3 Wyrd Things: Nina Antonia

For '3 Wyrd Things' I ask various creative people whose work I admire to tell us about three oddly, wonderfully, weirdly British things that have been an influence on them and their work:

- a book or author,

- a film or TV show,

- a piece of music or a musician.

Image courtesy of Romi 

This month: Nina Antonia

Nina Antonia is a chronicler of the decadent, a former music journalist renowned for biographies of Johnny Thunders & the New York Dolls.  More recently however, she has gained acclaim for her uncanny authorship, penning articles for that venerable journal of the strange, 'Fortean Times', for which she has written three cover stories.

Her books include 'Incurable' a collection of writings by fin-de-siècle poet Lionel Johnson featuring a biographical introduction by Antonia which 'The Gay & Lesbian Review' described as "gorgeously written", plus occult explorations of Oscar Wilde in 'A Purple Thread: The Supernatural Doom of Oscar Wilde' & 'Dancing With Salomé – Courting the Uncanny with Oscar Wilde & Friends'. 

Lionel Johnson returns in ghostly form in Nina's first novel, 'The Greenwood Faun.' Inspired by Arthur Machen, the novel is a decadent evocation of Pan let loose in Victorian London, originally published by Egaeus Press and now available again in a very limited deluxe edition on the Snuggly Books imprint, PurpleBeardedUncle, with a paperback edition following at the end of April from Snuggly.  She has also contributed strange stories to anthologies published by Swan River Press, Nepenthe Press, Egaeus & Hellebore. 

You can follow Nina's work at...

https://ninaantoniaauthor.com/

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Image courtesy of Tartarus Press 

Book
Arthur Machen – ‘The Hill of Dreams’

Though it is a rare occurrence, some books can alter your consciousness if not your life. I cannot remember exactly when David Tibet gave me a copy of ‘The Hill of Dreams’ by Arthur Machen but it was to have a profound effect on my perception of literature and my own isolated journey as an author. It’s unfortunate that the use of the word ‘magical’ has become cheapened by overuse, much like ‘enchantment’ until we forget their transformative and oft precarious essence. Few writers have transcended the page like the mystical Welsh author Arthur Machen (1863 -1947). His work teeters between reality and vision, opening the doorway to an ineffable vista of primal evil, esoteric enticement, ancient magic, arcane secrets, incipient sorcery and disturbing beauty. Machen believed that great literature should induce an ecstatic rapture, intoxication redolent of mythic rites and revelries. To read his work is to drink deep of the wine proffered by Pan. That he was descended from a long line of Welsh clergy is discernible in his portrayal of good and evil and the certainty of the unseen. The wild countryside of Gwent which so enchanted him as a child acted as an initiation into legends of Celtic Lore and the mystery of Roman ruins, themes he would often return to in his writing. He would later describe this numinous yearning as the ‘faint echoes of the inexpressive song that the beloved land always sang to me and still sings across all the waste of weary years.’ However as much as he loved the intangible music of his surroundings, like Lucian Taylor, the doomed author in the semi-autobiographical novel ‘The Hill of Dreams’, Arthur moved to London to pursue a literary life. As vulnerable as his fictional character might have been to poverty and loneliness, Machen was never destined to become a garret specter, unlike Lucian Taylor.

.Arthur Machen arrived in the city at a pivotal moment. As the Victorian age waned, a sublime turn of the century phenomenon occurred in English art and literature which is usually typified by the work of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, although they did not bloom in isolation. From this decadent tumult ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ germinated as did ‘The Hill of Dreams’. They are of course very different books yet both feature the dissipation of the central character and possess an exquisite morbidity. Lucian Taylor is seduced by a beatific pagan revelation whilst Dorian Gray succumbs to the gorgeous phantoms of profanity. However, Machen was never part of the Decadent milieu and gravitated towards intellectual bohemianism and the pursuit of esoteric knowledge. The 1890’s were an extraordinary time, the uncertainty of what lay ahead creating a creative and psychic frisson that saw an occult revival running parallel to the Decadent’s perverse romanticism. As well as taking a job cataloguing arcane manuscripts, Arthur joined the Golden Dawn, which is still regarded as the most significant magical order the U.K. has ever produced. Fellow Golden Dawn luminaries included his close friend, the mystical scholar, A.E. Waite, W.B. Yeats and Algernon Blackwood. Although these occult intersections do not define Arthur Machen’s work, they are still integral to it, an indefinable shadow of otherness. I have wondered too if he learned to protect himself, psychically, in a way that the hapless faun-like Lucian Taylor was unable to do, as he is pulled into a nightmarish vision where he discovers that ‘All London was one grey temple of an awful rite, ring within ring of wizard stones, circled about some central place, every circle was an initiation, every initiation eternal loss.’

Ultimately, Lucian Taylor dies at his writing desk, surrounded by sheaves of an illegible manuscript in a shabby, damp little room from what appears to be an overdose of laudanum – opium in alcohol – or an equivalent fatal potion. He has perished in pursuit of a phantasmagorical idyll. As if pursued by Lucian’s struggle, ‘The Hill of Dreams’ although written between 1895-1897 wasn’t published until 1907. Personally, I consider it to be Arthur Machen’s finest creation but it is the more lurid ‘The Great God Pan’ that is his most referenced work. My own novel ‘The Greenwood Faun’ begins with the rediscovery of Lucian Taylor’s manuscript. Once deciphered, ten copies are made up of a book capable of altering the very filaments of the recipient’s soul. ‘Whilst content, sympathetic font and attractive design are vital, these ingredients alone do not imbue a tome with magic or mischief. Metamorphosis requires the persuasion of other realms and elements. A transcendent alchemy brushed ‘The Greenwood Faun’ reawakening Lucian Taylor’s voice in the very fabric of the pages….’

