The Nothing Zone

Nine days before his forty-fourth birthday, Douglas Lowell decided it was about time he got a tattoo. He had very little else, so it made sense. A tattoo couldn’t be taken away from him. Not easily, anyway.

He had considered it once before, as a young man, but his father had seemed to give him disapproving looks when he so much as thought of the idea. He had never dared voice it. His father had a tattoo, on his forearm. He hadn’t chosen it.

But this wasn’t about that. This was about… Well. His father was in the ground now, and his bitterness and anger had been buried with him. Douglas could do as he pleased, and it pleased him to plan the tattoo he was going to get. On the shoulder, probably. Something discreet. A name, maybe.

What name? He could make one up, and pretend he had once loved someone. But if people asked questions, he would need to have answers ready. She could be a fiancee, a sweet young thing with whom he had planned to spend the rest of his life, until she was tragically lost at sea the night before their wedding. He had kept a vigil for days, until he had to be physically dragged inside and put to bed. When he awoke, he knew that she was gone forever.

Which was a good story, but had the disadvantage of being completely untrue. So, not a name, then.

“Mother”?

No. Not that.

A word, any word, but not just any word. A word that meant something. A word he wanted to keep with him all the time. The first word that came to mind was “empty”, for some reason. The second was “hollow”. Words might be a bad idea.

Numbers were better. They were safe. You could trust them. So then, a “44” for his birthday? No, obviously not. His birthdate? That was a little better. It was personal, at least. He stuck with the idea until one day he walked past a cemetery, and noticed a headstone over an unfilled grave. It had a birthdate engraved on it, with a space underneath. A birthdate alone looked a little too much like an unanswered question, so that idea was out too.

Which left…

Which left nothing.

Douglas Lowell’s forty-fourth birthday came and went, and he didn’t get a tattoo.He didn’t do anything. He never did, but he always remembered that he had thought about it once.

The Detecting Detective

That day started just like any other; at dawn. I was already up by then. Lately I haven’t been able to sleep more than a few hours a night, and rather than lie awake I like to make use of the time. That particular morning I was reorganising my shoes, by size instead of by style. Of course, it didn’t make much difference; they were all the same size. Size nine. The size I wear, as it happens. I thought nothing of it at the time.

After I had finished rearranging my shoes into the same order they had been in before, I decided to make myself some breakfast. On my way to the kitchen, the phone started ringing. That was unusual at this hour, but in my line of work you learn to expect the unexpected. All the same, even though this call was completely unexpected, I still wasn’t expecting it. I lit a cigarette and picked it up. Then I answered the phone.

There was a woman’s voice on the other end, and I guessed the rest of her was there with it. ‘Mr Malone?’ she said. She sounded scared, desperate. Like a someone who’d dialled one too many wrong numbers that morning. Or worse.

‘Who wants to know?’ I replied.

‘I do.’ This broad was sharp as a dime, and for all I knew, just as dangerous.

‘Well, yeah, this is Tommy Malone,’ I admitted.

‘Thank goodness! It’s my husband.’

‘What does he want? It’s very early, you know?’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Then how am I supposed to talk to him?’

‘No! I want you to find him for me.’

It all made sense now. The early morning phone call, the mention of a husband. I still had one question, though. ‘Why me?’

‘Well, I heard you were a private detective.’

Her story checked out. I was a private detective, and it was certainly plausible that she could have heard it somewhere. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Come to my office at nine o’clock.’

If I’d known then the dark web of criminal conspiracy and intrigue she was about to ensnare me in, I’d have made it ten, and probably met her in the diner down the block. So far, though, I was still an unsuspecting patsy, and I had to get ready for work. I lit a cigarette and headed for the shower.

To be continued.

Trev & Simon (& Me)

Years ago (years and years, I can’t say exactly how many), I was in a toy shop. This was long enough ago that I was a child, so you can appreciate that it was quite some time. This is the sense I am trying to convey here; that this happened a long time ago. Got it?

Right. So, I was in this toy shop. It was a big shop, like a barn type of arrangement. Not a barn, but you see what I mean. A big toy shop. A Toys ‘R’ Us, I think. This toy shop no longer exists. Don’t bother looking for it, because you’ll only be disappointed. There’s nothing there now but ghosts, and memories, and a discount warehouse, and also an auto equipment shop.

