More Village!

    Ting-a-ling-ling sounds the shop bell as Un-Two enters the Village Shop.

    "Do you have cigarettes?"
    The Shopkeeper "No. But would you like to buy a map of The Village?"

    "You sure you don't have any cigarettes?.....Would you look?"

    "We haven't had cigarettes here for eight years and five months."
    "If you don't look, how can you be really sure that you're right?"

    {The Shopkeeper-37927 looks under the counter and produces a pack of Village cigarettes and a book of matches. Un-Two looks longingly at the packet. The shopkeeper unwraps the packet and offers Un-Two a cigarette and lights it. Un-Two draws long and deep on the cigarette, and offers one to 37927, and together they enjoy a guilty pleasure.}

    Shopkeeper "I didn't supply you with these cigarettes."
    "No."

    "I don't have them. I don't even know what they are."

    "No."
    "I'd forgotten they even existed. You came in here to buy a map."

    "I used to smoke in order to think."
    "You did? Are you thinking now?"
    "I am. Sometimes........"
    "Yes."
    "I think..........."
    "Go on."

    "That I could choose, there's a place I want to spend the rest of my life. A warm place...with no memory.

    "Just be careful what you say around here. People will report you as soon as look at you. Don't be different."
    "I wonder if we smoke to feed the guilt?"
    "Speaking for myself, I smoke for that oaky flavour, with just a hint of lavender."

    "These things will kill you, you know. The main health risks in tobacco relate to diseases of the cardiovascular system. In particular  myocardial infraction, diseases of the respiratory tract, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. And asthma, emphysema and cancers, in particular lung cancer, and cancers of the larynx and tongue."

    "So I've heard."

    "Smoking is a kind of suicide."

    "That's a bit philosophical....for a Thursday.'"

    {Un-Two stubs out his cigarette}

    "Thank you, and I'll say good day to you."

    As Un-Two leaves The Village shop the shopkeeper is on the telephone making a call to the Clinic to report his customer.

    This scene is a very seductive one. The way Un-Two and the shopkeeper-37927 enjoy smoking their cigarettes always makes me feel like I would enjoy a cigarette, and I gave up smoking some twenty years ago!!!

   I remember when I did used to smoke, how back in the 1980's a group of us would be in the local public house, enjoying a drink and a smoke. At times we would discuss the risks of smoking, and yet carry on smoking despite those risks.

   And of course today here in Britain cigarettes can no longer be seen on sale, they have to be screened off from customers, so that children do not see them. And in a way, have to be sold under the counter, like in the scene in 'Schizoid.'

Be seeing you

Caught On Camera!

   The two images were taken via routine surveillance, of the Prisoner aiding the old man 93 evade the pursuing armed Guardians. To do this you can observe that the Prisoner carried 93 on his back. And yet also observe the continuity error. The fact that in the top picture the Prisoner is wearing a dark zip-up jacket, and in the lower picture the jacket has been replaced by a lilac coloured shirt!

BCNU



Thought For The Day

    There are several categories of Village citizen. Top of the food chain is  No.2, who has been recruited to The Village, or was once a prisoner himself, and thereby is trusted to leave after his or her term of office. Then there are those recruited to The Village, all those people who are needed to run and look after The Village, electricians, bricklayers, carpenters. Window cleaners, gardeners, laboratory technicians, administrators, doctors, nurses, Guardians and warders, the list would be endless. Then there are those like the Professor and his wife who came to The Village of their own free will, but never be allowed to leave. Nadia Rakovsky a plant, the Colonel used in an experiment of mind change, who was allowed to leave. The Colonel and Fortheringay who aided in the deception of the Prisoner in the attempt to extract the reason behind the Prisoner’s resignation.

     People are brought to The Village who have knowledge that is important to No.2. People who cannot be left around. Who know too much, or too little, the knowledge inside their heads of great value to one side or another. And that knowledge to be either protected or extracted. As in the case of Roland Walter Dutton, who told them all he knew. And Cobb, how long did he hold out before he told them all they wanted to know? Who was turned, and was to be able to leave The Village and work for his new masters. Chambers, who resigned from the Foreign Office, who had been brought to The Village, he was so talkative, I doubt very much that extreme measures were used against him. Who may very well have been turned like Cobb, and eventually able to leave The Village.

