Africa United (2010)

African coming-of-age road-movie, but that's not what it's about.

The story of five kids' 3,000 mile voyage from Rwanda to the 2010 football world cup in South Africa is much more about what they pass on either side of that road.

Underage prostitution, bribery, child soldiers, murder, financial rip-offs, illegal refugees… when Dudu is revealed to be HIV positive, in this film it comes as no surprise.

The above issues are so dense that their inclusion here is apparently the film's true agenda. That doesn't subtract though, for they never feel trite or forced. Dudu, Fabrice, Beatrice, George and Celeste encounter these horrors, process them as problems to be quickly solved, and then simply move onto the next one.

Even Dudu, once diagnosed, chooses to leave the hospital and carry on with his dream anyway.

It was a no-brainer for getting shown at church tonight.

More than anything else, Africa United is interesting. I can't really call it fun or exciting, but it treads the line between movie-world and real-world very well.

There's never any doubt where and how the story will end, but the simple final close-ups on Dudu's and Fabrice's enraptured smiles are a joy to behold.

The Science Of Sleep

A somewhat metaphorical title, as this movie is about neither science, nor sleep.

Mind you, it is about the way in which lead character Stéphane sleeps. In fact, he seems to be something of an expert in sleeping, spending not just all night at it, but often much of the day too. Sometimes he even drifts off into daydreams about sleep…

And this guy doesn't just dream, he sleepwalks, sleeptalks, and even sleepwrites.

Understandably he gets a bit confused about which events are real, as did I, which I was supposed to, I imagine.

While I tend to find dream-sequences quite fun, I'm afraid that this film never really engaged me. Partly this was because the lead character was not someone with whom I could really identify. Mainly though I think it was because the dreams that Stéphane has are nothing like my own.

His are drenched in retro visual effects, predominantly take place in the same rooms, and tend to feature the same half a dozen people. In short, just like dreams in the movies.

I might be wrong, but I don't think that impression was the intention.

A number of these scenes take place in his own imagined TV studio. Here too though, such a creative character for some reason imagines everything built out of cardboard. Eg. Why didn't he imagine a real camera?

It may sound like I was bored by this film - I wasn't. I watched it, followed it, and am glad to have seen it. It's also pleasingly uncompromising in its use of more than one language. I like that - this movie doesn't dumb itself down.

Michel Gondry strikes me as a director with good ideas, which he never quite pursues enough. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind both fell short for me because neither one explored their imaginative concept's real-world potential and limitations. Similarly The Science Of Sleep never gets beyond beginning to examine dreams, which as I say aren't much like real ones.

Nice movie, but I think Stéphane has a lot more ideas in him than this.

(available here)

CEV Burp

Anyone who thinks that the Bible is nice might like to read it in the Contemporary English Version.

Because that way their bubble won't get burst.

Really, parts of this read like the history of God's relationship with his people while wearing mittens.

However that's not a criticism. In fact, I'm quite relieved that Genesis 38:9 hasn't been translated literally into contemporary English:

"Onan knew the child would not be his, and when he had sex with Tamar, he made sure that she would not get pregnant."

Well, we really don't need to hear how he achieved that result, do we?

Similarly, here's Saul telling David what he has to do in order to win the hand in marriage of his beloved Michal:

"All you have to do is to bring back proof that you have killed a hundred Philistines!"

- 1 Samuel 18:25b (CEV)

Hmm, proof eh? Well, that shouldn't be too difficult. I mean all he really needs is a witness with a tick-sheet, right?

Yes, in places this seems to be the Bible that you can give to your kids. In this version, even a guy with a name like Evil-Merodach comes across as fairly friendly.

Evil-Merodach was kind

- 2 Kings 25:28a (CEV)

Aww.

If it sounds like parts of this have been somewhat toned down, you're right. For not only does the CEV come with rounded corners, but it also holds your hand and treats you like you're reading the Bible for the first time. The result, for me, is comments that really illuminate matters. By diligently checking out the footnotes and endnotes, I learnt tons!

He also said that David would rule both Israel and Judah, all the way from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south. [a]

a. from. . . south: Hebrew "from Dan to Beersheba." This was one way of describing all of the Israelite land, from north to south.

- 2 Samuel 3:10b (CEV)

Oh. Okay. Thanks!

Even the town of Libnah [a] rebelled at that time.

a. Even the town of Libnah: This was a town on the border between Philistia and Judah, which means that Jehoram was facing rebellion on two sides of his kingdom.

- 2 Kings 8:22b (CEV)

Great - got it!

They kept up the attack until there was nothing to eat in the city. In fact, a donkey's head cost about two pounds of silver, and a small bowl of pigeon droppings [a] cost about two ounces of silver.

a. pigeon droppings: This may have been used for food or to burn for fuel. It also may have been a popular name for roasted beans or the shells of certain seeds.

- 2 Kings 6:25 (CEV)

Awww! Yep, the kids'll definitely go for that!

Perhaps inevitably however, all this education does run the risk of crossing the line into aloofness:

Adonijah himself was afraid of what Solomon might do to him, so he ran to the sacred tent and grabbed hold of the corners of the altar for protection. [a]

a. the corners. . . for protection: The four corners of some ancient altars looked like animal horns. Since the entire altar was sacred, anyone holding on to its corners was supposed to be safe from being killed.

- 1 Kings 1:50 (CEV)

Shyuh right, glad we don't share a faith with those bozos. Savages.

In fact, in several footnotes the CEV even goes so far as to assume that this is your first-time at life.

We attack our enemies
like swarms of locusts; [a] we take everything
that belongs to them.

a. locusts: Insects like grasshoppers that travel in swarms and cause great damage to crops.

- Isaiah 33:4 (CEV)

Uh, did I reach for a Bible and accidentally pick up a dictionary?

Each column had been twenty-seven feet tall with a bronze cap four and a half feet high. These caps were decorated with bronze designs--some of them like chains and others like pomegranates. [a]

a. pomegranates: A bright red fruit that looks like an apple.

- 2 Kings 25:17 (CEV)

Uh, did I reach for a dictionary and accidentally pick up a flash card?

Even if your olive trees grow everywhere in your country, the olives will fall off before they are ready, and there won't be enough olive oil for combing your hair.*

*28.40 olive oil…hair: Olive oil was used for combing the hair.

- Deuteronomy 28:40 (CEV)

Well that might just explain why they're COMBING THEIR HAIR with it then!!!

