Who’s That On the Telephono?

    “Do you think that’s altogether wise sir?....................well what I mean is to involve Number Six……………. no sir of course not sir, three bags full sir…………no sir I didn’t mean…………all I meant was that any plan involving Number 6 has always failed………..my predecessor, what had Number Six done to her?...............oh I see her predecessor………………. oh her predecessor but he’s never met Number Six………. oh I see, didn’t he end up in the psychiatric wing of the hospital?.................... yes sir………….of course sir………. but I still don’t see how involving Number Six will…………… yes sir but plan Division Q will depend on Number Six’s co-operation and as you know……….. what’s that sir………….. if I pull a face and the wind changes I’ll stay like that, are you having a laugh?..........yes sir……yes sir………….yes sir………… you didn’t like it, well I thought Number Six pulling the girl onto the bed helped spice things up a bit………. yes sir I will……….Oh dear, seems like he’s got one of his moods on!

Be seeing you

The Therapy Zone

    ‘The Prisoner’ is like a maze, and at the centre of that maze is Number 6, or the man behind the big door, it doesn’t matter which because they are 1! Like any maze, you can go this way or that, turn right or left, go back the other way. You can find yourself being led down blind alleys so that you have to turn back on yourself. You can go round and round and end up back where you started, so that you have to begin all over again, and with every step you take, takes you further and further away from the centre. The usual kind of maze has a key to help you solve it, so that you can find your way to the centre if you find it too difficult. Unfortunately ‘the Prisoner’ comes with no key to indicate the right way. Because there is no right way to find the truth, and whatever truth that might be we are left to find that by ourselves. We can imagine, or interpret situations, or scenes. We can even guess what it’s all about. And we would be right, no matter at what conclusion we personally arrive. We eventually arrive at the centre of the maze because Patrick McGoohan takes us there, and then we realize that Number 6 and Number 1 are one and the same person, they are Patrick McGoohan. He remained a prisoner of ‘the Prisoner’ for the rest of his life until his final escape. But where does that leave you, me, and many, many more like us? To our own deliberations, interpretations, and theorisations, where we have always been!

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Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

    There are three instances in which Number 6 heads for home. During ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ although he doesn’t actually make it back to London, only to a mock-up of an office he knows very well. ‘Many Happy Returns,’ in which he wakes up to find The Village deserted, and so having built a sea-going raft sets out on a voyage of discovery, and this time actually arrives back home in London. And ‘Fall Out,’ in having escaped The Village and journeyed over land and by ferry to Dover, the former Number 6 arrives home. And yet where does ‘Do Not Forsake me Oh My Darling’ fit in? Number 6 once said “Don’t tell me that time travel is in it as well?” Well it does appear to be, although Number 6 hasn’t exactly escaped The Village, he has been taken back there, and apparently at the same time, he’s been taken back in time. Because Number 6 was supposed to have woken up in his London home on the morning he was due to hand in his letter of resignation! But he soon forgets about that when memories of The Village suddenly come flooding back to him when he looks into a mirror! However like the previous occasion Number 6 doesn’t stay in London for very long, and he’s soon on his travels again. And like the previous occasion he’s eventually brought back to The Village. But in this instance The Village is the only place he can ever go in order to become whole again!

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Where Does The Prisoner Come From?

  Dark clouds, the sound of thunder are an indication that a storm is coming! Then a seemingly long and deserted road, which is actually a runway, and what appears to be the sound of a jet aircraft, and speeding out of the distance a green, yellow nosed Lotus Seven. Is this symbolic of ZM73 having just arrived by aircraft? And so having collected his car, drives to London. The question isn’t where is ZM73 going, we know where he’s going to, but where has he come from? If we take it as in ‘Fall Out’ when having returned home, Number 6 gets into his car and drives away. But where does he go in order to get on that road/runway at the end of the episode? Perhaps ZM73 had two calls to make, one in the country to see the Colonel as he does in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ the other in town where he goes to an office and hands in his letter of resignation to that bureaucrat sat behind a desk! If so, ZM73 was coming from somewhere in the country. And the sound of the jet aircraft might simply be a substitute for the sound of the Lotus Seven’s engine for sound effect purposes.

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Caught On Camera!

    The question is. Where did Number 6 get that fisherman’s jersey from? Because he had got it from somewhere before he began felling trees in the woods, long before he broke into the General Store, not that clothing was sold there. To paraphrase the words spoken by Number 240 in ‘Dance of The Dead’ spring to mind, “He had no fisherman’s jersey of his own, there was no fisherman’s jersey he could have borrowed, so when acquiring one…….” Having written that, there are two citizens of The Village who do wear fisherman’s jerseys, the two crewmen of M.S. Polotska but Number 6 didn’t know that at this point. So the question remains, from where did Number 6 obtain his fisherman’s jersey?

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A Change of Mind

    Number 2 thought it was a question of time, time to think. That Number 6 in his former life had chucked up his job, a job he could no longer stand, and then would have gone off to Paris, and from there to somewhere different, somewhere quiet where he could think. The Prisoner insisted that it wasn’t time, but he would certainly have to think carefully about his future, there’s not much call for ex-secret agents, unless by the other side that is. And what kind of work could the former ZM73 do? Security consultant perhaps, he could start up his own security business. Or perhaps turn to industrial espionage! One thing’s for sure, his ex-employers would keep him on a very short leash, while under the closest possible surveillance. They would have hated losing a man of his calibre!

