Wednesday 26 December 2018

TIMESPANNER BONUS MATERIAL: How not to recap.




Happy Boxing Day! I hope everyone's been letting nothing them dismay, and heart-shaped thanks to all who've said nice things thus far about the new Spanner. "VonBlade" expresses hope that in "the next one" (if that ever happens) I might "spend less-time setting the scene for those who foolishly missed ep1." and while you may have a point, VB, I thought I'd put up the following exchange from the very first draft written back in March to show just how much worse things could have been:

GABBIE                           Cool. But get some shoes. And not dinner lady shoes like you had.

MARTIN                          Brilliant! Yes! See you at six.

GABBIE                            (Cautiously) Cool. (Departing) Happy Birthday! Aww, thanks for stopping…

MARTIN                          This is a good idea.

ANGEL                            The shoes?

MARTIN                          Well I need shoes ideally, but – I mean if it starts raining, say – No, buck up, Martin! I need shoes.

ANGEL                            What happened to your shoes?

MARTIN                           Okay, retrace my steps: I definitely had them on when I brought my boss his tea, then he forced me through a magic mirror at gunpoint to find out how to bring back the dead and I was in Heaven – although I don’t really believe in Heaven – and I met you and we stole the Time Spanner because you said I needed to bring stuff back from the Future because my world was dying and you gave me a robot helper which I didn’t really want, sorry, but apparently Heaven’s full of robots, oh and there was something about how you once gave the Spanner to Hitler –

ANGEL                             Yes! Specifically that it wasn’t Hitler!

MARTIN                           Or if it was, that it was an accident –

ANGEL                              No! It was that it wasn’t Hitler.

MARTIN                           Sure, but that came a bit out of nowhere. Anyway! Then you stuck the spanner up my nose, into my brain, which is how you’re talking to me now, sent me back to Earth –

ANGEL                             The physical plane.

MARTIN                          “Plane” yes, the plane, but then I used the Spanner to go round the Universe back in time, just to check… not change anything, just check Gabbie hadn’t heard me say… nice things about her, which she didn’t, so that all seems fine, and everything seems great!

ANGEL                             And the shoes?

                                         Pause.

MARTIN                         Oh, I took them off to go through the mirror! That's it.

I still like the joke. Ultimately though it was decided that this first draft was a bit... well Gareth used the word "glib", but I prefer "easy to write". And while I'm posting bonus material, here from that same draft is the fullest description of the Cat-In-The-Bag. I knew it would almost definitely have to be cut down, but sometimes writing's just fun:

LAIKA                              The Cat in the Bag: Found furniture, peeling leather seating banks, fish-finger sandwiches, Connect 4, Buckaroo, a single chandelier rescued from a Streatham bordello, “Crash Test Dummies” on the jukebox by the Speak-Your-Weight machine, actual crash test dummies propping up the specials, a bowl of pens in the toilet, and on the wall behind the stuffed lynx, a seven foot high monochrome mural of Ariana Grande in a hazmat suit.






(Actually, while it's an obvious stand-in for the Dogstar on Coldharbour Lane, the real inspiration for the Cat was the short-lived "The Rest Is Noise" which is now a TK Maxx, and more recently the Hob in Forest Hill which recently opened as the crushingly inorganic Signal a couple of years ago without a thought for... Christ, listen to me.)

Tuesday 25 December 2018

Wanna feel old? Today was two years ago!


That's just Vauxhall.

I won't keep you long, this is just to confirm that "The Dan In the High Castle" - THE SECOND TIME SPANNER - is finally available to listen to here! And the first one's still listenable to here! (Thanks Kate, whoever you are.) Why not fill your ears with both and feel lush?
A bigger write-up about the new one to follow, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy it, I hope it's the one you wanted, you know, I hope 2018 hasn't completely killed you, and I hope that everyone reading this has a merry, merry VERY CHRISTMAS!



Thanks this Kate too!