The Police

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I’ve given myself a theme this week, that of writing about the Police. Being British I’m going to try and focus on the British Police but I’ve added a few paragraphs about the US Police too.

The Police in TV and Film

I have to say that I’ve struggled to think of films about the UK Police without resorting to Google although there are quite a few TV shows I could mention. The obvious one that comes to mind is Dixon of Dock Green.

Dixon of Dock Green ran from 1955 to 1976 starring Jack Warner as Police Constable George Dixon. Dixon was the traditional ‘Bobby’ who patrolled a regular beat in London, working out of the Dock Green Police Station in London’s East End. The show was inspired by the film The Blue Lamp in which Jack Warner originally played the character of George Dixon.

In the TV show Warner famously introduced each episode by saluting and saying ‘evenin’ all’ to the camera. He also ended each episode by saying a few philosophical words about that night’s episode before wishing his audience a ‘good night’.

The Bill

A much more recent show was The Bill which started out as a one off ITV drama in 1984 which so impressed ITV executives that they commissioned a series. The idea was to look at a day in the life of a police station and show the sort of situations encountered by officers on the beat. I first remember the show as being on a few times a week in a 30 minute format which was later extended to an hour. The 30 minute shows were self-contained episodes but when it was updated to an hour it became a serial show with each episode following on from the last. The show was cancelled in 2010 after 26 years.

Hill Street Blues

Moving away from UK TV to the USA, one of my favourite TV Police shows was the Hill Street Blues. It was similar to The Bill but set in a fictional US Police Station. Each episode began with a briefing and roll call to start the day’s shift although in later episodes this was replaced with one of those ‘previously. . .’ sequences.

The show won a total of 26 Emmy awards during its run of 146 episodes between 1981 and 1987.

The theme tune was written by Mike Post and became a major chart hit reaching 25 in the UK charts and no 10 in the USA.

As I said earlier, I can’t think of any films featuring UK policemen, certainly not uniformed ‘Bobbies’. Even American films tend to focus on plain clothed detectives but here are two particular favourites, both from the 1970s.

Serpico

Al Pacino stars in the true story of Serpico, a New York City cop who tried to fight the culture of bribery and corruption in the NYPD in the 60’s and early 70’s. This 1973 film is directed by Sidney Lumet and is shot in a gritty natural style. It starts with Serpico being shot in the face and then on his way to hospital it flashes back to tell the story of rookie cop Frank Serpico and his graduation to detective and his refusal to take bribes. It is shot and acted in a very natural documentary style and the film portrays Serpico’s ongoing disappointment with his superiors and those he trusts to look into the situation very well indeed. A brilliant example of 70’s moviemaking at its best.

I have Serpico on DVD and one thing I love about DVDs are those special versions with extended features, documentaries and so on. On the DVD of Serpico there is an interview with the producer Dino De Laurentiis where he tries to explain the character of Serpico this way; he and Serpico go to a screening of a film in New York. They are checking out possible directors or something, anyway, the theatre is empty and ignoring the no smoking sign, De Laurentiis decides to light up. ‘Wait a minute’ says Serpico, ‘you can’t smoke in here.’ De Laurentiis replies ‘what does it matter? There is no one here but us.’

Serpico points to the no smoking sign and replies ‘Look, you just can’t smoke here’ and makes the producer put out his cigarette. That, says Dino on the DVD, was when he began to understand what Serpico was about. There were no grey areas with him, everything was black and white.

The French Connection

The French Connection still feels electric even decades later. The movie throws you right into the gritty streets of 1970s New York, following tough, reckless detective Popeye Doyle, played brilliantly by Gene Hackman. What makes it so gripping is how raw and real everything feels; the shaky handheld camera work, the chaotic energy and of course that legendary car chase scene that practically rewrote the rules for action movies. It’s not a polished Hollywood crime story where the hero is clean-cut and noble; Doyle is obsessive, messy and sometimes hard to like, which somehow makes the whole thing feel more authentic. Directed by William Friedkin, the film has this tense, documentary-style vibe that keeps you on edge the entire time and you can really see how much influence it had on modern crime thrillers.

The Police (the Pop Band)

The Police were one of those bands that somehow managed to sound completely different from everyone else at the time. They showed up in the late 1970s when punk rock was taking off, but instead of sticking to straight punk, they mixed in reggae rhythms, catchy pop hooks and really polished musicianship. The band was made up of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland and together they created huge hits like Roxanne, Message in a Bottle and Every Breath You Take. Even now, those songs are instantly recognizable, certainly for me anyway, the second they come on.

What made the band especially interesting was how talented each member was individually. Sting brought the distinctive vocals and songwriting, Andy Summers added those atmospheric guitar sounds and Stewart Copeland’s drumming gave the music a ton of energy and personality. Their music turned them into global superstars, though behind the scenes the band members famously clashed with each other. They eventually split up in the mid-1980s and Sting moved onto to a successful solo career. They reunited for a tour in 2007 reminding everyone just how influential and timeless their songs really are.

The UK Traffic Police

I thought I’d finish with a few words about my own experience of working with the Police. I started work for the Highways Agency in 2006 as an operator and later deputy manager in the North West RCC (Regional Control Centre) and I worked closely with the Police. Here’s the thing that struck me almost straight away, I always thought the Police were just the Police. Well, how wrong was I because the Police are actually a number of separate forces. In fact, there are 45 regional police forces in the UK and 3 special forces. The 3 are the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence Police. The forces that I used to work with in the north west of England were Lancashire Police, Cumbria Police, Merseyside Police, Cheshire Police and Greater Manchester Police. All of them had different ways of working and even different computer systems. We at Highways used a system called Command and Control, similar to that used by Cheshire Police. Cheshire Police headed the NWMPG (North West Motorway Patrol Group) and as their system was similar to ours, they could send incidents to us electronically.

GMP had an entirely different system so they could not send a job to us except by actually picking up the phone and telling us about the incident. What they tended to do was send the job to Cheshire Police who would manually input the job on their system and then send it to us at Highways. Kind of long winded but it worked as long as the Cheshire operators checked their GMP screens to update us, which when they were busy, didn’t always happen.

When I was in training I spent a day at both the Cheshire and GMP control rooms. Cheshire were very friendly and helpful but it wasn’t the case over at GMP. They had a bunch of mature ladies who manned the ERTs (Emergency Roadside Telephones) which were due to be taken over by Highways so that those ladies refused to speak to us as to their minds we were stealing their jobs. Instead, I spent an afternoon sitting with the officers manning the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras which were being used at Manchester Airport, catching drivers with no MOTs or insurance and even stolen vehicles.

Some days afterwards I went out with Cheshire motorway police. Their officers were rude and bad mannered and no help at all but the next day I went on the road with a GMP officer. He was a very friendly guy. I met him at his outstation in Salford and after a brew and a chat we went off to patrol the M60, M62 and M602. Interestingly, despite the officer being friendly over a cup of tea, when he went on duty he went straight into professional mode and focussed fully on his job. No chit chat, no jokes. He spotted at least three people not wearing seat belts and pulled them over. Why would you not wear a seat belt, especially on the motorway?

At one point we had a call to put on a rolling road block for another officer on the M602 who was trying to retrieve some debris in the carriageway; cycles that had fallen off the back of a car and were causing problems stuck in lane 2. We headed to the scene, spotted the other officer on the opposite side and turned round at the next junction. As we headed to the exit ramp I looked over at his speedometer and saw we were doing 120 mph. Vehicles on the roundabout moved quickly out of our way and we turned, pulled onto the other side of the road, stopped the traffic and the debris was removed.