Basically, the ubiquity of these footnotes can be either a blessing or a curse. For although many of them are enlighteningly useful, if you're like me and insist upon reading them all, and also looking up all the cross-references, it is possible to get sucked in in a similar way to how your computer can crash.

For example, 1 Chronicles 26:28 briefly refers down to an innocent footnote about Ner, ending with the bracketed advice to "see 9.39". However 9.39 comes with a footnote about Eshbaal, which simply reads "See the note at 8.33." That reads:

Eshbaal: Also called "Ishbosheth" (see 2 Samuel 2.8 and the note there).

2 Samuel 2:8 then has two footnotes, referring to three verses. One of these is the aforementioned 1 Chronicles 8:33 again, while the other two are 1 Samuel 14:50 and 1 Samuel 14:49. Oh that's convenient - these two verses are consecutive, even if they have been transposed. Good job I'm not obsessive about reading these in the order they're given to me. Anyway, that passage then has the following footnote:

14.49-51 Ishvi: Also known as Eshbaal (see 1 Chronicles 8.33; 9:39) and Ishbosheth (see 2 Samuel 2.8-13, 3.8-15; 4.5-12).

The two from 1 Chronicles we've already done, however the three from 2 Samuel are two new ones, plus 2.8 again but this time together with the following five verses.

The first of these contains seven footnotes, the first two of which we’ve already covered, the next two of which contain information without cross-references, and the third of which actually refers back to the first two again. The last one contains no references either, leaving just the penultimate footnote which contains the new locations of 1 Chronicles 2.12-17 and 2 Samuel 17.25.

The first of these contains no footnotes, but the second contains two with three references. The first of these is 1 Chronicles 2.12-17 again, but the second and third are the brand new 2 Samuel 10:1-3 and 2 Samuel 12.26-31.

Mercifully, in this instance, this is where the trail unexpectedly goes cold. However while reading through this translation I have had a number of such adventures that have ended with my literally running out of fingers to stick in all the pages. Thank God the above example didn't involve any endnotes, with which this translation is similarly saturated.

However if the CEV didn't already have enough reasons for taking forever to be read, where the commentaries dry up, all that extra information just gets stuffed into the main text instead. Take a deep breath and then try to read all of this single verse of 2 Chronicles 23:13:

There she saw Joash standing by one of the columns near the entrance, which was the usual place for the king. The commanders and the trumpet players were standing next to him, and the musicians were playing instruments and leading the people as they celebrated and blew trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes in anger and shouted, "You betrayed me, you traitors!"

(gasp) Y'see, this verse is what I would call a paragraph.

Anyway, if that didn't empty your lungs, now try taking a deeper breath and reading this single sentence: (you might find it enhances the experience to first pop on a CD by Michael Nyman)

These soldiers, who were always prepared for battle, included: 6,800 from Judah, who were armed with shields and spears; 7,100 from Simeon; 4,600 from Levi, including Jehoiada, who was a leader from Aaron's descendants, and his 3,700 men, as well as Zadok, who was a brave soldier, and 22 of his relatives, who were also officers; 3,000 from Benjamin, because this was Saul's own tribe and most of the men had remained loyal to him; 20,800 from Ephraim, who were not only brave, but also famous in their clans; 18,000 from West Manasseh, who had been chosen to help make David king; 200 leaders from Issachar, along with troops under their command--these leaders knew the right time to do what needed to be done; 50,000 from Zebulun, who were not only loyal, but also trained to use any weapon; 1,000 officers from Naphtali and 37,000 soldiers armed with shields and spears; 28,600 from Dan; 40,000 from Asher; and 120,000 from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh, who were armed with all kinds of weapons.

- 1 Chronicles 12:23b-37 (CEV)

Don't even get me started on 2 Samuel's account of the 29-37ish warriors, who barely get a single punctuation mark between them!

Hmm, so I'm apprehensive about some of the CEV's brevity, but then I'm also apprehensive about some of its long-windedness. Which am I more apprehensive about? There's only one way to find out. Fiiight!

Jahaziel, a Levite from the Asaph clan.[a]

a. Jahaziel, a Levite from the Asaph clan: Hebrew "Jahaziel son of Zechariah son of Benaiah son of Jeiel son of Mattaniah, who was a Levite from the Asaph clan."

- 2 Chronicles 20:14b (CEV)

Welcome back to part two.

Maybe all the work that went into this translation was literally exhaustive. It would explain its occasional off-handedness and arguable lack of grammar:

Benaiah did things like that; he was just as brave as the Three Warriors, even though he never became one of them. And he was certainly as famous as the rest of the Thirty Warriors. So David made him the leader of his own bodyguard.

- 1 Chronicles 11:24-25 (CEV)

Yeah. I guess. Whatever.

Which brings us onto this week's Exciting Bible Passage Heading Of The Week.




However, lest I sound as though I dislike the CEV, the truth is that I think it's great. I reckon it's the most readable Biblical prose that I've come across, unhampered by either the God's Word's verbosity or The Message's funkiness.

And the constant throughout is that it's also very clear. Not just in its simplicity, but also in its conveyance of ideas.

His children and relatives will be supported by him, like pans hanging from a peg on the wall. That peg is fastened firmly now, but someday it will be shaken loose and fall down. Then everything that was hanging on it will be destroyed. This is what the LORD All-Powerful has promised.

- Isaiah 22:24-25 (CEV)

Those prophets refuse to be honest. They tell my people there will be peace, even though there's no peace to be found. They are like workers who think they can fix a shaky wall by covering it with paint. But when I send rainstorms, hailstones, and strong winds, the wall will surely collapse. People will then ask the workers why the paint didn't hold it up.

- Ezekiel 13:10-12 (CEV)

I am God Most High!
The only sacrifice I want
Is for you to be thankful
And to keep your word.

- Psalm 50:14 (CEV)

It's CEVsy! Goodnight!

Doctor Who: Space / Time

Two-part telethon mini-story for Comic Relief 2011 in which the TARDIS materialises inside its own control room, and becomes stranded inside itself.


The Doctor: "The inside of the TARDIS is now joined to the outside of the TARDIS. It's worse than a time-loop - a space-loop. Nothing can enter or leave this ship ever again."

Actually it's even worse than that, as it then slips slightly forwards in time. Now when one of them enters the ship's exterior, they step through straight back into the same control room a moment in their own past. So Amy's self from a moment in the future suddenly bursts in through the doors, appearing to have just got this dynamic sussed, although the words that she uses muddy it a bit.