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Citizeness No.9

    You’re good at your job Number 9, I’ll give you that. I’ve never been certain about whether you were simply assigned to Cobb, in the same way you were assigned to Number 6, or that you had truly intended to escape with him. Two things are certain. Firstly, it was Number 2 who gave you the Electro Pass, despite your own suggestion that you knew the last pilot of the helicopter, which could have only one connotation! Secondly those tears are real enough. You said that funerals always make you cry, that might be true enough, as you didn’t know that the funeral was simply staged for Number 6’s benefit. That Cobb was preparing to leave you and The Village! Also the list of those in The Village who are capable of piloting a helicopter is growing! Yes you are good at your job, but its repetitive, when we see you with Number 6 it’s as though we are watching you with your plan to escape with Cobb. So why didn’t you attempt to escape with Number 6? Because you knew it was a set up, that Number 6 had no chance of escaping by helicopter. But you could have played your part, just as you played your part at Cobb’s funeral. But if you were assigned to Cobb, were you really going to escape with him once you had obtained the electro Pass from Number 2? Perhaps Cobb led you on, is that why he didn’t want Number 2 to be too hard on you? But then you’d know nothing about that. Perhaps you had planned to escape with Cobb, and that’s why your tears are real, and not those of a crocodile!

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A Study In Prisoner – Revisited!

    Having escaped The Village, Number 6 sets off on a voyage of discovery. He discovered that someone else, a Mrs. Butterworth, had taken up residence in his home, the lease of which still had 6 months to run when he lived there. More than that, she had taken possession of his Lotus Seven! And now here he is, our friend Number 6, seeking reassurance of “place.” He looks at the writing bureau, and about the study. There are subtle differences in personal possessions, but then that’s only to be expected. Mrs. Butterworth’s wedding photograph for example, and the picture of her husband Arthur on the mantelpiece, and the carboy once on the coffee table has gone, replaced by a posy holder. Number 6 then looks out of one of the windows, nothing wrong there, or so it seems on the face of it. He then picks up the receiver of the telephone and listens to the dialling tone, nothing wrong there. But there is something not quite right………..it’s the shape of the room. 

The front of No.1 Buckingham Place is flat, the windows face forward and look out on No.14 Buckingham Place on the opposite side of the street, and not set at an angle as in the above picture taken from ‘Many Happy Returns.’ So that when Number 6 looks out of the window he shouldn’t see the skyscraper, but instead he should have looked out upon the house on the other side of the street, No.14. In fact the study of No.1 Buckingham Place is more suitable for the Round House cottage of 6 Private more then No.1 Buckingham Place!

   Production footnote: Of course Patrick McGoohan isn’t actually in the room of No.1 Buckingham Place at all. During the opening sequence to ‘the Prisoner,’ and in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ he’s actually on the set of the study at MGM film studios. However, unlike during the opening sequence, it’s nice to see that on this occasion set designers have taken more care to disguise the step to the French window. The base of which, along with the step have been covered up with a board, painted green so to fit in with the rest of the walls décor!

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It’s Your Funeral

    Plan Division Q needed Number 6’s help in giving the idea of an  assassination attempt on Number 2’s life verisimilitude. Well he did that well enough, but the trouble is if one wants a plan to succeed don’t involve Number 6 with it! Getting Number 6 to convince Number 2 that there’s an assassination plot against him is one thing, but then getting him to disengage from the plan is another! Number 6 was involved, he had no choice but to go on with it, right to its bitter end, no matter how the cards fell. In the end Number 6 hoped that they would find something equally suitable for Number 2 when the day came. Well if that day was to be a year away, on Appreciation Day, what of this current Number 2? Perhaps he was destined to work behind the scenes just as his predecessor had, leaving an interim Number 2 to be brought in, in order to deal with not only the day to day running of The Village, but also Number 6. But what would this new Number 2 do working behind the scenes? Perhaps he was to oversee the completion of the plans laid down for The Village by his predecessor, such as the new Concert Hall which is to be built, the mural in the library, and the electrification of the clocks!

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A New Concept!

    Number 6 the sculptor we know, Number 6 the artist we haven’t seen before! Sitting to have ones portrait painted can be awfully wearing, but this chaps fallen asleep! Just a minute, what’s that Number 6 up to, has he thought up a fresh concept? Drawing not what the eye sees, but what’s in the mind’s eye, Madam Professor will be pleased!

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Thought For The Day

    In January 2016 news hit the Internet that Riddley Scot wished to produce a feature film based on ‘the Prisoner.’ If he is to be successful in this, and if fans of the original series are to find favour with it, the best advice to him would be to follow the make-up of the original television series. Not to try and be too clever, and get a screenplay which sets the film in 1967 to 1968. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to make a prequel to ‘the Prisoner,’ that would be ‘Danger Man’ wouldn’t it?

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Hammer Into Anvil

    Number 6 accused Number 2 of being a sadist, no, more than that, a professional sadist. But what real harm had this particular Number 2 done to anyone? Nothing physically that the television viewer can see. He might have threatened Number 73, but as far as we see he never laid a hand upon her. Any harm that may have befallen Number 73 is as far as I can see, self inflicted, seeing as she once before attempted suicide by slashing her wrists. Yes Number 2 threatened Number 6 at the point of a blade.......how did he manage to smuggle that shooting-sword-stick into The Village? Was it the same way as Number 34 managed to smuggle his transistor radio into The Village? Obviously security was lax that day Number 2 arrived, they didn’t check the shooting stick. I should have thought they would have taken that way from him, and issued Number 2 with the regular umbrella shooting stick. Mind you this Number 2 doesn’t wear the “old school scarf” either, not one to go in for Village fripperies is this Number 2!

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Number 2 – Late of The Village!

