modestic
Issue: anything
Once upon a time
there was a fanzine called modestic. It was quite a low key thing that
people seemed to quite like, and in some cases, even to really enjoy. But one day
in June, the editor threw his toys out of his pram, declaring that every word
he was writing was dull, boring, tired cliché. So he rested the zine with a
promise of a new issue in September, once he was refreshed. After all,
September wasn’t so far away…
(And in amongst
the cliché, there was always the urge to drop song titles, lyrics, or
paraphrases of them, into the text…)
September came
and went, with no sign of a new issue. There was confusion within the editor’s
mind, also. The new issue was to be something different, a break from what came
before. So should it carry on as modestic, or should a new zine be
created.
Grunggae. [Sic].
Cod Times. A Little White Lie. In Dreams. Chuff. Strewth!
These were all
considered, at one time or another amongst others that I either can’t remember
or failed to note down, as an alternative to modestic.
But, in the end…
Well. You can see the decision.
Yesterday, being
Halloween as I type, I was at the Institute of Contemporary Arts having seen
the Graham Coxon exhibition (which ranges from shockingly bad to terrifically
great) and I was in the shop, looking at the zines there – I was just about to
buy Smoke – when I came upon an idea.
Theme.
Every issue should have a theme. That was where I was going wrong. A magazine
has a theme, a direction. In trying to make modestic all things to
everyone, it was losing its direction. But by the same token, I don’t want to
constrain creativity.
So this is the
deal. Every issue is based around a
word. Articles will either be about that word, or use that word as a
springboard to go off on a tangent, or maybe even simply mention the word
somewhere within the text. The important thing is that the word is used as
inspiration, not as a constraint.
For example, if I
gave as the word of the issue as “cheese”, you could take it literally and go
on about your favourite cheeses. You could talk about naff cheesy pop. You
could talk of the cheesiest moments in film or TV. The only limitation is your
mind…
As this is the first of the new modestic, and most of it was written before I had my brainwave, the word of this issue is “anything”. For next issue’s word, see the the bit at the end…
I was all set to
start off this issue of modestic with a piece commenting about how the essence
of Boris Johnson's (well, Simon Heffer's, to be accurate) piece on people
expressing grief for people they've never even met was, comments and
inaccuracies re Liverpool & Hillsborough aside, an article with many good
points.
However, as I type
this, I find myself welling up with tears and emotion after hearing that
someone I've never met has died. To make such comments on the Spectator piece
would be rather hypocritical, really.
I never met John
Peel, yet I feel incredibly sad at his passing. After the news was announced,
and he'd read out an obituary, Steve Wright played Teenage Kicks, and it was
all I could do to contain myself and stop myself bursting into tears. (And,
later in the evening when listening to the NewsBeat special, the tears took
full flow.)
We do feel
sadness for the deaths of people we have never met, and it is only right and
proper. In this case, though, although I never knew John he had an effect on my
life and the music I listen to.
I remember him,
on the Friday of the Glastonbury weekend in 1993, pondering on how exactly he
should pronounce the title of the next single he was going to play. Was it to
be pronounced as the word "Punk" or spelled out
"P-U-N-K."...? The record was, of course, P.U.N.K. Girl by Heavenly,
and it was the first time I'd ever heard them. I loved the single. So, the next
week when I saw it in Tower
Sounds in
Swindon, I picked it up, remembering Peel's introduction, and bought it. A
whole new world opened up in front of me.
It saddening to
know that there will be no more Peel shows on Radio 1, and that somewhere on a
shelf, already recorded, is the last ever Peel Session.
So maybe grieving
for someone you never met isn't a bad thing.
The other day I
was flicking through a book in the lesser of Reading’s two branches of
Waterstones, when I came to something curious within. It was a coffee stain.
Smearing down the page, an ugly streak of brown yukkiness. Like someone had
splurged a turd down the page. You don’t expect to see such a thing. But then,
I suppose with the growing infestation of Coffee Shops in corners of bookshops,
it is something that will happen time and time again.
Someone,
somewhere, sometime must have thought it was a good idea. How can we get more
people into our bookshop and make them stay longer? I know; let’s rip out some
shelving, reduce our stock level, and stick in a Coffee Shop. GAH!
Slowly, and
surely, the Coffee Shop in a book shop phenomenon spread until shop after shop
had a corner devoted to some Coffee Franchise or other. Starbuck’s here,
Costa’s there. Coffee Shops everywhere. Go on. Think about it. How many books
shops do you frequent? And of those how many have Coffee Shops? Most of them, I
expect.
Now I have
nothing against Coffee Shops as such. A Coffee Shop is a perfectly
fine place to
stop off and have a relax in for a break in a lengthy shopping trip, but book
shops ain’t the place for them. They take up space where other books would be.
Probably the more obscure, niche market stuff. You can’t imagine that when
deciding which stock to remove/put in store that they’d go for the Top Ten or
the Harry Potters or the Dan fecking Brown. Nah.
People read books
in book shops. Fact of life. Nothing wrong with that. I do it. You can imagine
how the stain got in that book. Someone deciding whether or not to purchase did
so over a cup of coffee which got split on the book. Rather than do the
honourable thing and purchase the now damaged (by their own hand) book, they
replace it on the shelf, possibly taking an undamaged copy and then buying
that. Thus, at some point someone will pick up the book, not bother to flick
through it, and then when they get home and start reading they will eventually
get to the page with the great streak of coffee on it.
Thinking of it,
the only proper book shop around these parts (and I discount the Friar Street
shop as that’s a specialised one) that doesn’t have a Coffee Shop is the
greater of the two Waterstone’s branches; the one in Broad Street. A wonderfully
open space, with an upstairs with a curved parabola which you can lean on and
peruse books, and gaze down at the people below and on the stairs. A place that
seems friendly and inviting. And not a coffee stain in sight.
