I'll tell you what I miss the most: close-quarter conversations which don't involve even a passing reference to the virus and Saturdays. You can keep the rest of the week, but now that Saturdays have been abolished I realise what they were for.
I have made a few discoveries (nothing useful to medical science, sorry) since the lockdown, and the latest is the original 'The Mighty Boosh' radio series. All six episodes have been stored safely in podcast form, waiting for me to finally find them after 16 years. I'm like that with films too. If everyone raves about a recent release, I leave it until it makes it onto DVD and the DVD makes it to a charity shop. Now that DVDs are almost obsolete and I refuse to subscribe to Netflix, there will be many films which I will never see.
Anyone familiar with The Mighty Boosh in audio form will know that it is a highly surreal comedy series set in a zoo run by a man called Bob Fossil. Anyone who is unfamiliar with it will have to listen to it in order to understand anything more than that. It defies any meaningful description other than 'surreal'.
Because I have left it so late to discover, I cannot decide if I have trouble keeping up with the stupefyingly quick, nuanced changes in direction is because I have become slow with age, but I do find myself wanting to hit the pause button so that I can spend a couple of seconds savouring one bit of subtle brilliance before they move on to another in the same breath. I don't think I could cope with listening to it whilst stoned without fainting from an overload.
I am a bit scared of watching the TV version, because I cannot imagine it could be as good as the original radio. Audio paints much better pictures.
You are so right about audio painting better pictures. I find that with books too. We are not being told what to see. Thanks for passing on the Mighty Boosh audio tip. I've seen the series (no really, you'll love it). Now I'll track down the audio.
ReplyDeleteDon't you hate canned laughter? Being told what is funny?
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ReplyDeleteI listened to one episode on the radio after reading this and loved it (I was going to ask you if you had something you could recommend to me the other day and forgot and now I have it). I looked at a bit of the tv one on You Tube but much preferred the radio one. Thanks. (I deleted first comment due to a typo which turned the sense on its head).
ReplyDeleteI have lain in bed listening to all the episodes, sometimes laughing out loud. I particularly like Rob Fossil's approach to management and the mysterious horseman's inexplicable obscene abuse, sadly bleeped out for the BBC.
DeleteBob, not Rob... I think...
DeleteI like that he's always got an answer and is unfazed.
DeleteI like the idea that he goes apeshit every time.
DeleteUnfazed apeshit.
DeleteOh, I must find this! I love the Mighty Boosh tv show and knew there was a radio show before it but the BBC links never worked for us in the Antipodes before. Fingers crossed it's changed in this New World.
ReplyDeleteI have learned that the eponymous Mighty Boosh refers to the haircut of one of the creative duo. Trivia.
Delete" … I do find myself wanting to hit the pause button so that I can spend a couple of seconds savouring one bit of subtle brilliance before they move on to another in the same breath."
ReplyDeleteI sometimes experience this sensation when I read a book. Every now and then there is a sentence that is so beautifully constructed or so brilliant that I take pause for a moment, lift my eyes off the page and stare into the middle distance, just to return my eyes to the page and read that one sentence three more times.
Try Witgenstein. One can spend hours staring into the middle distance digesting a few words.
DeleteNoel Fielding looks like a bit of a raptor (not in a bad way) to me.
ReplyDeleteI have never known what he looks like until now, and even now I don't know which one he is.
DeleteYears ago I had cousins visit from far away. Having no spare bedroom, I gave them my double bed, turfed my youngest out of her bed and into her sisters room in a sleeping bag. I took that bedroom. I was reading a book. A funny book. I could not put it down, and read and laughed late into the night. On their leaving I mentioned I hoped they's slept well. My cousin's husband said "Except for someone laughing all night."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a scene from The Mighty Boosh. In one bit, they have a midnight clandestine meeting and one shouts to the other, "HELLO MATE!" as he is singing along to some tune, because he has Walkman earphones plugged in. I had to try and stifle my laughter to stop myself from waking up H.I. in the next room.
DeleteSame with me: if friends - or worth: newspapers - recommend "You HAVE to see this fabulous film, read that exceptional book!" is almost as a sentence of death for it.
ReplyDeleteI love to find and explore for myself.
As I go to the cinema I have a criteria for me thinking if a film was really good: then I buy it as a DVD (months later). And I watch DVDs more than once, love the feeling that there is something nice waiting when on TV are only hysterical Corona news (oh, sorry, shouldn't have mentioned IT).
It is amazing how quickly most DVD films go stale. Some last forever - like Powell and Pressburger.
DeleteOr - for me (I know that many many people disagree) is "Keeping Up Appearances" still adorable, and "The Knack" and "Withnail and I" and "Yes, Minister", and..and..and...
DeleteAudio lets your brain do the visual imagining. I remember the Hitchhiker's Guide as a radio series. It was a disappointment when the visual version arrived, apart from the changes made
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