Dissidents And Jammers!

   It was Number 12 who first mentioned dissidents, an organisation, being active in The Village. While under interrogation he asked Number 6 who the head man is, to which the reply came “Santa Clause.”
   The way Number 12 aided Number 6, first by giving him the Professor’s tape recorder he found on the beach. Later he supplied Number 6 with the Professor’s real message, the one heard on the tape recorder, but micro reduced and ready for transmission. Also a pair of Security Pass discs. And when Number 6 went to see Number 12 in his office. That was when he supplied Number 6 with the uniform of a Top-Hot official of Administration. The work of a dissident working within the machine! And yet there is one question. How was it Number 12 was able to micro reduce the Professor’s message from the tape recorder? Because he found it on the beach and gave it to Number 6, and he was the last to have it, before he gave it to Number 6, seeing as he didn’t need it any more. Did Number 2 then give the tape recorder back to the Professor? If he did, he didn’t bother to have the Professor’s message wiped from the tape. Because at some point the recorder must have fallen back into Number 12’s hands, given to him by the Professor. But even if Number 2 himself had kept the tape recorder, which would have simply made it easier for Number 12 to lay his hands upon it again, he didn’t wipe the tape clean, otherwise Number 12 wouldn’t have been able to have the message on the recorder micro reduced ready for transmission. Because I think it was Number 12 to whom the Professor was going to hand his tape recorder to that day he went running along the beach. Otherwise why would Number 12 be on the beach that evening looking for it? He would have been lurking on the beach, seeing the Professor bury the tape recorder in the sand. He probably saw Number 6 come across it, then re-bury it when he heard the approaching Mini-Moke, before the two “prefects” appeared on the scene. And possibly Number 12, hiding in the bushes, would have seen that. Then that evening before curfew, Number 12 returned to the beach in order to retrieve the tape recorder. But why he didn’t simply dig it up after Number 6 and the two guardians had left the scene I don’t know.

   So at the time of ‘The General’ it is suggested that there are dissidents working in The Village and yet by the time of ‘It’s Your Funeral’ there are Jammers causing mischief with their non-existent plans and developments which they contrived to confuse the Observers. So perhaps there were two groups working against The Village, unless the dissidents later turned to jamming!

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The Village Was Deserted {Well Practically Deserted}!

    In the four episodes ‘Arrival,’ ‘Free for All,’ ‘Dance of The Dead,’ and ‘Checkmate’ The Village looks to be well populated and busy, as citizens go about their daily business. Probably because they were filmed on location at Portmeiron. Whereas with a couple of later episodes ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ and at times even ‘A Change of Mind’ there are scenes in which The Village looks to be under populated, even though citizens are passing by. Even when Number 6 is posting the birthday greeting to himself, and especially when Numbers 2 and 14 set out from the Green Dome on foot. And in ‘It’s Your Funeral’ when people are gathering for the Appreciation Day ceremony, yes people carrying placards of their respective Number 2’s, but the atmosphere isn’t what it was during the election of ‘Free For All.’ Because filming for the Appreciation Day ceremony took place on a dull day in March 1967. Yes there is film footage of people parading around the Piazza, with Mini-Mokes and the Brass band plays. But that is film footage taken from ‘Dance of The Dead,’ and filmed on a sunny day in September 1966. And it’s the difference between the two that gives me feeling that The Village is under populated. And again in ‘A Change of Mind’ after Number 6 has left the Town Hall having been in front of the Committee, there are few people about. Perhaps the good citizens are all in their cottages at the time, or it’s late in the morning or afternoon! Because in both ‘It’s Your Funeral’ and ‘A Change of mind,’ it’s only the close-up shots that give The Village any population!

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It’s Your Funeral

    The Appreciation Day ceremony was so special at the time, celebrating the retiring Number 2’s achievements, hence the Appreciation Day monument displaying the word ACHIEVEMENT. The monument was beneath the balcony of the Gloriette, but sometime after it must have been removed to some other place, well out of sight. Possibly it was consigned to the scrapheap, as we never see it again.
    Number 6’s involvement in the plot to assassinate/execute the retiring Number 2, was to warn the retiring Number 2 of the assassination plot against him. The reason being why they selected Number 6, was a matter of credibility, without which the plan might backfire. Well it did backfire. Plan Division Q failed utterly, and because of Number 6’s involvement. Number 2 informed Number 6 that he’s never understood them, that they never fail. Well they did fail. Perhaps more importantly, what the interim Number 2 didn’t seem to realise is, that any plan involving Number 6 has never succeeded!

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Caught On Camera!

   In ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ the shopkeeper-Number 112 leaves the General Stores on his way to the Green Dome, having reported Number 6’s suspicious activity to Number 2. He is supposed to have a copy of The Tally Ho and six records of Davier’s recording of Bizet's L'alesienne suite in his hands.

   If you watch the scene itself, you can see he has the copy of The Tally Ho with him, however that doesn’t look like the cover of a record sleeve for Davier’s recording of Bizet's L'alesienne suite to me!

