invertedhourglass.com blog of history, writing, poems and comedy videos!

The Sunday Blog Post: A Day Late again! (Alice in Wonderland 3D And A Little Announcement!)

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 23:06:06 +0000

Hello everybody! What a disgrace I am! The second post in a row that has landed a day late! But to be fair this time I was at work for 9 hours and then had to rush home to go to the cinema as I had only been informed at about midnight the previous night when the trip to the movies was to take place!

So then first of all we will have the big (read: small) announcement! The long rumoured video episodes of both the history and story podcasts will be coming up in the next few weeks! Yes like I said it is not a massive announcement but it is something different to see on these pages. The history episode was due to go live on the normal date which would be this Friday but it is proving more difficult than I had imagined to get the script, location and weather to all play ball at the same time! I am aiming very low for the first history episode about 8 minutes long and at a very local historical site. I will let you know how it goes! It should be online in two weeks at the latest!

As for the short story video, I have considered various previous stories from the series but then I had an idea. The story will be of somebody making a video! So that is looking like quite a good idea at the moment, as with all the stories it will be very short only 2-4 minutes and should make itself known to the internet in 3 weeks at the most!

Keep your eyes open for those! But what else has been going on this week? Well on Friday night there was a lovely trip out round town... or at least there was a group of drunken supermarket workers engaging in various antics that wouldn’t make their mothers proud! I can happily say that I have continued my none drinking spree and on the night in question drank maybe a quarter of a pint in 5 hours, and that was only because everybody kept insisting that I try their drinks! It was however a fascinating evening and assured me that my no alcohol diet is definitely the right diet for me!

Then last night (Sunday, the day this post is meant to go live!) I took up an invitation to go to the cinema to see the new Alice in Wonderland film. As always I won’t mention any story lines but I will say that I really enjoyed it. It is the first time I have been to the pictures for a few years and the first new 3D film I have seen. I found that the whole 3D thing was not really that big of a deal. It is indeed amazing and all but as far as adding anything to the whole experience goes it seems to not even register as a factor after a while. Maybe that is just me, though. Still a great film!

Well that just about wraps up this weeks random collection of words!
Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

The Day Late Friday Post! Art!

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 16:36:34 +0000

Welcome back everybody, I was somewhat in demand yesterday and never got round to finishing the post for the day. I did have a little poem to post but now I have re-read it I don’t think it is up to standard yet! A comedy verse about waiting for the bus! I will reword it and then get it online on wednesday.

So what shall I post today then? Well I have though long and hard about posting todays subject and I came to the ultimate conclusion of “Why Not?”. On this site you have seen me post video’s, stories, poems, podcasts and even a little comic. Almost the entire creative spectrum, except one, the first thing that most people would think of if you said the word art to them... Paintings!

Before we go any further I will point out that I absolutely do not claim any sort of ability with a paint brush and all of the things pictured here are made entirely for fun and just to see what happens. Some of them have literally started out with me having no idea what I was going to do. I very rarely pick up a brush and don’t have anywhere to put these creations so I have not really though it worth sharing them here. But here we are the cat is out of the bag!

So take a peek at the pictures and who knows where they might end up, perhaps somebody will see these and insist I take a multi-million pound commission to create a work for them... which I would obviously be very reluctant to accept!

(These are recent acrylic on canvas pictures)

(These are some 2006 oil on canvas paintings I did... ahhh the art of a younger me!)

Just thought I would share that with you!

Thanks for reading (... and looking!),
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

Random Review: Perfect Strangers

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:30:23 +0000

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, a nice little review for you today. Following on from the previous review of “Shooting The Past” I am now going to add another of Stephen Poliakoff’s creations to the review reel.

Keeping with recent tradition I will keep this short and I won’t destroy the plot or mention any potential spoilers. In many ways this is a very similar series to shooting the past. Even from the DVD cover you can see that there is an element of history in it and photographs are once again used as a centrepiece for various story lines to work around. Yet at the same time this is completely different to Shooting The Past.

The basic storyline here follows the events at a large wealthy families reunion and particularly the stories of one of the poorer relations who lost their money and became distant from the family. The general themes in the series are focussed around family and history... and the relationships between them. As with Shooting The Past I found that once I started watching this I had difficulty in stopping even though I didn’t really want the series to end!

The story is split into three episodes that run for a total of roughly four hours, these are four excellent hours of interesting storytelling. I really do once again find myself compelled to recommend everyone to get themselves a copy. How much did I enjoy it? Well I found myself setting my alarm slightly earlier so that I could watch a few sneaky minutes before the day began!

Hhhhmmmm judging by what is written above I should really work on my review technique! Oh well if you take away nothing else from the above just know that I highly recommend it! The usual links are below for anybody who wishes to help the site out!

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

The Sunday Blog Post: A Ghost Photo, a Logo and a Quiz That Wasn’t There

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:28:31 +0000

Hello again lads and lasses! This is one of the latest Sunday Blog Posts on record, as I write this right now the clock has just past 11:45, only 14 minutes left until it is no longer Sunday! Why am I writing this so late? Well there was meant to be a quiz at the wonderful Sainsbury’s Store that I happen to work in. As you may know I have a history of quizzing and was informed that I must attend. As fate had it I finished work at the quiz start... except there was no quiz, details on it’s demise are still sparse but the long and short of it was that myself and 4 other Sainsbrarian’s ended up heading to the Pub for tea!

Then to make something of the night we headed to another Pub to gather around the pool table... my history of pool has not been good, and after hours and hours of playing Killer (effectively an everyman for himself game, not to be confused with Micheal Jackson’s Thriller) I had potted anywhere between 4 and 6 balls! So alas this post came to be constructed so late on!

The other instances of note this week include the creation of a new Logo for the site, seen above, by one Miss Emily Griffiths, who I will now thank.... Thank you Emily! Although I want to keep the big IH logo on the site itself this logo is a solid professional looking affair that will find a home on the video’s in the title bars and credits.