TV
Lost Hearts

M.R. James was as unsparing of his child protagonists as he was of the adults who find themselves at the mercy of malevolent supernatural forces. The high rates of Victorian child mortality probably influenced his writing although there is a distinct lack of sentimentality, so prevalent in an era saturated by images of angels carrying tots heavenwards. In ‘The Residence At Whitminster the youngsters are dispatched after looking into an evil scrying glass. Frank, the fortunate child dies aged 12, with the certainty of a blessed reception whilst the accursed Lord Saul, 16 and unnaturally pale, returns as a particularly wretched spirit eternally pursued by demonic entities. Of all the children in M.R. James stories, only the orphaned 12 year old Stephen Elliot in ‘Lost Hearts’ manages to survive, helped by the ghosts of Phoebe and Giovanni, who are about the same age as him. The story itself is brief but chilling, set in the grand surrounds of Aswarby Hall, Lincolnshire which belongs to Stephen’s older cousin the reclusive Mr. Abney, who in an apparent act of charity takes the boy in. To add credence to the tale, Aswarby Hall did actually exist and matched the author’s description of it. Sadly, it was demolished in 1951.

In his introduction to ‘Ghosts and Marvels’ (1924) M.R. James loosely sets out the principles for writing haunting tales ‘Let us then be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently until it holds the stage….’ Using this subtle formula, Stephen’s first few months, his settling in period at Aswarby is quite idyllic. At Mr. Abney’s instructions, the elderly affable housekeeper, Mrs. Bunch feeds the lad well and offers kindly advice. In the housekeepers cozy quarters we learn of Stephen’s ragamuffin predecessors, Phoebe Stanley possibly a gypsy girl and Giovanni Paoli, a Hudy-Gurdy playing Italian tinker, both of whom have mysteriously vanished. ‘Lost Hearts’ first aired on December 23rd, 1973, as the first in a BBC series of ‘Ghost Stories for Christmas’. The majority of literary adaptations fail to do justice to the original however the televised version of ‘Lost Hearts’ heightens the presence of the ghost children to terrifying effect. Bathed in blue light, it appears that all of their blood has been quite literally drained from them. By suggestion, dream, vision and the sound of faint laughter, the ghastly wraiths make themselves known to Stephen, gradually revealing their terrible fate.

Our own perceptions always intrude on how we receive information. Although watching the same production or reading the same book, each person will filter it according to their own experiences. I saw ‘Lost Hearts’ when it was first shown at the age of 13, aligning with Phoebe, Giovanni and Stephen. As a child I was particularly isolated and emotionally estranged from my parents. Needless to say, ‘Lost Hearts’ petrified me, although I understood nothing of Abney’s esoteric interests, I knew that adults were capable of being monstrous. For the longest time I couldn’t walk up the staircase without recalling the ghost children gliding towards the study, their long twisted fingernails on the banisters, poor bloodless creatures whose hearts had been torn from their chests so that Abney could harness the occult powers of Simon Magus and Hermes Trismegistus. As well as being a classic ghost story, in modern terms it is also a tale of child abuse. My own heart had been torn out, metaphorically, by my parents. Sinking into early depression, I thought more on death than was probably usual. But the haunted realm became a refuge and eventually a way of diffusing trauma that would later influence my writing.

Music

The Rolling Stones - Child of the Moon

‘Child of the Moon’ which was released as the B/side of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ in May 1968, is a crepuscular lilt in the Rolling Stone’s esoteric alignment that would culminate with ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ If the band seemed insular & no wonder with all of the drug busts they were forced to endure at this juncture, Mick Jagger remained as canny as a conjuror when it came to absorbing the currents of the counter-culture & creatively reincarnating them. As he told Melody Maker journalist Roy Carr ‘You can’t play or write outside the mood of the times, unless you live on a mountain.’ Magic was in the incense plumed air and The Stones found themselves at the fashionably dangerous epicenter of an epoch deemed to be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. When Keith Richard’s house, Redlands, was raided in February 1967, it transpired that Marianne Faithfull’s book of choice was ‘The Great God Pan’ by Arthur Machen. The glimmer, the glow, the glittering show of the Stone’s glamour drew pop Warlock’s, including Crowley acolyte and film maker Kenneth Anger into their fantastical constellation. At Anger’s behest, Mick agreed to create the soundtrack via his new moog synthesizer for the short if powerful flick ‘Invocation of my Demon Brother.’ Despite telling writer David Dalton that the Stone’s were ‘dilettante’ when it came to magic, Anger described both Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones as ‘witches’. He also had Richards and Jagger in mind for the leading roles in his cinematic satanic opus ‘Lucifer Rising.’ The film-maker envisaged Keith as the dark prince, Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub, to Mick’s Lucifer. Genuinely sinister, Kenneth Anger was not a man to be trifled with. Another au courant film maker with dark leanings, Donald Cammell, was also enamored with the Stones. After all, if you film someone do you not capture something of their soul? Kenneth Anger regarded Donald Cammell as Aleister Crowley’s ‘Magickal Son’ and not without good reason. Residing in gentle, leafy Richmond upon Thames, Donald’s father, Charles, had embarked upon a book about ‘The Great Beast’, a.k.a Aleister Crowley who had conveniently moved into a nearby flat. Aleister would occasionally visit for dinner, leading Donald Cammell to claim that as a child he had sat upon Crowley’s knee and grown up in a household immersed in ‘Magick.’

