Thought For The Day

   Number 12 gave Number 6 two security pass discs in order to get him passed two security checkpoints. However, Number 6 also needed the uniform of a Top Hat official of administration. This was also supplied by Number 12 of administration when Number 6 reported to 12’s office the following day under the pretext of the offence of deliberate destruction of official property. The question is, how did Number 6 smuggle the suit, shirt and tie, together with an overcoat and Top Hat out of the administration building and back to his cottage with being observed by the Observers? These Observers are pretty useless aren’t they? They never seem to see anything!

Be seeing you

Who Is No.1?

    Roy Beck is No.1! A background actor who previously took part in the conga during the “dreamy party” in ‘A B and C,’ he is pictured below on the wall screen in the laboratory.

   During ‘Fall Out’ Roy worked as a boom operator, ironically he was the only person wounded during the fire fight!

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Page 6

    Its means what it is, that’s a bit of a cop-out isn’t it? I mean the thing could mean anything at all this ‘Prisoner.’ A man resigns his job, so what, who cares, no-one I shouldn’t think. Not Number 1, seeing as he’s been Number 6 all the time he should know the reason why Number 6 resigned. But just in case, there was this meeting between the two of them, 1 showed 6 his future, as a prisoner, 6 didn’t take to that at all. There was a confrontation between them, boy if 6 had managed to lay his hands on 1, but that couldn’t be permitted, the scene would have been like the fight scene in ‘The Schizoid Man!’ What followed was a falling out between friends, and that’s as good as a resignation in my book. Anyway just to make sure, as soon as the Prisoner returned home to London he set off straight away, one interpretation might be that he had two calls to make, one in the country and one in town which smacks of ‘Many Happy Returns.’ No doubt he would want to see the Colonel and make his final report, or at the very least to hand in his letter of resignation which he wrote on the journey back to London. But of course he wasn’t allowed to hand in his resignation like that, not now he knew all about The Village so they put him in it!

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Village Life!

     “What’s the matter with you?”

    “I’m waiting for them to find me a job.”
    “What kind of work do you do?”
    “I’m a handsome cab lamp fitter!”

    “You haven’t got time to bandy words with the likes of her. This way, and we’ll see what kind of employment we can find for an ex-secret agent!”

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Quote For The Day

    “Its alright for you, I’m the one who will have to pay for this failure.”

                                                  {Number 2 - Living Harmony}

    Number 8’s {oh its that number again!} technique was good, it was as if Number 6 was living an early form of virtual reality game. The trouble was so were Number 2, 8, and 22, and in some shape or form they all allowed themselves to get involved, to do what they would really have done. And each suffered from a distinct lack of self-control. So the attempt to break Number 6 in his mind, put him in a dangerous environment, give him love, take it away, isolate him, make him kill, then face him with death. He’ll crack, break him even in his mind, and the rest will be easy. But it wasn’t easy, and what’s more it didn’t work, and for that Number 2 would have to carry the can. He’ll take the blame, and eventually pay for the failure, but in what way? Will he simply be forced to leave The Village? That doesn’t sound so bad, unless of course he will be forced to remain in The Village but as a prisoner! Maybe he fears the worst, that he will have to forfeit his life for the failure, to be put up against a wall and shot. Of course there’s always forced suicide, or confrontation with the Guardian. Who can say what fate befalls a failed Number 2. Perhaps at the end of the day all Number 2’s are afraid of his or her masters, afraid of failure. There have certainly been more than one or two of them about, from time to time!

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Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                            Citizen 6

BCNU

The Therapy Zone

   In ‘It’s Your Funeral’ Number 6 has his semi-weekly Kosho practice in the gymnasium, nothing strange in that. Or at least it wouldn’t be if it were not for the fact that his opponent is Number 14 of the previous episode! That does spoil the scene somewhat because Number 14 doesn’t feature in any other part of ‘It’s Your Funeral’ save for the bout of Kosho. But at least the Kosho scene is a sign of continuity between ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ and ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ although the scene was filmed entirely for ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ but at the end it wasn’t Number 14 who was dunked in the tank of water. Obviously the stunt was too dangerous for Basil Hoskins to do.

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The Trivia!

   This is Number 8, and yet by the look of it it’s not always been Number 8, its been number something else! The 8 having once been the companion to another digit…….1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9……. How do we know that? Because had the badge originally be number 8, then the number would be over the front fork of the bicycle. Which means there must have been a shortage of number 8 badges, since this one has had to be amended by the appliance of tipp-ex, to erase the other digit! Mind you this was a regular occurrence on ‘the Prisoner’ making a badge into a different number!

     Ah, another Number 8 badge that was once another number worn by Rosalie Crutchley in ‘Checkmate.’ But it’s not the same number 8 badge as worn by Wanda Ventham in ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ As in this case not only ahas the other digit or digits been tipp ex-ed out, but also part of the front fork of the bicycle. The properties department for ‘the Prisoner’ must have had a run on number 8 badges!

