G&P Awards - Culture

Book of the year – ‘Only to be published in the event of my death’ by Christopher Hitchens is probably the most eagerly anticipated book in the Groucho Club, but in an otherwise rather dry year for publishing, where rumours of a hitherto undiscovered Stig Lasson pop-up book for children proved groundless the publishing event of the year was the publication, finally, of the last ‘Bellamy’ novel, many years after the death of the author of the Bellamy books, Deirdre ‘Dash’ Flintlock, RN. The discovery of the completed manuscript and its eventual use in the settlement of Flintlock’s estate by having one copy each sent to Flintlock’s creditors in full and final settlement was a unique approach to distribution and debt settlement. Given their relative rarity, even with the some-seventy copies that were sent to various wine merchants and pub landlords, the copies now trade hands at inflated sums, with anyone in possession of a copy of ‘Bagpipes point the way’ declaring it if not the greatest Bellamy story, then at least the equal of ‘The clockwork clergyman’, ‘Fear in the mobile library’ and even the accepted defining Bellamy novella; ‘The Smack of Skull on Willow’. Having been lucky enough to receive a copy in settlement of a debt as a result of a sporting bet (the same bet, ironically, that led to Flintlock’s untimely demise and the resulting ‘chamois leather affair’), G&P’s literary editor can confirm that in his final days, Flintlock was drinking heavily, smoking illegally and writing divinely.

Film of the year – the biggest story in film in 2011 year was that George Lucas did not release another edit of ‘Star Wars’. Possibly the campaign by fans to write down and then send Mr Lucas their most beloved childhood memories so that he can wipe his arse on them and send them back, forever corrupted, has ensured that he can now do this one a singular basis and no longer feel the need to do it collectively while at the same time destroying one of the best movies ever made. For G&P though, one film was worthy of special attention. Showing only in the small mobile cinema that travels round the few remote Scottish islands that do not consider cinema as witchcraft, the restored 1930’s documentary ‘Och Thatll Da’ (‘The Day the Herring Came’) is a silent, Celtic language, black and white documentary about the herring industry in 1930s Scotland. Unflinching in its depiction of fishing, gutting and the wearing of Fair Isle jumpers, for years the film was banned in certain parts of the world for its depiction of beards. Now though, with a new soundtrack by Philip Glass, the famous scenes such as the herring landing, the seagull attack and the infamous ‘two women go at each other with herring knives in a dispute over either a woodbine or a bloke, I can’t be too sure but Christ, she’s now topless and the other one is trying to drown her in a barrel of herring guts this is just wrong’ scene really have stood the test of time. The film, of course, went on to win the Golden Herring in Iceland as well as renewed bans in the sort of countries that have yet to accept Christ as their redeemer.

Television programme of the year – TOWIE, I’m a celebrity (note: check trades description act, benchmark: Su Pollard), the return of Big Brother. This really has been the year of ‘reality’ television. With budgets for scripts and high production values dwindling, the temptation to blow the budget on fake tan and hope for a double-page splash in ‘Heat’ was obviously tempting in 2011. A reality check on reality television this year came when one could not distinguish the ‘Iceland’ adverts that ran throughout ‘I’m a Celebrity’ from the show itself, because the people appearing in both were about as ‘famous’ as one another, and Iceland’s party platter looks like a bush tucker trial. Luckily, it wasn’t all dross. The CCTV and home-video-camera footage from the Derbyshire estate of the Eighth Duke of Monmouth’s of his gamekeepers’ seasonal battle with the poachers on the estate was perhaps the most compelling television seen on British screens for some years. Grainy, sometimes silent, occasionally narrated by either the clipped tones of a gamekeeper or the slurred voice of a poacher speaking around either a swollen mouth or a head injury, the series had many compelling moments, many of them in green night vision. Many of us learned, for the first time, that red arterial spray looks quite, quite black on light-sensitive camera. As well as the human characters – the gamekeepers such as Fowkes, Fellows, Mobb, the magnificently whiskered ‘Normal’ and of course the poachers; Scumm, Viles and ‘Agggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhmyleg’ there were animal characters, ‘Badgie’ the badger, ‘Dearie’ the dear and ‘Shipman’ the Staffordshire Bull Terror. Wonderfully anchored by Kate Humble, this was, to put it bluntly, worth the price of the license fee alone and in the G&P office gave rise to the catchphrase ‘Frozen Planet – you can stick penguins up your arse’. Not true, by the way.

Tropical Downpour? Call Al Gore!

Surrey has been experiencing what Government scaremongers are pleased to call ‘an extreme weather event’, the rest of us call rain and I call ‘a f**king downpour’. You know that scene when Gene Kelley stands under that downspout during the wonderful ‘singing in the rain’ sequence from the eponymous film (gay test: worried your son likes musicals more than hunting? Show him ‘singing in the rain’ and ask him his opinion. If he rates it as anything less than ‘fantastic’, shoot him – better a poof than somebody with no taste, as my Uncle Janice used to say), it was just like that. Gutters overflowed and you could see the rain sheeting off the roof tiles.

We got about a weeks’ rain in ten minutes. The reaction to this is a useful measure of where you are on the civilization scale. If your thoughts run along the lines of ‘This will do the grazing in the lower paddock no end of good’, then essentially, you don’t have to worry. If you think ‘shit, that sounds like a mud slide – I wonder if my hut wall will hold it back?’ – then you should really look to moving to high ground and a first world country with an economy that’s not based on anything you put in a mug and stir.

Most of us probably fall somewhere in between (I was worried about my recently planted tomato plants on my allotment), but all of us are, I hope, agreed on one thing, getting caught in the rain leading to jumping about and grinning only happens in Hollywood films written, and acted, by people so stoned off their tits that the most common form of dampness they experience is when they pee themselves when high and don’t notice until they come to on the floor of their home if they are lucky or the cell they now share with ‘Bubba’ if they are not.

So while I can admire the power of nature, I’m of an age now where the sensation of wet clothing sticking to my body is like that moment when you brush up against a wet shower curtain and it sticks to you – but all over. That scene in the shower in Psycho – those screams were real, Hitch pushed a wet clammy shower curtain up against Janet Leigh again and again and again. The only good time for the heavens to open is when somebody suggests returning to the office after this lunchtime pint, or when the commentator says ‘England surely hoping that something happens here that will force the draw.’