Bod was (most famously) a 13 episode animated series created in 1975. It was based on a quartet of books by Joanne and Michael Cole (who also created 'Fingerbobs'), featured narration by John Le Mesurier and music by Derek Griffiths (including that instantly recognisable theme tune). It's fabulous stuff and has deservedly earned it's place in the annals of children's television and in the hearts of successive generations.
Particularly it would seem in the heart of the animator behind HappyToast where it shares space with 2000ADs most iconic character Judge Dredd because he has created this most wonderful mash-up of the two which also features the Angel Gang, the four Dark Judges and a perfect Le Mesurier impersonation.
This has been around for a while now and deserves lots more love because it's a gloriously daft work of twisted genius and I absolutely adore it.
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We're big fans of Joan Aiken here at Wyrd Britain. Her crystal clear prose and peerless imagination has produce a body of work that includes works for adults, children and what we would now describe as young adults.
Her two most famous works, 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' series and the Arabel and Mortimer books for younger readers (illustrated by Quentin Blake) have cemented her place in the pantheon of British writers but there was far more to the good lady's pen than these. We've recently been finally treated to a complete edition of the Armitage Family stories that she wrote throughout her life - read our review here - and she produced several collections of supernatural fiction that we will be featuring in Wyrd Britain as we go - read our review of 'A Bundle of Nerves' here.
But today I have no new reviews for you, instead, on the occasion of what would have been her birthday, I would like to share with you this lovely little film, produced in 1969 for the Puffin Club, that follows Ms. Aiken around various locations that feature in her books and in her life.
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At the very end of the 1970s and into the early years of the 1980s a book called 'Masquerade' created by an artist named Kit Williams inspired a minor furore that resulted in people digging up chunks of the English countryside looking for a Golden Hare that the author had made and buried somewhere. Hidden within the book were clues as to the location of this buried treasure. The book became a smash and the ensuing scavenger hunt was big news for a short while.
The book itself is a series of 15 of Williams' paintings that tells the story of a hare who loses the gift he's transporting from the moon to the sun which becomes the object of the hunt.
The finding of the hare has become mired in controversy - see here - and the actual solution to the puzzle was spectacularly convoluted. Below is an extract from the Wikipedia page (that the above link takes you to) because I'm not even going to try and explain it...
The solution to the Masquerade puzzle is elaborate. In each
painting, lines should be drawn from each creature's left eye through
the longest digit on their left hand to a letter in the border. Then
from left eye through the longest digit on their left foot, right eye
through the longest digit on their right hand and finally right eye
through the longest digit on their right foot. This is only done for any
eyes that are visible in the drawing. The resulting letters form
individual words, revealed either by anagramming or by applying the
order hinted at by the Sir Isaac Newton painting, in which all of the creatures of the book are represented as puppets hanging in a line from left to right. Decoding and following this method reveals the nineteen-word message:
CATHERINE’S LONG FINGER OVER SHADOWS EARTH BURIED YELLOW AMULET MIDDAY POINTS THE HOUR IN LIGHT OF EQUINOX LOOK YOU
Taking the first letter indicated by each painting, the acrostic “CLOSE BY AMPTHILL” is revealed. Properly interpreted, the message told one to dig near the cross-shaped monument to Catherine of Aragon in Ampthill Park, at the precise spot touched by the tip of the monument’s shadow at the stroke of noon on the date of either the vernal or autumnal equinox. Many additional hints and "confirmers" are scattered throughout the
book. For example, in the painting depicting the Sun and the Moon
dancing around the Earth, the hands of the two figures are clasped together, pointing at the date of the spring equinox.
Hope that didn't make your head hurt too much.
Williams' experience of the Masquerade phenomena caused him to distance himself from the public eye but he continues to produce work including a number of major pieces of public art including Cheltenham's 'Wishing Fish Clock' and the Dragonfly maze in Bourton-on-the-Water both situated in the county where he maintains his studio.
He remains a fascinating and unique artist utterly and triumphantly out of step with modern art trends who has spent his life creating a body of work that reflects himself and the world as he sees / wishes it.
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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I'm going to admit here right out of the gate that I've never been a fan. Marillion were always a bit floppy and fussy for my hardcore punk and industrial leaning tastes. I'm also going to admit that I used to try and wind up a Marillion obsessed ex-colleague by humming 'Kayleigh' whenever he passed and ending random sentences with the words 'Dilly, Dilly'.
Jon, if you're reading, 'Is it too late to say I'm sorry?'
There has though always been one little thing they did that has intrigued me; the slightly malevolent video for the song 'Garden Party', the second single from their debut album 'Script for a Jester's Tear'.
The song itself is a fairly typical pop prog ditty of the type they made their name doing. The music is jaunty and filled with sharp stabs and busy synths overlaid by lyrics detailing the attendees and their behaviours at the titular party.
.........................................................
Garden party held today
Invites call the debs to play
Social climbers polish ladders
Wayward sons again have fathers
Hello, Dad, hello, dad
Edgy eggs and queueing cumbers
Rudely wakened from their slumbers
Time has come again for slaughter
O on the lawns by still Cam waters
A slaughter, it's a slaughter
Champagne corks are firing at the sun again
Swooping swallows chased by violins again
Strafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again
Oh God not again
Aperitifs consumed en masse
Display their owners on the grass
Couples loiter in the cloisters
social leeches quoting Chaucer
Doctor's son a parson's daughter
Where why not and should they oughta
Please don't lie upon the grass
Unless accompanied by a fellow
May I be so bold as to perhaps suggest Othello
Punting on the Cam is jolly fun they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please do come they say
Rugger is the tops, a game for men they say
I'm punting, I'm beagling, I'm wining, reclining, I'm rucking, I'm fucking
So welcome, it's a party
Angie chalks another blue
Mother smiles she did it too
Chitters chat and gossips lash
Posers pose, pressmen flash
Smiles polluted with false charm, locking on to Royal arms
Society columns now ensured, returns to mingle with the crowds
Oh what a crowd
Punting on the Cam, oh please do come they say
Beagling on the downs, oh please so come they say
Garden party held today they say
Obviously the above lyrics are copyright to whoever owns them - the page I copied them from didn't say who that was. I'm printing them here purely for those who are unfamiliar with the song. Basically, please don't sue me, I'm poor and friendly to dogs.
The video features the band as a gang of rag tag 'Just William' types, all scruffy school uniforms and grubby knees, discovering the party and deciding to indulge in a spot of mischief. And this is where it gets intriguing as while there's an element of sticky bun pilfering and tying shoelaces together for the most part the mischief takes the form of several displays of sympathetic magic.
They make one Princess Diana looky-likey party goer faint by mimicking her and then holding their breath and another is made to fall from her wheelchair by tossing a bicycle into the river before the video ends with them face painted, stood around a wooden sigil glaring across the river at the party goers whilst the vicar crosses himself repeatedly at the sight and a gale blows up, sweeping both the party and the guests away.
It's all very Hammer, very Dennis Wheatley and very silly. It also seems massively out of character (and please remember I'm saying this as someone whose knowledge of the band is significantly less than minimal) as they always seemed a fairly wholesome bunch; more the types to attend garden parties than the types who would destroy them using supernatural forces but then as I now see it for the first time the singles cover artwork is fairly dark and like I said, what do I know.
Well, what I do know is it's fun. Garden Party was, way back in 1983 / 84, one of the very first music videos I'd seen and even though the music wasn't / isn't to my taste the content of the video absolutely mirrored what I loved (still love) in movies and has stuck in my memory all that time which probably speaks volumes about why I now write a blog called Wyrd Britain.