Does whatever we intuit have ramifications? The shadows hadn’t yet converged on the Stone’s destiny when they recorded ‘Child of the Moon’. I often wondered if the song was a nod to Anita Pallenberg, with her flaxen halo of hair and feral crescent shaped smile. If any woman was capable of casting a spell, it was Anita who had bewitched both Brian Jones and Keith Richards. Of course, the song’s title evokes Aleister Crowley’s 1917 novel ‘Moonchild’ in which an attempt is made to create a semi human entity via magical intent and astrological planning. The reverse of the abrasive, driving ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, ‘Child of The Moon’ endeavors to capture the ineffable, a luminescent vision at the end of a mythical highway whilst the music and Jagger’s vocals are strangely drawn out as if they are trying to reach us from a faraway shore. Anticipating the age of the video, director Michael Lindsay Hogg was enlisted to shoot a short promo film of ‘Child of The Moon’ featuring the Stones. Hogg had established his reputation as the director of pioneering pop TV show ‘Ready Steady Go!’ The promo as if by sleight of hand demonstrates the growing separation of the Stones from Brian Jones who arrived late to the shoot at a farm in Enfield and had to be filmed separately. If there is a story to be told, it is the addition of three female figures – a child, a startled woman played by Eileen Atkins and Sylvia Coleridge who portrays the eldest of the female trinity. One is tempted to wonder if they are portraying the ‘Maid, The Mother and The Crone’ the triple Goddesses in Celtic mythology who are intrinsically linked to the phases of the moon. It is only the older woman who breaks through the Stone’s semi circle comprising of Mick, Keith, Charlie and Bill, walking towards a white horse, another transformative mystical symbol. Brian Jones meanwhile, is seen peeking like a nervous sprite from a hollow tree before retiring into darkness.

It is easy to decode the promo film of ‘Child of The Moon’ as a series of cinematic auguries, particularly the death of Brian Jones on July 3rd 1969. The Stones had ‘Drawn Down The Moon’ or in pagan terms summoned ‘The Goddess’ though I suspect it had more to do with the spirit of the times than any conscious working. The song captures the Rolling Stones on the cusp of darkness and light, barely a month later they would record ‘Sympathy for The Devil’. Of course some might find this a fanciful reckoning but the storm was gathering that would culminate at the Altamont Speedway Free festival on December 6th, 1969, in Tracy, California. The unfortunate decision to have the Hell’s Angel act as security as well as the distribution of badly manufactured LSD combined with the unseasonably cold weather at a bleak location lacking toilet facilities, medical aid or tents was to have serious ramifications resulting in a largely traumatized crowd and several fatalities. At Woodstock, 4 months earlier, there was birth, at Altamont, death. The dreadful spectacle was captured by the Maysles Brothers in the documentary ‘Gimme Shelter’ peaking with The Stone’s performance. Now joined by Jone’s replacement, the brilliant Mick Taylor, the Rolling Stones are vividly menacing until it becomes evident they are presiding over a feast for the flies. During ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ a young man high on methamphetamine, Meredith Hunter, waves a revolver and is stabbed by one of the Angels, who then stomp on his body. No one least of all the Rolling Stones would have wished for such a grievous outcome.

The Stones brief flirtation with the left hand path faded along with the decade. Kenneth Anger did eventually make ‘Lucifer Rising’ minus Mick and Keith although Marianne Faithfull appeared in it as Lilith whilst Donald Cammell was cast as Osiris, Egyptian god of the Underworld. It all tallies, as Marianne had once described Cammell as ‘The Dracula of The Scene’ and he did indeed vamp off Jagger in the indescribably grimy glory of ‘Performance’ undoubtedly the greatest cinematic invocation of the 1960’s. As the last of the sickly sweet scent of incense lingered over Notting Hill sunset, Jagger – the changeling prince- reinvented himself as an international social butterfly. In May 1971, he married his reflection Bianca Perez-Mora Macias in a Catholic ceremony in St. Tropez. Pictures of the couple show Mick Jagger sporting a large gold crucifix.

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The Rocking Horse Winner

In a probably vain, and certainly doomed, attempt at satisfying his avaricious and disillusioned mother (Angela Thorne - 'To The Manor Born'), young Paul (Nigel Rhodes - 'The Tomorrow People') embarks on a campaign to quell her worries and silence the whispers he hears around the house by rescuing the family's finances.  In order to do so he enrolls the help of the gardener, Bassett (Chris Harris - 'Into The Labyrinth'), and Uncle David (Kenneth More - 'Reach For The Sky') and a rocking horse that he furiously rides for hours until he enters a visionary trance in which the winners of upcoming horse races are revealed to him.

"More money."

Adapted from the D.H. Lawrence short story of the same name, this is a perfectly proportioned tale of greed, class, callous contempt, parental neglect and the love of a child for it's mother.  Director Peter Medak ('The Changeling', 'The Krays') and screenwriter Julian Bond ('The Ferryman'), with the help of their impressive cast - 'Yes, Prime Minister' regular Peter Cellier is in there too - manage to instill a dislocated sadness and a real sense of futility to the proceedings as Paul drives himself to desperate exhaustion while the adults, too wrapped up in themselves, fail to appreciate what's happening.  

