed of such high quality, and committed to it's unique tone that it can still regularly do this to me. With that in mind, we came up with a few new theories:

16. The Final Girl, possiby Vila

17. Blake (who is fine) meets up with Avon again, and they pick off where they left off getting on very well, especially because of the experiences they've had in one anothers absence, and go off into the sunset to fight the baddies together. Variation on Glimmer Of Hope from last week, but I really really like this one and feel it's within the bounds of possibility. Even had this one in a dream last night.

Likely variation:

18. Blake (who is fine) meets up with Avon again, and they pick off where they left off squabbling and tearing chunks out of one another's morality, especially because of the experiences they've had in one anothers absence which has left them completely incompatable. Hilarity ensues, and it's worse than usual.

7. I have lost my love for the piano. I'm - a bit floored, to be honest. My method has always been to play for my own delight, damn practice, damn everything else. But I have recently become aware of a) not being very good at all, and b) that this matters to me. That playing and being good make me happy. I'm trying harder, getting nowhere, and it's begun to be stressful.

Consequently, I have at long last abandoned Fantasie Impromtu as something I will never be able to play, to see if it deflates my newfound competitive streak. Fantasie Impromptu has been part of my life for such a long time, and unlike most of the things I try playing, it's actually harder than it sounds. I can basically do both hands individually, with breaks, and know in time I could play them both at once, but it's my own body defeating me. By the end of the first page - the first 20 seconds - my left hand (which hasn't had a break) cramps and loses it's dexterity; by halfway through the second page - some 10 seconds later -my right hand follows suit.

Giving up on it feels very strange indeed, because it's the first time I've admitted a limitation on that machine. I taught myself to play on Firth of Fifth and Chopin Nocturnes, songs which no beginner should touch. But I learnt them stubbornly, one note at a time, and kept at it, and after a while I could do 26-note runs and trills. Made me feel quite invincible, and informed my style ever since: "What do you mean I can't play that? Let me wade in and bash!" So I've been trying hard and regularly at Impromptu, to see if I can't get my wrist strength up. As if it would make a difference, as if I don't spend somewhere between one and four hours on the piano a day, as if I wasn't an archer-turned-poimistress. And what I discovered was actually, if I keep trying hard enough - my wrist just gives up and stings, and I'm sure, eventually sprains.

I feel like I've killed my own child.

This too will pass.

8. Finally, to end on a positive note, I'm taking part in a swap which merely requires participants to read their partners profile, and leave a comment. Quick, but cute. Anyway, one noted:

"I really enjoyed reading about your likes and you seems so interested in everything. That you love life and just enjoys the little things. "

It's fascinating how you come across on paper, and the weird thing is reading it written down momentarily made it true. I felt like I became this person. Or maybe I always have been.

1. Yesterday was the medieval festival at the castle.

I got my Tarot cards read. Retrospectively, admitting I had only once had my cards read before was a little disingenuous considering I am a skilled amateur and read for myself all the time. But the point of the exercise was to watch someone else's Tarot reading style, and I wanted as ordinary an experience as possible - or maybe I just like a good lie, to get it out of my system.

I was the six of coins - from which she established that I had a "big creative project under way". Always accurate, that one...but I was also worried about my financial situation. Perhaps I just had "artistic bohemian" on my forehead. Apparently, it's a bad time to start a relationship - which is a shame, my reader commented, considering an important King of Cups in my life. My current crossing influence is the Wheel of Fortune, which she translated as: "something big and surprising is going to happen, you don't know what it is, and you can't do anything about it".

If that isn't a Barnum statement, then I don't know what is...

I would describe my reading as very accurate, considering the day before I started on The Novel I Intended To Finish with the explict aim of publication. This makes sense of all the creativity and financial fears, but of course gives no clue as to why my next three months are going to be horrible. And I'm interested by the way something else seems to be intersecting with the things I already know. Temperance will give me a hand through the tough times. Irritatingly, later in the day I did consult my pa about my novel just as she had predicted, and I've been wondering ever since whether the event was FATED IN THE STARS, a coincidence, or in someway suggested by the reading.