Post Script; it now
appears that coffee shops are infecting banks. I mean, WHY? Who wants to be in
a bank long enough to drink a coffee? Not me, that’s for fucking sure…
by Anthony Malone
Yes, it was I - Aubrey Munge - who
was sensationally expelled from the Olympics after being found creasing the
sheets with a twenty-two year old Norweigian figure-skater and whose room was
subsequently found to be an Aladdin’s Cave for the drugs authorities. You want
the truth? I wanted it. I wanted the scandal, I wanted to blow the whole thing
wide open and see all the judges gasping and dropping their prissy little
clipboards. I would have stood on that podium and proudly ignored the boos of
the scandalised crowd, the torn Union Jacks, the spittle and the bottles.
Except, of course, things didn't quite work out that way and before I knew what
was happening I was unheroically barred from competing, bundled onto an Easyjet
and handed over to the tender loving care of the British Press. The more
sympathetic editorials hoped my shaming would be the making of me, that it
would turn me around but it didn‘t quite happen that way. Sure, I survived -
just - but something happened a few months after I’d returned home in disgrace,
that changed things round quite a bit. The Aubrey Munge doping scandal was just
the start of it.
I had a bit of a thing for Agnetha
from the moment I clapped eyes on her, sitting on the coach frowning at what
her wizened old witch of a trainer was telling her - drugs propaganda no doubt
and from her air of ambivalence I had her pegged as a closet abstainer from the
word go. My own trainer - Sauvignon - had flatly refused to accompany me to the
Olympics on the grounds that I never listened to anything he said and that I
was a bloody idiot anyway, which I think speaks volumes about frustrated
athletes these days. The girl had beautiful blonde hair, an hourglass figure
and a nose like a Verbia ski-jump. Just my type. By the time I’d found my room
and unpacked I knew I was going to have a good Games.
Well to cut a long and thoroughly
depraved story short it turned out my suspicions were correct and Agnetha was
all too interested in a little excitement and adventure in her life,
particularly if it rubbed her trainer, Merlot, up the wrong way. So before we
drew the sheets back, we cleared away the free vacuum-packed syringes and
complimentary packs of EPO which had been generously provided by the Olympic
Committee - cracked open a few bottles of Malvern Springs and hopped into bed.
I felt pretty good at that point, comfortably clear-headed and translucently
articulate. We hurled abuse at the coverage of the games on TV: the marathon
runners who now went coast-to-coast in under three hours, the weight-lifters
who raising tonnage that would test an industrial crane, high-jumpers
fosbury-flopping over blocks of flats. It's bizarre watching these things when
you're clean, you know - there's a weird sense of unreality to it all. Anyway,
Agnetha and I soon moved on from award-winning sports commentary and were
prepping for seconds out, round two when events took a subtle turn for the
worse. There was a fumble of keys at the door and Aubrey's world went nova.
I thought it was the cleaner at
first, I was that close to slinging a pillow at whoever it was and drop-kicking
their mop and bucket, which shows you how on the ball I was back then. I never
twigged Agnetha might have some Nordic weight-lifter on the go as well so when
a seven foot perma-tanned Titan came round the corner into the bedroom blocking
out the sun with his comic book torso I fairly froze. An instant later and I’m
happy to say I was out that first-floor window and legging it across the quad
with my pants round my ankles but of course you could say he had a slight,
molecular advantage on me. There was the sound of collapsing masonry behind me,
an unearthly roaring and then that supercharged homunculus was after me like a
collapsing chimney stack. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever been torn limb
from limb by a genetically-enhanced, neo-human whose idea of pumping iron is to
crush cars with his bare hands but take it from me the thing to do is to evade
capture until other, more dashing, chaps step in and restrain what Mother
Nature has long since abdicated responsibility for. I was scrambling on the
gravel of the quad, my leg barely a foot away from his gnashing jaws when the
Dutch swimming team leapt on the enraged Odin but not before that damn Viking
somehow got hold of a javelin and sent it hurtling at half the speed of sound
past my ear. That javelin is now embedded six feet deep in the granite wall of
the Olympic Stadium. I hid in the arboretum.
I kept my fingers crossed that that
would be the end of it, but oh no - not so. There was a lull and then the whole
thing exploded in my face. See, Vlad the Impaler in his fantastic goodwill
towards his fellow sportsmen went straight to the organisers and made a formal
complaint about yours truly. When he twigged they'd much rather hush the whole
thing up for the reputation of the games he decided to take things into his own
trash-compacting hands and paid me a visit while I was out, presumably to tie
my legs in a bow around my neck. I was having a Herbal Tea in the ref when I
overhead this and the writing on the wall suddenly became pretty damn clear: if
I didn’t get to my room before he did and make it look like I’d been doing
drugs 24/7 I was done for. Except I was too late. What he found in my room
caused the biggest Olympic upset for ten years.
I was hauled up before the Olympic
Committee and told to explain myself. They then told me they were going to
announce to the world’s press that a search of my room had revealed...nothing.
I took this on the chin and came clean: I had never touched
performance-enhancing drugs in my life. Not so much as an antihistamine. Sorry,
boys. The grey men, clutching at their pacemakers and trying to find a positive
spin on this explosive soundbite advised me to give a press conference, read
out a short prepared statement saying I had been abstaining alone and then
relinquish my position in the Glaxo-Wellcome sponsored Olympic British
sprinting team. I was on a plane home within twenty-four hours. After that I
was persona non grata.
