Roadrunner: Radio On, Road Movies & the A4

Well, it was a long time in the writing, but my fourth book, Roadrunner, is finally out. Superficially, it’s just a slender little tome celebrating Radio On (the greatest Bristol film ever) but of course it’s about so much more than that, as the sub-title indicates (yes, it’s also about road movies in general, and roads, especially the A4 from London to Bristol, and all the things that have ever happened on it.)

On Brandon Hill: Popular Culture in Bristol since WW2

Yes! It’s finally hit the shelves of Smashwords as a FREE (free!) e-book! On Brandon Hill is the FIRST EVER comprehensive history of post-war Bristolian culture, spanning the years 1945 to 2020 (or thereabouts) and covering all the major art forms for which the city is famous – music, TV, animation, street art – as well as its less celebrated contributions to film, theatre, literature, fine art etc.

In Extremadura, now ILLUSTRATED!

My second book first came out in 2017 and, while those of you lucky enough to get a hard copy would have enjoyed the plethora of pictures therein, downloaders had to make do with a text-only version. Until now! Finally, I have bowed to pressure and added the photos you’ve all been missing. And it still won’t cost you a penny!

In Extremadura is a radical deconstruction of the Brit Abroad sub-genre of travel writing. Spanish/South American travelogue, potted history and treatise on the nature of mortality rolled into one, it includes predictable digressions on cinema (Orson Welles, Luis Bunuel)  literature (Javier Cercas, Tintin) peregrination,  wild swimming in Scotland, celebrity speed freaks and the death of David Bowie. 

Ballet Bloody Ballet!

The last time I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the portal of Hell that is Sadler’s Wells in Islington, North London, was about 35 years ago. On that occasion it was to see a Spanish theatre group do a version of The Tempest that culminated in a jolly singalong rendition of Yellow Submarine, with frogmen and frogwomen descending from the rafters and a life-size inflatable sub (yellow, of course). Well, that was a whole lot more fun than Black Sabbath the Ballet, which I dragged my good friend John Lough to see last week, on the promise (I foolishly believed) of an intriguing contrast between very loud rock music, courtesy of the Sabs, and silly dancers in tutus, courtesy of the Birmingham Royal Ballet (creative director Carlos Acosta, whoever HE is!)

Chasing the Dragon: Tipi Valley

In late August I spent four days in mid-Wales with my trusty cousin Marc, on a series of pointless – dare I say quixotic – missions: to cross the military target range of Mynydd Eppynt and come out alive; to traverse the infamous “Welsh Desert”, where only sheep and bikers dare to venture (yes, I’m aware that traverse is merely a synonym for cross) and, in the spirit of Barbet Schroeder’s hippy-dippy groovy-movie La Vallee, to find the mysterious and legendary Tipi Valley, which lies somewhere north of Llandeilo, north west of Llandovery, and to establish whether, as in Schroeder’s Papua New Guinea, there be sinister Mud People bearing masks, or whether it is populated by ageing grebos running a primitive glamping business.

Beware the Jabber, Brock: Hawkwind in Chepstow, 2023

Back in September 2017, I did a post about Hawkwind (Every Album I Own:  H is for Hawkwind) in which, while counting the many ways I loved Hawkwind, I cast aspersions on their post-1980 versions, suggesting that “any resemblance to the band I am talking about is purely co-incidental” since I was – and am – essentially a fan of the “classic” Space Ritual line-up circa 1973, a line-up which included not only founder members Dave Brock and Nik Turner, but Ian “Lemmy” Kilminster on bass, Simon King on drums, Dik Mik and Del Dettmar on various electronics and Robert Calvert, resident poet and “swazzle” (to say nothing of Liquid Len and his Lensmen, who provided the incredible light show of the time in conjunction with designer Barney Bubbles).

Another scene in a different prison

Ah, prisons. There are so many great prison movies (think Papillon, think Bronson, think Chopper, Poison, A Prophet, Scum, Starred Up…. think Brawl in Cell Block 99!). One of these days the long-promised paean to Buzz Kulik and his peerless Riot (Gene Hackman, Jim Brown) will see the light of day, along with the comparable Gene-ius of Scarecrow (co-starring Al Pacino).

Once More Unto the Valley, with Pink Floyd

At the tail end of the 60s/dawn of the 70s, Swiss-Iranian director Barbet Schroeder made two films, both of which were sound-tracked by a post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd at the peak of their powers. One of those films (More) is a stone-cold hippies-go-mad-in-Ibiza classic, while the other (La Vallee, aka Obscured by Clouds) is a less than perfect hippies-go-mad-in-Papua-New-Guinea flick and is frankly a bit meh, but probably worthy of revisiting, or even visiting (the film, that is – not Papua New Guinea, which is a very dangerous place). Both are easily obtainable on UK Blu-Ray, so don’t be put off by the unsubtitled trailers below.

That Cape Fear Girl: Illeana Douglas

In case you don’t know who Illeana Douglas is, she will be the first to admit, albeit  reluctantly, that she is best known as That Cape Fear Girl, the one who gets her cheek bitten off by Robert De Niro in the 1991 Scorsese pic. I know this – that Douglas accepts the tag of Cape Fear Girl, not that she gets her cheek bitten off – because I’ve just finished reading her memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper, and a jolly good read it is too. What’s it like, people ask her, having your cheek bitten off by Robert De Niro, “like I’m going to offer up some amazing insight, something profound (he covers himself in soot ashes then incants the words of Stanislavski) or mystical (he only works at sunrise, with his body facing east).”

Underground/Overground (Wombling on the Westway)

I have a new project, a book (an entire book!) about Radio On, a film only I and a couple of other people actually like, and about the A4, which is a road. Yes, a book about an obscure(ish) film, and the road from London to Bristol (or Bristol to London) on which much of the film’s inaction takes place. But actually (inactually) much of the early scenes in Radio On were filmed on or under the Westway, the A40, which doesn’t go to Bristol, but does enable me to talk about David Bowie, J.G. Ballard and Hawkwind.

A Plane, a Train and an Automobile

So, it’s about time for another blog, or post, or whatever the hell they’re called. In the absence of anything else to write about – like a pandemic, or a new American president, say – I’m stuck with nothing better than a rather feeble stab at referencing a film I’ve never seen and write about my favourite transport-related films, or three of them at least….