I have a sneaking suspicion that David Morrissey is Britain’s Greatest Living Actor. And as such I thought he’d make a cracking good Doctor Who. On the strength of the Christmas special though, I’m not so sure. Okay, I admit I missed the first fifteen minutes and I kept nodding off, but I was not impressed.
My wife was on the phone to one of our friends in the North, and I told her to mention my idea that he’d be a good Doctor. Only she mis-heard me and said that I thought Neil Morrissey would be a good Doctor Who. Which maybe isn’t such a bad idea. Martin Clunes could be his side-kick and they could turn the Tardis into a micro-brewery - hey, maybe not so micro! - and travel the universe getting sloshed on weak lager. Just an idea. My Christmas gift to you, BBC.
A few weeks ago for some reason I kept thinking about The Owl Service by Alan Garner, a book I’d not read since I was at primary school. I used to have a boxed set containing that, Elidor, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and so on - long since lost.
I’m not generally a fan of fantasy and perhaps I liked this one of his books best because it’s grounded in reality - in some ways it’s just a cracking good ghost story. A girl called Alison on holiday in Wales hears scratching noises in the roof. When the housekeeper’s son investigates he finds a dinner service in the loft with a pattern that looks like flowers but Alison sees that they are really owls. She starts making paper models of the owls and very odd things begin to happen.
Browsing in a bookshop I spotted a single copy - the only Alan Garner book they had. So of course I had to get it. It was as good as I remembered but paradoxically it seemed to be rather devoid of the sexual jealousy between the three main characters that I’d remembered.
Then 
I discovered that it had been adapted for TV by Granada in 1969 - the first colour drama they ever made. There’s an excellent article on the making of the programme - scripted by Alan Garner himself - and all the owly coincidences that dogged (owled?) its making.
I’m pretty sure I never saw the TV series, but having watched the first two episodes on DVD I’m struck how it looks exactly like I pictured it in my head; and the sexual jealousy is all there again. Am going to ration myself the rest over the next few days like a box of chocolates.
My oldest friend Bruce Guthrie used to do a fine mock-homily, gently taking the piss out of the Church of England as she was practised in North Somerset in the late 1970s. It always started with him clasping his hands together and earnestly proclaiming “Christmas… is a time for giving.”
And as I’m sitting here watching the midnight eucharist on TV, it’s in the spirit of giving that I give you this story which I will attribute to Claire Bolderson. Apologies if I have misremembered this, Claire.
There was a televised mass coming from St Patrick’s Catholic cathedral in New York. At a crucial point in the mass where the sacramental bread was offered up, the TV director shouted down the talkback for one of the cameramen to “close up on the Host! Close up on the host!”.
The cameraman, who was Jewish, naturally took this as an instruction to zoom in on the officiating priest.
“I could have been a Judge, but I never had the Latin for the judgin” - Peter Cook.
Well I did have a bit of Latin and I was thinking the other day of The Aeneid which I did for O-Level. It was the only thing that made it bearable; that and our Latin teacher shocking us all to bits by using the F-word to describe quite what it was that Dido and Aeneas were getting up to in that cave.
I was looking it up on Wikipedia just now and the entry on Dido - Queen of Carthage (as opposed to Dido - The Singer, presumably) has this amusing paragraph: (bear in mind that prior to this Aeneas has slung his hook with his fleet and Dido has impaled herself on his sword and indulged in a bit of self-immolation on the marital bed…)
During his journey in the underworld Aeneas meets Dido and tries to excuse himself, but Dido does not deign to look at him. Instead she turns away from Aeneas to a grove where her former husband Sychaeus waits. T. S. Eliot once called this “the most telling snub” in Western literature.
Someone at work today told me that I am looking more and more like Guy Garvey out of Elbow.
Now that’s fine and dandy but it occurs to me as a bit odd as I’ve been listening to an awful lot of Elbow lately, so maybe the more you listen to a singer the more you come to resemble them. I think I should try listening to a lot of P J Harvey or Karen Carpenter and see what effect that has.
This website reckons it can analyse your personality type from the writing style of your blog.
It took about 3 seconds to decide that I’m ESTP when on written tests I’ve always come out as INTP or INFP. Oh well.
The blurb is hilarious as anyone who knows me will agree, although the cartoon is spookily accurate…
ESTP - The Doers
The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
(Thanks to Clare’s Diary for this!)
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