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Monday, 13 May 2019

Village Life!

    “How are you this bright sunny morning?”
    “Happy.”
    “How so?”
    “Well its Friday, the weekend starts here!”
    “The weekend, what do you mean the weekend?”
    “The weekend two days in which we can do anything we like.”
    “I’ve worked here for the past five years, and I’ve never realized there was such a thing as a weekend.”
    “You’re pulling my leg!”
    “No.”
    “You have never had a weekend off?”
    “There’s no such thing, not here, not in The Village. One day here is much the same as any other day.”
    “But I’ve seen people enjoying themselves on the beach.”
    “They are the prisoners, or people who are of an age as not to be of any further consequence.”
    “Perhaps it’s their lunch hour!”
    “What’s that?”
    “So they have all the fun, and we get all the work.”
    “I’d be careful if I were you. You never know who might be listening!”
    “Well, at least it’s Friday and the weekend starts here, so what about a drink in the Cat and Mouse after work?”
    “They closed down the Cat and Mouse.”
    “Why, whatever for?”
    “The barman was caught watering down the cordials!”


Be seeing you

Saturday, 11 May 2019

Tonight The Prisoner – Schizoid

An Un-2 passed by the Village shop
    Once more the series is going along far too quickly for my own liking, after watching each episode I’m still left wanting more Village!

    In ‘Schizoid,’ when Two goes out into the Village after Six has warned him that two-times-Six wants to kill him. 
    6 “Who is he?”
    2 “Who is who?”
    “There’s a man in the Village, who looks like me, exactly like me. He says he’s going to kill you.”
    “Six if going to kill me!”
    “No he’s going to kill you!”
    “Oh, and that Six, he’s angry. Well isn’t that how you feel? Come on admit it, You’d love it, love it a chance to kill me.”
    “After what you’ve done, yes I’d like you dead.”
    “So you will be the assassin, isn’t that logical? Don’t we live by logic?
    “Not your logic. Not any more. And your game, what you do to me here won’t stop me.”
    “Are you quite sire it is a game?”
    “Yes. Cause no-one gets close to Two unless Two wants them to.”
    “Well perhaps he will. Perhaps the moment will come. I’ll walk today…be seeing you.”
     As he walks through the village {to the song You Are My Sunshine} Two discards his cloth cap, his gloves, his walking stick he places in a litter bin. He takes off his jacket and drops it in the road. His tie removed dropping it in the wicker basket on a bicycle as a woman pushes it passed. Taking off his sun glasses Two pauses and places them on a schoolboys head. Then as Un-Two he sits down on a bench to enjoy the sunshine, as the following announcement is made over the public address system.
    “Impersonating Two is an act of treason. In the event of a Two impersonator arising, you must seek him out and apprehend him. This man may look like Two, but you will know that he is not Two, because he is not Two. He may appear in the village in a dishevelled state, which has resemblances to Two. He may claim to be Two, but he is not, and he must be treated as who he is, which is some one who is not Two. He is a danger to the Village.” Which must have been pre-recorded by Two.
   Every bit of pain Six knows is because of Two, but vows that he will find a way to make Two suffer! Casually watching from a distance is Six, well two times Six actually. The question is what is the reality? Are there really two Six’s in the Village? It seems that two times Six wants to kill Two, but doesn’t that mean Six wants to kill Two?
   Isn’t two times Six a figment of Six’s imagination, conjured up in his subconscious, because it seems that only Six can see two times Six. Well just for a second Un-Two sees two times Six’s reflection in a window of the Village Shop, but it was only for a second then the reflection was gone. Un-Two goes out and about in the Village, he calls into the village shop and enjoys smoking a cigarette with the shopkeeper;
    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.”
   “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 over twenty years ago!!!
  As for Un-Two, there is no Un-Two, its Just Two. But somehow I cannot help but like both characters. As for two times Six, Michael looks down upon the Village through a window of one of the twin towers, and sees two times Six standing on a street corner outside the Village shop. He bangs on the window trying to attract two times Six’s attention. But then a bus passes by and two times Six is gone…… perhaps he was never there in the first place. Because it’s himself Michael sees standing on the street corner, meaning Six, and not Two times Six!

Breathe in…..breathe out……more Village! 
Be seeing you

MindGames

    Number 53-the Rook is the odd one out, why? Because he is the only male prisoner who betrayed Number 6, all the others are women! I suppose you might count Cobb, but he didn’t betray his ex-colleague, he only helped deceive him. And the reason why is unknown, because Cobb left The Village at the end of the episode, so Number 6 wouldn’t have seen him again anyway!


Be seeing you

In The Village!

