Movie Night

When? Tonight at 7.30
Where? Paul's pad
Who? The FNB
What? You'll have to wait and see
Afterwards? Beer

T J Doyles, Deptford set list

An eclectic and enjoyable night.

Falling
Human Highway
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Blackbird
One More Time

The Belfast Cowboy

... who really was this good many years ago, before your mother and father were born...

An Englishman in New York

Terry and Val stroll down Christopher Street.

The trip to New York has been a life-altering experience for our travelling FNB.

Sci-Fi/Monster Movie Posters II

Lloyd Bridges, father of FNB heroes Beau and Jeff, is the star of this 1950 sci-fi movie that, along with Destination Moon, helped kick off the sci-fi film craze of the 50s.

This was originally meant to be a 3D film in colour but due to technical problems, Warner Brothers went with wide-screen black and white; however, the titles were in colour on a black and white background to grab the audience from the start.

The crew of a spaceship are dispatched one by one by a mysterious creature that has boarded the craft. This is believed to be one of the films that inspired the plot of Alien. Marshall Thompson may be more familiar from the TV series Daktari.

The old 'nuclear testing disturbs monstrous creature' plot. Rare starring role for Kenneth Tobey who had also been the lead in The Thing from Another World(1951).

Robby the Robot's second film appearance.
A classic of the genre; however, director William Cameron Menzies had seen better days, including Things to Come and The Thief of Bagdad, Duel in the Sun, for which he was one of several uncredited directors.

Supposedly inspired by the successful rerelease of King Kong in 1952; in turn, the story featuring a creature unsettled by a nuclear blast allegedly inspired many other films like Them! and Godzilla. The dinosaur bones were the same set from Bringing Up Baby!

Star Tom Tryon went on to write science-fiction novels.

This is more like it. Strange guys from outer space and a girl wearing a tight red sweater over breasts that look like a relief map of the Andes... Look at those rouged lips and staring eyes that we're familiar with from countless other posters!

Stone cold classic. Beware of imitations, especially if they involve Keanu Reeves.

Classic poster that has many of the key points of the genre: Giant crab grabs sexy blonde girl who isn't wearing much. A real Corman B-movie!

This is the re-titled 1954 Toho Studio production Gojira with added footage of Raymond Burr as an American reporter. It was cobbled together by Jewell Enterprises in 1956, even though the original had been released in the US in 1955, though largely to cinemas that catered for Japanese-American audiences. To confuse matters further, the Burr version was released in Japan in 1958 and was a hit!

Made in 3D but rarely shown in that format because the craze was dying down. Herbert Marshall is a long way from The Enchanted Cottage and his work with Hitchcock...

Another stone cold classic. The first remake, directed by Philip Kaufman in 1978 is also good and features the director and star of the first version, Don Siegel and Kevin McCarthy, in small roles. Avoid the later Body Snatchers, loosely based on this one and directed by the man who brought the world Bad Lieutenant, one of the most unintentionally funny films I've seen.

Scantily dressed, young attractive woman lies in the arms of strange menacing creature from space. Again.

Last ever buskers' night at the Cottage

There were few buskers and they outnumbered the audience.

Things We Said Today
I Shall Be Released
The Long And Winding Road
We'll Meet Again*
Falling
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Birds

*yes the Vera Lynn mega-hit currently topping the album charts. An appropriate song given the circumstances, or so I thought. Unfortunately I absolutely murdered it (there was one FB witness who can testify to its awfulness).

Yet more Barry MacSweeney...

Comment on the BBC Radio 4 programme:
http://damnthecaesars.blogspot.com/

Barry MacSweeney, Tom Pickard and all...

There's a neat blog, Poets in a Lens, that features photography of, and comments about, readings held between 1969 and 1987 throughout the north-east of England in a series of venues, including Morden Tower and The Colpitts - here, the actual pub, well before the event relocated to North Bailey near Durham Cathedral.

It's been put together by Jeremy James from the photography and writings of his father, David, who cearly attended the events on a regular basis. Among the poets featured are Basil Bunting, Peter Porter, Adrian Henri, Gillian Clarke, Seamus Heaney, U. A. Fanthorpe and FNB favourites Hugo Williams, Tom Pickard and Barry MacSweeney.

It's interesting to note that for a while, readings were held upstairs at The Old George, long before it became a haunt of 55 year-old married women on the pull.

Tom Pickard reading at The Old George in 1973.

Poets in a Lens: http://poetsinalens.blogspot.com/

Colpitts: http://www.colpittspoetry.co.uk/about.php

Morden Tower: http://www.mordentower.org

Keith Floyd RIP

Age 65.