Amy Sr.: "Well, the exterior shell of the TARDIS has drifted forwards in time. If you step into the box now, you step inside the control room a tiny bit in the past."

Amy Jr.: "I don't understand."

Amy Sr.: (whispers)"Neither do I."

Amy Jr.: "But you just said it!"

Amy Sr.: "No, I'm just repeating it. I'm just repeating what I heard myself saying when I was standing where you are now and repeating it. I'm just repeating this too. And this. And this."

Amy Jr.: "Urghh, I still don't understand."

Amy Sr.: "You still don't."

As you can see, it's written by Steven Moffat.

The thing about telethon specials, is that they very rarely deliver on anyone's hopes. They're generally billed as though we will actually get a genuine new episode of the series that we watch and love, but very rarely does this ever seem to be the case. Typical shortcomings include turns to camera, celebrity guest-stars, and flat contradictions of continuity. Heck, they often don't even come with any credits on them.

Not so Space / Time. This is authentic Doctor Who start to finish, and stands up perfectly well as an entry into the canon in its own right. No-one puts on a red nose, or picks up a Pudsey, or is greeted by Terry Wogan walking on set at the end. It even seems to be take place between the episodes that were broadcast around it.

Well, the action inside the TARDIS does anyway.


At another point in the same Red Nose Day telethon, the Doctor did put in another appearance to plug what would be coming up later, but thankfully that's completely separate to the main story. In fact, his solitariness would place that visit at a different point in his travels, with a different looking TARDIS and no Amy or Rory. Towards the end of the farewell tour between The God Complex and Closing Time then. In fact, since his ship seems to have the same smoked-windows, I'd place this just before The Doctor Undresses.

It's worth noting that, unlike his other live appearances, Smith doesn't entirely win the battle to stay in character here. Thank God for the blustery precedent set by William Hartnell!

If you're trying to get someone interested in Doctor Who, but they're only willing to give it eight minutes, then Space / Time is probably the story to show them.

However please do be sure to explain that the TARDIS' exterior looks like a Police Box first.

Blue Box Boy by Matthew Waterhouse

For most enthusiasts, to be a fan of something is an opportunity to be happy.

However perhaps the surest test of your happiness is to then become a part of that thing.

After all, it's well-known that a minority - and indeed an individual - will often compare themselves favourably to a majority. Popular theory holds that this is to compensate for insecurity about themselves. Churches, scientists, bloggers... it's hard to think of a community in which this doesn't happen. On some level even this paragraph is having a go at it.

So many Doctor Who fans have progressed to working on the series, only to then look back at those who are still 'just' fans as therefore comparatively less than they are. Just look at all the smugness on display throughout Love & Monsters. And so the love dies.

In 1980, teenager Matthew Waterhouse made the transition from fan to actor, and apparently lived through it all. This book is his autobiography, told in the third person.

But before we get to that most illuminating year of his life, back in part one Matthew relates in great detail the happiness of growing up as a young Whovian. (retrospective term - I blame Peter Davison) I found this section unexpectedly interactive. An awful lot of young Matthew's Doctor Who related merchandise also features in my own collection, and so for me it's possible to read his intricate descriptions of several childhood items whilst literally examining such details in front of me.

Part two is then about his time getting to play the companion Adric opposite the legendary Tom Baker. Matthew's illusions of his hitherto hero quickly collapse, and within a couple of months he's telling his colleague to f*** off. In fact, here Tom suffers a no-holds-barred character-assassination.

However Tom's not the only one seen here losing the battle for integrity. There's everyone else. Yes, pretty well everyone.

'Shortly before work started on Logopolis, there had been a Doctor Who convention, at which both Matthew and Peter Grimwade had appeared, along with a busload of other Doctor Who people. Peter would not stop bringing it up.

"Those sad gits! What do they want my autograph for?" This was a fair question, which Matthew had asked himself. "It's pathetic."

Peter was unwilling even to accept a compliment from a fan.

"A woman wrote to me saying how much she liked my direction of Full Circle. She said it had made her weekend. Silly cow!"

Peter shared with Tom an antipathy to the story called The Robots of Death. He had worked on these episodes, though not as a director. (Was he the Production Assistant?) This story would be brought up as proof of the chronic ignorance of 'fans'.

"You remember that piece of crap, The Robots of Death, Tom?" he would ask, in his offended curate's voice. Tom Baker said he did and looked pained at the thought.

"Christ, wasn't that a complete mess?" Peter went on. "That was the worst piece of writing I've ever seen! And those fans think it's an absolute classic!" He would emit a snorty laugh. "They keep voting it the best story ever! They haven't a clue!"' [p.258]

You can see Matthew's daily dilemma while working on the show - stand his ground over what was always going to be just an opinion, or join in.

Perhaps more sadly, the lens through which Matthew recalls these events today suggests that some of this pain may still be with him. In writing this book, he has painted a picture of an industry in which everyone hated the show, no-one wanted to work on it, and fewer still enjoyed watching it.

'Strangely, though Matthew was outrageously happy to be in Doctor Who, his new, important agent, Kerry, wanted him out.

"You're a talented young man," he said. "You're too short ever to be a leading man, but you could potentially be a very good working actor. But not if you get stuck with Doctor Who, you'll never escape it. I would like to get you out of it as soon as possible. I know John quite well and I'm going to ask him to let you go."' [p.254]

'More concretely, in 1966, one actor of very high calibre had been approached. The part of the Second Doctor had first been offered to Michael Hordern, long before he became Sir Michael. He turned it down flat.

"If I'd done that, I'd never have bloody worked again!"' [p.277]

'At the end, the Viewmaster man said to Matthew that Doctor Who had been the worst experience of his working life. This was a pity.' [p.202]

Part three covers his happier time performing opposite newcomer Peter Davison. Well, it sounds happier.

'On the last day of The Visitation, hovering a few feet from a set, he [Michael Robbins] said to Matthew out of the blue, lips drawn down and eyelids lowered,
"This is the worst job I've ever done."' [p.293]

In part four he recounts his association with the show after leaving - touring convention circuits, signing autographs in shopping centres and recording DVD commentaries.

By the end of the book it becomes evident that Matthew's missed (passively avoided?) all but six episodes of the recent über-popular revival, and has presumably written these recollections still in the habit of the rubbishing of the series that became fashionable throughout its 16 years off screen.

