Early Tuba Skinny … before they lost their mojo perhaps? The covid scam had much to answer for.
Correct me if wrong but methinks we’ve not had these before.
And in a different part of town … a bit.
They just seemed to have more sheer … bounce perhaps … at that time.
(1256) Afternoon all. (1315)
10. Mexico
9. Maureen corner
8. The beef is cloned
Coming up to elevenses and about to prepare lunch, bit of a quandary which of these two to run. Pocket Full of Rye would be a Miss Marple double episode (1:43 run time), rated 7.9 by IMDb, a repeat, perfect for a Sunday postprandial feature. (1985, Joan Hickson). I also have The Night of the Party (1934), rated 6 on IMDb but quite a clear copy in vision and sound (1:01 run time), we’ve not had it yet.
Cunning plan is to run the shorter one now, then some politics, then jazz, finally early evening politics (much of it today).
“As a mystery fan I was a little disappointed by this whodunit. I was getting the upper crust characters confused with each other and there is little running time to get them and their situations sorted. But there are two distinctive characters who save the film from becoming too stuffy. They are Chidiatt the flowery writer and the slightly dotty Princess Amelia.
Princess Amelia of Corsova is played by Muriel Aked. She’s the one who proposes the game of murder in the dark. She has brought a toy gun along for the occasion. In the past she reveals that she’s been told that she “can see better in the dark than any other woman I’ve known” by a man who has had enough experience to tell I expect. She has the best lines in the film especially when she’s talking to the General.
Chidiatt is played by Ernest Thesiger. He takes charge of Princess Amelia’s toy gun as he enthusiastically joins the game of murder. At one point he says he prefers guns to flowers but I notice he carries a posy in the court scene. He gets away with murder the way he talks to the Judge. Thesiger is so thorny and witty as usual and his impishness brightens up the film.”
JH: Ernest Thesiger was, of course, the father of Jimmy Thesiger, of Seven Dials infamy.
(0948)(1009)
Maybe don’t specialise too early, all else being equal
I’m in an interesting position vis-a-vis this. My father was a near master of all trades, could build, fit, wire, landscape homes, my mother was a nurse. My state school was an enlightened one … we were taught all sorts … even the boys were taught knitting, crochet, cooking, as well as woodworking and in our spare time, we learnt the 3 Rs and played football and cricket. Plus hand to hand fighting, natch.
I was a classic case in secondary, given an in, via my mother’s contacts, into a “public school” I’ll not name, which then opened doors into tertiary institutions and employment. The education, if anything, broadened until Form 5 (Year 10), at which point we had to specialise … my error being taking the wrong subjects in the next three years, inc. university but it sure broadened my horizons.
Classwise, I’m multiclass in some ways, feeling just as much at home in a drones club or in a pub with lads and lasses. The downside of course is that one can’t get away with it for long … no demographics you run with ever fully accept you.
Once, after I’d built a fence and shed, my father went over it with a keen eye for fault finding and was silent … being a Yorkshireman, any form of praise would stick in his craw of course, plus he wasn’t outlaying that money in school fees for me to become a builder.
Looking at things today in the light of the article above, I still maintain a kid should have the broadest education possible. If his skills set then makes him a builder or in my case for awhile a screenprinter, then so be it. If a savvy business brain, so be it. If a teacher, so be it. An accountant? Well, I’ll pass on that one.
Only thing I’d say again is don’t specialise too early.
(0645)(0649)
Official lies about Australia
(0455)(0637)
5. Vat-pocrisy
4. Watch out for cousins
3. Steve at 1204
2. TDS today … you know where the url is
1. DAD at 1204
a) On November 5 I reported on a ramming jihad incident on the Île d’Oléron, an island just off the west coast of France. The suspect in the attack is Jean Guillot, a recent convert to Islam….
b) Shamelessness of the Maire of Paris. Anne Hidalgo benefits from an exemption and bypasses the Paris Council’s control to travel in business class: since the beginning of 2020, 79 trips at a cost of nearly 220,000 euros….
c) US billionaire Elon Musk exposed the core of the European Union’s democratic-deficit debate with a single comment under Ursula von der Leyen’s X post, delivering an embarrassing jab at the Commission president.
d) Just as at the BBC, France Inter lost nearly half a million listeners in one year.
(1610)
17. Mike Benz on Rogan
“Mike Benz just dropped a wild bombshell on Joe Rogan’s podcast. During the Obama years, USAID pushed $1.2 BILLION through Cayman Island accounts, pretending it was “aid for Pakistan”… …but the cash actually funded ZunZuneo — a Cuban Twitter-clone built to spark rent-a-riots and topple governments around the world.”