"We don't cook any more, we just watch TV programmes about cookery," Floyd told one interviewer.

"Nobody takes cookery seriously now, it's just cheap entertainment. I'm totally to blame. I started it all and now I'm going to go down in history for having started a series of culinary game shows.

"It makes me terribly sad."
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4938830.stm

Dame Vera smashes Bob's record

Dame Vera Lynn has become the UK's oldest living chart topper with her album compilation 'We'll Meet Again' rising to No.1 after three weeks in the Top 20. At the age of 92, the singer beats the previous record holder Bob Dylan, who claimed the top spot aged 67 with 'Together Through Life' in May this year.

Patrick Swayze RIP

In his best film, Point Break, with non-actor Keanu Reeves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7300449.stm

DIARY DATES AND DA'S DEPARTURE (HE'S STORMING OFF LIKE A JARROW MARCHER)

Early warning... it's Grahame's film night on Friday. I'm sworn to secrecy over its identity, but here's a clue - G will be supplying us all with 3-D glasses to accompany the screening. He's always been a pioneer. 7.30pm start.
Another early warning... Da's last official night as a Friday Boy is October 2, and there's talk of a curry along the way.
He will be best remembered for his quick wit, his civility under fire, his musicality and his Muttley laugh.

Earl Grey setlist

Another raw night with several over-refreshed punters in the audience. And one slightly refreshed busker!

Across The Universe
Roll Another Number (For The Road)
I Shall Be Released
Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Amazingly a couple got up and danced a smoochy dance to I Shall Be Released. Several punters added harmonies to the chorus too. Might try this one in the Cottage (Tuesday this week for any who may be interested in what could be the last ever Cottage buskers' night).

FRIDAY NIGHT BOY COOL #24

Blow the cobwebs away!

If she had a set of wings, man, I know she could fly

New York Times
August 30, 2009
Surfers Met Rodders, and a Genre Was Born By REX ROY
Detroit

WHO would have guessed that the quintessential California hot rod, the “stroked-and-bored” Ford with a “competition clutch and four on the floor” canonized by a fast-rising surf band early in the 1960s, was actually the realized dream of a Detroit teenager?

As is the case with so many other icons of popular culture, the legend and the facts surrounding this two-door 1932 Ford are an imperfect match.

This much is certain: The car that became an emblem of Southern California’s surf-and-speed culture as the model for the Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe” album cover is comfortably retired in Michigan, restored to period-correct glory and repatriated with the family of its builder.

Seeing the car firsthand is a reminder that record promoters have sometimes been known to take liberties. While the catchy Beach Boys lyrics praised a Ford flathead V-8, the album’s cover car was actually powered by an overhead-valve Oldsmobile engine, and its transmission was a three-speed, not the four on the floor of the hit single.

In fairness, the album’s minute-and-a-half title track was less about a particular ’32 Ford than a paean to the model that provided a canvas for the creativity of generations of customizers and backyard mechanics. The Deuce’s clean styling, broad availability and easily modified flathead V-8 engine proved durable long after its introduction during the depths of the Great Depression.

Flathead-powered Deuces — the nickname comes from the model year — had earned their reputation on the racetrack. But the 1932 Ford Model 18 represented much more. The body design was overseen by Henry Ford’s son, Edsel, and the V-8 was a breakthrough for affordable cars. Available in 14 body styles, the Deuce hit the market’s sweet spot and sold nearly 180,000 units.
But by the 1950s, the ’32 Fords that remained were cheap enough for teenage boys to purchase with the few dollars they earned bagging groceries. With the fenders stripped off, the sleek lines of a design adapted from Lincolns of the era became more visible.

The Little Deuce Coupe catapulted to fame amid a flood of car songs that glorified the performance of everything from a fuel-injected Sting Ray Corvette to a dual-quad positraction 409-cubic-inch Chevy. (Beach Boys lyrics generally did a good job of capturing the street racers’ jargon.)

The car’s story began in 1956, when Clarence Catallo, just 15 years old and without a driver’s license, purchased a neglected ’32 at a gas station across the street from his parent’s grocery store in Allen Park, Mich. The transformation of the $75 car began immediately.

Clarence’s son, Curt Catallo, said that his father channeled the coupe, lowering the body on the car’s frame, to drop its height by six inches. The old Ford engine was replaced with a more modern and powerful Oldsmobile V-8.

“My father had a knack for finding the right people to help him with this car,” Curt Catallo, 41, said. “Soon after he bought the coupe he took it to the A-Brothers,” as Mike and Larry Alexander, owners of a custom shop in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, were known.

