Greg Buzwell

Selection of five books including Powsels and Thrums by Alan Garner.

Books read in October, all of which I really enjoyed. As a side note the Alan Garner book contains a chapter called ‘The Valley of the Demon’ which is hands down one of the most unsettling (in a good way) things I have ever read.
#BookSky

It’s the Season 13 story I’ve seen the fewest times, which is telling. Salamar (Prentis Hancock) is a painful to watch one-note ball of lunacy but otherwise it has its moments. Baker and Sladen are great (but then they always are) and it looks pretty good. You can’t beat a 1970s BBC studio jungle.

Oh, gosh, that brings back memories … I graduated 35 years ago and at the time the ‘d’ in ‘good’ was disappearing making the sentence a rather curious ‘Ah Goo the Sea’. I’m impressed it’s still there. It’s reassuring somehow…

Best season of Doctor Who ever? It has to be right up there. I watched the documentary on Ian Marter last night and was really quite moved by it. Beautifully put together and with plenty of insight but it’s incredibly poignant.
#DoctorWho

Probably my favourite Hammer film, and certainly the one I’ve seen the greatest number of times. Barbara Shelley rather steals the show (understandably, as she’s terrific in this) but I’ve always had a soft spot for Suzan Farmer. The cute, likeable blonde amidst all the swirling Gothic chaos …

Books read in September. All terrific, and there isn’t one title here that I wouldn’t highly recommend, but Rhine Journey might be the standout. Beautifully written, very subtle and very perceptive. Great to see it back in print.
#BookSky

Probably my favourite Hammer film and I must have watched it a dozen times over the years. It’s so stylish, and Lee is superb, but for me it’s Barbara Shelley and Suzan Farmer who really steal the show. They’re both pitch perfect and they work so incredibly well together.

Eric Ravilious jigsaw puzzle completed. Great fun to do with the woodwork being easy to complete, the upholstery being difficult and the landscape being somewhere in the middle. Such a beautiful, evocative painting.

Books read in August. It was a quiet reading month but these were all great. Bonus points for the two Maigret novels on the grounds that the cover designs are so beautiful.
#BookSky

Went to see the Ithell Colquhoun show at the Tate but the same ticket gets you into the Edward Burra show as well. Quite a bonus! Loved his paintings of Jazz Age America. Also appreciated the way the exhibition highlighted Burra’s taste in music and literature and how that shaped his art.

Loved the Ithell Colquhoun show down at Tate Britain. Particularly enjoyed her paintings inspired by the Cornish landscape - a mix of stone circles and folklore viewed through a veil of magic and surrealism. It’s so good to see her work being brought to a new audience.

Beanie, demonstrating the correct way to spend a damp and windy #caturday .

The Time Monster is actually rather wonderful. Certainly in the Top 5 Pertwee stories and I say that as a Pertwee fan.

Charity shop finds from Friday. Some childhood memories in here in that I loved The Three Investigators books as a kid and I remember really enjoying the Ellery Queen TV series back in the day. Happy times …

Ah, that’s really interesting … I’ve read about seven of her books and I’ve loved them all, but A View of the Harbour was the first one I read and it remains my favourite. How curious …

Suzan Farmer, born on this day in 1942. Such a talented and underrated actor, often playing the nice, pretty blonde girl opposite scene-stealing raven-haired vamps. Always a tough ask … Great in shows like The Saint and films like Hammer’s Dracula Prince of Darkness and The Devil-Ship Pirates. ❤️

Inferno
Carnival of Monsters
The Pyramids of Mars
The Seeds of Doom
The Robots of Death

I’d just like to put it on record that this was horribly difficult…

Fashionably late, as ever, but here are the books I read in May. It was a quiet reading month but I enjoyed all of these. The Affirmation made me think, One Fine Day made me reflect and the two Christie novels were just brilliant fun.

The best! 🥰

Repost with five TV shows you’d happily watch for the rest of time as your sole TV diet.

Doctor Who
The Avengers
The Saint
The Professionals
The Twilight Zone

My neighbour’s cat, just settling in for a little nap in my spare room. He wanders in most days if I’m at home, has a look around (including checking out the wardrobe - I have to open the doors for him) and then he has a little snooze before heading home. Sweet!
#Caturday

Had a visitor in the garden this morning …

Funnily enough I bought a copy the other day! I should get around to it in the next week or so.

Books read in April. All great but purely in terms of enjoyment Table for Two, a collection of short stories and one novella, was probably the most fun. Towles has those old-fashioned virtues of writing elegant prose and of being able to tell a story superbly well.
#BookSky

The World of the Romantics jigsaw puzzle. Really fun to do. Bright and colourful, with a few darker Gothic moments thrown in.

Absolutely loved this. It’s terrific on how John and Paul brought out the best (and occasionally the worst) in one another. Also loved the way it merges personal histories, musical genius and the cultural landscape when discussing songs like Eleanor Rigby and Strawberry Fields Forever. Fabulous!

I know they often get a bad press from gardeners who like a neat and tidy look but I must say I’m really rather fond of dandelions …

Books read in March, all of which were terrific. Inadvertently I seem to have gone on a literary crime spree as even the Andrew O’Hagan novel deals with some shady characters. The Ross Macdonald has some great lines: ‘Come in. The place is a mess but then so are you’.

Went to the #TirzahGarwood show at Dulwich Picture Gallery today. Absolutely gorgeous, and well worth a visit if you have the chance. She obviously liked cats as they appear in several pictures, including this splendid creature seen here.

#WorldBookDay So here goes with a few cover designs that I rather like.