Jeff Billington

When I was a teenager I used to have a Victor Meldrew t-shirt which I bought from the back of the NME and the text read ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’.

Many of you probably know this, but in 1862 - while Manchester millworkers were starving because the Union army had blockaded the Southern states and almost no cotton was being exported - the working people of Manchester wrote to Abraham Lincoln, to support the blockade that was taking their jobs. >

When Gandhi met Darwen's mill workers It is 80 years since the cotton town of Darwen played host to one of the most famous men in the world, Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Love this. It reminds me of when Ghandi was invited to meet the East Lancs cotton workers he was accused of putting out of work, and they turned out to support him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-engl...

This is what I've been doing with my time recently. Can't remember when I last enjoyed helping to compile a festival retrospective programme so much. These films are subversive, outrageous, WTF & bonkers, a full complement of extraordinary horror & sci-fi classics that deserve to be rediscovered.

Shocktober 2022 - Spanish Horror It occurred to me that, Jess Franco aside, I have not seen much Spanish horror - hence this selection of films from the 60s and 70s which I am going to attempt to watch in October.

Coincidently, this is what I spent October 2022 watching… boxd.it/inmdg

EXORCISING FRANCO: SPANISH GENRE CINEMA 1968-1983. This is a FANTASTIC restrospective, featuring not just classics like WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?, LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE, THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED, CANNIBAL MAN, BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE, ARREBATO... www.offscreen.be/en/offscreen...

Amazing!

How do I know this? It’s in the welcome book of course!

I appear to be in an airbnb owned by a member of the current line-up of The Dogs d’Amour.

Just hope this guy isn’t the captain of an industrial trawling vessel.

I wonder why Criterion no longer have it?

I love Wiseman’s films, but the reason you can only see Shirley Clarke’s THE COOL WORLD in a fucked-up subtitled version recorded off French TV decades ago is because Clarke reasonably criticised producer Wiseman and he sat on the rights out of spite.

RIP Frederick Wiseman

A photo of the back of the service station itself. The foreground is overgrown

A photo of a decaying children's climbing frame close to the service station, again surrounded by overgrowth

A photo of the abandoned forecourt

A photo of the abandoned car wash on the forecourt

HOTTEST DROP OF THE DECADE: My photos of the abandoned service station at Leicester Markfield

Something I’ve noticed from a local Facebook moaning group is that there is a common type of boomer who believes that everything started to go wrong at the point that they could no longer drive their car into the town centre and park right outside the shop that they wanted to visit.

Channel Tunnel rubble train thingy from National Railway Museum, York

Bullet Train, same place.

Also…

You know you've made it as an author when no one will properly edit you, and your books are now shit.

East German apartment from the DDR Museum.

Only if you are scared of a decimal point.

On a similar note, the toy PXL2000 video camera becoming a tool of low-budget filmmakers.

Substandard film gauges (16mm, 8mm) intended for amateurs and home use, becoming a favourite of pornographers, documentary makers, activist filmmakers, and the avant garde.

EVERYTHING IS NOW THE 1960s NEW YORK AVANT-GARDE - PRIMAL HAPPENINGS. UNDERGROUND MOVIES, RADICAL POP J. HOBERMAN

This is recent and very good indeed.

Second this. Also, not as good but functioning as an interesting riposte to Delaney, Marshall Berman’s ON THE TOWN.

Me and JC, I'm drunk, he's near the end of the meet and greet queue and knows it.

Indicator edition of VAMPIRES which I worked on, signed by JC.

Remembering when a very drunk me got JC to sign my copy.

Oh, nice! Interested to know how you find the Clara, I’ve had my eye on one.

Seishi Yokomizo PUSHKIN VERTIGO THE HONTIN MURDEKS The award-winning murder mystery classic

Pushkin Press have a nice line of classic Japanese crime fiction. I enjoyed this one and got a couple of others of his to follow up.

Versions of Wuthering Heights RANKED!

1. Luis Buñuel
2. Yoshishige Yoshida
3. Andrea Arnold
4. William Wyler
5. Jaques Rivette

I like how Ornette retooled his image from ‘nice saxman in a chunky sweater’ to ‘man who has brought his friends to collect the money you owe him’ in just two albums.