Bad business, all that. Affected me
quite badly. I descended into a sobriety-fuelled hell of total recall. I was
embarrassingly coherent at dinner parties, made piquant observations that
eviscerated the opinions of my hosts. I spooked women with intense sermons on
the virtues of clean-living. I unnerved men by refusing beer. All this might
have been the end of me, washed up in Guildford with a four by four and a
career in accountancy, except for something strange that happened to me. It was
the night of the storms, the night Cornwall nearly got sluiced away and I was
sitting forlornly on my sofa watching the weather reports, thanking my lucky
stars I lived in a top-floor flat and wondering whether my athletics career
really had come to an end when there was an authoritative knock at my door. I
wasn’t sure I wanted to let anyone in; my flat was spotless but I tip-toed to
the door and looked through the spyhole. She was standing there. I
opened the door caught completely off guard while she looked me up and down
disapprovingly. "My name is Merlot" she said, a damp cigarette
drooping from her hand. "I've come to help you."
***
The smaller the woman, in my
opinion, the more compact the dynamite so when you hear that Helga von Le
Tissier Merlot was barely over five feet tall you’ll understand why within a
week of meeting her I had more drugs floating around my system than an
All-Night Chemist. Seemed like Agnetha, wracked with guilt, had pleaded with
Merlot to take me on. Not that I didn’t put up a fight mind; I had years of a
particularly contorted mindset to unravel first. She invited herself in, sat
back on the sofa as if she bloody owned the place and looked at me with
distaste. “You’re looking well,” she growled. I shifted uncomfortably and held
her gaze. “What’s it to you?” I parried. And so it began.
Her basic thesis was that my life
would be a hell of a lot better if I took a combination of the most
sophisticated performance-enhancing drugs available to man. "As you
know," she said holding her cigarette in the air so that it dropped ash
all over my nice stripped floorboards "I do not advocate the taking of drugs
for recreational purposes. That way lies shipwreck. Sport, on the other hand,
has been immeasurably improved since drugs have been used. Sport was boring.
Sport was banal. There never were going to be any more records broken. Maybe
the odd millisecond shaved off here and there but never any real quantum leaps
forward. Now that we accept the use of stimulants as de rigeur the
Guinness Book of Records is a weekly publication. Imagine one of your fans,”
she rasped, wagging a bony finger in my direction - “that little boy out there,
in his bedroom, looking up to you, only to find you’d never done drugs. How do
you think that boy would feel?” I had to admit, I’d never thought of it like
that.
There was an awful lot of that. She came
back and kept on at me until I got so hacked off with her I gave in. And thus
my unlikely resurrection began. I was immediately packed off to weekly AA -
Abstainers Anonymous - meetings at which I sat with all the other bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed abstainers and eventually plucked up the courage to say “Hi
I’m Aubrey and I’ve never touched drugs in my life.” My first night on EPO was
a descent into the jaws of hell. I sobbed. I railed against what I was leaving
behind. I felt so square, as if I was leaving behind an edgy, hipper
lifestyle of secret abstinence and selling out for a way of life I neither
related to nor wanted. They all said hot turkey would be the worst - the nurses
and the Doctors, but with each injection, each chemically enriched meal it got
a little easier. Merlot, wreathed in tobacco smoke, put together a cocktail of
drugs to build up muscle, enhance lung capacity, steady blood pressure and
boost stamina but cautioned against merely resigning myself to the medication.
Instead, she said, I should embrace it. That was all hunky-dory, I thought and
if it helps me win medals all the better but I’m going to do it on my own
terms. So, after a few weeks when I could see the obvious improvements in my
physique and I had shattered my own personal bests I started to skip the odd
session of self-medication, neck the odd bottle of Perrier on the sly. Merlot
couldn’t understand it. The changes should have been more dramatic. Eventually,
the balloon went up when she found a bottle of Malvern Springs in my kit bag.
When I asked her what was it to her I found out just how compact that dynamite
was. Major bust-up. I walked.
I don’t know where I went, I just
know it was raining. Athletics for me, was finished. Either way I looked at it
I just couldn’t hack it. I must have been dithering along completely in a world
of my own because I didn’t hear them coming. There was about six of them I
think; their faces had that weird, unlived-in look - sheenless and unblemished
and while I had once felt perfectly at home with such folk this time they had
baseball bats and knives. They politely requested my wallet - at knifepoint -
and gleefully announced that my cash would go towards some of their more
expensive non-GM foods. I wasn’t physically intimidated by them, but instead
struck dumb by a sudden insight. I saw from the other side what I had been
advocating as a cool, underground way of life was in fact something far more
squalid. I saw it all then, the non-performance enhanced were always late for
work, far less productive than those of us who could sprint a mile in under a
minute. They were a drag on the economy, they were part of the problem, not the
solution. My God, I thought, I’d been living in cloud cuckoo land. I’d come
within an Ace of losing everything. For all of you who think clean-living is
where it’s at, I'm here with a wrecked career of abject failure that says
different.
Things change. Two years on and I
have just about salvaged my reputation. I have a legitimate place on the
Olympic Team and ICI have agreed to sponsor my doping regime in return for
wearing their logo. Physically, you wouldn’t recognise me. But here’s one final
amusing little anecdote, something that happened at the press conference
announcing the members of the British sprint team. I was merrily fielding
questions, sitting at the end of the row on the stage when a hand went up from
the audience, a ten-year old boy who looked at me as if I was Moses coming down
off Mount Sinai and said he had a question for me. "What would you say” he
squeaked “if your friends asked you to not do drugs with them?" I smiled.
Must have been a plant. A puff of smoke at the side of the stage told me Merlot
had suddenly tuned assiduously in, presumably to see if her protégé was on
message. She needn’t have worried. I’d lived it. It was easy. It was easy to
take a ride on that wagon, to teetotal it just once and think you don’t have a
problem. What would I say? I drew myself up, bulged my pin-pricked muscles,
looked that boy in the eye and gave him the best goddamn piece of advice you’ll
ever hear.
