As they always used to say on Pipkins, 'it's ... time'; so, hit that there blog signal-type malarkey yer actual Keith Telly Topping and let's get this latest From The North bloggerisationism update out on the road for all of the dearest blog fiends in the vacinity ...
Kicking-off, thereabouts, with a piece of necessary and useful advice for all those dear blog fiends who happen to find their very selves in desperate need of what we used to, rather euphemistically, refer to as 'using the facilities'.
This blogger, he'll have you know, always does just exactly that. Next ... and all because he was told 'no, Mister Dennis, you can't sing the theme song like you usually do, this is my show. Next, you'll be wanting to stick your hand up a foxes bottom.' Boom and, indeed, boom.
In the most recent From The North bloggerisationism update, yer actual Keith Telly Topping was, dear blog readers may recall, jolly excited to announce that he had just signed up to write the the third part of his A Vault of Horror tetralogy for those delightful chaps at Telos Publishing.
This blogger mentioned then that 'a likely change of title, notwithstanding - once I write it, you will be able to [read the damned thing] ... sometime in 2026.' That change of title-thing is still a work-in-progress as we speak; it's currently going under (not bad) the working title Bride of a Vault of Horror but this blogger's always outstanding publishers have yet to express a solid opinion on that one either. So, we'll just have to see how it goes. Nevertheless, work continues on The Book (whatever it's called) apace; to date this blogger has completed just under a third (and, since he's working in chronological order, that means he's only just reached the 1960s and, technically, he hasn't even been born yet). It's progressing quite nicely even if yer actual Keith Telly Topping does say so his very self. He's got all the DVDs and Blu-rays necessary to complete the task (including three he had to borrow from his close, personal, fiend Young Malcolm) and he's having a right good time examining the entrails of numerous late-1950s British 'tales of mystery and suspense' (with six extra-special Johnny Foreigner-types thrown into the mix for extra special good measure). Because that's what the title says he'll do. And this blogger always keeps his word wherever possible.
For example, if the divine Goddess that was Hazel Court sitting in Kieron Moore's Hillman in Doctor Blood's Coffin with the 'Minx' emblem far more prominent than entirely necessary isn't a subliminal something-or-other to the audience, then this blogger don't know what is.
However, work on that was, suddenly, if not unexpectedly, held up for about a week recently because, just as this blogger was getting stuck into his latest book, the page-proofs from his last one, Island of Terror turned up requiring his immediate and solid attention. It has be almost two decades since the good old Virgin days when this blogger last had two books on the go (to various degrees) simultaneously. But, as this blogger noted when informing his dear Facebook fiends of the incoming arrival of a massive PDF file in his e-mail in-box; 'That moment when you have an ISBN number and you, therefore, can start calling it a real, actual, book' is always worth shouting about from the rooftops of The Stately Telly Topping Manor.
Yer actual promised that 'the next week or so will, therefore, move focus for the current book to the last one and checking the manuscript for microfibres,' Which, indeed, it did. And 'this is gonna be a reet good laugh'. Which it, also, was. 'But, but, but ... what's actually in it yer actual Keith Telly Topping, though but?' this blogger hears you all, as one, cry. So, dear blog fiends, he shall tell you. Cos he's a nice man like that is Keith Telly Topping and he always aims to please. Well, usually aims to please. Well, sometimes ...
So, with that noted (and, with the editing now completed), Island of Terror is, to all intents and purposes, thoroughly put-to-bed. It is, even if this blogger his very self claims so, 'kin brilliant, so it is. And, he's a highly-respected internationally-renowned best-selling author so you should probably take his word for it on that particular score. It's five hundred and ninety eight pages of sexy-goodness and is now available for pre-order on the Telos website, here. So, please dear blog fiends, do give serious consideration to pre-ordering one, several or lots; because this is a book that is the prefect gift. For someone you don't like. Go on, you know you want to ...
