My phone rang on my desk. My phone never rings on my desk. This is the genuine [aside from the anonymity I am granting] conversation I had when I picked it up.
GT: Hello, Greville Tombs, Open Plan Office?
PH: Hello? This is TexisMexis Publishing House. Can I speak to Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes, I am Greville Tombs. Can I help?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: I have your letter here regarding your request to cancel your subscription to the Series Title.
GT: No you don’t.
PH: Yes, Mr. Tombs, you wrote us a letter dated 13th December.
GT: No I didn’t.
PH: You have a subscription with us for the Series Title, Mr. Tombs.
GT: No I don’t.
PH: I have your letter dated 13th December. But you say you didn’t send it to us?
GT: I didn’t send any letter to you. I don’t believe I am the person you want. Can I just check your contact details for me and how you came to be phoning me?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your address is Open Plan Office, Building, Town?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your subscription reference is DX-34-45-67-RTY?
GT: No.
PH: But you are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes. And I am talking to you from the Open Plan Office.
PH: This is TexisMexis Publishing House.
GT: I know.
PH: This is strange. I have your letter here. It is dated 13th December. I have your details on my screen of your subscription with us at TexisMexis Publishing House. I just need to confirm I am talking to you in order to proceed with your cancellation request.
GT: But you can’t confirm it, because it isn’t me. You are talking to someone else.
PH: This is strange.
GT: I didn’t send you a letter, but I am Greville Tombs.
PH: Will I continue your subscription?
Me: I don’t have a subscription. Never have. What I am more concerned about is how you got my number. Was it on the letter?
GT: Let me check. You have signed the letter “Greville Tombs”.
Me: I can’t have.
PH: Let me look again at the subscription details on my screen.
GT: Good idea. Is there anything in them which might suggest a different contact name, as I am the only Greville Tombs at this address?
PH: OK. Can you now confirm your name is Greville Turns?
GT: No.
PH: You are not Greville Turns?
GT: No. I am Greville Tombs.
PH: But why have I got your address and phone number?
GT: What is the phone number? The phone number you dialled to get me today?
PH: 1111 222 3333
GT: That’s not my phone number.
PH: This is very strange.
GT: You have dialled the Open Plan Office switchboard number and you asked for Greville Tombs and have been put through to me.
PH: Yes.
GT: Only you wanted Greville Turns not Greville Tombs.
PH: OK. I have your email address on the subscription screen.
GT: What is it?
PH: Greville dot Turns at Faceless dot org dot uk
GT: That’s not my email address. I am Greville Tombs. But I think I know what has happened. I am checking to see if we have a staff member named Greville Turns.
PH: Hmmm, it is very important I talk with you about your subscription – there are big changes to come in the New Year and I need to confirm them with you.
GT: I don’t have a subscription with you and I am Greville Tombs, not Greville Turns.
PH: This is funny.
GT: It is a little confusing.
PH: I will email instead, I think that this is the better idea, bye!
GT: I think so too. Bye, now!
It was the girl’s steadfast refusal to accept it wasn’t me, when her sole reason for calling was to securely confirm she was talking to the right person, which left me laughing!
She was her own paradox.
Which, incidentally, is the name of Greville and the Tombstone's touring support band next year, I am led to believe.
2 weeks later, I only go and get another phone call. I know!:
“Hello I am calling from Different Publishing House my name is Echo, Victor, Alpha, November, November, India, Alpha. Am I speaking to your company’s payment account department?”
Whoa, Love! I need a pencil. OK Bravo Two Zero!
"No, I am not in this department. I don't think we even have this department." "Oh! Do you know about payment accounts in your company?" "No. Can I take your details and get someone to call you back?" "Can I call this number again and leave a voice mail instead?" "SIGH!"
I mean, what is going on these days with publication house telephonists? Clearly these people are sat at a computer screen with one of those headsets which Rachel Stevens used to wear on stage and, like Rachel Stevens, totally unable to think sideways or deviate from the prescribed question/response they are trained for our gentle entertainment for.
All this made me think quite hard as I sat tugging the cable out the back of my phone.
What happened to Rachel Stevens? Is she still recording? Tell me she is still putting out calenders, at least.