"Son. Just say no.”
The people who
should be cleansed from the Earth to make it a better place to live...
#1 - Mick
Hucknall
Why?
The evidence is
plain to see and can be summed up in these words; Stars. A New Flame. For Your
Babies. Fairground. Money's Too Tight To Mention. I could go on, but I believe
you get the picture. Any one or two of these songs in question, and there would
be a possibility that Hucknall should get 17 years hard labour instead of
execution, but the sheer amount of execrable tunes that he has foisted on us
over the years, and which is still continuing today, can lead to only one
verdict; death!
Er, there must be
a reason. But I'll be jiggled if I can think of it…
Hucknall should
be put in a locked room, and be forced to listen to his worst song, For Your
Babies, on repeat for 24 hours. During this time, he must stand still,
motionless. Every time he moves, an electric shock will pass through his body.
Once the 24 hours is up, the room will slowly fill with acid at the rate of one
centimetre an hour, which will eat through his flesh and bones slowly, causing
ever more pain as it rises. Knowing that there is no escape, he will have to
choose between trying to stay alive for as long as possible with the hope that
a last minute rescue may occur, or plunging his whole body into the acid,
killing him outright.
Death. What else
could it have been?
By Ken Shinn
Isn’t that new
“Preparing For Emergencies” public information film (or PIF) a load of old
crap? Frankly, Tony, I’m insulted.
Remember the good
old days of “Protect And Survive? (And for those eternal Sociology students who
forever slag “Thatch” in its name, please remember that the whole “plan” –
including the PIFs – was cooked up under Jim Callaghan’s prime ministership in
the mid-1970s.) Maybe those weren’t soothing – but why should they be? Nuclear
war is bloody scary!
So, yeah, we deserved
those skin-crawling, nerve-tingling synth chords: we deserved Patrick
Allen’s grimly authoritative narration. A Barratt Home wasn’t going to do shit
to save you from impending atomic holocaust – the best you could hope
for was continued existence after the Bomb. Only that reassuring final synth
chord offered the tiniest shred of hope. And we didn’t get atomic war.
What do we have
now? Twee, happy-sappy music, and a voiceover that may as well conclude with
Chris Morris-type “everything is fine” assurances in its sheer complacency and
condescension.
I’ll re-iterate:
Scary PIF. Warned
against nuclear war. We didn’t get nuclear war.
Touchy-feely PIF.
Warns against terrorist attacks. I’m staying away from the window as I write…
Do you know which
current chart hit gets on my goat more than any other at the moment? It’s that
one by Bryan McFadden; Real to Me. It’s not enough that he’s just trying to be
the new Robbie Williams (who in turn was being the new George Michael, anyway),
but he has to go and slag off his previous group in the process. Now, don’t get
me wrong, I’m no fan of Pondlife at all, but some people are. The whole point
of his single is that his life in Pondlife was meaningless, worthless and
quite, quite terrible. Thus, by extension, the music was the same, and thus the
fans who put him where he is now are. And yes, I know Freedom explored a
similar avenue, but it did it with much more style and didn’t blatantly slag
off the fans; “I was every hungry school girl’s pride and joy, and I guess that
was enough for me”, George, and late Robbie, sang. But not McFadden, oh
no, just as his single is out he
conveniently said that boybands are dead and the way forward are “rock bands”
like Busted and McFly.
Hang on. Rock bands? Nah, pop bands, more like.
And no, there is clearly
nothing wrong with pop bands. Personally, I adore Obviously, by McFly;
it’s a glorious example of a great pop tune, it’s fast, catchy, hummable, and
it gives you a grin when you hear it. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else
than what it is; a slice of pop. And it works well. But rock…? Nah. McFly, and
Busted, are simply Bros for a new generation. That is all.
Yeah, you may
argue that they are manufactured and all that cal, but really, who cares? I’d
much rather have a song like Obviously than any of the turgid self written pap
by, for example, Keane. How they got to be so popular, I’ll never work it out.
This snobbery
against pop is largely due to the often trotted out cliché that “they don’t write
their own songs”. So fucking what…? How many songs did Elvis write?
Frank Sinatra? Bing Crosby? There are loads of bands and singers that are great
at playing and singing, but are not so hot at writing the songs, Similarly,
there are lots of hugely talented songwriters that could never have a
hit themselves. So why shouldn’t they work together? Why does it matter that a
singer hasn’t written the words he sings?
It shouldn’t. But
in the eyes of many, it does.
By Chris Arnsby
“Four Doctors One
Destiny...” it says on the back of Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio play Zagreus.
I don't know anything about the play except that it's Big Finish's contribution
to Doctor Who's 40th anniversary, it's three CDs long, and I've heard
nothing good about it. Instead people say things like," I listened to it
over three nights and it nearly shredded my brains." Well, as the result
of a drunken boast down a pub I'm going to listen to it in one go. It won't be
the first time that drink has made me do something stupid but at least this
time I won't end up being banned from the National Gallery.
There are some
ground rules:
1) Once I've
started an episode I can't stop it.
2) I can't rewind
so if I miss something that's it.
3) I can take
breaks in between episodes.
4) I have to
listen to it right to the end in one go.
Time:
BEFORE I START.
Out of curiosity
I check the Big Finish website, there isn't a lot of information there except
that should I wish to buy Zagreus it would cost me £15.99, oh and it's their
50th Doctor Who release. The CD box isn't any more forthcoming. Zagreus is
written by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell. It stars Peter Davison, Colin Baker,
Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann (there's also a picture of Jon Pertwee inside the
case so I'm guessing he'll make an appearance from beyond the grave). The cast
list reveals (hooray) John Leeson and K9, Lalla Ward as Romana and Louise
Jameson as Leela. It also lists (boo) Bonnie Langford as Goldilocks, Conrad
Westermass as The Cat and Sophie Aldred as Captain Duck. Oh dear. It's all
starting to sound a bit wacky.