Finally, (yep I’m back to trying to keep these short!) I have a terrifying tale to tell. One night me and a friend were out walking, and so in the interest of testing out the new camera I started taking random photo’s to see how it performed in pitch black and with the flash. When we got to an area where a man recently hung himself I just happened to take a random photo with the flash. When the photo showed up on the screen it was shrouded by a ghostly mist that wasn’t there in real life. This immediately gave me the shivers and it took a few attempts of breathing cold air across the lens and taking a photo to convincingly explain the mist as merely my breath.

However on getting back indoors and attempting to go to sleep I found I had been so terrified by this that I had to get up and delete all the photo’s from the camera, just in case... Just in case of what I am not really sure. But it still gives me the shivers now! Funny how the mind works.

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

Comics! The Second One! It Is Now Officially A Series!

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:04:13 +0000

Hello there, I hope you are all well, another little comic for you today, this time it is based on the subject of the game of the moment Modern Warfare 2. It may well be of no interest to a lot of you but to put this into context in a very brief way: I used to play games an awful lot... far too much! But over the last 2 years I have stopped playing almost entirely and dare I run the risk of being hated by millions... My life has been the better for its lack of gaming.

As somebody who went to a midnight opening and had the week off work for the launch of Halo 3 I can truly say I was a hardcore geek! Now however in my new life as an actual person I can say with a little smile that when this, the most anticipated game ever that broke all kinds of sales records was left on the shelf by myself for 4 months! When it then became one of only 2 game discs that I own!

Anyway enough about my inspirational lifestyle change! The moral of the story is that there is no such thing as “just one more game” online!

As a side note I have been investigating some great idea’s for the site and will hopefully have a small but big announcement for you soon! Nothing major just a new regular series if it all works out.

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

The Poorly Projected Projector Project!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:05:42 +0000

Well then folks welcome to another wednesday post, I was hoping to have something awesome to show you today, but instead I have been left empty handed! Booo!

As you may know I have been selling a lot of things on eBay recently and I decided to put some of that money back into a super-crazy-awesome thing, in the form of a projector for my room with the hope of connecting to the mac and a PS3. I had also been coming up with a few idea’s of how I could use it for different ideas and how it might be interesting to create certain effects by projecting things onto various items/people.

So yesterday the projector arrived and all was well, it is an absolutely incredible thing to see, how an image can be so clear and still be so sharp is amazing, to get an idea of the size the smaller computer screen in the above image is 27 inches itself! I cannot praise the thing itself enough... The only problem being that in a small room like mine a big screen like that is somewhat overwhelming... After sitting down with it for a few minutes I felt really ill, I never really thought you could get motion sick from things like this but it seems that you can! As well as some pretty intense headaches!

So to cut a long story short the humble projector is now back in it’s box waiting to head back to it’s place on the shelf at the warehouse, a great shame really, but it does now mean I will have to buy some bright green sheets to use as green screen so I can continue with my video plans... It would have been great to have done them with a real projector... but I will keep them quiet for now.

Yes todays post is another quiet whimper rather than the great splash I was hoping for, these are happening far to frequently, but don’t worry as I now have to pull something out of the bag to win over all your hearts and minds again! So during this month and march there will be some great new videos and some interesting writing! Watch this space! The first video history episode is going to be online during march, I am getting really excited and nervous about how it is going to work out!

Thanks for your patience during this time where all my idea’s are falling apart! Oh Well at least I get to spend £25 on green sheets instead!

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

The Sunday Blog Post: Camera WOW!

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:16:13 +0000

Hello again friends and strangers alike! It has been a rather quiet week again! There seem to have been far to many of these quiet weeks recently, but oh well. As I said in a previous post I have sold my iPhone and used the money to get a decent camera. The one I ended up with has a 15x optical zoom and a mode for taking incredible super closeups. These two features are so much better than I ever expected.

This is going to be a very short sunday blog post as it is all about the photo’s! I am going to assume that this page will load ok and that the photo’s will keep their quality when uploaded or this post could be a bit of a disaster!
Right then what you are seeing above are a few of the weeks photo’s or parts of them, the top big picture is a panorama made of 3 different photo’s of a field just in front of the Candy Woods that I am always talking about. The full sized image is about 47inches wide in real life.. or at least on my computer! Below that the small photo of a monument is a photo of Rodney’s pillar on the hills in the far distance of the big photo. It is a bit blurry because I have tried to zoom in on it to show you on the site. That was taken with full zoom and the pillar is barely visible to the naked eye... the incredible thing is that that photo was taken from over 9 miles away!!!

I literally couldn’t believe it when I saw just how good the image was for a photo of an object 9 miles away! The photo below that is of our dear Queen on a 2 pence piece, I used the super close up mode and the resulting photo is amazing, a 2p coin is roughly an inch wide in real life, in the the photo it is 13 inches wide and still perfectly clear!

The two photo’s at the sides are pretty self explanatory close ups! One of some icy snow on some grass and the other of some lovely snowdrops! If anybody would like to see the full sets of photo’s from the week you can take a look here for the walking scenery pics and here for some random testing photo’s!

That is all that there is really to report from the week! Hopefully this is a nice change to me talking about random things!

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

Original Short Stories: A Funny Story

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:00:46 +0000

Hello everybody and welcome to another friday over here at invertedhourglass, hope you are all well. i have noted that I tend to bable on at the start of these posts rsther than just write what the post is actually about, so lets dive straight into it today! A new short story! Remember you can hear the audio version of this on the audio page or you can subscribe to the series for free in iTunes!