At 423 pages, this book could easily be half its length, but the sheer totality with which Matthew appears to have exhausted his memory on the subject is just what makes it so worth reading. There are plenty of occasions in here where he has remembered overhearing a remark, only to years later find a use for it in this book. Sometimes he recounts events which he has not himself witnessed but heard about, and again the world which is constructed sounds quite miserable.

'A make-up girl told Matthew that while she was in Tom's dressing room combing his hair and dabbing him with powder, he would rant on loudly and odiously about "that bloody woman" though that bloody woman could hear every furious utterance, because she was in the next dressing room, divided from Tom only by very thin walls.' [p. 185]

I'm disappointed that he doesn't cover Ghostlands - the only thing I've had the privilege of seeing him do outside of Doctor Who - especially since it's also the closest that I've heard of him coming to appearing in a spin-off. Perhaps one day it may even get released…

I suppose that apart from Matthew's brother, the most tragic figure in here would have to be producer John Nathan-Turner, who throughout is portrayed as a really nice guy. So why so tragic? (apart from because of his awful early death at 54) Well there are two ominous things that Matthew remembers him saying back in the day:

'John said,
"I want to be Controller of One by the time I am forty!"
Controller of BBC One!! Everyone gasped at the scale of this, yet knowing that it was not impossible: it just might come true…' [p.246]

'John Nathan-Turner at this time took a purely practical view. "Until they [the fans] turn on me, I'll be polite to them." Did he suspect that one day they would, in spades? But he was not dazzled. "Think of the most vicious, bitchy queen you've ever met. The worst of the fans are much, much worse."' [p.258]

What a nightmare that John would later have to take the fall for the guy who did become Controller of BBC One, and whose interference plunged the show to its least popular era ever.

Then again, Matthew's memory doesn't seem to be that reliable, as comparison with actual TV clips bear witness. His recollection of his appearance on Top Of The Pops is funny, but bears little accuracy to what was transmitted. A shame he didn't research himself there.

Opinionated, joy-filled, friendly, unfriendly, a bit bleak… Matthew's involvement with the big blue box seems to have covered it all, and the only criteria for an event's inclusion in here appears to be no criteria. If Matthew remembers it, then it's in. As such, this book is a goldmine of unvarnished recollections. The picture Matthew paints may not be a pleasant one, but it's a valuable push-back against the luvvy versions that actors usually maintain.

A shame then that he doesn't seem to remember why his time on the show ended, which is a big obvious question, not covered at all.

Definitely for hard-core fans who grew up watching the original series. I was thoroughly absorbed reading this, and couldn't put it down. I'm usually quite a slow reader, but I stayed with this in enormous chunks.

I hope Matthew never writes a sequel though. I'd hate to hear that my own childhood happiness cost others even more misery than this.

Available from the publisher here.

The Amazing Mrs. Holliday

It's an old-style musical from 1943 about a young woman looking after a group of children.

It sounds like it's going to be another Sound Of Music, or even Mary Poppins, but someone obviously forgot to tell the makers of The Amazing Mrs Holliday to coat everything in sugar.

Right from the monochrome opening scene, nice Christian girl Ruth Holliday (Deanna Durbin) gets a gigantic monologue about the personal disasters of the eight orphans whom she has rescued at sea, and is now hoping to get through US immigration. The word bleak doesn't quite cut it. As this utterly compelling narrative develops, we learn that she is an also an orphan herself, and along the way has lost a ninth kid. Are we supposed to be chuckling good-naturedly yet? Is the port going to be packed with grinning tap dancers? The country of America's populated by cartoon singing animals, right?

Even when Ruth gets into the States by unwittingly getting swept into a scheme to pretend that she's recently married, the fellow in question is aged about 70 and dead. Again, this doesn't exactly sit well in what I expect of the usual pretending-to-be-married caper.

At last a smooth guy more her age shows up in her life, and it looks like things are about to get a bit more romcommy, but no. Ruth instead breaks off into a huge series of flashbacks featuring her tough missionary upbringing, the outbreak of war, occupation, and exactly how that ninth kid had copped it when the boat blew up.

The first half of this film is just plain appalling, and I mean that in a positive way. I make an obligatory comment here about how first-rate storytelling like this just doesn't exist in films nowadays, but I was unaware that it existed in the old days either. I felt awful watching this, but there was no way I could turn it off. (excusing that I was watching it in two halves!)

Even Deanna Durbin's beautifully warbled songs go to extremes that I hadn't expected. She sings so high that our TV increasingly vibrated with distortion as its speakers attempted to reproduce it for us. Even the words are hard to make out, which was a little less disconcerting once I'd figured out that she was singing in Chinese. (I don't know which dialect)

But… but I thought musicals were supposed to be full-colour affairs, with a charming will-they-won't-they romantic thread, lots of melodrama and, oh yes… catchy songs that we can all sing along with?

Nah. Sorry mate, it's 1943, so this year we're doing the horrors of war. Tell you what, come back next year in 1944 when you can see Meet Me In St. Louis. Now that's fun!

By the time that poor Ruth has had her passive subterfuge rumbled, and been accordingly judged, she's agonisingly having her heart broken another 8 times by having to say good bye to all the cute and very well acted children. No doubt the tag-line on the posters for this family-friendly singalong sold it with "THE AMAZING MRS. HOLLIDAY: War is Hell. Why, God? WHY?"

However then the final reel throws all that to the wind. Whew!

The songs get lyrics in English again, and pretty much from the ludicrous scene at the train station onwards, the whole thing unashamedly descends into the more traditional farce. By the point when the dead child has been revealed to be alive after all (don't ask how - they never tell us), even the drama of this moment is abandoned to happen off-camera. Aww, we don't want to waste valuable screen-time on all that aching maternal love - we've got a happy couple to get engaged!!

The Amazing Mrs Holliday has won me over. It was awful to watch, but that's the way it was supposed to feel.

There aren't many films about which I can say that.

Breakneck newspaper satire on recent events, which shows so much promise that it's a shame it's only a one-off and not the start of a series.

Written by Drop The Dead Donkey's Guy Jenkin, this takes the politics of Pravda, and mixes in the genius of Hot Metal to produce a special that, more than anything else, feels like Press Gang. That's a compliment in case you're wondering, and the uncompromising Kate's characterisation is surely based upon Linda Day.

If anything, its dwelling specifically upon the real-life ongoing phone-hacking scandal weighs the whole thing down, as there's a lot more creativity, inventiveness and deft comedy in here than the rest of the running time can hold.