I should probably
also add that my previous Big Finish listening credentials are; The Sirens of
Time (the first one), Wetworks (the first Dalek story they did), something or
other of the Daleks (I'll check the title later, it had Colin Baker in), half
of Spare Parts (Big Finish's Cybermen origin story, apparently one of their
best). I've also got a copy of Boom Bang A Bang (a Christmas comedy story)
which I've never listened to but bought because I got to meet Graham Garden. It
sat around on the floor for a couple of weeks and then I trod on it. I'm not
sure where it is now.
Right, CD 1 goes
into the computer. There's a picture of the TARDIS behind it.
00:01 There's a 'previously
on Doctor Who' at the start. Zagreus is a mythical figure. There's anti-time
involved, which is bad. Charley (the Doctor's assistant?) is a gateway to
anti-time because of some sort of paradox. There are some ex-Gallifreyan's.
Bloody hell. I can't keep typing this quickly. There's anti-time on Gallifrey.
Charley wants to kill herself to stop anti-time from, erm, mixing with real
time or something. The Doctor (Paul McGann) loves Charley! The Doctor's going
to make a heroic sacrifice. Bang. Charley has ended up in the TARDIS after it
somehow survived the anti-time explosion. The Doctor has become Zagreus!
07:01 After the
opening music The Doctor/Zagreus is chasing Charley round the TARDIS. He hit's
her. Time for a cigarette and a coffee (my computer is in the same room as the
kettle so I'm not cheating here).
15:00 Charley
seems to have fallen into a flashback with her mother. There's a lot of
reference to Alice in Wonderland. Oh, it's all getting silly. Charley's mum has
taken her to see Doctor Zagreus and has turned into a rabbit. The
Doctor/Zagreus is wandering round the TARDIS. He hears fragments of Jon Pertwee
dialogue which has had some sort of sound processing applied to it and is
barely understandable.
18:51 Nicholas
Courteny is playing the voice of Doctor Zagreus. There's more talk of
anti-time.
23:00 More
conversation between McGann and Pertwee (who is still almost inaudible).
Pertwee wants McGann to find a book in the TARDIS library. Oh, it's Alice in
Wonderland again, I'm beginning to suspect that there's some sort of literary
referencing going on. There's also a lot of 'let's have the characters talk
about what they can see' dialogue which sounds a bit forced.
26:11 Charley is
pouting about the Doctor hitting her. She's beginning to get on my nerves.
26:41 The
Doctor's going down a secret passage in the TARDIS; more Alice in Wonderland
referencing I suppose. I wish he'd stop talking to Pertwee.
31:15 Nicholas
Courtney has explained to Charley that the flashbacks are places in the TARDIS
that they can visit in the hope of finding a cure for the Doctor.
34:40 Nicholas
Courtney is playing the voice of the TARDIS? More bloody Alice in Wonderland
references. Not a lot has happened considering 35 minutes have passed.
39:00 During a
conversation between the Doctor and Zagreus there's a lot of weird background
noise behind the voices. Like interference on a radio. I'm not sure if it's
meant to be there or my speakers are knackered?
41:32 Mark
Strickson (Turlough) has turned up playing Captain Macdonnell in one of the
'flashbacks'. The weird noises have stopped so I guess it was meant to be on
the CD.
42:00 Oh God. The
Doctor's wandering the TARDIS looking for Charley again and flipping between
himself and Zagreus. Hasn't this all happened before? The distorted Pertwee
samples are back as well, they're no more understandable than before.
45:00 Charley has
just said," heavens!" I don't think I like her.
46:58 Mark
Strickson has been joined by Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) who is playing Miss Foster.
While I can understand that Big Finish want to cram ex-Who actors
into this story
it's a little distracting because every time someone new speaks I have to look
at the cast list to see who they are. It's the audio equivalent of seeing a
familiar face pop up on TV and spending five minutes going," ooh, look its
thingy, you know the bloke from that film!"
50:49 I hope Part
One doesn't go on for much longer. I'm starting to need the toilet.
53:17 Now Peter Davison
has turned up playing a character who's name I didn't catch. I think he's a
scientist. There was another actor in the scene, I think it was Nicola Bryant
(Peri).
55:12 I've
discovered I can't type while smoking.
55:59 More Alice
in Wonderland references. The Doctor has been locked in a box by a talking cat
(in the TARDIS, it's gone a bit funny after the anti-time explosion
apparently). Do you see? Cat. Box. It's a hilarious Schrodingers Cat parody.
Now they're explaining the Schroedingers cat theory for people who haven't
heard of it.
61:12 Ah, Nicola
Bryant is playing Doctor Stone.
61:40 I really
need the toilet now.
62:35 There's
been no explanation of the latest flashback yet. Peter Davison appears to be
playing a scientific vicar at a military research establishment.
They're all
drinking tea which isn't helping the state of my bladder, I may end up having
to wee in the sink.
65:07 In an
effort to take my mind off things I've looked at my previous Big Finish CDs.
The Colin Baker Dalek story was called The Apocalypse Element. Also,
Wetworks was
actually called The Genocide Machine (I think Wetworks was a working title). I
also found Bang-Bang-A-Boom. Apart from a nasty crack in the cover it seems ok.
Only two CDs. I wish I was listening to that.
69:17 Christ!
Will this episode never end. Paul McGann is talking to the cat again.
72:56 The
background interference noises are back.
73:19 The Peter
Davison flashback is still going on. Exciting events at a military research
base during the war. Someone is a traitor but I haven't been listening properly
and I've rather lost track of things. I think Miss Foster is the traitor.