Why, oh why does February have the fewest days in?
So here is my brief word stream review of 2012 and feel free to fit them into any categories you might have written down:
Olympics, John Terry, Savile, Mr Wig - Wiggo - Wiggins, Greville and the Tombstones, Mayans, films, gangnam style.
There! Are you happy now? Are you not entertained?
I have had literally no tweets asking why I haven't blogged a year review like I did in 2011 and 2010.
The reason is almost certainly the same as why I didn't write one - because people are tired of 2012 reviews. There seemed to be a never ending myriad of reviews of 2012. It was exhausting living through it all again before it was even over.
But I hear what you are saying. It is 2013 now.
Ok, you have twisted my arm.
Here are just a couple of things which I thought were stand outs of the 2012 and deserve a mention in an end of year summary, which many reviews may have missed.
Best TV of 2012
Sport this year dominated the TV. But sport is not really proper television. Sport on TV is a seat in the stadium or visual radio show. Although sport did produce some wonderful jaw dropping and unimaginable moments in 2012's 12 months it did not produce the most jaw dropping or the most unimaginable.
That went to a programme called 15 Stone Babies (C4).
15 Stone Babies was astonishing. It basically showed what will happen if you keep your Cabbage Patch doll for 40 years. Grown men and women wanting to be fully cared for as infants and the wives, girlfriends, boyfriends and businesses facilitating this want.
The only show which equalled my state of mesmerised horror was a programme from a few years back which I think was called, Guys and Dolls.
Guys and Dolls told the stories of 4 men who purchased, used and cared for "realdolls". For those who don't know, Realdolls are a mad scientist's experiment gone wrong of splicing Barbie DNA with that of 5 blow up sex dolls. Life sized anatomically correct latex dolls, glass eyes, tongues like stress balls and featuring spring loaded hips.
3 scenes from Guys and Dolls remain with me.
1. The chap who needed to return his doll to the factory to be chemically cleaned BY HAND [if I cleaned men's sex dolls for a job I would lie if someone asked why my hands are so soft and say I smother piglets for a living] and have its VAGINAL WALLS replaced [shudder]. He was brushing it's hair and stuff as he packaged it up back in it's tea crate to be sent away.
2. The man who wanted to have his realdoll lifestyle combined with a normal relationship so went on a dating site. Openly he explained to the girl he had a thing for realdolls. Fine, she said, everyone has something a little odd. Bet she wasn't expecting it to be a big but odd though and to walk into his house to see 8 realdolls sitting around his living room as best they could in their, what can only be described as, whoring postures. To his credit, the man had dressed them in demure conservative dresses, put make-up on them as if they were ginny-women of 1860's London. There was also the paper cone party hats on their heads and party blowers in their dirty mouths because it was Lucy realdoll's birthday.
If that lady didn't think: "Just eat a bit cake, drink a little tea, talk about the weather, pretend this is all normal and I might get out of here alive" then I don't know when she would ever think it, quite honestly.
[Anyway, forget the menagerie of life-sized, latex, love ladies, it's the teddy ruxpin on the shelf you need to worry about. There is a home recorded cassette up his ass of the guy talking dirty in a "lady voice". Probably]
3. The lad who tried to kick his realdoll addiction and shoved his collection into cardboard boxes in the garage, producing a scene resembling one of those suburban serial killers the cops occasionally stumble upon in Russia.
Anyway, I digress.
These adult babies enjoyed being tended to, changed and nursed. Both sides of the agreement suggested there was nothing sexual in the role-play but that "accidents happen" and are generally ignored.
The "babies" really wanted to remove all responsibility from their lives - to not have to worry about dressing, toileting or even, for some, understanding words. Those mothering (or fathering) them seemed to enjoy the caring, power and the nurturing aspects - saying the process fulfilled a need for them too.
Despite perceptions these people were in unhealthy relationships, and there was more to this fetish/lifestyle than simple enjoyment of role-playing it was something to realise these people were openly discussing this at all. Identities were not hidden.
Hi, this is me, this is the company I work for, this is my home and this is my man sized cot.
Perhaps 2012 was the point where people were becoming more aware and tolerant of what people like to innocently do without questioning any undercurrent of perversion?