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A Favourite Scene In The Schizoid Man

    “I’m a very light sleeper, it’s in my file. Five yard range, nerve gas, one squirt you’re paralysed, two squirts you’re dead.” 

    “Couldn’t sleep, came here because……..who am I?”
    “You know who you are, you’re Number Twelve.”
    “Yes, yeah Number Twelve…..sometimes in my dreams I’m somebody else.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know……sometimes in my dreams I’ve resigned my job.”
    “Why did you resign your job…in your dream?”
    “Sometimes I’m here in my dreams, then I come back, I wonder now…who am I? Why am I here?”
    “I think we’ll call Number Two, he might be able to help.”

    Number 6 then attacks his adversary while he’s off guard for a moment. A vicious fight takes place at the end of which Number 6 vanquishes his apparent other self, and with the aid of the false mole, he takes Curtis’ place. Curtis makes a dash for it and outside the cottage pursued by Number 6 and is confronted by the Guardian. He gives the password Schizoid Man, the Guardian turns its attention to Curtis “Schizoid Man……..Schizoid Man…….Schizoid Man” but the Guardian chooses not to accept the password from him. Curtis runs, the Guardian pursues and then suffocates Curtis to death, although we only have Number 6’s word for that.

    In his dreams Number 6 says he’s someone else, that someone else is his stunt double Frank Maher pictured above. In fact Frank plays Number 6 and Number 12 as much as Patrick McGoohan does in ‘The Schizoid Man,’ yet he went unaccredited for the role. And the fight scene in which Number 6 takes on his doppelganger, {stunt double Frank Maher} we have seen much the same scene in the ‘Danger Man’ episode ‘The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove.’
   Whether the nerve gas was developed by scientists and chemist in a laboratory in The Village or in a country beyond The Village and then imported is unknown. However if chemists can develop those so called super strength moprobomates as used on Number 50 in ‘Its’ Your Funeral,’ then why not nerve agent?

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Village Design

   During ‘Arrival’ there is a card in the Prisoner’s cottage with the greeting “Welcome to your home from home,” well it’s hardly that is it? It’s not a replica of Number 6’s former London home, but a replica of the study in that home. Just as Number 8 woke up in a replica of her own room wherever that is. And that’s the nub of the matter, people do not have replicas of their own homes, that would be a logistical impossibility. It seems people who have been abducted to The Village wake up in a replica of the room they were nerve gassed in, this to help make them feel at home, and thereby lessens, or heightens, the shock to come. However as we know, the rest of ‘6 Private’ bears no resemblance to the interior of No.1 Buckingham Place. The bathroom might have its door sliding to the left, and the hot and cold taps of the shower put on the wrong way round, but the bathroom is upstairs. I cannot help but wonder if they replicated the wrong fitting of those shower taps on ‘6 Private,’ as well as the wall safe hidden behind the television set?

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60 Second Interview With No.2

    “I see the helicopter has just left, someone having arrived or just left?”
    “What do you want….who are you?”
    “I hope this isn’t a bad time….I am Number One-one-three, and this is my photographic colleague Number One-one-three b, we contribute to The Tally Ho.”
    “Smile” click goes the camera.
    “What’s the matter Number Two, can’t you force a smile?”
    “Now look, I don’t want any of this getting into the newspaper!”
    “Any of what?”
    “What you just witnessed.”
    “You mean Number Six threatening you?”
    “He didn’t!”
    “You deny it?”
    “Look why don’t you go and get…………..”
    “Is that a threat Number two? Now what was it Number Six said…..oh yes, “and so the great day is nearly over” it was a great day wasn’t it, “Came off rather well, I thought, better than planned. And now you can look forward to your own retirement and I’m sure they’ll arrange something equally suitable for you when the day comes…..be seeing you….won’t I?”
    “You managed to write all that down?”
    “Yes.”
    “Let me have that notebook.”
    “Why do you want it?”
    “I want to destroy it!”
    “There is a word which sums up your predecessor, achievement. Can you think of a word which will sum you up Number Two?”
    “Don’t tempt me…….”
    “The retired Number Two just left in the helicopter, the helicopter which has now returned to The Village….don’t tell me its brought your replacement already!”
   “Smile” click goes the camera.

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Collectors Corner

   Whilst out shopping yesterday morning, my wife and I did our regular tour around the local charity shops. And in Oxfam, amongst the DVD’s on the shelves I espied ‘Living In Harmony’ along with five or six other episodes of the De’ Agostini collection. This is only the second time I have seen this episode from this collection, so I could not resist purchasing the item.

   Also amongst the DVD’s was

   I have a copy of the original VHS video, but this is the first time I had seen the DVD, it now resides within my collection. It contains film footage of the 1995 Prisoner Convention, and pictured here, I am being

 urged by my wife to make the move pawn to Queen 4.