A Funny Story
By Daniel .M. Brown

Who could it possibly be calling at this hour? Mary stumbled around in the dark as her hands felt the walls for a light switch. The first night of their holiday was not going smoothly, first the oven had stopped working, leaving them to eat as many kettle boiled items as they had packed, in other words, leaving them to have two cup-a-soups for tea! A light bulb had later gone in the bathroom and now somebody was knocking on the door of their holiday cottage at who knows what time of night.
“Click” the room filled with light and as her eyes adjusted to the light Mary threw on some more flattering clothes than the dreadful tatty pajamas she was wearing, or at least she thought she had. On her way down the stairs however she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of a portrait. It was one of Marks t-shirts she had grabbed by mistake; she looked past her reflection and at the painting itself for a split second as she descended. A young girl looked back at her, caught in the silence of the artists brush for all eternity. “Now that is peace” she thought.
So it was that she got to the door in a swift time, not swift enough it seemed, the doorway was deserted and just as she was about to close the door and head back to sleep she heard a voice call out.
“Hello, hello?”
It was coming from behind the hedge. She couldn’t quite tell how old the owner of the voice might be, the only certain thing was that it was a man. She was a little scared now though, should she go down and meet the voice, what time was it? She could barely make out the path to the gate yet alone anything past it. Were it not for the light inside the house shining through the open doorway she doubted that she would be able to see anything at all.
She took a deep breath and out she went. Her slippers immediately started to feel the strain of the gravel path, the open toes did not help matters as within a few steps one of her toenails was split. Curling her toes as much as a human possibly could she traveled the rest of the short way to hedge.
She peeked round into the dark, only to find a man, probably in his thirties crouching down comforting a younger woman, probably in her early twenties. They were both illuminated with the light from the mans mobile phone. In this light it could be seen what the problem was, the woman’s right arm, or wrist to be precise was swollen to a very unsightly size, Mary felt a little bit queasy as she looked on.
The young woman’s gaze fell upon her and she realized it was time to introduce her presence on the scene. “Are you ok here?” She inquired.
“No” was the girls quick yet sorrowful and moaning response. The man interrupted telling the girl to stay still and quiet while he explained to Mary what was going on. They had been out walking during the day and in the excitement of the great outdoors had lost their way while they were descending one of the larger mountains in the area. Now finally when they were almost home the girl had slipped and done this dreadful injury to her wrist.
After hearing this tale of unfortunate events Mary invited them into the house and offered to call for an ambulance. The man declined and said that the car was not to far away so he would pop out and collect it then drive to the nearest A&E. He seemed in a rush, but Mary thought it was only natural seeing what he had to deal with. As he went to leave he bent down to put his shoes back on and as he stood up his long shorts rose just above his knee’s for a split second.
That split second was enough though for Mary to catch a quick glimpse of his grass stained knee’s Mary smiled for just a moment, as she thought “No prizes for guessing what they have been up to”.
With one last look to the girl the man, who still had not told Mary either of their names left for his car. Mary told the girl she would be back in a second as she went upstairs to tell Mark what was going on. Waking him up in a daze she started to explain, but before she had even had the chance to say the girl was injured she found herself rudely interrupted by the sound of Marks snoring. “Oh well” she thought and back down stairs she trotted.
Sitting with the girl for a few minutes she inquired about where they had been walking only to find that the girl was very drowsy and wasn’t really giving any coherent responses and didn’t seem to recall any mountains during the day. The girl soon became upset insisting that she hug Mary for comfort. As she did so Mary noticed that the girls breath did not smell of alcohol, which ruled out her first assumption that she was drunk. Then when she told the girl not to worry and that her boyfriend would be back soon the girl became frantic and panic stricken claiming she did not know who he was and that he had only met her in the village an hour ago.
The terrifying revelations of the girl were interrupted by the doorbell. He was back to get her. What was Mary to do?

The End.

Thanks for reading / listening,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

Random Review: Free Stuff! Podcast Recommendations!

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:42:16 +0000

Hello folks, I thought that I would use this weeks bi-weekly review to recommend some podcasts. This site has been having a lot more views ever since the rise of my History podcast on iTunes so I assume that this new traffic is coming from new listeners (Hello to all the new people, I hope you like at least one thing about this site!) I thought that maybe it would be a good chance to share some of my own top podcasts and for once give people some content that they themselves might actually want!

These are just three of the many podcasts I listen to, there are far more to mention and I will probably do it further down the line, these ones I think though appeal to the broadest audience, so they get to go first! Just a quick summary, these are more recommendations than reviews... how can you criticise... it is all free!

The Classic Tales Podcast (iTunes Link : Website)

The Classic tales is a long running series in which the host B.J. Harrison recites classic short stories, and some longer ones. A huge amount of effort goes into this podcast and it is released on a weekly basis to further increase the workload! The recordings are excellent quality, easily professional level quality and the host even takes the time to create different voices for the characters.
At the time of writing this there is one of my beloved Jeeves stories being serialised on the show... what more could be asked for?!

The Moth Podcast (iTunes Link : Website)

This is not so much a podcast series as the others instead this is a weekly upload of a random story told on stage and without notes at one of The Moth events. Check the website for full details but to sum it up The Moth is a group which organises various events and nights where people with interesting stories can share them on stage. This is a very professionally produced show as a result which is a big plus. The stories normally last between 10-20 minutes and could be based on anything that has happened in all kinds of peoples lives, comedy, tragedy and everything between. They really need to be heard to really understand what I am trying to say, but this is definitely a recommended listen!

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (iTunes Link : Website)

Once again this is a very professionally recorded podcast. Dan Carlin was/is a radio broadcaster so he has experience with audio shows and it seems access to some really good equipment. These shows are very few and far between, but they well worth the wait. Often over an hour long they feature Dan talking about the past in an enthusiastic way, not completely scripted so there are always moments where in the excitement you can tell he has just had an amazing thing occur to him. He claims to be a History Fan rather than a historian, which I have always liked the idea of and as he says this lets him imagine all sorts of different things that a historian couldn’t really theorise over. The show is backed regularly by sounds relating to the topic being covered and they certainly add to the experience. If the episodes could be more frequent then this would be the perfect podcast!

Well, I don’t know if my reviews are actually helpful but the recommendations definitely remain well worth checking out. They are all definitely in the top end of podcast production and could easily be mistaken for radio shows or audiobooks, the fact that they are all free makes them incredible value for money!

