WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR (WHATEVER THAT MEANS)

I won’t be around for the bells and the start of the New Year itself (even an old crank like me sometimes gets invited out, amongst other people, at pastimes. And sometimes I even say yes.)
So I’d just like to say, Happy Hogmanay, you pointless human wastes of space.
All the best to you dæmons.*
And,
Remember, whatever you’re going through, this is probably as good as it’ll ever get.
I’ll be back in 2008 with more of this poisonous rubbish pouring from my personal, Manchester-based water conduit, stinking up your nice, clean river of life.
Oh yes, of course, as always,
All the best.

*Any species not the human one.

MEMORY OF THE YEAR : A SIGNIFICANT EVENT, ALMOST UNNOTICED

One of the events that stick out in my mind from the past year is the tribute Prince Harry gave at his Mother Princess Diana’s memorial service.
It’s funny Harry giving it, because William seems the more articulate of the two. I get the impression that William contributed to the writing of it but Harry, the speech-maker, actually talked it. Anyhow,
He talks about his Mother and how wonderful it was getting a good night kiss from her and her smile when she saw her two boys and dwelt heavily on this being how she should be remembered.
And he never once turned it into a sermon.
There was no mention of god and her eternal reward and heaven.
Listen to it. It’s somewhere on the Net, and can be heard, I should imagine.
I never picked up on it at the time. I suppose it’s because I was brought up with that idea running through the fabric of life and death. That a person carries on in the memories of those who loved them. There was never any talk of any afterlife. To ignore god and make the memorial into a celebration of the person’s life was natural for me.
And it got me thinking in more depth; When my time comes, and I leave this veil of tears, and my pain is over, I hope that if there is anyone bothered to give my funeral oration, it’s along these lines. Being remembered fondly by my sisters and nieces and nephew (perhaps grand-nieces and nephews by then) as someone who was there, to listen, to chat, as the old, oddball maiden Auntie who was there if she was needed, to rely on, is a lot better than being mentally condemned to some far flung cold place, left to the mercies of some capricious deity, then forgotten by those who counted.

And that’s why (amongst others) I pick this out as the moment of the year. When the younger members of the Royal family broke away from an age old tradition of referring to god at a critical time and came awake to the knowledge that the only way their Mother lives on is in the mind of those who loved her.

‘THE GOLDEN COMPASS’ : A CRITIQUE

I’ve finally been to see ‘The Golden Compass’, based on ‘Northern Lights’ by Mr Philip Pullman.
I had promised myself a trip to the pictures ever since I was enchanted by a huge brightly lit hoarding I saw from the window of a bus I was riding on. I was supposed to be making the trip on December fifth but ill health, domestic problems and lack of money got in the way, but yesterday I went to see it.
And. . .
Now I am no critic. I’m like my Dad, impressed more by the storyline (the doings on the screen) than what went into making it (the director etc.) If it’s an impressive film, then it’s got me and,
well,
This was an impressive film.

* * *DON’T READ ANY MORE IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN IT AND WANT TO WAIT.* * *