Back then though, in the mid-to-late Nineties, it was a toy shop. But this story isn’t about a toy. It’s about a book. This toy shop had some little tables near the front, with all sorts of remaindered books on them. Cheap books. Probably mostly rubbish books. But one day I found something that wasn’t rubbish. Something special. Something I’ve never forgotten.

It was this:

Being a child growing up in Australia, I had no idea who these two men were, but for some reason this book appealed to me. Maybe it was the big props. The shiny jackets. The promise of stupidity. The tantalising combination of the three. Possibly also the fact that it was very cheap.

Whatever the reason, I bought it. Or possibly got my mum to buy it. I can’t quite remember. Anyway, I took it home, and read it, and was hooked. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever come across. These two strange, shiny-jacketed, big-propped men who I’d never heard of had turned out to be my favourite people ever. I read that book many, many times over.

I can’t remember many details of what was in it. Perhaps you read it to, and have a better memory of it than I. But from what I do remember, it was basically a parody of… books. Specifically, of the kind of silly activity books that are always being made for children. It had activities, but you weren’t supposed to do them. It had puzzles, but the solutions were always either obvious or non-existent. It had jokes about people I’d never heard of in my life, which I still thought were hilarious. It was brilliant. It was, contrary to its title, a very clever book indeed.

I don’t know where it is now. I grew up, and it seemed less exciting, and at some point I lost track of it completely. But every now and then I’d remember it, and wish I could have another flick through it. It’s honestly hard to think of a book that meant more to me at that age, that influenced me more. Which might seem odd, but there you are.

The reason I mention this is because last year I got involved with Twitter, which I suppose has captured my imagination in a similar way. It’s one of those little reminders that it’s okay to be a bit silly, a bit stupid. In fact sometimes it’s the best thing to do. And in the course of following various clever and stupid and hilarious and wonderful people, I managed, without quite realising it, to let those two stupid men, now sans shiny jackets and big props, back into my life.

I must admit, I still don’t really know who @trevorneal and @simonmhickson are, or how they came to write that book, or why it was on sale in Australia to children like me who’d never heard of them before. I’m not sure I really want to know. I think that would spoil it somehow.

Maybe I’m being stupid.

I hope so.

Battleship: The Novelization (an excerpt)

Hopper stared intently at the grid before him. There was no way of knowing where the massive alien warships were hiding. They could be anywhere: D5, J9, even G3, the sneaky bastards.

‘Orders, sir?’ asked one of the unnamed crew of heroes.

Hopper narrowed his eyes and pointed. ‘B7!’ he commanded.

The crew member typed the coordinates into his computer, which beeped. ‘Ready.’

‘Fire!’ commanded Hopper, commandingly. The missile launched from the missile launcher like a missile launched from a missile launcher and streaked away through the night sky. Everybody on the bridge waited. Nobody made a sound. Captain Nagata furrowed his wise, Japanese brow in concentration. Then came the call from the lookout.

‘Miss,’ said Ordy.

The one played by Rihanna stood up and threw her headset on the floor in frustration. ‘Motherf-’

‘Stow that talk!’ ordered Hopper, which was a navy expression meaning to stop saying that.

‘Sorry, Captain,’ she said, sitting back down.

‘I’m not your captain,’ said Hopper. ‘I’m just a lieutenant having a really bad day.’ He paused to let his words sink in (which isn’t a pun even though they’re on a ship).

Meanwhile, outside the alien force field, Admiral Shane examined a map of the sea. It was hard to read, but decades of naval experience had served him well.

‘We think the ships are somewhere here,’ said an officer, pointing to a spot in the sea.

‘I see,’ growled the admiral, seeing. ‘And where is the enemy?’

‘We don’t know,’ said the officer. ‘But probably in a different place.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ growled the admiral, hoping so.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, Sam and Mick were watching the aliens build their alien contraption.

‘What do you think it is?’ asked Sam, who didn’t know what it was.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mick. ‘But I’m sure as hell gonna blow it up.’ Mick had been a soldier in the army before losing his legs to a leg explosion. It still effected him emotionally, but he was too stubborn and cool to show it.

‘Maybe we should find out what it is first,’ said Sam, who had not been a soldier or had her legs blown up. ‘It could be important.’

‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right,’ grumbled Mick. He was disappointed. He liked blowing things up.

Meanwhile, on the alien ship, the aliens were doing alien stuff. Really weird alien stuff.

Meanwhile, back on the USS John Paul Jones, which is named after the Revolutionary War captain and not the bassist from Led Zeppelin, the deadly game of cat-and-mouse continued. Hopper would say a letter and a number, a missile would be launched, and they would all wait to hear if they had scored a hit.

