By Roy Mathur, on 2024-03-04, at 23:48:13 to 00:30:18 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Where am I? Tonight I'm in the wizarding tower. Apart from the Vimana sulking in the corner like an out of work calash, I'm alone as I've given Fygor the night off and he's gone out clubbing.
Where was I?
My mother has become a Tolkien fan in recent years, so I snapped an awkward selfie for her of bearded me in a battered Barbour standing in front of a recent sign above metal security shutters declaring, "Two Towers Site Entrance". This was just outside Euston station during February's monthly London flaneury.
It amused me to think of someone in a yellow builder's hard hat in the ancient past checking site access with a clipboard during the construction of Orthanc, later occupied by Saruman, or Sauron's Barad-dur.
I'm writing another short story for inclusion in my upcoming anthology. It's another loopy time travel story, but not comedy, unlike the last time travel story I wrote; a short film script called Red Way.
Neither the story nor the anthology have a name and until I release the book I shouldn't talk further, but I can say that the new story is based on a surreal experience I had as a child. I have quite a lot of those.
I recently immersed myself in 2003's The Core. It is one of my "pablum" movies, as a neighbour once described. It's silly, but entertaining enough to switch your brain off for a few happy hours.
Our iconoclastic and brilliant heroes set out on a wild expedition to save us from imminent frying, when the Earth's core stops generating the planetary magnetosphere shielding us from the sun. We have derring-do astronauts, big-brained boffins, a mad scientist, and a super-nerdy hacker; all such fun character stereotypes. As a computer nut, I of course loved Rat the hacker (D. J. Qualls), who seems to be based on famous opposing hackers Kevin Mitnick and Tsutomu Shimomura and who even says, Kevin Mitnick-like, "This is my kung fu, and it is strong." (Possibly falsely attrributed). My favourite character is scruffy, bearded, and bespecled desert hermit mad scientist, Braz, Dr Edward Brazzelton, played endearingly by Delroy Lindo in one of his few non-villainous roles.
Cliched script and ludicrous premise maybe, but much less improbable compared to the equally entertaining Amicus film, Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core (1976). While I know little of geophysics, I'm sure giant geodes and diamond icebergs are less implausible than jungles deep within the Earth ruled by the telepathic reptilian Mahar bird overlords. The obnoxious theme of America saving the world is countered by the later revelation that their seismic super-weapon may have caused of the disaster. The take down of the great Carl Sagan, of whom I'm a fan, viciously parodied by Stanley Tucci by in his portrayal of publicity hungry Dr. Conrad Zimsky is the cherry on top. Have I convinced you yet? This is a movie in which someone says, "So we hotwire the nukes." QED.
Here's my upcoming film watch list.
Madame Web (February 14 2024), Dune: Part Two (March 1 2024), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (March 29 2024), Civil War (April 12 2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (May 24 2024), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 24 2024) , Alien: Romulus (August 16 2024), Kraven the Hunter (August 30 2024).
I noticed the Harry Potter movies missing from ITVX when I recently tried to one on for Mum.
This is an object lesson in relying on streaming, rather than owning physical media, and one that I remedied with a six quid at CeX.
The whole series of The X Files is available on the UK's Channel 4 and I've rewatched from episode one to three. If I ever rewatch the show, I'd skip the non-Mulder seasons, but the most likely scenario is that I just pick and mix.
At an unbelievable 31 years old, the show hasn't aged, the quality is superb, thanks to digial remastering, no doubt, and Scully is so young. Watching it makes me feel like I've warped back to the 90s.
2022 Hulu true crime drama miniseries based on eponymous book, on ITVX, starring Andrew Garfield as cop investigating the violent slaughter of a Mormon family.
Dry, depressing, and I resorted to Googling the murders instead of staying to the end.
BBC TV comedy series about very dependent 21 year old Chi, who's family die in a car accident and is left to fend for herself.