(The photo above is taken with my new camera... I sold the iPhone and got the cheapest camera with a good zoom that I could... Check back for the sunday blog post with amazing photo’s etc!)

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

The Sunday Blog Post: Walking and Phone Companies!

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:16:54 +0000

Hello everybody and good evening if you are reading this while I write it!? This is being posted a little bit late in the day I must admit as I have been out walking and then selling my iPhone! Yes I know it is a crazy world that we live in! The device that has sat next to me for 19 months is now no longer in my possession. What’s more is that i put it on eBay and it was sold and paid for within 2 minutes! That really was unexpected!

Why? I just don’t use it enough to be honest, it is all fine and well having 140,000 apps available but in the last few months I have only downloaded 1 game! I never ever phone people up with it and I rarely text, sure it is great to have an ipod on your phone, but I have been increasingly listening to podcasts through my iMac and as for music, well that has always been something for proper speakers and not earphones! The only thing that I can say that I have consistently used from start to finish is the camera, but now even that is just not up to standard. I want to be able to take photo’s that can be viewed on a computer screen (and not just the big iMac screen any computer screen!) and not look blurry and horrible the second they are imported! So thanks to the ridiculously quick sale I am now able to buy a decent camera and still have change for some chips!

Right then that is the first thing that I just wanted to vent! The thing that has pushed me to selling it is the fact that now I am no longer on contract I am still expected to put £10 a month on it just to carry on texting and phoning, if I don’t put any money on it the previous £10 credit is literally just taken away from me and I go back to zero, I will make no accusations but where is the line drawn for something being theft or just business? I am now using my old fashioned phone! It has no back or sides and the battery is barely held onto the body by anything at all! Phew I am glad I have got that off my chest!

Anyway apart from that I have been making the most of the sunny weather and my time off work, I have managed to hit to road the last two days racking up about 25 miles together. It is a fascinating change in weather, perfect blue skies and bright sun, still chilly though, but as soon as I start walking I am far to hot and the scarf and gloves come off! I am always amazed that when I walk on the country lanes I see hardly any cars, today for example I probably walked down the back lanes for 12 miles and saw a grand total of 4 or 5 cars in the nearly 4 hours I was out!

I am afraid that there isn’t really much for me to say here! I know it is just meant to be a random blog post about things that I have been doing, but I really haven’t been doing much, like I said before I was hoping to be in Scotland for the last 3 days of the week so I couldn’t very well plan any things of great excitement! But fear not as I am already devising plans for some great news videos!

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

Comics! Now in a Proper Series!

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:26:43 +0000

Holla to you all! Yesterday I promised two comics, today I am only delivering one. Booooo! But wait! I have changed todays plans because while I was putting the comics together I had a thought: “Why not make them into a series?” So that’s what I did! There is now a “comics” tab in the menu bar above where a huge page of images will eventually become unload-able!

I am wandering whether these will be a monthly or bi-weekly thing, it all depends on how many ideas I can come up with I suppose. So we will wait and see. For now though, please enjoy the following production!

Thanks for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

A Post To Catch Up With The Exciting World Of Inversion!

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:20:58 +0000

Hello everybody I hope that you are all in good spirits! Some of you will be aware that there was a chance that I was going to be in Scotland right now, but seeing that I am posting this you may well have guessed that I didn’t make it!

Alas, it would have been good to have got myself up there for my friends birthday and some general Scottish fun but at the very least stopping round Oswestry allows me to head into my beloved Candy Woods! Today was the first time this year that I have been up there without a foot of snow or more! The above picture is certainly a stark contrast compared to the last post in the snow!

That is the first topic covered, now on to a few other little bits and pieces that I wanted to bring up, this is very much a news update for all things inverted I suppose! First of all the posting schedule for this week is clearly all up the wall! The was no review yesterday and today is a thursday that normally has no post at all! This is down to the fact that I was hoping to be in Scotland as I mentioned and also because I had to get the podcast online on Monday instead of tomorrow!
However to make sure that this week still has a decent set of posts I will post another two of my terrible cartoons here tomorrow! So make sure that you check back to see how I am doing with them!

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise for how long it took me to reply to comments on the last week or so’s blog posts, I normally reply as soon as I see a comment but for some reason I was unable to post the responses, so while everybody else was commenting, me, dan brown, owner of the site could not!!! I have now replied and everything seems to be good and fine again!

Next up on the newscast! I would like to thank all the new listeners to the history podcast, and especially those who have been in contact with me by email. It was also good to hear from long time podcaster Mr. Jim Mowatt of Historyzine (click to visit!) back when I tried my hand at podcasting for the first time he had a good deal of advice for me, so he deserves a special mention!

And finally I have made a few changes to the site layout, with the smaller menu bar at the top and a new enhanced “About” page. I have also now got rid of the individual amazon and download store pages in favour of a single page with links straight to the amazon homepage’s and t-shirt shop. The new single page shop screen also now houses the downloads page for audio and eBooks! If you find any problems or bugs in the new layout then please let me know in the comments and I will get them sorted.

That is pretty much it for todays very odd post! Check back tomorrow for a proper sensible post... or at least as sensible a post as my comics can possibly make!

Thanks for your patience and for reading,
As always,
Look after yourself,
and have fun,

dan

A Little Bit of History: Would Be Wodehouse

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 10:13:23 +0000

Hello again everybody! Great to see you here for the podcast, remember that as well as the below transcript you can also listen to the show on iTunes by Clicking Here, or by listening to the file directly on the Audio Page.
It has been an incredible month so far for the history show as it has somehow found itself to be in the top 30 of all podcasts on iTunes UK, I am extremely grateful to everybody who has been listening and to see my funny little face on the iTunes podcast homepage is certainly a bizarre thing indeed.

So with a big thank you to everybody out there, we will get on with the show!