‘I can’t understand it,’ said Hopper. ‘We’ve launched missiles all over the damn grid. Where could they be hiding?’

‘Maybe,’ said Captain Nagata. ‘They have lined all their ships up close together, so that when we hit one, we will assume the others must be somewhere else.’

‘Bastards!’ exclaimed Hopper. ‘They’re smarter than I thought.’

‘Also,’ said Nagata. ‘They are probably not staying in one place, like we are.’

…Miss.

Liam Neeson is good at scowling. That’s one thing you’ll come away with if you see Battleship. It’s basically all he does. He stands around, in naval dress, looking angry at everything, until you just wish he’d pull out a lightsaber or help his son ask a girl out or punch a wolf to death or something. It’s not until later that you realise he’s not angry at the aliens, or the squabbling officers, or the irritating Secretary of Defence. He’s just standing there, scowling in impotent rage at the universe that has allowed his career to reach this point. And you can see his point.

Battleship is not a good film, obviously. That is, artistically, it has no merit whatsoever. It is a vacuum. Technically, it is very good. It’s shot well, the actors all say their lines audibly, the effects are impressive, and it even makes a certain degree of sense. By that I mean that it’s possible to follow what’s happening, not that what’s happening is in any way sensible.

It’s not. It’s very insensible. The first act is mostly just Taylor Kitsch’s character, Hopper, being annoying and demonstrating why he should under no circumstances be allowed to marry those breasts he fancies. The fact that those breasts belong to Liam Neeson’s daughter provides most of the conflict in this part of the film. The rest comes from Hopper occasionally scuffling with a Japanese destroyer captain who kicked him in the face during a soccer match. Really.

Then the aliens show up, and things get so bizarre that by the time humans and the aliens actually start playing Battleship it just washes right over you. In fact, the last act of the film is so odd that the only possible way to interpret it is as a parody of everything that’s come before. Are they really making their characters openly mock their ridiculous dialogue? Yes, they are. Are all those elderly veterans really going to help Hopper sail a 70-year-old battleship? You bet! Did Hopper just do a powerslide in that same battleship? YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE HE FUCKING DID! (By the way, people seem to say the word “motherf” a lot in this film. I don’t know what it means, but it’s always punctuated by a massive gun firing.)

In fact, I started to wonder if the whole thing wasn’t perhaps an incredibly subtle parody of the Michael Bay school of film-making. Surely it couldn’t all have been for real? You definitely can’t accuse Battleship of taking itself too seriously. It knows it’s a ridiculous mess, but it doesn’t care.

And Liam Neeson just scowls his way through. He only smiles once, and it’s one of the very last shots of the film. He’s free.

Hello. This is me.

A while ago, I was depressed. It is, in my experience, a bad thing to be. It took me a few months to stop feeling that way, and I did it without therapy or medication. I’m not saying those things wouldn’t have helped, or that anyone else shouldn’t use them, I just didn’t want them. I can’t say why, exactly.
It was partly my studies that did it, in the first place. I got migraines, and then I needed to get glasses, and then I didn’t want to get out of bed. Getting through everything I needed to do, and then having time away from university between semesters, probably helped me recover.
Another thing that I know helped was joining Twitter. It doesn’t seem an important thing, but it was. I felt welcome there, and it made me happier than I’d been in a long time. I’ve made some terrific friends there over the last year or so. If not for them (one in particular), I’d probably never have made up my mind to come to film school. I’m so grateful for all of it.
The reason I mention all this now is because I’m not feeling so happy at the moment. I feel alone a lot of the time, and it upsets me more than it ever has before. Even though I know it’s not the case, I feel like the people I see regularly aren’t really all that bothered about me. Like I’m invisible. Which is a horrible cliché, but also true. It’s an unpleasant feeling.
Even when people are being perfectly nice to me, even when I’m having fun, and feeling happy, it only takes one tiny thing to send me into a funk. And I’ve usually imagined it. It’s like I’m paranoid, only I’m convinced everybody’s out to ignore me.
So that’s where I am. I’m doing my best to avoid these feelings, but it’s hard. I don’t really know what to do. There’s no real end to this. I’m trying that “writing it down so you’ll feel better” thing. Too early to tell if it’s worked.

If you read this; thankyou. Really.

