Arts And Crafts

    The Prisoner-No.6 captured during my 'Chalk & Charcoal' period.

BcNu

Village Pin-Up

   The delightful, delectable Denise Buckley whose role in the Prisoner is No.56, one of No.6's personal maids. She is a flighty young woman, one who is always impatient to wear a new dress. More than that, No.56 is a stickler for the rules. Other than that, Denise can come and flick a feather duster around my study anytime she likes!

BCNU

Secret Agent Man

Danger Man – Truth Behind The Fiction

The episode Under The Lake sees John Drake employed by Colonel Keller of US Intellegence to track down a counterfeiting gang who have flooded the capitals of Europe with forged American banknotes to the value of $25 million. His only clue is an ex-Nazi, General Gunther Von Klaus and Kellers top suspect as the man who is distributing the forged banknotes.

    The trail leads Drake to a lakeside hotel, the grounds once used to house a German concentration camp. To cut a 25 minute story short, Drake manages to round up the counterfeit gang and when he orders the lake to be dragged it reveals millions of counterfeit dollar banknotes, each commissioned by Himmler during the war.

   The first two pictures are taken from the Danger Man episode, but is actual film of the search of Lake Topliz, note the diver and the floating platform in the second picture, and measure them againt pictures three and four. 

  In July of 1959 divers retrieved a large number of boxes of counterfeit £5 notes from the bottom of Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps. What's more a second diving expedition to the Lake has been undertaken in recent years, with the result that even more forged bank notes were retrieved from the bottom of the lake, sealed in boxes.

    The notes from Lake Toplitz had been printed by the Nazis during World War II as part of a plan to destabilize the British economy, but had to be dumped in the lake by the retreating Nazis to keep the counterfeit banknotes out of the hands of Partisans and the ensuing armies! The German produced film The Counterfeiters {2007} is another link to this fact.

    It is easy to see the comparisons between fact and fiction here. And this is just one example, because there are more Danger Man episodes steeped in factual stories, such as Don’t Nail Him Yet, and Colony 3. But they are two other stories, and perhaps for another time.

I'm Obliged.

The Therapy Zone

Here’s A Thing........................

    How during the time of the Prisoner's de-briefing by No.2 on the day of his arrival in the village. No.2 reaches for a black file and when upon opening it, the wall screen depicts enlarged pictures contained within the file, which No.6 snatches from No.2's hands. But instead of turning the pages from the front of the file, No.6 opens it from the back and works backwards through the file, and turning the pages quickly as though in a race against those shown on the wall screen. But although the Prisoner was working through the pages of the file from the back, the enlarged pictures shown on the wall screen were in order from the front of the file!

    The pictures depict images taken from his former life, when he is seen in his former home getting ready to meet with a colleague, Chambers, who didn't turn up, but proved so talkative. Every facet of the Prisoner's former life is shown, perhaps in part even of McGoohan himself, from his childhood years to the time he was thinking of going on holiday, he was also suffering from a cold at the time, he sneezed his way out of one of their cameras! "Ireland? Bit too cold that time of year, Paris? Maybe not. What was that, sounded like a click in the mirror, over there, yes over there too!" The prisoner was undersurveillance by someone, long before his abduction to the Village. Perhaps he had become suspect!

   It would appear that someone has been gathering images of the Prisoner's whole life, from the cradle to the act of his resignation. Not one single moment of the Prisoner's former life has been overlooked, entered and filed away for future reference. The evidence is conclusive and cannot be denied, that the Prisoner had been under surveillance by someone long before the act of his resignation, perhaps by his own people if he was suspect! And if not, then by another agency, another department, or even another country, and that would account for the gathering of all the information on the subject as they could. I don't know how they missed his date of birth though! But then no organisation is infallible. Another example would be from A B and C, they didn't know the age of 'B's' son, his name, or the fact that 'B' even had a son in the first place! Perhaps No.6 can be given a position of authority in "Information & Records."

Report To The General – That’s A New one!

    Is it by accident or intention that the episode The Schizoid Man is followed by that of The General, because the latter is mentioned in the former, that of the General in the conversation between No.6 and No.2 during their taxi ride to the helicopter outside the Recreation Hall.

    No.6 {in the guise of Curtis} "We won't know until I've reported to the General, will we?"

    No.2 "Report to the General.... that's a new one."

    No.6 "I don't mean report to him personally....."

   So is the General mentioned in that conversation between No.'s 2 and 6, that of the General in the next episode of the same name? It would surely be difficult to say, but the remark made by No2 "Report to the General......that’s a new one." So agents don't report to the General direct, this could be an indication that the General is that of the computer 'the General' of the following episode.