This week we are going to follow the real life story of one of the great authors of the early 1900’s Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. Better know as the less grand sounding P. G. Wodehouse he is probably most famous for his stories following the lives of Bertie Wooster and his long suffering butler Jeeves. I personally am a huge fan his writing and his hilariously over the top characters and the excessively wordy dialogues that he gives to them, for those unfamiliar to the writing style I will briefly explain with a two brief quotes, these are taken from the back of some of the Jeeves books I have:

“There are aspects of Jeeves’s character which have frequently caused coldness to arise between us. He is one of those fellows who, if you give them a thingummy, take a what-d’you-call-it.”

and

“To the best of my knowledge Jeeves has never encountered a charging rhinoceros, but should the contingency occur, I have no doubt that the animal, meeting his eye, would check itself mid-stride, roll over and lie purring with its legs in the air.”

It was only last year that I realised that Wodehouse had another interesting story that was not written but in fact lived, so our story begins on October the 15th 1881 when behind the doors of Number 1 Vale Place, of Guildford in Surrey, England a certain Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born. Who would have guessed that he would live his final years in America after being put in a position of near exile for presumed treason and collusion with Nazi Germany? Is this the greatest story of Wodehouse?

Being born to a well off family in the late Victorian age was something that many children of the era would have dreamed of and if you read the works of Pelham or Plum as his family and friends knew him you can easily get the impression that the life of the upper classes were full of joy and hilarity, nothing but larking around with ones chums and so on. There were however many downsides, for the young Wodehouse it seems that his came in the form of a childhood very distant from his parents. Not just emotionally but literally, his father was a Judge in Hong Kong and after a brief time with his family aged only 3 he was brought back to England to be raised by a nanny.

As he grew up it was noted by those around him that he would be constantly writing and creating stories and other literary items although it is impossible to know the truth it has been speculated that he was attempting to fill the parent shaped gap in his life as living overseas he was only to see his parents for a few months during his entire childhood. He was often to be found entertaining his friends and classmates with these new creations of his. Whatever the reason, writing was a big part of Wodehouse’s life from the early years so it couldn’t have been that big of a surprise that when he was forced to relinquish the idea of going to oxford and instead being pointed to a job with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, he ultimate quit after the first two years of training in London and became a journalist writing the comic column for The Globe Newspaper.

Working in a bank seems to be a slightly ironic choice of job for his father to have given him as he could not go to Oxford due to the devaluation of the rupees that his fathers pension was paid in. Wodehouse had already gained admittance to Oxford and it must have torn him to have no choice but let it go while he went into a field that he had no interest in. During his training he wrote part time so perhaps he had some consolation he is even quote as saying that during that time he “never learned a thing about banking” a good indication perhaps that his passions did not die down at all.

So it was that with his resignation from the bank on September 9th 1902 P G Wodehouse was to become an incredibly busy person indeed, ultimately resulting in his fame both in the UK and USA at the time. He wrote for many papers and magazines in both countries, he was involved in humourus theatre writing many songs for musicals and even his own shows. He went right to the heart of entertainment that we know as Hollywood where he amusingly claimed that he was over paid, and considering that this was going on nearly a century ago it seems to be true that nothing ever changes! But if anybody listening would like to make a feature film presentation of this podcast, well I am open to suggestions!

This success came at a cost though, and for those of you expecting me to say some sort of emotional or physical cost will be surprised to hear that I mean literally a monetary cost. His constant backing and tooing between the UK and USA had resulted in his income being taxed by both countries. People complain about taxes these days, I dread to think how much he must have been seeing disappear from his pay checks. He was somewhat of a pioneer when it comes to travel and work and the laws of the time didn’t really account for this so he was just expected to keep on paying out. Ultimately on seeking advice relating to this situation he was told by his lawyers that if he were to move to France he would only have to pay one government tax.

In 1934 he not only managed to successfully challenge the UK Inland Revenue and their attempts to claim more tax from him but he along with his wife and step daughter moved to France settling down in Le Touquet (please forgive my pronounciations!) this was to ultimately the start of what would become a controversy that would wrongly hang over his head for the rest of his life. Now in his fifties and after missing out on the horrors of the First World War, it must have seemed like he would have had a nice quiet life to look forward to from now on.

Little could the Wodehouse’s have imagined that within 5 years the world would be at war again and that they would need to make a hasty exit from there home to evade capture by German forces. As we all know 1939 saw the start of World War II the English communities in France had been split by the issue, some had gone back to the safety of Britain while other had stayed on in an act of solidarity and support and confidence for the British forces and their faith in France remaining free. The Wodehouse’s fell slightly into the latter category, but the main reason that they had not gone home straight away was that they didn’t want to have to leave the dogs in quarantine for 6 months for no reason. When it became clear that the German army was going to catch up with them sooner or later they attempted to flee only to be stopped in their tracks by their car breaking down. Twice.

When the German army caught them Wodehouse was sent to an internment camp. For anyone unsure of the differences between interment and imprisonment, internment is simply being confined to a place in order to stop you spreading political turmoil or for other purposes; it is not a punishment like imprisonment. So the idea of Wodehouse in a prison is not entirely accurate, him and his friends were not particularly badly treated or anything to harsh, they just had to live in an extremely basic way.

Now we reach the controversy. It was only about a year after becoming an internee that Wodehouse turned 60, at this age he was immediately let out of internment. During the last year news of his capture had spread far and wide and he had received hundreds of letters from well wishers. America at this point was still neutral in the war and so it had been possible for a group of key creative figures to petition the German Embassy for Wodehouse’s release. So on leaving internment he thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know he was fine and what had been happening by writing a short account of his adventure and then broadcasting it internationally.

What was so controversial about this? Well they were broadcast by Germany, or to make it a starker realisation Nazi Germany, enemy at war with his home country the United Kingdom. Before going into the controversy we will take a quick look at the broadcasts themselves.

