Village Life!

    “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast as you can. But this is what you fed into the computer!”
    “And that’s what came out.”
    “And that’s what you get from a second-hand, rewired computer like the General!”
    “I can put it through again if you like sir.”
    “What’s the point, if you only get out what you put in?”
    “But if you don’t put it in, in the first place, you can’t get it out in the second place!”
    “But we didn’t get it out!”
    “But we put it in.”
    “And this is what came out.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “It’s meaningless!”
    “Nursery rhymes are rarely meaningless sir.”
    “Who asked you? Oh get out of my way.”
    {Number 2 quickly makes for the door through the arch, and trips up}
    “And who put that blasted step there? I could have broken my leg, pigmies!”

Be seeing you

Bureau of Visual Records

    That Number 6, he’s always walking, irritating man! But if only Number 2 had known at the time, that Number 6 had just come from the woods, having infiltrated the secret laboratory and learning of what had been taking place there. Well what price all the surveillance, and Observers who are supposed to see and hear everything?! But perhaps there was no surveillance in the laboratory, after all no-one was supposed to know it was there except Number 2 and Number 14. But there you have it in a nutshell, Number 14, the weak link in the chain! She had occasion to go to the laboratory in broad daylight. As she left her cottage and was being watched by Number 6, who followed her through The Village, into the woods to the laboratory. So again what of all the surveillance in The Village, there are even cameras in the woods, and Number 6 was able to follow Number 14 without himself having been observed. It may be supposed that Number 6 following Number 14 may well have been caught on camera, but how often are the security tapes reviewed? Not that often I shouldn’t wonder, not unless something of importance happens. The breaking of curfew, an escape attempt, or breach in security, so unless an Observer happened to pick up on Number 6 following Number 14, then he would have got away with it Scot free!
   But had Number 2 known of Number 6’s recent activity, what could he have done about it? The laboratory and what had been taking place there had been discovered, and there’s no way of making Number 6 un-know that, so bringing the experiment to a premature closure!

Be seeing you

Page 6

    There’s one thing I don’t understand…….. why didn’t they bring ‘A’ to The Village, and ‘B’ as well if it comes to that. But perhaps they weren’t important enough, maybe they didn’t know too much or too little! Mind you the doctor did suggest that Number 2 might bring Engadine to The Village, to which he said yes, probably because he thought Engadine was ‘C’. But she wasn’t, he was! What’s more ‘C’ had been successfully brought to The Village, and with any and all information having been extracted, he was “turned” and indoctrinated into the ways of The Village then given the position of Number 2! It’s a sad thing, but Number 6 must have realized this, and through his intervention Number 2 made a sad figure of a man, who suddenly realized that he’s not the man he thought he was. That his former self, his former life, had been brainwashed away!

Be seeing you

This Evening I Am Mostly Watching THEPRIS6NER

    It’s the 7^th anniversary of THEPRIS6NER, and this evening my wife and I will be watching ‘Arrival.’ A man wakes up somewhere in the desert, and a tiny beetle scurries off. Who is this man, what’s he doing there, and how did he come to be out in that desert surrounded by the mountains? 

   There are a couple of flashbacks or remembrances of this man in his apartment. Then suddenly the sound of gunfire!

   Then comes the sound of dogs barking, and figures in the distance. The man keeps himself hidden, out of sight, as he watches an old man scrambling down a slope as he is shot at by the pursuing Guardians. The man decides to help the pursued figure. He picks up the old man wearing a black piped blazer, and carries him, pursued by the sound of dogs, but there are no dogs, there are no pursuers! He finds a small cave and drags the body of the old man inside. Another remembrance of his apartment, and the look of panic in the man’s face. Beyond the cave only the desert for hundreds of miles in all directions.
   In the cave the old man regains consciousness.
   The man “Why are they after you? Has something happened to me? How?”
   The old man “Listen to me. Tell them all I got out.”
   “Something happened to me. I was in New York.”
   “Go to five five four.”
   “Five five four what?”
   “Tell her.”
   “Tell her where I am.”
   “You’re, you’re not from here?”
   “I don’t even know how I got to this place.”
   “You…are…a…bloody…miracle……..be seeing you.”
   The old man, 93, died, and the Prisoner buried him under a dead tree. Then set out across the desert, walking for miles and miles under the hot scorching sun until he came to The Village!
   There are taxis, not the Mini-Moke, but the Renault Dauphine. There are no railroad stations, the taxi driver 147 doesn’t even seem to know what a railroad is. He’s asked to take the man to the nearest town, but it’s a local taxi service, that does local destinations.
   So where is this place
   “The Village.”
   “Yeah, but what village?”
   “Hey man, what gives with you? This is The Village, and I do local destinations.”
   The Prisoner goes into a bar, the “Go-Inside” bar where he meets with 313, he asks her why is he in this place? He’s in The Village, where else would he be? Then suddenly a guardian with a dog, he sees it, but not 313, that’s because there is no guardian or dog!
  Another taxi ride, and the Prisoner finds 554, a waitress at the Solar Café, where you can get anything to eat, just as long as it’s served in a wrap!
  Again the Prisoner is pursued by guardians with dogs into a derelict building which turns out to be a run-down cinema. In order to escape, the Prisoner smashes a window and climbs out onto a ledge. Then a dark shadow appears, its tossing a hand grenade in the air. The Prisoner falls to the ground, Two tells him to get up and walk, but the Prisoner cannot get to his feet. The Prisoner wants to know how long he’s been there. Two tells the Prisoner that he knows he is Six. The Prisoner pleads that he’s nobody, that he doesn’t know anything. But he does, he is Six, he is Village! the truth is right inside Six.
   The Prisoner ends up in the hospital where the doctor 313 is taking care of him. Eventually the Prisoner is released from hospital and is taken to see Two.
  “Look” says Two “see how the sun makes it all glow.......the kind of day that makes you glad to be alive!”
   The Prisoner wants to know why Two is keeping him there. But Two sees no locked doors.
   They were after him, the Prisoner tells Two, it sounds terribly ominous. Why is the Prisoner there? It’s nothing to do with him, any of this.
  But what was Six doing in the mountains? He was lost, he has no idea how he got there…..what did Two call him? Listen, something’s wrong here! Yes you are wrong Six. But don’t call him that. He’s not Six! But he has identification appertaining to Six, he is Six. Two wants to know what Six has done with 93, the old man, Six was seen out in the desert with him. But all Six wants is to get back to New York. But that’s not possible, there is no New York, there is only The Village!
   And so it begins, a man confused in a Village from which there is no escape for the Prisoner!
Breathe in…breathe out…Village life goes on!