The Lost “Carry On” Classics

For twenty years between 1958 and 1978, British cinema audiences flocked like wallpaper to be entertained, titillated, depressed, unnerved, and angered by the antics of Sid James, Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Williams, and the rest of the “Carry On” team. In those two short decades, twenty-nine original films were released under the “Carry On” banner. Many more never made it to screens; most never even reached the shooting stage. Here is just a small selection of these lost cinematic oddities.

Carry On Your Holiness (1964)

Scrapped in the early script stages, this ill-advised romp would have followed a group of bumbling Vatican cardinals as they attempted to elect a new Pope following the sudden death of the previous one. The ending would have featured Barbara Windsor’s character, a savvy street merchant, being elected as the first female Pope.

Carry On Chairman (1965)

The most overtly-political script ever written for the series, this installment was to have been set entirely in Communist China, and feature none of the series’s trademark innuendo. Instead, the film would have been a lengthy diatribe against the West, culminating in Mao Zedong (Charles Hawtrey) ordering a nuclear attack on Great Britain.

Carry On Deliberating (1966)

A parody of Twelve Angry Men, the unfinished script saw Sid James attempting to convince his fellow jurors to acquit an accused peeping tom. Notable for a scene in which James dramatically produces an exact replica of Barbara Windsor’s breasts, to the shock of the other jurors.

Carry On As You Like It (1967)

A straight adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play. Some shooting was completed before the studio realised the script was not original and scrapped the project.

Carry On Into Space In A Rocket And Land On The Moon (1969)

Rushed into production to cash in on the Apollo 11 moon landing, this was also a revival of the never-produced Carry On Spaceman (1962). The script was reputedly put together in a single afternoon, based on half-read newspaper articles about the Apollo programme. A lunar set was constructed at Pinewood Studios, which NASA demanded they be allowed to inspect. NASA officials deny this inspection ever took place.

Carry On Out Of Vietnam (1972)

Another highly political script, this film would have dealt with the harrowing realities of war through slapstick and constant double-entendre. Many scenes were shot, including a sequence in which Kenneth Williams’s character gets his leg blown off, and proceeds to make jokes about it for fifteen minutes. Production finally ended when the studio was threatened with a lawsuit by the producers of M*A*S*H.

Carry On Down The Pole (1973)

Set at an Antarctic research station. Scrapped after it was realised that the thick layers of padded clothing were restricting the performers’ abilities to move freely, deliver their lines, and display their cleavage. All that survives is an extended sequence in which Joan Sims is harassed by an over-amourous Weddell seal.

Carry On Tallest Man In The World (1975)

A bizarre story about a man who, at 9’9”, was the tallest human being on the planet. Much of the comedy is derived from his attempts to escape his life in the circus, find love, and subsequently evade capture by his vengeful ringmaster (Williams). Cancelled when it became clear that no actor tall enough could be found.

Carry On Euthanasing (1977)

Survives only as a title scrawled in a notebook belonging to Gerald Thomas, though there is some evidence that a treatment was written, and promptly abandoned for reasons of taste.

Saturday Doctor Who Quiz Answer Time

1. One. He regenerates into different forms, but remains the same entity.

2. Nobody knows exactly, but it’s believed it was some time in the 1960s.

3. False. He was one of the Shondells.

4. d) Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The correct title is “Tess of the Nimon”.

5. None, although there’s still time for one of them to win one.

6. False. Sylvester McCoy and Christopher Eccleston had six each, and Patrick Troughton had nine.

7. Children, in their imaginations.

8. It depends who you ask.

9. a) Billicent Piper, under the stage name “Billie”.

10. The horse, provided the Dalek couldn’t move or use its weapons.

11. Yes.

Saturday Doctor Who Quiz Game Time

1. How many Doctors Who have there been?

2. On which date did Doctor Who first air?

3. True or False? Before portraying the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee was a member of the Kinks.

4. Which of the following is NOT the title of a Doctor Who serial?

a) Attack of the Cybermen

b) Revelation of the Daleks

c) Terror of the Zygons

d) Tess of the D’Urbervilles

5. How many Oscar winning actors have played the Doctor?

6. True or False? Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith has five arms, the most of any Doctor Who actor to date.

7. Other than Tom Baker, who played the Doctor between 1974 and 1981?

8. Was there a Doctor Who television movie in 1996 starring Paul McGann?

9. Which of the following singers has appeared in Doctor Who?

a) Billicent Piper

  b) Michael Stipe

c) Adam Rickitt

d) Dame Nellie Melba

10. Who would win in a fight between a Dalek and a horse?

11. Doctor Who?