One couple on the show at the end, explained it wasn't quite doing it for the husband anymore so he was busy building a sex-dungeon in the shed at the far side of their garden.
Ah.
So, to my winner!
New Girl.
Good Lord but I love New Girl - it is the perfect accompaniment to a hot chocolate served in a thick mug with Christmas designs printed on. Starring the leggy mermaid Zooey Deschanel and a cast of characters of which Schmidt is the stand out comedy conducting rod, it is simply a lovely piece of TV. How I truly feel about it, disappointingly for a blog, is something I struggle to put into words. Perhaps the best way to put it is I am following the entire cast of the show on Twitter on the off-chance they do a Twitter only episode and I don't want to miss it!
Weirdest moment of 2012
2012 did have it's fair share of weird moments. In 2010 the award went to Raoul Moat and 2011 the Krankies. So look away now if you don't want a little gentle controversy.
Up to the last moment of 2011 I was going to award this to the end of the world as predicted by old Religious fruit, Harold Camping, before the Krankies stole a march. Unfortunately for Earth, it has happened again.
According to some, that the Mayan calender ended on our modern 21st December 2012 was a sure sign of the end of the world. For me, I wondered if the Mayans wouldn't just have planned to hang up another one, like what I do every January 3rd. Of course, we will never know who was correct. Oh, no, that's right, we did, on 22nd December, it was me.
But let's cut to the chase!
For me, the weirdest thing came out of the hoax call made to the Private Hospital by a couple of OZ radio DJs gaining insight into the condition of the host to our future royal ruler parasite. [this isn't a treasonous sentence, but of high satire about modern monarchy and the female role within it. Honest]
Why these DJs wanted and were allowed to do this in the first place, given it was not a very funny "prank" - let's pretend we are the Royal Family and try and get confidential medical records is not funny, just a poor plot-line from a low budget ITV spy drama - will remain a mystery when studied in the cold light of day.
They said they never thought they would the information they were eventually privy to, that someone would have been sharp to their rouse. But this simply makes their motive even more blurred.
Then the UK media got involved. They blamed the DJs and they lambasted the Hospital Staff for a week. Then things took a tragic turn. One of the nurses hoodwinked took her own life.
The DJs now at the centre of this awful situation were distraught. Filmed broken, in tears, careers almost certainly over apologising into infinity. Their lives shattered after what they considered to be a bit of a laugh at someone's expense who they did not know or care about.
Once it became apparent a fortnight later that this was not a case of "pranking the pranksters" and the nurse was not just waiting to jump out of the wardrobe in the girl DJs bedroom in what surely be the ultimate prank of all time, it was time to reflect on what this all meant.
Suddenly the dangers of prank calls, hidden camera jokes and constructed situations to cause elevated reactions were laid bare. The risks and post-trauma potential risks are astronomical when considering the permutations of how people will react.
Those Mayans stopping their calendar short as a jape - someone died falling off a mountain in France which some (I believe the term is) loon dictated to be the only safe place on Earth on 21st December.
You've Been Framed - you are watching potential injury and death and serious mental health issues happening as you sit with your tea tray on your knees eating your fish fingers and sweet corn on a Saturday early evening, before your eyes.
If you thought the investigation to Savile was in depth, wait until someone sends the police the box set of Beadle's About.
Hopefully this terriable incident will mean the end to all these contrived and recorded set-ups which simply feasts on people's genuine humiliation and are always cruel.
There are better things to laugh at - and one of the best of them is New Girl.
So here is to a slightly less filled year in 2013, and one with fewer slo-mo montages of sporting emotion.
Now time to party 2013 music style!!
Sheesh, Roll on 2014 or to when the chronological rolls over to 0000 and we get to 1985 again.
And that's why I didn't do an annual review this time.
After I wrote the pretend song, The Unicorn Song, and posted it onto my band blog I wasn't prepared for the response. People telling about unicorns, sending me pictures of unicorns, asking me why I like unicorns...
The following exchange of conversation has become part of my life now.
There is a street in Glenrothes, Scotland called Unicorn Way, maybe Greville needs to move to live there:
You write one song about a vampire being into kinky unicorn sex...!