The limited runtime means much of the subtlety of Lawrence's story has been lost and for a more complete adaptation one should perhaps seek out the earlier film version starring John Mills, but it's still an immersive treat, although, to modern eyes, perhaps Medak should have been cautioned away from including a scene that features a young boy rocking wildly while yelling "Take me!", over the sound of a whip.

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A Curious Case of Black Magic in Norfolk

For the 19th February 1964 episode of the current affairs programme, 'Tonight',  the BBC sent it's reporter to look at 3 possible instances of magic practices in rural Norfolk.

From the video description...

"Chris Brasher reports on three incidents involving what appears to black magic rituals in Norfolk. The incidents occured at three separate locations; the ruins of Castle Rising - where two human effigies and a sheep's heart were nailed to the door; Bawsey Church, where a sheep's heart and a black candle was discovered; and at Babingley Church, where another human effigy, a sheep's heart and a black candle, were discovered. In all three instances, strange symbols were marked in the ground with soot. What does it all mean - could it be an elaborate hoax?"

It's a great little film made better by the serious, schoolmasterly presentation. Joining the discussion is pulp author F.R. Buckley who shares his 'expertise' as they tour the alleged sites and warn of the danger to anyone who would "monkey with this kind of thing".

But remember, in Wyrd Britain, home is where the heart is, a sheep's heart, pierced with the thorns of a hawthorn tree and nailed to the door.

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The House in Marsh Road

This 1960 movie brings bickering, impoverished couple Jean (Patricia Dainton) and David Linton (Tony Wright) into ownership of a haunted house formerly belonging to Jean's aunt.  Once there, the alcoholic, philandering David can not wait to offload the property and drink the proceeds, but Jean falls for the house and the settled life it promises.

Ghostly mishaps begin immediately with the poltergeist, named Patrick by the housekeeper Mrs O'Brien (Anita Sharp-Bolster), taking an instant dislike to David, an animosity only strengthened by his escalating contempt and murderous intent towards Jean.

For a movie filled with drink, adultery, theft, and attempted murder, 'The House in Marsh Road' is a decidedly polite affair.  It's clunky editing belies a pretty packed script that would certainly have benefitted from another 30 minutes or so to really nail the landing but the core cast are fine, if a bit well-mannered, with Sandra Dorne (who also appeared in the ventriloquist horror, 'Devil Doll') as the vampish Valerie Stockley being the standout.

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E4 Wicker Man ident

Idly channel surfing earlier tonight I stumbled across this lovely little animated ident for the E4 channel based around the finale of that cornerstone of Wyrd Britain, The Wicker Man.

Apparently it's been in use on the channel since 2018 but I'd never seen it before, but then I don't really watch much current TV. 

It's a fun little homage which caught me completely by surprise and made me smile.

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The Wayfarer's Weird: Wild Tales of Uncanny Rambles

The British Library

“Come tonight,” I heard the old man say, “come to me tonight into the Wood of the Dead.” 

Join Weird Walk for a new journey into the ghostly and bizarre, striking out from the shelter of the inn for the places where the path begins to fade, from the sublime wilderness of mountains, coasts and ravines to forbidden, ancient tracts of woodland. 

Featuring disorientating classics from John Buchan and Algernon Blackwood alongside modern, thrilling (and sometimes violent) warnings to the intrepid from Lisa Tuttle and Dorothy K. Haynes, The Wayfarer’s Weird leads you towards fae dangers, down lost tracks in time and deep into the liminal spaces of Britain and beyond. 

This book will always have a special place in my readng history as it was the one I'd put in my bag before heading out on the walk where I fell and broke my femur - oh, the irony (not to mention the agony).  For obvious reasons, it took me a long while to get around to reading it again, but it was worth the wait.

Coming as it does from the editors of the Weird Walk zine it presents, in line with the rest of the series, a series of themed stories, here all about wanders in the great outdoors.

It's an attractive selection of old and modern and of classics and lesser known examples of wanders in the weird. Walter de la Mare's 'All Hallows' and L.T.C. Rolt's 'Cwm Garon' rub shoulders with Ramsey Campbell's 'Above the World' and R.B. Russell's 'The Pharisees Glass' along with stories by the very welcome likes of Algernon Blackwood - 'The Wood of the Dead' - H.R. Wakefield - 'The Cairn' - and E.F. Benson - 'The Face'.  Some of the older stories have a nice, almost pulp fiction flavour - A.N.L. Munby's 'The White Sack' - but a couple of the modern tales failed to raise my interest with the obviousness of their telling.

This is though another strong entrant in the series and one I recommend, although maybe not before you head outside for a walk.

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The Dumb Waiter

Writer and director Robert Bierman's little British giallo from 1979, 'The Dumb Waiter', finds Sally (Geraldine James - 'Mrs Hudson' in the Guy Ritchie 'Sherlock Holmes' films) attacked in her car and beseiged in her flat by a black gloved stalker (John White).

Ably aided by a great score from then Gillan keyboard player Colin Towns, it's a taut and effective little shocker, although you will wonder how Sally could remain quite so relaxed after being attacked in the street, why she never calls the cops and how she could remember where all those keys were.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

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Seventeen Stories

Mark Valentine

Swan River Press

Mark Valentine’s stories have been described by critic Rick Kleffel as "consistently amazing and inexplicably beautiful". He has been called "A superb writer, among the leading practitioners of classic supernatural fiction" by Michael Dirda of The Washington Post, and his work is regularly chosen for year’s best and other anthologies.
This new selection offers previously uncollected or hard to find tales in the finest traditions of the strange and fantastic. As well as tributes to the masters of the field, Valentine provides his own original and otherworldly visions, with what Supernatural Tales has called "the author's trademark erudition" in "unusual byways of history, folklore and general scholarship". Opening a book will never seem quite the same again after encountering this curious volume of Seventeen Stories . . .

