A new feature (well, actually it's an OLD feature but making a welcome return) to FoEM is The Library at Hurtfew. This is a custom Google Search Engine which is specifically configured to return results from a number of different sites relating to the works of Susanna Clarke. Give it a spin!
In preparation for an upgrade, the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair got into the works and broke DNS (the thing that translate numerical IP addresses into something a bit more meaningful). With apologies to Portia Rosenberg and Susanna Clarke, here he is in action - breaking things as usual.
Normal service will resume as soon as possible.
Judith has very kindly got back to me to say that she would be willing to do an interview with FoEM. As such, I'd like to start soliciting any questions that FoEM readers may have about Judith's adaptation of Susanna's short story, Mrs. Mabb, which recently aired on BBC Radio Four's Afternoon Play.
Please send anything to questions@foem.org.uk with the subject line of 'Mrs. Mabb Q&A' and please include: your name, your questions, and what country/region you're from.
The deadline for submissions is the Friday 23rd May.
Well, let's see.
I'm now in the process of finding out if Judith Adams, who adapted the wonderful BBC Radio dramatisation of Susanna's Mrs. Mabb, would be willing to grant FoEM an interview as to her work on the show. I envison it to work along the same lines as my previous interviews - i.e. solicit questions via email which will then be forwarded on appropriately for answering.
I've just this minute emailed Judith's agent; we'll see what happens. In these kind of situations I'm expecting to receive a custard pie to the face as is usually the way of these things. But then again, the answer may be positive. So let's wait and see. Personally I do hope it's a positive answer because this is really one of the first dramatisation's of Susanna's work and I'm certainly curious to know how certain matters in the script came to be and how Judith got around some of the problems that books to radio/TV/plays often present to the person adapting it.
Update: Bah! The email link on Judith's web site for her agent gives me an email bounce back because the domain doesn't exist. Looks like it should be a .com rather than a .co.uk. I'm now filling in the "general enquiries" form now.
'scuse the technical mumbo-jumbo on this post.
I've been a Google Apps user virtually since the day it came out. It allows anybody with a domain to get the wonderful Gmail interface for their domain. It's free for the Standard edition and allows a bit of branding. As such, here's FoEM's email system in action:
The login screen:
The email screen:
There will be a FAQ of sorts that will be hosted using FoEM's Google Apps account. Since the integration of JotSpot into Google, Google Sites makes for a very good collaborative tool.
I'm ressurrecting the FoEM "Library at Hurtfew" custom Google search engine, which will feature specific indexes from a number of sites to provide a searchable "encyclopedia" of all things Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Ladies of Grace Adieu and so on. Therefore, if you have a site/wiki/anything that could prove useful - please let me know. I'm intending on putting the forum index for starters.
Glad to hear that he's picked up another BAFTA (he recently won the Welsh BAFTA for the same thing) for his Doctor Who script, Blink. As one of the stronger writers on the Doctor Who writing team, I'm glad that the industry is recognising British writing talent. Especially for science fiction drama on television - something that us Brits should be doing more of.
I'm also fond of Paul Cornell's work on Doctor Who last season, as well as Helen Raynor who wrote the recent two parter, The Sontaran Strategem and Poison Sky (although seeing Christopher Ryan who played Dave Hedgehog from Bottom and Mike from The Young Ones as Sontaran General is a very unnerving and bizzare experience - but he was bloody good nonetheless!).
Speaking of the Sontarans, it really should be pointed out that the Sontarans aren't really the greatest soliders in the universe given what happens in Poison Sky. I strongly suspect the Sontarans just have a really good PR department instead.
As you can see, things are getting organised around here. I've been tinkering with stylesheets and Gimp for the Mac and the results are, if I may so, looking pretty bloody good and as I originally intended for FoEM to look back in November 2005 when I first started the blog.
Other changes:
- Links to the MP3 versions of Susanna's BBC radio presentations (except The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse - I seem to have misplaced that one - if anybody has a copy, please do let me know)
- Link to the Blackwells/Guardian sponsored event featuring Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke back in September 2007 for the launch of the paperback edition of The Ladies of Grace Adieu.
- Sorted a link to the forums via http://forums.foem.org.uk. The forums have been run independently of me since 2007.
There will be a few more other little changes coming up - but all in good time.
I've mentioned here that one of my all time favourite shows is about to make a bit of a come back (courtesy of Paul Knight and Richard Carpenter himself). Catweazle. I'm quite shocked to read that Shane Ritchie from Eastenders has expressed an interest in the project. Yipes.
