The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

The 39 Steps (1935)

 

'Sir, you're a 9.'

Not done one of these for a while. 

Of course, I meant it.

The Pressures of Life: Four Television Plays edited by Michael Marland (Longman Imprint Books 1977)

 

The Pressures of Life

Sometimes we feel that we are on top of life - able to follow our interests, succeed in our work, get on well with other people, and everything goes smoothly. At other times, we feel frustrated we cannot quite manage what is needed; we seem to hit problems that are beyond us; we feel overcome by “the pressures of life". These four plays all show people of today suffering in one way or another from the pressures of life today. The plays are by different authors, and were written for different series, but they each have “the pressures of life” in common, and in each we meet characters who are having difficulty coping.

Short plays on television are one of the most popular and probably one of the best art forms of today. The television screen has encouraged a form of realistic, compressed, and popular drama which explores contemporary characters in contemporary settings. The best of these have a depth of understanding of human nature and the predicaments that people get into that makes the play seem more than just a typical problem of the moment. Neil’s conflict with Fred Pooley in the first play, for instance, makes us think about the ways in which people’s pride and their prejudices affect their relationship with others. These are, above all, plays about people, people pushing against their surroundings and fighting the pressures of life.

The atmosphere of each play is different, and the reader should try to imagine the background of each. Speech Day depends on the atmosphere of an old-fashioned school building, just as A Right Dream of Delight depends on the cheery, bright comfort of a modern light factory, and The Piano on our sensing of Ada’s house, which is cramped but homely and comforting. Readers can build up a picture of each setting, not only the look, but the sounds of the schoolboys singing, and the demolition machinery' at work — all the details which are hinted at or described in the printed text and which the television screen would bring to life.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

 

Fierce Genius: Cruyff’s Year at Feyenoord by Andy Bollen (Pitch Publishing 2021))

 

Cruyff was a product of his time. Sophisticated, controversial, stylish, opinionated, he embodied each decade, from flower power to revolution, to glam rock, to social unrest, to punk, to new wave, then even more social struggle and revolution. Here was someone who had not only played but starred, over three decades, at the highest level. He was like the Beatles and the Stones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, the Human League and Joy Division and had transcended every aspect of culture in its broadest manifestation; art, film, theatre. From peace and love to post-industrial landscapes, glam rock to punk, to the 1980s of miners’ strikes and football hooliganism. But always there, always playing, always instigating, always smiling and always complaining, he remained one step ahead. By the time you’d thought it, he’d done it. Now, here he was, in front of me. In the flesh.

Scully by Alan Bleasdale (Arrow Books 1984)

 

'Yes Mam, alright Mam. I'll go an' tell her now,' he said and got his jacket on and went out.

As soon as he’d gone, I whipped over and had a look at his letter to nobody that he thought he’d hidden in last week's TV Times. It was another in his series of ace letters to Tranmere Rovers. He’s written at least two more to them that I know of.

Dear Sir,

 I was on the King Blessed Vergeins Playing feelds Eastbank last Sunday watching the Football Match Between Astley United And Garston Bakereries in Div. 9 of the Liverpool F.A. Sunday leeges and my Atension was atracted by the centre forward for Astley United. Sir. I tell no lie when I say that in all my many years Watching and referring football off all clases, I have not often enough seen Talint like what this PlaYEr has got. He his scilful, too footed and a gooD header off the ball. He is strong in the takle a gooD dribler and not a CowErd. I found out that is name is Antony James Patrick Scully and that he his twenty years old next birthday and that he lives in 47 Sankey Road, Eastbank, It wooD be a crying shamE if some BIG CLub did not spot him BEFOUR IT HIS TO LATE.

p.s. I am noT Related to this BOy at ALL.

Yours truly.

An Old Age Pensionor.