There's going to be an explosion (please let it be the end of episode
cliffhanger).
75:30 Oh no it's
Paul McGann and the cat again.
76:08 Back at the
base the explosion is building. I can't hold on much longer. How much can you
fit onto one CD?
78:37 The end of
part one came just in time. I've really rather lost track of things. Peter Davisons
character was involved in the development of some sort of machine that could be
used as a bomb. It nearly exploded but didn't. There was also some talk about
'creators' I'm not sure if this will turn out to be significant or not.
Time to swap CDs.
Ah, CD 1 was called Wonderland. Hope that's an end to the Alice in Wonderland
stuff, it would be nice if they used their own ideas instead of cribbing
someone else's. CD 2 is called Heartland which was also the title of an obscure
ZX Spectrum game from Odin Computer graphics. The previously mentioned picture
of Jon Pertwee is behind CD 2 in the case, nicely spoiling some of the surprise
for people who want to check the discs aren't damaged before they listen to
them.
Part Two
00:11 This part
has started with the Colin Baker theme music, I'll bet he turns up.
01:12 Bonnie
Langford is playing Cassandra (must have missed that when I looked at the cast
list) and Maggie Staples is The Great Mother.
02:06 They're on
Gallifrey.
03:00 Hang on
Colin Baker's turned up already, I've missed his characters name. Nicola Bryant
is also here playing Ouida (who has an American accent).
04:37 Lot's of
portentous talk about Rassilon and Omega which I wasn't really listening to.
Charley and Nicholas Courtney are back in the TARDIS with no explanation of
what that 'flashback' was all about.
06:01 Oh hang on.
The events at the military base apparently really happened and now 'we know
what happened to them," wish I'd been listening to them properly now. All
the characters in the flashback are created from the TARDIS memory banks which
explains why they sound like the cast of Doctor Who.
07:21 Nicola
Bryant's American accent doesn't seem as good as the one she used for Peri.
08:48 Colin
Baker's character is involved against a plot against Rassilon. Must pay
attention this time.
10:00 Cigarette
time! Don't expect much typing for a while.
19:14 Oh, Nicola
Bryant has eaten Bonnie Langford. There's an image that will stick in my mind.
19:21 Paul McGann
is still in the TARDIS which he has discovered is also Zagreus?
20:38 Meanwhile
on Gallifrey, which is the location of the latest flashback, Colin Baker and
Nicola Bryant appear to be playing the Vampires from the Tom Baker story State
of Decay. Everyone sees Charley as Rassilon and there's some unfunny dialogue
from Charley as she tries to play up to the image of the famous Time Lord.
24:36 We are back
at the dawn of Time Lord society. Everyone is astonished to learn about Rassilon's
experiments into regeneration. Well everyone except the audience, are we meant
to be astonished by stuff we already know?
26:00 Lots of
technobabble about Rassilon making all life in the universe match the
Gallifreyan template. He also seems to have made anti-time or something.
It's like
listening to a dull episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
30:01 Blah, blah,
blah Gallifreyan History.
32:10 The
Vampires aren't evil, just misunderstood. Apparently they were nice before
Rassilon hunted them down and tried to exterminate them.
36:52 Everyone's
blown up except Charley who appears to have escaped through a mirror (groan).
The TARDIS has betrayed her, or something.
38:02 Crap, it's
gone wacky. Charley's talking to a six foot mouse in battle armour, oh wait
it's her reflection in a mirror. There's a battle going on, bet it's against
giant cats or something.
40:21 Paul McGann
is blowing up bits of the TARDIS. Who is evil and also Zagreus. Whatever that
means.
42:15 Sophie
Aldred is playing a duck. Ahh, Captain Duck. Do you see? They're fighting in an
amusement park. Against people. Oh stop my aching sides! There's talk about
'protecting the animator' I smell an approaching zany Walt Disney parody.
44:23 Paul McGann
is still blowing up bits of the TARDIS and is now fighting a Jabberwock. I
think the plot's run out of steam.
45:18 Bonnie
Langford is back as Goldilocks along with a fairy called Tinkle (who makes a
tinkling noise). This is shit.
50:25 I'm
watching the seconds of my life tick away on the clock.
51:22 The
Animator is in cryogenic suspension. Just like Walt Disney! Except that that's
an urban myth.
52:41 Sylvester
McCoy is playing Walt Disney. Or 'Uncle Winky' to give him the scripts
fantastic (sarcasm) name. The amusement park is called Winky Wonderland.
Winkey! Like cock! Which is what this whole script is.
54:20 Charley
seems to find Uncle WInky charming. Rather than creepy as you'd expect what
with his paedophile sounding name. Winky Wonderland is built on the ruins of
Gallifrey. In the future.
55:30 Ha ha ha!
Sylvester McCoy just used a quote from one of his stories. It's the bestest
thing ever.
56:40 Uncle Winky
is missing the children. He 'needs' them. This is deeply creepy. I hope no one
hears me listening to this.
61:06 Uncle Winky
is still going on about children. Now, he has a bad heart and is dying. From
laughter to tears in ten minutes. Surely this script was written by Dennis
Potter?
62:04 The
universe is ending and the anti-time people are breaking through. I don't care.
Ah, it was a flashback. Charley and the Doctor are now reunited and are
explaining the plot (which we already know) to each other. I can have a
cigarette in six minutes.
64:00 The TARDIS
has revealed it is Zagreus. We already know this. Why is the script repeating
itself?
64:56 Charley is
whining on about the Doctor hitting her. Death where is thy sting?
66:01 Rassilon
has turned up and is taking over the TARDIS. The TARDIS hates the Doctor. I'm
not too fond of him myself right now.
67:51 Fantastic.