That was a heck of an interesting day and a real eye opener for me.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

The Importance of Being Alone

Posted on by Steve Higgins

There is a lot to be said for being alone. Not all the time of course, we all need someone most of the time and I know from experience, how sad being alone can be. When my father passed away in 2000, my mother seemed to slip into a little shell. She went shopping every day even though there was always food in her fridge or cupboard. She went to the shops to see other people, to speak with bakers and grocers and other shopkeepers before returning to her empty house. When I got divorced and came back to live with her, I like to think that me being there gave her a sense of purpose once again.

Occasional time on your own though can be good. It gives you time to think and do things that perhaps annoy your usual close partner. Playing music for instance or watching TV shows that your partner does not like. When you are alone you can eat early or eat late. You can get up early or you can get up late. You can even sit in the garden and read without any need to go back inside until you are good and ready. You can indulge in foods that are bad for you and no one will know. That cream cake that you should not have eaten is a secret between you and your inner self but you and you alone will know had good it tasted. Same goes for that Spam sandwich.

Sometimes I might get up early just for a change because together, Liz and I never get up early. Other times I might just lie in bed and read. I’m currently reading Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman. Goldman wrote the screenplays for films like A Bridge Too Far, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men.

He gives advice on screenwriting and tells a number of film making/writing anecdotes. One I found particularly interesting was how directors want rewrites incorporating their ideas for the film. Then a big star comes aboard but doesn’t like it that his character dies at the end. New rewrite and the character is not killed. Then the star leaves the project and another star arrives. Cue new rewrite, this time the star wants to die but the director leaves and the new director wants to bring his own writer on board.

During All the President’s Men, Goldman interviewed the two newspaper men, Woodward and Bernstein, who pursued the Watergate story. After a year of research and interviews particularly with Woodward, Bernstein who was then married to Nora Ephron, put his own screenplay forward written by himself and Nora. Goldman wasn’t amused. Later he says that only one scene of the Bernstein/Ephron screenplay was used in the film but it wasn’t a scene Goldman was happy with. All along he had tried not to ‘Hollywoodise’ the story and keep scrupulously to the facts. The scene that came from the Bernstein script was one where Bernstein tricks a witness into talking. That says Goldman, was pure fiction.

Woodward and Bernstein (Picture via creative commons)

Time to drag myself up and into the kitchen. Breakfast for one is usually bacon and/or sausages cooked on my George Foreman grill. Poached egg and toast and a cup of tea.

After breakfast it’s time to write. Most of the time my laptop is full of part written stories and blog posts and my usual way of working is to write my stories in my head and then when I seem unable to go any further or sometimes when my head is just too full of stuff I’ll write the story down. I’ve got a lot of stories that start off well and then seem to lose their way.

Blog posts are a different matter. I’ve always felt that my deadline of 10.00am on a Saturday morning gives me an impetus to write. I can’t just write in my head or leave unfinished a half written blog post (although to be honest, I actually do). I must write, I must create something ready for Saturday morning, even if it involves dusting off an old blog post and re writing or re-hashing it to create something new.

The best time to write is when it’s raining. That way, particularly in the summer, I don’t feel bad about being inside writing when I should -if the weather is lovely- be outside. I remember once back in 1968 I spent a very enjoyable afternoon on a very hot and sunny day, at the cinema watching 2001 A Space Odyssey. When my mother found out where I had been she told me off for not being outside and enjoying the sunshine.

I don’t eat lunch but round about four I generally feel the need for a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. I do love sandwiches. Another thing about being alone is that I like to cook. I make pretty much the same old things, spaghetti bolognese, chilli, pizza. Most of the time I make a pizza by buying one of those cheap cheese and tomato pizzas and adding more cheese and more toppings but I do like to make a fresh pizza including making the dough. A lot of my pizzas came out a little soggy until I found the perfect solution. When using home made dough it’s a good idea to first bake the dough for a short while then take it out, add the tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and then slap it back in a very hot oven.

As I am writing this, exactly one year ago on the 30th April 2025, I made a pizza with home made dough and that was probably the first time I had made a perfect, well, almost perfect pizza. It had, if I remember correctly, cheese, onion, pepperoni and mozzarella chunks. I served it with salad for myself and my brother although he declined the salad. We had a nice evening. We chatted and watched one his favourite Bond films, Octopussy with Roger Moore as 007. I’m a big Bond fan but I’ve never liked Roger Moore as James Bond. Eventually my brother’s taxi arrived and he left.

I never saw him again; he died of a heart attack a few days later when Liz and I were en route to France.

Another thing I tend to do when I’m alone is to edit video and record my voiceovers. I’ve got a really good microphone and of course to record you do not need any background noise. When I was a school kid living on the council housing estate of Wythenshawe I was always pretty enamoured of Gatley. Gatley is a small village just next door to Wythenshawe. It’s a lovely village with nice pubs and shops and private houses and it’s a place I always thought would be rather lovely to live in. These days I couldn’t afford to live anywhere near unless I was lucky enough to win the lottery.

What I like about Gatley is that although it has changed it actually still looks pretty similar to the way it used to be, so one day I walked round the village with my video camera and then hooked up my mic and told my YouTube viewers my personal history of the village; the pubs I used to drink in, the cinema where I saw a lot of films (including 2001 A Space Odyssey mentioned above) the café I used to eat in, the chip shop I used to visit and the pub where my dad was the gardener and mum used to make the lunchtime sandwiches.

Another great things about being alone is being able to watch whatever I want on the television and not only that, to watch it the way I want to watch it. Sometimes I watch two or more programmes at once by flipping over during the advertisements or whenever I lose interest in one or other of the shows. Sometimes I’ll watch a DVD or even just watch the first half and then the second half the next night. Sometimes I stay up late and sometimes I’ll go to bed early and read a book. That’s the great thing about time on your own, you can do whatever you want.

After about three days on my own I find myself missing Liz and I pack up and drive up the M6 back to her place. The first thing I ask her is ‘have you missed me?’

She’ll look at me and say ‘missed you? I didn’t even notice you’d gone!’

All the links to previous posts above open in a new window.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

Islands

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Last week Liz and I were dining out with our friends Emma and Paul and Emma happened to mention about her ‘private island’. It turned out to be a computer game called Animal Crossing in which the user can design his or her own island. You can fill it with various animals and engage in activities like fishing, insect catching and fossil hunting. According to Wikipedia the game is known for its ‘open-ended gameplay, humorous dialogue and use of the consoles internal clock to simulate the real passage of time’.

Anyway, that of course got me thinking about islands so without any further ado, here we go.

 

Tracy Island

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced a series of puppet shows in the 1960s and their greatest success was called Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was about a secret organisation called International Rescue that had a small fleet of highly advanced machines and equipment with which to perform rescue operations. Millionaire ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy was the head man and the organisation was secreted in his island home known as Tracy Island. His five sons were the Thunderbird pilots; John, Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan, all named after US astronauts of the 1960s. The genius behind the Thunderbird craft was Hiram Hackenbacker, known as ‘Brains’. Thunderbird’s nemesis was a secret agent known as the Hood because of his talent for disguise and in many episodes the Tracy brothers had to ask their London agent, Lady Penelope, to track him down and sort him out.

The entire organisation was hidden away in Tracy Island. Thunderbird One launched from underneath the swimming pool which slid away to reveal the launch silo. Thunderbird 2 lumbered to its launch point after exiting its hangar hidden behind a fake cliff face and Thunderbird 3, the organisation’s space rocket, launched through the circular round house.

