The Dave-ings of an Arranged Mind (1)

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30 April


Well, let's see where this goes*:

1. Cameron is a Scottish name

2. David is a Biblical name

3. Blair is a Scottish name

4. Eric Blair (also known as George Orwell) made Barnhill, on the Isle of Jura, hame**

5. Brown actually sounds Scottish, as well as being it

6. As did John Smith, at rest on the Isle of Iona

7. In both cases, certainly with less affectation than Billy Connolly*** in Mrs Brown (1997)

8. Osborne, whose first names were originally Gideon Oliver****, first had paid employment, with the NHS, in a way reminiscent of Defoe: he had to make computer entries of the names of the dead of London****

9. In rotten Boroughs*****, votes cast by those actually dead may have exceeded those of the living

10. Which inevitably brings us, once more, to the question of Gogol and Dead Souls (1842)

11. But, in the UK, we pride ourselves on knowing The Government Inspector (1836 (revised 1842))

12. Apparently, a bit like the origins of Tomkinson's Schooldays****** (1976), Pushkin was supposed to have told Gogol an anecdote, from which Gogol then derived his play

13. Which takes us neatly to Public Schools, judges (again!), fags, and whipping-boys!



End-notes

* A little game called Thirteen Degrees of Archery.

** Although he did much work on what he came to call Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is a common misconception, amongst those who know about his connection with Jura, that he died there.

*** Were Pamela and Billy made for each other? (No, I don't mean anatomically - not even in a Ken-and-Barbie sense!) Well, one was a welder, and the other was born in the Anderston district of Glasgow, and both have disguised their natal history, by, eerily, electing to speak with the accent that really belongs to the other.

Yet for all that Billy says cock and fuck, Pamela was far more genuinely provocative, even in just a few seconds, with her well-known American Express gag. (Plus beautifully amusing in taking off the quiddities of how the news was read at that time.)

**** On both counts, according to Wikipedia®.

***** Concerning which I owe all my knowledge to Blackadder the Third (1987) (as do some students theirs of The Great War to Blackadder Goes Forth (1989).

****** Palin and Jones******* collaborating to great effect in many of the Ripping Yarns

******* Yes, Bridget and Sarah!


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After Martin in Leonard's shoes... (1)

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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23 January

Fascinated by Martin Clunes taking the lead in remaking Reggie Perrin (i.e. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin), I have conceived a project where he would re-create the role of Edmund in Blackadder the Second. (It may, for the sake of completeness, be released in the boxed set, but who gives a hang about The Black Adder? – after that, it’s a miracle that we ever got the BBC fund any other series!)


The supporting cast is as follows:

Percy – Neil Morrissey*
Baldrick – Bob Mortimer
Melchett – Paul Merton
Nursie – Jo Brand
Flashheart – Vic Reeves


Yes, you have spotted an important omission – I just cannot cast anyone better to play Queenie than the original Miranda Richardson (and don't even try suggesting that other Miranda!).

And so the whole plan may fail (unless I persuade Bill Bailey that he does look good in a frock)…


* My first instinct had been - for some reason - Dylan Moran, but Clunes' old on-screen flatmate seemed a better proposition: not that I'm typecasting.


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