The Alexander brothers created many of the distinctive design elements on the Catallo coupe, including the stacked headlights, custom grille, the sweeps of aluminum trim that run down the sides — and a rear valance made from Studebaker parts. And it was at the Alexander brothers’ shop that the coupe’s owner earned his nickname of Chili — it was his alternative to the doughnuts that were a mainstay of the diet there.

Once the customization project was under way, the urgent pace raised concerns with Clarence Catallo’s parents, who worried that their son might be spending too much time with the wrong crowd.

“To try to change my dad’s environment and get him thinking about something beyond cars, my grandparents offered to send him to college anywhere in the country,” Curt Catallo said. “He chose Long Beach Community College. Of course, that would put him right in the middle of the West Coast hot rod culture. My grandparents had no idea.”

Clarence Catallo headed west, towing the ’32 Ford behind a ragged Oldsmobile. In the fall of 1960, he took a job sweeping floors at George Barris’s Kustom City in North Hollywood, Calif., the shop where many well-known vehicles, including the original Batmobile and the Munster Koach, were created for films and television shows.

“Chili was part of our family,” Mr. Barris said in a telephone interview. “He’d work sanding cars, taking off parts, and then we’d go out to a drive-in, get in fights, just have a great time.”

Another round of modifications to the Catallo coupe began at the Barris shop, this time focused on preparing the car for the show circuit. The roof was chopped — lowered by several inches — and the car was painted a lighter shade of blue, work that the Alexander brothers had urged earlier.

The efforts paid off: the Catallo Deuce Coupe was featured on the cover of the July 1961 issue of Hot Rod, a magazine covering the custom car culture.

Far greater exposure for the Catallo coupe would come from its association with Mr. Barris, whose shop had built a run of about 20 candy-striped dune buggies for Capitol Records. Capitol was preparing to release a new Beach Boys’ album, which included the “Little Deuce Coupe” single.

“Some of their people knew about Chili’s car, and when they needed a Deuce for that album cover, they called us,” said Mr. Barris, who is in his 80s.

The album, released in October 1963, used a photograph, shot from ground level, taken for the Hot Rod layout. But this time, Clarence Catallo’s head was cropped out of the frame.
“The album cover acted like an afterburner for my dad’s success and the popularity of the coupe,” Curt Catallo said.
Clarence Catallo returned to Detroit, finished college and settled into a job in the financial industry. The coupe was sold in 1965, but it was not forgotten.

“As a kid I can remember sitting at Beach Boys concerts and hearing ‘Little Deuce Coupe,’” Curt Catallo said. “I’d think, ‘That’s my dad’s car they’re singing about. We should get it back.’”

The son finally convinced his father that he wasn’t getting enough credit for having built the car. The car was traced to Long Island, and Bob Larivee Jr. of Championship Auto Shows contacted the owner, who didn’t want to part with the Little Deuce Coupe.

“We leased the car for a year to be used as an attraction in our custom car shows,” Mr. Larivee said. “At the end of that lease, in 1998, he agreed to sell it to me for $40,000, way more than it was worth. But Clarence wanted the car and gave me the check, so I bought it.”

This put the coupe back in the Catallo family, and its restoration began. The Oldsmobile engine had been replaced with a Chrysler V-8, but fortunately, the seller had held onto many of the parts removed or replaced over the years.

The goal was to get the car ready for the Meadow Brook Concours d’Élégance in August 2000.

But Clarence Catallo’s death in 1998 left the coupe’s restoration to his son and daughter.

Curt Catallo enlisted the help of Mike Alexander and other craftsmen who originally worked on the car to complete its overhaul, with the intention of making the car appear exactly as it did on the album. Curt Catallo, who is a creative director at the BBDO advertising agency and owner of two restaurants, the Clarkston Union and Union Woodshop, even secured help from General Motors’ specialty vehicles group to resuscitate the powertrain.

The team finished just in time. Fittingly, the coupe took the People’s Choice award at Meadow Brook in 2000. The Little Deuce Coupe was back in the limelight.
“My dad built the coupe to make people talk,” Curt Catallo said. “It’s a 77-year-old car modified over 50 years ago, and it still has the same effect. I think that says something pretty amazing.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/automobiles/collectibles/30DEUCE.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&en=e2814ece9518cde8&ex=1267502400

One Man's Family...