Friend 4 got envy, support, and a veritable armory of of swords. Despite between us getting what I regard as the scariest cards in the pack - the Three of Swords, and my personal bete noire, the Nine of Swords - it was also quite fun. Friend 4 commented on how easily those in front of us in the queue would offer information about their personal lives in response to the cards. Friend 4 tends to see Tarot as very manipulative. On balance, she is almost certainly right, but that's not to say that some morally good Tarot readers can have a beneficial effect on their customers by providing a listening point for their grievances. Sometimes, just talking things out can help. But even I must admit, it was bizzare to hear these people discussing their financial situation and plans to quit their jobs with a total stranger. I tried to stay coy, and I noticed Friend 4 was almost totally silent. I feel like I got less out of the reading because of it.

In terms of technique, I admired how well she drew the reading together - something I have yet to totally master. It was a lovely spread. But she had a very traditional view of the court cards, with the Kings as men and the Queens as women, that I couldn't quite stomach. I prefer it if the court cards are not necessarily people.

2. And...

The highlight was getting an adorably guess-what-ish scar from the Casualties Union, a charity which trains people in depicting realistic wounds for, i.e., training first aiders. I'd join like a shot, but their grades involve acting as well as makeup - and frankly, adding "sucking chest wound" to my CV isn't a life aspiration...

The scar makeup is a see-through glue that contracts, pulling the skin downwards and creating a very impressive gash effect. I was the happiest little victim in the world, and thus totally deserved what happened next: an allergic reaction to the glue that blossomed into two huge red scabby rashes. I'm more amused than cheesed off - I've never had an allergic reaction before, and I can hardly complain. I still get a cute scar, and all I've got is the fun of having one for longer. This assumes I'm not permenantly scarred - I presume the novelty would quickly wear off. I've a feeling being reminded of Blake every time I looked in the mirror would be a shortlived entertainment.

3. Music history

When I was in Italy, the music channels kept playing the big hit "In Italia" - a very annoying song. Rap in "foreign" is more annoying, and more hilarious, than rap in a language you understand. On redisovering it on youtube, I actually rather like it. And having looked up a translation, I think his anger is being directed at Italian stereotypes. I also rather enjoyed "Do you speak English?". It's a bit offensive, but it's always fun watching your country get reviewed by a rather witty gent ("in England I would have won an MTV award for sure")

4. Films

My filmwatching has been very shoddy recently. Before France, I watched the Asylum version of Sherlock Holmes - starring Ianto, a kraken, a dinosaur and a "cyber man". Awful. I rewatched real SH, and Galaxy Quest. The last real film I've seen is Remains of the Day, a soul-destroyingly tragic Merchant Ivory drama. Based on a book, which prompted one of my least favourite comments from mama: "It was a better book".

The book was a better book - that is all. The film was a far superior film. End of debate.

Now, you can argue that the themes intended by the novelist are better revealed in one medium or another, and you can enjoy one more than the other. But at the end of the day, books are stories, and they work in any medium. I personally believe every book has the potential to be a great film, and vice versa. It's not a popular stance, but I defy you to prove me wrong. It's just typical of the way some media are held as "more worthy" than others.

Ignoring the pointless quibblings on accuracy, if you have a problem with a book being filmed just don't bloody watch it. I didn't bother with the Dorian movie. No point.

5. Other news
Do you remember Commuteocalypse? My long-rumoured Lovecraftian London Underground board game that I've been chatting about for two years? After 600 days of hot air, and 30 minutes of actual effort, I've completed the first 25 cards - tommorrow I shall do a second 25, and it will be ready for testing by the weekend. It is going to be excellent.

Finally, does everyone like - or can everyone live with - my new blog layout? Trying to fix the ever-growing line of bugs in the old one was getting tiresome. The creators just stopped supporting it, so here's something I'm growing to like in replacement. Similar enough, but actually functioning and with a search bar that works. Downsides? Still no dates. Still no archive. That doesn't bother me, because I can access both from the blogger dashboard - but I know it bothers you. The internet is too slow right now to even contemplate doing a task as web-frenetic as blog design, but hopefully I'll get the Flickr feed at the bottom fixed onto photos I like. I'm tossing up between a catalogue of current obsessions (too contentious narrowing it down to five?), some of my sister's photos, some of my paintings (will they work that small?), or a combo of the three. I might even have a bash at the dates if I am feeling productive...