The special effects were brilliant, especially the dæmons. I’ve got four cats and I spend a lot of time watching them move, and whoever computer generated the images of the dæmons has spent a lot of time observing animals. I especially liked the bits where the children’s dæmons changed shape, like they do in the book. (Once you reach puberty, then they settle into one animal form). They changed so smoothly, and the changes were not small and subtle (colour and/or from one mammal to another). They change from an ermine to a sparrow for example, without any jerking or any noticeable shift in shape.
Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter, are best displayed through their respective snow leopard and golden monkey dæmons (the leopard with an elegant female voice, the monkey only able to snuffle and snarl and attack.)
The gyptians, boat people, sort of outsiders, are well represented by Ma Costa, a solid, firm hearted woman, a boat-mother with a solid, no nonsense expression, their King, heavy, bearded John Faa, with the massive presence and face tattoos making him out as a leader of this race apart, and Farder Coram, the gentle, grey haired bespectacled scientist of the gyptians.
The Magisterium is fronted by the sinister Fra Pavel, who hangs around the main Lyra’s Oxford Jordan College like a sort of Inquisitor or a Commissar, hunting out heresy in all it’s forms, his dæmon is a sort of iridescent beetle which is rarely visible. He takes everything in and writes everything down and then answers to his direct superior, who is a fat faced cold hearted Emissary and above him, quietly, listening, the High Councillor, grey bearded and the direct opposite of the Master of the College, who is fighting against the Authority to allow Free thought it’s place, as it always has in the college. (This part reeks of Mr Pullman’s desire to put Oxford, no matter in which world, in the front line in the battle against religion).
Serafina Pekkala, Queen of the Witches, very old but seeming young, has a sort of smouldering mystery about her, as befitting someone who has lived a very long time and experienced a lot. Her troops fly through the sky and mistaken for birds by a wide eyed Lyra, quickly put right by mighty armoured bear Iorek, ‘if they’re flying against you, watch out.’
The exiled king of the armoured bears, Iorek Byrnison, stripped of his armour and reduced to being a sort of blacksmith for the humans, paid in buckets of whisky, regained his armour, (made from iron from the stars) thanks to Lyra, was one of my favourites in the novel and I was afraid the overwhelming desire for CGI would overdo him, but no. He was perfect.
The New Texan aeronaut Lee Scorseby and his large eared hare dæmon Hester, were just as I’d imagined, a grey moustached, long haired cowboy wearing a six shooter and his wise-cracking animal psyche.
Little Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra led the kids as they ran around the streets of the alternative Oxford and later was taken away into a sort of steely glamorous captivity by the cold hearted beauty Mrs Coulter, then set off on a journey with the gyptian people to go and rescue a whole gang of missing kids and explored lands and situations without missing a beat. She wasn’t so much brave as fearless. (There is a difference. Mr Pullman in the novel explains that Lyra has very little imagination and can’t really look far ahead, and twinned with a natural confidence, she walks straight into situations most people, who think about it, would hold back from).
The fight between the armoured bears, Iorek the real king and the interloper was vicious and brutal and follows the novel faithfully. NOT a scene for anyone sensitive to animal suffering. (The interloper’s lower jaw is taken off completely and he stands there upright and stunned while Iorek finishes him off.)
The battle scenes are again not overplayed, although the director seems to have fallen for the old trick of all seeming lost and rescue appearing unexpectedly. Very brutal, and when a person is killed their dæmons disintegrate in a burst of golden light. During the fight scenes, filmed at night, there are bursts of golden across the darkness and you know someone has got theirs.
One of the most puzzling scenes to me is when it shows the transport in Lyra’s world. From airships to carriages to Mr Scoresby’s all in balloon craft all seem to be run from a round, what looks like an electronic device attached to the side of the vehicle, which is transparent and contains a blue core which moves and flashes. I don’t recall any description of how things are powered being mentioned in the novel, but I’m going to read it again just in case I missed it.
Of course, it’s not totally faithful to the novel. Compared to the book, there are great sections missing plus there is a lot of explaining going on in the picture that you have to work out for yourself in reading plus the ending was a bit of a let down, an unnecessarily feel-good cop-out. The tale goes that New Line, the production company, will only be tempted into filming the second of the trilogy if this one recoups enough at the box office, and the true ending of ‘Northern Lights’ will sort of be extended and appear in ‘The Subtle Knife’.
The Golden Compass of the hijacked title (why on EARTH didn’t Mr Pullman dig his toes in and refuse to go ahead with allowing his book to be filmed unless ‘Northern Lights’ His (THE) title was allowed? If it was me, and some production company wanted to film my writings but put a title of their own to it, they would have to fight me every inch of the way. I would refuse the rights until I had a guarantee my original title would be kept) was really called the Alethiometer (again, it would have been easier to keep the original author’s title, instead of keep referring to the Alethiometer as The Golden Compass to fit in with the film title) was the only one left, the others having been destroyed by the Magisterium, to stem the tide of heresy and to allow them to continue their grip on the world, and maybe spread onto other, adjoining but unseen, worlds. It’s a complicated little machine and only a kid, only the chosen girl, Lyra, can read it. It tells the truth, what is happening and what happened before, (using it, Lyra finds where the demoralised Iorek’s armour is, giving him back his heart) and it’s a lot smaller than I imagined. I love the way she looks at it, the fingers move, and she mentally goes into it and through a swarming gold haze can see glimpses and from those glimpses can read what is happening, and where things are.
Anyhow, I’ll leave it now; I’ll just describe the two scenes which stood out for me;
The mighty Iorek, the armoured bear, bursts out of the Magisterium building in the small northern town, on the edge of the Arctic, where they tried to break him, and stands upright and roars ready to take on the ranks of the Tartars, footsoldiers representatives of the Magisterium and their snarling dog dæmons. And little Lyra goes up to him and begs him not to hurt the Tartars and his big scarred face is close to hers as he listens and obeys.
The scene where little Billy Costa, the gyptian boy, having been separated from his dæmon in an operation which all kids would have to face, for their own good, basically to stop them from having the ’spirit’ to think for themselves and therefore question the all powerful Magisterium (by the way, the Magisterium is a watered down version of the novel’s Christian church for sensitive film watchers) is cowering in a hut and begging for his Ratter, his dæmon, and for comfort is holding onto a bit of fur.
All in all, a mostly satisfying watch. As an animal-phile (not lover, not fan, phile is to fan as altering your social life to stay in to watch a film is to catching it if it’s on and you’ve nothing else to do) the dæmons and the armoured bears won it for me.
I do hope that New Line are satisfied by the international box office takings enough to start plans for ‘The Subtle Knife’, for as anyone who has read the books knows, the story has just begun. . .

