“It’s Christmas week, and in the office of City & Colonial Bank in Haversham, it’s a quiet day. The small staff is managed by Harry Fordyce (Peter Cushing), a business-only nerd who exudes no warmth, no holiday spirit, and does not fraternize with the help. He won’t even let the staff put up Christmas decorations.
Today there is a ten pound discrepancy and he’s making a big hullabaloo about it, even though the error was spotted.
In walks Colonel Gore Hepburn (Andre Morrell), who represents the bank insurance company. He is doing a surprise inspection of the security. When he’s alone with Fordyce, he informs him that he’s a thief, there to steal the bank’s money, and that he’s holding Fordyce’s wife and child hostage. One signal from the window, and they’re done with.
Hepburn has the robbery planned down to the second, and Fordyce must play along. In the outer office, Hepburn acts like an efficient man, checking out the floor signals. Fordyce is a wreck but tries not to show it. He carries out all of his instructions, which include putting the money into suitcases (Hepburn’s “luggage”).
Very suspenseful film, and one wonders if Hepburn will be able to get away with the robbery, and if Fordyce will be implicated in any way.
Peter Cushing is tremendous in the role of Fordyce, cold, stern, and highly disciplined, living a life where there are no shades of gray and mistakes are not permitted. As Hepburn, Andre Morell is excellent, charming even when he’s talking about the most deadly things.
The ending is a little rushed and a tiny bit confusing, but the story is a nice little take on “A Christmas Carol” with Scrooge Fordyce learning a few life lessons. Highly recommended. I saw this on a double disc with “Stop Me Before I Kill.””
The Deep State Goes Viral by Debbie Lerman is a deeply troubling book. Subtitled ‘Pandemic planning and the Covid coup’, the thrust of the book is that the United States response to Covid, largely followed across the world, was meticulously coordinated. Moreover, it was not a coordinated public health response, as sold to the public, but a military response coordinated not by public health experts but by the US Department of Defence and then, beyond the shores of the United States, by NATO.
12. Graft
Apart from that wag, the vast majority at both concerts I’d say were lefty dogooders, fully believing this graft was not happening … that the money really was getting to the needy.
(0930) Morning all … have not checked the weather. Rain? (0947)
11. D Day tomorrow
10. And so it goes
9. Meanwhile, in Ireland
8. Lara
Always knew she told truth on Benghazi and here we are how many years later? Really she is a hero! God Bless you Lara! Keep up the good work! pic.twitter.com/p6H6R6pxjJ
a. Jeffreys* could only be so boldly treasonous, with zero fear of consequences, were that lot convinced that this is now “leading beyond authority”, the British motto of Common Purpose, the communist organisation in Britain under Labour.
Money speaks but massive money is almighty in their eyes … dangerous fanatics, quite opposed to the Constitution as it’s been historically interpreted. Jeffries and cabal are obviously quite convinced they’re taking the House next year by trickery and judging by Johnson and the current budget fiasco, you’d have to think they’re in with a chance … on what … 17% of the vote?
b. What Californians and those in other blue states have bought into is the notion that they are separate to and above the US of A and its Constitution. 1865 showed that not to be so … it was might which resolved it and it will be might this time, even if only in the wholesale arrest of the Dem and RINO perps.
But that casts DJT as the Dictator, though it be Constitutionally accepted in this case … e.g. arresting Roberts and Jeffreys for abetting insurrection. Which is uncannily like the new Hegelian dialectic.
Which then brings in the return of Jesus.
Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists for the Christian holy day of Pentecost. It falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ disciples. (Wiki)
Were I a betting man, I’d say it’s still too early for that … unfortunately horrors aplenty come first.
c. The Ukraine … whoever is advising DJT has zero idea how existential this is for the Slavic peoples … they only need look to Stalingrad for an idea. Having lived there, I can vouch that it’s indelibly ingrained, due to over a thousand years of abuse. Napoleon found out, Hitler found out. Nukes alter the picture but that’s M.A.D. … which works both ways.
In terms of the Ukraine, Putin or whoever must run NATO off Slavic territory first, however much it takes. End of.
5. Steve at 1066
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Vows to Unmask ‘Every Single ICE Agent’ *
Law Enforcement Dismantles Major Drug Trafficking Ring Operating in Seattle
Britain Imposes Balsamic Blasphemy Law
Trump says Says Russia Plans to Respond to Attack
Rep. Luna Torches House GOP for Delays in Codifying Trump’s DOGE Agenda
Price of Silence: How Dead Soldiers Threaten to Drain [The] Ukraine’s Military Budget
‘Children’s Health Solutions’ discusses anxiety, ADD, ADHD and vaccine injuries in chn
Louisiana state lawmakers advance bill banning Chemtrails
Survivors testify: MKs participated in sadistic sexual ‘rituals’ involving minors
Much more.