I have read the whole series of 5 broadcasts and they are written exactly like he writes the Jeeves stories, full of comedy and humorously worded paragraphs. The only real difference here is that there are some sad parts, such as where he tells of how some internee’s threw themselves out of the dining room window. But for the majority it could easily be mistaken for just another Wodehouse story. He is not overly critical of anyone or anything. He literally just tells a comical story of his experiences.

He explains that he forgot his passport but took it as an opportunity to instead take the complete works of Shakespeare, later he tells us that in absence of any good food his sonnets made for good eating, much the same as he refers to smoking tea. It is literally just a story, he even describes Germany at one point

”Germany at that time was like the old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many adopted children that she didn't know what to do with them. As regards our little lot, I had a feeling that she did not really want us, but didn't like to throw us away.”

These anecdotes seem to make for strange reading in modern times however knowing that this was Nazi Germany he was speaking about and the crimes against humanity that were to be committed in the following years when the full scale of the horror of World War II was finally unearthed.

At the time the general public in Britain thought that the broadcasts were some quite enjoyable listening, while more pointed smaller groups seemed to immediately start calling treachery and collusion on Wodehouse’s part. Wodehouse however had not been bribed or coerced into the act, he had merely been gullible thinking it a good way to let everyone know he was ok failing to see how the German propagandists would use them to encourage the world to believe that Germany was not the evil aggressor that they had been tarred as. But poor old Wodehouse was doomed to controversy as soon as he had started to say the first word of his first broadcast. His critics and even creative rivals back in Britain were keen to see him fall.

Things reached a head when despite of BBC protests a journalist under the name Cassandra made an incredibly biased broadcast attacking Wodehouse extensively, the BBC had not wanted to permit it due to the nature of the whole thing and the fear of being sued for massive amounts should Wodehouse challenge them, it was only when Duff Cooper the Minister of Information insisted and promised to pay any legal fees or costs resulting from the tirade that they went ahead. After this moment it was never going to be the same again for Wodehouse, now he had been labelled a traitor in full public view. After his return to France he was subject to an investigation by MI5 with the added ordeal of an interrogation by Major Cussen of the agency, who when reporting back to the government declared that he had absolutely no reason to believe Wodehouse to be a traitor. His finances once again came under scrutiny with allegations that he had accepted money of the Germans for his cooperation, these once again were found to be completely baseless.

After all this Wodehouse never returned to the UK, instead moving to the USA on April 27th 1947 travelling there quite suitably on the SS America. Finally he was able to go back to living a quiet life of writing for the myriad of papers, publishers and theatres that he loved, many of his stories would see themselves converted into BBC series during his later years.

His lack of a knighthood at this point however was a very telling sign that the wartime controversy had had a lasting impact in certain parts of British society, and even when he was recommended for the Companion of Honour award, a medal given out for excellence and achievement in the fields of arts and literature his own creation Bertie Wooster stood in his way as Sir Patrick Dean the British ambassador in Washington pointed out that the award "would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character, which we are doing our best to eradicate".

Finally when Wodehouse was aged 93 it appeared that Britain had let go of the past and awarded him his knighthood on the 1st of January 1975.

And so it was that Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse died just six weeks later on Valentines day. The man who fetched so much enjoyment to so many people in his home country had died claiming that now he had a waxwork in Madame Tussauds and a Knighthood he had no ambitions left in life.

Thanks for reading/listening.
As always look after yourself
and have fun,

dan

PS. Click Here to view my previous review of the Jeeves Books!

The Sunday Blog Post: Little Things

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 00:04:01 +0000

Hello again folks, I hope that you are all happy and well. A nice little post for you today, one about the little things of life.

Yesterday I went for a short walk to a couple of the nearby villages, Weston Rhyn, Chirk Bank and Chirk to be precise! It was a lovely day for the most part, the first time this year that I have seen fit to walk with no coat on can you believe. I called for a friend along the way and a pleasant time was had by all. We decided to randomly walk around some of the residential roads in the small rural town of Chirk and as went round one corner we stumbled across the above carving. It seems entirely out of place just next to the road away from the main road that people travel down. In short this seems to be almost hidden from the view of the general public.

It is a very large tree stump which shows Chirk Castle at the top, the town church and the aqueduct just out of town (also pictured above). We both almost walked past it due to just how understated a feature it is and on seeing it, we both stopped and felt the need to inspect it further, I have no idea who made this or when or even why! But it was something really good hidden away that I thought needed to be shared with as many people as possible. This immediately sprung to my mind as the perfect item to spice up todays Sunday Blog Post!

In this frame of mind I was also amazed to find that on emerging from the Chirk tunnel (where the canal goes through a large section of rock) we were confronted by the above sight, it is not particularly clear in the photo, which is a disappointment, but the canal in the distance seemed to perfectly blend in with the sky and the light mist. On entering back into sunlight after a few minutes of pitch black in the tunnel the effect was probably more dramatic to us in real life! But again it was one of those things that appeared out of nowhere completely unexpected, yet it still required a moment or two to enjoy it properly and get a better look at the lovely scene.

They were just two of the many little things that I come across this week. Two things out of the millions that we will all see in our lives that make a difference, maybe even make life a little better. More dramatically perhaps it can be said that it is all the little things that go together to make life itself.

Just thought I would share that with you! I hope that you will spot something interesting this week.

Thanks for reading,
As always look after yourself
and have fun,

dan

Something Truly Random: Magical Paper Dragons!

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 09:03:35 +0000

Hello there ladies and gentlemen, just a really quick post and video for you today! I noticed the other day that I had not posted anything truly random here for a while and one of the things I wanted this site to be was a place for to find the last things you would expect! (I don’t think that sentence makes sense but oh well!)

In this vain of randomness I have literally just on the drop of a hat made a quick video of the above paper dragons to illustrate what is so magical about them! I have been fascinated by these for years, I have printed out many of my own from the internet but never really had anywhere for them to go, I realised on Wednesday that I now had an ideal spot for them on an empty shelf (next to a newtons cradle!) and I have to say that I have been constantly looking at them and moving my head around like a fool. Anyway here is the video for the magic to be explained!