I now know how Wet Wet Wet felt.
I might need to delete all copies of my song and hope that heroin does the rest
in making me forget I ever mentioned the words “Unicorn” and “Song”.
I am haunted by unicorns. Their phosphorus, twisted horns glow out of the fog
of my middle conscience state. Their ribs hang with the strips of rotten white
skin and they brae out from the darkness welled in pools in my mind and I smell
their cured breath vapours from between their pointed cracked teeth as I drift
to sleep.
In saying that – travelling to Glenrothes to get a photo of me at the sign would make a cool roadtrip movie. Does anyone have a Video recorder these days?
That would be a short movie.
I wouldn’t look for a cinematic release.
Straight to the Poundland DVD section?
Yes.
“Greville Tombs goes the full distance to face his demons: Unicorns. “The Way to
Unicorn Way” is a cool road trip movie full of hip tunes and shows us the youth
of today as close-up, and as real… and as funky… as never before. You’ll laugh at
their jokes, be touched by their feelings and be shocked by the standards they
live by. “The Way to Unicorn Way” is not a movie the government wants you to
see, but then, if you go to Unicorn Way, you don’t play by legislation. “The
Way to Unicorn Way” where one man and his group of young, fresh ladies take on
unicorns their own way. Rated R: Contains scenes of nudity while driving and
prolonged Unicorns.”
How does a unicorn become prolonged?
You’ll see. Oh, you’ll see.
I am disturbed!
I thought the film sounded fun. Kind of thing I’d watch. But the point is, I created the band blog to get away from the madness of being in an imaginary band recording a make-believe album out of pretend songs - and now? Well now I am pitching straight-to-DVD movies about the single off it.
It was on Saturday 3rd November at 9:30 this year when I once again watched Ghostwatch.
This time I wasn’t watching it on BBC1, but on DVD.
This time I wasn’t watching it having been allowed to stay up later than usual on Halloween by my parents in my family home, but now in my own crib with friends at a Halloween party I was hosting.
***NOTE: The Following Contains absolutely loads of spoilers***
Certain aspects of the ghost investigation show have remained in my memory during all this time. Craig Charles entertaining the local neighbours all hoping to get on TV as part of the outside broadcast. Phone-calls from the public, reputing to be seeing ghostly images from the live feeds filming inside the haunted suburban semi-detached house. Phone-calls from the public describing their own clocks stopping, their glass tables shattering. The eldest daughter caught hoaxing poltergeist activity by the cameras. The live feed suddenly not being “live” at all but instead old footage looping, masking the chaos occurring behind it.
I never did see the end of the show. My mum deciding at the point of the BBC once again transmitting live scenes from the house, with all the carnage it was revealing, was the time I should be sent to bed. Terrified.
The next morning I asked my mum how it ended: “Michael Parkinson standing in the studio and all the TV cameras floating around him. The show was just a scary joke.”
The question was, would it all hold up since we know 12 years later it was simply what we now understand to be a Mock-umentary? Would we be able to see how a nation in 1992 was fooled and scared enough to make an unprecedented number calls of complaint during the broadcast?
(The telephone number shown on screen was intended to be a recorded message explaining the show was pre-recorded and not real, however the lines quickly jammed)
The BBC, after all, banned all repeats of the show for 10 years such was the reaction. So there must have been something in it.
Essentially, would we, sitting huddled round on the L shaped couch and full of New Zealand Beer and Pineapple Lumps, find something in it to be affected by?
The DVD version still maintains the ratio of a TV screen from 1992. It starts immediately with little fanfare and only a token graphic relating to the drama series it is part of. I can see easily how this token would be ignored at the time, subsumed into the grander beginning relating to it being a special live show on Halloween night.
The humorous comments from my guests start almost immediately. Not a great sign for it holding up under scrutiny. The sets look dated (although nostalgia kicks in and we find ourselves softening to it), the current furore and revelations surrounding the BBC and our more sophisticated understanding of this sort of TV (Most Haunted, Ghost Adventures) all lend themselves as easy targets early on.