The title Hacks obviously carries a double-meaning, and given the calibre of this outing, I'm honestly expecting a series to emerge anyway.

The House Of Rooms

I suppose Milton Jones is best known for his stand-up comedy and radio shows, so it's a welcome surprise to observe his surreal humour making the transition to what is predominatly a silent movie.

The set-up - it's a house containing lodgers - is as plain as they come, but that's the point. Against this dull-as-wallpaper backdrop, Milton's insane trips of the imagination stand out like a vivid bunch of flowers in a graveyard. And best of all, his show is clean. (well done Channel 4 for scheduling this at 10:30pm - was that supposed to be yet another ironic punchline?)

Aside from the timeslot, the only real drawback here is the muddy picture quality throughout. Given what a throwback to the days of Rising Damp the whole thing is (see typeface above), it's a shame this wasn't also shot on analogue equipment from back then too - we might have been able to see it clearly.

Here's hoping that there are many more rooms - and flatmates - to come in Milton's house, and world.

Cocktail Swing

To some people, "lounge music" is a synonym for "wallpaper".

On the basis of this album from the Johnny Howard and Otto Keller Bands, I'd agree. These 20 tracks from 1970-1 definitely sound like wallpaper. Wonderful, lively, optimistic wallpaper, covered with flowers.

And like all wallpaper, where one piece ends, the next begins, indistinguishable from the first, unless you're paying really close attention. Other albums outstay their welcome, because repeated listening compels me to build up some familiarity with each track, which later distracts me each time I recognise them, but this music publisher's smarter than that. Thank goodness that the sleeve notes on this first release from Codename Music are so sparse - I might have started to form opinions on a few pieces.

What a lovely hour, sitting here by the warm fire, with two cats, and settling down to do a crossword. It may be the thirteenth day of Christmas, but even with the decorations down, this feels more like the night of December 24th than January 7th.

Cocktail Swing is an apt title. If I ever throw a dinner party, this is what's wordlessly going to be playing.

Available here.

Stand By For Adverts - Rare Jingles, Jazz and Advertising Electronics by Barry Gray

Whenever Thunderbirds gets mentioned on the telly these days, they often like to play up how much merchandise the series generated.

Models, books, records… just what could have triggered this proliferation of consumerism? Aside from the obvious explanation (people like a good, well-made show), I'd really like to suppose that it was helped along by the now iconic Thunderbirds march.

Play that music over any product, and it will probably sell it. Funeral services, toilet disinfectant, carrots, you just watch. Even all that spam from Nigeria would probably elicit its very first sale from you, if only it opened playing the right MP3.

And no wonder. Composer Barry Gray is also remembered for his extensive work in advertising, as this CD testifies.

For this is a dizzyingly extensive compilation of just some of the hundreds of commercials on which Gray worked in the 1950s and 60s, usually sourced here from his own private collection of masters. Gray himself not only composed and recorded many of these pieces, but also sings on some of them, and can even be heard throughout this collection cuing in the other artists. (who on occasion are Eric Sykes and the equally legendary Mike Sammes!)

Admittedly though, after Trunk Records' similarly-themed Music For Biscuits release a few years ago, I didn't find a lot on this CD to write a shopping list about. A few of the commercials are joyous in their retro style (Quaker Banana Mellows!), while the excerpts of incidental music sound awesome for similar reasons. What really gets me doing cartwheels though is the mere fact of its existence.

These adverts and others are all roughly 50 years old, many of them designed for use as generic local cinema commercials. Despite their presumable ubiquity at the time, there just weren't many opportunities for these pieces to get recorded by the public and saved for posterity. Sure you could smuggle a phone in with your popcorn, but sooner or later the ushers are going to notice the lead trailing out through the foyer and back to your house, and even then, the video definition those things could capture back then was so low as to be non-existent.

Failing that, what cinema is going to keep an archive of old adverts that it can no longer use?

Yet because the recordings on this CD have been generally taken from Gray's own literally mildew-covered masters, most of them sound as sharp as a button, and are heard here even clearer than upon their original presentation.

The final track celebrates a more unexpected benefit of all Gray's tireless efforts: Gray himself crooning a promotional song for Moreno (pronounced moh-ray-noe) - the cinema cartoon production company that was employing him to score so much of their output.

"When you want commercial made,
With catchy tune,
And cute idea, That's crystal-clear,
In the best cartoon...
Go Moreno,
Go Moreno,
'Cos... everybody's going Moreno!"

It's a no-braino.

Available to sample and buy here.
Related posts:

Barry Gray Centenary Concert
Music For Biscuits
Thunderbirds (2004 film)
Thunderbirds Are Go!
Thunderbird 6
All About Thunderbirds (BBCTV documentary)

Battle Of The Planets - 25th Anniversary Release (CD)

I got this double-CD for Christmas, but I only really wanted it for one track.

The opening theme. Hoyt Curtin's deafening 90-second fanfare embodies all that is great about… well, arguably everything.

As a kid, I used to follow the first US version of Battle Of The Planets on the BBC here in England, in the same room where I'm scribbling this now. The weekly saga of Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny and Keyop's ongoing struggle against Zoltar and that flaming grey head (black-and-white telly) that was always berating him for failure, was one that I rarely missed.

Thanks to post-modernism, now for me it's all about the amount of repackaging that the series went through to get onto English-speaking screens in the first place. It's great to read the loving sleeve-notes that come with this and learn at last just how many of the rumours are true. I remember trying to figure out at the time why 7-Zark-7's scenes just seemed so… remote. On the rare occasions when two of the main cast actually did manage to drop in on him, their paralysis of movement was haunting.

However, back to the actual music on this two-disc set.

Well, the opening theme is still every bit as awesome as ever. (for years now I've watched these credits just to pick myself up when feeling down) However it's Bob Sakuma's scores from the original Japanese Gatchaman cartoon that most evoke the content of the show. In fact, every track in this collection is a hit, some of them reminding me of various other genre shows, such as Lost In Space (CD1#19), Sledge Hammer! (CD1#13) and ITV Nightscreen (CD2#28). (the funky stylings of Neil Norman And His Cosmic Orchestra are evoked in places on here too!)

The second CD rounds off with a couple of modern club remixes of some of this material, which is never quite what I'm after in an original soundtrack album, but what the hey. After reading so much about the old familiar characters, and seeing their images speckled throughout the booklet, it is nice to hear their voices again, however repetitively they've been sampled.