The great thing about Thunderbirds and really, the secret of its success was the highly intelligent scripts which treated its audience of children not as kids but as intelligent young adults. That pretty much enabled myself and other viewers to overlook the realities of say launching a rocket from under a swimming pool or not having a team of technicians to service these amazing vehicles.

In one episode Tracy Island had a visitor and Jeff Tracy had to ask Tin Tin, the daughter of his manservant Kyrano, to take the guest diving and the Thunderbirds were able to set off on a rescue mission while he was underwater. A model version of Tracy Island was hugely popular over the years especially in 1993 when it was voted the toy of the year by the British Association of Toy Retailers.

Isle of Skye

It was back in 2020 when Liz and I decided to take our motorhome on a run out up to Scotland. (See the video by clicking here.)We travelled north along the M6 and stopped at various places along the way. Day 3 found us arriving at Mallaig, a quiet fishing village where we could board the small ferry to the Isle of Skye. Skye was a spectacular place, starkly beautiful and it reminded me so much of Lanzarote with deep valleys and great hills and mountains reaching into the sky. We found an excellent parking spot, again recommended by the Park4Night app which was conveniently just across from a fantastic chip shop. Fish, chips and peas was our evening meal and this particular chip shop served haddock rather than cod. The food was excellent and though it was a little pricey, the portions were huge. The view from the car park across the bay at Broadford was one we could only really appreciate the next morning.

The splendour of Skye (Photo by the author)

The following day we explored Skye bathed in warm autumn sunshine. We made a quick stop to pick up some Isle of Skye black pudding and after some more exploring we left the island over the spectacular bridge to the mainland. The bridge was opened in 1995. There was originally a toll charge but after numerous protests this was removed and now the bridge is free to use.

Lanzarote

For perhaps the last ten years, if you want to get hold of me during January or February, you’ll find me in Lanzarote.

What can I tell you about this place? Looking over on Wikipedia I see the Canary Islands emerged from the sea bed during a volcanic eruption about 15 million years ago. There is apparently some evidence the Phoenicians were the first settlers here although the first known records of the islands come from Pliny the elder, the Roman scholar.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, nothing is recorded about the Canary Islands until 999, when the Arabs arrived at the islands. In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias ‘Lanzarote da Framqua’ which is where the island’s name comes from. Today Lanzarote is part of Spain.

When we first came here about ten years ago, we hired a car and drove round the island. We visited the volcano which was pretty much what you’d expect a volcano to look like, although the drive down a very narrow winding road in a coach towards the centre of it was a little scary. Otherwise, apart from the usual touristy stuff, there wasn’t that much to see and we quickly realised that the Marina Rubicon in Playa Blanca is by far our favourite place. Our rented villa is on the bus route and only five minutes’ walk from both the bus stop and the local shop so renting a car is not a particular concern.

Boats at Marina Rubicon, Lanzarote (Photo by the author)

What else do I do on Lanzarote? Well, I read a lot of books, drink a lot of wine and eat out a great deal in a variety of restaurants. Sometimes we have tapas, sometimes Chinese and the last time we went to Lanzarote we actually ate a great deal of Indian food as the closest restaurant to our rented villa was an Indian restaurant.

St Helena

Napoleon (Jacques-Louis David, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

St Helena is one of those places I’ve always wanted to visit. It was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 but these days is a British Overseas Territory. St Helena is located in the South Atlantic Ocean about 1200 miles west of Africa. It comprises 47 square miles, has a very temperate climate and is perhaps most famous for being the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to in 1815. Napoleon was taken to the island following his defeat at the battle of Waterloo and subsequent abdication. On October 17th that year Napolean took up residence at the Briars Pavilion hosted by the Balcombe family. In December he moved to Longwood House which was originally a farmhouse but converted for Napoleon’s use. Today the house is a museum owned and run by the French government.

The former ruler of France dictated his memoirs at St Helena and spent a lot of time reading. He died in 1820 aged only 51. An autopsy showed that he had died of stomach cancer although I remember reading some time ago that some experts felt Napoleon had been poisoned by arsenic. Others say that the amount of arsenic in his system was normal for the time. In Longwood House, the wallpaper contained arsenic but that was a common feature of luxury homes at the time.

Island Records

Just to finish on a more musical note, the Island record label was created by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong in 1959 in Jamacia. In 1962 Chris Blackwell brought the label to the UK and began to sign new artists and by the 1970s Island was a major record label. The first Island single I ever bought was probably by Roxy Music and I’m guessing it was either Pyjamarama or Street Life in the early 1970s. The label was eventually sold to Polygram in 1989 for 180 million pounds.

Completely irrelevant fact #1: One of my friends used to think that Brian Ferry sang ‘like a monkey’. What do you think?

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

Things That Happened in April

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Not much has happened to me lately so it’s time to take a look back in time and see what kind of things have happened in April in the past.

1st April 1918. Formation of the RAF

The First World War was still underway in 1918 but at least it was the last year of that terrible conflict. The new invention, the aeroplane, was used at the beginning of the war for observation. Aircraft would fly over enemy lines and pilots would fly back home and relay the new information back to the army HQ. Later, photography was used and photographic interpretation gradually became a new science.

The pilots began to take weapons aboard their flimsy aircraft and would take pot shots at each other in the air and then guns were attached to the aircraft themselves. In April 1915 Anthony Fokker produced an aircraft for the German air force with a machine gun synchronised to the aircraft’s propellor so the gun could fire through the arc of the rotating blades. Now the pilot only had to point his aircraft at the rival plane and fire. The war in the air had begun to escalate.

On 17th August 1917 South African General Smuts presented a report to the British Government that recommended that a new service should be formed combining the Air Force of the British Army (The Royal Flying Corps) and the similar service in the Navy (The Royal Naval Air Service). This meant that the underused resources of the RNAS could be immediately transferred over to the western front.

The two forces were finally amalgamated on the 1st April 1918 and by the end of the war later that year the new RAF became the largest air force in the world.

The RAF went on to be fundamental in preventing the Nazi invasion of Great Britain in the second world war. Winston Churchill famously said that “never before in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

30th April 1945. Death of Hitler

On this date, the man who had single handedly created the madness of the second world war died by his own hand. April 1945 was a time of impending doom and despair in Berlin. Hitler and his staff had left the Reich Chancellery building and gone into the underground bunker where Hitler pored over maps and sent instructions to squadrons and battalions that were no longer in existence.

Göring sent over a message asking that as Berlin was surrounded, was this was the time for him, Göring, to take over the leadership. Hitler was enraged and ordered Göring’s arrest. More bad news came about Himmler, the head of the SS and a loyal Nazi. Himmler was trying to negotiate with the allies and had even sent a train load of Jews to Switzerland and freedom to show how serious he was. Hitler stripped Himmler of all his titles and offices and expelled him from the Nazi party. The same day, the 29th April, Hitler wrote his last will and testament.

Many staff urged Hitler to leave but he announced he was determined to die in Berlin before being taken by the Russians. Later that day he married his longtime girlfriend Eva Braun and a small wedding party commenced. The next day, the 30th, the sound of gunfire was all around and the Russian forces were close by. Hitler tested a poison capsule on his dog, Blondi and then he and his new wife retired to the bedroom. There, Eva Braun swallowed a poison capsule and Hitler shot himself in the temple. Their bodies were buried outside in a shallow shell hole.

Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz was Hitler’s nominated successor and he finally surrendered to the allied forces on 8th May 1945.

15th April 1912. Titanic Sinking

The story of the Titanic, the ship that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912, is one of those stories that seems to be forever in the news. It’s a story that seems to have caught the imagination of pretty much everyone. Numerous films and TV documentaries have been made about the disaster including the most recent one Titanic, written and directed by James Cameron in 1997.