Anyway.
It's a tale of a "failed" medieval magician who somehow transports himself to the modern world (read: the 70's in the TV show) having escaped the Normans. Well, YouTube is a wonderful resource for such things - and I feel it is my duty to bring Catweazle to those that may not have seen it yet. I can assure you, dear readers, that the DVDs are well worth buying.
In this episode from series 2, Catweazle having managed to travel back from the 70s to 1066 has been captured and kept by a wealthy and powerful Norman who wants him to perform alchemy. Having tricked his way out his cell, he manages to muck things up and transport himself back to the 70s again. Much to his disaapointment.
I completely missed this! But thanks to Joe's Forbidden Planet Blog, I'm now much wiser! You can listen to the dramatisation, featuring Doctor Who's David Tennent, via the Listen Again (direct link) facility for the next six days. It's an hour and a half in length.
I've recently listened to another of Pratchett's books for younger reades - A Hat Full of Sky, read by Stephen Briggs, and was thoroughly impressed with it. Pratchett treats his younger readers/listeners just aa well as us older lot and the story of a young witch battling mysterious demonic forces and gaining her "witch-hood" (as it were) is most impressive - and downright laugh out loud at times. I'm making my way through Maskerade (read by Niger Planer) and am getting some funny looks at people as I struggle to keep my composure on the bus.
For the past couple of days I've been catching up with various TV shows that I keep following but then fall hopelessly behind for one reason or another. Heroes is one such show.
I'd stopped on episode 15 of series one and never gotten around to finding how whether saving the cheerleader would save the world. Now I know, and I'm sure we can wave goodbye to a few of the cast members. But as this is science fiction, anything can happen and let's face it - no regular cast member really ever leaves a show. This has been demonstrated by Star Trek, Stargate and countless other shows. Whether it be a parallel universe, clones, holograms or whatever, a dead character can come back somehow.
Heroes has had some pretty impressive guest stars during my epic viewing sessions - Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Ecclestone and Eric Roberts. What are the chances of seeing two actors from Doctor Who (Ecclestone the 9th Doctor, and Robers playing the Master from the 8th Doctor's very limited appearence) appearing together in one show like this, eh? That said, my top praise goes to George Takei, Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee who have provided a very consistent highly entertaining performance throughout.
Battlestar Galactica. A show I ought not to like. Back in the very early 80's I absolutely adored Glen A. Larson's original series. I had the curtains. I had the bedspread. I had the toys. But when I was 5 or 6 during one Christmas Eve, my eagerness for the show soon came to a screeching stop. I think I sipped a little wine from my father's wine glass, fell asleep with my eyes open, and then put to bed.. where I had a major hallucination. I experienced the robotic Cylons step out of the curtains to hold an impromtu Christmas carol service. Zippy and Bungle from Rainbow walking their way up from the bottom of my bed. My grandmother came in to my room at one point and then went into the closet - never to re-emerge (and I went over to open the closet and she wasn't there). The whole lot accumulated in one of those spikey floating tortue balls from Star Wars chasing me out of my room and leaving me sweating on the staircase. I was sure glad to get downstairs on a very early Christmas Day to open my presents. And this, seriously, is one reason I have never, NEVER wanted to take any form of narcotic whenever the situation presented itself in my later years. It's those bloody Cylons' fault.
Anyway, the Ron D. Moore re-imagining of BSG is absolutely wonderful. I love it to bits. There is truly some exciting and wonderful stories which entertain and shock in equal measure. The final series is now airing and I'm predicting the whole thing is merely the dream of God's cat - something not unlike Douglas Adam's vision of how the Universe is run. Whatever happens, it's going to be explosive. Can't wait. I really hope that Gaius Baltar is a Cylon, but then again what about Kara Thrace? All very mysterious.
Here's a bit of a surprise. Pushing Daisies is one show that I didn't think I would like. It's very .. Amelie. Heck, the pilot episode even uses one track from the Amelie soundtrack in a scenario not unlike that of the film. But the narrative and presentation is where the similarity ends. The plot is wonderfully bizzare. Barry Sonnefeld's influence makes a huge impact on this series, and I love the performances from Anna Friel, Lee Pace and Chi McBride. I hope this continues to do well.
And finally, I checked out David Hewlett's (McKay from Stargate Atlantis) directorial and writing debut in A Dog's Breakfast. Starring his real life sister as well as cast members from Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, this is the tale of a brother who dislikes his sister's fiance immediately and sets about doing something to get rid of him. No matter what it takes. Of course, everything backfires big time and a grisly series of events occur.