Listen, this blogger can can beg if you want him to, dear blog fiends. He knows how to beg, he's had lots of practice at it. Keith Telly Topping has got a rapidly growing DVD and Blu-ray collection and a salt and chilli pepper king prawn with curry and boiled rice addiction to support and fund. Also, let it be known that editing a book of over three hundred thousand words, a fraction underr six hundred pages, two hundred and sixty one footnotes, an 'uge Bibliography and an Acknowledgements page which borders on '... and everyone else who knows me' in a sustained seventy two-hour burst produces something approaching what you get if you go from listening to Erik Satie's Trios Gymnopédie to listening to Psychocandy with no stopover in-between whatsoever. It's a little like being drunk - from the point of view of a glass of water. Plug thoroughly ends, dear blog fiends. Just buy the fekker, please, it'd mean an awful lot to this blogger. He's sure that this publishers would also be jolly grateful. Thank you, in all sincerity, for allowing Keith Telly Topping into your homes.
Let it also be noted that, by a distance, the saddest five words this blogger was required to add during the Island of Terror editing sessions (to The Mind of Mister Soames entry) was 'he died in August 2025'. Same thing happened with Kenneth Cope when this blogger was page-proofing Return to a Vault of Horror. This blogger hates it when his favourite actors die, but especially when he's just written, glowingly, about one of their performances.
If, incidentally, anyone is still looking for an actual reason to pre-order the forthcoming Island of Terror - other than the fact that this blogger has written it, David and Stephen are publishing and lots of the people reading this very blog are going to be named in the Acknowledgements - there is this from page fifty nine. Which is, kind-of, Keith Telly Topping's mission statement. That pre-order link again just in case you miss it previously.
On the very morning that this blogger finished the Island of Terror editing and sent off the final (four) pages of notes, corrections, queries and suggestions, yer actual got up geet nice and early and went to get The Stately Telly Topping Manor weekly shopping at Byker Morrisons, a joint that will recur later in this very bloggerisationism update. It turns out that the buses were on-strike that particular day ('Up the workers!') but they were running a 'limited' service. This blogger took a chance and, miracle upon miracles, a number twelve turned up almost immediately upon this blogger leaving The Stately Telly Topping Manor and reaching the Bird's Nest Road stop (he could've got to the slightly closer St Anthony's Road stop, but that's a fare-stage and it's twenty pee cheaper from the next stop, this blogger being nothing if not a complete, total, and utter skinflint if he can manage it). Because of the strike the usual 'from-anywhere-to-anywhere-else' one-way ticket was two quid instead of two quid fifty pee for that day only. This blogger then went to McDonald's for breakfast. The sausage and egg McMuffin with a medium tea, two hash browns and barbeque sauce is usually £5.98 but this blogger was charged £5.48 by a spotty youth-trainee working on the till. This blogger, because he's an honest chap (usually), asked the spotty oiyk if he was absolutely sure that was the correct price and the spotty youth-trainee checked and said that, yes, he was and it is. Therefore, this blogger had his breeksa in a good mood and then waltzed down Shields Road with a spring in his step, despite the colder-than-of-late weather that day. He stopped off at Greggs for two Stotties and then whipped round Morrisons in double-quick time; the bill was seventeen knicker-odd but Keith Telly Topping's usual lovely lady on the checkout then informed this blogger that he'd earned a five pound-off coupon on his store loyalty card and did he wish to use that immediately? Do bears shit on The Pope? Yes, Keith Telly Topping did, indeed, wish to do just exactly that. On his way out of the store, this blogger spotted a very nice canary yellow fleece blanket of the type The Stately Telly Topping Manor already has two of which usually cost a tenner. This was on-sale for, it said, three quid fifty. This blogger grabbed one and rushed back to the same till and, on it being rung-through by this blogger's lovely lady on the till, turned out it was actually two knicker fifty, not three (for, you know, reasons). Then, on this blogger's way back to the bus stop he only went and found three pence on the ground (a tuppence and a penny). Alright, so he then had to wait about twenty minutes for the next non-striking bus back to The Stately Telly Topping Manor estate but, still, that had to be, on the strength of just those ninety minutes, the best day ever, bar none. This blogger arrived back at The Stately Telly Topping Manor and ploughed straight back into the final few pages of page-proof editing on Island of Terror feeling about (well, exactly, in fact) £7.53 better-off than he (theoretically) should've been. Little victories, dear blog fiends, little victories.
