MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
-
Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin was born in London on 16 April 1889 and shot most of his films in the US. However, he brought his English humour with him in his hand luggage. Incidentally, he founded the film company “United Artists” together with several other artists and is considered one of the founding fathers of the Hollywood dream factory.
-
Oh yes, the Babel fish David. I unfortunately lost mine somewhere near Betelgeuse many years ago (and I left my towel there too). If only I had paid more attention, I would have been spared frequent leafing through the Oxford Dictonary and many a film subtitle. I love HHGTTG. The BBC production rather not. I watched it on TV as a teenager and thought it was pretty idiotic (I almost didn’t read the books, it would have been almost as awful as the Vogons digging up my garden). Someday I read the books after all. And I understood: 42.
I also like “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” very much (by the way, the German title of the book is: “Der lange dunkle Fünfuhrtee der Seele”. German book publishers have the bad habit of giving translated books a different title. This one still works, but some books or films are simply unrecognisable from the title). I am also a fan of Stanislaw Lem (Polish physicist and writer). Maybe you know him too. His humour is at least as weird as Douglas Adams’. I can recommend: “The Futorolgian Congress” and “The Star Diaries”.
This song was used in a shortened form by the BBC as the title for their version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
-
The English-American comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy provided many unforgettable moments in my childhood. I love their quirky and anarchic humour. They are said to have produced a total of 107 films in the course of their career (movies and short films). Stan Laurel was considered the creative head of the duo. He wrote most of the sketches, the scripts and also directed some of them. No wonder the performances and films of the duo often came across as very British.
-
As an experienced seafaring nation, the British of course also know how to effectively repel pirate attacks. I found the following newspaper article on the subject:
„Even if Britney Spears’ music is not to everyone’s liking, few would have expected that the pop singer’s songs could actually be used as weapons. But British cargo ships really do use songs by Britney Spears to drive Somali pirates away, as the “Sunday Mirror” reported. When an enemy pirate boat approaches the freighters, the singer’s music blares from the loudspeakers across the sea. “These guys hate western culture and music, especially Britney’s hits,” said the second female officer of a large Scottish tanker. She added: “The loudspeakers can be turned individually so that they only bother the pirates, not the crew. “Britney Spear’s songs “Baby One More Time” and “Oops!…I Did It Again” proved to be particularly effective: “They are so effective that the security forces on board hardly need to resort to firearms. As soon as the pirates are blasted with Britney, they leave as quickly as they can,” the officer said. The use of other artists as pirate deterrents had also been considered, but the plans were jettisoned for humanitarian reasons. “I think using songs by Justin Bieber is against the Geneva Convention on Human Rights,” the newspaper quoted Steven Jones of the “Security Association for the Maritime Industry” (SAMI).”
So let’s start a little self-experiment: imagine we are a Somali pirate and then let the following song have its effect on us. It would be interesting to know how many of us make it to the end of the song. I am definitely one of them. The music is not that bad…, although Britney’s loneliness is not only killing her, but also one or the other synapse in the listener’s brain.
-
The desire to be a pirate for once in their lives seems to be above average among British musicians. This must have something to do with the fact that they were born on an island. George Harrison proved it with his pirate sketch. Keith Richard even embarked on a successful acting career, portraying the pirate captain Edward Teague in the movie „Pirates of the Caribbean“, who once roamed the waters around Madagascar. And when Keith Richards got tired of the pirate life, he was immediately followed by another prominent pirate who can probably handle an electric guitar far better than a cutlass:
-
Perhaps it was the close and good working relationship with George Harrison that prompted Monty Python (specifically Eric Idle) to breathe life into The Rutles. A parody of The Beatles and Beatlemania. George Harrison liked it. The other 3 Beatles supposedly too… . If you take a closer look at the Rutles’ songs, you quickly realize that it’s not just a simple persiflage, but in my opinion a homage to the Fab Four and the moving music times of the 60s. A musical bow. To dismantle the songs so lovingly, to steal entire musical passages and rearrange them: that takes a lot of love.
-
John Lennon had a very direct, perhaps sometimes cynical sense of humour. Charming and at the same time irreverent: here is one of his unforgettable sayings:
-
I know, I posted this one before. Pretty much exactly a year ago. It’s such a funny and nice one, you can watch it more often. I think Ringo really has what it takes to be an actor. Maybe because he really just needs to be himself.
-
David, a little addendum to Lem: he studied medicine, not physics (I made a small editorial mistake there. But it doesn’t matter, because the two courses of study are so similar, it’s so easy to make a mistake). But Lem has written fantastic science fiction books, I’m almost certain of that. His classics are „Eden“, „Solaris“ and „The Invincible“. And again shortly for the BBC production of THHTTG: as I said, I was a teenager. Maybe I should give the series another chance, now that life has made me mature and wise.????
Where Douglas Adams is, Terry Pratchet is not far away (wasn’t he also a physicist? ha,ha). I particularly liked the novel “Mort” from the Discworld cycle. There is also a nice film version of a part of his novels with the melodious title “The colour of magic”. I guess you know it.
-
Hi David,
I will now get „All You Need Is Cash“ as a complete movie. Unfortunately, I’m quite late with this idea and the DVD is difficult to get. For example, as imports from the US, UK and France. The latter will probably be the one, as it’s quite cheap. Yeeeah, I always wanted to watch an English language movie with a French subtitle…
I was also surprised to see Paul McCartney in the pirate role. It’s a pity that he only plays in this single short scene. Of course, his appearance in the movie was panned by the critics. Paul McCartney looks like a carnival figure, they mentioned. Yes, but that’s what the whole movie looks like. It’ okay. What did the film critics expect? I like it.
-
Hi Jung,
thanks for this post. I don’t envy the Beatles for their interviews. Their is a saying: there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. When I look at these interviews, all I can say is: that’s not true. Yes, the humor and the serenity in the interviews is enviable. I liked the Beatle named Eric best.
On April 28, 1964, the fab four taped a television special at Wembley Park Studios in London. The show was called „Around the Beatles“, and it followed hard on the heels of the Beatles’ legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show less than three months earlier. This time, though, the group’s appearance did not begin with a rock and roll song, but rather with the performance of something quite different: the “Pyramus and Thisbe” episode from „A Midsummer Night’s Dream“.
“O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”
-W.S.-
-
Hard to say, Diana. After hearing Britney Spears the pirates just jump overboard. With this song they sink their own ship and still have fun doing it.
-
Hi David,
unfortunately I haven’t seen the movies “The Rutles – All You Need Is Cash” and its sequel “The Rutles 2 – Can’t Buy Me Lunch” in their entirety yet, only in excerpts. But what I know so far, I like very much.
-
Hi Thomas, we do our best: how about this one?
-
Thanks David, now I’m hungry… ????