THE TOTAL IRRELEVANCE OF HYPOCRITICAL BEHAVIOUR

And then you get verbal fingers pointed at those who preach certain behaviour while practicing the very stuff they condemn.
For example, the preacher who consigns homosexuals to hell, and as a consequence causes a hell on earth for these types, while at the same time cruising public toilets.
Or the politician who fumes about how all illegal immigrants are taking our jobs and should be sent back, sometimes to certain death or at least savage torture, while using his influence in the back door forcing through the immigration papers of his foreign-born mistress.
You get the idea. How can someone lobby to pass a law to stop a person behaving in a certain, harm-free, victimless way, while at the same time secretly doing the same on his day off?
But I don’t agree.
It doesn’t matter if the priest/politician/publican/whoever, is the most self controlled person ever. Who would rather cut his own throat than betray his wife or would rather throw himelf under a bus than engage in homosexual behaviour. Who honestly, in all conscience, believes that immigrants are the cause of the decline of the British economic system. Who lives exactly the lifestyle he advocates for others. It doesn’t matter if hypocricy isn’t even in his internal dictionary, and is totally outside his understanding. That he really does practice what he preaches.
That person has no right to dictate to the rest of us, and use his power to make laws against, what we do consensually in bed, and who with and how often. Whether we smoke sixty a day in public houses or overload our recommended alcohol limit.. Whether we can’t dislike someone because they happen to be born in a different part of the planet or sometimes glance at websites or paper reading matter that some might find viscerally offensive.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Hypocricy don’t enter into it.
EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DO IT, EVEN IF YOU FIND IT DISGUSTING, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE THE RIGHT AND THE POWER TO STOP THE REST OF US DOING IT, WITH THE FULL BACKING OF THE LAW, SO LONG AS WE DON’T MAKE YOU DO WANT YOU DON’T WANT TO DO.
That, for me, is libertarianism in a single sentence.

Before I finish, I’ll return to the arguement that ’so long as you don’t do a certain thing, you have nothing to fear from the law’. But if those in power can make laws, just on the basis of stopping people doing what those who have the power to make laws don’t want to do, it won’t be long before you step across the line and break the law by doing something you’ve been doing, without involving or harming others, for years, because someone makes a law against it.

