Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 26 - 1992

 This year's top choice is actually something I wrote about previously for another format...

1992:

The trivia:

• Around seventy members of the French scouting group 'Éclaireuses et Éclaireurs de France ' descended on the Upper Mayriere Cave at the Bruniquel archaeological site with the best of intentions. Their plan was to remove the modern graffiti defacing the cave walls. Armed with wire brushes and enthusiasm, they set to work. Unfortunately, somewhere between scrubbing off the spray‑painted initials and feeling proud of their civic duty, the group got a little carried away. In the process of cleaning the walls, they managed to at least partially remove two prehistoric bison paintings - artworks that had survived for roughly 15,000 years before meeting their match in a troop of over‑zealous scouts. It was only after the damage was done that someone realised the “stubborn marks” weren’t modern vandalism at all, but priceless Palaeolithic art.

• In 1633, under threat of torture, the Roman Catholic Inquisition forced Galileo Galilei - one of the founders of modern science - to recant his belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Legend has it that after signing his recantation, Galileo muttered “E pur si muove” (“And yet it moves”). Fast‑forward 359 years. In 1992, Pope John Paul II finally declared that Galileo had been right all along. A satisfying conclusion, perhaps - except for the fact that it took the committee responsible more than a decade of research, meetings and theological chin‑stroking to reach this blindingly obvious verdict. You can almost picture them, poring over centuries‑old documents, weighing philosophical implications, and slowly, painstakingly arriving at the revolutionary conclusion that the Earth does indeed orbit the Sun. Still, better late than never. Even if “late” in this case means almost four centuries.

• When the container ship "Ever Laurel" hit a storm in the North Pacific in January of 1992, several large cargo containers were washed overboard. One of them burst open, releasing a consignment of 28,800 plastic bath toys — the now‑legendary “Friendly Floatees,” a cheerful menagerie of yellow ducks, red beavers, blue turtles and green frogs. Made of durable plastic and sealed watertight, they were never meant to survive the open ocean. And yet they did.. The Floatees drifted across the world’s currents like tiny, brightly coloured message bottles. Some travelled more than 17,000 miles. Others became trapped in Arctic ice for years before thawing out and continuing their journey. They washed up in Hawaii, Australia, Alaska, South America, and even as far afield as Ireland and the west coast of Scotland. A few were still being found more than a decade later, bleached by sun and salt but otherwise intact. These little toys became unintentional scientific instruments, helping researchers map the behaviour of ocean currents, gyres and long‑distance drift patterns. Somewhere out there, perhaps even now, a lone yellow duck may still be bobbing along, following the currents to its next unexpected shore...

The memory:

Virtual Murder

Back at the end of 2015, I wrote this post about the interesting journey which lead to me finally become a published writer -  through an essay about the short-lived BBC series "Virtual Murder" appearing in the "You And Who Else" charity anthology about 50 years of British telefantasy. Now years later, I have reached the point in this series of look-back posts where the TV show was first transmitted, so it seems right that I should reproduce that essay here.

What you will read below is exactly the essay as it was published in "You And Who Else". I've made no attempt to improve or update things - just added a few pictures to break up the text.

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Footfalls Echo In The Memory

Memory is what defines us. It makes us who we are as human beings. The man I am today has been shaped by the last 48 years of experiences. As much as I recall the morals and virtues instilled in me by my parents and the fun times I had as a child, I also recollect the harsh words from bullies at school or the rows with my ex-wife. They are all part of me.

Who I am now has also been heavily influenced by the television I watched. I have this reputation at work (from my participation in numerous pub quizzes) for being a repository for minor trivia about TV. It’s not really justified – it’s just that I can name all of the 'Fingerbobs' and sing the theme song to "Fraggle Rock" and tell you who played Will Scarlett in "Robin of Sherwood" – which my colleagues can’t. I think it’s because I have always tended to associate the different periods in my life with the SF and fantasy TV series of the times. A kind of tele-visual shorthand if you will – one informs the other and vice versa. As much as music or smells can be a mnemonic spark, fantastical TV (the odder the better) has been a trigger for me.

Ask me about being four or five years old and it will be as much about "Catweazle" or "Crystal Tipps and Alistair" as the birthday party I had or the holiday to the Isle of Wight. At ten my year was defined by "King of the Castle" and" Children of the Stones" – and something about a fancy dress street party for the Silver Jubilee. When I reflect on turning twenty in 1987, it’s "Star Cops" and "Max Headroom" that I think of. And through it all like a seam of gold in a layer of quartz is "Doctor Who". 

In 1992 I was 25 years old, had been at work in a steady job for several years and lived in a shared house with two friends (although that was about to come to a messy end – we had bought the place together, what were we thinking?). The following year I would meet the woman who would become my first wife. But right then, I was still (marginally) more interested in fiction than reality.

