The Girl From U.N.C.L.E - The Global Globules Affair - Simon Latter

 THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E -

THE GLOBAL GLOBULES AFFAIR - SIMON LATTER

Pulp fiction for the broad of mind, based on the cult television series The Girl From U.N.C.L.E starring Stefanie Powers and Noel Harrison that itself was a spin-off from the classic cult television series The Man From U.N.C.L.E starring Robert Vaughan and David McCallum. The Global Globules Affair written by Simon Latter gives nothing away in its title as to what it might actually be about although at the same time it tells us all we really need to know, that being it's the brand that counts not the content.

Published in 1967, it starts off quite fittingly in Carnaby Street where everything's groovy baby until U.N.C.L.E agent April Dancer who's on holiday in London for a few days sees some girl model-types sashaying along dressed in fashion garments woven from what looks like metal armour. At the same time she also spies an ex-professor of hers from when she was studying in Paris and her special-agent intuition is immediately buzzing. Something was going on warranting further investigation.

To cut to the chase, the professor has invented a fluid designed to attack all known banknote paper and reduce it to mush. Administered as a fine mist, the only thing it cannot penetrate is the metal armour material as sported by the Carnaby Street girls which means no money is safe anywhere, not in your purse, your wallet, or even your bank. The metal material has also, of course, been invented by the professor and the girls are agents of his.

The plan is is to destroy as much money as possible so that financial chaos ensues throughout the world leaving the professor and the forces of global crime embodied by the T.H.R.U.S.H organization to step in with their own currency and become the new financial rulers.

It's all good, ludicrous stuff and preposterous with it but weirdly it all makes sense and makes for a ripping yarn. U.N.C.L.E agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are given brief mention whilst the weapons of choice are Karate chops, gas guns and high explosives in the form of saliva-activated chewing gum.

As an aside, there's an unexpected and very good description of Dartmoor (where the professor has his secret base) that Simon Latter should be quite proud of that anyone with any knowledge of Dartmoor - of its beauty but also of its hidden dangers - should recognise: 'Like a woman full of promise, beckoning you to her scented embrace. And two men friends waiting behind the curtains with coshes.' Isn't that so very spot-on? Next time you go hiking on Dartmoor remember this.

As stated, The Global Globules Affair is pulp fiction for the broad of mind, and you can take it or you can leave it. Interestingly, the fact that Stefanie Powers name has been misspelt on the cover - spelling it with a 'ph' instead of an 'f' - serves only to add to the overall kitschy, daft but enjoyable quirkiness of it all.

John Serpico

Not Just Bits Of Paper - co-edited by Greg Bull and Mickey 'Penguin'

NOT JUST BITS OF PAPER -

CO-EDITED BY GREG BULL AND MICKEY 'PENGUIN'

Some might find it hard to believe and others impossible to comprehend but there was a time when the Internet didn't exist. A time when there was no Facebook, no X, Instagram or even MySpace. 'But how did you message anyone?' all the children ask in wide-eyed wonderment 'Or did you not message anyone ever and just sit instead around the piano of an evening singing songs?'

'Well, we had landline telephones and there were these things called 'pens' that you could write a letter with and send to people by something called 'post'. Have you heard of it?'

But by this time the attention of all the children has wandered so you instead open up your copy of Not Just Bits Of Paper and cast your mind back to slightly more interesting times when communication required effort and was a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Not Just Bits Of Paper is a portal into a world now diminished, a world where the importance of specific bits of paper cannot be overstated. Not that these bits of paper had any intrinsic purpose beyond the sole reason they were produced for - that being to advertise and publicise events - though paradoxically, without it ever being stated or even considered they also represented nothing less than a vision.

The bits of paper we're talking about here are the flyers and posters created to announce upcoming concerts of the more 'earthy' punk rock type prevalent throughout much of the 1980s. Black-and-white, made with scissors, glue, pens, Letraset and found images. Utilising the 'cut'n'paste' method rather than desk-top publishing, then photocopied, fly-posted, stuck up in record shops, given out by hand and sent out by post enclosed with fanzines and cassette tapes purchased from various mail-order lists.

This was the way we communicated before the advent of the Internet and social media. Slow, time-consuming, sometimes wearisome but effective.

Many of these flyers and posters could be really basic in design and layout whilst others could be veritable mini-works of art. All, however, whatever the quality of them were meant to be throwaway. Ephemeral. To serve their one purpose then binned, which is what most people tended to do with them once the publicised event had passed. Very few people thought of saving them and those who did so saved them essentially for the sake of it. Not for having an eye on one day them being collectible or of any possible future monetary value to anyone. They saved them without thinking and for no reason but saved them - thankfully - they did.