ANOTHER YEAR’S END, ANOTHER POLITICAL MURDER

The leader of the opposition in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was attending a political rally earlier on today when she was shot in the neck by an assassin, who then proceeded to finish the job by pulling the plug on himself and ultimately also her.
It seems to be the done thing, to assinate famous political types at the end of the Western year.
It’s a damn shame, anyway.
The facts will probably limp their way across the finishing line of the world’s attention in dribs and drabs, across the coming year, but as for now all I can say is that we should be grateful that the worst our leading politicians can suffer over here is the humiliation of a verbal beating from a vigourous political opponent.
The most revealing facts pulled out by rival, based on a press attack, can be damaging, but it’s nothing like being shot then blown up.
And there is hope for us yet.

POST CHRISTMAS JOKE

Are you over Christmas yet? I’m glad it’s done with. My favourite pastime is New Year (Maybe it’s the Scot in me). I prefer it to any other pastime.
Anyhow, here’s the joke:

The local Ghost Hunting society had a new member.
She was young, enthusiastic and very likeable, and so eager was she to show she meant this ghost hunting lark, she volunteered to spend a New Year’s eve alone in an otherwise empty haunted house.
She even purchased her own special equipment, and when the gang drove her and dropped her off, she promised she would do her best for the team.
Sometime, in the night, there was a light breeze. Then all her detecting equipment went haywire, flashes, lines, bells, the lot.
She sat up and reached for the light.
And there clean as anything, a gentle, elderly male voice;
“Don’t put the light on, my dear, or you won’t see me properly.”
The girl blinked and then in front of her formed a figure. Wearing a long jacket and a workingman’s cap. His grey hair was visible under the rim of the cap. His colour at first was all grey and black and then slowly it flushed in, and there was a blue eyed, pink cheeked smiling gentleman. He removed his cap and bowed to her.
“Good evening, my dear.”
The girl was staring, mouth open.
“Y. you’re a spook, aren’t you? Really?”
The ghost blinked and smiled his benign smile;
“That’s right. And you’re a ghost hunter?”
“I. . .I can’t believe this.”
“Then why are you here then?”
“I can’t put the main light on?”
“Well yes, but, well, it’s a bit hard to explain, and I don’t understand it meself, but it’s like if you put a gas ring on in a room full of natural light.”
“It disappears. It’s almost invisible.”
“Yes. And that’s how it is with us spooks.”
Then the girl began to weep. Softly, sadly.
“What on earth is the matter?” The caring spook came closer.
“Oh sir, this is my first go and I so wanted to photograph you, the evidence, to show the others and I can’t.”
“Whyever not?”
“Well, if I put a light on you’ll fade.”
“You’ve got a camera?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ve got a flash on it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, go for it.”
“Go for it?”
“Yes. I only appear once a year here. Something to do with the anniversary of me death. And a nice kid like you deserves a chance.” Said the chivalrous spook. “If the flash is good enough, it should catch a decent facsimile of me.”
“But you said. . .” The girl sniffed and wiped her eyes but her hope was back, “the light would make you fade?”
“But we aren’t talking about a bright electric light, are we? The constant glare. A quick flash would capture my image.”
The girl sniffed again. The gentlemanly spook patted his pockets.
“I’m afraid I haven’t a handkerchief. No need for them where I am. And it wouldn’t work with you anyway.”
“I can photograph you? Promise?”
“Of course.” And the spook lifted himself inches off the floorboards and hovered. The girl gasped. The spook smiled. “To prove I’m the real McCoy.” He frowned a moment, “whatever that means.”
So the girl began to snap flash photos off of the spook, who, obligiingly, struck all manner of etheral poses as proof. He even made himself fade in more than one shot, so she could see the wall behind him.
When the film ran out, the girl lowered the camera.
“Thank you very much sir. I’m so grateful.” She patted her camera, “in here is the proof I need to show my pals down the Ghost Hunting club.”
“I’m glad to be of service, my dear.” The spook looked across one shoulder, “now I must away.” He tipped his cap to her and went the way he came, colour draining first, then he himself fading into nothing.
As soon as he’d gone, the girl grabbed for her mobile and rang round her spook fan compatriots and raised most of them from their early morning bed and explained excitedly what had happened.
“Soon as it gets morning, proper morning, come round to the club.” The eldest member advised, drowsily, “use our darkroom, to avoid calls of cheat, and develop them and if they’re as good as you say they are, and turn out as well, we’ve got a scoop.”
The girl was there half an hour before the eldest member drew up in his car. He unlocked the door and she ran in to the darkroom and began working on the film while the eldest member brewed tea and watched the red light to show someone was in there.
After half an hour, the girl came out. The eldest member stood up. He could tell by her expression things hadn’t turned out well. The photos confirmed this.
The best one looked nothing like a spook. More like the reflection from an outside light on a wall. The worst one was indistingushable from a smudge on the lens.
“I don’t understand it.” The girl wailed, “the spook was so eager, he posed and levitated and everything. And I was sure I’d got him with the camera. He said it would be all right.”
“Ah.” The wise old elder member handed the girl her cup of tea and as she sipped from it, he made his conclusion, “it’s the old story in ghost hunting. The spirit is willing but the flash is weak.”

