So, Torchwood…
We’re three episodes into the “adult” spin-off of Doctor Who, building on the phenomenal success of Russell T. Davies’s relaunch of the much-loved BBC sci-fi classic, so now is as good a time as any to pin it to the table, stab a scalpel into its guts and see what we can find.
And I’ve been struggling all week to articulate exactly what it is about Torchwood that is bugging me. And I can’t.
It’s not just the lazy pilot episode Everything Changes, which is an uninspired imitation of the Doctor Who relaunch pilot Rose, following exactly the same path: A disenchanted woman (Rose / Gwen) is bored with her mundane life and her dreary boyfriend, until she is unwittingly hurled into the life of a mysterious charismatic stranger (The Doctor / Captain Jack Harkness) and a scary yet exhilarating world of aliens and monsters lurking around every corner.
It’s not just the transparent gimmick of having Gwen saddled with the thankless audience POV role, helping us wade through all that pesky world-building exposition. (Just like Rose in Doctor Who). Good writing should cleave to the maxim of “Show, Don’t Tell”, rather than having the characters sitting around explaining everything.
It’s not just Davies’s self-indulgent insistence on having a different member of the core cast engaged in a same-sex kiss in every episode for no apparent reason.
It’s not just the truly risible second episode Day One, which confirmed all my worst fears of what an “adult” show would mean. The orgasm monster, or whatever the fuck it was, was a horrible idea. The men reduced to little piles of dust after climax was a laughable visual. Silly me, I thought “adult” meant grown-up, intelligent entertainment, as opposed to bolting gratuitous sex onto bog-standard evil alien set-ups.
It’s not just the fact that I think Davies has failed to capitalise on one of his biggest assets in the character of Captain Jack Harkness. In Doctor Who, Jack was the ideal foil for the Doctor. Whilst the Doctor is an adventurer and scientist with a dry wit and unapologetically quirky ways, Jack was his mirror image - a swashbuckling con-man overflowing with charisma and gung-ho machismo. Jack is rampantly pansexual, whilst the Doctor is virtually asexual. In Torchwood, Davies has dumped all of that characterisation, and Jack has become a much darker, brooding figure. Granted, there may be a story-driven reason for this, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
And, in fairness, the show is getting better. It has its moments. It’s OK. It’s thoroughly watchable. But I’m still disappointed by the whole package. And yesterday I finally worked out why that is.
Nigel Kneale, the creator of the Quatermass series, died yesterday. And Warren Ellis posted a small obit on his website on Kneale and the cultural impact of Quatermass. Here’s a small excerpt: “…Britain used to shut down on Quatermass night, and it’s all people would talk about the next day.
And that was down to Nigel Kneale, last of a generation of writers for British television who were determined that this common culture should always be entertaining, intelligent, challenging and groundbreaking.”
Ellis nailed it. That’s my problem with Torchwood. Despite Davies’s claims that the show is “dark, clever, wild, sexy”, it’s just not dark or clever or wild or sexy enough. It’s perfectly serviceable, but it is startlingly unambitious television. What could have been a wonderful opportunity to challenge us with a smart genre piece has been squandered on endless sequences of Men in Black running around the streets of Cardiff, labouring under the weight of an oppressive score and some shonky special effects.
In the pilot episode, Captain Jack proclaims that “The 21st Century is when everything changes, and you gotta be ready.”
Well, I’m ready. And still waiting…
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Drunk Man Walking
From my office window, I can see the murky, rancid waters of the Grand Union Canal. It’s awful. It’s just filthy brown water, full of plastic bags and coconuts, topped off with a grimy meniscus of duck feathers stuck in a greasy rainbow of oil that’s trickled down from the car repair place next door.
On the other side of the canal, on a stretch of pavement stained with calcified duck shit and discarded bottles of cheap Polish beer, there is a solitary piece of messily scrawled graffito. It reads “The Truth Is Out There.”
It’s been there for a while now and, due to the combined abuse of the sun, the rain, and the relentless scuffing of feet, it’s starting to fade. But, for now, it’s still there.
