Color Plates - Mosses and Liverworts

Purchased for one Scottish Pound in the Guardbridge Hotel charity book sale around 1990.



Every color plate from this wee edition of The Observer's Guide to Liverworts and Mosses. Reprint 1964

How Do I Order My 39 Steps? Two Ways

I just read John Buchan's The 39 Steps, and watched the Hitchcock movie of the same name.

Introductory Conclusion (ha!): While not starting out as a project, I would not recommend participating in absorbing both as one. Leave these units sole entities and enjoy them just the same, comforted in the knowledge that both have fallen off the copyrighter's radar screen and are now in the public domain.

The film version, produced by Michael Balcon, who produced one of my favorite films, Dead of Night, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock appears to be an almost completely new invention that utilizes only the main premise and some of the names of characters.

The novel, by proud Scotsman (by virtue of the portrayal of his countrymen and women, the opposite of Hitchcock's portrayal of brutsh stingy Scots) John Buchan, is a an extremely fast paced thriller that pits villains appropriate to today's one-worlder conspiracy theorists, against an improvised adventurer who is enlisted by a spy with several character-shaping pathologies and prejudices aiding his motivation and world view.

Along the way as we follow Richard Hannay the protagonist, there are plenty of Deus Ex Machina situations arising, such as stumbling upon the exact location at which he needed to arrive, accidentally meeting a reviled London colleague 12 hours distance from the city, and kindness from strangers that even Santa Claus couldn't engender.

This is all forgivable owing to the pacing and the tone of the writing. Hannay is the a protagonist in whose shoes on is willing to jump. The book adds up to a short thrill that grips one, and doesn't let go until the end.

Hitchcock's film, while wildly different in plot mechanisms and characters, maintains the best of the book, namely Hannay's pathological ingenuity in staying one step ahead of his pursuers. Equally gripping, with moments that provide a window into an England that is only 20 years and a World War since the original publication of the book, with the same Teutonic treacheries afoot, providing an analogous zeitgeist for the Mise en Scene, awaiting another global conflict, wile enjoying life in the interim.

So, on to the links:

Here's the book in it's entirety

Here's a link to a BUNCH of John Buchan novels I always have to laugh at the NO US ACCESS warnings!!!

Buchan's Wikipedia Bio, (he was a big shot!)

Wa-hey! Here's the Movie, and and here's where you can download it (on the left)and own the friggin' thing!




Radio Drama:
Mercury Theatre of the Air (Orson Welles)

A Criterion Collection obsessed fan's review of the Film.

Enjoy. It's the future - so far.

Pop Gear

Let me start by saying that I went through all my old vids and maybe only one or two weren't on YouTube already.

Having said that, I recently watched Pop Gear again. This movie has some phenomenally oddball performances. Annnnnd....90% of them were in fact on YouTube. So- I gleaned 'em and here's a bunch well worth a look.

It's introduced by Jimmy Savile - possibly king of the jerkoffs. (Okay, okay, great guy etc., etc.- but hey I ain't English!)

HOWEVER- first up is something from that film that wasn't on YouTube: the gold pants dance sequence - if you like gold pants like I do, then this video is for you. You're welcome for the upload, massive fan base!



Comes next, (as my son used to say when he was a baby) is the Honeycombs singing Have I the Right, which is notable for two reasons:
The friggin' mentally-challenged-cousin-type on rhythm guitar, and the fact that the drummer, I'm pretty sure, is a dude in drag....



Tommy Quickly gives a performance of Humpty Dumpty that can only be described as excruciating. I want to punch his face off every time I see it. If I didn't have such a nice TV, I might punch it. This video infuriates me so.......

I'm punching you in my mind Tommy Quickly! In fact, I'm punching punching itself!!



UPDATE could this be another version of a sort of cultural idiom? Help me, massive fan base!!!


The Four Pennies doing Where Did you Sleep Last Night ain't no Leadbelly, but their interpretation is such a screamingly loud (for the era) go at it, sort of an end-of-folk-Dylan-at-Isle-of-Wight event, that it's quite enjoyable.



Billie Davis singing Whatcha Gonna Do? is like watching a live Thunderbirds character singing. Exquisite. Dee-lish. Helium-y. Puppet - puppet - puppet.



Steve Winwood in the Spencer Davis Group stands as exemplar of some of the great performances from this film (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, et al) so I'm including it.



Last is the creepy butt dance being done by the Roger Daltrey clone in this performance of Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens (whatta name!) The Butt dance is mesmerizing in a scoliosis/back brace/uncontrolled intestinal problem kinda way. The performance is good tho.


All the great performances, with the exception of Matt Munro, a super boring lounge singer, will be watched over and over by me.

Wanna buy it?
Go Here:

Hogmanay with the Broons

Hogmanay - hey, I thought New Year's was New Year's but not in Scotland.


Here's a cartoon (LINK TO LARGER IMAGE AT PIC BELOW) from the large Scots family The Broons


So, uh, Happy Hogmanay......

The Most Beautiful Match Box in the World?

Every Scotsman will say, "aye"

LARGE image link at picture below..