Last ever photo of the Titanic

The Titanic was designed to be the new premier ship of the White Star Line. It had been built By Harland and Wolff in Belfast and built alongside its sister ship the Olympic and was launched on the 31st May 1911 and was then towed to another berth where its engines and superstructure were installed as well as its majestic interior. The sea trials of the ship were undertaken on the 2nd April 1912, just eight days prior to leaving Southampton on its maiden voyage.

The Titanic left Southampton on the 10th April 1912 and stopped at Cherbourg in France to pick up more passengers before heading out across the Atlantic to New York. Four days into the voyage it hit an iceberg. On the night of the 14th April lookouts had been sent aloft to look for icebergs but their task was difficult. It was a moonless night and pitch black. The sea was very calm which meant that the lookouts could not see waves crashing against the icebergs that they had been warned to look out for. When an iceberg was finally spotted the lookouts rang down to the bridge and the officers there ordered the ship to turn hard to port. Some reports say that the engine room was ordered to stop engines which would not have helped the turn. Either way the ship brushed the iceberg and the resulting contact made a gash along the side of the ship and water rushed in.

The Titanic has several water tight compartments, 16 in fact and the ship was designed to stay afloat with four flooded but the resulting gash damaged at least five compartments. Not long ago I remember watching a TV documentary which claimed that the Titanic was put together with rivets made from defective iron which were brittle and snapped easily in the collision. Either way, the ship sank in the early hours of the 15th.

Over 1500 people lost their lives that night. The survivors, just over 700 people, were rescued by the RMS Carpathia.

12th April 1606. Adoption of the Union Flag

This was the day the first union flag became the official flag of Great Britain. It was the forerunner of today’s flag but in 1606 it only combined the English flag, the St George’s Cross and the Scottish flag, the St Andrew’s Saltire. The modern design came into force in 1801 when the red Saltire of Ireland was added when the Kingdom of Ireland joined the Kingdom of Great Britain.

title_page_william_shakespeares_first_folio via creative commons

In some ways the British flag has become controversial as there are some who feel it has become a symbol of the extreme right wing in the UK. Recently a Raise the Flag campaign began in which ordinary people have placed thousands of Union flags on lampposts, bridges and other public places. Supporters feel the flag should be a symbol of national pride while others have linked it to anti-immigration causes. At the end of the day, we expect to see French flags in France and American flags in America. Why should we not expect to see British flags in Britain?

23rd April 1616. Death of Shakepeare

William Shakespeare died on this day in 1616. It is not sure how he died but he was 52 years old and the month before he had prepared his last will and testament. Fifty years after his death the vicar of Stratford wrote that Shakespeare expired after a night of drinking with Ben Johnson and Michael Drayton. Whether this is true or not is unknown.

Shakespeare was buried in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford two days after his death. The inscription of his grave bears a curse on anyone who moves his bones.

Incidentally, the 23rd of April is St George’s Day, St George of course is the patron saint of England.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

Film Connections #8

Posted on by Steve Higgins

As regular readers will know, I am a great fan of classic cinema and I do love making these posts in which I try to tell a story by linking together various films, actors and directors. My last connections post ran a lateral course linking the film Pygmalion to Star Trek; The Motion Picture. This week I’ve worked out a very roundabout connection from Greta Garbo via Frederick March, James Mason, Alfred Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman, right back to Garbo again.

At first glance, Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman seem to belong to different emotional climates; Garbo, distant and enigmatic, Bergman, luminous and searching, her humanity worn closer to the surface. The threads run from the migration of talent across studios and continents and in the way both women, in very different ways, redefined what it meant to be a star of the cinema.

Greta Garbo was one of the first stars of the silver screen. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden on the 18th September 1905. She is best known for her beautiful but melancholy screen persona. In 1924 she was spotted in a Swedish film by Louis B Mayer the head of MGM and the following year he brought her over to Hollywood.

Greta Garbo

In 1930 she made the successful transition from silent pictures to the ‘talkies’ with her first sound picture Anna Christie which was promoted with the phrase ‘Garbo Talks!” The film was a great success and her career in the cinema continued until her last film in 1941, Two Faced Woman. She signed for various pictures afterwards but all the projects either never came to fruition or she dropped out for one reason or another. Billy Wilder asked her to star in Sunset Boulevard in 1949 but she declined.

In one of David Niven’s books, Bring on the Empty Horses, the author relates how he asked Garbo why she stopped making films and she thought for a moment and then replied “I had made enough faces”.

In 1935 Garbo starred in the screen version of Anna Karenina directed by Clarence Brown. Among her co-stars was Fredric March.

March began his career as an extra in silent movies. He made his stage debut in 1929 and not long afterwards signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. He made numerous films but in 1937 he played the part of drunken movie star Norman Maine in the film A Star is Born. Maine helps aspiring star Esther Blodgett, played by Janet Gaynor up the ladder to movie stardom. The film was shot in Technicolor and became one of the first colour films to be nominated for an Academy Award.

A Star is Born is a film that has been remade a number of times and all the remakes have been musicals, including the most recent one produced in 2018 which starred Lady Gaga. My favourite though was the 1954 version with James Mason and Judy Garland. Judy Garland plays the part of Esther Blodgett who is heard singing by the boozy Norman Maine, this time played by Mason. He takes her along to the studios and after introducing her singing voice to the studio boss, gets her a breakthrough role in a new film.

Esther, now known as Vicki Lester, becomes a big star and of course falls for Norman Maine. The two marry but will their marriage survive Maine’s alcoholism and failing career?

James Mason was born in Huddersfield in 1909. He became a stage actor and was later hugely successful in British films. In 1949 he moved to Hollywood and after the success of his starring role in the film The Desert Fox about German General Rommell, he was given a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox.

It was in 1954 that Mason was asked to be Judy Garland’s leading man in A Star is Born. Cary Grant had been offered the part but turned it down.

Both Cary Grant and James Mason starred in the 1959 picture North by Northwest directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Mason stars as a suave but ruthless secret agent who mistakes Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) for a man known as George Kaplan who Mason suspects is a government agent tailing him across the USA. As the film unfolds, we see that George Kaplan is actually a fake identity created as a decoy.

After a murder in which Thornhill is wrongly supposed to be the murderer, he escapes on board a train to Chicago where he meets Eve Kendall played by Eva Marie Saint who helps him get away.

North by Northwest is one of my personal favourite films. Apparently, Hitchcock had engaged screenwriter Ernest Lehman to work on a story adaption but he couldn’t work out what to do and offered to quit. Hitchcock replied that he enjoyed working with Lehman and that the two should just work out an entirely new story. North by Northwest was the result.

Cary Grant appeared in four of Hitchcock’s films. Suspicion (1941), To Catch a Thief (1955), North by Northwest (1959) and most importantly for this post, Notorious (1946).

I’m sure I’ve seen Notorious but it’s not a film I can really remember even though when I looked it up many people say it’s one of Hitchcock’s best ever films. Cary Grant plays a government agent who is on the trail of Nazi Claude Rains. Grant enlists the help of Ingrid Bergman who plays the daughter of a war criminal. Grant and Bergman fall for each other but Ingrid Bergman’s character has to seduce Nazi Alexander Sebastian played by Rains.

Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca

Ingrid Bergman came to Hollywood in 1939. She was invited by Hollywood producer David O Selznick to star in an English language remake of one of her earlier Swedish films Intermezzo. Bergman expected to be in Hollywood for this one film and then return to Sweden but the huge success of Intermezzo made her a star and more Hollywood films followed. Her husband and daughter came to Hollywood to join her and later they both applied for American citizenship.