The TARDIS is trying to cast Charley into space. It's done it. Bet she's not
dead. Still it's about the only thing any character has done that
I've engaged
with.
69:32 Romana and
K9 have turned up. Cigarette time. Smokey smokey.
71:02 Tom Baker's
assistant Leela has turned up.
74:09 I knew
Charley wouldn't be dead. Fuck, Uncle Winky's here too. He says he likes being
hugged. They're in a wasteland. Peter Davison's character is also here. Bet
Colin turns up soon. Yup. There's lots of hilarious jokes about the Wasteland
looking like Wales so it would be funny if it turned out to be the Death Zone
on Gallifrey (from The Five Doctors) which was filmed in Wales.
76:02 It's the
Death Zone. The writers of this script, Alan Barnes and Gary Russell remember,
are funnier than Spike Milligan and the Monty Python team rolled into one. If
this was my copy of Zagreus I'd remix part two with a knife.
CD 2 has dribbled
to a halt. I'm going out to buy more cigarettes before I listen to part three.
Part Three
Right, I'm back
from the Off Licence with cigarettes and beer (to dull the pain) and some
cashew nuts. So, Part Three will be set in the Death Zone. I hope there will be
some more self-referential jokes, maybe someone will say something is 'as easy
as Pi' –which is a line from the Five Doctors- or there will be a joke about a
musical staircase (based on the scene from The Five Doctors where the Master
walked down some stairs and the background music played a note for each step).
Let's see shall we?
CD 3 is in the
computer. There was a picture of The Dark Tower (where Rassilon is buried)
behind it.
00:15 Where's my
bottle opener?
01:01 Romana, K9
and Leela have transmatted into Rassilon's tomb.
01:43 I can't get
the cashew nuts open.
02:01 Done it.
Leela's been possed by Rassilon. They're going into the Matrix.
02:40 Colin made
a funny. When he listed monsters to be found in the Death Zone he listed
rubbish ones from Doctor Who (Mandrills and Hypnotrons) instead of Daleks or
Cybermen.
05:58 Another cracking
funny. Talking about monsters in the Death Zone they said, 'Daleks and Yeti and
Quarks. Oh my.' Just like the line in The Wizard of
Oz.
10:26 Romana, K9
and Leela have gone through a mirror. Wonder where that idea came from?
13:02 More comedy
from Colin, Peter, etc. They're fighting a Jaberwock for some reason. Now
they're all talking in rhyme and that has allowed them to control it.
Obviously.
15:31 Rassilon
wants Romana to resign so that Zagreus can become President of Gallifrey. Leela
has been possessed by Rassilon and has cut off K9s head.
18:16 Hooray,
Sylvester said,'it's as easy as, oh never mind'.
20:02 It's not
the Death Zone. It's the Matrix. Romana has met Charley and everyone else.
While trying to explain everything to Romana Charley got to do a joke about how
confusing the plot has been so far. I'm not sure that the script should be
pointing out how poor it is.
25:03 The Doctor
is back talking to the TARDIS. Apparently it's jealous because the Doctor loves
Charley more than it.
31:10 Rassilon
has melted the bit of the TARDIs that isn't Zagreus (still with me) down to
'slag and clinker', which is almost another line from Doctor Who.
33:54 Colin has
just described Sylvester's clothes as 'a multi-coloured nightmare', which is
clever because Colin's Doctor wore brightly coloured clothes.
34:38 Alan Barnes
and Gary Russell can't write dialogue for Leela.
37:08 Oh gosh,
Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are not the characters they are
playing but actually aspects of the Doctor. Of course, it's so obvious.
40:32 Have I
missed something? Paul McGann's Doctor is making a dagger from the remains of
the TARDIS now. He's also Zagreus again. It's very dramatic.
44:03 The TARDIS
has shot Leela. Bet she's not dead.
45:03 Something
about Time Lord history again.
46:43 Rassilon
used the Eye of Harmony to trap a race that would have evolved to be more
powerful than the Time Lords. He wants Zagreus to kill them. I'm going to open
another beer.
49:37 I think I
missed something significant. When the Doctor made his heroic sacrifice
Rassilon used his power to save him and make him Zagreus.
50:51 Rassilon is
using the dagger to kill all the Doctors. Bet they're not dead.
51:31 Leela's not
dead yet but she is bleeding to death. Yeah right.
52:18 Romana's
using a previously unmentioned piece of technobabble to kill the Zagreus
TARDIS. It's melted in the crucible. It may be dead.
53.56 Ha ha. As
Leela dies sad music plays in the background. Then Romana says 'it's only a
flesh wound', and the sad music winds down.
55:09 The Doctor
wants Charley to kill him. She thinks that he wouldn't say this if he didn't
love him. It's so sad. She's stabbed him. Bet he's not dead. Rassilon seems
shocked by this, I thought he wanted the Doctor to die.
56:38 All the
Doctors are in the afterlife. Bet they find a way back. They make a joke about
what the critics would say about his the events leading to his death,
'overlong', 'derivative', 'melodramatic'. For some reason they don't use the
word 'shit'.
58:02 Now the
Doctor's sad that Charley hates him. He's really dying. No really. He is. This
time. Dead. Stone cold. Phew, he's been saved by some technobabble about
becoming Zagreus. Which will be bad. For a while. I guess.
61:40 Other stuff
about Time Lords and the web of time.
62:53 I'm
drinking beer on an empty stomach. I may be drunk. Everyone's talking about
Zagreus and timelines. I wonder if the Doctor will stop being Zagreus?
64:03 The
Doctor/Zagreus will become ruler of the universe. Mmmm, beer and cigarettes.
64:47 The
Doctor/Zagreus is going to kill Rassilon and throw him to the people from the
other universe thingy.
66:13 Rassilon's
dead, so's the Doctor again. He's become Zagreus again with stupid feedback on
his voice.