  Does it to you? It might well be on the cards that when a film unit returned to Portmeirion in March 1967 for further filming, they didn’t take those six records with them. So that when they filmed the scene of the shopkeeper leaving the General Stores to cross the street, and climb the steps up to the Green Dome, actor Victor Woolf {Number 112 the shopkeeper} was given anything to carry with him, after all who was gong to notice?!

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60 Second Interview With Madam Professor

    Madam Professor “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of my art seminars before. What’s your subject?”
    No.113 “ Don’t think I have one.”
    “Everyone has a subject.”
    “Well his is photography.”
    “Really.”
    No.113b “Smile” {click goes the camera}
    “And I suppose mine is journalism.”
    “Journalism, that’s not much to do with art.”
    “Well these stories don’t write themselves you know, someone has to make them up!”
    “Well if I can help you in anyway.”
    “You don’t get out much do you?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Well me and my photographic colleague could only get an interview with you by coming to one of your art seminars.”
   “Interview?”
   “I am Number One-one three, and this is my photographic colleague Number One-one three b.”
    “Smile” {Click goes the camera} I do portraits, still life and nude photography.”
    “We contribute to The Tally Ho.”
    “Well perhaps it’s my husband the Professor you want to talk to.”
    “What made you and the Professor come to The Village in the first place?”
    “I don’t think that has anything to do with you.”
    “Your husband tried to run away the other day, doesn’t he like it here?”
    “We are both perfectly happy, we have everything we need.”
    “Except your freedom.”
    “I mean we’ve never seen either yourself or the Professor, together or separate out and about in The Village.”
    “The way you talk anyone would think my husband and I are under house arrest!”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “I think you had both better go.”
    “Alright we’ll go. Come on On-one three b.”
    “One for the album madam. You’re a good looking, handsome, attractive woman, I could get you on page three of The Tally Ho. Something tasteful.”
    “The Tally Ho only has one page!”
    “Yeah that’s right missus, and he’s got no film in his camera!”

Reporter Number 113
Photographer No.113b
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What’s That No.6 Up To?

   Looks like he’s been playing truant again. Mind you I don’t think he’s one of the Professor’s students. I wonder if……..no that would be ridiculous wouldn’t it? Mind you the Professor was caught down on the beach by a group of his students, and Number 6 was seen and caught loitering on the beach by those two so called prefects. And he came across the Professor’s tape recorder hidden in the sand. Might it possibly be conceivable that the Professor was going to meet Number 6 on the beach, so that he could give him the tape recorder? After all, the Professor must have been going to do something with it other than hide it in the sand. That has always seemed as a last resort, that should he be caught, the tape recorder would not be found on the Professor. Lucky for him it was Number 6 who came across the tape recorder accidentally, it could have been someone else less than sympathetic. Someone like Number 12 for example. But even then he turned out to be sympathetic to the cause, which turned out to be lucky………. for Number 6!   
    One might be forgiven that a fight between Number 6 and the two guardians on the beach might ensue, but no. These are polite prefects, and seeing as they don’t want Number 6 to start the term with a black mark, they give him a nice ride home. That “start the term with a black mark,” it’s suggestive. Because it does seem that Number 6 has no idea who the General or the Professor are, and Speedlearn does appear to have been going quite some time prior to the commencement of ‘The General.’ Which would mean Number 6 has already missed a number of the Professor’s history lectures, and that would normally put Number 6 at the back of the class. But as demonstrated, Number 6 is a quick learner as with that time when Number 2 and the other guy went to Number 6’s cottage searching for the Professor’s tape recorder. Number 6 was already word perfect after just one lecture, when Number 2 asked him when was the treaty of Adrianople? What happened in 1830? Number 6 answered word perfect, and only after one lecture which he never even realised had taken place. So word perfect in fact, that Number 2 was able to synchronise himself in the same answer! Its no wonder the Professor came to see Speedlearn as an abomination and slavery!

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The Enemy Within!

    “You must be new here. In time most of us join the enemy against ourselves, as Number 14 explains to Number 6 in ‘Checkmate.’
   Join the enemy against ourselves? Is that despite ourselves, or to do with Number 1? It’s quite possible that Number 6 is not the only one struggling against Number 1, and not his Number 1, but one personal to each and everyone of us. The struggle within ourselves, one which not everyone can win. Cobb lost that struggle, and went off to meet his new master. Number 2 of ‘Chimes’ and ‘Once Upon A Time,’ finally admitted that what was so deplorable, was that he resisted for so short a time.
   Number 6 has revolted. Resisted. Fought, Held fast. Maintained. Destroyed resistance. Overcome coercion. The right to be person. Someone individual. And there he sat in the chair of honour, on the throne it might be said. A man of steel, who had successfully vindicated the right of the individual to be individual, against himself. And as far as anyone can say, Number 6 was the first to do so. And in all probability his like would never be seen again!

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