'Same old borin' Sunday mornin' (at The Stately Telly Topping Manor)' as The Members once, almost, said ... So, the weekly Stately Telly Topping Manor washing got done, the Saturday evening 'leave it till in the morning' Stately Telly Topping Manor washing up got done, the Stately Telly Topping Manor front-room vacuuming got done. And then it was time for yer actual to get back to Return to the Ghastly Bride's Revenge of the Crimson Blood-Beast Malarkey of the Corpse of the Vault of Horror has Risen from Beyond the Grave AD 2025. Which he did.
This blogger isn't sure whether it's just the way he sits when typing on The Stately Telly Topping Manor laptop but, most days these days, he seems to end-up with a really stiff and jolly sore right shoulder after a while. It's okay, it's not terminal or anything and, usually after a nice, steamin' hot fifteen-minute Stately Telly Topping Manor shower and a liberal and judicious application of ibuprofen gel to the affected area, this blogger is okay (in fact, he's more than okay). But, it's ... well, Keith Telly Topping was going to say a pain in the neck but, actually, it's more a pain in the upper arm and shoulder blade if we're going for strict accuracy, at this juncture.
This blogger always thinks that, in The Medusa Touch, in that scene where the church starts to crumble and a (clearly rubber) bell lands on (and bounces off) the head of one of the bellringers, the producers really missed a trick by not casting Tim Brooke-Taylor in the role.
Dear blog readers may recall that this blogger once used to make a point on noting that via Keith Telly Topping's blog essays on British post-war B-movies; The Corpse, The Yellow Teddy Bears, Saturday Night Out and The Black Torment; The Pleasure Girls; Hell Is A City; Cup Fever; Face Of A Stranger and Yield To The Night; Hell Drivers; The Day The Earth Caught Fire and Game For Three Losers; Hammer Films, Blood Of The Vampire and Good-Time Girl; Beat Girl; The Earth Dies Screaming, Radio-Cab Murder, Seven Days Till Noon, Murder In Reverse, The Gelignite Gang and Dead Man's Chest; Danger By My Side, Night Of The Prowler, Impact, Smokescreen, Girl In The Headlines and The Narrowing Circle; and Appointment with Fear, Carry on Spying Devil Girl from Mars and Villain, there was a period during 2022 and 2023 when From The North seemed more like a film blog which, sometimes, discussed TV. Rather than the other way around which was, for several years at least, this blog's supposed raison d'être.
This blogger mentions this because, the fact that he's written (and written, here, about his writing of) three books of the subject of British horror, thriller, science-fiction and 'tales of mystery and suspense' films during the last year-and-a-bit notwithstanding, he's 'off to the flicks' again, in this very blog update.
Or, to put it another way ...
So, this blogger has done the old 'my first few films' Asperger's-like doodah a few times in his life (it has become one of Keith Telly Topping's party-pieces in actual fact) but, he'd never really had the wherewithal to track down when and where he saw the films in question. Thus, in the few days immediately before he started work proper on Return to the Ghastly Bride's Revenge of the Crimson Blood-Beast Malarkey of the Corpse of the Vault of Nasty Horror has Risen from Beyond the Grave AD 2025, he did just exactly that. It turns out that this blogger had the order slightly incorrect and, in at least one case, the cinema he saw one particular film in completely wrong. It was interesting, also, to note that this blogger's first five trips to the cinema covered five of the six major cinemas in Newcastle at that time (nobody counted the Jesmond Picture House or theGlobe and the Royalty in Gosforth as 'major'). This blogger is still trying to work out exactly when he first went to the sixth, the Haymarket ABC. He thought, initially, it may been to see Live and Let Die, but further research quashed that notion right good and proper and no mistake (see below). What should've been this blogger's local cinema, incidentally - the Gloria on St Anthony's Road a, literal, three minute limp from The Stately Telly Topping Manor - had shut its doors as a picture-house the year before this blogger was born and had, by this stage, been turned into a bingo hall. This, dear blog fiends and lady fiends, was progress in the late-1960s apparently. If that had still be open as a cinema in the early-70s Keith Telly Topping would probably have seen a Hell of a lot more movies than he did on the big screen instead of, merely, on television. Which might explain why he ended up writing so much about the latter rather than the former for so many years.