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The Turquoise Dome!

   This image was taken during the Prisoner Convention at Portmeirion last weekend {March 31^st – April 2^nd} I was watching my friends from Germany standing on the balcony, when I was struck by the colour of the Dome. Its no longer brown, its oxidizing and beginning to take on the bluish-green or turquoise colour of verdigris at long last.
   In 1991 the worn out wooden Dome was replaced by a copper Dome which was covered in lacquer, and has taken all this time to oxidize and take on the verdigris effect.

   So in time the current colour of the Dome of the Pantheon will return to the full turquoise colour it was originally intended to be as shown here.

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The Guardian

    We’ve seen the effect the Guardian has upon its victims, suffocation into unconsciousness or to death. For the survivor the effects can be pretty unpleasant. In ‘Arrival’ a young man dodged about this way and that, but very quickly the Guardian was on him, perhaps attracted by the movement of the man, or sensing his fear.
   Nadia attempted to escape during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ by simply swimming away. The Guardian was despatched to stop Number 8 and bring her back to The Village. A moving body in the water, the Guardian attracted to the swimmer by movement in the water like a shark, the same would apply with Number 6 after he jumped overboard and was left floundering in the sea in ‘Free For All.’ Curtis also fell foul of the Guardian, after he struggled to get Rover to accept the password “Schizoid man,” he ran for it. That, combined with a show of fear, the sudden movement was enough for the Guardian to attack.
   Going back to ‘Arrival’ before the Guardian attacked that young man, Number 2 gave the order to “be still,” and all the citizens including the Prisoner, apart from the young man, all stood stock still. It was the same in ‘Checkmate, when the Guardian was on patrol. The membranic thing roared and everyone, pedestrians and cyclists alike, stepped smartly to the sides of the road and stood stock still as the Guardian passed by. Also passing by at that time was Number 14 the ex-Count. He didn’t stand still but kept on walking ignoring the Guardian, and showing no fear which at the same time paid no attention to the man with the stick! Could this mean that if you genuinely had no fear or showed no reaction whatsoever to the Guardian, that its powers were rendered useless?

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I’m Going To escape…….

    At least Number 6 was able to keep half of the pledge he made to Number 2 during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ “I’m going to escape and come back. Escape come back, wipe this place off the face of the Earth, obliterate it, and you with it.” Also Number 2 in ‘Dance of the Dead,’ said of Number 6 “He’ll eventually go back to his room, it’s the only place he can ever go.” And that proved to be the case after escaping The Village in ‘Many Happy returns,’ as he eventually went back to the room of his London home, even though he was suspicious of his surroundings. But really I don’t know why he was so suspicious, after all he’s walked through London from Park Lane to Buckingham Place, that should have told him where he was. However once back in that room I suppose………he could have been back in The Village! And that’s eventually where he went back to, his room in The Village, just as Number 2 said, “It’s the only place he can ever go.”
   It’s strange how Number 6 having successfully escaped the confines of The Village he couldn’t wait to return there! Mind you, seeing the state Number 6 was in when he returned to London he was something of a raggedy man, an outcast, a refugee, with no money, no job, no car, and no home! To me Number 6 was more of an outcast in London, and seems much more at home in The Village. It’s no wonder he couldn’t wait to get back there!

Be seeing you