I just finised Brave New World, a book which partially inspired B7. It was interesting to compare it with 1984, the other famous dystopian novel, because it is far more troubling. 1984 shows a horrible, horrible future - everyone is trapped in a wholly squalid system that runs itself. Every month they get less chocolate and razors, things are dirty and miserable. I'd much rather live in Brave New World, because it is a utopia. There is no illness or disease, no unhappiness, no conflict. And no free will. It's not challenging for a reader to choose between misery and freedom (although obviously its characters have rather a nastier decision to make). But choosing freedom, as a high liberal principle noble for its own sakes, over a society in which everyone is content with their lot and well fed and housed, is harder. The type of decision I could have made easily a few years ago, when I was in my suicidal-heroism/decadent-aestheticism phase, but has got exponentially trickier since developing a social conscience courtesty of Verity Lambert and Sidney Newman. Which isn't to say I was wrong in the past; just that extremes of any sort tend to be wrong. A dystopio-utopio-opia...

It's also exacerbated thoughts I've had for some time: is one human life worth a great work of art? You need to be a Doctor Who fan to get your mind in a position where travelling in time and changing the past while understanding its effects on the future, seems plausible. If you could prevent the sinking of the "Estonia", or the birth of "John Wayne Gacy jr.", prevent the horrors, and prevent the beautiful songs they inspired. If you could stop the world wars - no war movies, no war poets, no war journalism or photography. If you could stop war full stop - conflict, full stop, then drama would be bunk, and so would art and fiction.

This has troubled me a lot since stumbling into fandoms where people could be more important that principles. And Brave New World is a novel that tackles it head on, so I felt uncomfortable throughout. My mind kept hitting this closed loop.

In many ways, it was a shockingly similar - in that it is primarily concerned with man's two most important questions about the future:

1. Will there be sex?
2. Will there be books?

I suppose you can't have a utopia without the best things on tap. For the System, question one is primarily concerned with control. In Brave New World, reproduction is totally mechanised and the population nauseaous at the very idea of childbirth. As a consequence, people can have just as much sex as they like - it makes them feel happy and content, and there's no threat to it because the population have been trained from before birth not to do family or love.

1984 is obviously less advanced - they achieve the same ends through opposite means. Sex is almost totally cracked down on. People are trained to be prudish, necessary reproduction is "our duty to the party", but, for party members at least, extreme repression is the order of the day. The intent is the same - passion between couples, and thereby friendship/love to individuals over the state, has to be discouraged. Kids are conditioned after birth by organisations like the Spies, so family breaks down. A sense of shame in the society is necessary to prudce the same results.

This impacts the two plots bigtime. In 1984, sex is freedom. In Brave New World, quite the reverse - chastity is. I'm not sure this proves anything, except that the world is obsessed. Despite this fundamental difference, their stance on books is the same. Literature is a freedom, escape. Winston rescues Oranges and Lemons, while John recites Shakespeare. And because of this, there is the same concern with suppressed literature, propaganda (words put to evil) and language.

I think 1984 does the best job of blending the two. I tried finding my notes from my previous read, but I must not have written them down. I remember thinking how sex becomes the political act, and how, mirrorlike, reading is treated with an almost ecstatic fervour. It was an excellent theory, but frankly I can't facing that book again right now. You can measure my remaining Blake's 7 stock however you like, but temporally speaking the idea of only having two weeks left (five episodes at one every three days equals fifteen days...) is sufficiently unbearable that I'm bearing it by engaging in a healthy dose of doublethink. I can consider all the solutions suggested in my previous post, with the lightness of fanfiction.

B7 blends the two to perfection. We get five mintues of Brave New World, and we have to assume that's what the world looks like to its inhabitants. And then four seasons of 1984, its slimey underbelly. BNW works because its conditioning techniques are fallible. B7 borrows much of its terminology - the world is kept under control by conditioning, suppressive drugs, soma and an identical grading system - but unlike BNW, it seems to be less efficient. Maybe a future BNW in which the drugs don't work. So it also borrows ideas from 1984 - mostly "the world is awful. Here, have some betrayal!" - to counterbalance it. This is more realistic in a way, one book being too mean, the other too perfect, to totally convince.

And I've enjoyed rebuilding ideas from BNW into the world we never see on the telly. I like the idea of, if not cloning, then separating children from families at an early age. The B7 characters are fully able to do emotion and free will, which suggests a more 1984 system is in place, of propaganda and social pressure - with maybe some gentle scientific conditioning to discourage them, like the suppressants. We see that conditioning can also be thrown off with luck and effort, so maybe the Administration would be unwilling to overuse it. I like the idea that in the absence of family, people would find and form their own - their own bands of brothers.