   A term in office lasts......for as long as it lasts for the simple reason there is no accounting for it! What happens to a Number 2 late of The Village? Well they don’t all simply go back to the House of Lords as though nothing had happened. I expect most return to the department within the Foreign Office from whence they came, or were simply absorbed back into administration! For two or three lucky ones they are afforded two terms in office as Number 2. One had an easier time than most. All he had to do was oversee Number 6’s successful escape from The Village. Yes he had a harder time when he was brought back to The Village, he certainly wasn’t any too pleased about it. Perhaps he was brought back unbeknown to him, to find himself awakening once again in The Village. But he only had himself to blame. After all it was he who suggested Degree Absolute! He knew it had to be one or the other of them, Number 2 or Number 6, and he knew the risk. Not the risk Number 1 was taking with two good men, but the one Number 2 was taking!
   Another Number 2 was given a second term in office, despite the question of his health “Is No.2 Fit For Further Term?” The one concerned Number 6, the other to oversee an educational experiment, both of which resulted in abstract failure. And as the library order of ‘the Prisoner’ has it, ‘The General’ appears before ‘A B and C,’ so that headline would then suggest that Number 2 was being considered for a third term in office!
    A third Number 2 to be brought back a second time, first had the unlikelihood of seeing Number 6 give away information to three children {let alone tell them why he resigned} as he told them a blessed fairytale! Whoever thought that one up was certainly scraping the bottom of the barrel. The only result of this was to get an insight into Number 6’s former occupation, as a field agent working for M9 of British Military Intelligence. Anyway was this Number 2 eventually brought back to run administration, or as a High Court Judge to resolve a question of revolt, as well as preside over the trial of three rebels? If simply the latter, who was overseeing The Village? Perhaps Number 2 was brought back to oversee The Village, but then this question of a democratic crisis reared its head while the other Number 2 was deliberating with Number 6 while locked in the Embryo room, and so was completely incommunicado. So obviously this recently returned Number 2 had to take up the role of High Court Judge in order to hold court......in a cavern!
    After the evacuation of The Village during ‘Fall Out’ we know what happened to Number 6, he returned home to London, then immediately set off to make two calls. One in town to an office he knew very well, the other in the country, probably to see the Colonel at his country residence. As for Number 48, he was left somewhere along the A20 between Dover and London trying to thumb a lift on either side of the dual carriage way. Number 2 also returned to home in London, eventually to return to the House of Lords. The Butler went and made himself at home in Number 1 Buckingham Place, and the High Court Judge.......... well who can say. In fact what happened to all the other citizens evacuated from the Village, where did all those people go? Did they all return to their former lives? What about those held prisoner in The Village, did they all simply keep quiet or were they all put into some other institution and kept quiet? And the Village, what of The Village, was that left abandoned and uncared for? And then there is the question of the white membranic Guardian, what of it, was it deactivated? And even if it was, it would still be there in the containment area, somewhere at the bottom of the sea. But if one day it was to seep out, escape its confines................. 

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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                         “A Portrait of No.6”

BCNU

Checkmate

    “Sir, do you play chess sir?” each time I will Number 6 to say no, but he never does. If only he would just once say no, then the old Count’s game would be well and truly up, as that would leave him one Pawn short of a chess set!
    Number 6 asks Number 8 who is Number 1? She avoids the question by suggesting that that was a good move. But Number 6 knows a better one, away from The Village! Some little time after the chess match Number 8 follows Number 6, I suppose she’s intrigued with him, perhaps because of his attitude. But did you know that Number 8 follows Number 6 in the exact same scene during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben?’ True she does, but only for a few seconds, but there can be no mistake!
    As for The Rook, well I don’t think they would have escaped in any case, not even if M.S. Polotska had been a genuine vessel looking for survivors of a plane crash. Number 6 would have had to persuade the Captain of his story, then the vessel would have had to have been taken inshore so as to pick up the others, and that would have been dangerous enough.
    As for Number 8 and most of Number 6’s confederates, we do not see them again. But we do see a doctor, who appears to be the equivalent of the male doctor in ‘Dance of The Dead!’ Either actor/actress could have played either part in either episode, or both parts! As for Number 2.... if it hadn’t been for the Rook.....well let’s just say he got lucky enough to retrieve the situation. But no doubt Number 1 would have some choice questions to ask of Number 2! Mind you, Napoleon said of one of his Generals, “I know he is a good General, is he lucky?

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Caught On Camera!

    “Can’t you run any faster, we’ve a bus to catch!”
    “Pardon me for mentioning it, but isn’t your house in the other direction?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then why are we running this way?”
    “Why doesn’t matter, this is for dramatic effect, so keep running!”

BCNU

The Prisoner – It’s A Personal Struggle!

    ‘The Prisoner’ struggles to maintain his identity in a Village where names are not permitted, and people are known only by their numbers. He’s not a number, he’s a person, but not very personable, meaning not very pleasing in personality. Number 6 likes to keep himself to himself, he prefers his own company to that of others. That’s not to say he does not interact with other citizens, because no man is an island. Number 6 cannot survive without the community, but the community can survive without him! Yes he has acquaintances, he doesn’t have friendships or relationships, well not in The Village. Possibly the reason for that is, few of the main citizens that Number 6 has contact with remain in The Village for more than one episode in order to allow friendships and relationships to develop, even if Number 6 wanted them to! Generally Number 6 keeps people at arms length, perhaps because it’s difficult to know who to trust, if its possible to trust anyone in The Village.
   He does strike up something of a rapport with Number 2 during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ but by the end of ‘The Schizoid Man’ he has been betrayed by 5 women, I’m not counting the doctor-Number 14! And it would be interesting to know how Number 6 came to be helping Alison with her mind reading! Monique came looking for Number 6’s help, but you couldn’t describe them as friends, only as confederates in the same cause, as Number 12 was in ‘The General.’ It could be said that Number 6 was only affected really by, and at the same time regretted, the death of Number 2, this by his show of emotion when he smashed the glass. Perhaps it was as Number 2 said of Number 6, “I’m beginning to like him,” if Number 6 could like anyone in The Village, and for Number 6 ‘Once Upon A Time’ had became a personal struggle!

