Of Interest

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WE'RE AS MAD AS HELL -TV punch-up's/disagreements

TV "blooper" shows in the mould of It'll be Alright on the Night and Auntie's Bloomers have long been audience favourites.

Simple mistakes by presenters and stars are funny enough, but when the punches start flying you are into "super blooper" territory - the televisual equivalent of gold dust.

OK, there's Jerry Springer and his cast of deranged, chair-throwing studio guests. But a genuine, unscripted and unexpected studio scrap is much more rare.

In the early years of TV, studio security was something of a joke, which paved the way for a classic early super blooper.

In 1963, the Irish writer Desmond Leslie - enraged by a nasty review of his wife's latest play - was able to infiltrate the audience of David Frost's studio discussion show, march up to offending reviewer Bernard Levin and land a superb left hook on his nose in front of 11 million viewers.

"Just a minute Mr Levin, this will only take a minute," Leslie had said with impeccable politeness before unleashing a blow described by The Times as "the most public punch since Sonny Liston took the heavyweight title from Floyd Patterson".

Come and have a go...

After this security was tightened up and on-screen fighting became more difficult.

In 1998, the newspaper columnist AA Gill was reduced to moaning in print that he had wanted to punch Robert Kilroy-Silk live on air.

Instead, Gill claims that an altercation took place soon after, at a party.

Gill says "Kilroy-Silk told me: 'Outside, you big poof. I used to box at university,'" recalled Gill.

"Well, what would you do? I told him to f*** off, turned my back and went on talking about there being nothing on television."

Amazing Grace

Chat-shows like Kilroy-Silk's nevertheless remain the main targets for TV pugilists.

Performer Grace Jones's attempt to beat up Russell Harty live on TV in 1981 (she was provoked when the presenter apparently turned his back on her) has become a TV legend, second only to the Sex Pistol's confrontation with presenter Bill Grundy in 1977.

The Pistols' Johnny Rotten, too unhealthy looking to land a proper punch, instead let his tongue do the fighting.

After Grundy had jokingly flirted with punk singer Siouxsie Sioux, the Pistols' Johnny Rotten repeatedly swore at him live on air.

Once a tosser...

More recently chat show presenter Clive Anderson almost came to blows with the Bee Gees after revealing - without prior warning - that in the 1960s the group had been called Les Tosseurs.

"Well you'll always be tossers to me," sneered Anderson, causing the Aussie disco kings to storm off in a huff.

The dramatic, angry walk-off - often followed by something very close to a punch-up off stage - is a favourite of politicians as well a showbiz celebs.

In 1983, Mrs Thatcher's husband Denis treated the producer of a BBC TV phone programme to a memorable finger-jabbing session in the entertainment suite after deciding his wife had been "stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots" during a discussion of the Falklands War.

Kebabed

And when former defence minister John Nott disgustedly walked off the set of an interview with the late Robin Day - throwing his lapel mic to the floor with a satisfyingly violent electronic thud - he started a tradition that came to be known as "doing a John Nott".

The technique has since been used by figures as diverse as Tracey Emin, Oliver Reed and - on radio rather than TV - Neil Kinnock.

The then Labour leader halted a recorded interview on Radio 4, yelling at the interviewer that he was "not going to sit here and be bloody kebabed," before stomping off.

The studio punch up between Lewis and Rahman will doubtless join the great TV moments hitlist. But thankfully there is still some way to go before television descends to the depths portrayed in Sidney Lumet's cult movie Network.

In the film a chat show host is shot live on air, in a stunt to boost ratings.

bbc.co.uk

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Adam Curtis Documentaries

Kevin Adam Curtis (born 1955) is an English film maker. His best known work is The Century of the Self (2002), a film that examined how Freud's theories of the unconscious shaped the development of public relations and advertising. He says, "My favourite theme is power and how it works in society", and his works explore areas of sociology, philosophy and political history. He describes his work as journalism that happens to be expounded upon through the medium of film. His films have won three BAFTAs. He has been closely associated with the BBC throughout his film making career.