67:47 The TARDIS
is back from the dead and nice again. Being thrown into the crucible cured it,
as it would. It's fixing the Doctor with a bottle labelled 'drink me'.
68:41 Techobabble
is curing the Doctor. With plinky, plunky wacky background music. It's funny
because it makes no sense.
70:12
Everything's back to normal now. But The Doctor's going into the anti-time
universe and Charley's cross because he won't take her. He's got Zagreus in
him. Charley and the Doctor are having a tiff. Listen to the billing and cooing
of the two lovebirds. I need the toilet again. Damn you beer.
75:48 Charley and
Leela are having a conversation. Leela's dialogue is still rubbish.
76:12 The Doctor
won't return from the anti-time universe because of Zagreus's energy or
something. I bet he does.
80:15 I think
I've mistimed this episode.
81:27 Leela's got
a rubbish monologue about how great the Doctor was.
82:03 Charley
snuck into the TARDIS via the back door. Now she's in the anti-time universe
with the Doctor.
84:13 Now Charley's
got a crap monologue.
84:54 The remixed
music at the end sounds like someone programmed a synthesiser and then walked
away. Is that what David Arnold got a credit on the CD case for?
Oh it's over. A
google search for 'Zagreus' reveals that www.zagreus.com is a website for gay
men and pagans to learn the Dionysian Mysteries. Dionysus.
Mmmm beer.
By Ken Shinn
“Rocko’s
Modern Life” is one of
the best cartoons ever. Forget such pale pretenders as “The Simpsons” (ever
more tedious) or “Ren & Stimpy” (grossness isn’t automatically hilarious),
this story of a nerves-ridden wallaby, his bullock best friend Heff, his
crap-eating dog Spunky, and a huge supporting cast is not to be missed.
Constantly at
loggerheads with his boss Ed Bighead (a malevolent frog with his own truly
dysfunctional family – a bored, sex-starved wife and an animator son who
despises them both and parodies them as a pair of violent and much-abused
idiots in his hit show “The Fatheads”), both saved from sin and encouraged in
feats of heroism by the real-life superhero Really Really Big Man, and
surrounded by grotesques even in animation terms (hook-handed lioness,
anyone?), Rocko is a true Everywallaby de nos jours.
See him crawl
down Heff’s cavernous gullet to remove a chicken bone from the inside in “Heff
Goes To Heck”! Thrill as he sits through the trailer for little kids’ cuddly
toys’ The Poots’ new movie – as they commandeer a World War Two German
submarine in…”Das Poot”! And stare into the Nipples Of Destiny with Really
Really Big Man! Plus MANY MORE…
This marvellous
show isn’t on terrestrial in the UK right now. Get satellite/cable/digital,
scour the video shops, rob the animators’ houses, but just SEE THIS SERIES. Oh
cobblers!
FBF is an odd
beast. It’s a double CD which consists of the earliest recordings of Pixies
classics, and the most recent. The difference between them is quite startling.
The first disc
has 15 demo versions of Pixies songs on it, which were recorded the day before
the Pixies went into the studio to record the songs for their demo tape, the
Purple Tape (8 tracks of which were later taken directly from this tape to form
Come on Pilgrim). So what we have here is demos of demos… All we have here, is Charles
and a guitar, no band. These demos of demos were taped as a reference point for
the producer of the Purple Tape so he’d know what to expect. The tracks here
are very rough and raw, with the occasional note or piece of instruction as to
what’s going on at a particular point. It has such sheer power and vibrancy to
it that you forget that it is merely demos you’re listening to, even when he
exclaims things like “I’m gonna sing the bass player’s part” on I’m Amazed”.
It’s also a good thing that at long last there is an official version of Boom
Chickaboom out on CD…
The second disc
contains new versions of old Pixies songs that Charles recorded with Two Pale
Boys. Upon hearing the first track, Caribou, I was thinking “yeah, this works”,
as that’s a fairly good reworking. Not as great as the original, but still
good. But then as the CD continued, it became apparent that this was the high
point. Nimrod’s Son has all the vemon sucked out of it, Monkey is just flaccid
and uninspiring with no life to it at all, and by the time you get to the UTTER
WANK that is the 15 minute version of Planet of Sound you’ve just about lost
the will to live.
My advice: buy
Frank Black Francis. Cherish the Demo CD as it will bring you nothing but joy, and
use the Rework CD as a coaster.
(Now, when will
we get Keeping in Time, Silhouette and the other two tracks I can’t remember
the names of on CD…?)
www.maggiethatchersdead.co.uk - well, not yet. But the time cannot be
far off…
modestic:
anything was brought to
you by Ash Stewart, Ken Shinn, Chris Arnsby and Anthony Malone. All material is
© 2004 to its writer, uncredited pieces by Ash. Modestic logo designed
by Rob White, www.chameleon-circuit.org.uk.
modestic is published every now and then when
there’s enough good material to put an issue out. Hopefully monthly. Expect the
next issue when it arrives in your inbox. Really it depends on how many people
write me articles. (That was a hint…)
The one thing I
will always crave for modestic is contributions. If it’s just me writing
stuff the zine will get stale and BORING. This is something I do not want it to
be. So, please, write me stuff. Have a read of the writer’s guidelines, and get
scribbling…
The word for the
next issue is beast. Interpret it as you will.
(Oh, and never
fear; if you have a really great idea for an article, or have something you
want to review, and it doesn’t fit in with the word, send it in anyway. I’ll
still print it…)
Send all
articles, comments, criticism, queries, offers of freebies to review, rumours
of missing Dr Who episodes etc to: modesticREMOVETHISSPAMBLOCK@gmail.com
Final Thought: This could be the start of something big,
or something nothing much at all…