This morning, though, there was something different. At about 8.30, there was a human head poking out of the canal, thinning white hair slapping against the brown ripples of the canal.
By 9, the corpse was laid out flat on the pavement, surrounded by a small contingent of TV cameras and policemen. The cops said that it looked like he’d been in the canal between 8 and 10 hours. At a guess, I’d say that he was walking home from the pub last night and fell into the canal, too drunk to get himself out.
I’ve scoured the news sites all day and I can’t find anything. I suppose a drunk drowning doesn’t merit any coverage.
By lunchtime, the body was gone, whisked away to who-knows-where. I walked down there. There wasn’t a trace of the body that had been there mere hours earlier. Just a wet, body-shaped stain slowly drying.
Why am I writing all this down? What does it mean? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it means “life is short”. Maybe it means “don’t walk by the canal when you’ve been drinking all night”. You can take whatever you want from it.
To me, it means “Make it count. All of it. Make the journey just as important as the destination.”
But what the hell do I know?
On the other side of the canal, on a stretch of pavement stained with calcified duck shit and discarded bottles of cheap Polish beer, there is a solitary piece of messily scrawled graffito. It reads “The Truth Is Out There.”
It’s been there for a while now and, due to the combined abuse of the sun, the rain, and the relentless scuffing of feet, it’s starting to fade. But, for now, it’s still there.
This morning, though, there was something different. At about 8.30, there was a human head poking out of the canal, thinning white hair slapping against the brown ripples of the canal.
By 9, the corpse was laid out flat on the pavement, surrounded by a small contingent of TV cameras and policemen. The cops said that it looked like he’d been in the canal between 8 and 10 hours. At a guess, I’d say that he was walking home from the pub last night and fell into the canal, too drunk to get himself out.
I’ve scoured the news sites all day and I can’t find anything. I suppose a drunk drowning doesn’t merit any coverage.
By lunchtime, the body was gone, whisked away to who-knows-where. I walked down there. There wasn’t a trace of the body that had been there mere hours earlier. Just a wet, body-shaped stain slowly drying.
Why am I writing all this down? What does it mean? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it means “life is short”. Maybe it means “don’t walk by the canal when you’ve been drinking all night”. You can take whatever you want from it.
To me, it means “Make it count. All of it. Make the journey just as important as the destination.”
But what the hell do I know?
Return of the Mack
There are many things I could say. Reasons and excuses, glorious truths and brazen lies, and many, many other things…
I could say that you should never irrevocably close off a valid outlet for the manifold ruminations that skitter across the rippling grey mass between the ears.
I could say that this beats scrawling rude words on the walls of public toilets.
I could say that I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.
I could just say that I’ve missed you…
But I’m not going to, because all of that would detract your attention from the most important message I want to impart…
I’m BACK!
Oh yes.
I could say that you should never irrevocably close off a valid outlet for the manifold ruminations that skitter across the rippling grey mass between the ears.
I could say that this beats scrawling rude words on the walls of public toilets.
I could say that I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.
I could just say that I’ve missed you…
But I’m not going to, because all of that would detract your attention from the most important message I want to impart…
I’m BACK!
Oh yes.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
This is the end, my friend
This will be the 236th and final blog posting on Sucker Punch.
This is not an impulsive decision. This is something I have been thinking about for many months. In an attempt to reinvent and streamline my daily life, it was time to shake things up, change things around, and take that jump off a cliff.
Sucker Punch has outlived its usefulness. I don’t need it any more. Neither do you. There are new mountains to climb, instead of trying to plough the same ol’ furrow on an irregular basis.
I hope you’ve enjoyed coming here as much as I have enjoyed writing here. If you have been here more than once, then Thank You for indulging some of my more skewed flights of whimsy and strangeness over the last few years. But we had some fun, didn't we?
I have no doubt that I will blog again at some point in the not-too-distant future. And when I do, it will have my real name slapped on to it. No more hiding behind a flimsy alias. Time to stand by my words with a big badge pinned to my chest, proudly proclaiming who I am once more.