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Dance of The Dead

    This is possibly the darkest of all the 17 episodes for the simple reason that as chess flows throughout ‘Checkmate,’ and tea appears to be a chief ingredient to ‘A Change of Mind,’ death stalks ‘Dance of The Dead.’ But death need not be something to fear, it’s as natural a thing as birth and life itself. Death can also mean change, and change can be a good thing, meaning the end of one thing and the beginning of something else, in other words a change in circumstances, which can be for the better or for the worse! Certainly there’s a new Number 2 but that’s perhaps not a change for the better, and there’s been a change in Number 6’s housemaid, a flighty young woman who is impatient to wear her new dress. And for Number 6, a slight change in fortunes as he hears words from beyond The Village. What’s more there’s a chance of getting a message to the outside World!
    But fortune is like the wind......changeable! The Prisoner is put on trial, sentenced to death, and if the mob catch up with him, they’ll tear him limb from limb. And you thought Dutton had it bad, he's only living a living death!

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The Irony of It!

    There is irony in the fact that the Prisoner is put on trial during the ‘Dance of the Dead’ for the possession of a radio set, a radio set which was originally smuggled in by Number 43! The Prisoner had no radio of his own, there was no such radio he could have borrowed, so when acquiring one......just a minute I thought there was no radio the Prisoner could have borrowed?! So where did the prosecutor imagine the Prisoner had acquired such a transistor radio? Perhaps that didn’t matter, perhaps even in The Village possession is still 9 tenths of the law! It was actually having the radio that mattered, not where he got it from, which was Number 34’s trouser pocket. I should have thought listening to the radio would have been a bigger breaking of the rules, as listening to a radio is not permitted. Although the radio did work, which is surprising really, the radio having been immersed in sea water for a length of time in the dead man’s pocket, after all the leather case was hardly waterproof!
    The trial is absurd, as is the sentence of death, to be carried out by the people in the name of justice. Courtrooms are as much to do with theatrics as well as justice, besides Number 2 cannot allow anything to happen to Number 2, she has already said he has a future with them. A baying mob screaming for blood would have completely ruined that, if they had actually laid their hands upon the Prisoner. They might well have torn him limb from limb!
   The Prisoner is not given a costume for carnival. Number 6 interprets that as being still himself. Seeing as his own suit is delivered especially for the occasion. Perhaps it's because Number 6 is still himself, or on the other hand it might be because the Prisoner is above such “bourgeois enfantine!” Either way by the end of the episode Number 6 no longer exists, he’s dead, as Number 2 puts it, “locked up in that long box…in that little room.”

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A Study In Prisoner!

 We know what happens. ZM73 {for want of a better name} goes to an office where he hands in his letter of resignation. He then drives home to No.1 Buckingham Place, where he goes into the study to collect his passport, airline ticket, and two suitcases. But there’s something not quite right about this study.
   One thing we must not forget is, that when ZM73 returns home after handing in his resignation, he has not actually returned to 1 Buckingham Place, but to the studio set of ‘6 Private,’ which doesn’t yet have the added extra window as seen in the second picture situated above the recliner. And yet it does have the addition of the French window complete with a step {in ‘6 Private’ it leads out onto a balcony - picture 4} which can be seen in the third picture to the right of McGoohan. If there was a French window in the actual house of 1 Buckingham Place it would be situated on the front of the house and to the left of the front door. As you can clearly see in the bottom picture, there is no such French window!  
    This study seen in the opening sequence of ‘the Prisoner’ is clearly a mish-mash of both the study of ‘1 Buckingham Place’ and ‘6 Private.’ It’s neither one nor the other, it’s more like an “in-between” study that ZM73 finds himself in!

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The Schizoid Man!

   Poor old Number 6, they came for him in the night, well that’s when your resistance is at its lowest ebb, especially if he’s drunk his nightcap of hot chocolate!
    He went to bed on the night of Feb 10^th, and woke up on what appeared to be the morning of Feb 11^th a new man, well a different man, Number 12. Like all arrivals he was invited to the Green Dome by Number 2 for breakfast. Number 2 was delighted to see him “You’re looking fine, you really are...... I don't mind telling you, we had to pull every string in order to have you seconded back to us.” “Seconded back to us?” What did Number 2 mean by that? He obviously knew Number 12 because he knew Curtis’ favourite dish, and because of that they called him flapjack Charlie, but in The Village? More likely Number 2 and Curtis knew each other long before The Village, that they worked for the same department back in British Military Intelligence which is responsible for The Village. Curtis made a top field man, while Number 2 is stuck in admin! He knew that Curtis always enjoyed his food, even before a job from the black file. Well he must have changed a bit, because instead of eating the pancakes/ flapjacks, as he did during his conditioning which Number 6 underwent, he just picks at one and nibbles it! Also it appears Number 2 and Curtis have been through some scrapes together. What, danger lies behind every filing cabinet in administration does it? Curtis {Number 6} is edgy, Number 2 has never known him to be so strung up. And of course the final piece of evidence to confirm Number 2’s friendship with Curtis, he had known Curtis’ wife Susan.
   So I don’t visualize Curtis having been in The Village before, well they couldn’t have two people looking like Number 6 at large could they? Mind you, had Number 6 really died that night, smothered to death by the Guardian, Number 2 could have had Curtis carry on his impersonation of Number 6, by returning him to the outside World! Where that might have got them I’ve absolutely no idea, but the thought just struck me that’s all. Just like the thought that had it been Number 6 who had died that night, to cover up Number 2’s error, he would have got Curtis to carry on his impersonation of Number 6, but as a prisoner in The Village! As Curtis might have thought that his only way out of The Village would be to try and escape by impersonating Number 6 as Number 6 would have impersonated him!

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A Fresh Concept!

    “What do you think of the idea?”
    “A book filled with blank pages!”
    “You like it?”
    “It’s a note book!”
    “No, it’s a fresh concept. You publish a book with no title, filled with blank sheets of paper, and get the readers to write the book themselves!”
   “It’s a novel idea!”

BCNU

You Need A Body!