Comics and "Doctor Who" have always been my twin passions, but the Timelord had been off of the TV screens for three years and I’d sadly drifted away from being a fan – even disposing of all my Target novelisations (what a terrible mistake that turned out to be). Apart from the sublime "Twin Peaks" a year earlier, there was a not a whole lot of genre TV out there at this time - this was pre the "X-File"s / "Babylon 5" explosion. I’d gravitated towards "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Quantum Leap" – transmitted in that famous BBC2 6.00pm slot – but although both were great programmes, they just weren’t “special” to me in the way that "Doctor Who" had been. Something was about to come along to change all that…

In a TV landscape somewhat dominated by fly-on-the-wall documentaries, "Virtual Murder" was an attempt by the BBC to break the pattern and go back to what it has always done best – original drama, this time with a SF / fantasy leaning. It was also to be for adults – transmitted at 9.30pm in the evening. So what would this new series be like? Take the 60’s camp oddness of "The Avengers" or "Department S". Add in a dash of Holmesian detective skills and genius intellect. Toss in a soupcon of the eccentricities of "Doctor Who". Stir well with a pinch of modern technological innovations. Voila! A recipe for success? Maybe.

The show concerned the adventures of the square jawed Dr John Cornelius (JC), a psychology lecturer, played by the late Nicholas Clay. Assisted by glamorous girlfriend Samantha Valentine (Kim Thompson), he helped the police in tracking down macabre criminals.

In my personal world, bereft of my favourite kind of quirky escapist drama, I seized it with both hands. This was the kind of thing I wanted to watch – not endless episodes of police on the beat or conference meetings on starships in a supposedly perfect future society! The cases the eccentric Doctor Cornelius investigated were as equally bizarre as the criminals. Paintings suddenly melting, a trail of bodies linked by strange knot clues, the brother of Santa Claus in a tale of two skeletons, a modern-day vampire, and deadly corporate espionage in a virtual environment. "Next Gen" couldn’t offer that kind of uniquely British nuttiness. The series had a knowing awareness of its own overblown unreality - and I loved it. It was the little show that tried to be something different. 

I think I saw Cornelius as a kind of a proto-Timelord. Perhaps my Who fandom was trying to reassert itself? I could almost imagine a future incarnation of the Doctor being exiled to Earth like his predecessor and setting up in a university as a consultant psychologist / detective. Except this regeneration had a full romantic relationship with his “assistant”! There were already hints of both Baker’s in Nicholas Clay’s performance, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. I’d always identified with the Doctor as the odd-one-out (which was exactly how I had felt during my formative years). With Who off the air, perhaps I latched onto JC as a role model. Being intelligent and well read *could* get you the girl. I’m not ashamed to say that I was still trying to “find” myself, even at 25.

Whatever the underlying reasons, every Friday night I would be sitting there watching - enjoying the banter between JC and Samantha, the skulduggery of the villains and the sheer style, fun and inventiveness on display. I tried talking about it with friends and family and work colleagues, but while those that weren’t down the pub on a Friday night enjoyed it well enough, they just didn’t seem to “get” it to quite the extent I did. In a way I liked that. "Virtual Murder" had become “my” show. Arguments had started between my friends and I, and despite living in the same house we weren’t socialising together anymore. I really felt quite unhappy and trapped in a situation of my own making, so I retreated into the things that gave me the most pleasure. Comic books and this strange serial had become my escape.

Even with all the Doctor-ish qualities I was probably projecting onto the programme, it was genuinely a who's-who of Who both in front of and behind the camera. Bernard Bresslaw, Philip Martin, Richard Todd, Bernard Horsfall, Peggy Mount - the list went on. Best of all, episode four had Jon Pertwee as Luis Silverado, a retired brothel keeper (and chef). Pertwee quite obviously had a ball in the role – dodgy Spanish accent, twirling Mario-like grey moustache and pyromaniacal tendencies. It was "Doctor Who" seen through Star Trek's mirror universe. His character died all too soon, and the episode is the poorer for it, but his brief appearance was fantastic.

There were a plethora of other well known guest artistes too. Hywel Bennett was cast against type for the first time as a villain. Plus Ronald Fraser, Tessa Wyatt, Sean Pertwee, Tony Robinson, Jill Gascoine – Julian Clary as an undertaker even – bulked out an impressive cast list for a serial lasting only a few short weeks. The BBC had put a lot of effort into this.

Looking back now, "Virtual Murder" might also have contained the seed of a lot of elements in popular BBC detective series to come. Is there the kernel of the central relationship between Jonathan Creek and Maddie Magellan in the sparky rapport between JC and Samantha? Maybe a glint of the modern day Sherlock, twenty years before Steven Moffat’s triumphant reboot? Yes, I think about the show that much, even all this time later.

Sadly it wasn’t to last. Six weeks of madness and magic and then it was gone. John Cornelius disappeared off into the sunset, never to be seen by anyone ever again. You see, the real crime JC and Samantha should investigate is why "Virtual Murder" wasn’t an instant gigantic success – and more importantly why is it that this wonderful offbeat set of six episodes has never been repeated on TV or released on any version of home media. The only reason I still have copies to watch now is because I luckily captured them on VHS at the time. The tapes are long gone (victim of a move to a smaller house) but I still have the digital copies I made. Okay, by today’s standards it’s moderately dated in that 1990’s ‘over the top staging / everything’s on videotape / someone’s discovered the funky scene transition effects button’ kind of way, but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.