Anyway, very glad to have read it, and it's definitely provided food for thought. 1984 is still the better novel - though both are exercises in political theorising, it feel more like it is a real book as well. You get a better sense of the characters, and you get to like them more. I never had the same emotional response to BNW. Nevertheless, when I've more time I will type out some quotes I particularly enjoyed.

In today's issue: dodgy theories about television; Sapphire and Steel; Blake's 7; a marvellous dream

Original Star Trek has set me thinking again. It's just so...shiney. Free of ambiguity. There's some gentle conflict, but all our heroes are that and nothing more: heroes. Original Galactica is just as bad; so is The A-Team. I've been busy building Sapphire and Steel into my conception of what television looks like, and it's conspicuously non-American. Again. Our "heroes" are a bit incompetant; one of them is grouchy, the other definitely not as nice as she seems; and while they're easy to like, you wouldn't trust them.

Consulting the map of television in my head, this fits neatly with what British television does. Doctor Who was at its darkest in its first few years, and while the Doctor is generally a heroic character, he shares a lot of Steel's flaws. He'll pop out of nowhere and save you from the supernatural, but he's not polite or pleasant about it, his agenda is entirely his own and if you catch him on a bad day, he may just poison you, shoot you, gas you or sacrifice your entire planet because it's the most expedient thing to do.

Perhaps the keyword here is "unreliability", which is something Blake's 7 also has in spades. These people are primarily heroic, can usually be trusted and are basically friendly - but don't count on it. The concept extends throughout their universes: the Doctor has a spaceship he can't pilot, and Blake has one which answers back. Furthermore, the program itself does not always seem to approve of its own characters actions - there is room for doubt, and often disapproval from the writers. This is also different to the American style.

Today's theory: British heroes are unreliable, British TV shows portray an unreliable world. American heroes, conversely, are reliable and live in a world which confirms their beliefs. American TV shows also approve of themselves.
Because the web is being truculent, I'm having difficulty finding other examples to expand my sample beyond six shows. I tried consulting the Guardian's Top 50 list, but it didn't seem to have any old American telly on it. Is this telling?

I looked up the BFI's top 100 TV, and all the dramas seemed to fit:

Fifties - 1984, Quatermass, Coronation Street
I'm aware Quatermass is like all British sci fi - dour, and packed with villainous establishment figures - but I can't comment on its hero

Sixties - Cathy Come Home, Doctor Who.
Lord, presrve me from ever seeing Cathy Come Home...

Seventies - Abigail's Party

Eighties - Boys from the Blackstuff, Edge of Darknesss

I was also deeply satisfied (and very surprised) to see Blake's 7 voted top of the "Shows Which The General Public Think Should Have Been On This List". This probably says less about the show, and more about the demographic most likely to vote in force on an internet poll...

While this seems to confirm my theory, statistics are difficult. As my most quoteable hero Charles Fort puts it, "there will be data". Is this merely because darkness sells, and anything positive = mainstream = trashy = not voted by the BFI?

A few things didn't quite fit: The Prisoner (but is maybe too weird to? Six doesn't have enough personality, and we never see him in morally trying situations - he is purely an escape machine) and Thunderbirds (purely for kids? Have kids shows always been shiney, both sides of the pond?)

I also found myself wondering, does America have a companion to our soap operas? Eastenders started in the 80s, Coronation Street in the 60s. British TV has always been closely linked to the social realism agenda, a naturally flawed and miserable genre. Perhaps that has seeped into all British dramas, or any number of potential correlations.

When do things change? Nowadays, angst is America's biggest export, which means there must have been a watershed point where everything changed. At the same time as cinema - you can tell you're watching a 1970s film, because there will usually be a downer ending? More likely, the 90s: Twin Peaks is 1990, X-Files is 90s-ish.

Your challenge for today: prove my theory wrong. Find me some old American television which isn't shiney, or some old Brit TV which is. For the sake of this study, comedies and book adaptions don't count.

While you're chewing on that, oh yes, let's talk about Sapphire and Steel, a rather perfect little 70s show. And all the little directory things I've thought about it in the past week.

After a gleefully incomprehensible opening spiel, which actually leaves you less informed about the show than before, our heroes arrive from another dimension to handle "irregularities" on Earth. So far, the phenomena we would recognise as ghosts. They have an array of weird powers, a talent for wandering into trouble, a mysterious agenda, and are definitely just as scary as the things they've come to chase off.