The sung closing French theme of La Bataille Des Planetes is mentioned in the notes, but sadly not included on the discs. Nothing else on here quite betters or indeed even equals that epic opening anthem though.

Thank you, Sandy Frank. I will always remember your name, whoever you were.

Doctor Who: The Wedding Of River Song

If you enjoyed last season's finale, then you'll love this too.

After all, it's the same finale.

It's set in an alternate present again, features Rory being forgotten and then impossibly remembered by Amy again, brings back a host of old unseen races again, threatens the universe with an accidental end again, and even features the Doctor supposedly dying again. And it ends with another wedding as well. Again. Did I mention the word again?

Oh, and the whole thing is also wall-to-wall fun. Again.

Author Steven Moffat may be rewriting the same story, but this time his telling holds together better, and had me riveted throughout. The setting of an Earth upon which time no longer exists is patently nonsensical, but he doesn't care, because it's only there for the laughs.

Pigeons have been replaced by pterodactyls. There's an interview on TV with the author of an upcoming Christmas Special - one Charles Dickens. Caesar is Winston Churchill.

Churchill: "Day or night, it's always two minutes past five in the afternoon!"

This is a pantomime, and everyone knows it.

The Doctor at last sets about attempting to avert his imminent murder, or at least understand it. As at the start of the season we find him wielding the TARDIS to do his bidding, rather than merely dealing with the situation that it has set him down in.

And then in the midst of it all, quite without any warning, the Brigadier dies.

… oh.

It's a very well played moment. Sure it comes out of nowhere (we haven't seen the Doctor meet him since four lives back), but Lethbridge-Stewart's death does serve the story by breaking the Doctor's spirit. Suddenly Sarah seems a bit absent from The Impossible Astronaut too. It annoyed me that he hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Granted, TV characters do this a lot, but someone's died there.

As suggested above, I can't really say that this script contains many surprises. Steven Moffat has long hinted that the Doctor and River would marry, that she would kill him, and that she would go to prison for the crime. (although all three of these developments remain subjective)

Even the Doctor's survival of his on-screen death at the start of the series is a given, and his use of a proxy body a little hard to hide in a universe so saturated with doubles anyway. Still, I'm glad he selected the Teselecta to be his stand-in, because aside from the TARDIS, that's probably the coolest zombie the Doctor Who universe has.

That said, I concede that disguising the TARDIS as himself would have been a better twist, having the advantage of not requiring any giveaway foreshadowing, and also better resolving the unasked question of just where the 'dying Doctor' had left it parked.

I am pleased to see the Doctor at last returning to his original stance of remaining hidden from history. Ever since the ninth Doctor entered 10 Downing Street with a wave to the cameras in The Aliens Of London, his cavalier attitude to his identity's security has not sat well with me. Back in An Unearthly Child he fled the twentieth century sooner than be exposed, so I guess that's character development for you. Mind you, I'll be surprised if today's writers can be disciplined enough to honour this decision and appropriately steer clear of all exhibitionist tendencies, including appearances on telethons, at theatres, and chatting to the audience at the Proms.

All the same, like last season, this was another rip-roaring rollercoaster of a ride, and the final scenes are the sort of magic that longer-term viewers get rewarded by. When Amy and River sit down for a chat from different points in their established histories, although it doesn't amount to much, it is just the sort of encounter that shows featuring time-travel should be doing a lot more often.

At the end, I was surprised that he didn't take Dorium with him. A sarcastic wisecracking argumentative all-knowing head in a box would have made a cool companion, not to mention an easy-to-market toy line, and a much better future Face Of Boe...

And that final line. So bold. So shameless. So in-your-face.

Moffat may still not be the world's greatest plotter, but he's sure heading in the right direction.

Finally, like last year's finale, I enjoyed this so much that I watched it twice.

Again.

Now that's an idea that I like to see repeated each season. (ῧ)

Doctor Who: The Doctor Undresses

Still redefining the cusp of what can be considered reviewable Doctor Who comes this short insert from last year's BBC Children In Need telethon, broadcast on 18th November 2011.

Outside the TARDIS, or a mock-up of a Police Box at any rate, the eleventh Doctor announces to the viewers that he's again auctioning off his clothes for the charity, and then proceeds to undress behind a screen, regaling us with jokes and trivia about each item as he slings it over the top to us.

What distinguishes this otherwise throwaway insert as worthy of consideration are the scripting by series author Steven Moffat, and the inclusion of incidental music. (yes, even in CIN there's still no escape from it I'm afraid)

Lasting barely two minutes, it concludes with the decently-exposed Doctor cuing-in a trailer for the then forthcoming Christmas special The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, which is why I waited until after seeing that to watch this. Why sure, of course a trailer by definition should be viewed in advance, but logically, if the Doctor's introducing it, then for him that story must have happened in the past.

Well, maybe you reckon I'm over-thinking this, I mean he is breaking the fourth wall after all. And since when did the Doctor have edited movie-versions of his real-life adventures to hand to show people? Well you already know the answer to that question. Since The Trial Of A Time Lord.


For those of you who've forgotten (possibly by choice), in that story it was revealed that all TARDISes routinely collected data from within their vicinity for storage in the Matrix on Gallifrey. It's like Google Streetview only on an intergalactic history-spanning scale.

Across the second half of the last series, there was a (roughly) 199-year shortfall of the eleventh Doctor's life that was left unaccounted for. It's not inconceivable that the Doctor spent some of it - say a mere 32 years - editing down the TARDIS' cache of footage and periodically dropping off batches of the resultant episodes at the BBC each year from 1963 up until the present day.

(obviously the BBC cancelled "Doctor Who" in 1989 - that's a fixed point in time)

It's just the sort of introverted / extroverted thing the eleventh Doctor might apply himself to achieve, even revisiting events that the younger TARDIS was absent for to capture further details and edit them in.

After all, this charity appeal certainly can't come where it was broadcast - after The Wedding Of River Song - because that ended with him facing-up to the event of his death and resolving to keep a low i.e. non-existent profile from now on. Yes, definitely towards the end of his farewell tour this one, after The God Complex, before Up All Night / Closing Time, and probably subsequent to all the other minisodes that I'm squeezing in there too. The TARDIS even still retains the T-shape smoked windows from his live appearance on Comic Relief in the preceding February.

