In which there are Emmett and Bix both keeping left
- Emmet at work directing traffic to keep left.
- Reading, books 2016, 37.
30. The Beiderbecke Affair, by Alan Plater, 1985, is the author's novelisation of his own "comedy thriller" television series featuring the inimitable characters Jill Swinburne, a conservationist, and Trevor Chaplin, a jazz fan. Still funny after all these years. Beware of men with forward-facing haircuts! (5/5 obv)
• Quote: The headmaster turned sharply, with a Dracula twirl of his academic gown [...]
35. The Beiderbecke Tapes, by Alan Plater, 1986, is the second of Plater's novelisations of his televisual Beiderbecke Trilogy, although technically this book predates the final filming script. This story made me laugh in three different ways: mostly wry chuckling, seasoned with a couple of belly laughs and one fit of the giggles. (5/5)
• Mr Entertainment: He was clinging precariously to his late fifties. Wrinkles criss-crossed his face like a major intersection on a narrow-gauge railway. His eyes shone like tiny pools of ketchup.
• I note that due to the Conservatives and their "Victorian values", such as childhood malnourishment, rickets has made a come-back since this novel was written: There are over two thousand miles of inland navigable waterways in the United Kingdom. Once upon a time they formed the backbone of an Industrial Revolution, the British Empire and related institutions such as poverty, degradation, and rickets.
36. The Beiderbecke Connection, by Alan Plater, 1992, is the third novelisation in the Beiderbecke Trilogy. If you enjoyed the first two then you'll like this too, obv, although Plater's prose style alters subtly through the series and I enjoy that variety. (5/5)
• On nosey neighbours: It is a fact of life in the the English suburbs that any display of radical politics provokes an equal and opposite reactionary.
• Mr Carter, history teacher: 'In the present climate, round the bend, the lunatic fringe and the middle of the road are one and the same place. I may have to consider moving somewhere less crowded.'
• On surveillance photos: They illustrated a truth well-known to security services the world over: human behaviour, however innocuous, becomes highly sinister when photographed from a distance, with a long lens, and subjected to grainy enlargement in the dark rooms of the powerful.
• On two Detective Constables in CID: Their long-term ambition was to be suspended, permanently, on full pay, pending retirement.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/573708.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.
- Reading, books 2016, 37.
30. The Beiderbecke Affair, by Alan Plater, 1985, is the author's novelisation of his own "comedy thriller" television series featuring the inimitable characters Jill Swinburne, a conservationist, and Trevor Chaplin, a jazz fan. Still funny after all these years. Beware of men with forward-facing haircuts! (5/5 obv)
• Quote: The headmaster turned sharply, with a Dracula twirl of his academic gown [...]
35. The Beiderbecke Tapes, by Alan Plater, 1986, is the second of Plater's novelisations of his televisual Beiderbecke Trilogy, although technically this book predates the final filming script. This story made me laugh in three different ways: mostly wry chuckling, seasoned with a couple of belly laughs and one fit of the giggles. (5/5)
• Mr Entertainment: He was clinging precariously to his late fifties. Wrinkles criss-crossed his face like a major intersection on a narrow-gauge railway. His eyes shone like tiny pools of ketchup.
• I note that due to the Conservatives and their "Victorian values", such as childhood malnourishment, rickets has made a come-back since this novel was written: There are over two thousand miles of inland navigable waterways in the United Kingdom. Once upon a time they formed the backbone of an Industrial Revolution, the British Empire and related institutions such as poverty, degradation, and rickets.
36. The Beiderbecke Connection, by Alan Plater, 1992, is the third novelisation in the Beiderbecke Trilogy. If you enjoyed the first two then you'll like this too, obv, although Plater's prose style alters subtly through the series and I enjoy that variety. (5/5)
• On nosey neighbours: It is a fact of life in the the English suburbs that any display of radical politics provokes an equal and opposite reactionary.
• Mr Carter, history teacher: 'In the present climate, round the bend, the lunatic fringe and the middle of the road are one and the same place. I may have to consider moving somewhere less crowded.'
• On surveillance photos: They illustrated a truth well-known to security services the world over: human behaviour, however innocuous, becomes highly sinister when photographed from a distance, with a long lens, and subjected to grainy enlargement in the dark rooms of the powerful.
• On two Detective Constables in CID: Their long-term ambition was to be suspended, permanently, on full pay, pending retirement.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/573708.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.