AN APPROPRIATE POEM

ONE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY

For this final addition I’ve created a little verse which I hope tells you exactly what I feel about the whole business.
And I called it:

CELEBRATING A BIRTH THAT NEVER WAS

There’ll be no snow,
‘cross the Peninnes this year,
It fact, it’ll probably rain,
Rain nice and clean to wash away,
The blood from a GBH stain.

The A&E Dept
Will be crowded again,
As people they overindulge,
There will be violence,
and car crashes and death,
And sick from a beer belly bulge.

They’ll be too much food,
and alcohol drink,
some poison from taking too much,
The family together
will end up all wrong,
Tears and falls out and such.

The shops are all shut,
The buses don’t run,
Unless you can pay there’s no cheer.

And I love every moment,
I wouldn’t change one thing,
A misanthrope’s time of the year.

Note : A misanthrope does not wish anyone harm. A misanthrope just knows that if human beings are allowed total, unrestricted freedom, it won’t turn out all the best.

That’s your lot.
Have a good ‘un,
And the ‘Heading Full on For Christmas’ will be back next year, that’s if I’m still here to resurrect it.
Oh yes.

All the best!

A SEASONAL ACCOUNT OF BUSTING HEROES

TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY

Father Christmas arrested

Listen for the the world weary inner-city accented copper’s line;
“So, if I open that trunk, I’m not gonna find anything I don’t like, am I?”
And Santa’s response, after being arrested:
“I know you, I know where you live, I am gonna take you out, and I don’t mean on a date.”
As the copper puts it;
“This is the worst part of the job, bustin’ your heroes.”

Tomorrow will be the last addition in ‘Heading full on for Christmas’. I’ve got something special semi-planned that doesn’t involve linking to other people’s doings.

FOR FANS OF CHRISTMAS : CLIFF RICHARD SINGS ‘MISTLETOE AND WINE’

THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY

I’ve realised that not everyone is an old crank and a cynic like yours truly, so I’ve added this for those who aren’t.*
Cliff Richard singing ‘Mistletoe and Wine’.
Youtube is my saviour, yet again.
A very good traditional song and a real, live, moving video accompaniment. With snotty kids and fake snow and stars and real lit candles and an all singing all dancing Cliff himself. Enjoy it while you can! (Whatever that means). As you don’t get much visual from this place, connected or actually in the posting itself.
(Actually, I was going to make this the final entry in this ‘Heading full on for Christmas’ category, one day before Christmas day, but I’ve got something really special planned for that entry.)

*If you can’t stand the pleasantness overload try singing the words I reduced a roomful of Christians to thoughtful silence with when this was popular, near the end of the Eighties;
‘Christmas time,
Mistletoe and wine,
Children singing Christian rhyme,
Wi’ gifts on the fire,
And logs on the tree,
Oops, I got it wrong, silly me.’

