Spinach or Silence as Sources of Power

 "So, Art is something which is made when you use a material to change something... but it helps people to consider the Art which is in front of them if it is grouped with another set of Art, and it's very difficult to consider Art in isolation from other Art..."

 Born Yesterday has a great format: two twenty-four-hour-old clones of the hosts ask two guests to explain the world in terms of the only three things they've yet had time to learn about. Alexander Bennet and Andy Barr are its perfect hosts, digging down in just the right spots, and presenting perfectly packaged summaries, so no matter how a guest chooses to play it – as hilarious disruptor or dweebish stickler – it's almost impossible not to be entertaining. (Like Taskmaster.) As evidence, I'd like to submit this episode, in which I'm dropped in alongside Andrea Hubert (I'll let you decide which is which) to explain such topics as Cumbria and the concept of "The Ends Justifying the Means" with only Popeye, a Hog-roast, and Birmingham New Street Station as points of reference. Other topics also emerge during the episode, such as animal cruelty in early cinema, Insults, Joy, and whether or not – according to the mathematics of decapitation – Bradley Cooper's nose in Maestro makes him more alive. 

 I've been a fan of this podcast since it began, and obviously I'm always up for explaining the world to babies, so thanks to Andy and Alexander – an old Crystal Maze colleague – for inviting me, and thanks to Andrea for being such a great teammate/opponent and for showing me all her blades. (We appear nineteen minutes in. If you fancy a drinking game, down a shot every time you notice me avoiding saying her name because I get self-consciously stuck on whether "Andrea" has a long or short A, despite it being said numerous times during the record, and the way the name's always pronounced. I'll join you.)

 "So, in building our understanding of what a Mime is, we have been led to believe that, if a dog were to withhold from you its name, it would be able to pick you up..."

 

Wowee! An Official Film!

March doesn't get back to Normal

 Let the record show this post is actually going up on Thursday the 22nd, the day after President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the US Senate. I've been meaning to post something about March for a while, to catch up on the run-down of the year, and Zelensky's address has proved a good incentive, so here are more old photos.

 

 Again, a lot of scenery, including a reminder that a giant mound had been dismantled outside Marble Arch, serving as the reminder it had ever gone up. It looked better stripped of turf.

 March appears to have seen no real change to my routine. I'd use my time walking, and photograph where I walked. Local parks. Local galleries.

 

 I put off buying stuff for the room. We still wore masks at the Crystal Maze. The weather was changing though, behaving itself to begin with, showing no signs for example that in April this would all be snow...

 

 And in August this would be dust...

 Then, just as it seemed it had been decided the pandemic was over now, and "things" should be getting back to "normal", we suddenly remembered the possibility of nuclear annihilation.

 Down the hill from me, outside Holland Park, flowers and signs of support started appearing at the feet of the statue of the Ukrainian Saint Volodymyr. Russia had invaded the Ukraine on February the 24th. I looked it up.

 

 Just up the hill from me, outside Kensington Gardens, fences were erected to protect the walls erected to protect the Russian Embassy from graffiti, and across the road from them, more fences, often peopled by protestors, but I'm normally too shy to take photos of people. 

 

 The fences are still there today.

 

 And the signs.

 

A search for "Zelensky" conducted at the beginning of this invasion reminded me he'd been a popular television comedian before coming to office, and the extraordinary speech he gave in Russian on the day of the invasion reminded me how powerfully a comedian can communicate.

 

Remarkable speech. Addressed to the Russian people, it should also be heard everywhere. pic.twitter.com/RkrDGSYUYq

— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) February 25, 2022

 

 On one walk, I then bumped into the friend who'd invited me to that concert where the orchestra were all masked. She'd grown up in Yugoslavia, and outlived it, still holidaying as a teenager in what was becoming Croatia while living the rest of the time in what was becoming Serbia (Is that right? Have I got that right? I should look it up.) Anyway, she lived in a war. 

 "Vladimir Putin is an absolute fucking genocidal dictator," she explained over a pint in the Windsor Castle. "But –"

 "America doesn't give a fuck about Europe either. The Cold War's been over for thirty years, why is there still NATO? Putin didn't do this without reason. I cannot believe this propaganda. News should be History. Nothing is being explained. We're not enemies. These are people! They're going to have to discuss! It's exactly like Yugoslavia... I'm sorry." 

