The Professor's Lecture

   My lecture today ladies and gentlemen concerns "Obsession," one man's television programme is another man's obsession. I mean what kind of person remains a fan of a television series like the Prisoner for all one's life time? Yes it is an enigmatic and compelling series, I've watched it myself, but I have never been compelled to search out other fans, not that I'm a fan myself you understand. Not to join an appreciation society, never to buy merchandise associated with the series, nor to wear a badge saying "I am not a number, I am a free man." I have never felt the compunction to collect newspaper cuttings about such a series for the past 43 years, to go about wearing a piped blazer, even if piped jackets are considered to be the height of fashion at the moment. To do all that you are in danger of becoming a Johnny Prisoner. Someone who cannot let the day go by without thinking about the Prisoner. I mean no offence to our distinguished, if rather obsessive co-writer here on The Tally Ho, yet I find his behaviour obsessive to the extreme!

   ‘The Prisoner’ became a cult television series, and people latched onto that, something which Patrick McGoohan didn't want, because he felt that if something becomes a cult, the people associated with that cult can become something of a nuisance. But for people like me, who has been to a Prisoner convention, involved with the making of a series of documentaries on the subject of the Prisoner, well it gives one a new purpose in life, especially when one hasn't worked so much in recent years. I'm sure that when Alexis Kanner appeared at the 1996 Prisoner convention he thought it to be a real pinnacle in his life at that time. To have so many people sat about hanging on his every word. Well everyone save one person there, who wasn't listening to one single word Alexis Kanner said. I won't name him, but he knows who he is. But it would seem that when Alexis used the phrase "Pacemaker" instead of "Peacemaker" to do with the American hand gun the Colt 45, this person wanted to stand up and shout out "For god's sake get it right Kanner! It's Peacemaker, not Pacemaker!" You see whenever Alexis Kanner spoke about the gunfight between himself as the Kid, and McGoohan in the episode Living In Harmony, Alexis always referred to the Colt 45 as the "Pacemaker," and no-one has ever seen fit to correct him. So he must have been listening to something of what Alexis was talking about, or perhaps he was listening out to see if Alexis would get it right this time, which he didn't. I know this person in question had a deep desire to correct Alexis Kanner during his talk at that particular Prisoner convention, but he didn't. And I know he has regretted that ever since, and no, it wasn't J.P.

The Professor