    My wife and I enjoyed watching ‘Portmeirion The Enchanted Village’ again, because its now archive film footage of Portmeirion, and the way we like to remember the Italianate village, before the place began to change. I was privileged to have been able to portray the character of Number 6 just at the right age being in my late 30’s. Oh yes, and the gentleman standing alone, the white Queen’s Bishop’s pawn, is Tony B. Each year since 1994 he always asked me to reserve that square so that he could stand next to me on the chessboard. And it was always a pleasure to do that for him. You wouldn’t think anyone would wish to reserve such a square a year in advance, but it was important to him. Well as it happens there was always a rush of people to grab a chess pole and take up their positions on the board. So much so that one year there wasn’t even room for me, I found a 6 impersonator standing on the Queen’s pawn’s square, and also a man standing on my wife’s white Queen’s square complete with pole! I had to politely ask him to relinquish the chess pole and stand to one side as co-organizer of the human chess match. But my wife had quite a tussle {verbally} to get this chap to understand he couldn’t be the Queen. Those were the days, happy days, as many can attest to. I wonder if such a rush for places on the chessboard happens today at Prisoner Conventions? Somehow me’ thinks not.

Be seeing you soon.

Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                                    Escape!

 BSEENU

Teabreak Teaser

   I can understand how visually Pat McGoohan had to show who was Number 1 in the conclusion to the series. However the fact that he made Number 1 the alter ego of Number 6 whom he was trying to beat, that worst enemy which each of us has, does make it a psychological problem more than a physical one. Physically it is impossible to meet one’s alter ego, perhaps Number 6 should have been alone in the control room of the rocket went he went to face Number 1. He could have stood there talking to himself, much in the same way Randall does when speaking to Marty Hopkirk {deceased}, because only Randall can see Marty’s ghost. But then I suppose that approach would have made a mockery of the whole thing. So physically who was Number 1?

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The Village

    This is The Village.

    What village?
    This is The Village, where have you been man, not to know this is The Village?
    I’ve been away.
    Now you’ve got to be kidding, no-one leaves The Village!
    I did.

    And now you’ve come back?
    It would appear so.

    Look man, I’m a taxi driver, and I do local destinations, where can I take you?
    Take me to see Number Two.

    Hey man, no-one goes to see Number Two, unless Two wants you to!

    He’ll want to see me!
    I never thought I would be seeing you again!
    The return of the prodigal son!
    There’s no fatted calf.
    I didn’t expect one.
    What brings you back here?
    You would know that better than I.

    You were not forced to come back here.
    No, but I know what’s going on.
    Going on?
    The experiment is going to be closed down!
    Experiment, what experiment?
    The Village!
    And you came to warn me, I would have thought you would have been dancing with joy. But then without The Village there is no reason for you, and all the people here, good people Six, all of them will cease to exist. Is that what you want?
    You have always seen yourself as the problem Six, but you are the solution. Face yourself, face up to it, that you are the reason for The Village. You are The Village, you are the one. If you want it to end, then end it now.
    The Village as a place where people turned up, people who knew too much or too little, people who got on the bus in The Village only to arrive there a few minutes later. They might be good people, but they are broken people who need to be made better, because they are people of fragments. Six thought he could make a better Village, a moral Village, but he had Sarah dream The Village. Sarah who had been abused as a child whom 313 could no longer suppress. The Village was a disaster, filled with people and their mental problems which she made worse. You will recall how M2’s favourite meal was anything in wraps, well with Sarah/313, she had people being abused by being forced to stand absolutely silent in the corner of a room with a cardboard box on their heads! I mean what kind of Village do you call that? Excuse me, I never heard a word you said, not with this cardboard box on my head!

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Things To Do Today

   In ‘Arrival’ it said on the Prisoner’s “Things To Do Today” pad

     Who would be sending the Prisoner flowers? Unless this notation stems back to his life back in London, because I do not see any flowers in the Prisoner’s cottage. If that is the case the only person I can think of who might send flowers to ZM73 is his fiancée Janet Portland! And still on the subject of his “Things To Do Today” pad, when ZM73 woke up in his London home in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ he noted what was on for that day. Car due for service, lunch with Sir Charles, dentist appointment, ah would have to cancel that because Sir Charles lunches they go on forever, but who can blame him, he’s the boss. ZM73 claimed to have built his Lotus 7 kit car with his own hands, that he knew every nut, bolt, and cog. That being the case I should have thought he need not have booked his car into a garage for a simple service, after all he only had to change the oil, check the brake fluid, check the tread on the tyres, along with the clutch cable, spark plugs, and distilled water in the battery. That’s a job for a Sunday that is! Mind you in the case of ZM73 it might have been a question of time. If that was the case, it begs the question where did he find the time to build the car in the first place? And where did he do it, his house has no garage, but perhaps he rented a “lock-up” somewhere. Through the 1950’s and 1970’s Sunday was a day when men washed and cleaned the car, and carried out such checks on their car. But that doesn’t seem to be the case these days. I wonder when men stopped cleaning their cars on a Sunday morning? The only time ZM73 was likely to take his car into a garage would be for an M.O.T, a Ministry of Transport road worthiness test, for which a certificate is wanted.