People often accuse me of being a lefty. That's complete rubbish. If you look at The Century of the Self, what I'm arguing is something very close to a neo-conservative position because I'm saying that, with the rise of individualism, you tend to get the corrosion of the other idea of social bonds and communal networks, because everyone is on their own. Well, that's what the neo-conservatives argue, domestically...If you ask me what my politics are, I'm very much a creature of my time. I don't really have any. I change my mind over different issues, but I am much more fond of a libertarian view. I have a more libertarian tendency

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Cracked Actor (1975)

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Cosmically Bored - adventures with Paul Gascoigne

Beautifully written, this touching chapter is taken from "'Classic Football Debates' settled once and for all".

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Energy In Northampton

"The Northampton Development Corporation (NDC) was set up in 1968 to substantially redevelop the town in partnership with the local council and work started on new housing and industrial estates, initially to the east and south the town centre mainly to accommodate the overflow population of new residents from the London area. In the town centre, older buildings were demolished and replaced or redeveloped for other buildings, including the former Greyfriars bus station, the Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Peacock Place (now Market Walk), shops, flats and hotels. Although growth was slower than planned, the population grew from 105,421 in 1961 to 157,217 by 1981. When the NDC wound up in 1985 after 20 years, another 20,000 homes and 40,000 residents had been added to the town. The borough boundaries also changed following a split of the Northampton parliamentary constituency into Northampton North and Northampton South in 1974."

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Chelsea Hotel (1981)

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The Boyo and the Bolsheviks

From 'A History of Modern Britain', A. Marr

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The Drowning of Capel Celyn

The village of Capel Celyn and the Tryweryn valley near Bala were drowned in 1965 in order to supply water for the City of Liverpool. Eight hundred acres of land was drowned, as well as the school, the post office, the chapel and the cemetery, in order to create the Llyn Celyn (Celyn lake) reservoir. Twelve farms and land belonging to four other farms were drowned.

The Tryweryn Bill was passed by Parliament on 1 August 1957. This was a private measure, sponsored by Liverpool City Council and passed by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, with the support of Henry Brooke, the Minister for Welsh Affairs. The measure allowed for the compulsory purchase of land to build the reservoir. The scheme was opposed by most of the Welsh Members of Parliament, but they were powerless to stop the development because the government was determined to push the Bill through Parliament. The local authorities did not have a voice in the decision either and this caused great resentment.

The political parties in Wales were united in their opposition to the scheme because it was considered an affront to Wales that valuable resources were being taken away from the country. The agricultural value of the land was high compared to some land that could have been considered, and it was felt that other possibilities had not been given proper consideration. There was a feeling of sadness because a community was being shattered and families who had lived in the area for generations were forced to leave their homes. The local inhabitants were determined to oppose the scheme to the bitter end, and demonstrations and petitions were organised.

In 1956 the Tryweryn Defence Committee was formed and it included some of Wales' most prominent and revered personalities, including Ifan ab Owen Edwards, Megan Lloyd George, T. I. Ellis, and Lord Ogmore. Many other branches of the committee were formed, including the Capel Celyn Defence Committee and the Liverpool branch of the Tryweryn Defence Committee. Although opposition to the scheme did not come only from Welsh nationalists, the Tryweryn cause inspired Plaid Cymru, and provided an impetus to its campaigns. In September 1956 Plaid Cymru held a Save Tryweryn Rally in Bala, leading a procession of protesters through the centre of Bala. The Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Alderman J. H. Morgan, called a Save Tryweryn meeting in October 1956, when over 300 representatives from local government and trade unions, and 10 MPs were present. Alderman Huw T Edwards was appointed the chairman and it was decided to send a delegation from the conference to Liverpool to appeal for a change of heart. Mr D R Grenfell MP, the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Huw T Edwards , Councillor Emrys Owen and Dr R Robinson were chosen to represent the meeting.

In November 1956 a procession, led by Gwynfor Evans and including 70 of the villagers, was held in Liverpool to oppose the reservoir, but the Liverpool councillors voted to go ahead with the proposed scheme. In August 1957 Gwynfor Evans proposed that Meirionnydd County Council could build a reservoir in Cwm Croes, where only one farm would be affected, and sell the water from the reservoir to Liverpool Corporation. On three occasions between 1962 and 1963 there were attempts to sabotage the building of the reservoir. On 10 February 1963 a transmitter exploded on the site and an Aberystwyth student, Emyr Llywelyn Jones, was sentenced to prison for twelve months for his part in the act. When he was sentenced, two members of 'MAC' (Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru), Owain Williams and John Albert Jones, blew up a pylon at Gellilydan.