16. Heroine
15. Don’t forget China and Swalwell
14. Yes Sophie
13. Steve and war room
12. In the light of the Fri/Sat storm
… this was posted yesterday morning:
11. Over at OoL
https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2025/11/who-exactly-caused-these-two-things-to.html
Now there’s a reason for this episode, apart from taking us up to the evening posts which I hope to be up to. January 26th, 1969:
Review:
“The suave Simon Templar has encounters with two gorgeous blonde sisters, who make idealistic statements about death.
The Saint tracks down the ladies to a large remote country house, which is owned by a rich entrepreneur named Keith Longman (Clifford Evans). The ladies, Vanessa (Veronica Carlson) and Stella (Jayne Sofiano) are Longman’s daughters.
After he infiltrates Longman’s home, the Saint finds out from the man himself that he is experimenting with cryogenics. Longman has a bad heart, and he is determined to freeze himself into suspended animation until years later, when he assumes that heart transplants operations will improve. Longman’s freezing process has never been tested on humans–and he believes that the Saint will be the perfect subject.
When I first saw this episode I thought I was watching the Avengers, as it’s the kind of story Steed and Co would be involved in, but I guess it was an experiment, or even an ode to the Avengers; whichever it is, it’s an intriguing episode that borders heavily on horror/sci-fi.
The director is Freddie Francis who, of course, done countless hammer films, and here he keeps things watchable, but it is Joyce Sofiano as the eccentric daughter of the equally eccentric Longman who steals the scene.”
From Wiki:
“The Avengers is a British espionage television series that aired from 7 January 1961 to 21 April 1969. It initially focused on David Keel (Ian Hendry), aided by John Steed (Patrick Macnee). Ian Hendry left after the first series; Steed then became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish, and assertive women: Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Linda Thorson). Dresses and suits for the series were made by Pierre Cardin.”
From me:
“I wonder if Hendry of The Avengers was cry-oed by Macnee. Also, I quite liked the insanity of the two females in this … in keeping with most of the girls I’ve known, though the ones I knew had better dress sense. Thank goodness all the ladies I know today are sane … the insane forming the wokerati, no?”
“Somewhere in the Night is directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also co- adapts the screenplay with Howard Dimsdale from a story by Marvin Browsky. It stars John Hodiak, Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Josephine Hutchinson and Fritz Kortner. Music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Norbert Brodine.
George Taylor (Hodiak) returns from the war suffering from amnesia and trying to track down his identity by following a trail started by a mysterious man named Larry Cravat. Pretty soon George finds himself thrust into a murder mystery where nothing is ever as it seems.
The amnesia sufferer is not in short supply in film noir, neither is the returning from the war veteran, but Somewhere in the Night may just be one of the most under appreciated to use these central themes. Amongst film noir writers it has a very mixed reputation, yet the trajectory it follows is quintessential film noir stuff.
George Taylor (Hodiak assured and rightly playing it as low-key confusion) is very much at the mercy of others, thus he finds himself wandering blindly into a labyrinthine murder mystery. His journey will see him get a beating (no matter he is one tough boy), pulled from one suspicious location to the next and introduce him to dames, a stoic copper, a shifty fortune teller and a “too good to be true?” club owner.
The screenplay is deliberately convoluted, making paying attention essential, and the script blends tongue in cheek nonchalance with spicy oral stings.
The locations Taylor visits are suitably atmospheric, even macabre at times, which allows Mankiewicz and Brodine (Boomerang/Kiss of Death) to open up some noir visuals. Dr. Oracles’s Crystal Ball parlour really kicks things off, fronted by Anzelmo (Kortner deliciously shady), it’s a room adorned by face masks on the walls and lit eerily by the glow of a crystal ball.
Then there’s Lambeth Sanitorium, with low-lit corridors, many doors that hide mentally troubled patients and the shadow inducing stairs. And finally the docks, with dark corners down by the lapping silver water, a solitary bar at the front, smoky and barely rising above dive status. These all form atmospheric backdrops to enhance the suspicion and confusion of the protagonist.
Nancy Guild (apparently pronounced as Guyled) didn’t have much of a career, and much of the criticism for the acting in the film landed at her door, but unfairly so. It’s true that she’s more friendly side-kick than sultry femme fatale, but she has a good delivery style that compliments the doubling up with Hodiak. She’s pretty as well, a sort of Bacall/Tierney cross that’s most appealing.
Elsewhere Conte and Nolan offer up the expected enjoyable noirish performances while a host of noir icons flit in and out of the story, making it fun to see who will pop up next? There are undeniably daft coincidences and credulity stretching moments within the plotting, and in true Mankiewicz style the film is often very talky, but it’s never dull and quite often surprising, even having a trick up its sleeve in the finale.”