Whatever you think about the whole thing, enjoy this three days before Christmas day entry.

THE REAL MEANING OF THE SEASON

FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY AND THE DAY OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN BIRTH OF SUN.

This picture says it all.

A group of members of non human species forgathering to celebrate the birth of the sun after a long cold winter.
(I know originally that it was exclusively ancient humans who did the celebrating, not sure whether or not the daylight would come after the seemingly endless darkness, and it’s exclusively a northern hemisphere thing, but I’m not a fan of my own species and believe that other species exist too.)
Happy Solstice and
All the best.

A ROTTEN CHRISTMASS FOR A CERTAIN SET OF PEOPLE

FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

For this five days before Christmas Day addition, I’d like to send you back down the years and across the continents.
Thirty-nine years ago today, Friday the twentieth of December 1968, a parking area known as a lover’s lane in the Lake Herman Road area of Vallejo in California. Past eleven p.m.
It’s cold, so the young couple, both in their mid teens, put on the heater of the car in which they are sitting.
It’s a first date, so there is a mixture of nerves and hope for the future.
Which was about to be shattered.
Neither of the kids lived to tell the tale, but there was enough forensic evidence, and accounts of survivors from subsequent attacks to gather together what might have happened.
A car pulled up behind that containing Betty Jensen and David Faraday, and it’s headlights illuminated the interior of the vehicle.
The couple, still bathed in that innocence that the Sixties, the era of trust and love, projected, reached for their ID’s expecting it to be the law breaking up the party.
What they didn’t expect was for the stocky, heavy man in the glasses and wearing windbreaker and a crewcut to bundle them out of the car, arriving from the passenger side. They protested. The man reached in, put the muzzle of the gun against the boy’s neck and pulled the trigger. Ending the arguement. Winning the arguement.
The girl ran, screaming. The stocky man lifted his gun, switched on the torch he’d taped to the barrel, causing a small white circle to land in the middle of the fleeing girl’s back. He’d practiced enough to know that even the darkest night could be broken and that where the white light was most peircing was where the bullets would hit.
Betty Jensen died hit by five bullets.
The man got into his car, dumped his gun into the passenger seat, and calmly drove off.
And the first signs, the stirrings, that innocent behaviour might not always be rewarded by gentlemanly kindness, came down on the darkened countryside.
The two kids were dead, and even today, shocked reverberations affect the way we behave when out at night, no matter what our location and our intention.
The Zodiac killer had arrived, out of the dark, blasting kids, later killing by knife, and writing letters to the press, each letter more vicious in it’s insane celebration of reason out of control.
He was never caught. His last victim was officially that of San Franscio Yellow Cab driver Paul Stine. The letters carried on for a while, then petred out for no discernable reason. Just like him.
He might still be alive now. Matured out of the urge to get his kicks from firing a gun, the blast, the roar, at screaming, terrified, helpless youngsters, he might be sitting now, thinking about the past, maybe chuckling to himself, rasing a glass to the old him, king of the world, with his gun and that POWER. Maybe being stirred by a partly forgetten memory of something that happened many years ago, frowning, puzzled, then turning back to the smiling faces of his family, the thoughts eradicated by their light, noisy presence.
He might have even gone to see the filmed accounts of his crimes on the big screen, or watched them in the enclosed privacy of his own home. He might have copies of the books on his career shoved in a bookcase in his home.
He spawned at least two direct imitators, and a dozen speculative accounts.
He, in his own way, changed the way many people look at strangers, and alter their lives to make room for such dark entitites.

With that I’m going to draw back, on this five days before Christmas addition.

SONG FOR CHRISTMAS – NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DOINGS

SIX DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY

This song is brilliant.
It’s found on ‘Youtube’ and it’s Rod Stewart singing ‘Rhythm of My Heart’ accompanied by just a picture, a static picture of a bloody red sunset, no action, so engage your tabbed browsing so you can hear it without seeing just a picture.
Unless of course you like looking at pictures then good luck to you.
If you listen you’ll hear that it’s really nothing to do with Christmas, but there is something about it that always makes me think of this time of year.
It might have been a hit, or something, a forgotten number of Christmases ago, and something happened at that time that for me will always unite the Christmas season with this upbeat tune with the pessimistic, rather misanthropic words.
(In fact, some of the lines sound like the product of an attention-hungry serial murderer’s correspondence with the authorities.)