This is not an ending. This is a new beginning. There are other, new, different and exciting words to write. Somewhere else. So keep your eyes open. The Internet is a Small World, and you never know where I might pop up next…
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
This is not an impulsive decision. This is something I have been thinking about for many months. In an attempt to reinvent and streamline my daily life, it was time to shake things up, change things around, and take that jump off a cliff.
Sucker Punch has outlived its usefulness. I don’t need it any more. Neither do you. There are new mountains to climb, instead of trying to plough the same ol’ furrow on an irregular basis.
I hope you’ve enjoyed coming here as much as I have enjoyed writing here. If you have been here more than once, then Thank You for indulging some of my more skewed flights of whimsy and strangeness over the last few years. But we had some fun, didn't we?
I have no doubt that I will blog again at some point in the not-too-distant future. And when I do, it will have my real name slapped on to it. No more hiding behind a flimsy alias. Time to stand by my words with a big badge pinned to my chest, proudly proclaiming who I am once more.
This is not an ending. This is a new beginning. There are other, new, different and exciting words to write. Somewhere else. So keep your eyes open. The Internet is a Small World, and you never know where I might pop up next…
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Pain In The Grass
Seasonal allergic rhinitis. Pollinosis. Hay Fever. Call it what you like. Me? I call it a month of neverending discomfort and nasal horrors.
I wake up every morning with my eyes glued shut like the cast of Facial Humiliation after a particularly gruelling shoot. After scraping the gunk away so that I can finally see again, my eyes remain puffy, swollen, itchy and ever so-slightly watery for the rest of the day.
I have to splash my face, hands and hair with water regularly throughout the day to get rid of any stray pollen that has decided to take up residence on my person in an attempt to make my whole body rebel in snotty anguish.
The sides of my nose are forever tender from blowing, wiping and removing the copious amounts of mucus that I seem to be generating. On particularly unlucky days, I get a nosebleed too.
Hay fever sufferers can never really enjoy the good weather of the summer, because of all the unpleasant side-effects.
The pollen forecast for the immediate future remains on High Alert. And all the anti-histamine in the world isn’t going to save me from a world of pain.
Give me an arctic cold winter, a raging fireplace, a good book and a generous tumbler of bourbon over this bullshit. What have I got instead? A host of physical annoyances, made infinitely worse with the constant intrusion of either Big Fucking Brother or the World Fucking Cup, straddling the popular consciousness of the nation like two over-fed, brain-addled colossi, raining shit down onto our heads at irregular intervals.
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
I wake up every morning with my eyes glued shut like the cast of Facial Humiliation after a particularly gruelling shoot. After scraping the gunk away so that I can finally see again, my eyes remain puffy, swollen, itchy and ever so-slightly watery for the rest of the day.
I have to splash my face, hands and hair with water regularly throughout the day to get rid of any stray pollen that has decided to take up residence on my person in an attempt to make my whole body rebel in snotty anguish.
The sides of my nose are forever tender from blowing, wiping and removing the copious amounts of mucus that I seem to be generating. On particularly unlucky days, I get a nosebleed too.
Hay fever sufferers can never really enjoy the good weather of the summer, because of all the unpleasant side-effects.
The pollen forecast for the immediate future remains on High Alert. And all the anti-histamine in the world isn’t going to save me from a world of pain.
Give me an arctic cold winter, a raging fireplace, a good book and a generous tumbler of bourbon over this bullshit. What have I got instead? A host of physical annoyances, made infinitely worse with the constant intrusion of either Big Fucking Brother or the World Fucking Cup, straddling the popular consciousness of the nation like two over-fed, brain-addled colossi, raining shit down onto our heads at irregular intervals.
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The Devil's Advocate
It is the sum of the squares of the first seven prime numbers.
It is said to be the Number of the Beast, based on the Old Testament Book of Revelation 13:17-18.
It is the sum of all the numbers on a typical roulette wheel.