   But if there are no flowers, and the Prisoner didn’t write “Don’t forget to send than you note for flowers at earliest,” who did and why?

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The Embryo Room

  In the Embryo Room life can be re-enacted from the cradle to the grave. Basically it is no more than a child’s playroom filled with all manner of props. Beyond that, can the Embryo Room be called just that, a room? When you walk into a room immediately you can see it’s dimensions, the extent of its walls, that is what defines it as being a room. The Embryo Room on the other hand does have a door, but that is about as close as it comes to being a room as we know it. Because once through the door its dimensions cannot be defined, it is a black space with unclear dimensions. This gives the impression that you could enter through the door and walk endlessly in the blackness, and never find your way out again. No matter which way you turn, it takes you further and further way from the door, to be permanently lost in the blackness of space!
    The same effect as having the time tunnel in a huge black space of unknown dimensions used in the television series of the same name, ‘The Time Tunnel,’ a 1966 -1967 television series. And I myself used the same effect for a scene in my1999 film ‘Village Day,’ when Number 2 appeared out of the darkness and into the light of an operating room.

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Caught On Camera!

    Regular readers of my blog will no doubt remember the following blog entry.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9036104775563265647#editor/target=post;postID=5559844997244457500;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

    It would seem the 1968-69 series ‘Randall And Hopkirk {Deceased}’ is not exactly littered with props from ‘the Prisoner’ but the series does have its fair share of what I am pleased to call “Prisoner-isms” both verbally, physically, and musically. A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were watching the ‘Randall And Hopkirk {Deceased}’ episode ‘The Ghost Who Saved The Bank At Monte Carlo,’ and the following discovery of another “Prisoner-ism” was made in Randall’s hotel room.

   Have you spotted it yet? This time it’s a Village loudspeaker! Perhaps this will make it a little clearer.

   Why episodes of ‘Randall And Hopkirk {Deceased}’ should make use of such ‘Prisoner’ props is unknown. No doubt it was simply the case that they were left lying about, or still being stored at the MGM film studios and so were made use of without regard to ‘the Prisoner.’ They were simply film props. On the other hand, perhaps it’s as the reporter for The Tally Ho Number 113 once quoted Number 6 as saying “Our exports will operate in every corner of the globe!”
        I did think in the episode, ‘Somebody Just Walked Over My Grave,’ there was going to be yet another Prisoner-ism, when an Austin Princess hearse appeared late in the episode. But it was the wrong registration number! However the red ‘C’ box file from ‘A B and C’ did turn up in the gatehouse of a cemetery, when before it was with the other two box files ‘A’ and ‘B’ in Randall’s office!

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The Village!

    The Village is a place, where people just turn up, people who know too much, or too little, but generally people who cannot be left around. The knowledge inside their heads of great value to one side or the other. I can understand why people who know too much, they have information which needs protecting, or extracting, depending on which side you are on. But why people who know too little? If they don’t know enough they’d seem hardly worth bothering about, and yet......and yet those behind The Village want to know everything. So even someone who knew too little would have just enough information to see themselves brought to The Village. After all the prime objective of Number 2 is the extraction of information, information, information. And if you don’t give it they’ll take it, by fair means or foul, by hook or by crook.
    But not everyone in The Village just turns up there, oh a good many do, some get to like the life there so much that they wouldn’t leave for the world. Lifers you see, lifers do not get to leave The Village, they are looked after until they die. So it’s nice to know The Village has a good enough welfare system to be able to do that. Those who do get to leave The Village are generally those who were seconded or assigned to The Village, or have gone over to the other side. Number 2’s of course they are allowed to leave The Village, otherwise they couldn’t be brought back for a second term in office. And the helicopter pilot, he’s permitted to leave The Village, but then he stays for only 2 hours at a time.
    As for those seconded to or assigned to The Village, possibly Cobb although it’s difficult to tell about him. The Colonel and Thorpe, Nadia Rakovski, Curtis, and another Colonel who was gratified that he had been sent to The Village by the highest authority, not Number 1 then? There’s a higher authority outside of The Village, those “masters” we hear so much about no doubt. And yet, out of all those who were sent to The Village on assignment two died, Curtis and the Colonel. Perhaps the impact for those two deaths on the outside world would be minimal. Curtis will have left no-one behind, Susan died a year ago, unless of course there were children. As for the Colonel we don’t know about him, although both Curtis and the Colonel were professional men, they knew the risks. And yet it would have hardly been thought the Colonel in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ was a field agent, more of a desk jockey. Whereas Colonel Hawke-Englishe seemed at home in the field, but then he was chasing a very beautiful prey, The Girl Who Was Death! Which brings into question the unlikely link between those two episodes, Potter! On the one hand Potter is an agent, code name XB4, who follows the Colonel wherever he goes, and on the other, Potter is Colonel Hawke-Englishe’s back-up

man. The only trouble is Potter is attracted to The Girl Who Was Death, and so Potter has taken his eye off the ball when the Colonel is murdered at the wicket, just one run short of his century! Perhaps that wouldn’t have happened had XB4 been both Potters. And yet Potter features for the comedy aspect of the episode, he makes a half decent shoeshine boy, whereas he lacks certain attributes as a field agent!
   Four different Colonels appear in various episodes, two of them we know worked for The Village, because they was assigned there. As for Hawke-Englishe it’s difficult to say, but perhaps its best to give the deceased the benefit of the doubt. As for the Colonel who appeared with Thorpe, it’s difficult to judge him. He might not be in the pay of those behind The Village, on the other hand........