……
*Stand alone post later on this.
4. DAD at the Battle of Hastings (NOWP)
a) According to Le Point […] more than 100,000 Afghans now live in France. This migratory movement, which began in 2015.
b) Yesterday the Dutch cabinet had to resign. Prime Minister Dick Schoof has offered his resignation to the king. The reason is that Geert Wilders (PVV) pulled the plug on this cabinet.
c) According to Actu Lyon, a […] queue formed in Lyon’s 2nd arrondissement at the end of May in front of the pop-up store Jennah Boutique, which specializes in “modest fashion” for “modest Muslim women.
d) A bakery faces a €7,500 fine for opening on May 1st. A thug who fired a mortar at riot police officers was sentenced to a three-month suspended sentence and a €500 fine. ????
(0204) Various difficult things to address first. (0325) Going to try for sleep again, which will mean another latish start I’m afraid. (0327)
3. Finally, in the middle of the night
There’s this thing called “minor added inconvenience” which one can put down to just scriptkiddy incompetence if feeling charitable … or else one can call it death by a thousand cuts, whereby little moves made by a hostile cabal slowly do the boiling frog on us … until something previously good now becomes unworkable.
Last evening, my YT recommended suddenly took a radical turn when about a dozen and a half old films, plus newish BBC and other radio plays filled my “recommended” page … all my birthdays, yes?
Well, I thought so but as I started sampling, two things became apparent:
a. The radio plays are poor and that in itself is a complex “discussion”. There’s some sort of “luvvy” thing going on, almost a Dunning-Kruger, where a feted writer (at the Beeb, say) is not as well received by listeners to the same extent.
For example, in The Missing Wife, key inconsistencies in the writing permeate, e.g. thinking that police would proceed in a certain way (this is more Dixon of Dock Green than today’s rainbow and thug plod) when they just would not, in listener’s minds and memories … but that’s just part of it.
The acting. There’s this kind of “between jobs” actor/actress who, suddenly employed on this radio play, acts the hell out of the part to within an inch of its life. And all of them are part of the same school of overacting … the villain melodramatically bad to the bone, no relenting … where the poor, put upon victim is oh so victim the entire way through …
… plus the whole thing’s so … “modern” … where there’s no niceness any more, no gracefulness, just irritated, short shrift. And that’s from the 70s/80s, before the sicko Wokery started to come into it, a bit like with Doctor Who. Christopher Ecclestone departed for a reason … he was no London or Cardiff luvvy.
b. A technical flaw. I did test this out against a control group of YTs. YT seem to have zoomed every one of these films or episodes on offer in this way … on a pad, presumably on a phone too, we can two finger zoom and reduce the image size within the frame. There’s a range, a limit to the zoom out, the reduction in image size.
That zoom-out lower limit has now seemingly been reduced to the point where the characters’ acting half fills the screen and nothing either side appears, no one seated, no one reacting … just the central acting enlarged full frame. Of course you can make it even more exaggerated … but one cannot zoom out enough.
Now if this is so, then it ruins film showing, embedding, in blog posts … you do see the implications. So I checked against, for example, a National Gallery vlogcast, also a Jago and the new man … they were fine, correct size and proportion. It’s only films where it’s an issue.
It might be that the YT techie PTB decided to go to a different width and height proportion, which would then fill the frame and result in that zoom effect.
And again … is it Dunning Kruger incompetence, a la Rachel from Accounts … or is it something more sinister … on someone’s say-so, increasing petty annoyances to the point where it’s no pleasure any more? Another analogy is reducing the dog’s chain one link at a time … ratcheting, never back and forth. It’s a bit like banning smoking in beer gardens.
2. There are issues both in Congress and Parliament right now
In Congress, it is what Elon calls a pork barrel budget, plus Ron Johnson:
After Elon's tweet heard around the world yesterday, I invited Sen. Ron Johnson on the show. He is currently a NO on the One Big Beautiful Bill. He walks through what would need to change in the OBBB for him to get to a YES.
And that obstacle? Whether it’s my age and decreased hearing or the tinnitus … whether I’m the only one on planet earth who notices this or not … but the moment a vlogger starts with the atmospheric noise (maybe he’d call it mood music), which drowns out and distracts from the message … far from enhancing it … then there’s a clear issue.
And this is just such a vlog. There is a quotation I ran a few times at N.O., which said that the moment a scientist tries to influence us by his manner => it is suspect science. Ditto with anything else on youtube.
18 minutes lost … maybe not to all, esp. the younger set, but shirley I cannot be the only one where drowning out a speech with mood noise is counterproductive? And I have seen many comments to this effect on various YTs and other vlogs.