Swan River have released two of these collections of stories by Mark Valentine - the other being 'Selected Stories' - and they are, as is often the case, stories that the MV devotee might have already read in some obscure anthology or chapbook , but for many these will be entirely new.

Mark is a storyteller of the liminal spaces, of the thin places and of thresholds. He speaks of slips into the unknowable, of flavours lost or untasted, and of sounds best left unheard.  He tells stories of those broken by experiences of the numinous, of those with the power to exploit it and of those with the wherewithal to leave well enough alone when they feel it's presence and here Swan River Press have provided us with a beautifully rounded collection of Mark's tales.

To my mind, he's our best writer of the classic form of weird and supernatural tales whose stories are to be savoured like - and possibly with - a fine cognac.

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3 Wyrd Things: Carly Holmes

For '3 Wyrd Things' I ask various creative people whose work I admire to tell us about three oddly, wonderfully, weirdly British things that have been an influence on them and their work:
- a book or author,
- a film or TV show,
- a song / album or musician / group.

This month: Carly Holmes

Carly Holmes is the author of several novels, a collection of short stories and, most recently, the non-fiction, 'Love Letters on the River'.

I first came across her writing in a collection of "haunting tales from Welsh women authors", 'The Wish Dog and Other Stories', published by Honno, but it was with her Tartarus Press (and subsequently, Parthian Books) short story collection, 'Figurehead' and her stunning second novel, 'Crow Face, Doll Face' (also published by Honno), that I really started paying attention, indeed I've been evangelising that novel to anyone who'd listen since reading it in late 2023.

Other than her love letter to the River Teifi most recently Carly was the guest editor of 'Uncertainties VII', the latest in the series of anthologies from Swan River Press. 

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Music
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Sebastian

I want to start by making it very clear that I am not cool or cutting edge. I’d love to be one of those people who only listens to obscure music, who adores Ulysses (right through to the end), and will refuse to watch films unless the subtitles have subtitles. But I’m all about the pomp, the cheese, the melodrama. Think Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman, Phantom of the Opera, Wuthering Heights (song and novel), Guns n Roses when they were in their 12-minute-song phase… Give me purple prose, give me tragic love that reduces you to splinters, give me ridiculous lyrics that make no sense (looking at you, Frank Black), give me rock opera. And turn the dial to 10.

For my song, I was tempted to go with Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’, as there were moments in my depressed teens when I felt it was written just for me. I felt-tipped the lyrics on my bedroom wall, played it on a constant loop, and still shiver with a mixture of anguish and love if I hear it when I’m not expecting to. But instead, I’m going to pick ‘Sebastian’ by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. I was late to this song, discovering it on a Best Glam Rock Album in the World Ever! CD when I was about nineteen, and it Blew My Mind. Exquisitely nonsensical lyrics: check. Full orchestra backing up the usual rock instruments: check. Long-haired men in satin outfits: oh yes!

I didn’t care what it was about, and I didn’t interpret a lot of the lyrics correctly until a few years later when the internet happened and I googled it and discovered how far off I’d been, but I adored every overblown second of that song. I played it over and over and over in my car whilst beating the steering wheel in time to the percussion, screeched it in the shower, scribbled the words in the margins of my university essays. Thirty years later and if I’m home alone with a bottle of wine open, I’ll still pop the CD on and twirl around my kitchen, misty-eyed and overwhelmed.

There were times on those long-ago car journeys, when I played it on repeat with the volume on maximum and my rap-loving brother in the passenger seat, he’d beg me to give it a break just for a bit, play something else. If I refused then he’d join in with an alternative version of the chorus, leaning close and singing right into my ear:
Somebody call meeeeee an AMBULANCE!!
Touche.

Book / Author
Victoria Holt

For my author, I’ll have to go with Victoria Holt. There are authors I love far, far more, and there are far better novelists than her, but I read her gothic melodramas when I was an adolescent, along with everything by Daphne du Maurier (who would have been another obvious choice), Georgette Heyer, the Brontes, Dorothy L Sayers, and Mary Stewart. Holt’s plots, her heroines, and above all her brooding landscapes, spoke to my pubescent need for high passion. 

There wasn’t anything especially unique or elevated about these gothic romances that would make them more ‘worthy’ of being my choice than the Brontes or du Maurier; they were pretty standard fare. There was a beautiful young heroine, usually a governess, a handsome, glowering hero/antihero, and a house. But it was the looming, constant presence of the house in each novel that has remained with me through the years since; that and the fact that the heroine was always more obsessed with the house than with the hero and I totally got that.

Clearly a neurotically insecure child, from as far back as I can remember I’ve yearned for a home of my own: a cottage in the woods or a mansion covered in ivy. If given the choice I’d have the mansion and the woods. I longed for bricks and mortar that was all mine, a home that I didn’t have to share and that nobody could take from me. Holt’s heroines were in love with the houses in those novels, romantically in love, and though they also wanted the man I think they’d have kicked him to the kerb smartish if they’d had to choose between the two.

I’d read the novels and devour the descriptions of the houses, imagine myself owning them, walking the corridors and tending the gardens. I was also rooting for the lovers and I wanted a happy ending for them, but I trusted completely that a happy ending in Holt’s world would always involve the heroine getting the house. Maybe she’d have to share it with her new husband, like I have to grudgingly share my home with my husband, but we both knew it really belonged to her alone. And she belonged to the house.