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A Favourite Scene In It’s Your Funeral

    Number 50-Monique goes to ‘6 Private’ in order to seek Number 6’s help, she wakes him up.

    “What are you doing here?”
    “I was just going to wake you up.”
    “You have, who are you?”
    “I’m a number just like you, does it matter which?”
    “How did you get in?”
    “The door was open.”
    “Always is to them isn’t it?”
    “I’m not one of them!”
    “No, what do you want?”
    “Help.”
    “Go to the Town Hall, the citizens council promises help and advice to everyone.”
    “Their citizen’s council.”
    “As far as I’m concerned what’s theirs is yours!”
    “I am not one of them!”
    “No, no-one is. Go back tell them I was not interested, that I wouldn’t even listen. What’s the point, they know already. I won’t go for it, whatever it is, so you may as well stop trying!”
    Number 6 shows Monique the door and she collapses unconscious on the floor!
    “We never stop Number Six” is an interim Number 2’s comment as he watches on the wall screen.
    Number 6 closes the door.
    Monique has been given a drug, one of the new super strength moprobamates that has been developed, the girl knows nothing about it of course. She had been given the drug the day before, the drug remains dormant until triggered by the nervous system then it’s released to the desired quantity to achieve the effect that has been achieved, temporary oblivion! This in anticipation of Number 6 throwing her out, which he was about to do. But now Monique has become a damsel in distress, he’ll be all good deeds and sympathy now. But Number 2 isn’t enamoured by the after thought that the door to Number 6’s cottage had been left unlocked. The Supervisor-Number 26 protests that it was to enable the girl, when she had made up her mind to see him, have access. Yes the girl does know how to knock on a door, but Number 6 doesn’t always answer! He thought it was a good idea, but it wasn’t. This is far too important for little slapdash improvisations as this, because now Number 6 is going to assume they sent Number 50 to him………
    Number 50 begins to come round, and Number 6 offers her a glass of water.
    “Exhaustion!”
    “No, drugs, your pupils are contracted.”
    “I don’t take drugs.”
    “Forced feeding then.”
    “But why would they?”

    “You tell me.”
    “You mean you’ll condescend to listen?”
    “I’ll listen as long as what you’re saying become too obviously phoney yes.”
    “I’ll find help somewhere else.”
    “They told you to find it here didn’t they?”
    “Think what you like, it doesn’t matter any more…….no, no it does matter. This concerns the welfare of everybody in this village.”
    “And welfare is our biggest consumer item, yes?”
    “Joke about this if you can…assassination.”
    “What you trying to organise or prevent one?”
    “Prevent, they would have to take reprisals, everybody would suffer.”
    “Alright, what can I do for you?”
    “I’ve just told you I need your help by preventing an assassination!”
    “They’ve heard, they are aware, and they don’t need anyone’s help!”
    “They don’t believe me!”
    “No comment!”
    “So much caution in a man like you it seems so wrong.”
    “Many times bitten forever shy, but they are not shy they love to listen!”
    “You don’t understand my name, my number on a list.”
    “Honours or deportation?”
    “Jamming!”
    “Jamming, what you mean domestic science?”
    “You’ll learn about jamming one of these days, it’s a most important way of fighting back.”
    “Alright, enlighten me now.”
    “No, I tell lies remember? I’m sorry I ever bothered you!”
    Monique leaves.

    “Call in any time you like”

    I like the way Number 6 hasn’t got out of bed yet, but even so his involvement in Plan Division Q has already been plotted. And yet he doesn’t want any part of it, he won’t go for it, whatever it is, so they may as well stop trying! But Monique presses the point, she wants his help in preventing an assassination. So what? They’ve heard, they are aware, and they don’t need anyone’s help! But they do, they need Number 6’s involvement without which Plan Division Q might not be given the correct credibility when he goes to warn Number 2 that there is an assassination plot against him, And Number 6 cannot but help get involved! Perhaps had they chosen someone else less credible, Plan Division Q might have succeeded!

   As for jamming, “You’ll learn about jamming one of these day, it’s a most important way of fighting back,” Number 6 knew all about jamming, he was carrying out acts of jamming in the previous episode ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ what’s more he might have been the original jammer. The only mystery about that Number 6 might have, is how did others find out about jamming?