Anyway. Number One: This blogger had that visit absolutely spot-on so it must've been a memorable occasion (se even remembered, roughly, the date as being 'shortly after Boxing Day').
That was at the Pilgrim Street Odeon - this blogger being taken there by his mam and dad. One supposes the 'reduced prices for children' thing was a definite consideration where Pater Telly Topping was concerned. This blogger recalls that the queue to get in stretched round the corner and halfway down New Bridge Street. But, we made it, eventually and Keith Telly Topping can still, to this day, give you two choruses of 'Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat' on request. Please don't request, however No one needs to have Keith Telly Topping singing in their lives.
Number Two: One that still looms jolly large in this blogger's legend; though he'd always thought he saw this film a few months later. The fact that it was during the school holidays makes far more sense when you think about it. This blogger was taken by his mother - whom, he recalls, thought it was 'quite nice, dear' (she liked the 'kinky boot-beast' but, this blogger is not sure Mama Telly Topping found The Blue Meanies suitable for a seven-year-old). The Pink Panther cartoons were, this blogger recalls, an unexpected bonus. And, again, this blogger can upon request - or, just, if he feels like it - sing every song from this film. And frequently does. In, of course, the privacy of The Stately Telly Topping Manor. Tell all the dear blog fiends all about, George, baby.
This is, incidentally, the only one of these cinemas that actually is still there, still a cinema and still, occasionally, attended by this blogger. The good old Tyneside, bless 'er.
Number Three: This blogger remembers he saw this and the next one over the same weekend but, he quite couldn't remember which way round they were and he'd always placed these two somewhere around Christmas 1971 rather than, as it turned out, a couple of months later. Pater Telly Topping took this blogger to this at the Essoldo on Westgate Road - this blogger recalls because he wanted to see it himself and Keith Telly Topping, being a precocious slappable brat at the time, nagged him to come alone (United were, seemingly, playing away from home that weekend). Again, still a film that looms large (a theme which will continue, sadly). That said, if this blogger had known then how his life and writing career would turn out, he'd've probably asked to go next door and watch Fright and I, Monster as well.
The Essoldo later became the ABC (this blogger saw both Batman and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade there among many others) but it closed around 1990 and is now, sadly, an apartment block. Again, this is progress.
This blogger thought the next one was, also, a couple of months earlier and he'd've sworn on his eyesight that it was at the Byker Apollo rather than the Pavilion. Taken by Our Colin Telly Topping and Our Maureen Telly Topping. This blogger had always thought they took him as a late-Christmas present but, given that it was in March, that would've been a very late Christmas present. Or, perhaps, it was an early-the-next-Christmas present?
The Pavilion which was next door to The Stoll (now The Tyneside Theatre and Opera House - where, incidentally, this blogger once acted on-stage in a play, true story) was also on Westgate Road, about a block further up from where the Essoldo.
This blogger's first Hammer film (sadly, it wasn't a The Satanic Rites of Dracula). This blogger has absolutely no memory of Frankie's Up Pompeii spin-off being part of the programme; Rachel Welsh's bikini must have blotted everything else out, it would appear. Again, taken by this blogger's father, this time very definitely as a late birthday present.
The Apollo, incidentally, is now, this blogger's local Morrisons, visited on a weekly basis - usually Mondays - to get in The Stately Telly Topping Manor shopping (see above for details of the latest-but-one such visit).
And, then it turns out that this blogger also saw Live & Let Die at the Odeon.
This blogger might've been tempted, also, by Dr Who & The Daleks the day previously except that it had been on telly about a month before this (he said, checking on BBC Genome and discovering the second BBC-TV showing was on 6 September 1973). Keith Telly Topping thinks that next film he saw after that would've been either Earthquake, Jaws or The Sword in the Stone One of those must've been at the Haymarket. But, further research is needed for confirmation. He knows for certain that he saw Grease there.