Yes it is a very simple paper folding trick! The simplicity of it is one of the most fascinating things, if you want to take a closer look and download your own (they are all free!) then take a peek HERE. This is not an advert or sponsor or anything so I am not trying to make a fast buck here! I really do think everybody should experience the magic!

Just thought I would share that with you, I hope that it has made you smile (even a little tiny bit) at the very least!
I will see you again on sunday for the traditional Sunday Blog Post and then on monday for an out of schedule history podcast episode, just in case i end up in Scotland again for a few days next week! Hopefully I will get there but I need a lift, and the house i intend to stay in is about 250 miles away I believe! So I will keep you posted!

Thanks for reading,
as always look after yourself
and have fun,

dan

Random Review: Shooting The Past

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 18:30:57 +0000

Hello again lads and lasses, just a quick word before I begin the review! I would once again like to thank everybody for listening to the podcasts, the history series has recently broken into the top 25 in the whole of the UK! This is beyond anything I dared to think about and actually a little bit scary, I will keep on trying to make great shows I just wanted to let you all know I really appreciate it!

I thought it was about time for another review. This time of an item that has been mentioned several times in the comments section of these blog posts, the BBC 3 part series “Shooting the Past”.

I had intended to watch this over the period of a week but after watching the first episode I could not control myself and had to watch the second one, the only reason that I did not watch the third one straight after it was because I had to go to work! That alone defines this as an excellent series in my book, and as I have said before I don’t review or recommend rubbish here! So the next few paragraphs will hold no surprises when it comes to how highly I think of this series!

I never write spoilers in these reviews and on that note I will give only a very brief description of the plot. The story is based on the events around a large photo collection that is facing closure as a new business takes over the premises. It is an interesting concept at the beginning, but when they start to piece together stories from the photo’s you will understand why it is such an incredible piece of work, not only do the photo’s add a whole new dimension to the story but they also add little stories to the story! If that makes any sense! It is very difficult for me to not just write a load of detailed stuff to explain why you should watch it, however if I did this it would spoil the whole thing for you! So I wont!

It is a well told story, and what really connected with me is the questions that it raises about the past, both of our own personal history and history in general, how we see it, and what is important, if anything. I found that as I watched I wanted to keep on powering through the episodes, and never have to find out what actually happened, just so that I could enjoy some fine drama. I am not even really into this sort of program, but the combination of a good story, interesting concepts and history all came together to make it a great little series.

I am aware that I have babbled on incoherently about this but that is because I really don’t know the words to put across how much I recommend this to anybody at all, even if you are not into history, surely everybody loves a good story, and this is one of the best I have seen for a long time.

Seeing as how I can’t really continue in this manner I will simply provide the links and then leave you to your day!

Thanks for reading folks,
As always look after yourself,
And have fun!

dan

The Sunday Blog Post: Oh No My Tooth Edition!

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:47:20 +0000

Holla to you all today! I hope this finds you all in good spirits and health! It has been an amusing little week for me, filled with wildly trying to put the previous posts cartoons together. Although it was difficult and it really showed just how awful at drawing I am, it was really good fun and I want to start doing more of them right away! The simple process of drawing ink on paper, scanning it into my computer and turning it into a full colour little comic strip is an unexpectedly fulfilling activity. You can see the before and after picture above. I can honestly say that simply making the black outline darker and bolder by computer is fascinating, no matter how trivial the action is!

Anyway I won’t rabbit on forever about the wonders of filling in blocks of colour! The only other real thing that I have to post about this week is the fact that while eating some chips the other day one of my back teeth took the opportunity to break! I have not been to a dentist for years and for just over a year now one of my top teeth on the same side has been crumbling away, but I cannot bring myself to face a hefty bill for something that is not causing me any pain or discomfort at all! So on that not I am hoping that this new broken tooth will also be fine for years to come... although it has no exposed most of the side of a previous filling! I just wanted to make a public record of my intention to avoid the charges of dental work, so that if next week I am in terrible pain and have to go and have it sorted I can at least say oh well I tried! (And you can shake your head and say “What is he like?!”)

The final thing that really needs to be mentioned here is the Apple Tablet Computer that I was hoping would deliver me so much! Well... in short it is rubbish! It is literally just a big iPhone! I won’t bore you with the details but let me just explain why I don’t ever want to see one in real life... another rant!!! Firstly it is literally running a slightly tweaked version of the iPhone software. It will not let you run more than one application at a time which means that I could not be using an instant messenger and be surfing the web for example... really poor, that is the basic level of computing!!! Secondly the internet browser does not support flash so most (and I mean like 90%) of videos, games and other interactive content on any website will simply not work at all on the device! Yes it quite literally cannot use the internet properly. Finally the only means of text input is by an on screen keyboard... completely unpractical and not in anyway useful for a productivity device.

Now I know that this tablet was not aimed at me whatsoever, but still I at least had imagined it would be able to perform basic computing tasks. Oh well, not to worry but it is a real shame and a missed opportunity for Apple to have created something really amazing. Hopefully somewhere down the line they will add the features that I would like to see, but alas I am not even the slightest bit interested in owning the device. When I saw the massive backlash on the internet about it I really couldn’t have imagined just how bad the device must have been to warrant the endless rants... just like this one!

I promise you that that will be the last I say on the subject and hopefully the last time that I write at any length on technology!

It has been a pretty quiet week as a lot of them have been recently, I am going to get back into my regular walks in February though so the should be more interesting things posted on a Sunday from then on!

One final note though... WOW it has been snowing again, just a little bit, but who knows what might happen after the last batch of snow we had!

Thanks for reading,
as always,
look after yourself,
and have fun

dan

My Attempt At Some Comics! (oh dear me!)