Ingrid made a number of classic films in Hollywood including Casablanca, Spellbound and Notorious.

In 1949 she wrote to the Italian director Roberto Rossellini telling him how much she admired his films and expressing her wish to work with him. Rossellini cast her in Stromboli and she flew to Italy to begin work. While she was there, she fell for Rossellini and began an affair with him, becoming pregnant with his child.

This caused a huge scandal back in the USA. Bergman herself thought that because she had played a nun in The Bells of St Mary and a saint in Joan of Arc these roles seemed to make what she had done appear much worse. Ingrid went through a much publicised divorce and custody battle before marrying Rossellini in 1950.

Ingrid was born in August 1915 in Stockholm which brings us back full circle to Greta Garbo who was born ten years earlier also in Stockholm. Two wonderful actresses separated by only a decade.

(All pictures reproduced via creative commons.)

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

Old Friends and School Memories

Posted on by Steve Higgins

This last week I met up with two of my old friends, both of whom I haven’t really seen for perhaps thirty years. Carl (names have been changed to protect the innocent) was a lad I first met at junior school. We met through a mutual school friend called Peter as Peter and Carl lived in the same avenue.

Carl’s brother Martin and I once shared a flat together in Didsbury. It was a rather nice place as I remember. It was small and I had the best bedroom because I think it was me who had paid the deposit or at least the bulk of it and it was right in the centre of Didsbury, a stone’s throw from numerous pubs, bars and takeaways.

Martin seemed to have a lot of health problems when he was younger. Once, many years ago, I used to work nights and when I came home one morning, Martin’s three alarm clocks went off in succession, each placed further away from his bed so he would have to get up to switch them off. I went to bed and was soon asleep. I woke up at about 3pm and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As I sat down in the lounge to drink it, Martin staggered in having just got out of bed. “What time is it?” he asked.

We laughed about that in the pub the other day. I and others used to pull his leg about being lazy and being a hypochondriac but as it turned out, Martin had MS; multiple sclerosis, not an easy disease to spot even now.

Carl was the best man at my wedding and I was his best man when he married. We lost regular contact over the years especially when I moved out of Manchester to Merseyside. Anyway, it was good to meet up again and after a while the three of us slipped pretty easily into the old comfortable camaraderie we used to have.

We filled each other in about marriages, divorces and new partners. About jobs and retirements as well as about old friends and acquaintances.

We talked a lot about our schooldays. We all went to the same school and way back then, my two top subjects were English language and art. In fact, now I think of it, I was the toast of the art class. People loved my paintings and drawings and I loved art. Our art teacher was a guy called Mr Markland. He wasn’t a man with a great affinity for people. In fact he was a rather cool customer but I always liked him and got on well with him. Martin though hated the guy.

Another teacher, probably the most disliked teacher in the school was Mr Ashton, the metalwork teacher. He had a rather bad habit of getting very angry at his students and throwing whatever was handy at them. As this was the metalwork class, that would be something metal and heavy. Many a time a hammer or a chunk of metal flew past my head towards some offending pupil. What would have happened had he hit someone, well I don’t know. Maybe he had a good aim and was choosing to deliberately miss students. Of course, that was an age free of the health and safety restraints that we currently endure. We all had our Mr Ashton stories to tell.

Mr Markland was a superb artist. I remember one day sketching something. I think we had to produce some kind of large human figure. I had chosen a cowboy for some reason and Mr Markland took my pencil and started to make some gentle curves on the paper. He held the pencil not like someone would hold a pencil to write but in the way someone would hold a paintbrush, holding it lightly at the top and making these confident curves on the paper.  After a few moments the shape of the cowboy became apparent; the waistcoat, the bandana tied around the neck, the gun belt at an angle, the hat and so on. I have always wished I could draw like that.

One day there came the moment when we had to choose. Choose which subjects we wanted to study and to take forward to O level or beyond. When I look back now my thinking then was just, well, bonkers!

My number one love in those days was motor racing and I harboured some kind of distant idea of working in motor sport, of perhaps even being a racing driver. Problem number 1: we had no family car and my dad couldn’t drive so any idea of doing what Jensen Button and his dad later did in Karts went out of the window. Anyway, that’s why I chose metalwork because I thought I could become a mechanic, get work with some motor sporting garage and maybe break into motorsport like that. The thing was that when we came to choose our subjects it wasn’t just ‘I want to study this’ and ‘I want to study that’, it was a case of this OR that. Chemistry or biology for instance, you couldn’t do both. I wasn’t happy and it had come to a straight choice of metalwork or art. Foolishly, metalwork won. After all, a metalwork O level would help me get a job whereas an art O level, well, what could that do for me? (What a fool I was!)

One day I met Mr Markland in the corridor and he stopped me and said “Steve, you’re going the wrong way. We’ve moved to the new art room on the first floor.”

It was then I had to tell him. “Mr Markland, I’m going to the metalwork class.”

“Metalwork?”

“Yes. I’m in the metalwork class.” Clearly, he didn’t understand. “I chose metalwork.”

Mr Markland looked as though he had been slapped in the face by a wet kipper. “You chose metalwork instead of art?”

“Yes,” I said meekly.

Mr Markland thought for a moment and then said, “I see,” and walked on. He never spoke to me again.

It would be nice to record that I excelled in metalwork, left school and became a mechanic for a formula one team. The fact is I hated metalwork although the hated Mr Ashton became a much nicer teacher now that he knew (well, thought he knew) that I actually liked his class. After many years of hard graft, I produced a metal bolt that was rather stiff. I thought I could attach it to the back door but when it was screwed to the door it proved rather difficult to open. One day my mum told my dad, “Get that bloody bolt off that door. I can’t get the door open in a morning!”

I gave up the idea of working in a formula one team. Instead, I had a new vocation. I would become a journalist. I went to my careers teacher, Mr Sherrif and told him.

“So how are you going to do that then?” he said.

Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to tell me what to do?

“I’m not sure,” I answered.

“Ever thought of going to the Manchester Evening News?”

Now, that’s more like it. “That’s a good idea,” I said.

“Only they don’t take trainees.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, I’ve got just the thing for you.”

Mr Sherrif rummaged around on his desk, produced various papers, flicked through a notebook and dialled a number. After some idle chit chat he seemed to be arranging an appointment, I could hear my name mentioned and something about ‘nine thirty’ tomorrow. Of course, he’s onto the Evening News. He’s got me a job interview and to think people say Mr Sherrif is rubbish and all he ever does is get people interviews at Barclays Bank!

“There you are,” said Mr Sherrif when he put down the phone. He scribbled something on a slip of paper.

“Tomorrow at nine thirty. You know where Barclays bank is don’t you?”

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

More Film Connections (Part 7)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Usually in these Film Connections posts, I tell a sort of circular story starting with an actor or director and then find a link to another film or personality and then another until I work back to whoever I started with. This week I decided to be a little more lateral and try and link Pygmalion, the 1938 film to the first Star Trek film from 1979. I like to be different now and again but not only that (confession alert) I struggled to find a link back to Pygmalion. (Actually I did find a very tenuous link and I’m not sure as I write this that I’m going to share it but we’ll see how things go).

Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a famous play by George Bernard Shaw which was made into a film in 1938 with a script adapted by Shaw himself. Leslie Howard starred in the film as Professor Higgins. Higgins is a linguist who boasts that he can make Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower seller, into a lady. Doolittle was played by Wendy Hiller.