The scheme went ahead despite public opposition, and Celyn lake was officially opened on 28 October 1965. New roads had to be built since the road from Bala to Ffestiniog was drowned, and the total cost of the project was €20 million. Celyn lake held a capacity of 71,200 mega litres of water, the biggest dam in Wales. There is a memorial on the side of the lake and a memorial garden, and the grave stones from Capel Celyn cemetery have been moved there. At the opening ceremony, where the Lord Mayor of Liverpool was present, a protest was held which included the appearance in military uniforms of the Free Wales Army. A recruiting campaign by the Free Wales Army (FWA) had started in 1963, but the Tryweryn protest was the first occasion where members had appeared in a public protest. Pictures of the FWA during an arms drill were later released, but there was no evidence to suggest that they were actively involved in violent activities.

In 1969 the ringleaders were arrested and six of them, including the leader Julian Cayo Evans, were sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment.

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L. Robinson does the whole Manchester Ship Canal

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"Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the shipping forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4. For those at, or about to put to sea, the forecast may mean the difference between life and death. But for millions of landlubbing radio listeners it is more than this; the enigmatic language of the forecast has entered the public conciousness, creating a landscape of the imagination and confirming romantic notions of Britain's island status." Mark Power http://www.markpower.co.uk/projects/THE-SHIPPING-FORECAST

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The Dalby Spook

"Gef, also referred to as the Talking Mongoose or the Dalby Spook, is the name given to a talking mongoose which was claimed to inhabit a farmhouse owned by the Irving family known as Cashen’s Gap near the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man. The story was given extensive coverage by tabloid press in Britain in the early 1930s. Although the Irvings’ claims gained the attention of parapsychologists and ghost hunters of the era such as Harry Price, Hereward Carrington, and Nandor Fodor, contemporary media scholar Jeffrey Sconce writes that the most likely explanation is that "this ‘extra extra clever mongoose’ was an imaginary companion created by the Irvings’ extra, extra clever daughter."

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Tom McClean / Rockall

ABOVE PAGES TAKEN FROM ‘ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING’ by Charlie Connelly

When the first man to live solo on Rockall, Tom McClean, made his first attempt to land on the volcanic outcrop, he was immediately and violently evicted by a hefty Atlantic wave.

McClean, a burly SAS and Parachute Regiment veteran with several records for solo rowing and yachting voyages across the Atlantic, was dragged off the barren rock by the sea as he tried to clamber up Rockall’s drenched, treacherous flank.

The crew of the rubber dinghy helping him land there were powerless to help as McClean disappeared into the churning ocean, weighed down by his kit and crampons. He re-emerged bruised but undaunted, was hauled back on board, and again threw himself on to Rockall, bellowing “back off”, “wait” and “in you go – go on!” to the crew.

That second attempt succeeded, and he eventually stayed on Rockall for 40 days, from 26 May to 4 July 1985, setting a solo occupation record that Nick Hancock, a mild-mannered chartered surveyor from Edinburgh, is planning to beat this summer. Hancock is aiming for a 60-day occupation.

The challenge of getting on to Rockall – a stubby pinnacle more than 200 miles from mainland Britain with sheer sides and no landing points – underscored the physical risks there.

The rock is battered by gales and swamped by waves in winter, and nothing survives on it bar lichen, seaweed and a few invertebrates. Sea birds use it as a temporary staging post. The weather had defeated an earlier attempt by McClean to get there on a yacht. A gale snapped the mainsail before it reached Rockall: he eventually chartered a trawler, the Vision, to get him out there.

McClean’s expedition was quite unlike Hancock’s hi-tech effort. Where Hancock has a robust and reinforced plastic survival pod with solar panels, wind turbine, distress beacon and satellite phone, McClean lived with a home-made flat-pack box crafted from marine plywood.