The plot is thus:
The BBC has decided on 31st October 1992 to broadcast a live investigation into an apparent haunting taking place in a family home. The investigation is supplemented with a strong interactive element where viewers can phone in and discuss the events being shown as well as some expert analysis given by a parapsychologist in a BBC studio and a sceptic, watching from a studio in the US. Sarah Greene presents and interacts on behalf of the audience and studio in the home with the family, Craig Charles is outside on the street of the house, talking to other residents, Mike Smith is taking viewer calls at the banks of telephonists and, anchoring the whole thing, is Michael Parkinson.
This spirit has been, according to the current incumbent family, manifesting itself by banging on the house pipes providing it with the name, Mr. Pipes. There has also been reports of the eldest of the two daughters being particularly susceptible to the happenings, chiefly in sustaining multiple scratch marks on her face and talking in a voice not her own.
As the show goes on, evidence of strange happenings mount up and are summarily dismissed. Not least is this the case when cameras “catch” the eldest daughter hitting the pipes and the audience is led to believe this is the true culprit of the activity.
A narrative slowly emerges from neighbours and callers to the show of the area on which the house is built which has been subject to paranormal and sinister activity for many years, culminating in a possible child abuser killing himself in the 1960s in the basement of the house having been himself claiming possession by an earlier spirit of a Victorian lady and “baby farmer”, leading him to dress as a Victorian lady.
Finally the spirit, seemingly using the conduit of the TV transmissions and energy of the viewers, explodes in an act of malevolence with immediate consequences for Greene and her crew in the house. In the final minutes – me seeing them for the first time – the spirit essentially envelopes the house and enters the studio, leaving Parkinson alone, reading a nursery rhyme off the autocue in a manner to suggest he has been possessed.
Yep, Mike Smith, this is f**king mental.
Elements included to add to the realism are spot on:
It is shot with shaky-cam and cuts to fixed remote-cams and also a sweeping tilt boom-cam (showing all the cables and background) – very much like Noel Edmonds’ House Party at the time.
The presenters would be the sort of presenters expected to be doing this kind of harmless TV experiment, Sarah Greene is a safe pair of hands on an outside broadcast.
For long periods, it is all rather boring and nothing much takes place.
It is kept very much to the science and technology being used with no room for mediums or psychics channelling and over excited explanations – the pseudo-educational tone much in keeping with a BBC sober pop-experiment.
“Viewers” calling in on sightings of the ghost on screen and subsequent discussion as to the chances of optical illusions being responsible, gives the idea of comfort to the actual viewers of the drama of there being others out there validating what they are seeing
There is stuttered confusion and apologies when camera transmissions and VTs predictably fail at one stage.
Craig Charles (the most natural actor of the presenters, cementing the notion Craig Charles is a constant fictional character of which Craig Charles plays using a very deep method acting technique) quips: “typical BBC” when he loses sound to the studio.
It emerges much of the back story involves child molestation – the BBC would never be complicit with something of this subject voluntarily.
Elements to add to the horror are cleverly woven:
The false positives providing “jumps” such as Craig Charles leaping from a cupboard and the cat at the French doors.
Possessed children, toy bunnies being drowned and frightened adults are always disconcerting…
...As is animals acting up – Mr Pipes makes the local cats go mad when he is around (mainly because the man's pet cats were found eating his corpse after his suicide).
The “ghost” is visible for fractions of a second throughout the show in corners, in reflections and in the crowds almost subliminally (with no TiVO box around, no way to double check).
The ghost descriptions being noted as either male or female (playing to the idea of the baby farmer inhabiting the spirit of the cross-dressing child abuser).
The final true positive of the twist of the looping footage masquerading as genuine live feed only to be taken down to see the middle of the horror of what is going on.
However, there are problems / tell-tale signs this is being played for gallows laughs, even if watched with a mind from 1992:
The show literally throws every cliché at the screen regards supposed recorded poltergeist activity throughout.
The acting, in places, is a little hammy (particularly with the daughters) and the script is clunky at times and, of course, contains no bad language.
The interrogation of the daughter by Parkinson when she was found hammering at the plumbing labours the point far too much (in fact Parkinson comes over as a bit of a dick here – which I am surprised at him happily acting as, since this misconception of him could stick).