This blogger'll tell you what though, dear bloggerisationism fiends, if you're ever looking for a dictionary definition of 'back-handed compliments' this from the Gainsborough Evening News (16 July 1974) might, just, be the winner.
Having recently ordered this blogger's Facebook fiend David Huckvale's book on one of Keith Telly Topping's favourite films of all-ever, this arrived a bit later than this blogger expected at The Stately Telly Topping Manor on that particular day. The book, that is, not the ham sandwich, that arrived exactly when this blogger expected it ... roughly ten seconds after he made it.
Meanwhile, dear blog fiends, commentary tracks by Americans on British horror and SF movie DVDs and Blu-rays. Listen, these guys clearly know their subject and this blogger is sure that they're all jolly nice chaps who are kind to their mothers and dumb animals and that. But, sadly, every time this blogger hears an American 'European horror expert' referring to an actor on-screen having 'appeared in Zee Cars', this blogger just want to hit something. Hard. And then hit it again (hard) just to make sure it got the message first time round. It's Keith Telly Topping's own hill to die on, dear blog fiends. It just gets right on his effing tit-end is all. Also, it's 'British' not 'Briddish'. Gertcha.
Next: 'Single to the Crater of Needles, please.' 'Sorry, pal, we only go as far as Marinus, you'll have to change at the Space Museum.'
Jellyfish have long memories, dear blog fiends? Who knew? Keith Telly Topping always thought that was elephants?
This blogger supposes we should be grateful that some twenty four carat dipstick of a sub-editor at the Metro (so, not a real newspaper, then) didn't go with There's A Rat In Ma Hospital (What Ama Gonna Do)? It was, however, the inclusion of a photo of the 'not actual' rat, just in case any Metro readers didn't know what a rat actually looked like, that made it art.
With the news that Them Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s you might've heard of them) are to be putting out volume four on The Be-Atles Anthology (the song listing for which has, apparently, given some people a right chimney on for reasons not entirely clear), Keith Telly Topping has often thought about writing to Sir Paul, Sir Ringo, Yoko and Olivia, care of Apple. And, of saying to them something like 'Dear Them Be-Atles (and Missus Them Be-Atles), I have a suggestion for your next release. I think you should put out a single CD containing - hear me out - 'Carnival of Light', the Take Twenty version of 'Revolution 1', the full eight minute version of 'It's All Too Much', the twenty seven minute version of 'Helter Skelter', the eleven minute version of 'Dig It' and one of those long rambling instrumentals recorded in the summer of 1967 mentioned in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Be-Atles Recording Sessions book that no one has heard (which you can give a groovy title to like 'Satan Boogie Sex Shoes'). Those and not a single sliver else (unless you can maybe squeeze on 'Watching Rainbows' from Twickenham). It should contain a minimum of information on the cover, which should feature the best picture you can find of Them Be-Atles laughing their collection cock off and the title should be Them Be-Atles - You Wanted This, Now Shut The Fuck Up. It'd sell millions. Yours sincerely, et cetera, yer actual Keith Telly Topping (highly-respected internationally-renowned best-selling author so you should probably take his word for it on that particular score).' Whaddya think, dear blog fiends?
Next, dearest blog fiends, do you reckon her lad know about this right old kerfuffle? 'Your mum, right ...'
And, then, there's this. If you insist, mate, if you insist.
During the second week of August, this blogger took a day off from working on the book(s) to go out for his - very civilsed - 'monthly meal and general conflab followed by DVD shopping at HMV' with his fiend Young Malcolm. Why? Because we both (but Keith Telly Topping in particular) really deserved this.
And this.
And this.
Question; couldn't they, perhaps, have found a slightly-less morose Mod to model the advert? Some of them were actually quite cheerful, you know.
Take this one, for example. Camp, admittedly, but still quite chirpy so long as he wasn't getting his heed kicked-in by skinheads.
And, finally ... Gosh, it really doesn't look like the sort of joint where such violent thuggish malarkey could possibly ever occur, does it?