Iain Cuthbertson RIP

With Adam Faith in Budgie

Obituary: Iain Cuthbertson
Published Date: 09 September 2009
By ALASDAIR STEVEN
Actor and former rector of Aberdeen University

Born: 4 January, 1930, in Glasgow.Died: 4 September, 2009, in Glasgow, aged 79.

WITH his commanding appearance and resonant voice, Iain Cuthbertson cut a distinguished figure on stage and screen. He was closely associated with roles as official figures – judges, officers, headmasters – and on television appeared in many hit series. The younger generation will remember him as the villainous Scunner Campbell in Supergran. In 1982 Cuthbertson suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak. By sheer willpower he learned to use his voice again and after 18 months he returned to work, although he avoided stage performances.

Cuthbertson was often seen in Scottish theatres and at the Edinburgh Festival. He came to the Festival first in 1957 in the world premier of The Hidden King, then two years later with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre in James Bridie's The Baikie Charivari. In 1960 Cuthbertson memorably played the title role in Sydney Goodsir Smith's The Wallace. In 1966 he directed eminent Scottish actors including Duncan Macrae and Fulton Mackay in a late-night entertainment called 10.45 and A' That. But it was the title role of The Wallace at the Assembly Hall for which Cuthbertson is particularly remembered. The author called it "a triumph in five acts" and conceived it on a grand scale. One critic called his performance "magnificent".

Iain Cuthbertson was the son of Sir David and Lady Jean Cuthbertson and was educated at Glasgow Academy, Aberdeen Grammar and the University of Aberdeen. At university he read French and Spanish, getting an MA with honours. He did his national service in the Black Watch, then joined BBC Radio in Glasgow as a journalist. He also did some acting – in 1955 making his stage debut at Leven, Fife, in The Man Upstairs. He became a regular with the Citizens Theatre and made a considerable impact as Othello and as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He became general manager of the Citz in 1962 and created the role of Armstrong in John Arden's Armstrong's Last Goodnight. In 1975 he was a gloriously humorous Major-Domo in Scottish Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos.

He was an early advocate for a national theatre of Scotland. In 1967 he was director of a pilot scheme in Perth and in 1994 presented a petition with other leading Scottish actors to the lord provost of Glasgow demanding a national theatre of Scotland.

Cuthbertson was much seen on television playing official figures but he never overplayed the domineering nature of a role. With his excellent diction, a quick withering glance or a dismissive gesture, he quickly established a character. He was in such established series as Z Cars, Inspector Morse, The Avengers and Dr Who. But major TV work included Budgie starring Cuthbertson (a suave Glasgow gangster) with Adam Faith in 1971. The following year STV picked up the programme as Charlie Endell Esq. Cuthbertson's character returned to Glasgow but without Faith's cockney Budgie. Due to an ITV technicians' strike there were only six episodes.

In 1968 Cuthbertson co-starred with Michael Gambon and Edith McArthur in The Borders ("a kind of north-eastern western") set in the 16th century. That was followed in 1972 by a sympathetically imposing performance by Cuthbertson as Dr Arnold in BBC's Tom Brown's Schooldays. In 1973 he was in BBC Scotland's Sutherland's Law, which centred around a procurator fiscal in a town near Oban. Also that year he was in Scotch on the Rocks, about an activist group working for an independent Scotland by illegal means.

His films included The Railway Children (1971), Scandal (1989), in which he played Lord Hailsham, and Let Him Have It (1991), in which he appeared as the Lord Chancellor.

Cuthbertson remained in close touch with Aberdeen University and was rector from 1975. He is remembered as being hard-working and maintaining a "high level of interest", particularly in the welfare of students. When he stepped down in 1978 Cuthbertson was awarded an honorary LLB.
Cuthbertson's first marriage, to Anne Kristen, was dissolved in 1988. He is survived by his second wife, Janet Smith.

Edited from:
http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries/Iain-Cuthbertson.5628943.jp

Larry Gelbart RIP

The award-winning US television, film and theatre writer Larry Gelbart, who is best remembered for the M*A*S*H TV comedy series, has died at 81.

Mr Gelbart died at his California home after a battle with cancer.

M*A*S*H - about army doctors during the Korean War - began in 1972 and won Mr Gelbart an Emmy award.

He also won a Tony award for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and was twice nominated for an Oscar, including for the film Tootsie.

Mr Gelbart was brought in to develop the TV version of M*A*S*H, which had been filmed for the big screen by Robert Altman in 1970.Mr Gelbart wrote 97 shows over four seasons before leaving. The comedy show went on until 1983 as one of the most successful on US television.

Early in his writing career, Mr Gelbart wrote jokes for stars including Bob Hope and Red Buttons, and worked on Sid Caesar's show Caesar's Hour.