Professor Henry Higgins actually makes a bet that he can take Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower seller with a seriously strong accent, and pass her off as a refined lady just by teaching her how to speak “properly”. What starts as a kind of experiment turns into a full-on transformation, with Eliza learning manners, speech, and confidence, but she also begins to question how she’s being treated. Is she a person or just Higgins’ project? Things get tense after her big high-society debut goes off without a hitch, because suddenly the question isn’t whether she can fit in, but where she actually belongs and whether Higgins deserves any credit (or forgiveness) at all. It’s witty, a bit biting and surprisingly emotional under all the clever dialogue.

Interesting fact #1: Wendy Hiller speaks a controversial line in the film – “not bloody likely” making her the first person to swear in a British film. It’s a controversy that’s almost laughable today considering the language used in modern films. Have you ever wondered who the first person to use the F word in a British film was? (Answer at the end of the post).

Interesting fact #2: The film was edited by future director David Lean.

My Fair Lady

The musical version of Pygmalion was created by Alan Jay Learner and Frederick Lowe. They worked for a long time on the musical, even while trying to get permission from GB Shaw’s estate for the musical rights to the play. Eventually they succeeded and the production opened on Broadway after a four week try out in Philadelphia. Rex Harrison played Higgins with newcomer Julie Andrews as Eliza. The play used many scenes written by Shaw especially for the 1938 film version. When Jack Warner acquired the rights to the film, he decided he wanted a famous name to play the part of Eliza and Julie Andrews was dropped in favour of Audrey Hepburn. Audrey played a good part but personally, I’ve always thought it was a tragedy that audiences never got to see and hear Julie Andrews in such a wonderful role.

Interesting fact #3: Hepburn’s singing voice was dubbed for the film by Marni Nixon.

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music was based on the stage musical version with music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. The story was based on the real-life story of the Von Trapp family singers which was originally written in book form by Maria Von Trapp. Maria was a nun who takes a job as a governess with the Von Trapp family and later falls for their widowed father, Captain Von Trapp.

In the film version Christopher Plummer played the part of the captain and Julie Andrews starred as Maria. It was Julie’s second film after her film debut in Mary Poppins in 1964. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman and he particularly wanted Robert Wise to direct. At first William Wyler was assigned to direct but when he wanted a delay to complete another film, Lehman was able to get Wise to join the film. He and Lehman worked closely together to bring the story to the screen.

Personally, I’m not a great fan of musicals but I’ve always loved this film, in fact I watched it only the other day to prepare for this post. The songs are really wonderful and the story of the family and their later escape from the Nazis in Austria is really well told. Julie Andrews plays a great part but then so do all the actors including Christopher Plummer. I’ve heard both of them in interviews making a little fun of the film but I’m sure they must have been proud of it really. Four weeks after its release, the film became the number one box office hit in the USA. According to Wikipedia, by November 1966 The Sound of Music was the highest grossing film in history up to that time.

Interesting fact #4: Marni Nixon, the woman who dubbed Audrey Hepburn’s singing in My Fair Lady plays the part of a nun in The Sound of Music.

Star Trek

The director of The Sound of Music was Robert Wise who, like David Lean, was originally a film editor before turning his hand to film direction. In fact, he was an editor on that great film classic Citizen Kane. Another film he directed, one radically different to The Sound of Music, was Star Trek; The Motion Picture.

Star Trek was a TV series that lasted three seasons from 1966 to 1969 before its cancellation. It had a huge fan base and producer Gene Roddenberry tried to get the series resurrected. A cinema version was planned for the mid 70s but this was cancelled in favour of a new TV series to be known as Star Trek Phase Two. After the huge success of Star Wars, Paramount decided to change tack again and focus on a film. The basis for the film was apparently the pilot episode of the planned TV series, expanded for a cinematic film. The resulting film was good and I have always enjoyed it but it moves along at a very slow pace and does not have that something that made the TV shows tick over so well. The crew from the original show are gradually introduced. Kirk is given command of the enterprise once again, Doctor McCoy refuses to have his atoms scrambled in the transporter, Mr Scott once again takes over control of the engines and Mr Spock leaves the planet Vulcan to have his science officer status renewed. I can sum up the story by quoting Admiral Kirk; “Scotty, an object of unbelievable size is heading towards earth. Enterprise is the only starship in the area. Ready or not, she launches in 12 hours!” Or something like that.

Interesting fact #5: William Shatner who played Captain James T Kirk was great friends with Christopher Plummer and the two appeared together in Star Trek VI in which Plummer played a one-eyed Klingon general. I’ve always thought it was the absolute worst of the Trek films but having said that, it apparently won an award for the best science fiction film of the year.

Linking back to Pygmalion

If you do a search on Google for a possible link to Star Trek, the results come up for an episode of Star Trek Voyager (episode 22, season 5, Someone to Watch Over Me) in which the Doctor (the holographic Doctor who is not a real person but a computer program) decides to nurture Seven of Nine in the ways of human relations and love. Seven, in case you have never watched Voyager, is actually Annika Hansen who was captured by the Borg as a young girl and assimilated into the Borg Collective. (The Borg are an alien race by the way). Now the Voyager crew have freed Seven from the Borg, she’s not very good at person-to-person general relationships (neither would you if you had been trapped in the Borg Collective for years) so the Doctor becomes a sort of Professor Higgins to Seven’s Eliza.

That’s such a thin link back to Pygmalion I might as well not have mentioned it!

Just to finish with, I wondered earlier about the first person to use the ‘F’ word in a British film. According to Google, it was Marianne Faithful in that unforgettable (sarcasm alert) 1967 film ‘I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Isname’ directed by Michael Winner.

1967? I wasn’t expecting that!

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

5 British Rom-Coms

Posted on by Steve Higgins

My original idea for this post was to write about 90s British films but then I realised some of those 90’s films were actually from the 2000’s. I then changed tack to a blog about films written by Richard Curtis but that meant cutting out a few films that I really wanted to include. Then I thought what about films with Hugh Grant? Great but although many of the films below feature Hugh, I’ve got a personal favourite in which he doesn’t star. That of course has led to the final incarnation of this post, 5 British Rom-Coms.

4 Weddings and a Funeral 1994

I’ve always rather loved this film. In a way I tend to think of it as a sort of modern Ealing Comedy, or at least the sort of film that Ealing would be making were they still in business. The only difficulty in that respect is the rather liberal use of the ‘f’ word that the film can really do without. In the USA, or so I have read, the version screened over there has the ‘f’ word substituted by the slightly less alarming word bugger.

The plot is pretty simple. It’s about a group of friends who only seem to meet regularly at weddings. At the first wedding Charles, played by Hugh Grant, meets Carrie and falls for her only to find she is about to return to the USA. Happily he meets her again at another wedding and, sadly for Charles, he meets her again at yet another wedding, this time one in which she is the bride.

The happiness of constant weddings is shattered by the death of one of Charles’ friends but this being a rom-com, things all work out in the end. Carrie is played by Andie McDowell and the supporting actors who appear at each wedding are all well known to fans of British film and TV.

Four Weddings and a Funeral is the movie that brought fame to writer Richard Curtis and actor Hugh Grant, as the announcer mentioned last time I saw this film on the television. Strangely, he didn’t mention Mike Newell, who directed the film. Funny how the credit from a successful film doesn’t always get spread equally around.

Notting Hill 1999

Written again by Richard Curtis and starring Hugh Grant, Grant this time plays William Thacker, the owner of a bookshop in London’s Notting Hill. One afternoon at the bookshop, Hollywood film star Anna Scott played by Julia Roberts comes into the shop to browse. Not long afterwards William accidentally walks into her and spills takeaway drinks all over her. He invites her back to his place just across the road where she cleans herself up.