Film / TV

Chocky

I remember watching Chocky for the first time at the home of my parents’ friends (I can’t now remember which friends but have a vague idea that it was on a trip back to Jersey to stay with relatives). We were visiting these people for the day, and the adults were gathered around the table in the kitchen chatting about boring adult things while I and my brother were parked in front of the TV in the front room with a tub of biscuits. Daytime television and unlimited access to the biscuit barrel: two things we weren’t allowed at home. I kept expecting my mother to suddenly come to her senses and appear through the half-closed door to remove both treats.

We flicked through the four channels available to viewers back in the 80s and found something that looked like it might work for both of us. Back-to-back reruns of a children’s drama called Chocky. The opening music was high-pitched and scratchy, a little creepy (I was, and still am, a total scaredy cat) but the opening scene was cosy and gentle. We settled down with another fistful of biscuits and hoped we’d get the chance to finish at least one episode before we had to leave. Thankfully, the adults opened a bottle of wine and got stuck in, and we stayed very quiet and managed to get a few episodes under our belt before being called into the kitchen to answer questions about school and hobbies.

It's odd, I don’t remember much about the specifics of the series (or the sequels), but it seemed to be frequently repeated so I’m sure I saw it a few times. My memories are all impressions and fragments: a sense of kinship with the boy, Matthew, who was as reserved and sensitive as I was but a lot cleverer; envy for his loving, warm family life; awe and a fearful protectiveness for Chocky itself, who seemed to me to be incredibly vulnerable and innocent despite its power; terror of the unknown humans who lurked at the edges of the show with evil intent.

If I try to focus on any particular detail of Chocky now, summon a concrete memory, all I get is a wash of electric blue, a high whining, and a feeling of foreboding. That works for me.

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NEWS: Tartarus Press publish new edition of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

Available now from Tartarus Press is a new comprehensive edition of Oscar Wilde’s decadent classic, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

From the publisher's website...

 

This new edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the perfect excuse to rediscover a masterpiece of Gothic Decadence, written with the author’s characteristic razor-sharp wit.

This new edition presents Wilde’s singular blend of elegance and menace with renewed clarity, reinstating text that the author and his editors removed from various drafts, for fear of offending contemporary readers.

First-time readers, and long-time admirers, now have the best possible opportunity to engage with the novel’s enduring questions about beauty, influence, and the price of living without a conscience. [...] This new edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray reaffirms Wilde’s place as one of literature’s most brilliant and subversive voices.

 Available now from...

http://tartaruspress.com/wilde-dorian-gray.html

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Stewart Lee on Derek Bailey

Pioneering improvisational guitarist Derek Bailey was born in Sheffield on 29th January 1930.  Outside of his work as a session musician, he made and released a mind-boggling array of music both solo and in collaboration with the likes of Tony Oxley, Gavin Bryars, John Stevens, Evan Parker, Dave Holland, Anthony Braxton, Eugene Chadbourne, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Lacy, Wadada Leo Smith, John Zorn, Ruins, Keiji Haino, Thurston Moore, David Sylvian and so very many more.

The music he made will perhaps always repel far more people than it attracts. It can be an intensely challenging listen but equally also a deeply rewarding one that eschews conventional sounds and structures breaking free of conventional constraints of 'musicality'.

The comedian Stewart Lee has long been a champion of Bailey's music, even choosing him as his specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind in 2009 (see below), and in 2025 he discussed his love of Bailey on a, let's say tetchy, episode of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives, which he subsequently wrote about for The Guardian

Read it here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/15/petula-clarks-downtown-stewart-lee-improv-guitar-hero-derek-bailey

Bailey died on Christmas Day 2005 following a diagnosis of motor neurone disease, which he had, rather beautifully, turned into a creative tool that forced him to adapt his playing.  20 years on his impact isn't and will probably never be fully appreciated, but it can be seen to have spread from experimental collaborations with like minded souls in the tiniest of backroom venues, through Japanese noise rock, avant-pop, alt-rock superstars and to who knows where in the future.

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The Old Banger

Susan (Pinkie Johnstone) and John Partridge (Terence Rigby) decide to dump their clapped out old Hillman rather than pay the scandalous ten quid scrapping fee only to discover that unlike their pigeons it has an unerring and uncanny homing ability as it's repeatedly spotted making it's way ever closer back to their house. 

This, the fantastically daft, seventh and final episode of 'Tales of Unease', a series based around the anthologies edited by John Burke,  was the sole writing credit of actor Richardson Morgan and was directed by Quentin Lawrence who had a bit of a Wyrd Britain pedigree having worked on the likes of 'Catweazle', 'The Avengers', 'Doomwatch', 'The Strange World of Planet X' and 'Danger Man'.

Coming across like the unintended consequence of a post pub, back alley fumble between 'Christine' and 'Herbie' it's not particularly played for laughs but it isn't entirely serious either.  Worth watching, once, just to see where the car ends up, the cheeky little Minx.

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Short Story: The Moon-Slave

The Princess Viola had, even in her childhood, an inevitable submission to the dance; a rhythmical madness in her blood answered hotly to the dance music, swaying her, as the wind sways trees, to movements of perfect sympathy and grace.