McClean assembled his box on Rockall (he glued and drilled its base to a ledge), dragging up its sides, along with 360 litres (80 gallons) of water and more than 150kg (330lb) of food and supplies from the boat. The box was just 150cm by 120cm by 90cm (5ft by 4ft by 3ft). At a stocky 168cm (5ft 6in) in height, McClean slept diagonally from corner to corner, on top of his water and food supplies.

While Hancock plans to blog, text and Skype his family and friends from a reinforced laptop, McClean’s only link to the outside world was a shortwave radio. He used it to talk to passing fishing boats and navy vessels. His wife Jill was brought out midway through his 40 days for one brief chat from a boat.

McClean, who served in Aden and Borneo with the SAS, is absolutely clear about his objective: it was political and territorial. He was trying to cement the UK’s claim to the ownership of Rockall, to be the first civilian to live there. While it is just a volcanic rock in the sea, its ownership is contested by the Irish, who insist it is closer to Ireland than the UK, the Danes – who argue it is part of the Faroe Islands sea shelf, and Iceland.

For McClean, a part-time motivational speaker who has run an outdoor adventure centre near Mallaig on the west coast of Scotland for some years, the islet was secured for the UK by a group of Royal Marines who landed there in September 1955. They were winched down from a Royal Navy Dragonfly helicopter, hoisting the union flag and fixing a plaque to formally annex it “in the name of Her Majesty”.

Its territorial significance is now much reduced but back then securing Rockall – at the height of the cold war, with Soviet and Nato submarines engaged in a tense underwater ballet around the north Atlantic – was about controlling sea space for hundreds of square miles of Atlantic. By the 1980s, it was about securing the oil and gas rights of the Rockall basin.

In 1997, the UK accepted Rockall was a rock, with no impact on the UK’s maritime territory. The current dispute with Ireland, Denmark and Iceland is over the wider Rockall-Hatton basin.

"There was a little bit of rumpus about the Irish, Faroese and Danes claiming it and I wanted to reaffirm our rights," McClean said. "I was there not to be the first or the longest: I wanted to reaffirm British rights to Rockall. I felt it had to be done.

"When the marines went in ‘55, the chat in Dublin was that it was an armed occupation. I thought: ‘Let a civilian go and live there.’ Under international law, the law of the sea, up to 21 days is a visit and over 21 days it’s an occupation. So then I thought: ‘I’ll stay 40 days.’ I could have stayed 140."

McClean says the weather was generally tolerable: “It’s as you imagine: nice one day and then picking up a bit the next, when you get a bit of a gale going through; a lot of spray coming through. The chance of getting heavy water in the summer time is remote.”

He was quite relaxed there, on his own. “It’s completely different from any of my other adventures, which was with boats of various sizes. I’m perched up there, fairly high. I had a great view. Solitude is all in your mind: I didn’t feel lonely as such. I’m happy within myself. I would look at the birds, have a brew, and I was generally contented. I don’t philosophise much.”

When the Vision came to take him home, McClean dived, fully clothed, off the rock. He bellyflopped. Painfully. “It was very bad: I was trying to get out past the rocks and I went out too far and landed smack on my belly. And it hurt.”

Now 70, McClean still regards himself as the “king of Rockall”, for being first to live there. His occupation record was broken in 1997 by three Greenpeace activists who stayed there for 42 days in protest at north Atlantic oil exploration, and he is relaxed about Hancock’s attempt to wrest his solo record.

"Good luck to him, but to me [the record attempt] has no bearing at all. I didn’t go there to beat a record. I went there to reside," he said. "No doubt someone else will come along and stay 85 days or someone will go there and stay 110 days and so it goes on. But I started the thing, and I’m happy with my little bit."