Great idea, as life-skills aren't really taught and even I'm a bit shaky about some of this stuff. On the other hand the execution is utterly unfunny and I gave up ten minutes in.
Here's my upcoming TV watch list.
3 Body Problem (Netflix 21 March 2024) and Harry Potter TV series (Max 2026).
As ever, in decreasing order of relevance to an SFFH pod, let's gallop into Off Topic Woods, where we first encounter my new podcast cover art. Whoah, Sir Clanky, don't crash into the damnable thing!
The cover art was AI generated on 2024-02-04 c. 19:00 by Microsoft Designer Image Creator using the prompt, "Space wizard wearing space suit with blank visor in Hindu temple sitting on a red velvet sofa holding a gin and tonic facing the camera.", then edited in Paintshop Pro 5.03.
I hope you like it. I think it better describes both me as a geek and what I do in this podcast. What do you think?
When did the bigger podcasts start rolling out obnoxious 2 minute pre-roll trailers and advertisements? It's too much. All I do is fast forward through them.
I'd consider a 15 seconds pre-roll and post-roll and 30 seconds mid-roll fair on my own podcast. As listener, I subscriber to around 350 podcasts, so it's bad enough having your concentration mauled by several five minute chunks of endless trailers, endorsements, and ads. It is infuriating that was we now also have to endure two minutes before we even get to the content.
More towers. I've visited a lot of towers, an endless stepped tower in London I climbed with Dad as a child (St Anne's?), La Tour Eiffel numerous times, the Tower of London, and, of course, as a Tolkien and fantasy consumer, I love anything with a wizard in it.
Which brings us to thhe Post Office tower. Originally built to transmit TV signals. It became a classy revolving restaurant from 1966 to 1980 that I was lucky enough to visit, possibly because my Dad was a postie. It then closed due security fears.
The BBC have reported that the building has been sold for GBP 275m and will become a posh hotel. I'd rather it returned to public ownership. I just hope they don't wreck the iconic sci-fi grade II listed building with an unsympathetic conversion.
The door or portal, a hatch to elsewhere or elsewhen. Ah! So evocative of genre fiction, but I'm not talking about those, I talking about commonplace kitchen cabinet doors.
Our fitted fridge has one of those double doors. The outer skin is matches the kitchen decor, the inner is fridge door. Both are permanently glued and bolted and the whole thing is so heavy that it started to droop on it's inadequate hinges. When it started to swing open of it's own accord, we first suspected poltergeist activity, but were disappointed to discover the more mundane cause.
To repair it, I remembered a technique I learned for stabilising houses, when I lived in a old mining town in Alberta. I lifted the heavy door with a car jack, so that I could realign, refit, and re-tighten the screws. It is only a temporary fix, but I am pleased with my wizardry.
After watching a YouTube video on how to do it correctly, it turns out my cleverness could have been disastrous had the hinge system been of the same type as another fitted kitchen cupboard door I fettled successfully later (though I did almost strip a screw). It wasn't (phew). Wizards.
We are carless again because we flung ourselves on the vendor's mercy, and their 14 day money back guarantee, and returned it. I can reveal that it was Golf GTI Mk7.5, i.e. the last real GTI, so it cost at lot to buy and insure.
The car was solidly built and easy to drive, but a trifle too snug for oldies, unlike our departed Chrysler PT Cruiser that felt as it were made of wet cardboard and was terrible in every aspect except that it was as comfortable as driving a Chesterfield sofa. We also couldn't deal with going back to manual gears like an animal, the car was as creaky as the Chancellor of the Exchequer's red box making it sound like we were driving a box of mice, and Dad was not happy with the view from the rear seat.
I will miss its sleek blackness, the turbo, the golf ball knob, and the tartan seats, and I feel immense guilt, regret, and shame returning it, but the search goes on. Until then, taxi!
I'm churning out the audio as fast as I can, but for now that's it. See you tomorrow, when I'll be revisiting Hammer House of Horror: The Silent Scream.