Worrying times

[Neil Graham]

It was a good one. Max Beesley, supporting an American accent, has just been in Stephen King’s, The Outsider on Sky. Not a bad show either.

I'm watching War of the Worlds on Fox (done by the same people who produced Atlantis & Merlin for the BBC). Scary Stuff. Can I emphasise that it's a modern setting not based on the H.G.Wells story. Much better than that awful so-called adaptation earlier this year on the BBC with Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson which I'm sorry to say I suffered till the end.

[Neil Graham]

Does anyone remember the BBC Drama Series, Survivors?

No, but you have made a good case for trying to find it.

Unfortunately I have to say that I can recall the original series - it was written by Terry Nation (creator of the Daleks). He gets a writing credit for the 2008-2010 series as well although he died in 1997. The original series again seemed to stop midway. Hope we can have the John Duttine "Day of the Triffids" on as well if we're looking at post-apocalyptic drama. Finally listened to an excellent adaptation of "The Kraken Wakes" on BBC Radio Sounds recently with Tamsin Grieg plus a guest appearance by Nicola Sturgeon!

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Does anyone remember the BBC Drama Series, Survivors?"

Yes - probably not suitable for broadcast at present! It might be too depressing.

I agree with Geoff about tanks not being used to move stuff - for a start they don't go very quickly, and where would you store anything? There's not many straight edges inside.

"Finally listened to an excellent adaptation of "The Kraken Wakes" on BBC Radio Sounds recently with Tamsin Grieg plus a guest appearance by Nicola Sturgeon!"

Tamsin Greig is an excellent actress - was Nicola was the Kraken? John Wyndham, HG Wells and Stephen King are good for well-written doom and gloom.

USA is blaming China, China is blaming USA. Nobody yet has blamed the ECF membership scheme.

[Matt Bridgeman]

I have a memory the final BBC Day of the Triffids (1981) episode. The last of the main characters steal a Land Rover and flee the remnants of the military, who were planning a new feudal society. A bit like so many zombie stories, the actual killer plants end up being the least of their worries.

[David Sedgwick]

Nobody yet has blamed the ECF membership scheme.

Of course not. It's nothing to do with the membership scheme.

It's an act of revenge on the dinosaurs who fought so hard a couple of years ago to save the traditional format of the Counties Championships. The objective, which may or not succeed, was to ensure that the National Stages couldn't take place this year.

(If Forum members think that such flippancy is inappropriate, I shall delete this post. I am trying, without much success, to find ways of lifting my spirits.)

[Carl Hibbard]

Tanks being used to transport oxygen for the NHS would appear to be a cover story worryingly!

A silly comment.

[David Gilbert]

From the BBC

"False reports of tanks and troops in the UK
Social media and WhatsApp in Britain are buzzing with pictures and videos of troops and tanks, purportedly showing them moving in and around London - you may have received the images too. But the pictures are not what they seem, report our colleagues.

One image shows military vehicles driving along a road, and some people on social media claim it’s showing preparations around London. But the vehicles are driving on the right-hand side of the road. The photo first appeared on online in Ukraine earlier in the week and are at least three days old – they only surfaced on British social media accounts yesterday.

In another photo, which appears to show tanks under covers, the number plates aren’t British.Emergency planning is taking place in the UK but beware rumours circulating online. The Telegraph reported that the capital might be locked down “by the weekend”. Ministers say that there are no plans to do this at the moment but Boris Johnson said he would “rule nothing out” when asked about a possible London shutdown."

[Matt Bridgeman]

There were of reports tanks and military vehicles being moved around the country this morning, although not a lot of solid news on this later in the day. There seemingly are tank drivers being suggested as driving oxygen tankers supposedly being offered to the NHS. The message may have got a little garbled this morning.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"(If Forum members think that such flippancy is inappropriate, I shall delete this post. I am trying, without much success, to find ways of lifting my spirits.)"

Why not.

On the bright side, we got a note through the door the other day, giving contact details of six villagers, who will get supplies, post letters, or even just chat to people who are in isolation. A really nice gesture.