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I should have posted this some time ago, but I have been pretty overwhelmed with work and not gotten a chance to finish editing the pictures until now. A while back, me and a group of other Urban Explorers ventured into the depths of a bell-mouth spillway. What is a bell-mouth spillway you might ask? It’s a giant concrete structure forming a hole in the ground. So after meeting up that morning and driving out to the location (and no, I’m not going to tell you where it is), we got all geared up and made our way to the edge of this behemoth. Most people just decided to use a boat and paddle into it from the bottom, but three of us with vertical experience decided to rappel into it from the top. After rigging ropes, we got over the lip and started rappelling in from opposite sides. I of course took my camera with me, locking off my rappel rack and taking pictures every 50′ or so. How deep was this thing? Well, my rope is 360′ long and there was only about 30′ of rope at the bottom. After taking into account some rope length for rigging and going over the lip, I would estimate it was right around 300′ deep. Not too shabby. We were clearly not the first people to rappel into this thing… not only were there bolt anchors in both sides of the spillway, but there were also rope grooves worn into the concrete lip just above the bottom. I see these types of grooves pretty often in caves where the rope has widdled its way through the stone, but I think this was my first time seeing them in concrete. So we get to the bottom, get off rope, and start exploring this huge tunnel in the earth. I would estimate the diameter of the tube at right around 30′ in most places. This thing is seriously huge! Somewhere near the middle of the tunnel, there is a junction where the auxiliary dam release comes in from the side. After taking some pictures at the junction, we head up the junction tunnel about 100′ to where the auxiliary release tubes are. There is a massive 15′ tall concrete barricade between us and the release tubes, so we go about trying to find a way to get over. We agree that using any kind of grappling hook risks damaging something (which would both be against our ethic, and pretty stupid when in front of release valves at the bottom of a 250′ lake), so we set about trying to make some sort of rigid structure to climb over with. We find some metal pipes (they look like hand rails) within the debris in the main tunnel and bring them back to the barricade. After several failed attempts, we put together a Dr. Seuss looking ladder-type-thing, and using my spider-monkey skills, I manage to climb to the top. After getting some rope and vertical gear thrown up to me, we get a few more people up top and take some pictures. The scene is just spooky with water hissing out of the rivets of the release tubes from every angle due to the immense pressure it’s holding back (a quick calculation reveals over eight atmospheres of pressure!). After getting some good pictures near the release tubes, we head back out to the main chamber to facilitate our exit. Before we go, I decide to take some pictures of the tunnel in both directions to later process using HDR (high dynamic range). Everyone else (including my dog Taro) decides to takes the boat out the bottom and walk up to the top. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to climb a perfectly good rope, I decide to climb back out the way I came in. The drip-line was brutal and by the time I got up the first 80′ or so, I was already soaking wet. Whatever, I don’t believe in misadventure… only adventure After 300′ of rope climbing, I was at the top and ready to de-rig. All in a good day’s work. http://tastelessphoto.com/

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John Lydon 'I'd like to kill Jimmy Savile' [1978]

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Goats Don't Shave - Aranmore

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"Tennyson Down. A hill at the west end of the Isle of Wight. Tennyson Down is named after the poet Lord Tennyson who lived at nearby Farringford House for nearly 40 years. He used to walk on the down almost every day, saying that the air was worth 'sixpence a pint'." Tennyson Monument The monument standing on the highest point of the down was erected after the poet’s death in 1897. The down, originally called East High Down, was renamed in Tennyson’s honour. In the 18th century a lighthouse stood on this spot, together with a beacon dating to 1638. Nodes Beacon was one of a chain of beacons across the Island, lit to warn of impending invasion. The stump of the beacon was moved to its present position on West High Down alongside a half-size replica of the original.

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"As evening falls beneath the deepest black of a December northern sky, a thin veil of dark blue hangs streaked with vivid orange just above the pine trees. The homeward rush hour in Inverness is a muted, half-hearted affair, and in minutes we’re sailing past the bright lights of the bridge towards the darkness of the Black Isle. Half an hour ahead, the lights of Cromarty barely touch the depths of nightfall. The white houses of the Royal Burgh are hiding low against the shoreline. There’s a menace to the silence now, faintly interrupted as it is by the bleak moanful sounds of grinding metal and hammering. Across the water, just half a mile offshore, the leviathans of the deep are waiting. Here in the Cromarty Firth, oil rigs from around the world are waiting for the calmer seas of spring, wintering inshore through maintenance and upgrade programmes to equip them for ever deeper, more challenging drilling as our quest for oil expands."