    It’s best not to ask questions, it’s best not to enquire at all. Thus there is no place in the village for the enquiring mind. If there’s something to learn they will teach it to you, just as long as it’s past history. Mind you there is room for the mind to develop, a man tearing up a book is just a man tearing up a book. And yet to create one has to destroy, creation comes out of the ashes of destruction. A woman standing on her head is just that, a woman standing on her head, unless she is developing a new perspective, or simply letting the blood run to her head. People thought doing that feeds the brain! And that man in the chair, well he’s asleep, the mind learns only when it wants to, or what it wants to. Art you see, some are of the opinion that ‘the Prisoner’ is art, certainly Patrick McGoohan painted a pretty picture when he came up with the idea of ‘the Prisoner.’ To me ‘the Prisoner’ is basically drama, and drama tells a story, a story of a man who simply resigned his job, soon after which he was abducted to a place simply called the village. Is that the reason behind his abduction, that fact that he had resigned his job? If it is then they acted pretty damned quickly that’s all I can say, as soon as he left that office in fact. No, I do not believe that wheels to abduct this man could have been put in motion so quickly after having handed in his letter of resignation. I think the idea was conceived long before. You will recall how he was being kept under the closest possible surveillance.
    “What was that, sounded like a click. Something in the mirror, or was it over there? Yes over there too!”
    And he was thinking of a holiday, thinking of getting away. And then as soon as they realized what he had done they had to act, and act they did. They had him abducted to the village, and we know all the rest!


Be seeing you

Thursday, 9 May 2019

Speed Learn

    Described by Number 12 as “Thus a miniaturized course can be projected through the sublimator at a speed thousands of times faster than the eye can record. It is imposed directly onto the cortex of the brain and is, with occasional boosts, virtually indelible.”
    In order for Speed Learn to be operated successfully, the students are instructed to return to their cottages before each of the Professor’s lectures, because students must be sat watching their television sets throughout the transmission of each lecture. This educational experiment may well have succeeded had it not been for the intervention of Number 6, aided and abetted by Number 12. As it is the experiment failed, and yet who would have thought that an educational programme could be developed, one which delivers lectures into the nations front rooms. The Open University {established in 1969} allowing students to study in their own time, taking advantage of the technological revolution, utilising both TV and radio to broadcast its courses. A “university of the air” was controversial, the educational establishment along with the tabloid press were opposed to the idea that anyone could get a university qualification by watching television.
    Considering the dangers of mixing fact with fiction, although art is known to imitate life from time to time, and ‘the Prisoner’ did predict certain technologies. It could be that through the failure of Speed Learn the Open University was born. It is sometimes the case that when an experiment fails, it brings about the development of a lesser technique, in this case a lesser educational approach. And yet at the same time, planning for the Open University began in 1965 to 1967. So, might the use of Speed Learn in ‘The General’ {a favourite episode of McGoohan’s} be a parody on the Open University, in order to exaggerate the dangers of gaining an education through watching a television. But I offer that merely as a suggestion.
    At the time of writing the script for ‘The General’ Lewis Greifer’s son was taking his school exams, and is said to have been a blast of rage against learning by rote. He was quite angry that there was no room for imagination, or indeed innovative thinking in what they were doing.


Be seeing you

Caught On Camera!

      When the Colonel/ZM73 goes to the World Cameras shop in order to retrieve the roll of film he left there a year ago, which has now been developed into slides, he finds the shop closed. However the proprietor soon appears and unlocks the door. 
   The top of the poster, sellotaped to the door featuring Bob Monkhouse advertising Polaroid Swinger Cameras, has been rolled up!
    However a few moments later, when the Colonel/ZM73 turns and sees the man at the door looking in, the top of the poster has been adjusted!
    The top of the poster has been unrolled, and sellotaped roughly back onto the door. It is now possible to read the top line of the poster, whereas a few moments before it wasn’t! Strange things happen in ‘the Prisoner’ from time to time, sometimes for no apparent reason. This, although we shall never know, does make me wonder why the poster had been removed from the door in the first place, and then seemingly to have been replaced in something of a hurry during the filming of the scene.

Be seeing you

Tuesday, 7 May 2019

Caught On Camera!

    I bet that came as a bit of a shock to ZM73 when he saw the Colonel’s face staring back at him in the mirror. Did he recognize the face? I don’t think so, as he made no reference to the Colonel when he went to see Sir Charles Portland. Neither did PR12, and certainly Danvers hadn’t recognized the Colonel’s face, and for that matter neither did Sir Charles. Come to think of it, Sir Charles didn’t appear to know of his future son-in-law’s resignation. Certainly Janet didn’t, fancy keeping it a secret from her!
      And there’s another face, that of the late comedian Bob Monkhouse caught on camera on a poster on the door of Walters World Cameras Ltd, promoting ‘The Polaroid Swinger.’ Apparently he also appeared in a number of adverts promoting the Polaroid Swinger. I have tried to find such a poster on the World-Wide Web, but without success, or indeed any such video. 
   This is the reverse side of the above poster .
   Below a transposed image, the top of which has been turned down on the inside of the shop door to World Cameras.
h video.
Be seeing you