It digs out all the cliches in the damn book: nursery rhymes! Clocks! Flickering lights! Written by the guy who gave Torchwood its spooky-fairground/haunted-cinema episode But it is so marvellously constructed it seems less hackneyed, than a perfect example of its type. Friend 4 rightly identified that its special effects make Doctor Who look big budget, but cheap has always been best for spooky. Partly because it forces directors to be clever, partly because suggesting and not-showing is always more terrifying. Partly because there is something innately scary about bad special effects. They don't quite fit, they seem disjointed in some way - otherworldly - and this I have always found scary in its own right. And so these ghost stories do their best with flashing lights and ticking noises, and so somehow does it better.

It makes healthy use of sound and space. Lengthy serials fully establish the layout of the single locations on which the stories are set - the first in a creepy house, the second a railway station, and another four I haven't seen. This too is good: in it's purest form, a haunting is merely a building made notable by absence. Things not there, forgotten, hidden, so giving the location strong character is important. It's this, probably, which makes me love the show more than anything else. Hauntings, of any sort, bother me. I can't be bothered to waffle about the sound design, except there's a lot of it and it works well.

It is also notably well shot. The camera positively worships Sapphire - she always seems to stand right underneath light sources. This isn't unusual for telly, until you compare it to Steel's treatment. He's shot by an incompetant - totally in shadow most of the time, not in an arty way where the camera hits you side on and makes a fascinating mess of your face. Just out of focus, like a shadow. It's a marvellous contrast.

They are also often shot as a couple - not in a cute way, more creepily, as if they don't quite understand human interaction. Brief film studies lesson: generally speaking, there is only one reason for shooting two lead characters in close up, in a single shot:
Probably because there's no other obvious reason for two people to stand quite that close. It's the reason you can always "feel" a kiss coming in romances - the camerawork changes. In any other context, it conveys a feeling of extreme discomfort - it would be suitable for, say, two characters trapped in a tiny space. I've included the Blake's 7 scene on the right as an example of the latter working very, very well. This scene stood out as particularly disturbing at the time, even though it's only one of many arguments between the two heroes. Having recently rewatched the episode, I think it is the use of this shot that particularly makes my skin crawl. The dialogue and performances help, but it's this very intense, tight camera which conveys the feeling of attempted domination.

Sapphire and Steel does it all the time, for no readily apparent reason. But even though you'd think a man and a woman wouldn't make the shot quite so bizzare, it still feels like an alien violation of personal space. Whether they are a couple remains to be seen, and is perhaps impossible to answer - they are obviously abstract concepts of huge power who adopt human form, and presumably human limitations, when on Earthbound jobs. So whether they actually do emotion or relationships the same way we do is automatically contentious. It edges around blisteringly romantic and back into "no, just creepy..."

Not a couple. Definitely non-coupley. And the picture on the right is a perfect example of light missing Steel entirely.

The character dynamics are also intriguing. They are attempting masculinity and femininity (indeed, you could add the romance angle under that - they are attempting "couple" into the bargain). Sapphire is nice, comforting, motherly, while Steel is the "bad cop", all toughness and authority. This is curious because at the same time as this obvious polarity, I get the strong impression that Sapphire's feminine wiles are as alien to her as Steel's strength. The same goes for Lead's excessive joviality - they are aiming at something human, and almost achieving it. But not quite. I like that Sapphire provides the brawn, and Joanna Lumley's masculine qualities complete the whole bizzare impression. They also spend equal amounts of time rescuing one another.


Finally...I have returned from France much as I had hoped, with more Blake's 7 episodes, and more surviving characters, than on the fingers of a hand. But it must be said, neither is much more, so I am spending much time morbidly dwelling on the reputedly "climactic" final episode. Friend 4 has rightly pointed out that B7 finales never quite do what you expect them to, and tend to arbitarily pull the rug from under your feet - which hasn't stopped me listing everything on my brain, for your reading delight.

As I'm merely guessing, I don't think any of these count as spoilery, but if you were being extra careful you might not want to read them; it's also possible that I'm right. Here is the pick of my theories:

1. Avon's Dream - the entire series is a hallucination-under-torture from Avon's cell back on Earth, in which an imagined version of The Federation's Most Wanted rescues him, but doesn't actually like him. Kinda interesting - who else would have a dream in which everything is so awful? It'd make sense of Avon's all-consuming coolness.

2. Blake's Dream - same theory, different dreamer. Again, makes sense of the show's one brilliant stroke of luck: accidentally stumbling along the greatest ship in the galaxy. Not likely.