Looking at Jago and trains or this new chap with road junctions … even Steve Bannon … it is spoken vouce after the noisy intro.
There are quite mixed reviews for this one … the pluses are Warren William in many eyes and that scene where he’s sitting with Ida Lupino and Rita Hayworth at the same restaurant table … envy.
That in itself raises the question of the cast … how important is it to you? Or is the director or some other aspect more important in your mind? Would you watch a film if you saw certain players? Would you avoid a film if certain players were in it?
I’d avoid Barbara Stanwyck, Lucille Ball, Peter Lorre, Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, increasingly James Mason, Benny Hill, Terry Thomas, Doris Day, Grace Kelly, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, dozens more.
For? Ida Lupino and Rita Hayworth for a start, Jeanne Crain, Jean Simmons, Clint Eastwood, Bogey, William Powell, Leslie Nielson … dozens and dozens.
A review:
“Warren William is that ex-safecracker Michael Lanyard, The Lone Wolf, in “The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt.” Criminals, led by Ralph Morgan, who are after some plans from the war department, try to frame the retired crook for the theft.
What makes this film a cut above the usual B detective film is the terrific cast. Not just any B movie has Ida Lupino and pre-electrolysis Rita Hayworth as the female leads. They are not only excellent in their roles but beautiful, Hayworth being on the side of the bad guys and Lupino playing Lanyard’s young girlfriend.
He complains about being old enough to be her father, which in real life, was true. Here, the character is 35. This would undoubtedly get a laugh from today’s audience. He was 45 and in today’s youth-obsessed society, could pass for 60.
Virginia Wiedler plays Lanyard’s tomboy daughter, lending the same kind of terrific support she did in “The Philadelphia Story.” Being a big fan of Warren William, I’ll watch him in anything. The persona he used for many of these types of roles – relaxed, unflappable, charming, and funny – seems to hit the right notes, even though in silents, he played the villain. He’s like a poor man’s William Powell, but in his own way, every bit as good.
(0850) Morning all … bright sunshine out there, through the Gates poison-cloud across the land. Lots of moolah for the medicos. (0955)
11. On sexually sicko extremists
10. Evil muvvers, yes … crims
9. It’s never too late to start all over again
8. The globo-psycho, Wokerati
… environnmento-destructo loons again:
7. If, with my admin hat on
… I’m simply not going to run music alien to my upbringing, for example Slade, Sweet, Strawbs, pop, techno, disco were never mine … things from the late 70s, early 80s, on the grounds that they were gauche, naff, twee, never got into them … nor Queen, nor Oasis, nor that Ozzie someone (hubby of Sharon, whom I like) …
… but against that, at the same time, on most other topics, I’m trying to draw examples from all sorts of sources and am encouraging readers to as well … then I can hardly run bands here any more such as Can, Jane, other “krautrock” (from my radio DJ days) although I did run Woodsy 42’s Radio Caroline for historical reasons (or was it Microdave or Torquaymada, can’t recall). Much of ZZ Top or Lynyrd Skynyrd to me was ho hum … some tracks were good … just didn’t get into bands other guys did … don’t forget my age.
Nazareth were a bit of a mixed bag … so many great tracks, very Brit/Scottish of that day … they’re almost playable to our very diverse (in the real meaning of the word, the good meaning) readership. I won’t play the Kinks because of Lola (you know why) but will play Waterloo Sunset. And so on.
There are two bands below highly regarded in their day … very loud, very heavy sound … one krautrock and as a commenter noted, Jane sounded quite like Steppenwolf, the Canadian band, in some ways. They were thinking bands, as Paul Simon would wish … the first link is to Jane’s Hangman … which is loud, wild, quite fitting the graphics of anguish, loud and discordant lead guitar, melodic but loud rhythm section … on that topic, it’s quite fitting … a long track, much jamming throughout.
In such a song about a man waking early morn on the day of his execution … when I wake up in the morning, it’s the end of the day … title should be “man to hang” rather than “hangman” perhaps. In such a song, crooning singing would not fit, nor Clash type singing … on the other hand, the keyboardist, with his two speed stop and go playing … fits perfectly.
Steppenwolf’s It’s Never Too Late, unlike the “to be hanged” man, is a song of always possible remorse and redemption, even after you’ve done such bad things. I can’t listen to it, personally, not because it’s a bad song … quite the opposite in fact … but because it’s too close to the bone for me, things I’d rather not be reminded of. As I eternally say here … I’m a (usually) reformed sinner, not a saint.
In that song, the vocals MUST be raspy, anguished … anything less would not match the mood of the rhythm section. Yes, I know Tom Waits does the anguished thing too but imho … for a different, self-inflicted reason … staying down in the sewer, rather than climbing out.