[ben.graff]

That’s really nice to hear, Kevin. Situations like this often bring out the best in people.

[Neil Graham]

"Does anyone remember the BBC Drama Series, Survivors?"

Yes - probably not suitable for broadcast at present! It might be too depressing.

I agree with Geoff about tanks not being used to move stuff - for a start they don't go very quickly, and where would you store anything? There's not many straight edges inside.

"Finally listened to an excellent adaptation of "The Kraken Wakes" on BBC Radio Sounds recently with Tamsin Grieg plus a guest appearance by Nicola Sturgeon!"

Tamsin Greig is an excellent actress - was Nicola was the Kraken? John Wyndham, HG Wells and Stephen King are good for well-written doom and gloom.

USA is blaming China, China is blaming USA. Nobody yet has blamed the ECF membership scheme.

The Kraken Wakes remained faithful to the original story although the time line was moved to the 21st Century. The Thames Barrier fails to stop the rising sea level; London floods and the government moves to Birmingham. After that law and order break down. The two main characters (Greig and her husband) move to the Scottish Uplands - it was Cornwall in the novel - and at the end order is restored in Scotland with a guest appearance by Nicola Sturgeon as the Scottish Prime Minister.

[Neil Graham]

I have a memory the final BBC Day of the Triffids (1981) episode. The last of the main characters steal a Land Rover and flee the remnants of the military, who were planning a new feudal society. A bit like so many zombie stories, the actual killer plants end up being the least of their worries.

It wasn't the Military - it was a man (Torrance) who had set up a system of serfdoms in the South of England. The main characters escaped to the Isle of Wight. In the film version of Day of the Triffids released in the 1960s, the climax was finding that salt-water could kill the monster plants. I remember it was shown at the Student Film Society when as the Triffids pursued the lead characters onto the beach they screamed "What can kill them" and some wag at the back shouted "Brickwoods" (the local brewery). Of course it was the sea - pretty lame ending to the film.

https://helmstone.wordpress.com/2018/12 ... film-1962/

[NickFaulks]

Tanks being used to transport oxygen for the NHS would appear to be a cover story worryingly!

A silly comment.

On reflection, isn't oxygen normally transported in tanks? Perhaps everyone else is ahead of me.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Of course it was the sea - pretty lame ending to the film."

I seem to remember an old disaster movie, where the world was doomed, then it rained and it solved the problem. Maybe an early appearance for Christopher Lee?

Also, "The Satan Bug" was an excellent book and ok film.

[John Clarke]

Regarding Day Of The Triffids: I've often heard the view that the book is weakened by having two wildly improbable catastrophic events. "Why not just picture a world where nearly everyone is struck blind?" The short answer to that is: there wouldn't be a story. You'd get the Torrences and their adherents taking over very rapidly, establishing a quasi-medieval dictatorship with themselves at the top of the heap, and that would be that.

The part of DOTT that's always haunted me is the bit where villain-turned-hero Coker presents his analysis of what could happen long-term in a post-apocalyptic situation (I nearly wrote "society" there, but there wouldn't actually be a society as we currently understand it). He pictures small isolated groups gradually reverting, over the course of two generations, to semi-barbarous subsistence living, with knowledge of how to maintain civilisation dying out through lack of time and resources to educate people.

A similar scenario was on display in that TV movie Threads, where you saw even the language to describe sophisticated ideas beginning to disappear. Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle touched on the subject too, in October The First Is Too Late, which had much of America forced back - I forget why - to a pre-technological lifestyle.

As for the present crisis, I think we're beginning to see here the downside of globalisation, and that pernicious "just in time" approach to the movement and storage of goods. So much of the world's mass-manufacturing capacity is concentrated in a single part of the world (east Asia). All right - in some people's terms anyway - as long as transport is able to function freely, but now ...

All a bit incoherent, but I haven't really time to write it up properly. Just look on it as ideas being tossed in for consideration and discussion.