For the rest, she had her beauty and her long hair, that reached to her knees, and was thought lovable; but she was never very fervent and vivid unless she was dancing; at other times there almost seemed to be a touch of lethargy upon her. Now, when she was sixteen years old, she was betrothed to the Prince Hugo. With others the betrothal was merely a question of state. With her it was merely a question of obedience to the wishes of authority; it had been arranged; ​Hugo was comme ci, comme ça—no god in her eyes; it did not matter. But with Hugo it was quite different—he loved her.

The betrothal was celebrated by a banquet, and afterwards by a dance in the great hall of the palace. From this dance the Princess soon made her escape, quite discontented, and went to the furthest part of the palace gardens, where she could no longer hear the music calling her.

'They are all right,' she said to herself as she thought of the men she had left, 'but they cannot dance. Mechanically they are all right; they have learned it and don't make childish mistakes; but they are only one-two-three machines. They haven't the inspiration of dancing. It is so different when I dance alone.'

She wandered on until she reached an old forsaken maze. It had been planned by a former king. All round it was a high crumbling wall ​with foxgloves growing on it. The maze itself had all its paths bordered with high opaque hedges; in the very centre was a circular open space with tall pine-trees growing round it. Many years ago the clue to the maze had been lost; it was but rarely now that anyone entered it. Its gravel paths were green with weeds, and in some places the hedges, spreading beyond their borders, had made the way almost impassable.

For a moment or two Viola stood peering in at the gate—a narrow gate with curiously twisted bars of wrought iron surmounted by a heraldic device. Then the whim seized her to enter the maze and try to find the space in the centre. She opened the gate and went in.

Outside everything was uncannily visible in the light of the full moon, but here in the dark shaded alleys the night was conscious of itself. She soon forgot her purpose, and wandered about quite aimlessly, ​sometimes forcing her way where the brambles had flung a laced barrier across her path, and a dragging mass of convolvulus struck wet and cool upon her cheek. As chance would have it she suddenly found herself standing under the tall pines, and looking at the open space that formed the goal of the maze. She was pleased that she had got there. Here the ground was carpeted with sand, fine and, as it seemed, beaten hard. From the summer night sky immediately above, the moonlight, unobstructed here, streamed straight down upon the scene.

Viola began to think about dancing. Over the dry, smooth sand her little satin shoes moved easily, stepping and gliding, circling and stepping, as she hummed the tune to which they moved. In the centre of the space she paused, looked at the wall of dark trees all round, at the shining stretches of silvery sand and at the moon above.

​'My beautiful, moonlit, lonely, old dancing-room, why did I never find you before?' she cried; 'but,' she added, 'you need music—there must be music here.'

In her fantastic mood she stretched her soft, clasped hands upwards towards the moon.

'Sweet moon,' she said in a kind of mock prayer, 'make your white light come down in music into my dancing-room here, and I will dance most deliciously for you to see.' She flung her head backward and let her hands fall; her eyes were half closed, and her mouth was a kissing mouth. 'Ah! sweet moon,' she whispered, 'do this for me, and I will be your slave; I will be what you will.'

Quite suddenly the air was filled with the sound of a grand invisible orchestra. Viola did not stop to wonder. To the music of a slow saraband she swayed and postured. In the music there was the regular beat of small drums and a perpetual ​drone. The air seemed to be filled with the perfume of some bitter spice. Viola could fancy almost that she saw a smouldering camp-fire and heard far off the roar of some desolate wild beast. She let her long hair fall, raising the heavy strands of it in either hand as she moved slowly to the laden music. Slowly her body swayed with drowsy grace, slowly her satin shoes slid over the silver sand.

The music ceased with a clash of cymbals. Viola rubbed her eyes. She fastened her hair up carefully again. Suddenly she looked up, almost imperiously.

'Music! more music!' she cried.

Once more the music came. This time it was a dance of caprice, pelting along over the violin-strings, leaping, laughing, wanton. Again an illusion seemed to cross her eyes. An old king was watching her, a king with the sordid history of the exhaustion of pleasure written on his flaccid face. A hook-nosed ​courtier by his side settled the ruffles at his wrists and mumbled, 'Ravissant! Quel malheur que la vieillesse!' It was a strange illusion. Faster and faster she sped to the music, stepping, spinning, pirouetting; the dance was light as thistle-down, fierce as fire, smooth as a rapid stream.

The moment that the music ceased Viola became horribly afraid. She turned and fled away from the moonlit space, through the trees, down the dark alleys of the maze, not heeding in the least which turn she took, and yet she found herself soon at the outside iron gate. From thence she ran through the palace garden, hardly ever pausing to take breath, until she reached the palace itself. In the eastern sky the first signs of dawn were showing; in the palace the festivities were drawing to an end. As she stood alone in the outer hall Prince Hugo came towards her.

'Where have you been, Viola?' ​he said sternly. 'What have you been doing?'

She stamped her little foot.

'I will not be questioned,' she replied angrily.

'I have some right to question,' he said.

She laughed a little.

'For the first time in my life,' she said, 'I have been dancing.'

He turned away in hopeless silence.