 And now I'm thinking of that "Stalin Attacks Churchill" headline from 1946, in the copy of the Daily Mail we use as a prop in Love Goddess. It's a good prop. You can see the beginnings of the Cold War in the story beneath, as "Generalissimo Stalin" warns of an English-Speaking assumption of World Domination. The power of that narrative's still there today too.

 

I Demand To Know Who Built This Pig.

 

 

 You may have seen this substantially meme-ified pig before, in its original untouched-up form. Online reactions to the film have been understandably strong but, beyond the fact that it's a 1907 Pathé recording of an old vaudeville act, I can't find much information about what it is I'm actually seeing. Who was the act? How was it being done? What would a cross section of Le Cochon Danseur look like, for example? How many people would we find? Just the one costumed actor, moving his arms in and out of the trotters to swivel the eyeballs? A little child sitting on the main player's shoulders to operate the head bits separately? How does it all look so coordinated?

 

 The dancing pig is shamed.

  

 And how successful was the act? Because, if it was successful, why have I never seen any contemporary imitations? Why would we not see this level of articulation in a puppet again until "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"? If Vaudeville could come up with something this impressive in 1907, why would a Master of Cinema like Fritz Lang, the creator of Metropolis, have such difficulty building a convincing dragon nearly twenty years later? If I was Lang I'd have gone "Get me the dancing pig people, STAT!" Or maybe he did. Maybe they built this dragon too, but it wasn't as good. Who built this pig!

 

 

(Okay, now I've looked it out, it's better than I remember, but it's still no dancing pig.)

 I have a question too about the technology used to clean this clip up – less about the wherewithal, and more about its effect. I assume it's some kind of rougher, off-the-peg version of whatever Ai Peter Jackson used to clean up the Beatles footage in "Get Back". A few other youtube clips suggested by my algorithm use the same tech. Here's the first I saw...

 

 My old workplace, the Trocadero, and the next time I was there I took a photograph, to compare the two...

 

 Because, when I watch these clips I feel – as I felt watching "Get Back" – that I'm somehow being transported in time, and then I have to check why, because documentaries aren't new, and film has been around for long enough for me not to be surprised by it. That's my question.

 

 So I've decided, it's not that the retouching makes footage look more realistic, but that it makes it less immeditaely familiar as "footage", and so the brain reads it more literally. One can – rightly – condemn the artificiality of this, if what's intended is the creation of a more accurate record. But what this technology reminds me is that, from its inception, film has never been just a record, it is also a genuine marvel. 

 

February in the Black

 For the past couple of years, every time I've finished a book I've taken a photograph of it, maybe hoping that this will make me read more. I took six photographs of books in January I see, and one in February. And none in March. Here's Holland Park. I'd get wheeled around here when I was one, so I've been told. I don't remember. Now it's just up the road.

 

 Photographing Kensington was one thing I managed to keep up in February. Was I doing it hoping to feel more like a resident, or like a tourist? Did I want to feel more at home or the opposite? I still stayed sociable, although I stopped going to the BFI as much, another fad of January. But I still had spending money from my first two commercials shot at the end of 2021. I still met friends, and if I was twenty years younger maybe there'd be photogaphs of that too. Here's a concert I was invited to in February. I couldn't remember why I'd photographed it, until I looked closer and saw everyone's masks. Click to enlarge.

 

 I met Gemma Brockis a lot. I could afford to go out for coffee. We'd knock ideas about, her teaching and seeking meetings, me working a couple of days a week at the Crystal Maze and meandering. She told me how as an immersive theatre veteran she'd also occasionally get approached by Virtual Reality Engines to participate in Research and Development. Intimacy was what they were after now. "Virtual Intimacy" was VR's philopospher's stone.

 

 What does "intimacy" actually literally mean though, I asked? We talked about that a bit – Chris Goode used to ask it back when he still did the blog, and was alive – then I decided to just look it up on my phone. We all have an idea. What do you think it means? As far as I could work out, "intimacy" just means the opposite of loneliness. That doesn't seem to have much to do with Virtual Reality. I didn't think they were going to find it, and I made a note of that on my phone. That phone broke, but I remembered.

