We are Controlling Transmission

 

 

It was fifty years ago today, on the 16th September 1963...

 

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control  all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. Your are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to THE OUTER LIMITS

 

That first ever episode was the superb 'The Galaxy Being' about a radio engineer who is experimenting with a transceiving device which scans 3D static. He tunes into a being from the constellation Andromeda...

 

...and the rest is legend.

 

Happy 50th Anniversary to a very special SF TV series which along with 'The Twilight Zone' (which preceded it by four years), are the finest examples of the genre. The Outer Limits was made at the tail end of a very creative 'golden age' in American television dramas, and it was amazing how anthology series like this managed to offer up such memorable, haunting and stylish fare week after week.

 

Like so many others in the UK, I first saw the Outer Limits in 1980 when the series was broadcast late night on a Friday on BBC 2. Up to this point, the show was something that had been cited in the pages of second hand SF books and magazines, with just a few grainy tantalizing B&W stills on offer. Now the time had arrived to "sit quietly...and experience the awe and mystery..."

 

At first the episodes were screened out of order, so in fact 'The Galaxy Being' was shown several months into the run - but in the end, we got to see all of the 49 episodes that were ever made - and after a dozen or so - mostly in sequence too. I'll never forget watching them all those years ago. So many classics: The Man Who Was Never Born, The Forms Of Things Unknown, Demon With A Glass Hand, ZZZZZ, The Invisibles, A Feasibility Study, The Inheritors. I could go on and on...

 

So back to the Andromedan being...

 

"...there are powers in the Universe beyond anything you know. There is much you have to learn. You must explore. You must reach out. Go to your homes - go and give thought to the mysteries of the Universe.

 

I will leave you now...in peace"

 

END OF TRANSMISSION

 

The Galaxy Being as depicted on a bubble gum card produced in 1964

eff off

This is an unexpectedly raw and provocative book title which slipped onto the bookshop shelves firstly in hardback in 1969, and then as a paperback in 1971. It then slid out of sight - but not completely...

It's a novel about a young teacher at a 'special school' for 'violent' children - and according to the blurb on the back of the paperback edition - it reflects the genuine experiences of the American-born author, Sandy Hutson, who came to Britain, and worked as an 'unqualified' teacher. There's a wild quote from the New Statesman which reckoned that 'eff off' sends E.R.Braithwaite's 'To Sir, With Love' "back to the kindergarten!". That classic 1959 semi-autobiographical novel about a British Guiana-born teacher gaining the respect of truculent pupils at a school in Shadwell, East London, is perhaps the best-known of this kind of 'against-the-odds-getting-through-to-the-kids' genre. Perhaps because the 1967 film based on the novel was so very popular - and with a chart-topping title song taken from the film soundtrack.

Another book covering similar terrain (and given the film treatment too) is today much less well-remembered - Michael Croft's 'Spare the Rod' from 1954.

Back to 'eff off'. Here's the '69 hardback edition with its illustrated dust jacket:

published by Arlington Books

But it's the paperback cover that truly rocks. What a coup for Pan Books to come up with such a spell-bindingly punchy cover. I can imagine that most shops of the time shoved it out of sight of young people - and thus making this Five Shilling book quite a scarce item to track down these days. For those who want to read the actual four-letter F-word abbreviated in the title - there are plenty of chances inside. Another reason perhaps why this book was not the most heavily promoted of the literature covering the social issues of the day.

Pan Books Ltd 1971

There are no clues at all about the cover designer anywhere within 'eff off'. Just white lower-case lettering on a sheer black background. The look perfectly straddles both the counter-culture '68 imagery, and the Crass-style punk logos a decade later. And the author's name is nowhere to be seen on the front of the book.

Nice to compare with the 'period' paperback treatment of those earlier classroom-based novels:

Panther Edition 1957

Ace Books 1961

And back to 'eff off' once again. In fact just like the two novels above, 'eff off' the book, did find its way onto film. But (sadly) nobody chose to go near the original title.