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:07:55 +0000

Hello again folks! I have been busying myself with drawing poor quality comics this week! As you may have read a week or two ago I was interested in doing something like this because it is an area I have never ventured into before... as such I have no artistic talent and have tried to compensate for this by using a mixture of very stylised visuals! (Or in plain English... I really can’t draw!... at all!)

I tried out some different idea’s with no sort of theme whatsoever just to see what they turned out like. All of these were hand drawn with pen and paper and then scanned into my computer, where I then added text and colour, I was surprised at how well the whole set up worked... especially considering the scanner is also a printer and even more importantly the cheapest one I could find when I bought it!

Anyway don’t judge me to harshly as I have never tried this ever before! Wooo! Here’s a few results!

A COMIC BEGINNING

NEXT FACTOR (for overseas viewers this one is based on the UK TV show featuring Simon Cowell)

FLASH IN THE PAN (This is one for the geeks! For those with lives, this is based on google opening up a youtube beta using html5 to load videos instead of Adobe’s flash player... like I say it is one for us geeks!)

Thanks for reading, I will be back for the sunday blog post, see you then!
as always,
look after yourself,
and have fun

dan

Silent Comedy Is Really Difficult (a video if you please)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:11:25 +0000

Hello there everybody, well what an unusual week! Mainly due to the filming of the video below. Some of you might well have seen a comment by my friend mike on my Laurel and Hardy post a few weeks ago. In the post he suggested in a spur of the moment throwaway comment that we create our own Laurel and Hardy video. To everybody's amazement... the video actually happened!

If you haven’t seen the video yet you should probably scroll down and watch it before you read the article!!!

I have to say that just like with the comics I am trying to make, this was really difficult to figure out! If you have seen my other videos you will know that most of the comedy types are weird and unexpected things, in other words the total opposite of a traditional slapstick film, where it is clear that something is always about to go wrong!

Another problem I had was trying to make the thing flow, when I posted this to facebook the first comment was that I should have used plain black backgrounds when the text was on screen, like I said there, I had intended to do this but it seemed to grind the whole thing to a halt and break it up into a series of videos rather than one film. Maybe if I had taken a chance and tried to make a longer scene it would have worked, but alas here we are!

The final thing of note... WOW IT WAS MESSY! Flour and water do not make for an easy cleanup and my slippers (two days later) are still caked in a basic form of pastry! I feel that it is important for me to add a little info about the cost of production. I don’t approve of wasting food which is why I stretched the eggs to be used in multiple ways as well as using as little flour as possible. The total cost here was 44p to cover the price of 2 eggs and a third of a bag of flour!

Anyway enough of me rambling on, here is the video in question!

Thanks for reading/watching,
and as always,
look after yourself,
and have fun

dan

The Sunday Blog Post: Allow Me To Be A Geek One Moment (Apple Tablet?), Also my house was on TV!

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:14:10 +0000

Hello again ladies and gentlemen. Another week has passed by and the sunday blog post has rolled up on us again. This week I have spent most of my time obsessing over the possibility of Apple releasing a tablet computer! (As I said in the post title, this is one of the moments you have to allow me every now and then to vent some nerdy-ness!!!) The tablet has been rumoured for years and I personally have always wanted a tablet computer since I was a kid, the whole idea is very futuristic... or to put it better they are the sort of thing that sci-fi characters use to communicate and generally compute on.

For the non technical amongst you a tablet computer is basically just a portable touch screen that you can write or type on much like a clipboard or notebook. Now here is where this post will get wrapped up in all the rumours and speculation... the announcement of this device will apparently be on wednesday. But why am I even interested? I have a computer and a laptop already. Well here is the thing, because nothing is actually known about the device yet I can imagine all the things I want!

Firstly if I could use it literally as a note book to write things directly onto the screen with then have it change that writing into normal computer text I would be over the moon. To be able to write stuff out and then not have to type it up again when I want to either put it on the site or just generally having to type it up as part of one of my writing projects. This would save so much time and energy it would be great, people don’t believe me but I do actually write quite a bit in pen and paper when I am out and about or even at home sometimes.

Then imagine if i could sit down at my computer and have it become an input device, remember how I said I was attempting to draw some 3 panel comics? Well if I could draw them onto the tablet and have them entire digital, yet still hand drawn without needing a specialised device for that one purpose it would be incredible, then when I go downstairs to watch telly, or to my friends house or on holiday the tablet is back to being an excellent portable computer.

Finally it is important to say that if the tablet was able to do text and drawing like I say above it would instantly become better than my laptop. If the tablet is any good I will sell the laptop to get the funds to buy one, so the tablet would need to be able to perform the functions that i commonly use the laptop for, which is almost only ever going on the internet and messenger. Sometimes I write on it if I stay at a friends etc but if the tablet can read my writing it will be much easier anyway!

So then that is my little list of hopes and dreams for the computer I have wanted since watching poor quality sci-fi films as a kid! What i actually believe will happen is that the tablet will be announced, it will run on an operating system like the iPhone and not be of any interest or use to me! But alas we can dream! So in all likeliness I will never own one, but I will keep my fingers crossed just in case.

GEEK RANT OVER!

In other news, my house and the general estate I live on was featured on the One show this week. For those not from the UK the One Show is a relatively popular program that covers all sorts of topics, they were down my way talking about water bills... very exciting! It seems strange however that it was only 4 days after it was shown on TV that we actually found out it had been on at all... there is some great snow footage of the streets around my house and for anyone interested my house is the main house on the screen at exactly 3 minutes into the video! The video is located here!

This week I am intending to create a few short comedy films so it is going to be another interesting time for editing and seeing if any of my idea’s work, look out for the videos over the next few weeks, maybe some of them will be worth a look!

Apart from that not much else has happened this week! I am glad I took this chance to vent on my Apple tablet dreams! I know it is of no interest to most of you so please allow me this one post (and possibly another after the announcement on Wednesday!)

I hope you have a great week and look forward to testing the water with some short comics on friday!

Thanks for reading,
and as always,
look after yourself,
and have fun

dan