The idea the BBC would continue filming when there was clearly distressing scenes going on.
The way over top finale to the programme (although the build up still packs a gut punch).
That the show would still end with credits rolling (there is an argument they would do this to calm the viewer?).
It was shown on Halloween, after all.
There are parts of the show which today have become unintentionally funny:
Michael Parkinson, the dick, seems at once fully sceptical and then again a firm interested believer during the numerous “analysis” discussion scenes as he sides which each expert and also shows a hard line in parenting skills at one point telling a “caller” they should send their child to bed if they are upset (perhaps in a direct instruction to those watching).
Mike Smith appearing with more and more sheets of paper as the calls increase.
Michael – Dicky of Dick Green – Parkinson, when it all kicks off, wandering about in and out of half-shot about the studio, talking to himself like a confused OAP left alone in PC World.
That Mr. Pipes resides in the home’s glory hole (given the more coarse, vernacular meaning of the term. Hint: NEVER Google image search this term at work) just didn't stop being funny on each time it was referred to at my party, indeed the mother’s description of events and noises she experienced when at said glory hole had all sorts of juvenile sniggering in the room as the humorous highlight of the viewing.
Note the spooky Halloween apples
Some of the quotes of the evening from my gathered party of guests as the show played on:
“Look! Those apples are levitating!”
“The smallest daughter is actually played by a midget. He ended up playing the part of Gimli in Lord of the Rings”
“Glory-hole! Surely they knew what that was describing even in 1992!”
“Is that BBC van Savile’s sex-dungeon on wheels?”
Viewing it as a ghost story only, it is not too chilling. Typical BBC fanciful faire and a little ridiculous. But adding in the element suggesting it is live, uncontrolled and genuine so convincingly for the audience raises it a level above. The key to proving this is surely if the BBC was to have periodically scrolled “This is a drama” across the screen (as was suggested at the media enquiry afterwards) then, to the effect, scares and meaning, it would have acted as a pin to a balloon.
Ghostwatch remains a hugely clever piece of fright night television but I suspect 2012 TV audiences are too wearisome against this type of hoax drama. Crucially, it is no longer the case of sitting watching alone or with family if you are young enough to be scared by it – the Internet allows a mass audience to discuss and come to wider conclusions as it is happening. The rouse would be up. True, if it was hosted by Derren Brown (no doubt with a less bombastic ending) some may fall for it once again but, by the TV review the next day, it would be hailed as a great piece of TV experimentation using the viewing audience as the guinea pigs (Brown is reported to have been influenced by Ghostwatch for his Séance).
All in all – if this was scheduled today, there would be every chance of the Twitterati calling shenanigans on it half-way through. And #parkyisadick being trending.
Interestingly, the mythology of Ghostwatch remains alive and well. The writer, in 2002, wrote an award winning horror short story sequel to the show (the BBC on the 10th anniversary commissions a return to the studio, which had been sealed off after the original Ghostwatch). Ghostwatch has its own YouTube channel. Each Halloween since 2010 people are encouraged to watch their copies at 9:32, when the show originally aired, and live tweet the event.
Writer, Volk, discusses the phenomena he has found of film students of a certain age writing degree theses about the programme. He sites some interesting aspects which are ripe for study:
The Freudian aspect of the script noting of the name Mr. Pipes (Pipes meaning "blow job" in French) and his trademark “banging” encounters with all female single parent family in the house – he omits to elaborate on his naming of Pipe's lair.
The act of the mother leaving her daughters in the home as she answered calls in the BBC van outside – reminiscent of the acts of mother’s when the site was a Victorian baby farm as a sign of the history of the site repeating in front of the viewer’s eyes?
So to answer my question, so far back up at the beginning of this blogette: does the original still have an effect?
Well, certainly the jokes and commentary from the room died to nothing in the final 10 minutes of the show as we sat watching and there was a consensus after that it remained disturbing – even simply on a thematic level.
Oh, and one of my friends – this year dressed as child friendly Fred from Scooby-Doo –was personally and deeply affected by what he saw, stating he would come to next year’s party dressed as: “a glory-hole”. May heaven have mercy on our souls next October.