On another occasion the two go out for a date but William’s oddball flatmate Spike played by Rhys Ifans, happens to mention the film star’s presence to his mates at the pub and the flat is soon swamped by reporters. Anna is not amused and the two fall out and seem to go their separate ways.

There is a really lovely sequence here in which William walks along the Portabello Road and the scene transforms into winter, then autumn and finally summer showing the passage of time in a really unique way. Later, the two manage to sort things out just before Anna leaves for the USA.

Over on Wikipedia it was interesting to find that according to a 2018 interview High Grant gave to GQ magazine, the idea came to Richard Curtis after one of his friends became involved with an unnamed ‘big star’. The film was shot on location in Notting Hill and the blue door to William Thacker’s place in the film was actually a property owned by Richard Curtis.

Julia Roberts was the producer’s only choice for Anna Scott although personally, just like Andie McDowell in 4 weddings, I’ve never found her remotely attractive.

The film won a Brit Award for its soundtrack.

Sliding Doors 1998

This was a film written and directed by Peter Howitt. Howitt is probably best known for playing the part of Joey Boswell in the TV comedy series Bread. This is a really super film which is about a girl, Helen Quilley, who gets fired from her PR job. Helen, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, heads off for home. She goes to the tube station but is only seconds too late and misses her train. The film then rewinds a few minutes and when it replays, Helen manages to catch the train. The film then sets off in two separate directions with two differing storylines. In one she arrives home to find her boyfriend in bed with another woman. In the second she arrives home later and the boyfriend manages to cover up his two timing activities.

The film was made in 1998 but still looks fresh and contemporary. The only jarring things -from a 2026 point of view- are people still smoking in pubs and offices filled with huge computer monitors. It’s a lovely film and one I tend to watch quite a lot on DVD.

Bridget Jones Diary 2001

This film was based on the book by Helen Fielding and had a script written by Fielding, Andrew Davies and once again, Richard Curtis. American actress Renee Zellweger played Bridget with a very impressive British accent with her love interests played by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.

Bridget works in publicity for a publishing company. She is 32 and worried about her weight and confides all her worries as well as her fantasies to her diary. At her mother’s Christmas party, she meets barrister Mark Darcy, a neighbour from her childhood, who she finds arrogant and rude. At work she flirts a lot with her boss Daniel Cleaver played by Grant and begins an affair with him only to find that he is a serial cheater.

Who will Bridget end up with, the slimy but nice Daniel or the boring but nice Mark? One of the film’s highlights is a drunken street fight between Daniel and Mark which plays out pretty much how two upper/middle class twits would be expected to behave.

Three sequels were made to the film, the last one was Mad About the Boy in 2025 but personally, I think the original was the best.

About a Boy 2002

This is still a rom-com but considerably darker than the other films on this list. Hugh Grant plays someone slightly different to his usual film persona. Will Freeman is a young man in his 30s who lives a rather aimless life. He does not go out to work, instead he has ample funds because of regular royalties due from a popular tune which was written by his late father. His one aim in life is to meet women and he happens to come across a young mother and feels that young single parent females would be good for him because they are mostly on the lookout for a new man. To achieve this aim he joins a group for single parents where he is the only man and after spinning a yarn about being deserted by the mother of his only child, ‘Ned’, he feels warmed by the sympathy vote of the whole group and quickly gets involved with an attractive young mother called Suzie.

Through various circumstances, this leads him to meet Marcus, the son of one of Suzie’s friends and the two begin a friendship of sorts which begins to bring a new meaning to Will’s life.

Overall, the film is perhaps a little slow and rather dark in a way but still a great film based on a book by Nick Hornby.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

 

About Blogging

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s always nice to see my regular post published on a Saturday at 10am but almost as soon as it goes out into the world of the internet the first thing I think about is what shall I do next?

Well, the next step is to try and plug the post everywhere I can think of so this post goes out on Facebook, on X, on Instagram, on Threads and on Tumblr. I also add it on any relevant Facebook pages so for instance if it’s a sci-fi post I might link it to a sci-fi Facebook page or a sci-fi page on Reddit or any other relevant page. I also publish some of my posts over on Medium and again, link them back here to WordPress. Sometimes I even make a video version and share it over on my YouTube page.

Very few of these posts will work as a video but a couple that come to mind were a post about a letter to my younger self which translated well to a video except that the narration wasn’t really much good. (Must make a note; try remaking the video with a better narration). Another was a post about how to write poetry. The video version involved me just talking to the camera about the ways I write poetry.  To be honest I think the video version was better although looking at it again recently I do seem to rabbit on a bit.

On social media I’m always trying to bring in more readers to my blog page and so I try to add something other than just a link to my latest post. Lately I’ve been making these short 5 second videos that can be made pretty easily on Grok or most other AI image making sites. I usually use these on X or on Instagram but recently I thought I’d upload a few to YouTube. YouTube seem to be trying to get on the bandwagon created by Instagram and TikTok of very short videos that viewers can just scroll quickly through. On YouTube they are called ‘shorts’ and I’ve found that my shorts have actually been really successful, bringing in lots of viewers who will hopefully watch these quick videos and then click on my website to actually settle down and read more.

One of my shorts, a very short AI generated video shows a young woman roaring off on a motorbike with the words ‘NEW BLOG POST OUT NOW’ inscribed on the back of her leather jacket. Currently that video has 4.7 thousand viewers and my YouTube followers have begun to increase. I still need another 60 followers in order to actually make revenue from my videos but happily things seem to be moving in the right direction. A small group of my main videos have great viewing figures but until I hit the magic number of 500 followers, I make no money at all from YouTube.

It’s only fair to say that after publishing that last video on YouTube a little box appeared which said promote this video for only £10!  Ten pounds I thought? What’s ten pounds today? Two or three pints of lager in Wetherspoons? A CD album? Okay I thought, ten pounds, even a tightwad like me can live with that. Of course, that’s where the 4.7 thousand viewers came from, an advertisement. Even so, many of those watchers must have clicked onto my landing page and maybe even read a few posts. Did they go one step further and buy a copy of Timeline or Floating in Space? Well, maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. I’ll find out when a few royalties hit my bank account but until then I won’t be holding my breath. Nice to see that recently though my readership has been steadily expanding.

What I find really interesting is when a post from years ago suddenly gets a little attention. Why did that reader go for that particular post? Did he or she stumble upon it? Were they using a search engine and what were they searching for? Happily Google or Yahoo has directed them my way which is always nice to see.

The other day I was watching one of my favourite films Julie and Julia. It’s a film by Nora Ephron which is about a blogger called Julie Powell who decides she will make all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cook book in 365 days. Julia was an American woman who learns cordon bleu cookery in France and writes a popular cookbook for American housewives. Obviously, things don’t all go smoothly for Julie the cook and blogger but she manages to get through a different recipe every day and in doing so gets some attention from the local press which boosts her blog even more and eventually enables her to become a published author.

It’s a great story in its own right but also for bloggers everywhere. Of course, they’d have a job making this website into a film unless they wanted endless shots of me, or someone playing the part of me, tapping away on my laptop writing blogs and short stories. Of course they could dramatize some of my stories. The Hollywood Meeting for instance in which a young writer goes to Hollywood to pitch one of his scripts to a producer might make a good film.