It is also a marketing hook for the shonky-looking remake of The Omen.
If you suffered from hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, you would probably be hiding under your duvet, shitting yourself violently right now.
But, for all of those sweating from a surfeit of superstition, and who are hobbled by an abiding love of dubious folklore and specious numerology, remember: it’s just a number. Let’s say it again. It. Is. Just. A. Number.
And, today’s date? It is 06/06/2006. Not 666. OK? OK.
Resume your normal daily routines. However, I would recommend avoiding angry crows and large sheets of glass if at all possible.
It is said to be the Number of the Beast, based on the Old Testament Book of Revelation 13:17-18.
It is the sum of all the numbers on a typical roulette wheel.
It is also a marketing hook for the shonky-looking remake of The Omen.
If you suffered from hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, you would probably be hiding under your duvet, shitting yourself violently right now.
But, for all of those sweating from a surfeit of superstition, and who are hobbled by an abiding love of dubious folklore and specious numerology, remember: it’s just a number. Let’s say it again. It. Is. Just. A. Number.
And, today’s date? It is 06/06/2006. Not 666. OK? OK.
Resume your normal daily routines. However, I would recommend avoiding angry crows and large sheets of glass if at all possible.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Desmond Dekker 1941 – 2006
"I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde."
Details here and here.
Speechless and gutted. I know what I'll be listening to for the rest of the day.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The Final Punch Playlist
OK. Further to my earlier blatherings, and in the Spirit of the New, this is the last Punch Playlist. Far too much of the blog is being devoured by details of my aurgasms these days, and it has to go. In a clutter-clearing exercise, I’m taking this short-lived feature out the back and terminating it with extreme prejudice. In the exceptionally unlikely event that you still care about what I’m listening to on a regular basis, you can refer to the Funk Fiction box halfway down the right-hand side of the page.
And so, here is the Punch Playlist Special Swansong Edition:
Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!
And so, here is the Punch Playlist Special Swansong Edition:
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Projectiles
Be warned: Lots of thinking out loud coming up…
“Learn to write well, or not to write at all.” John Dryden
It’s been almost exactly a year since I last had something published with my name attached to it. My last published article (a film review) was actually a pretty good piece. I can tell by reading it again, though, that I was ready to holster my keyboard and hang up my spurs for a while.
The article was the last in a run of twelve reviews written in the space of about a year for a music website. For that year, I held the title of “Film Editor” for that website, which was just a meaningless euphemism for “The Only Guy Who Really Writes About Film For This Site”.
So, I walked. (Not that anyone noticed). Partly due to circumstance, partly due to personal desire, partly due to changes behind the scenes. I knew I was done with film journalism. Maybe permanently, maybe I only needed a break to get the blood pumping again. Either way, I needed to walk away for a bit. Now, that may sound like an ending to you. To me? Sounds just like a beginning…
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Cyril Connolly
Nevertheless, a writer writes, right? I can’t not write. I don’t know how to. It’s a compulsion. If I don’t write for a couple of days, I get restless and twitchy and need to get the words out to keep myself sane. A curse or a gift, depending on which way the wind is blowing on any given day.
So, with the film journalism on the shelf indefinitely (maybe even permanently), my mind wandered onto thoughts of What Happens Next. And it didn’t take me long to decide. I was going to take myself out of the game for a while. No pitching, no structure, no editorial constraints, nothing. Just me and words for the foreseeable future. If I just ended up with a shapeless mess of language, all jagged edges and lumpy blobs? No problem. It’s all a writing exercise. Gets the juices running. Gets the synapses sparking.
Hell, it’s all writing exercises. Film reviews? It’s writing to length, to house style, getting to the point, keeping it accessible, try to entertain, try to keep a bit of yourself in there. Blogging? Scribbling on scraps of paper? They’re all writing exercises, if you allow them to be. Nothing is a waste, everything has a purpose.
And it’s been good. I’ve had the freedom to dick around endlessly with whatever takes my fancy. And it’s all just for me. Learnt a few tricks and got a few things out of my system. But I’m getting that gnawing itch again. Time to jump off a cliff and think about What Happens Next again.