In 1962 he co-wrote the Ancient Rome-based hit Broadway show A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

His Oscar nominations were for the Dustin Hoffman movie Tootsie and Oh, God!, starring George Burns.

Mr Gelbart also won another Emmy for the Wall St-based film Barbarians at the Gate.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/8251985.stm

Published: 2009/09/12 06:14:04 GMT

© BBC MMIX

A new take on "His Master's Voice"

Our doggy chum listens to the juke box in a packed Central Bar on Friday night. Looks like he's been worrying the seats too.

My Alan

Winter moon over Benton Park View

Sunset over Pelaw

Al Jardine and Steve Miller

A Jadine and Steve Miller paying respect to Buster Brown's Fannie Mae and the riff Brian Wilson built Help Me Rhonda around.

Terry wakes up in New York

The ideal Saturday morning for any FNB should be to lie in bed and read in the Telegraph that one behaved in scandalous manner the night before.

Barry MacSweeney - again...

A final reminder, if one were needed, that you can catch the BBC Radio Four programme about poet Barry MacSweeney (including the contribution of a certain Friday Night Boy) once more on Saturday at 11.30pm and, of course, on BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mf3ds.

Frank O'Hara - Having a Coke with You

Philip Larkin - Annus Mirabilis

Sherman Alexie - My Sharona

John Cooper Clarke - Pies

Seamus Heaney - Digging

Ray Barrett RIP

Aussie actors don't come much tougher than Ray Barrett, who has died at the age of 82.

Barrett in The Troubleshooters in 1967. Almost every episode of the series saw him in danger in one of the world's hotspots.

Also he was the voice of Stingray and Thunderbird 5.

Sci-Fi/Monster Movie Posters

The George Pal-produced movie that kicked off the cycle of 50s sci-fi movies in 1950. Isn't this how space rockets were meant to look?

You'd assume any poster for this movie would take advantage of the special effects and use the Martian craft as a selling point, but I guess surprise/suspense was more important - though it's strange that they showed a Martian 'hand', which isn't revealed in the film until later!


Quite an inventive poster that doesn't give too much away. Interesting to see Price is only third in the cast list.

The classic sexually attractive female, limp in the 'creature's' arms.

Cheap movie: tacky poster!



Again, the sexually alluring, submissively prone female - red dress, lips parted! The monster stares down at her lasciviously and the heroes appear to be looking up her skirt. Was no woman safe from these creatures?

The woman gets her revenge. But at what cost? Whatever turns you on, I guess...

The Abbey Road Medley 40 years on

In a moment of weakness I purchased the stereo box set on my way home from work. Having watched England win 5 - 1, thought I'd better dip in and see what all the fuss is about.

So I started with the 'Long Medley' as a taster. Kicking off with "You Never Give Me Your Money" it is clear from Ringo's first drumbeat that someone has sprinkled gold dust on the track. The drum sound is fantastic, bass too. The overwhelming feeling is one of warmth - that staple requirement for all Scoundrels recordings.

"Sun King" reminds me that in 1969 Fleetwood Mac outsold The Beatles, and this is the Fabs little tribute. "Mean Mr Mustard" brought back memories of a ten bob note (up his nose). In 1969 I could get hammered and still have change out of 10s (50p!).

I still love Lennon's "great" before the guitar solo in "Polythene Pam". It's good to hear that they've left in the poor edit at the end when Lennon starts to sing "You should ..." as Macca strikes up with "She Came In .....".

One of my favourite moments has always been the start of "Golden Slumbers" - "Once there was a way .....". This sounds totally fresh as if PMcC is right there in front of you. I still find "smiles awake you when you rise" to be one of the spookiest bits of singing ever, particularly in the context of a lullaby. You can just see the guys behind the desk going "naa".

"Carry That Weight" they surely did/do - for once a prophesy that came true.

The guitar jam and drum solo are just magic. Ringo's drumming never sounded better. The piano feed into "The End" always sounded out of tune to me. It still does.

Well, it's the thumbs up from Da for this one.

THE 16 POUND SUIT

We're meeting on Friday at the Central bar in Gateshead. Paul has promised to wear his now legendary and much-admired 16 pound Primark suit, soon to become standard and compulsory garb for FBs.

Gazette colleague David Maclean reacts angrily today over suggestions he is 'Friday Night Boy material'

Early Morning Paddy

Be good, now.

Early Morning Prine

Early Morning Ellington

Early Morning Neil

Good enough for now

Ludwig Van Wilson