This is a very enjoyable and chucklesome film, and David Hewlett is always very entertaining. Good to see Christopher Judge not playing Teal'c for a change and bringing a LOT more range and emotion into his performance. Paul McGillion, whom I've always heard with a Scottish accent in Atlantis, has a surprisngly strong Canadian accent. He plays his part well, as does Kate Hewlett who plays his fiance.
And now I'm about to check out the Sontarans return to Doctor Who. I'm still not quite sure what to make of this current season. Some of it is decidedly iffy, such as Planet of the Ood (how many bloody brains do the Ood have and what's with that giant brain exactly - they seem to function just fine in the Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) and Partner's in Crime. Even The Fires of Pompeii wasn't that much fun. I am liking Catherine Tate, much to my surprise. Personally I can't wait to see what Steven Moffat brings to the table this season - him, along with Paul Cornell, being one of the strongest writers on the writing staff.
Still it could all be worse. It could have turned into Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct. One of the most ghastly science fiction shiows produced. Badly written, badly acted. The special effects were marvellous, but some of the make-up effects (created, ironically, by Neil Gorton of Doctor Who) looked terrible.
According to this Telegraph article, several authors whose works are published by Bloomsbury are said to be upset with the way the publisher is 'obsessing' over J.K. Rowling.
Responding to the criticisms, a Bloomsbury spokesman said: "Bloomsbury has supported JK Rowling from the very first Harry Potter."At no time has the backing of our other authors been anything less than 100 per cent, as evidenced by the great success of new and established authors such as Margaret Atwood, Susanna Clarke, Justin Cartwright, William Boyd, David Guterson, Kate Summerscale, Louis Sachar, Jeffrey Eugenides, Donna Tartt, Jon McGregor, Khaled Hosseini, Ben Macintyre and many others."
One of their bestselling authors said: "I wouldn't place another book with them.
"They treat you with complete disregard and I know of four other writers who are very discontented."
The article also mentions some of the advances paid for the celebrity books, including David Blunkett and Gary Barlow. The Private Eye in it's Books and Bookmen column published a few examples where the books they've paid huge advances were costing them huge losses.
At last! They've sorted out all the quibbles (and axed two of New Line's executives in the process) and all seems to be on track for two films based on The Hobbit. Perhaps this will now give New Line the spark to make good on the Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell movie. After all, they've spent money on the movie options and the draft screenplays so far. It just seems all too convienient to me that all this internal re-arranging and kicking arse comes at a time when the film rights to The Hobbit was due to run out.
One of my all time absolute favourite fantasy movies is Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jack Purvis and Charles McKeown with the screenplay by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. I love it for it's wonderful weirdness, it's outrageous characters (an example being Robin Williams in an uncredited role as the King of the Moon), and visually stunning landscapes. And Michael Kamen's music is absolutely wonderful. I'm STILL trying to find a copy of the soundtrack on CD which doesn't cost more than 30 quid.
I'm delighted to hear that Sony have just released on region 1 a new release of the film, incoporating a newly cleaned up transfer, audio commentary by Gilliam and McKeown, a 72 minute documtnary on the making of the film, 30 minutes of storyboarded but never used scenes from the film (with commentary by the writers), and 4 four minutes of deleted scenes.
It's now available on region 1 DVD from Amazon.com. It's taken nearly 20 years to get all these goodies and a decent transfer, but it looks as though it's well worth the wait. Now please release it on region 2!
No trip to Ireland for a little while. Unfortunately my wife, Jennifer, fell very ill yesterday afternoon and I had to, for the first time, call emergency services to get an ambulence. After being examined by the doctors and given a saline drip alongside liquid paracetamol, and having to wait four hours for blood test results to be returned - it was declared the problem was just a particular nasty case of the flu.
One of our major worries was that given Jennifer suffered a stroke 12 years ago caused by the contraceptive pill, the major headache she was suffering could have indicated another stroke. Or meningentis - something that can be difficult to diagnose without the set of tests that the hospital carried out.
Thankfully she was given the all clear afterwards (although very groggy) and we returned home. We've had to postpone Ireland for a while (and given that the flights were just £4 ($8) in total, it's no great loss). For the next few days I'm ensuring that Jennifer gets the rest she needs. This is not the ideal time really, given that she is being made redundant from her job...
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