    With the new Number 8 having recently arrived in The Village, Number 6 asked what happened to the old Number 8. Apparently he vacated the premises, Number 2 suggested that Number 6 had noticed, surely. Had he escaped? There was no funeral, but then that’s not always possible, you need a body! But Number 6 during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ was wrong in that thinking. Because that wasn’t the case where Cobb was concerned, a funeral did take place, but there was no body in the coffin. So surely a funeral could have taken place for the late Number 8, even without the body. As for the previous Number 8, when Number 6 suggested he had escaped Number 2 laughed, meaning there is no escape. So perhaps he attempted an escape but was subdued, smothered, and suffocated to death by the Guardian. And seeing as there is no body it suggests that Number 8 was attempting to escape by sea {is there any other way} there was an Orange Alert, the Guardian intervened, and his body washed out to sea! Perhaps because of that, the fact that Number 8’s body was not retrieved, that by the time the new Number 8 attempted to escape by simply trying to swim away to freedom, the idea to deploy two further Guardians to act as flotation buoys was employed. So by that means at least a body could be retrieved!

   A historical footnote: Friday 14^th of October was the 950^th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Legend has it that Harold’s common law wife Edith Swan-neck, was afterwards brought to the field in order to identify her husband, which she did from marks that “only a lover might know.” And that she took his boy to Waltham Abbey, which Harold had founded for burial of his body. Other versions have William the Conqueror refusing him a Christian burial because Harold was “an oath breaker,” burying him instead on the beach at Pevensey!

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Many Happy Returns

    Not one word is spoken for just over 15 minutes 35 seconds when Günter detects smoke and says “Schnell nindishtoya” or something like as I’m not sure of the correct spelling. Number 6 doesn’t speak until 22 minutes into the episode when he encounters a man with a whippet hound, Where is this?” he asks. The Romany ignores him, then Number 6 follows the man to a gypsy camp, and for the first time since his abduction to The Village he is shown an act of genuine kindness, from a young Romany woman. I’ve no idea what one of the Romany men says to her as she gives the raggedy man a cup of hot broth or tea, but she certainly give the man a mouthful of abuse back!
   “A road, where is there a road?” he asks.
   The young woman points “Donderon doi doi” she replies and sends the raggedy man on his way.
    The Romany’s are far better off than the nameless exile they have just encountered. For they might be travellers, but at least they have food, shelter, transport, money, and just as importantly they have each other for company. While the raggedy man has none of these things, he relied on a handout of a hot drink. There is nowhere he can rest, he has no money he can pay to get about, and has no-one who can help him. He is completely on his own, and isolated from the world he inhabits! Yes eventually he finds a woman, Mrs Butterworth, who condescends to help him, even insist that she will help him. She’s even good enough to lend him his own car! Eventually ZM73 goes running back to his ex-employers. He makes his report even though there is no requirement of him to do so. But in the end, it seems that there is only one place Number 6 can ever go, The Village. Besides, by the evidence we see, it would appear that Number 6 is more at home in The Village than elsewhere. It provides for him. He has a home with all the modern comforts, food, warmth, money of a sort, he even has a freedom of sorts. One might be forgiven in thinking that for Number 6, The Village is not enough, he wants more, to escape! But then he did escape, he was given a taste of freedom, and what happened? He couldn’t get back to The Village quick enough! Perhaps it takes a while to see which side one’s bread is buttered!

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Thought For The Day

   50 years of ‘the Prisoner,’ what do you write in a book about 50 years of ‘the Prisoner?’ Why would it be called ‘50 Years of the Prisoner?’ Yes it’s been 50 years, well fifty years since the series went into production, it will be the 50^th anniversary of the first screening of ‘the Prisoner’ in Britain in 1967. And yet the production of the series may have commenced in 1966, but it ran throughout 1967 and into 1968. So what do you put in a book about 50 years of ‘the Prisoner, what the same old same old? The same old regurgitated material that’s been written over and over repeatedly? Or do you have a brainwash, or a brainstorm, sit back and think, think outside the box. To come at ‘the Prisoner’ from fresh angles, to take a fresh look to see things that one has never seen before, and document them. That is what I’ve tried to do in my Prisoner based blog, and to some degree I think I’ve managed to achieve that. Granted it’s not a book, well let’s face it everything I’ve written, and continue to write about ‘the Prisoner’ wouldn’t fit in a single volume, seeing as there are some 8,550 pieces of blog on my page. What’s more my blog is free and public, open to the world, and I like to think I help promote ‘the Prisoner.’
   I’ve touched in the Pris50ner, saying that there are still mysteries which still persist within the series even after 50 years. Questions that even now remain to be answered, which will never be answered, not after all these years, and it is that which has rendered ‘the Prisoner’ with an enduring quality, which has seen it withstand the test of time. Even the re-mastered, blu-ray, High Definition technology has given ‘the Prisoner’ that “made last week” look about it. But I don’t know what would be written in a book about 50 years of ‘the Prisoner.’ Perhaps it’s something to do with the title, 50 years of ‘the Prisoner’ it’s certainly a mile stone that’s for sure, one well worth marking. I have a manuscript, it’s not about the 50 years, but it is about ‘the Prisoner, that’s why it will not matter of its not published next year. I have been tempted, really tempted to post all of its contents on my blog. But that would be giving it away, and there’s the four and a half years it took to research and write to take into consideration. So I’ll keep my powder dry for a while longer, and keep writing my blog, after all there’s always a different angle to, always something new to write about, and see in ‘the Prisoner,’ even after these past 50 years!

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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                         “Look No hands!

BCNU

The General

    Number 2 told Madam Professor that what Number 6 wants is what we all want ultimately.......to escape! Did Number 2 once escape, only to be brought back to The Village for a second term in office, this despite the question of his health? Or had he been promoted to the position of Number 2 from administration? So that after his first term in office went so badly wrong, he was reduced back into administration, only later to be re-deployed as Number 2 for a second term in order to oversee the educational experiment of Speedlearn. Perhaps seeing that this second term in office didn’t involve Number 6, it might have been thought that this Number 2 couldn’t get things wrong a second time. And perhaps he wouldn’t have done, had Number 6 not got himself involved!