    Monique is a damsel in distress, but Number 6’s attitude towards her is different to what it was towards others. A case of many times bitten forever shy. Also Annette Andre didn’t get on at all well with Patrick McGoohan, ironic then that her character should end up on the bed with Number 6!

Be seeing you

Village Life!

    “What’s on the agenda for today?”

    “Didn’t you read the memo?”
    “I never read those.”
    “We’re discussing the plans for the new Concert Hall.”
    “What’s wrong with the old one?”
    “The roof leaks I believe, and the toilet facilities are totally inadequate!”
    “What do they think we have the Recreation Hall for?”
    “A Recreation Hall is not a Concert hall.”
    “A folk music concert was once held there I believe.”

    “You did not attend?”
    “I do not like folk music.”
    “You’re more a Vivaldi man I suppose.”
    “Not at all, Gilbert and Sullivan actually!”
    “So you’re a Gilbert and Sullivan as well are you?”
    “Taking one consideration with another, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one”
    “Happy one!”
    “What about the Palace of fun?”
    “I don’t recall that in Gilbert and Sullivan.”
    “No, no, here in The Village.”
    “The Palace of fun.....here in The Village.”
    “It’s on the map of The Village.”
    “Yes, I know it is, everyone knows.”
    “So?”
    “What do you mean so?”
    “Well everyone knows it’s on the map of The Village, but no-one remembers having actually ever seen it!”
    “Well perhaps it was demolished to make way for the Recreation Hall.”
    “It’s in the wrong place!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Look, according to the map..........”
    “You have a black and white map of The Village.”
    “It’s alright for you, but I cannot afford a colour map!”
    “Yes, well the Recreation Hall isn’t marked on the map either!”
    “Nor is the hospital, but that exists. According to the map, the Palace of fun should be over there on the left passed the Town Hall, almost opposite the stagecoach.”

    “Stagecoach, there is no stagecoach indicated on the map.”
    “No, but the Palace of Fun is.”
    “So what are you going to do about it?”
    “I’m going to ask Number Two about it.”
    “I shouldn’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Have you heard of the Silver Dollar Saloon?”
    “No,”
    “Well the Palace of Fun was worse than that, gambling, drinking, and a disorderly house into the bargain!”
    “No!”
    “Yes. Number Two was a frequent visitor.”
    “Our Number Two?”
    “Oh no, a predecessor. He saw to it that the Cat and Mouse nightclub was set up. No alcohol, and no ladies of the night!”
    “Damned spoilsport!”
    “He was a teetotaller, and he didn’t like women!”
    “Each to their own.”
    “I say, what have you in that leather document case you always carry with you?”
    “A filled hipflask and a copy of Playboy!”
    “Where did you get those?”
    “I know the helicopter pilot!”

Be seeing you

Quote For The Day

   “Supposing I don’t want any flowers?”

    “Everyone has flowers for Carnival, be seeing you.”

                               {Number 6 and a gardener - Dance of The Dead}

    I don’t think Number 6 had anything against flowers per se, perhaps he simply didn’t like to have things foisted upon him. After all he had window boxes on his London house, not that ZM73 could be seen to be a keen gardener. He might have had a man to tend the window boxes, to dead-head the flowers and water them occasionally. The window boxes might be one coincidence, another would be that there is no garden to No.1 Buckingham place, just as there is no garden to ‘6 Private’ in The Village!

   And when it comes to flowers, on Number 6’s ‘Things To Do Today’ pad there was a note saying “Send thank you note for flowers at earliest.” Who would be sending the Prisoner, or rather ZM73, flowers?

Be seeing you

Caught On Camera!

   There is something not quite right here, for some reason they keep

swapping people about! There’s the two chaps, one wearing a white crash helmet and a chap in a red jersey sporting a beard holding up a large placard behind the first one. Also one of the chaps wearing a striped jacket has been replaced!

And yet when viewed from behind…...

…….those two men have been replaced by two chaps wearing straw boaters. I’m not even sure if there are the two placards, but just one. Which means both the two chaps wearing black and white striped jackets, who started out carrying the Vote No.2 placard, have been replaced! This is a trivial matter, and probably of no interest to many. But I find it interesting the way such scenes are filmed without any apparent regard for continuity!

Be seeing you

Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                        Pool & Fountain

BCNU

The Schizoid Man In The Mirror!

    Seen one night in ‘Checkmate’ Number 6 is at his ablutions. Seen in the mirror is his other self, and one might wonder what he makes of it all, being incarcerated in The Village. But we have seen Number 6’s mirror image before, ‘The Schizoid Man.’

