0001 From Tatiana to Tin Men

Its been almost a month since the Strange England blog went public and I'm writing this on a Sunday evening while Nicholas and Alexandra plays on the TV.  I recorded it earlier, amused at the serendipity of its scheduling, just a few short hours after I had been writing about Lynne Frederick's career.

The film is from 1971 and Frederick plays Tatiana, the second daughter of the tsar and tsarina of Russia. To the best of my knowledge the actress was just 17 when she made the historical epic although it was her second feature film after debuting in No Blade of Grass the year before.   It wasn't my intention to talk about her again quite so soon but up she popped as though summoned by kind thought alone.

 

There are a lot of other fine actors in Nicholas and Alexandra, who may also feature in this blog somewhere or another at some point in the future but there is one amongst them for whom many, many words will be written here as I consider him as much of a charismatic and eccentric a figure within the realms of Strange England as was the character he played within the Russian Court.

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin as channelled by the great and mighty Tom Baker is perhaps the actors third finest role after that of the 4th Doctor and just being himself!  And I say that with great affection because Baker delights me to the very core of my being.  He's been a constant hero of mine and while I've never once sported a multi-coloured scarf or floppy hat in tribute, I can summon his voice to my ear and his nonchalant swagger as the Time Lord and those things alone are enough to warm the soul and make me smile from within.  You have been warned.

 

So what else ?

 

Well to help me with the Sunday morning ritual of ironing the work shirts for the coming week, I usually like to venture back in time with an episode or two of old TV from yesteryear.  Today it was SKY episode two from 1975 and The Georgian House episode one from 1976. I've thoughts on both to be shared later on but perhaps the most unsettling image from either was the severity of the actress Adrienne Byrne's "bob" haircut!  There will be more pictures from the show in due course, and not least because the internet seems sadly lacking in such, but its funny how what looks quite lovely on Joanna Lumley's Purdy by year's end, is quite distracting on Byrne's Abbie.

Shifting thoughts on fashion; The very best example of a "culture in flux" perhaps!

 

Which brings us very nicely round to this;

Once upon a time I owned a copy of this TV-Times Souvenir Extra featuring The New Avengers.  It was from 1977 and stuffed full of coloured pictures with a concise history of The Avengers in its original form and its re-branded continuation.  It was a great magazine and I took a pair of scissors to it in order to add some much needed images of Cybernauts to my Robots and Cyborgs scrapbook!

 

Now having reminded myself of this fact today, via the domino thought process set out above, I realised that thanks to modern technology, a man might still be able to continue a childhood hobby without even realising that that was what he was doing. The subject may be a little broader and exploratory in nature but might this blog not just be another scrapbook of sorts!

Food for thought.

 

 

Steve

Look-in #15 (1975)

 

 

 

Steve

SKY (1975)

It's almost 4:50 on Monday the 7th of April 1975.

 

We have just the one television set in our house at this time and we're watching ATV(1) on it.

I've only just turned seven a few weeks back and with an older sister and brother in the living room with me, its doubtful I'm calling the shots as to what we we're about to watch.  Jackanory is on BBC1 which is an easy pass most weeks but after that its Blue Peter(2) and everybody likes that. Why not today then?  Somebody must know of something better.

 

The TV-Times rests on the arm of the sofa, with the beguiling Jane Seymour illustrating the final episode of The Hanged Man. Its also the "Year of the Yo-yo" apparently and there's a chance to win an Estate Car as well. (insert era appropriate jokes about British Leyland(3) here!)  No clues on the cover of that then.

 

My brother had Look-In magazine back then so perhaps it's him that knows what's coming on next.  That's probably it. Look-In is published every Thursday and is billed as the Junior TV-Times.  As well as the usual listings for all the regional TV suitable for 70's youth, the latest edition is also sporting a full colour painted cover of a strange young man with eldritch eyes.  He looks like an angel or a warlock and he's standing in front of Stonehenge, flanked by bright yellow copy that reads;

 

"Great new sci-fi adventure series SKY starts on TV"

 

There you go then, at least that's one mystery solved, although its worth noting that this kind of sci-fi adventure will become increasingly alien (pun fully intended) to my big brother as the years role by.

 

"What's this about?" I probably ask as its starts.  "Shut up and watch it" they say.  And I do

...and I'm hooked.... forever

It's now the 30th of May 2016 and some time has passed.

I've just watched episode 1 of SKY again for the umpteenth time and it still feels very special.  Its one of those shows that got into my DNA, partly because of the age I first saw it but mainly because of the story telling.  It's quirky and dangerous and the answers don't come easy.  You have to properly watch it and you have to think about it and if you do that then it just keeps giving.

Or at the very least it keeps transporting you back to a time when the answers were enigmatic and powerful and could only be half grasped.

"The Juganet is a circle. The circle is a machine. The machine is a crossover point. The point is a paramagnetic intersection. That is where I must be"

 

And I probably am.

 

 

Steve
 

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