Instead, take a hunt around the web and you'll find 'The Class of Miss MacMichael', a 1978 film based on Sandy Hutson's book. It reunited 'Women in Love' stars Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson and was shot on location in London, but it seems to have been punished by the critics, and ignored by the public.

Maybe the time's right for a new cinematic take on the inner city classroom genre. If so, you could do no worse than take the title which still packs a punch. Eff Off.

 

Londres

I've just returned to London from a holiday in France, and have now doubled my collection of old French paperback novels which have a 'Londres' connection from one to two!

 

Five years ago I spotted this copy of 'Le Saint a Londres' in a market in the Vendee area for a bargain 50c, and this time round I nabbed an eye-catching secondhand Georges Simenon title in Sarlat for a couple of Euros.

 

Le Livre de Poche, 1968

Back cover, with credits to Pierre Faucheux / Photo Holmes Lebel 

'The Saint in London' by Leslie Charteris was originally titled 'The Misfortunes of Mr.Teal', when it was first published in book form in 1934. It was most probably re-titled after the successful 1939 US film starring George Sanders as Simon Templar / The Saint.

This French pocket book edition has a gorgeous dayglo pop art cover - and is particularly intriguing because the photo of London's Piccadilly Circus captured in a typically bustling 1960s moment has been printed back-to-front! At the bottom centre, there's the no.14 bus to Hornsey Rise, and just above 'Le Saint' logo is the Circlorama Cinema which opened in 1963 and had about a two year run as a kind of precursor to the IMAX-style cinemas of today. Back then, the audience stood in the centre of the auditorium which was surrounded by, literally, a circle of film screens. Other iconic signs of the time are Coca-Cola , and on the back cover - Double Diamond, Skol and Guinness beers. Note also a truck with an advert for Lyons Swiss Rolls.

L'Homme de Londres by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon was also first published in 1934. It was made into a film in Occupied France in 1943, and sixty four years later the Hungarian film director Bela Tarr revived the story, this time as 'The Man from London'.

The cover is rather unusual, with the authors surname boldly written with glowing turquoise letters. A blatant contrast to the stark photograph of the black dockyard cranes (a symbol of the River Thames, and back then, set to be torn down forever).

Perhaps I'll discover another vintage 'Londres' title in France within the next five years?

another Le Livre de Poche title, this time a 1971 edition

the same photo on the back cover, flipped back to front. Credit: a.a.g / cl. veyrac

Highbury, May 1991

 

 

Let's swiftly whizz forward five seasons from yesterday's 'Highbury, August 1985' post. The final match of the Gunners' Championship winning 1990-91 season is over. Just over 41,000 fans packed out Highbury on Saturday 11th May 1991 to watch Arsenal thump Coventry City 6-1. 

The First Division trophy was already in the bag before the game, and I'd brought along my Olympus OM10 35mm camera to record some mementoes of the big day. Of course, the fans were proud to show off their colours - but what's so telling about these pictures, compared to those taken in the same location just 5 years earlier, is how much red and white there is: replica tops were now de rigueur, along with Arsenal scarves, and title-winning souvenir rosettes, hats and T-shirts...

V for Victory

Hey, now that's a ridiculous place to park up a Hot Dog & Burger stand

A cracking view of a jam-packed Avenell Road

Fans look up to the open windows of the players dressing room windows in the East Stand -  hoping to catch sight of their heroes...

...and some of them spot me too!

These joyful Arsenal fans are today twenty two years older. How many of them still go to the matches? And what, they wonder, will Season 2013-14 bring?

Highbury, August 1985

It's just a couple of days to go to the beginning of the new Premier League season, and supporters of the 20 competing teams are preparing for their emotions to be kicked up and down and around the field for yet another year.

So it's definitely appropriate to pull out of their paper wallet, a bunch of photographs that I took on August 24th 1985, with a Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera using 110 cartridge-based film. The match was Arsenal versus Manchester United, in the old First Divison, at the Gunners former ground, Highbury Stadium, Islington, London N5. It was Arsenal's second home match of the 1985-86 season.

These snaps were just taken for a bit of fun, but inevitably almost thirty years on, they have become an intriguing reminder of what our footballing past looked like.