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Teabreak Teaser

    Why did ‘the Prisoner’ have to have an ending, if indeed ‘Fall Out’ can be deemed to be an ending. After all, how many ITC television series can you name that have an ending?

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Escape!

    Escape? Oh yes I want to escape. I’ve tried driving out of The Village, I stole a taxi, but that thing, that white amorphous Guardian thing blocked the road. While I was in the taxi I was fine, well the Mini-Moke collided with something in the road, I lost control and crashed. There I was lying for dead on the grass verge, well I might as well have been dead. Have you ever been suffocated by one of those “things?” I don’t recommend it.
    Then I tried running for freedom, through the woods and out into open countryside. Then I felt pain in my shoulder, then blood, I’d been shot!
    I thought I’d go water skiing, and if luck was in my way I’d over power the helmsman and escape by sea. Luck was in my way alright! I had been water skiing for a few minutes when I deliberately let go of the towing line. The speed boat turned back for me, the man helped me out of the water and into the boat, that when I saw the large spanner lying in the bottom of the boat. I reached for it and cracked the man’s head open with it. He went down like a sack of potatoes. But the craft was mine, and now behind the helm, the throttle wide open the speedboat skimmed across the waves, I had left The Village far behind, and growing fainter in the distance.
    What the devil do you think you’re doing? This isn’t helping, and you’ll only regret it sooner or later, possibly sooner if that white sphere in the distance is anything to judge by!
    Where was the voice coming from? I looked over my shoulder........a helicopter was in pursuit! And yes, ahead of me, in the distance but closing all the time, the white sphere of the Guardian.
    Turn back before its too late, turn back I tell you.
    I ignored the voice, and pressed on knowing that as long as I remained inside the boat I would be alright. But suddenly the engine coughed, spluttered and died! The Guardian floated on the water, while the helicopter hovered close by, and I sat there in the boat wondering what to do next. The helicopter moved closer, the Guardian moved away, then the helicopter landed on the water its large grey floats maintaining its buoyancy.
   Step aboard Number 2’s voice invited.
   I looked at the distance between the jet boat and the helicopter, it was more than a step away, affording me every chance of falling into the water and ending up as prey for that white amorphous thing. Standing up I moved to the side of the boat, it dipped down due to my weight, I thought it was going to capsize. I flung myself overboard reaching out for the ropes that secured the float to the helicopter’s skids, my legs dangling in the water as the rotor blades began to turn faster and faster until the helicopter lifted off the water and took to the air.
    I managed to pull myself up holding onto a strut, only too happy to have avoided a wet encounter with the Guardian. As I clung for dear life to the strut, I gazed through the Perspex canopy into the cabin. There was a white roundish shape in the pilot’s seat......................

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The Schizoid Man

    To wake up one morning as someone else, must be a terrible thing. But then to be told that you bear a remarkable resemblance to someone else who looks like you, and that your job is then to impersonate him, to impersonate yourself.............well after a make-over you’d hardly recognize yourself, would you Number 6, oh sorry, that will never do. I mean Number 12.
    I’ve always been curious to know what brought Number 6 and Alison together. But that took place sometime between the end of ‘Free For All’ and the start of ‘The Schizoid man.’ Sometimes what we do not see can be more interesting than what we do. And what made Number 6 decide to help Alison with her mind reading act? I’ve always imagined that the mental link between them to be a natural thing, and that either Number 1 or Number 2 saw that, and decided to use it against Number 6 in the episode we see. And no doubt pressure was brought to bear upon Alison so that she would betray him. Oh yes, who helped Alison with her mind reading act during The Village Festival? Why Number 6 of course!

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Caught On Camera!

    Number 2 casts his vote!
    Even Number 2 votes for Number 6. Perhaps there was an agreement that the two candidates wouldn’t vote for themselves. But did Number 6 vote for his opponent, or did he abstain? Because Number 6 is seen at the ballot box still wearing his rosette! Also why is Number 2’s ballot box empty? He should have received at least received 20 votes, judging by the number of his supporters standing on the lawn during the last exchange between the two candidates. Number 2 observes that Number 6 is doing rather well, but Number 6 isn’t one to carp!

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Quote For The Day

    “You were doing so well, now you’re simply being foolish, won’t get you anywhere you know. Go back before it’s too late, go back before its too late. Southern perimeter alert, southern perimeter alert.”
                                            {Number 2 – Free For All}
    This Number 2 appears more of a statesman than an administrator or interrogator. But he’s clever, he certainly has the administrative ability to manipulate a community such as The Village. In fact he so clever, and so manipulative, that he knew that through Number 6’s own predictability that if he was offered the opportunity to stand for election as the new Number 2, Number 6 wouldn’t be able to resist such an opportunity. And it was that which gave Number 6 to him.
   A statesman perhaps, but he is a “hands on” Number 2. Before an orange alert was issued, as Number 6 was escaping towards the southern perimeter in a jet boat, it was Number 2 himself who set off in pursuit in the helicopter. It could easily have been the regular pilot to do that, but no, it was Number 2. In fact Number 2 was so sure of what Number 6 would do, he was already airborne in the helicopter. Well what other reason could there have been for Number 2 to be piloting the Allouete helicopter? Mind you, Number 2 did pilot the helicopter himself as he departed The Village. Why? And where was the regular pilot all that time?

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Free For All

    All that palaver of a local election. The bother of the hustings, all those speeches, the use of the Town Hall as a polling station. The Village is nothing but a “Rotten Borough!” That’s a place where a borough is bought, and a candidate is put in place, and is thereafter controlled and manipulated by those who own that borough. In this case it’s Number 2 who is doing the manipulation, and Number 6 the controlled candidate!   
    Democracy, what democracy can there be in such a place as The Village? It’s nothing more than a detention centre where people are put who are of no longer any interest, there to remain forgotten by the outside world for as long as they shall live! To be used by those who dwell within as they see fit. The election is but for the benefit of Number 6, to weaken him, to make him talk at the end. But at least Number 6 knows that they have many ways and means, but do not wish to damage him permanently. That could well give Number 6 an edge in future episodes.