3. Vila's Dream - same theory, concerning the only character to appear in every single episode of the show (so far). He also seems the type to invent a dreamworld in which everybody picks on him.

4. e.t.c. - continue this theme for every other named character and sentient being on the show, those three are merely the most plausible and would pack the biggest emotional smack.

5. The Federation Is Defeated. Everything Is Well. Not beyond the bounds of possibility, but also not very likely. A better variant is...

6. A Small Glimmer Of Hope - the Federation isn't defeated, but something big happens suggesting one day, soon, if we're very lucky, they are going to fall. Probable last shot - somebody smiling faintly. I like this one, and it seems reasonable.

7. Everyone Is Caught! Seems likely, that a show that started with everyone on a prison ship would end that way.

8. Everyone is Reconditioned! Ditto.

9. Everyone is Killed! Ditto.

10. Everyone Has Been Dead All Along. It's Purgatory a.k.a. what Lost didn't do. More probable version is:

11. Sartre's Scorpio: "Hell is other people"

12. Avon Sells Everybody Out - not likely, but I did consider this at one point. Repeat with "Tarrant sells everybody out", "Soolin sells everybody out" e.t.c....

13. Blake Has Been Captured And Successfully Reconditioned As A Villain And Is Now In Charge Of Hunting Down The Remaining Cast - I think this pips it for darkest theory.

14. Universe Ends.

15. Any combo of above.

Frankly, anything confirming that Blake is OK is an OK ending by me. That's all I really want at all, ever, from life right now. God, there's nothing half so dangerous as hope...

This must be the most intense smattering of blogs ever produced here! And I don't need to type a word.

Bevenita and I were going to go to a Squat Rave on Friday evening - I was busy, she fell asleep. But she woke me up at 7 the next morning, to squee that the rave was still on and would I like to come, right then.

Well, why not? She only has a bus pass, so we spent the morning travelling down - I bought breakfast from Tescos, and later in the day called my folks. Mum reminded me Not To Do Drugs and to Stay Safe. We ultimately arrived at a clapped out office block in the shadow of the Battersea powerstation. It didn't look like much, but when we got close the building seemed to pulse, like a cat bristling with anger.

We passed through the door saying "No Tresspassers". Inside felt rather like a school, although perhaps that was the old-school-disco decor. It had been transformed into a club; there were three "rooms", a foyer, a chillout zone, and other areas which groups had colonised - one I found with a television; under the stairs, I found a man sleeping in a pile of cushions. Hastily erected signs or graffiti on the walls pointed the way to toilets, cloakroom and the organiser's area.

I'll get this out of the way first: for a nominally illegal party in a dilapidated building covered in last night's drug paraphanalia, I have never felt safer. Certainly not in a club. It lacked the nastiness of Guernsey clubbing - sticky floors, small-minded-desperation reeking off every stranger, very dark shadows anywhere the lampposts forgot. For a small, "safe" island, I've never felt in more danger than St Peter Port on a Friday evening. Nor did it have the obnoxious, hip-hop-video-audition vibe of London clubs - with everyone trying to make an impression in the most anonymous manner possible.

The squat was populated by imperfect people, and I felt very comfortable exploring the building on my own. There was something genuinely joyous about this DIY party: free entry, bring your own booze (or whatever), no expectations just people who like music. The party had started on Saturday morning - we arrived at about 11o'clock on Sunday, and was to continue until sometime Monday.

We emerged from a series of grubby corridors into the "psy-trance" room, the only place where music was still going on. The party had been broken up by police at 3AM, so there were only about 20 or so people around. The "main stage" upstairs was huge and deserted, and even more incredible: it felt like being on a prog cover. The walls were all draped with paintings (fractals, Ganesh, things like that). All over the roofes, the floors, stretched between walls with holes cut were stretched brightly coloured sheets. Neon spiders weaving webs; rather like a cheap fairground ghost house. All told, just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

Time passed. I worked out how to dance - which is pretty easy to music designed for zombies to shuffle to. I also did some hooping and have some truly intimidating bruises to match my new, truly intimidating skillz - I can now walk, twirl, hop and in general, dance while keeping a hoop going, as well as transferring it between my midriff and above my head. This did not look very graceful, especially in comparison to Bevenita - who is almost certainly in the top 10 most beautiful things I've ever seen once let loose with a hoop. Ultimately, she went off in a bus to a festival, and I headed home for a doze...