This is the point where I try to link a relevant feature film. Films about authors. That’s a tough one. There was Misery, a film based on a Stephen King book where an author is kidnapped and tortured but I don’t think I’m going to go there. Another film I remember seeing some years ago was called How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon. Jack plays Stanley Ford who authors a comic strip in a newspaper and acts out various situations which are then photographed. Jack’s character uses the photos to inspire his comic strip drawings. Look out for it if you see it on your TV schedules although it’s one of those films I haven’t seen for a long while on TV. When Stanley gets married, he takes many of his real life situations with his wife played by Virni Lisi and uses them in the comic strip. His comic strip character then decides to murder his wife but the wife, on seeing the strip, decides to walk out and people think Stanley has actually murdered her.

The comic strip art used in the film was by an artist called Mel Keefer who penned various comic strips in US newspapers and comics. That reminds me of another social media post I sometimes use below.

So in a world of short sharp TikTok and Instagram videos, can a blog post still work? Are there still people out there who want to read, who want to invest more than ten seconds on a post, who actually have an attention span, who can spend five to ten minutes reading something like this very post?

The answer is hopefully yes. There are even still people who want to buy and read books, after all, I certainly do.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

5 Crime Fighting Duos

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Crime Fighting Duos? What’s that about you might be thinking? Well I thought I’d write about TV investigative couples so let’s go back to the 1960s and start with one of my favourite TV pairings, Steed and Mrs Peel.

Steed and Emma

Steed and Emma featured in The Avengers, no, not the Marvel comic book heroes but the TV sci-fi/espionage series. John Steed and Emma Peel were two secret agents working for an unnamed agency in a very quirky version of 1960s England. The series was first broadcast in 1961 and starred Patrick Macnee and Ian Hendry. Macnee played the debonair John Steed and when Ian Hendry left after the first series, Steed became the focus of the show with his new assistant Cathy Gale played by Honor Blackman.

Honor Blackman became a TV star with her portrayal of Cathy Gale as a leather wearing judo expert. She and Macnee even recorded a hit single together called ‘Kinky Boots’ which became a minor hit.

When Honor left to become a Bond girl in the film Goldfinger the TV production had something of a makeover. The series was sold to the US TV network ABC and moved from videotape to 35mm film. A new character was added, Mrs Emma Peel. The producers chose actress Elizabeth Shepherd to play the part. Shepherd shot the pilot film episode and part of the next one, but the producers decided to drop her, feeling she was not right for the role. With a two-million-dollar deal with the US network ABC hanging in the balance, they began searching for a new Emma Peel and chose unknown actress Diana Rigg.

Diana Rigg was perfect for the new crime fighter/agent Mrs Peel and wowed TV audiences with her intelligence, her judo and karate skills, her avant-garde fashion sense and her witty banter with Steed.

Diana Rigg became famous as Mrs Peel and played the part until 1967 when, like Honor Blackman before her, she left the to become a Bond girl in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Patrick Macnee continued to play the bowler hatted John Steed and Linda Thorson was recruited to star as Steed’s partner. The series was rebooted in the 1970s as The New Avengers starring Macnee with Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt as his new colleagues.

Steed and Mrs Peel are surely the most fondly remembered characters in the series. My favourite episode is one called The House That Jack Built which was about a mad inventor who is fired from a company run by Mrs Peel’s father. He builds an electronically operated house in which to trap and kill Mrs Peel. She eventually escapes just as Steed arrives to save her!

A film version was made with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in 1998 but it was a resounding flop.

Napoleon and Illya

Robert Vaughn and David McCallum played two secret agents working for UNCLE (the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) who try to foil the evil organisation THRUSH. (What that stood for I’ve never known.) Vaughn starred as Napoleon Solo and McCallum played Russian born Illya Kuryakin. UNCLE headquarters was in New York, accessed through a fake dry-cleaning store. Inside UNCLE HQ was a very hi-tech environment with steel corridors and sliding doors.

Head of UNCLE was Mr Waverly played by Leo G Carroll who every week gave his two agents their assignments and off they went into the world, armed with an array of secret gadgets like explosives hidden in their shoes and a communicator built into a pen. ‘Open channel D’ was something regular viewers like me would hear every week as well as the wonderful theme music by Jerry Goldsmith.

David McCallum had a big fan following especially with the ladies but Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo was my favourite.

Starsky and Hutch

I used to watch this show many years ago and to be honest, I liked it but I was never a firm fan. Starsky and Hutch were two California plain clothes cops played by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul. They drove around Bay City, a fictional California town in a Ford Gran Torino in bright red with a white vector flash down the sides. Looking up the series on Wikipedia, I see that Paul Glaser actually hated the car, pointing out that a bright red car with a distinctive paint job was not the best idea for a pair of undercover cops. Oh well, the car was pretty popular with viewers and especially with a certain type of late seventies boy racers. (You know the type, young guys who painted or stuck white flashes on the sides of their souped up old bangers and tried to burn you off at traffic lights).

To sum up then, Starsky and Hutch is about two somewhat scruffy wisecracking cops, tearing around the city in a bright red car like they’ve got somewhere very important to be, even if half the time they’re just chasing some dodgy lead or getting into trouble. The whole vibe is full on ’70s; big collars and big flairs but then again, it was made in the mid 70s so you can’t get more 70s than that.

Starsky and Hutch was remade as a not particularly serious big screen film in 2004 starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Glaser and Soul made a brief appearance at the end of the picture but I can’t help thinking the film might have worked out better if things were the other way round and Stiller and Wilson were the ones who only appeared at the end.

Randall and Hopkirk

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is one of those offbeat late 60s TV shows where the premise sounds completely ridiculous and yet somehow works perfectly: two private detectives, but one is a ghost. Marty Hopkirk gets run over and killed in episode one but returns as a ghost to help Jeff Randall solve his murder. After that, Marty decides to stay on and help out with other cases too. On one side you’ve got a fairly standard detective story unfolding, the next minute poor Jeff Randall is trying to explain clues that only he can see because his dead partner Marty Hopkirk is hovering nearby in an unmistakable white suit but invisible to anyone except Jeff. It’s quirky, a bit spooky, very tongue in cheek and exactly the sort of inventive television that the late sixties seemed to produce with effortless confidence.

In later years the show was rebooted with comedy duo Reeves and Mortimer. Personally, I’ve always found the 60s version starring Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope with Annette Andre as Marty’s widow to be far superior.

Mulder and Scully

Mulder and Scully are the two FBI agents at the centre of the X Files, secret FBI files profiling unexplained and unsolved mysteries. Fox Mulder is convinced of the existence of the paranormal while Dana Scully is a practical scientist assigned to take a technical and analytic view of Mulder’s work.

The two argue and debate their way through various bizarre cases. One minute it’s some weird creature lurking in the woods, the next it’s shadowy government plots and secret labs. Somehow, despite all the paranoia and eerie moments, there’s a lot of dry humour and a really strong partnership between them that makes the whole thing strangely cosy to watch, even when the lights are off and the theme music is giving you goosebumps.

In my absolute favourite episode, the pair are monitoring a secret installation in area 51 and are confronted by government officers when a flying saucer flies overhead. When it passes over, it’s energy or radiation morphs Mulder’s mind into the mind of one of the area 51 staff and his mind into Mulder’s body. The other guy, the area 51 guy is quite happy at this incredible transformation. He and his wife are not getting on and suddenly finding himself in the body of a single man is clearly ok with him. Mulder on the other hand has to convince Scully that this incredible incident has actually happened.

The X Files was first shown in the late 1990’s and ran until 2002 spanning 9 seasons. The series returned in 2016 and then again in 2018. Plans are afoot, or so I have read, for another revival with new actors.

Remember, the truth is out there.

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.