The Year of Film Reviewing for a Totally Inappropriate Website is sooooo 2004, and long gone. And now, The Year of Self-Indulgent Word Wankery is also drawing to a close. So, what next?
Well, it’s time for The Year of The Project. Get my name back out there. Impose structure once more. I’ve been playing with the art of writing for long enough. Now is the time to get back into the craft of it.
And ideas? Man, I gotta bunch of ‘em…
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.” Neil Gaiman
So, this is it. Day One of my New Year. Film journalism will be back on my slate of projects for the coming months, but not in the way it has been in the past. Not quite ready to make any announcements about that yet.
Short stories, comic scripts, screenplays, long-form novels….it all starts here. I’ll spend a while pulling together all the disparate threads I’ve cast out over the last year, and when they are nice and taut, twanging with tension, then the work begins. But it’s not really work if you enjoy it so much, is it?
“I am a galley slave to pen and ink.” Honore de Balzac
Something worth mentioning: One of the many things that has inspired me recently, for many reasons, is Monster Island by David Wellington. A novel originally written and published online as blog postings, it has recently been published as a print edition. And it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Want a quick bite-sized one-sentence review? OK: If Charles Dickens was a New Yorker who wrote zombie stories, he’d write Monster Island.
Monster Island bear-hugs every zombie cliché imaginable, before spinning them on their rotting heads and weaving something consistently surprising and original with every inventive twist and turn of the story. As it was published as blog entries over a period of time, almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, pushing you forward to the next bit. And, like every true Romero acolyte, Wellington doesn’t use the word “zombie” once. Top man.
And it’s made me think about the nature of serial fiction quite a lot. Monster Island, like the work of Dickens, started out as serialised fiction, which forced the author to think about making every scene and moment count, ensuring that you return for the next bit. So that’s got my wheels turning too…
The best bit? You can read Monster Island in its entirety online right now, for free. And the two sequels in the trilogy. And his latest, currently incomplete story, Thirteen Bullets.
Me? I’m old-school, so I’m forcing myself to wait until Monster Nation is in print later on this year before I dive into the second novel in the series. Also, the man deserves my money for giving me such a damned good read. I’m so tempted to nip into Chapter One though…
Anyway, enough of my yakking. There is work to be done.
“Learn to write well, or not to write at all.” John Dryden
It’s been almost exactly a year since I last had something published with my name attached to it. My last published article (a film review) was actually a pretty good piece. I can tell by reading it again, though, that I was ready to holster my keyboard and hang up my spurs for a while.
The article was the last in a run of twelve reviews written in the space of about a year for a music website. For that year, I held the title of “Film Editor” for that website, which was just a meaningless euphemism for “The Only Guy Who Really Writes About Film For This Site”.
So, I walked. (Not that anyone noticed). Partly due to circumstance, partly due to personal desire, partly due to changes behind the scenes. I knew I was done with film journalism. Maybe permanently, maybe I only needed a break to get the blood pumping again. Either way, I needed to walk away for a bit. Now, that may sound like an ending to you. To me? Sounds just like a beginning…
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Cyril Connolly
Nevertheless, a writer writes, right? I can’t not write. I don’t know how to. It’s a compulsion. If I don’t write for a couple of days, I get restless and twitchy and need to get the words out to keep myself sane. A curse or a gift, depending on which way the wind is blowing on any given day.
So, with the film journalism on the shelf indefinitely (maybe even permanently), my mind wandered onto thoughts of What Happens Next. And it didn’t take me long to decide. I was going to take myself out of the game for a while. No pitching, no structure, no editorial constraints, nothing. Just me and words for the foreseeable future. If I just ended up with a shapeless mess of language, all jagged edges and lumpy blobs? No problem. It’s all a writing exercise. Gets the juices running. Gets the synapses sparking.