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Citizeness No.2

    Your intervention was quite timely, had you been a moment or two later, and you might have been too late to save Number 6. After all Number 6 would have died first rather than talk and give away any information. But I cannot help but wonder why the doctor, using Number 42 as a communications medium, didn’t want any details, just headings from Number 6, of the files he’s seen, the projects he knows about. I wonder why the doctor didn’t ask Number 6 why he resigned, if he was so cocksure that his technique was going to work? But you knew different, that Number 6 isn’t like all the others, you can’t force it out of him, that there are other ways………….. after all Number 6 has a future with The Village!

   You and the Observer-Number 240 seemed to be rather chummy, in fact at one pint she reported to you direct about how she couldn’t find Number 6. And she, according to you, is your best Observer! In fact she was so good, she allowed herself to be followed by Number 6 to the Town Hall. But let me ask you, did the Guardian hamper Number 6 in following Number 240 at your request, or was it operating on its own initiative? I wish you would say.
   And that time you attempted to fix Number 6 up with a date with one of those three young, attractive, and unattached ladies. You never expected Number 6 to act on your suggestion did you? The man’s far too independent for his own good……ah but you realized that and had been one step ahead of Number 6 all along, and why you had Number 240 sat on her own at a table close by. You knew instinctively that Number 6 would reject any of the three ladies you chose to fix him up with for a date for Carnival, and would rather choose the first young lady he came across, that just happened to be Number 240!
    Number 6 never did give you that termination order against Roland Walter Dutton, did he? He was given it by a medical officer, and instructed to pass it on to you. But he didn’t, he simply dropped it on that shelf in the mortuary, where he left the white coat he was wearing. Perhaps by doing that, he thought he would be saving Dutton’s life. But as it turned out he was too late anyway, Dutton was as good as dead, perhaps his fate was worse than death! You didn’t ask him what he had in his hand, other than the key to the mortuary door. I would have expected it to come as a shock to you when he announced that Roland Walter Dutton is a man who was scheduled to die, because how did Number 6 know that? You certainly didn’t, because you were not given that termination order. And yet you were happy enough to see the Prisoner sentenced to death. The judges sentence in the name of the people, the people carry out that sentence in the name of justice. Justice, from an angry mob, who were no better than a lynch mob seen in ‘Living In Harmony’ when they strung up Cathy Johnson’s brother from the hanging tree. But then you wouldn’t know about that would you, you were long gone by then! But you did know that nothing would come of it, the Prisoner being chased by an angry screaming mob. After all, previously you had said that Number 6 had a future with The Village. Who told you that, Number 1, or the masters at the other end of the teletype? Number 6 isn’t expendable like Dutton. And yet, if during that chase through the Town Hall, if the Prisoner had tripped or stumbled, or there hadn’t been that trapdoor in the floor, the angry mob having laid hands on him may well have……………well perhaps its best not to think of that.

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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                    “No.6 Tells It Like It Is!”

               “Even if it is written down for him!”

BCNU

The Arrival!

   The Prisoner, having been discharged from hospital, bursts into Number 2’s office demanding the man now sat behind the desk to “get him,” meaning Number 2. But the man sat behind the desk had taken his place, he is the new Number 2. When the Prisoner asked about Cobb he told the Prisoner “We do here what has to be done. It's the law of survival. It's either them or us.” Imprison people, steal their minds, destroy them! “Depends on whose side you're on, doesn't it?” To which the Prisoner replies “I'm on our side.” What side is that then, the side which runs The Village? Because if it is, it’s a curious thing to say, if it is his former employers who put him there in The Village as a Prisoner. Unless of course the Prisoner was once working for The Village, but decided he’d had enough, and that there had been a “falling out” amongst friends, causing him to resign. And if that is the case, it’s no wonder he was brought back to The Village, as a Prisoner!

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A Falling Out!

   “This session” announced the High Court Judge “is called in a matter of democratic crisis.” What democratic crisis might that be then? Had something gone desperately wrong in The Village the week while Number 2 and Number 6 were carrying out their deliberations in the Embryo Room? It seems highly unlikely seeing as there is no democracy in The Village, that being an irritation The Village had dispensed with. Apparently the community is at stake but they have the means to protect it. Two men sitting on a steel see-saw both armed with a heavy machine gun, it is a point well made. But this “matter of democratic crisis” seems only to concern Number 48 who was with them but who later went and gone! Un-coordinated youth, that rebels against nothing it can define, but because it must. A “late” Number 2, who isn’t even allowed to rest in peace, is accused of biting the hand that feeds. When did he do that then? The last we see of Number 2 alive, he’s putting his life on the line for the cause, in fact he gave the ultimate sacrifice! But “they” will not even let him lie in peace in his steel tomb! Mind you by the time it took to resuscitate Number 2, he should have ended up with brain damage, his brain having been deprived of oxygen for far too long!
   But as it is, at least Numbers 48 and 2 had been allowed to plead their case, unlike Number 6. Oh I forgot, he had survived the ultimate test, vindicated the right of the individual not to be referred to as Number 6 or a number of any kind, because he has vindicated the right of the individual to be individual. Well that might be so, but he is not permitted to be allowed to plead his case. Well he is, but no-one is permitted to hear what he has to say. Probably because he either hasn’t got anything worth listening to, or more likely the delegates do not want to hear it. His accusations of abduction, the removal of his identity, false imprisonment, his treatment since his arrival in The Village, his list of complaints could be endless!
   So it’s not exactly a democratic crisis, but a question of revolt that must be resolved. We know of Number 6’s revolt since his arrival in The Village. He has failed to wear, observe, or respond to his number, much in the same way as Number 48. Also Number 48 has something else in common with Number 6, he’s allowed to wear his own clothes, but he has not vindicated the right of the individual to be individual because he’s still referred to as Number 48! As for Number 2, he might have the appearance of a changed man, but there was no time, or opportunity, for him to change into his own clothes. He’s described as being an established and successful and secure member of the Establishment, yet accused of turning upon, and biting the hand that feeds, before he’s actually done it! The “late” Number 2 decided that if he was going to die, he would die with his own mind. He rejected his number, and spat in the electronic eye of Number 1! That is biting the hand that feeds!!
   Numbers 48 and 2 are held in a place of security, in Perspex orbit tubes, until “sir’s” inauguration, while he is allowed to finally meet Number 1. And in that he is brought face to face with the awful truth. Either that or its Curtis who they also resuscitated and put to good use, impersonating Number 6 for a second time!
    It seems that there is only one way to resolve this matter of democratic crisis, this question of rebellion, to get rid of the three main instigators by sending them into space. 48 and 2 are already snug in their orbit tubes, and a third, although unmarked is ready for orbit 6! But then that doesn’t make any sense, seeing the praise the High Court Judge had piled on the former Number 6 as having vindicated the right of the individual to be individual. A man of steel who has revolted. Resisted. Fought. Held fast. Maintained. Destroyed resistance. Overcome coercion. The right to be person or individual, and they applauded his private war. A man who is seen to be magnificently equipped to lead them. That was a load of old flannel if ever I’ve heard any. Lead them or go, they might have known he’d choose the latter, and do as much damage as possible in the process! Number 6 might have survived intact, but the same could not be said of Number 1!