As for that trailer, well he doesn't actually say that it's for a programme entitled Doctor Who, so maybe for him it was actually just advertising the upcoming Christmas special by Charles Dickens.

Although granted, that would push this back one further episodic interface of the spectrum.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank W Abagnale with Stan Redding

I probably look like someone I'm not too.

I mean at time of writing, this blog contains something like 1,500 posts, which probably gives the impression that I also read a lot. However click over on the Index button and you'll see that I hardly ever read. It takes a lot for me to actually sit down and pick up a book, so it should come as no surprise that my just picking up and starting this one has taken me well over a decade.

Shortly after the turn of the century I think, my hedgehog enthusiast colleague Jocelyn recounted to me pretty well the entire plot of the recent movie Catch Me If You Can. I think it was the central friendship between the principle conman Frank Abagnale and his FBI pursuer Carl Hanraddy that stuck in my mind, along with their annual Christmas Eve phone conversations. With Frank spending his whole life pretending to be other people before moving on, over time his authentic connection to Carl becomes the only one that sticks.

Over the years I've repeatedly forgotten the story's title, but recognised both the movie and the book it's based upon purely from her description of the tale.

So this Christmas, having finally got my own copy of this broadly true story, I've greatly enjoyed sitting down to read the escapades from the very conman who says he actually carried them all out. Despite the enormous disclaimer at the front about how the names and places have been changed, it goes without saying that you have to choose to believe this account, if you're going to get a ride out of it.

As such, Abagnale's autobiography of his younger years is a tantalising piece of escapism. As Frank mis-spends his youth hilariously pulling himself off as a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer and everyone in-between, we too get to enjoy the thrill of his adventures.

It's fun because he spends his entire life on holiday. It's fun because we get to experience something of what it's like to actually work in those professions, together with the affirmation that we actually could do it too if we really wanted to. It's fun because it's all at the expense of profiteering companies with cash to burn, so it doesn't come out of any actual person's pocket.

And it's fun because we get to snigger at all those bozos who Frank puts one over on, purely because of how much their bureaucratic systems limit their understanding of the much bigger picture that we are privy to. Well, we all enjoy feeling like we know better than the man.

As such, one pattern that emerges is the importance of understanding any system that one finds oneself thinking within.

"I said earlier that the good cheque swindler is really operating a numbers game. All cheques, whether personal or business, have a series of numbers in the lower left-hand corners, just above the bottoms. Take a personal cheque that has the numbers 1130 0119 546 085 across the bottom left-hand corner. During my reign as a rip-off champion, not one out of a hundred tellers or private cashiers paid any attention to such numerals, and I'm convinced that only a handful of the people handling cheques knew what the series of numbers signified. I'll decode it:

The number 11 denotes that..."

The disparity between the actual world and an individual's necessarily simpler understanding of it is a lesson that I think we all need daily reminding of. On the other hand, if you're the sort of person who doesn't like knowing how magic tricks are done, then this probably isn't your sort of book!

Best of all though are the accounts of those times when Frank actually does get caught, but by using little more than his own ingenuity manages to get free again. If you ever need to escape from a passenger aircraft (albeit one in the 1960s), then this book will tell you how.

However, all that reckless audacity is uncompromisingly tempered by his prison time in France. Yes, he survived a French prison. No conversation, no bed, no toilet, no space to fully stand or lie, no clothes, and oh yes no light. For six months. His account of, upon his eventual release, seeing for the first time the bath of worms and maggots that he'd been unknowingly existing in will probably never leave me, nor of course him.

The book does end rather abruptly, a disappointment exacerbated by this film tie-in edition's addition of a third-person afterword, and an up-to-date interview with the man himself. (happily married worker with three kids now, thanks for asking)

Inevitably clamouring for the expected further half a dozen pages of Frank's words, I found myself reading the blurb on the back cover, beneath which… hey, just a second, that barcode looks like it's been replaced by a forgery...

Casablanca

Because it's one of those films that you have to watch once before you die.

The Blue Parrot, the hill of beans, the model aircraft… so many elements of this 1942 outing have since become iconic that it's tough to really come to it fresh now.

And yet, within the first few minutes, I have to admit that it had a certain compelling tone to it. The various strategic and political goings-on at Rick's Bar hooked me in straight away with unusual ease. I'm often very critical of the breakneck pacing of today's movies, yet to find the same brevity of exchanges in this classic just swept the whole thriller along.

Well, for the first half hour anyway. As soon as it's revealed that Rick and Ilsa have a past, the film takes a left turn into a cul-de-sac.

Rick's hung-up over a woman who appears to be both a liar and a cheat, the eventual explanation for which might make us take pity on her, if only it checked out. Victor just happened to escape from concentration camp on the same day that the Nazis invaded? Were the guards short-staffed because of said invasion, or was that in itself just a happy by-product of them all going out chasing after him? Ilsa justifies her secrecy on the topic to Rick the previous night by saying "The Rick I knew in Paris, I could tell him. He'd understand." Except that in Paris she didn't tell him either. Hrrm, I'm not convinced. If we're talking fundamentals, I think trust comes ahead of the kisses and sighs.

Anyway, that uneasy central dynamic is pretty much my only problem here.

The production standards are unusually below average, so it's a credit that the cast and script overcome them with such conviction, much like in a theatre. In fact, that it's stagily set pretty much in the one location explains pop-culture's affection for that bar where Sam is always playing the piano. So much of the movie happens here.

I don't think this film deserves to be a classic, but it certainly has an intensity that hooked me throughout, and I'm curious now to look-up again that episode of The Simpsons when they watch an alternate ending to it.

Whatever minor quibbles I might have about the first 101 minutes, much like Rick, in the end this classic knows exactly the moment at which to let go.

I wouldn't change a thing.

Available here.

Christmas With Cliff

You might think that the title of this recent Daily Mail freebie says it all.

Frankly, you'd be right, which let's be honest is no bad thing.

After all, whatever you think of the man, the two facts remain that Cliff has a beautiful voice, and everybody loves the last week of December. (except poultry, Santa's accountant, and the world-weary)

This then is a mixture of Cliff's relatively recent harmonies of Christmas carols and yuletide number ones. Yes, thrill at last to all those releases of his that various radio stations banned at the time believing that would somehow stop you buying them. I'd brand such programme directors as Scrooges, but hey, I've got the album playing as I write this, and it's just too darn uplifting.

The last five songs are billed as 'bonus tracks', apparently just to clear some room in the track listing on the back to advertise Cliff's 'Soulicious' CD / DVD. Now that's what I call the commercialisation of Christmas!

