Reading tonight at the Spotlight, Lancaster

I will be reading at the Spotlight in Lancaster tonight. I've not been before, so I hope I can find it. Info here -----http://www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk/page2.htm

Frost/Hemingway

...in a strange dream I had last night, David Frost touched me up and gave me some stamps. Mind you at least he gave me the time of day. Hemingway didn't. He was eyeing up the waitress instead.

Culture in Preston

Hold onto your hats...On the back of recent cutting edge cultural events such as Muck and Brass: A tribute to the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Sooty and Sweep's Magic Biscuits and The Nativity on Ice, Preston is now host to Plastic Culture - a collection of contemporary pop art at the Harris Museum. And, well, it's actually very good.

http://www.harrismuseum.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=327&Itemid=148

How did anyone survive the 70s?

In the 70s it was dangerous to...ride a bike, go swimming, play on farms, put rugs on newly polished floors, use escalators, hang shopping bags on pushchairs, mix radial and cross-ply tyres, cross the road, play with a frisbee, go camping, go fishing, go within thirty feet of a pylon/substation/plug socket, eat out of date cheese, fly a kite, have polystyrene tiles...It's a wonder I'm still here.

Following on from the last post about disturbing Usborne guides, here are just a few examples of the horror that was daily life in the 70s, courtesy of You Tube.

1. Escalators.

Notice how the escalator is made to look like something off Terminator - an emotionless machine whose only function is to kill kill kill. Were escalators ever this frightening? (after all 'escalators are everywhere', says the narrator) No - but that's the point, you couldn't take anything for granted in the 70s. There was danger everywhere. Mind you, I do remember being frightened of escalators, of being somehow digested by the teeth at the end and swallowed into its mechanical belly. They are, I suppose, great chomping machines to children. But was anyone ever killed? Did this actually happen to anyone? A squeak of a boot and little Billy dismembered and gone for good? Who the hell went shopping in their wellies anyway? Well, actually I did...it rained a lot where I lived.

2. Using matchsticks instead of a plug gives you the complexion of a zombie.

There's not much to say here, apart from who the hell ever stuck matchsticks into a plug socket? Was this a widespread problem in the 70s? Were men with Diabolo goatees up and down the country securing live electrical wires with bits of wood? Note the added danger of him using a very large power tool woo ha ha ha. And, hold on, who's the geezer who comes in to rescue him? He looks like a foreman of some sort. Is this a place of work? Christ and they can't even afford proper plugs? You think this credit crunch is bad. I love the withering final line from the narrator - "fix things properly" - it sounds like something your mum might have said as you lay there fitting on the floor.

3. Polish.

Even polishing a floor can be a deadly act. This one is a good example of the mind games these adverts played. It begins with the Carry On/Terry and June/Good Life happy-go-lucky twitterings of flute and xylophone, then a rug turns into a mantrap.

4. The cross-ply/radial problem.

I think the problem here is less that the odd-looking chap in the Morris has mixed cross-ply and radial tyres and more that he is driving like a knob. Not sure how his car ends up being dropped from a great height, though. Love the Hammer Horror mad professor.

More another time.

Corduroy and Vampires

When I touch corduroy I think about vampires. Sometime during the 80s, I went with my parents to buy some new furniture and after hours of looking at red leather and plastic they eventually settled on a suite fashioned out of chocolate brown corduroy and chrome tubing. While they arranged delivery I sat in the armchair and took out the book I carried with me everywhere at that time - The Usborne Guide to The Supernatural World.

It was split into three parts - Vampires, Werewolves and Demons - Haunted Houses, Ghosts and Spectres (not sure what the difference is between a ghost and a spectre) - and finally Mysterious Forces & Strange Powers. Part 3 was a bit tame - Uri Geller, astral projection, fakirs and ESP blah blah. But the other two parts scared the shit out of me. You think 'Usborne', you think 'engaging', 'educational', 'child-friendly', 'nicely illustrated'. Hmm.

There was something about the 70s and 80s. They were just really...unsettling. Everything seemed bleak and gritty, though that might just have been because I grew up in a very dull northern provincial town where grey was a primary colour. But it seemed perfectly acceptable to scare the bejesus out of kids. Think back to any of the Public Information films you used to watch at school - they took time to build up suspense and tension, they were meant to frighten you to death and give you weeks of nightmares. Cheers.

I sat there gripping the chunky corduroy, half fascinated half terrified. It was a muggy summer's afternoon. There was a thunderstorm outside. The lights in the shop flickered. I didn't sleep that night.

Iguanadon

The Fonz of the Early Cretaceous period.

Anomalies in Horror Top Trumps

King Kong beats Death on Physical Strength, Fear Factor and Killing Power?

OK King Kong's pretty handy, but he kills, what, half a dozen people? Swats a few biplanes? And by definition how can Death's Killing Power be anything less than 100% - does he have off days where he can only dish out nasty illnesses instead? Finally, I know there's only one percent in it, but how is an animatronic monkey more frightening than the great leveller, the only end of age, the Grim Reaper who unemotionally dispatches millions every year?

Still, Death whups Killer Rat and Incredible Melting Man