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Village Life!

    “What do you think it’s about this time?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve never attended a meeting of the Board of Education, I’m a new member.”
    “No I didn’t mean that. Don’t you have the feeling we’ve done this before?”

    “What deja vu you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well that’s probably because we always walk this way to the Town Hall.”
    “Yes I know that. But we always see the same people.”
    “Same people?”
    “Well we come along that little cobbled path, we turn right just as a taxi drives passed and stops outside the Town Hall, and each time that same couple are walking by.”
    “Well The Village is small enough, you’re bound to keep seeing the same people.”
    “And the taxi?”
    “Well a taxi plying its trade…………”
    “Stopping each time outside the Town Hall?”
    “Obviously someone has business at the Town Hall.”
    “Yes but they never go in….and its always the same two people, and I’ll tell you another thing…….. hello they’re not there today!”
   “Sorry I’m not quite with you old boy.”
   “Well there’s the taxi parked outside the Town Hall, as the two men get out two Top Hat officials of administration go into the Town Hall……”
    “They’re not us are they?”
    “No of course not, only they’re not there today!”
    “Perhaps they’re late, or we’re a few minutes early.”
    “Well everyone else is here, and it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day it is. The scene is always exactly the same!”
   “Except today.”
   “What do you think?”
   “I think if we don’t get a move on we’ll be late for the meeting of the Board of Education, that’s what I think!”

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A B And C

    I wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from ‘A’! Somehow he has the look of a 1960’s second-hand car salesman, certainly he’s not a man to be trusted. See the way he attempts to abduct ZM73, a one-time friend and colleague. But he and ZM73 are no longer friends, although they still do the same job, but on different sides. So which sides are those? British Military Intelligence would be the one side, and the other? When ‘A’ abducted ZM73 and had him driven away, they couldn’t have driven very far, because eventually they arrived at a grand Chateau. ‘A’ told ZM73 “Well you’re in my country now,” to which ZM73 claimed diplomatic immunity. So which side is ‘A’ on, the French Military Intelligence? He can’t claim Russia, or Czechoslovakia as his country, they hadn’t driven far enough, so they still have to be in France, at a chateau a few miles outside Paris. Which could, I suppose, belong to a foreign country, linked to a foreign Embassy, and therefore theoretically, but not actually, be foreign soil, hence ‘A’s’ remark about being in his country now.
    So having abducted ZM73 to his lair, what then? The extraction of information by fair means or foul, that information to be sold to the highest bidder?  Or perhaps extortion is the game, to actually put ZM73 up for sale to the highest bidder! But in any case this is Number 6’s dream, and what might have happened after that we witness for ourselves. ZM73 vanquished both ‘A’ and his henchmen, he straightened his black bow tie, sniffed and said “Be seeing you,” then had either a long hike, or managed to thumb a lift back to Paris!

As the man said, be seeing you

My Breakfast’s Cold!

    Good morning the maid said, it’s a lovely day out there.
    Why do you ride on that trailer?
    Why not?
    That tractor’s a bit slow.
    It got me here in the end.
    I expect my breakfast’s cold.
    Why should you think that?
    Because it was cold yesterday, also the day before that, and the day before that as well. In fact my breakfast has arrived cold every morning since I arrived here!
    My, said the maid, you did get out of bed the wrong side this morning.
    You know as well as I that there only one side to get out of my bed, the right side, seeing as the left is up against the wall!
    You could try cooking your own breakfast. You should think yourself lucky, it’s not everyone who has their breakfast brought to them!
    It’s a privilege I can well do without, it doesn’t seem worth it.
    I’ll inform Number Two, I’m sure he’ll be delighted to have the privilege rescinded. Can you cook?
    I can boil an egg!
    Hardly International fare.
    No, it’s English, go to work on an egg is the latest government motto.
    I think we can do better than that. Perhaps a poached egg on quiche Lorraine.
    French.
    International.
    You forgot the marmalade.
    Never satisfied are you?
    You provide such terrible service here, you’ll never get a Michelin star at this rate!
    I’ve got a mind to report you!
    What for?
    Gross impertinence, be seeing you
    Not if I see you first you won’t! Now throw this International mush in the bin, then boil myself an egg, and make some bread and butter soldiers to go with it. Ah, no eggs.......oh well ham sandwiches and coffee again!

BSEENU