23rd December 2024

I have  been doing several things.  Firstly I managed to find the episodes of Gormenghast on F/B. It was released in 2000, so not so long ago.  A pretty good production given all the backdrops and the acting was superb and conveyed the vileness of Steerpike beautifully.  Celia Imrie played the magnificent head of state, with her roomful of white cats and Titus himself has yet to prove his character.

I have always seen Gormenghast Castle as the functioning government we have.  The strict adherence to ritual, the foolishness of becoming a Lord or Lady.  The downfall of the two sisters who wished for all the glories of coaches and servants and then their death by starvation has always haunted me.  A strong cast played the various strands very well but the evilness of Steerpike as he plots the death of the people he doesn't like is wickedly good.  

A fairytale or fantasy you might well call it but the personality of the author, Mervyn Peake shines there.  But, did a certain madness lie at the bottom of his strange caricatures that he drew so fluidly.  He is definitely a 'forgotten' person in the world of art.

Peake's health deteriorated through the 1960s and he suffered from dementia and Lewy's Body and he was given electroconvulsive therapy, which I believe today is never used, anyway he died in 1968 at the age of 57 years.

I am also listening to George Orwell's Wigan Pier.  This has been brought on because the 'wandering Turnip' has done a whole series on the Northern towns and had carried the book around with him in Wigan.  He has a name, and now you will see why he uses turnip in his title, it is David Burnip.

He is damn good at what he does, media presentation seems to be falling into the hands of many independent producers who use Youtube as their vehicle of bringing their work to public view.

He is looking at the demise of the high street in many of our Northern towns, and London and the South as well.  Some would see it as catastrophic but we all have to agree that old ways have to be turned into new ways.  All those  comfortable little shops we were so used to have vanished under the enormous pressure of very high business tax and rental, it is just not worth it.  But what we see are rows of empty boarded up shops on many high streets.  It is not because the retail business has left us, you can still buy stuff on line, it is the endless  expenses of running the shops that has brought about this demise.

Of course one could cite an easy answer to the problem, turn all those shops and empty brown spaces into housing but it needs money and where is that to come from? Well answering the question, it has been promised by the late government £208 million* to be precise at the beginning of this year, it will be interesting to see what it has been used on.

It is almost as if  we are going back to Victorian times, the space between the poor and the rich is widening at a fast rate.  Today for instance, we haven't got any crackers, none in the shops.  So online my daughter thumbing through found a box for £700.  Now who is going to buy that? the answer is simple there are plenty of mugs out there willing to do it.  Money sloshes around elsewhere, for instance did you see the Assad's garage? At least 50 high end cars stashed away.

I think I shall stop there, Ben is supposed to be cooking the tea and there is certain disruptions amongst the three!

*That promise of course could have easily be broken by the conservatives, so much white wash but what of the Labour party well according to this BBC article Manchester is still going to receive £100 million.