Unlike nowadays, back then hardly anyone took photographs at concerts so the flyers and posters advertising these events are the only physical evidence of a lot of them ever happening. For sure, they're held in memories but memories tend to fade so the flyers and posters compensate, prod and serve to remind. Just as importantly if not more so, however, these flyers and posters - these bits of paper - acted at the time as seeds blown on the wind, as conduits for messages. Weaving gossamer-thin threads between not only friends and neighbours living in the same city, town or even village but between strangers and people of like-mind living in cities throughout the whole country.

It was subliminal. Unspoken. Like tiny beacons being lit on top of hills or flares being shot up into the night sky. These bits of paper acted as signals announcing an alternative to mainstream entertainment, mainstream news and even mainstream values. Announcing a vision. They were the corpuscles in the bloodstream of an underground punk culture that sought legitimacy not through commercial success but through the instigation of consciousness raising, further creativity and political action. Just as fanzines and concerts themselves were deemed to be, these bits of paper were the very life-blood of that punk culture.

Co-edited by Greg Bull and Mickey 'Penguin', Not Just Bits Of Paper collates a wide selection of flyers, posters and handouts from the anarcho punk era of the 1980s and for posterity lays them out and presents them in all their ragged, torn and tattered glory. As to be expected, Crass are heavily represented alongside The Mob, Flux Of Pink Indians, Antisect, Conflict, Poison Girls, Chumbawamba plus many more others. Thoughts are collected also in essays of various length and size written by some of those who were there at the time. Noticeably and interestingly they're all written from the audience point of view rather than from any band members and in doing so adds a whole other dimension to the book. Quality-wise these essays differ and again that's only to be expected but in among them are some very well-written pieces indeed, most noticeably from Ted Curtis, Rich Cross, Tristan 'Stringy' Carter and in particular one by Tim Voss.

Not Just Bits Of Paper documents a period in time that is unlikely to be ever repeated again. A period in time that impacted mightily upon a significant number of people to such an extent that their lives were inexorably altered - some say 'ruined' - for the better. A period in time that though now long gone still resonates, and that under the noise and technology-driven haste of modern day living still echoes.

John Serpico

Blood On Satan's Claw - Robert Wynne-Simmons

BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW -

ROBERT WYNNE-SIMMONS

Along with Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man, the 1971 film Blood On Satan's Claw is considered to be one of the main pillars of what is today referred to as 'folk horror'. As a genre, folk horror is a genuinely fascinating one though its meaning and what might fall under its umbrella is somewhat open to interpretation. According to writer and horror anthologist Johnny Mains, the definition of folk horror is 'the upper-class demonisation of lower/working classes' and this is true but it's only one aspect of it. Folk horror is much more to do with a certain 'something' lurking under the veil of nature. A presence that is beyond words. There is a distinction also between city and countryside folk horror, where the horror of the city is usually born of man as a freak of nature whilst the horror of the countryside is born before nature and only manifesting itself through nature, rather like the force behind the changing of the seasons.

There is a scene in Lars von Trier's film Antichrist where Willem Defoe pulls back some foliage to discover a self-disemboweling fox that then speaks to Defoe and says 'Chaos reigns'. This one scene is as close as anything to defining the true meaning of 'folk horror' though you probably require a sense of an understanding beforehand to actually fully appreciate it.

Published in 2022 via a crowdfunding venture, Blood On Satan's Claw is the first time a novelization of the film has been created. Written by the film's original screenwriter, Robert Wynne-Simmons, what it does is to expound upon the film's original premise as any good book of this type should be able to. So rather than being a typical movie tie-in it's more of a companion-piece with many of the film's themes fleshed-out and added to. In this instance, does it mean that the book is now better than the film? Yes it does, but at the same time the book compliments the film and vice versa.

Quite apart from the presence of the Devil lurking behind the simplicity of peasant village life, one of the main themes of Blood On Satan's Claw is the involvement of children in the unfolding events. One of the main conduits of the horror, for example, is a girl by the name of Angel Blake, who only when disrobing in front of the village chaplain in a bid to seduce him is it stated that she's all of fifteen-years of age.

It is this and similar aspects of the story that whilst not making it disturbing as such, adds to the sense that this is an adult tale. Subsequently this then lends weight to the idea that the countryside is all about sex, violence and strangeness where 'chaos reigns', and that 'folk horror' as a manifestation of this is a serious subject that demands adult consideration.

Read the book, see the film. See the film, read the book. Then under a blazing sun go lie-down in a field somewhere and try and feel the centuries of untrammeled life-force rumbling away underneath whilst you let your mind wander.

John Serpico