You might find it funny but after you’ve read as many as I have, it gets a bit boring. I got me felt tip pen out and wrote, IVOR BOLLOCKOFF above where he’d put ‘Old Age Pensionor', and folded the letter up and stuck it back in the envelope.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

 

New Tricks (2007)

 

Scully (1984)

 

Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta (Scribner 2022)

Jack Weede

My hands were tied. There was no way that a sixtysomething male administrator could broach the topic of your erect nipples with a thirtysomething female teacher and not expose himself to a humiliating lawsuit, along with a virtual stoning on the internet. I had no intention of jeopardizing my hard-earned reputation—not to mention my retirement benefits—in the final lap of my long career.

I know I can sound paranoid about this stuff, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating. The pendulum has swung so far in the past few years, I’m amazed I haven’t been run out of town on a rail, like so many of my contemporaries. Guys like me are the old guard; we’re presumed guilty whether we’ve done anything wrong or not, though many of us have sinned, I’m not denying it. It’s like the French Revolution. They had a just cause, but they got a little overzealous with the guillotine. That’s where we are now with all this Me Too business. The-old-guy’s-head-in-a-basket phase.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

 

Shelley (1982)

 

Blogger's Note:

The still is from the "A Drop of the Pink Stuff" (25 February 1982), which was the second episode of the fourth season. Easily the funniest episode of Shelley that I've ever seen. You could just tell that they were all enjoying themselves. James Grout was especially wonderful.

Mr Inbetween (2018-2021)

 

Ambushed . . .

 Totally unexpected  . . .  but I will take it:

29/50

The Long Good Friday (1980)

 

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

 

1982 Brazil: The Glorious Failure by Stuart Horsfield (Pitch Publishing 2020))

 

So, imagine you are looking down on a large patch of grass, roughly equivalent to the size of eight football pitches. Along the top of the square is a boundary made up of a variety of garden fences, of which number 158 sat approximately two-thirds along to the right. Top-right corner was the St George’s main building and a small, fenced-off playground. The bottom-left corner was occupied by Overdale County Primary School with three additional prefabricated classrooms. The playground sat in the centre of a two-storey U-shaped building and extended out from the school straight up towards the houses. The entire left-hand side of the square was a similar collection of back garden fences which belonged to Hawthorn Avenue (part of that epic sprint home). The rest was pure grass; an emerald canvas upon which I spent more time growing up than I ever did inside the four walls of number 158. To us it was just the back field.

I have two more final landmarks to note before we leave this overhead scene. There were three football pitches marked out on the remaining grass. Two of them were adjacent to each other and ran from top to bottom of the square. One belonged to St George’s and one belonged to Overdale. The final pitch was at the bottom of the square, running from left to right, into the bottom-right corner. The pitch that belonged to St George’s was about 20 yards from our back garden fence. If you stepped out of the back door, you put your foot on the drive. Turn left and walk straight into the back garden, past the shed, over the fence, which was the original wood and wire structure that was put up with the house. Climb over it and there you were in what seemed like acres of grass and between the white wooden goalposts.

The goalposts were essentially three long planks, nailed together and cemented into the ground. No nets, but those three white pieces of wood afforded me more joy, exhilaration, fun, memories and friendships than any other place on Earth. It is worth noting here that in my mind I would have put a football through those white sticks tens of thousands of times over the years, playing under the assumed identity of whichever player had crossed my conscous at the time. Kevin Keegan scored a few, Kenny Dalglish was prolific for a short period of time, as was Glenn Hoddle. I would even go so far as to say Paul Mariner got a couple. I can say for certain that Zico scored an awful lot of goals in the early-to-mid-1980s on the back field.

Do It Clean . . .

One of those Facebook 'This was you a year ago' memories that just popped up on my timeline today. Nice to see that one year ago I was using what I now considered my *cough* forever darts. Less nice to see that they were once so clean and shiny. I think I might need to give them an overhaul.

The Dears spring to mind . . .

 

28/50

Barry (2018)

 

Breaking Away (1979)

 

Shaun of the Dead (2004)