The roasted peanut seller and his hand-sized white paper bags filled with nuts always stood around the stadium's main entrance in Avenell Road

 

A bright Summer's day on Avenell Road, a mum in pink, her punk-rock daughter and son, police on horseback, and fans passing an entrance to Highbury's 'Clock End' - which is to the right of the photo

The iconic East Stand in Avenell Road opened in 1936. It's facade is now incorporated into the block of luxury flats that was built on the site of Arsenal's first North London home.

What is so striking about this snapshot of ordinary football fans outside the stadium in 1985 is that not one of them is wearing a replica shirt. In fact there are no scarves, or anything that identifies these fans as Arsenal (or perhaps Man Utd) supporters.


Looking down on the East Stand's lower tier. Note that it was split - with the front half for standing in, while the back half was seated. Again, these fans are wearing clothes that look like they were bought in C&A, rather than these days where expensive replica tops are purchased in the Club Shop.

The Arsenal players emerge from the East Stand's dressing room, and head for the centre circle

8: Ian Allinson, 2: Viv Anderson, 6: Tommy Caton, 4: Steve Williams, 7: Stewart Robson, 1: John Lukic, 3: Kenny Sansom

The players salute the fans, and the TV cameras on the balcony of the West Stand (built in 1932)

The rest of the team that day was 5: David O'Leary, 9: Charlie Nicholas, 10: Tony Woodcock, 11: Graham Rix, and 12: Paul Davis. Only one substitute allowed back then!

For the record, Arsenal lost the match 1-2 , and were to end 7th in Division 1 that season, three places behind United who were 4th.

Tomorrow I will post another set of photos taken at Highbury. This time in Arsenal's Championship winning season of 1990-91. It will be fascinating to see what a difference five years will have on football fans fashions...

Pedestrian Crossings: CROSS

 

And following yesterday's red light WAIT post, now for a parade of little green people all snapped by myself in mostly forgotten locations in France and Germany back in the mid-1980s:

 

Pedestrian Crossings: CROSS



This Parisian avenue was re-named after Hugo on 28 February 1881 (the day after his 79th birthday)



don't walk, run



rhythmic pairs crossing

hold on to your briefcase

cross to a rock steady beat



startled 1950s orange man on route to nuclear shelter

my favourite! dig those groovy loon pants and floppy sleeves

When I took the photograph, I wondered whether this crossing was in fact some kind of special time travelling device, and the elderly couple would somehow turn into a pair of swinging hipsters c.1969 when they crossed to the other side?


A New Additon:

GO! state of the art: Blois, France, 29/08/13

Pedestrian Crossings: WAIT

 

It's Summer holidays time, and I've dug deep into my early street photography archive and have discovered a nice selection of 'Pedestrian Crossing' photos that I took during holiday trips in France and Germany during the mid-1980s. Unfortunately I didn't keep a record of the exact locations, as I was mostly after the images of the signs, with an unexpectedly wide range of illuminated crossing people.

 

Today I'll begin with the red WAIT ones:

 

my jolly red giant

keep hands in pockets

gents in trilby hats must not cross road

don't stand in the road

minimal red

twins must wait

stop and count the dots

In the UK, these type of pedestrian crossings were originally given the name 'X-Way' - as in 'crossway', just like 'motorway' or 'subway'. The 'X' or 'Cross' was exactly what the driver could do when an illuminated white cross was showing on the signal. A red circular light meant 'stop - pedestrians crossing', amber was 'stop - unlesss unsafe to do so', and flashing amber was 'give way as pedestrians have priority'.

As for the pedestrian: the red figure - 'Wait, drivers have priority', the green figure - 'Cross, vehicles are stopped', and the flashing green figure - 'Give Way - pedestrians have priority'.

The new 'X-Way' was launched in 1967 by the Mayor of Lincoln, in the City of Lincoln's very own High Street. The following day the Sheffield Morning Telegraph reported:

"In time local motorists will understand them, but strangers from places where they are not in operation will be utterly confused".

the latest addition to the collection: Blois, France 29th August 2013