    However, the title of The General is also a rank, after all we are faced with not two Colonels, but three in the time of Prisoner, in The Chimes of Big Ben, Many happy Returns and Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, all of which are of a very different character. So where would we have come across the General before, save for the Prisoner? Well obviously in certain episodes of Danger Man, two of which I can instantly recall, The Black Book - General Carteret, who tries to use John Drake for his own ends, by involving him with his brother in-law Sir Noel Blanchard who is being blackmailed.  And in Such Man Are Dangerous - the General who is dedicated to discipline, and for the moral authority that derives from that discipline. And sees that most people are honest and simple, but they are by nature incapable of deciding their own destiny{incidentally both General's are played by the same actor}.

    So I suppose you pay’s your money and you takes your choice. For me, I first thought that both the General mentioned in that conversation between No.2 and No.6 was the same General of the episode The General But that would be too coincidental wouldn't it, and certainly there was no other continuity between the episodes other than the General, because the two episodes were written by two different writers, Terrence Feeley and Joshua Adam respectively.

    Besides the man who No.2 first took to be Curtis was leaving the village, surely by this time, the computer-the General, was being shipped to the village. With the Professor and his wife already having decided to volunteer themselves to the village, would soon be arriving in the village, depending of course on how much time there is to lapse between The Schizoid Man and The General.

BCNU

Seasons Greetings

    I should just like to take this opportunity to wish all readers of my blog the seasons greetings at this festive time of the year.

Be seeing yule!

Interview With The Prisoner Patrick McGoohan

Hello Number Six.
McG6 Oh it's you!
Who did you expect?
No-one.
Well Number Six, this is it, my third and final chance to get you to talk.
Why, have you run out of time?
No, tomorrow I go on leave.
Don't bother to come back will you.
I'm disappointed in you Number Six. I'd have thought by now we would have been able to work together in this matter. Sooner or later you'll tell us what we want to know. Sooner or later you'll want to.
Unburden myself you mean.
If you want to put it that way, yes.
Look, I've got a recorder, I'll switch it one......
Are you asking this?
Yes.
Not the Colonel?
No. why do you ask?
Because I can't trust you. I can't trust the Colonel. I can't trust anyone!
Look, tell me what I want to know and you won't have to trouble yourself about trusting anyone else again.
Ask the Colonel, he knows.
Knows what?
Why I resigned.
Did you tell him, was it something we missed?
I wrote it down.
Wrote it down?
In a letter of resignation
Who has the letter now?
You don't have it?
No, not according to our records.
Then the Colonel must still have it. You should have asked him for it that time he was here.
It would have been as simple as that.................
{Suddenly the over-sized curved red telephone began to bleep impatiently and in that Number Two's fate was sealed}

Christmas Time In The Village

  It's almost fourty-five years since my arrival here in the village, nearly fourty-five years ago when I first woke up to find myself amongst you. They gave me a home, a number, a credit card, health and welfare card, employment card, a card of identity, and a free ride home! And they have looked after me ever since that fateful day of my abduction and arrival here in the village!

     And what is it they want to know in return? Why I resigned, why prematurely, now that's not too much to ask is it? Well after nearly fourty-five years they are no nearer understanding, or having any idea of what it was all about, why I resigned, even though they have been told!

    Even when I told Number Two that it was for peace of mind, because too many people knew to much, he still didn't get it, perhaps because he didn't listen at the time, though it was a matter of conscience and Number Two did understand that bit. After all these years of asking questions, long interrogations and mind probing, they still don't know as much as they did when I first arrived here. But I give them full marks for persistence!

    They moved me out you know. Out of '6 private' my 'home from home' and moved me into a single room in the old people's home! Oh the ignominy of it all, being helped into the ambulance by two male orderlies with a couple of suitcases for my few personal possessions.

    In fair weather I sit outside on the lawn of the old people's home with a chess set on the table, ready for any likely opponent, and what's more I can still 'mate' in seven moves!

    But at the end of the day here I am now, an old man with white hair and beard fit for nothing more than sitting in some fairy grotto dressed in a red suit as I do now.

    "Ho, ho, ho, and what would you like for Christmas little girl?"

    "Well Santa, I want to know why you resigned?" retorted the little girl sitting on Santa's knee.

    "Well little girl, I resigned because for a very long time......just a minute, we don't celebrate Christmas here in the village, and I'm not Santa Claus!" pushing the little girl off his knee and onto the floor.

    "I told you it wouldn't work Number Two" said Number Eight disappointedly, leaning on the penny farthing.

    "He's a trained conspirator, a very hard man!" Number Two remarked.

    "Who, Santa Claus?" asked Number eight

    "No, Number Six, Number Six!" Number Two replied just as the big red telephone began to bleep impatiently.

        Later that day Number Six again attempted to escape the village........ this time by sleigh and reindeers!

No. 113

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