 

Pink Slip

  Happy first birthday to Pretend Freinds, Chloé Doherty's cavalcade of newly redundant imaginary friends, which went up on youtube a year ago today! Enjoy me yet again snivelling in a bad suit, and enjoy the toy-spangled couture of Anne-Sophie Cochevelou sported by a host of resting Crystal Maze Masters. I already explained why I have cars stuck in my ears back when we shot this in March 2021, so I can't imagine you'll have any further questions.

  Since this film was shot the vaccine rolled out of course, and the Crystal Maze reopened; however, our pay was now cut. But then raised. But then cut again. And when I emailed a strongly worded complaint (hate's a strong word, right?) to our brilliant and stretched Head of Actors I accidentally hit "reply all", the email went to those hated higher-ups, and that was me out of a job as well. Losing a job's horrible, isn't it? I never had imaginary friends as a child. I miss those guys. 

 Also since this film was shot, Anne-Sophie Cochevelou has found something to do with all those old lateral flow tests...

 

 

 

All photos by Anthony Lycett.

Hospitality (featuring Woodlouse or Moth)

 "The PSC (pre show coffee) Award: Simon" – smudged in transit

 

 Oh my God, I never win anything!

 The "Best Actor Oscar" from Morgan was an honorary thing really, but that paper plate to the left of it came with ceremony, cheers, and tables in the corner of an upstairs room of the Lyric Pub Soho – the full Dundies, in other words – a coherence. The PSC is an award that speaks to me. It says, "You make coffee before a show, Simon. You are seen. You did not just crash the Crystal Maze hosts' social last Monday. You were expected, it's fine." 

 After the ceremony we lugged our plastic medals over to the Pheonix – when was I last there?... I bounded home smoothed by compliments received for a person I barely recognised, and fortified by the hope of a world reoreinting itself to accommodate the plans of those just starting out. 

 Christmas had started early. 

 In fact, as soon as Halloween was over – bang on All Hallows' – we'd transitioned into playing reindeer, and the Crystal Maze wasn't the only business decking its halls earlier than seemed seemly, in the unspoken shadow of another possible lockdown sometime in actual December. So it was good we got the  celebrating in when we did, before Omicron Week. 

 However it does mean I ended up posting nothing on Monday evening. Or since. So to make up for that, here's a working week's worth of unposted quiz rounds from the Dungeon Zoom, beginning with - from May the 14th – "Woodlouse or Moth?"... There are ten of each, but which is which? I'll post the answers in the comments below, but you can also find them for yourself here and here.

1. Dandy Postman

2. Apple Leaf Skeletonizer

3. Charlie Pig

4. Oak Lutestring

5. Scarce Vapourer

6. Billy Baker

7. Humidity Bug

8. Manchester Treble-Bar

9. Blair's Shoulder-Knot

10. Cheesy Papa

11. Roly-Poly

12. Old Lady

13. Triangle

14. Chuggy Peg

15. Least Minor

16. Damp Beetle

17. Clifden Nonpareil

18. Leather-Jacket

19. Snout

20. Granny Grunter 

Taking My Rightful Place at the Top Left Hand Corner of Fashion

 On the first anniversary of theatres and Crystal Mazes closing, here are some images from Chloé Doherty's Pretend Freinds which I worked on last Thursday. The tie covered in toy cars is by Anne-Sophie Cochevelou, who made all of these costumes. Earrings too. You can see them a bit better here...

 

   When Chloé sent out a group text asking who of us had their ears pierced, I misread it as "ear piece" (each of us in the Maze hygienically had our own, to keep us in touch with "Mumsie") and I throw nothing away. In the end I just stuck them in my ear holes, as you might be able to tell from the look on my face. All ears have holes. I think it might catch on.

 Here's where we shot:

The Fifth Horseman

 

 

 I walked home from Hackney today, trying to think what Friday's Quiz would be about.

 

 The morning had been spent filming with old colleagues from The Crystal Maze, playing imaginary friends in costumes from Sophie Cochevelou, covered with toy cars and Mr. Men. It was lovely to catch up.

 Our old Maze costumes would have been hanging up, unwashed, on the top floor of the Trocadero for a year by now. I had no idea what to make the quiz about, or indeed today's post. The canal by Victoria Park was fenced off and drained for some reason. But these aren't pictures of that.