    And finally there are those who you wonder why they were ever brought to The Village in the first place. For example Alison-No.24, No.8 who loved No.6. The ex-Admiral, and the General. Or the maid No.66 who couldn't remember her parents, who was probably not brought to The Village at all, but was born there. Then No.51 the Watchmaker was probably recruited to The Village, he might have brought his wife with him. They had a daughter Monique-No.50 which is really one of two only suggestions of family life within The Village, along with the two boys and the girl who No.6 child minds occasionally. Monique in all probability was also born of The Village, depending on how long No.51 has been in the Village, his wife probably died there!

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Last Night I Was Mostly Watching

    The Chimes of Big Ben. Well my wife and I should have been watching 'Arrival' really, and yet seeing as how yesterday the chimes of Big Ben rang out over London in 1859 for the first time, watching 'The Chimes of Big Ben' seemed more appropriate. But that's not to say we are embarking on a screening of 'the Prisoner,' because we're not. Instead we are watching 'the Prisoner' in a form of a mini-series of our favourite episodes, and in no particular order either.
   So Arrival - The Chimes of Big Ben - Free For All - Checkmate - Dance of the Dead - Hammer Into Anvil, and Many Happy Returns. To be perfectly honest, although I enjoyed watching 'The Chimes of Big Ben' last night, I was not excited by the prospect, not in the same way as I was when I was watching THEPRIS6NER-09 series. Perhaps it is as I have said before, familiarity breeds contempt! Or more likely THEPRIS6NER is now by far the greater in my affections. Whenever I see actors from the 2009 series in films or other television series, I say look, there's 909, or 313. Ian McKellen was on television the other evening, I now see him as Two. I used to do that sort of thing with actors from the original series of 'the Prisoner,' but not any more. Oh don't misunderstand me, I still appreciate 'the Prisoner' very much indeed, I am still very much the enthusiast. But somehow the excitement, the anticipation of watching an episode seems to be no longer there, familiarity breeding contempt. Or that 'the Prisoner' is so much in my mind that I no longer really need to watch the series at all! Or writing about 'the Prisoner' every day may also be a factor. I happen to know a huge enthusiast for 'the Prisoner' who had not watched the series in years and years, who didn't even own 'the Prisoner' on video. He still very much appreciates 'the Prisoner' today, yet doesn't feel the need to watch the series at all. Perhaps he is on another level to enthusiasts such as you or I. While another tells me that fandom for 'the Prisoner' is dead, I'm not at all sure which level he's on!

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Exhibition Of Arts And Crafts

From My Watercolour Period - simply entitled

                                         "Back In The Village!"

BcNu

Caught On Camera!

   Either Nadia-No.8 was showing her rebellious nature by wearing her badge upside down, or there's been a cock-up on the the part of wardrobe, that Nadia Grey was sent on set improperly dressed! Mind you Pat McGoohan didn't notice either so he's just as bad! Perhaps he thought we won't re-shoot the scene as no-one will notice. Well if he did he got that one wrong as well!

BCNU

Medical Ethics!

       There are a number of doctors in The Village who are never happier than when they are experimenting on human subjects. Such as the doctors 22 and 40, to my mind, and fictionally speaking, they might have been involved at one time with the experimental installation of Porton Down where chemical weapons, and nerve gas agents were once developed, and experimentation carried out.

   Number 14, I think as a doctor, that although she has developed her new drug, there is a moral ethic about her. She doesn’t want to see a drug used on humans that has not been tested on animals first. It is possible that through Number 6 having gotten the better of Number 2, Number 14 extracted her revenge on Number 2. After all he had threatened her, coerced into the bringing the experiment forward to a time when she was not ready. It makes me wonder just how much time No.2 had spent in getting to the point of ‘A B and C,’ It’s no wonder he only had three days left!

   Then  there’s, Number 86, who might have been the worst unfeeling doctor of them all, seeing how easily she carried out leucotomies on patients in The Village. Who was prepared to use her femininity in order to distract Number 6, as she carried out the deception against Number 6. But she lacked the wit, and in the end was easily out manoeuvred by Number 6 and ended up taking her own drug.

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