Or that's what I thought until I heard them. After a three-minute silence on the end of track 10, the five bonus numbers actually turn out to be from another source entirely - specifically the St. Mary's Marlborough Cathedral Choir… without Cliff!

These all sound nice and Christmassy too (even if some of the words are a bit hard to make out), but the fact remains that I was honestly expecting to listen to another five songs by Sir Cliff here. I suppose that's why it's called 'Christmas WITH Cliff'. The final hymn - Oh Come All Ye Faithful - sounds like it's come off an old black-and-white movie or something.

Truly, an album that takes you on a journey. It actually is a perfect Christmas party album.

Perhaps in June we could have a similar release of his songs relating to tennis?

Track Listing:

1. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
2. Mistletoe And Wine.
3. Saviour's Day.
4. White Christmas.
5. The Christmas Song.
6. Winter Wonderland.
7. Let It Snow.
8. The Millennium Prayer.
9. Mary's Boy Child. (duet with Helmut Lotti)
10. When A Child Is Born.
11. Away In A Manger.
12. Ding Dong Merrily On High.
13. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
14. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
15. Oh Come All Ye Faithfull.

Silver Surfer #1: Escape -- To Terror! (1982)

Script: Stan Lee™
Plot and pencils: John Byrne
Inking and coloring: Tom Palmer
Lettering: Rick Parker
Chief: Jim Shooter


The insane scripting of the spectacular Stan Lee™ retells the titanic tragedy of the Silver Surfer's awe-inspiring origin, true believer™!

And tragedy is the word. Mild-mannered Norrin Radd gambles his homeworld Zenn-La, his freedom, Earth, and the woman he loves Shalla Bal, only to repeatedly lose, regain, and then relose each of them.

It's not as if it's even his fault, as the poor victim finds himself effectively playing piggy-in-the-middle for everything that he cherishes. And the two other players who are so much taller than he is? Well, one is Galactus (his new space-boss and devourer of worlds), while the other is…


One stunning secret of Stan's spectacular successes in creating such compelling heroes is their innate morality. Norrin is portrayed here as a paragon of virtue - fearlessly loving his soul mate and people to endless extremes, no matter how outrageous their ill-informed betrayals of him.

While there's not much about the Surfer to make you want to imagine being in his, uh, shoes I suppose, the sheer heroism that he displays is awesomely inspiring.

Just what other qualities is any 'super hero' supposed to have?

(with thanks to Herschel)

Marvel Fanfare #33: Shadows On The Soul!

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: June Brigman
Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editors: Bob Budiansky and Al Milgrom
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter


Chapter 4 of the epic 12-part multi-crossover Questprobe series!


This time Durgan is after copying the X-Men's powers in the continued hopes of defeating the approaching Black Army from wiping out his pacifist planet.

As the inanimate bio-gem escapes from its captor the natter enenergy-egg (sic) to, via the Chief Examiner, take-over Magneto's powers, the master of magnetism's alter ego becomes a replication of his corporeal body as a pattern of energy within an alien computer. There he discusses philosophy with Durgan's energy pattern. Meanwhile back on Earth, Rogue must use the combined powers of Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four to defeat 'Magneto' without seriously harming his body.

Yes, author Chris Claremont packs a lot into these 24 pages, although there are two things that he misses:

1. Some motivation for Rogue's relinquishment of all her new superpowers. Okay she's hulk-green, but who in the Marvel Universe wouldn't take that on in order to hang onto all the cool new abilities that come with it? Those are the combined powers of the Human Torch, Spider-Man and the Hulk she has there!

2. Not that it's Claremont's fault, a proper conclusion. Although eventually printed here in Marvel Fanfare #33, these pages were originally intended to be issue #4 of the 12-part Questprobe series, which was sadly discontinued after issue #3. At time of writing, the outstanding 8 chapters remain unrealised, and with them Durgan's planet is still sadly doomed.

If any industry has the brand-loyalty to successfully run an 8-part, or even a one-part, conclusion to a 25-year-old failed comic series, then it surely has to be Marvel.

Finally, here's Magneto nicely pondering the pros and cons of standing up to pacifism:

"Has the capacity for violence really done humanity that much good?

Mahatma Ghandi spoke of a better way -- resistance to evil, to oppression, without resort to violence. The courage to take blows, but never return them. Christ's message, too.

Durgan's race embodies that noble ideal. Yet Durgan, in his zeal to save them, may in the process cost them what they hold most dear.

I wish him luck -- but I wonder if his people will thank him for what he's done on their behalf. And may yet do.

Will his victory be worth the price?"

Questprobe #1 featuring the Hulk reviewed here.
Questprobe #2 featuring Spider-Man reviewed here.
Questprobe #3 featuring the Human Torch and the Thing reviewed here.

With thanks to Herschel.

Elvis' Christmas Album

In 1957, fourteen years before the depressing Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas, Elvis and his elves cut this slightly more optimistic attempt at the Christmas market, and it's very much an album of two halves.

The first six tracks feature typical fireside blues numbers touching on the usual northern hemisphere subjects. White Christmas is awesome, however as with the other album, this quickly descends into loneliness. Blue Christmas and Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me) give their morose selves (morose elves?) away by their titles, but even the hope of I'll Be Home For Christmas ends on the crushing punchline "… if only in my dreams."

Eurgh, complements of the season.

Maybe Elvis should just come clean and record Cryin' In The Grotto, I Saw Mommy Cheating On Me With Santa Claus and I'm Howlin' Face Down In Snow For Christmas (Ya Devil Woman).

However, in the second half of this album, something more akin to the Easter message of reconciliation takes place.

Tracks 7 and 8 are the well-known carols Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem and Silent Night respectively. However after these, the playlist abandons its Christmassy theme to concentrate purely on hymns. Peace In The Valley, I Believe, Take My Hand Precious Lord… I wouldn't so much call these seasonal as evergreen.

Despite its short running time, this is definitely my favourite of Elvis' two yuletide albums.

I hope Santa never plays this in his sleigh though, or during the first half he might just jump out.

Playlist:

1. Santa Claus Is Back In Town
2. White Christmas
3. Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)
4. I'll Be Home For Christmas
5. Blue Christmas
6. Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me)
7. Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem
8. Silent Night
9. (There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)
10. I Believe
11. Take My Hand, Precious Lord
12. It Is No Secret (What God Can Do)