39 Steps

The Guardian reports that the BBC1 is to show a new version of John Buchan's classic adventure story the Thirty Nine Steps on Boxing Day.

Written the best part of 100 years ago, this novel is still one of my favourites. Apparently, the plot has been changed yet again, with various classic scenes removed - although not from the original, but the excellent cinematic rewrites. I would love to see all of the movies in succession just to compare.

For the record, the full set is:

The novel, 1915

Available online to read thanks to Project Gutteburg, but it's a cheap enough paperback anyway.

The Hitchcock version, 1935

Stars Robert Donat as Hannay, visited by a spy being chased by assassins after uncovering a plot to steal British plans for a silent aircraft engine.

The Kenneth More vehicle, 1959

Ralph Thomas's remake stars Kenneth More who is introduced to the mystery by the death of a beautiful spy who told of a shadowy group, The 39 Steps, which stole plans for a British missile.

The Modern version, 1978

Starring Robert Powell, Don Sharp's film is set in the run-up to the First World War as foreign agents plan to bomb Parliament and kill a Greek leader. The 39 steps are the steps in Big Ben.

The BBC version, 2008

Rupert Penry-Jones, the former star of Spooks, in the lead role.

Anyway, how can you not love a novel whose opening paragraph is:

I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn't get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. 'Richard Hannay,' I kept telling myself, 'you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.'

Here's an advert for the new comedy at the Criterion theatre in London, which has been getting good reviews:

and some irrelevant but familiarly titled experimental music

• Zeena Parkins And Ikue Mori - 39 Steps listen
  

Dark Winter

Dark



Winter

• The Great Park - Blackwater mp3 website
  

Blues

Bridge



On the road



Swans

• Destroyer - Blue Flower Blue Flame mp3
  

Tea drinking ceremony

Winter-ism

Winter
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

Winter mixtape, a bit cold and desolate and low fi, in two parts:

• Part 1 here (60mb mp3s zipped)

• Part 2 here (40mb mp3s zipped)

Bit of old stuff, bit of Brighton stuff, bit of low fi stuff, bit melancholy, bit of a chill - some tracks have appeared alongside recent Southcoasting photographs on flickr. All of it is exceptionally good :-)

Available to the first 100 callers and then they're gone. A few select mp3s below.

1. Humble Pie, take me back - a slow starter
2. Blitzen Trapper, Gold for bread - from Furr
3. Dressy Bessy, who'd stop the rain?
4. Five stairsteps, ooh child
5. Fotheringay, Knights of the road - gorgeous roadsong
6. The Laylanas, Barbara - from Brighton
7. Lounge Lizards, Do the wrong thing - 1980s free NY jazz
8. Birdengine, Buried in the black snow (live) - Gothic folk
9. Michael Hurley, Grand Canyon Line - 1972
10. Okkervil River, Unless it's kicks (live)
11. R.G. Morrison , Learning about loathing - Drifter
12. Rural Alberta Advantage, Sleep all day - I wish
13. Homestead & Wolfe, Beat of the drum - 1970s church group!
14. Ann Sexton, you're letting me down - northern soul, 1972
15. The Loom, Song for the winter sun
16. The Miserable Rich, the Barmaid's canon - all about Brighton
17. Garmisch Partenkirchen, Black Paint
18. Andrew Bird, Jesus gonna make up my dyin' bed (Blind Willie Johnson cover, live)
19. Frontier Ruckus, what you are - in the spirit of Harry Smith

The Third Man

The Third Man
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

Wien Prater is home to the Reisenrad (Giant Wheel).

Constructed in 1897, of Iron to a height of 64.75m. It was bombed during the second world war but the authorities didn't have enough cash to pay for the demolition, so the wheel remained. It was rebuilt after the war but only half the carriages were salvaged.

I had to visit the Prater because the Third Man, set in post-war crumbling Vienna, is one of my favourite films, and the Cuckoo Clock scene (set in the fairground) one of my all-time favourite scenes. The wheel hasn't changed much since 1947 although the city has.

"Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?" (Harry Lime, as played by Orson Welles in The Third Man)

"You know what the fellow said—in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." (Harry Lime... the famous speech ad-libbed by Orson Welles to fill a gap in the script)

website of the Vienna Prater funfair

• Buddy Harman - Third Man Rock mp3 (thanks to the irrepressible WFMU)

Lol and Syd

Lol and Syd
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

Another month, another mixtape for another anonymous IMP recipient. There's a different mellow autumnal vibe to this month's offering I think.











If you want to hear the tracks, there's a few hyperlinked as mp3s below or you can download the whole mix as two zipped bundles of mp3s, which will be available for a week or so (or 100 downloads) and then they'll be gone.

Track listing:

01 El ten eleven - I like Van Halen because my sister says they are cool
02 Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf - High School Love
03 The Dragons - Food for my soul
04 The Great Park - I do wrong
05 The Accidental - Knock Knock
06 Booker T and the MGs - Soul clap '69
07 JJ Cale - After Midnight
08 Hiawatha Telephone Company - Child is father to the man
09 Fiona Sally Miller - I'm going to miss your smiling at me like that
10 Dawn Landes- Picture show
11 Shoreline - Like me
12 Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
13 Charlie Parr - 1922 Blues
14 Pacific Ocean Fire - No heroics, please
15 The Acorn - Flood Part 1
16 Charles Mingus - Fables of Faubus
17 Jesus Licks - Into the woods
18 Skip James - Cyprus Grove
19 Bob Dylan - Mississippi
20 Kim Jung Mi - I wanna enjoy the warm Spring breeze


Download the lot here as zipped up mp3s:
Part One (60mb)
Part Two (70 mb)

Click on the picture if you want a cover of sorts or make your own!

I dropped the camera

Some pictures from the amazing 'free' graffiti underpass between Waterloo station and Lower Marsh (London, SE1)

• Revolving Paint Dream - Flowers in the Sky mp3 (thanks to The Decibel Tolls)

Missing Black Can

Missing Black Can
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

mp3 Garmisch Partenkirchen - Black paint (superb track from Sweden via the ridiculously excessive mp3 posting at coast is clear)

This poster only lasted a day or so until it was painted over - probably by another graffiti artist - and I almost missed it, thinking it was indeed a missing cat poster. Nice one.

Fun fair

Fun fair
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

• Minotaur Shock - This Plane Is Going To Fall mp3 (thanks Comfort Music)

Two mash ups

Two of my favourite mash ups. Pure genius.

• Amerie vs The Rolling Stones - One for the Devil mp3
  

• Christina Aguilera vs The Velvet Underground - Girl wants to rock'n'roll mp3
  

Sesame Street

Pure joy. I love it when the mighty pop stars appear on Sesame street and turn their classic songs into nursery rhymes for 4 year olds.... They seem to have really got this down of late.

Here's Feist doing her counting song...


And James Blunt telling us about a very special shape...


And then a distinctly uncomfortable Michael Stype and REM, playing to those shiny happy monsters...


Of course, in the old days, the stars just used to come on and perform. You can't really tell the difference between this scene and a normal Alice Cooper video, can you?


OK.... And now for something which, if you're as big a fan of the musical side of Sesame Street as I am, might freak you out.

[A Parental Warning is appropriate at this point]



To end, two things.

The pure unadulterated joy that is the Sesame Street theme tune, and my favourite Jack Johnson song. I didn't honestly think I would have a favourite Jack Johnson song, but it appears I do.

I am happier already just thinking about it :-)





That's all folks!