By the way, forget what you might think; what you might have seen and/or heard in a video alongside this soundtrack. It’s nothing to do with small-town USA. The song is set in and is about Scotland.
Where else?

It’s the seven days before Christmas addition and by now you’ve probably realised I don’t exactly celebrate a CHRISTIAN Christmas.
That is, if you’re expecting a traditional, sweet nativity or mention of it, then you’re wasting your time and mine turning up here in the next half dozen days.

ILLUSIONS, BROUGHT OUT AND EXPOSED

SEVEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY

And I know I shouldn’t but it had to be done.
One of the most popular festive films that are guarenteed an airing at this time of year is Frank Capra’s ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, about a doubting do-gooder who, instead of leaving home and seeing the big world, stays in his small town home to save it from a money-grabbing tycoon. Years later, when his bumbling Uncle loses the money (dropped and picked up by the tycoon, showing how throughly warped he is) that would save his family savings and lone from being swallowed up by the still present tycoon, he runs out into the night and meets an angel who gives him his wish, that he’d never been born, and he sees what a rotten place the town would be without his influence and when he comes back to life, heads home and the locals get together and provide him with the money he’d lost.
James Stewart’s quiet, tweedy small town man with a conscience comes to life in a more acute way in George Bailey than in any other role he played (Mr Smith comes a distant, but recognisable second).
Lionel Barrymore as the twisted, hateful wheelchair bound Mr Gow, his bitter rival, whose broken body and sour looks match his evil soul. (Actually, he would probably be a succesful COE, buying out the Bailey Buying and Loan and putting it out of business, and would win awards and accolades for his sharp business sense. And why is he hanging round Bedford Falls? I mean, he’s a tycoon, worth millions. Is the Bailey family Buying and Loan business so important he refuses to move on? He could eat firms like that for breakfast and not notice the money added to his pile. He could have a penthouse somewhere and be raking in the millions putting families on the dole.)
Now here comes the shattering of childhood illusions.
A bit back, on the radio there was an interview with a famous director and he blew the gaff on George Bailey and his wish coming true on that Christmas Eve heavy with dispair and laid on the line exactly what Frank Capra was playing at.
In one scene, Bailey is driving his car to a bridge to throw himself off, hoping that the insurance pay off at his death will be enough to provide the tycoon with his blood money. He crashes the car. At the point he bangs his head.
And yes folks, you guessed it.
The rest of it is a dream. A result of the bump on the head. Rather like in ‘A Matter of Life And Death’, there was no conductor, no heavenly interaction, just a man injured and fantasising due to that injury. Only he doesn’t need an op to reset his brain, but he recovers on his own from his daze.
Frank Capra wouldn’t admit it, but that is the way it was. There was no Clarence the angel, no wish come true, no heavenly interaction.
In fact, if you watch it properly, all the angel does it provide him with a morality tale (it’s not about money, friends and family matter.) And the denounment is that the money owed is collected due a lot of earthly, corpereal intervention. The angel Clarence doesn’t do anything practical to get Bailey out of the fiancial hole he is in.
In the week leading up to Christmas, it’s the only way I can totally ruin at least part of it for you.

In fact, everyone I’ve mentioned it to, with one exception, made a noise like I’d soured a cherised fantasy for them, Some refused to believe. As if me mishearing a radio interview makes the story true, and not just a made-up tale pressed onto celluloid anyway.
The single exception : My Mother. She said ‘ah’ and smiled, and nodded, like she’d known all along. Like she had been vindicated, and it was again proven that this life is all there is, and the only way we can see heaven is due to a head injury or a stroke, and that we carry on in the memory of those who care for us.

This ends the addition for seven days before Christmas 2007.