Hell, it’s all writing exercises. Film reviews? It’s writing to length, to house style, getting to the point, keeping it accessible, try to entertain, try to keep a bit of yourself in there. Blogging? Scribbling on scraps of paper? They’re all writing exercises, if you allow them to be. Nothing is a waste, everything has a purpose.
And it’s been good. I’ve had the freedom to dick around endlessly with whatever takes my fancy. And it’s all just for me. Learnt a few tricks and got a few things out of my system. But I’m getting that gnawing itch again. Time to jump off a cliff and think about What Happens Next again.
The Year of Film Reviewing for a Totally Inappropriate Website is sooooo 2004, and long gone. And now, The Year of Self-Indulgent Word Wankery is also drawing to a close. So, what next?
Well, it’s time for The Year of The Project. Get my name back out there. Impose structure once more. I’ve been playing with the art of writing for long enough. Now is the time to get back into the craft of it.
And ideas? Man, I gotta bunch of ‘em…
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.” Neil Gaiman
So, this is it. Day One of my New Year. Film journalism will be back on my slate of projects for the coming months, but not in the way it has been in the past. Not quite ready to make any announcements about that yet.
Short stories, comic scripts, screenplays, long-form novels….it all starts here. I’ll spend a while pulling together all the disparate threads I’ve cast out over the last year, and when they are nice and taut, twanging with tension, then the work begins. But it’s not really work if you enjoy it so much, is it?
“I am a galley slave to pen and ink.” Honore de Balzac
Something worth mentioning: One of the many things that has inspired me recently, for many reasons, is Monster Island by David Wellington. A novel originally written and published online as blog postings, it has recently been published as a print edition. And it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Want a quick bite-sized one-sentence review? OK: If Charles Dickens was a New Yorker who wrote zombie stories, he’d write Monster Island.
Monster Island bear-hugs every zombie cliché imaginable, before spinning them on their rotting heads and weaving something consistently surprising and original with every inventive twist and turn of the story. As it was published as blog entries over a period of time, almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, pushing you forward to the next bit. And, like every true Romero acolyte, Wellington doesn’t use the word “zombie” once. Top man.
And it’s made me think about the nature of serial fiction quite a lot. Monster Island, like the work of Dickens, started out as serialised fiction, which forced the author to think about making every scene and moment count, ensuring that you return for the next bit. So that’s got my wheels turning too…
The best bit? You can read Monster Island in its entirety online right now, for free. And the two sequels in the trilogy. And his latest, currently incomplete story, Thirteen Bullets.
Me? I’m old-school, so I’m forcing myself to wait until Monster Nation is in print later on this year before I dive into the second novel in the series. Also, the man deserves my money for giving me such a damned good read. I’m so tempted to nip into Chapter One though…
Anyway, enough of my yakking. There is work to be done.
Friday, May 12, 2006
The Punch Playlist 12/05/06
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It took me three full listens to get to grips with the Gnarls Barkley album, but I think I’ve finally cracked it. I’m a Danger Mouse fan anyway, so I just had to grab it by the guts and cram it into my ears until I yielded. It is, as they say, a grower. Obviously, I have the loping, heroically infectious pop of Crazy skipping around in my head now, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that...
Also, this seems as good a place as any to talk about my reignited passion for The Ink Spots, with their innovative melange of bluegrass, blues, doo-wop and jazz, swathed in irresistible vocal harmonies, particularly in their early stretch of hits from the late ‘30s and early ‘40s. In addition to the hypnotically mellifluous Whispering Grass, they are the legends behind the best song ever written about coffee ever. Yes. Ever.
Proof? Here’s a snippet of the masterpiece known as Java Jive:
“I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup
I love java, sweet and hot
Whoops Mr. Moto, I’m a coffee pot
Shoot the pot and I’ll pour me a shot
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup
Oh slip me a slug from the wonderful mug
And I’ll cut a rug just snug in a jug
A sliced up onion and a raw one
Draw one -
Waiter, waiter, percolator”
Obviously, this is better when you hear them singing it. Honest. No, really. Trust me.
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