    Because for Number 6 it must have been like staring back at himself in the mirror! But which is the original and which the economy pack as they say. Well firstly it would have been much better had they retained the original idea of both wearing the same brown coloured blazer, and that would have made it more difficult to tell them apart. However, we have to work with what we have. It’s Number 6 who has been turned, not into his other self, but almost the mirror image of himself. It’s almost as though Number 6 has stepped out of the mirror into The Village. Although the parting of his hair is wrong it should be on the left side, but he is left handed as his reflection in the mirror. With ‘The Schizoid Man’ this is the nearest we get to an actual confrontation between 6 and his alter ego 6, not at all like the chaotic and riotous meeting between Number 6 and Number 1. Here we have the weakened, disorientated, and disadvantaged 6 against a strong, confident, self-assured 6. Although they battle each other, the one trying to get the upper hand of the other, if they really were their other self then they would need each other to make the perfect whole. And yet the meeting between Number 1 and Number 6 is manic, as both exhibit extremely wild or violent behaviour. And really there isn’t much to choose between them, each is as bad as the other, there’s no weakness, no meekness in either. The best one can say about it is, it’s forceful and dramatic. Perhaps had Number 6 managed to lay his hands on his other self, he would have strangled the life out of him. And I cannot but help recall the image of Number 6 almost about to put his hand to the effigies throat in the locker room! Number 6 may have rid himself of his other self, but he needed him more than he might realise, even though he hated himself for what he had done!

Be seeing you

The Prisoner

    It’s strange sir.

    What’s strange Twenty-Two?
    That since his arrival here, he has not spoken one word, not one syllable has passed his lips, no protests, nothing.
    He’s passive enough.

    Too passive, it’s not natural.

    Perhaps he has nothing to say for himself!
    Makes you wonder why he was sent here in the first place.
    It doesn’t make me wonder, when you’ve been here as long as I have, you’ll learn it’s not always advantageous to ask questions.

    You’ve only been here a week!
    A week’s a long time in The Village. So my little friend, what have you got to tell us?
    .........................................

    Playing dumb won’t help you in the long run. Tell us what we want to know......well let’s begin with your name, that’s an easy one.
    .........................................
    The time of your birth?
    .........................................

    Can he talk Number Two?
    What do you mean?
    Physically, can he talk?
    I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?

    Listen little man, can you talk?....... He just sits there looking at the floor, or up at the ceiling!
    According to his file he was Lord Idlemere’s butler.
    Who is Lord Idlemere when he’s at home?
    No idea, but it has given me an idea............. So there you are my little friend, you are now my butler. I think I would like some tea.
    The little man in black tails bowed and left the chamber.

    You see Number Twenty-two, he makes the perfect servant, servile, serving unquestioningly.
     I don’t like the way he wears those black gloves, he never takes them off, it makes me shudder.

    Why’s that then?

    I’ve been reading up about Lord Idlemere.

    Why, what happened to him?
    Our little friend here strangled him to death with those gloved hands!

Be seeing you

Village Life!

    “Look can you hold your end up a bit more?”
    “No, I’m tired of holding this thing!”
    “You can’t be, we’ve got to parade all around the village carrying this.”
    “We haven’t have we, what all the way down to the stone boat and back up that hill?”
    “We must be special.”

    “Special, how do you work that out?”

    “Number Two said he wanted two strong arm men.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I said we’re not used to strong arm stuff.”
    “And what did he say?”
    “Oh don’t worry, you’ll soon pick it up!”
    “Oh we picked it up alright, and haven’t put it down yet!”
    “Oh stop griping! It makes us stand out!”
    “Yeah, and we get to wear these striped jackets!”
    “What’s wrong in that?”
    “They make us look like tweedledee and tweedledum!”
    “Oh stop being so disharmonious and hold your end up!”
    “I wish we were supporting Number Six.”
    “Why, he doesn’t have one of these.”
    “Precisely!”

Be seeing you

Caught On Camera!

   Doctor Number 40 “They always do that don’t worry, he’ll be alright in a moment.”

   Why do they always do that?

Be seeing you

A Favourite Scene In Dance of The Dead

  The doctor-Number 40 is watching the wall screen in the Control Room. On the screen a doctor, who bears a similarity to Number 40, a nurse, and male orderly has entered 6 Private. Number 6 is asleep in bed, and the doctor checks the mug on the bedside table to make sure the patient has actually drunk his drugged nightcap.

    “Shouldn’t you be doing this in the hospital?” the Supervisor asks.
    “I know what I’m doing.”
    “What about Number Two, has it been agreed?”
    “I’ll take the responsibility, if we wait for orders we’ll never get results!”
    “I hope you do know what you’re doing.”

    All this time the doctor and nurse have been preparing the patient for the experiment, who suddenly wakes up and waves his arms in front of his face!
    “They always do that don’t worry, he’ll be alright in a moment.”
    “You know the instructions about Number Six, if any damage is done to him…..”
    “He’ll talk before that happens.”
    On the screen Number 6 seems to be adjusting to the treatment.

    “Ah it’s going to work, I knew it would.”
    The doctor picks up a telephone, puts it into Dutton’s hand, and presses a button. The bedside table telephone in 6 Private begins to bleep, Number 6 picks up the receiver.
    “It’s a bore old man” says Dutton “the committee, they want a breakdown on everything you know. You me, Arthur, the Colonel, everybody, suspected security leak apparently, all the files you’ve seen, the projects you know about just headings not details. This phone is scrambled I’ve got a recorder. Might as well tell me now.
    “You…you must not ask me that.”
    “I’m not, it’s the committee that’s asking” the doctor tells Dutton.
    “I’m not, it’s the committee that’s asking.”
    “……Who is that….who….is that, who is that?”
    “It’s Dutton, hello, hello are you there?” The doctor tells Dutton.