*****

The months passed away. Slowly a great fear came over Viola, a fear that would hardly ever leave her. For every month at the full moon, whether she would or no, she found herself driven to the maze, through its mysterious walks into that strange dancing-room. And when she was there the music began once more, and once more she danced most deliciously for the moon to see. The second time that this happened she had merely thought that it was a recurrence of ​her own whim, and that the music was but a trick that the imagination had chosen to repeat. The third time frightened her, and she knew that the force that sways the tides had strange power over her. The fear grew as the year fell, for each month the music went on for a longer time—each month some of the pleasure had gone from the dance. On bitter nights in winter the moon called her and she came, when the breath was vapour, and the trees that circled her dancing-room were black bare skeletons, and the frost was cruel. She dared not tell anyone, and yet it was with difficulty that she kept her secret. Somehow chance seemed to favour her, and she always found a way to return from her midnight dance to her own room without being observed. Each month the summons seemed to be more imperious and urgent. Once when she was alone on her knees before the lighted altar in the private chapel of the ​palace she suddenly felt that the words of the familiar Latin prayer had gone from her memory. She rose to her feet, she sobbed bitterly, but the call had come and she could not resist it. She passed out of the chapel and down the palace-gardens. How madly she danced that night!

She was to be married in the spring. She began to be more gentle with Hugo now. She had a blind hope that when they were married she might be able to tell him about it, and he might be able to protect her, for she had always known him to be fearless. She could not love him, but she tried to be good to him. One day he mentioned to her that he had tried to find his way to the centre of the maze, and had failed. She smiled faintly. If only she could fail! But she never did.

On the night before the wedding, day she had gone to bed and slept peacefully, thinking with her last ​waking moments of Hugo. Overhead the full moon came up the sky. Quite suddenly Viola was wakened with the impulse to fly to the dancing-room. It seemed to bid her hasten with breathless speed. She flung a cloak around her, slipped her naked feet into her dancing-shoes, and hurried forth. No one saw her or heard her—on the marble staircase of the palace, on down the terraces of the garden, she ran as fast as she could. A thorn-plant caught in her cloak, but she sped on, tearing it free; a sharp stone cut through the satin of one shoe, and her foot was wounded and bleeding, but she sped on. As the pebble that is flung from the cliff must fall until it reaches the sea, as the white ghost-moth must come in from cool hedges and scented darkness to a burning death in the lamp by which you sit so late—so Viola had no choice. The moon called her. The moon drew her to that circle of ​hard, bright sand and the pitiless music.

It was brilliant, rapid music to-night. Viola threw off her cloak and danced. As she did so, she saw that a shadow lay over a fragment of the moon's edge. It was the night of a total eclipse. She heeded it not. The intoxication of the dance was on her. She was all in white; even her face was pale in the moonlight. Every movement was full of poetry and grace.

The music would not stop. She had grown deathly weary. It seemed to her that she had been dancing for hours, and the shadow had nearly covered the moon's face, so that it was almost dark. She could hardly see the trees around her. She went on dancing, stepping, spinning, pirouetting, held by the merciless music.

It stopped at last, just when the shadow had quite covered the moon's face, and all was dark. But it stopped only for a moment, and ​then began again. This time it was a slow, passionate waltz. It was useless to resist; she began to dance once more. As she did so she uttered a sudden shrill scream of horror, for in the dead darkness a hot hand had caught her own and whirled her round, and she was no longer dancing alone.

*****

The search for the missing Princess lasted during the whole of the following day. In the evening Prince Hugo, his face anxious and firmly set, passed in his search the iron gate of the maze, and noticed on the stones beside it the stain of a drop of blood. Within the gate was another stain. He followed this clue, which had been left by Viola's wounded foot, until he reached that open space in the centre that had served Viola for her dancing-room. It was quite empty. He noticed that the sand round the edges was all worn down, as though someone had danced there, round and round, ​for a long time. But no separate footprint was distinguishable there. Just outside this track, however, he saw two footprints clearly defined close together: one was the print of a tiny satin shoe; the other was the print of a large naked foot—a cloven foot.

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Barry Pain (1864 - 1928) was an English author most noted in his time for his humorous tales, most notably 'The Eliza Stories', but who also turned his hand to the supernatural in books such as his 1901 collection 'Stories in the Dark' from which this story is taken.

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Brion Gysin - FLicKeR: The Dreamachine

Artist, author, sound poet, and inventor Brion Gysin was born to British Canadian parents on 19th January 1916 in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.  A member of the Paris Surrealist group in the 1930s, part owner of a restaurant in Tangiers through the 1950s where he hired the Master Musicians of Jajouka as the house band, and resident of the 'Beat Hotel' in Paris through the 1960s, he is now perhaps best  remembered as the creator of the 'Cut-up technique' that he further deveoped with his close friend William S. Burroughs, who described Gysin as "...the only man I've ever respected."  

It is, of course, an utter shame that this astonishing artist's work should be so reduced, but his story is perhaps all too common of those wishing to push boundaries.  His Souk inspired calligraphic art is often sublime, as is his grid work created in Paris using a carved out paint roller at the same time as he was developing a whole new language of sonic poetry with his 'Permutation Poems'. 

Here though we are focussing on another key invention of the Paris years, that of 'The Dreamachine', a spinning, stroboscopic, flickering light machine that, when stared at through closed eyes, produces vivid eidetic images.  Developed with the assistance  of fellow Beat Hotel residents, Ian Sommerville, Gysin's plans for 'The Dreamachine' were bold  and many but ultimately doomed to failure. 

The documetary below by Canadian film-maker Nik Sheehan, tells the story of the machine, and by extension of it's creator and his cohort of friends, and features along the way archive and new footage of the likes of Genesis P-Orridge, Lee Ranaldo, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Ira Cohen, Richard Metzger, John Giorno, DJ Spooky and Kenneth Anger.  It's an entrely fascinating story of an entirely fascinating man who for many is, at best, a peripheral figure in the life of his much more famous writer friend but who is deserving of being apprecited entirely on his own merits.

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