 

   These are pictures I took of a walk last Wednesday, March the 3rd, listening to a podcast about Chupucabra in the mist. I'll probably do a film-related round. A fortnight ago, the news was full of Mars. Sometimes when I write a blog, I look for the thing I've left out, and then put that down, and delete the rest. Sometimes it's not about finding a focus though, but providing a space.

 

 Nothing on the blog's been received more gratefully than my records of late night walks, so that's why I'm finally posting them, in place of another black square. I don't know if they're really what's wanted. I could always ask. This seems the place to do it. I just don't want to leave Sarah Everard un-named on here.

 

 And I don't want to leave unacknowledged the fact that the hopelessness voiced after her nightmarish abduction and murder – possibly by a police officer – has to do with more than just walking home alone, or being out after dark, but with sharing any space, any time, with the daily terrorism of men – heroes of their own story, keepers of the law. Top billed.

 

  And I want to acknowledge the hopelessness – both perceived and experienced – of reporting these acts of terror. Changing that is something to hope for at least, and demand, for a start. Actionable, structural change. "Inequality" seems too tiny word for a whole reality. I know what a person needs, because I have it. But it's mine, and I don't know how to give it. Again, I could always ask. And this might be the place to do that. And thank you for your company. Really, how are you doing?  

 

THE YEAR IN REHASH: MARCH - Sung Blog Sunday! "Je Suis Mermaid"

 Literally the only photo I have of work.

 Continuing this review of my favourite or at least more conspicuous posts from the last twelve months here's the last one for today, composed in what would turn out to be my penultimate week of working at the Crystal Maze. Starved of collaborators, "Sung Blog Sunday" would soon grind to a halt, and this is probably the best thing I made all year. It's shorter than Titus Andronicus anyway. From March the first. Un, deux, trois...

 My second bash at GarageBand, suggested by a conversation in the green room of the Crystal Maze with Catherine Davies, who also suggested rhyming "bleu" with "azure", and the line "I hear sailors are easy to scare" so big thanks, Catherine. I dip my toe into using loops here, but not equalizers, nor have I yet bought a mic. Attempt enjoyment, listeners! (Cover art from George Leonnec below, and Weeki Wachee Spring's mermaid archive above, photographer and model unknown.)

Sung Blog Sunday! "Je Suis Mermaid"

 My second bash at GarageBand, suggested by a conversation in the green room of the Crystal Maze with Catherine Davies, who also suggested rhyming "bleu" with "azure", and the line "I hear sailors are easy to scare", so big thanks, Catherine. I dip my toe into using loops here, but not equalizers, nor have I yet bought a mic. Attempt enjoyment, listeners! 

 (Cover art from George Leonnec below, and Weeki Wachee Spring's mermaid archive above, photographer and model unknown.)

I saw a short show I think you'll like about British guns.

 I found this old photo of what used to be the Trocadero. There's a Crystal Maze at the top now, and occassionally I work there. Every Maze Master gets to choose their own costume and I chose pyjamas and a dressing gown. These make the wearer look simultaneously completely lost and completely at home, but I have subsequently remembered it's a costume I've chosen a few times before...

  And it's hard to run in slippers. The best of a number of good things about this job is that you get to share a green room with people who are making things. Our boss recently emailed us details of some of those things, currently being shown at the Vaults beneath Waterloo, and attached was a spreadsheet with thirty-three new works on it. I've only seen one of these so far, this evening, and this is a plug for it. Gang, I think you should go and see "Tuna"! It's on at six tomorrow (Sunday, so okay, today) and then that's it, I'm sorry. But Airlock have made a fabulous thing. Rosanna Suppa's teen narrator makes a divine comedy of the hell of not being listened to, populated by merciless physical caricatures drawn from a life growing up in a house full of guns, which burst out of her like something out of Tetsuo. It's a heck of a dance, but it's also just someone talking to you, knowing you're listening, and proudly asking nothing. Rosanna says here, "A recent audience member described it as ‘like the first time I took speed’, which sounds like a good thing, because the way he phrased it, he’s done speed since." She also says in that interview "There was a person's flesh worth of fish on there'' which is just a phrase I like. God, I laughed. Tickets are HERE. It's directed by Robbie Taylor Hunt, lit by Catja Hamilton, nobody seems to have put a foot wrong, and I hope it happens again.