    “It’s Dutton, hello, hello are you there?”
    “You must stop you’ll damage the brain, then we’ll all be….” the Supervisor urges.
    On the wall screen Number 6 is seen to collapse back on the bed, as Number 2 enters the Control Room.

    “Stop! Get that man back to the hospital.”
    “Number Six was about to talk!” protests the doctor.”
    “Don’t you believe it, he’d have died first. You can’t force it out of this man, and he’s not like the others.”
    “I would have made him talk….everyman has his breaking point.”

    “I don’t want him broken, he must be won over. It may seem a long process to your practical mind, but this man has a future with us. There are other ways.”
    The doctor conducted his experiment concerning Number 6 from the Control Room because he needed the use of the wall screen. I suppose he could have used Number 2’s office, but he was acting without orders, without Number 2’s permission! He said “Ah it’s going to work, I knew it would” using Dutton as a communications medium. Well it didn’t work, Number 6 isn’t like the others. I wonder how it felt for the doctor to experience failure, well not quite failure, but to be stopped dead in his tracks whilst in the middle of an experiment.

    Arthur and the Colonel, might they not be like Fotheringay and the Colonel, not forgetting Thorpe and Colonel James. And we’ve heard of Arthur before, Mrs. Butterworth’s late {or supposed} husband who was a Naval man. And British Naval officers were often recruited into British Military Intelligence.

   Why the doctor only wanted headings and no details of the files Number 6 had seen, the projects he knows about I don’t know. Perhaps that would have been the start. If Number 6 will answer one simple question, all the rest will follow. But that’s already been tried a couple of times already. But then again there’s never been anyone like the doctor who would stop at nothing in order to gain information. Just look at what his experiments had done to Dutton!
   Then Number 2 stepped in just in time, and put an end to the doctor’s latest experiment. She told him “Don’t you believe it, he’d have died first. You can’t force it out of this man, and he’s not like the others.” The doctor said he would have made him talk, well he wouldn’t because Number 6 isn’t like the others! Number 2 also told him “This man has a future with us.” Did Number 2 figure that out all by herself, or did those “masters” on the other end of the teleprinter send her an instruction advising that that is the case, although it could have been Number 1. Either way, we now know that Number 6 is not expendable………unlike Roland Walter Dutton!

Be seeing you

Village Life!

   “You know what the trouble with you is Number Six.”
   “I don’t, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
   “You want jam on it!”
   “It’s probably one of the rules here, jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but no jam today!”

   “Stop blethering and pass the marmalade!”

Be seeing you

Exhibition of Arts And Crafts

                   “You ain’t see me, right!”

BCNU

The Prisoner

    You can’t keep me here!
    Why not?
    Look I don’t know what I’m doing here, or how I came to be here…
    Don’t worry, it’s like that for everyone. Why don’t you sit down and have some lunch?
   I don’t want any lunch, but a few answers would do very nicely.
   I am here to ask the questions, you to supply the answers.
   I’m not telling you anything.

   Oh you will, in time you will want to tell me, if only to unburden yourself.
    I’ve done nothing wrong. It wasn’t my fault the plans were stolen. You need to talk to that Civil Servant who let his briefcase get swiped!
    We have! You weren’t sorry about that were you, in fact you were quite happy about it.
    I’m loyal.

    It’s not your loyalty that is being questioned.
    What then?
    We want you to duplicate those plans.

    You mean you don’t have them?
    No.
    Then who does?
    Not us, so it stands to reason that they must have them. But we have one great advantage, we have you!
    I’ll let you go for now, to allow you to acclimatize yourself to your new surroundings. We’ll talk again, and perhaps then you’ll be more receptive.
    I wouldn’t count on it.
    Let me warn you, this is just the beginning, we have many ways and means. Sooner or later you’ll work for us, sooner or later you’ll want to, it’s simply a question of time.

    You expect me to collaborate?
    Call it that if you must. Better that than……

    Than what?
    Come, I’ll show you.
    After a short taxi ride to the hospital………..
    What are you doing to him?
    As you can see….nothing!
    And you expect me to believe that?
    We can’t do anything to him yet…..you haven’t built the mind scrambling device yet. This man sits quietly waiting because his brain has been scrambled. We want your machine so that we can un-scramble it, thereby reversing the process which brought about this man’s current state of mind.
    I won’t do it!
    But you will.

    You can’t make me, nothing on earth would make me construct such a device.

    But you did.
    I…….did? Who is that man?
    It’s you! You see Professor we have another machine, it’s called a time machine. We managed to bring you back, but not your machine. So in helping us you can help yourself, and this time there will be no mistakes!

Be seeing you