What is even worse though is that as marvellous as it was, it seems I’m one of only a handful of people who even remember it existed at all. Go on - do an internet search for Virtual Murder. I’ll wait here for you…

See? Excluding the obvious sites like Wikipedia and IMDB, there are less than half a dozen entries. Even something as obscure as 1977’s American SF sitcom “Quark” has more pages devoted to it and a DVD release. Virtual Murder has been consigned to oblivion – and that’s a damn shame. * 

I mentioned earlier that I link TV shows with memories of specific times in my life. Virtual Murder is lodged in there deep and will always bring to mind a transitional and rather difficult period – after becoming independent from my parents, but before the highs (and lows) of what was to become a serious long term relationship. Maybe the rest of the world has forgotten about this odd and unique drama, but me? - I will continue to remember it with great affection.

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* Obviously the internet has moved on in the years since I originally wrote this, and many more people have written nostalgia-tinged pieces about the show. You can even find the whole series on You Tube !

Honourable mentions:

• The Muppet Christmas Carol - For my money, the best version of the Dickens’ classic ever put on screen - and I say that as someone who loves almost every adaptation out there. It was the first Muppet movie made after the death of  legendary creator Jim Henson, and there’s something deeply moving about how beautifully it carries his spirit forward. The masterstroke, of course, was casting Michael Caine as Scrooge and having him play it completely straight. No winks, no mugging -  just a full‑blooded dramatic performance dropped into a world of felt and fur. It grounds the entire film. Around him, the Muppets are perfectly chosen for their roles - Kermit as Bob Cratchit, Gonzo as Dickens himself, even Statler and Waldorf heckling from beyond the grave as Marley and Marley. It all fits with such effortless precision that you can’t imagine it any other way. And then there are Paul Williams’ songs - incredibly catchy, heartfelt, and perfectly tuned to the story. Watching this movie has become a Christmas tradition in our household. My kids grew up with it as their favourite film. It’s funny, it’s tender, it’s beautifully made, and it captures the heart of Dickens’ story with more sincerity than most “serious” adaptations ever manage. A perfect Christmas film - and a perfect Muppet film.

• Savage Dragon - Created by Erik Larsen, one of the original Image Comics founders, this is one of only two titles that has been in continuous publication since the company started. Larsen has written, drawn (and in many cases coloured and lettered) the main strip for every single issue over a period of more than thirty years. In an industry built on rotating creative teams and constant relaunches, that level of commitment borders on the insane. But the achievement isn’t just the longevity - it’s the way Larsen uses it. "Savage Dragon" unfolds in real time. Characters grow up, age, change careers, fall in love, have children, die, and get replaced by the next generation. The book’s world evolves with the same messy unpredictability as real life, which gives it a weight and emotional continuity that most superhero comics never even attempt. The original Dragon was a green skinned fin-headed powerhouse with vast strength and a remarkable healing factor - a classic Kirby‑esque character. He anchored the series for the first 192 issues. And then, in a move almost unthinkable for a mainstream superhero book, Dragon died and the series passed to his son, Malcolm. He has slightly different powers including the ability to generate electrical charges.  And now *he* has kids and the book is shifting towards adventures with a whole family of Dragons. What keeps me reading, long after I’ve dropped every other monthly title, is Larsen’s willingness to experiment. He’ll try anything - wild tonal shifts (like turning the book into an adult sex comedy), huge cast shake‑ups, bizarre new villains, sudden deaths, unexpected romances - all with his trademark kinetic artwork that feels like it’s constantly trying to burst off the page. A one‑man epic that has grown and changed alongside its creator - and in a landscape of endless reboots and safe bets, that makes it something genuinely special.

• Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes - In a year that (unfortunately) gave us Right Said Fred and Billy Ray Cyrus, the real standout was the debut album from Tori Amos. It arrived like a lightning bolt - intimate, poetic and challenging - shades of the quirky, experimental spirit I loved in Kate Bush, but filtered through a distinctly American sensibility. The first time I heard it, I knew this wasn’t just another singer‑songwriter. The lyrics were raw, confessional, sometimes painfully direct, sometimes dreamlike and oblique. I was instantly smitten. I played the whole record constantly, letting it seep into my bones, and found myself completely immersed in Tori’s strange, beautiful world - one I’ve never tired of, even after multiple albums and decades of listening. There are so many standout tracks. "Me and a Gun" remains one of the most raw pieces of music ever recorded - a stark, unaccompanied account of trauma that still stops me in my tracks. "China" is a quiet lament for a love slipping away, full of tenderness and regret. But if I have to choose a favourite, it’s "Winter", Tori’s song about her relationship with her minister father. It’s gentle, aching, and even now, it hits with the same emotional force it had the first time I heard it. "Little Earthquakes" was the beginning of a lifelong connection with a wonderful artist - one who still continues to surprise and move me right up to the present day.

• Toys - One of those films that instantly divides a room. Ambitious, surreal, visually extravagant and utterly uninterested in behaving like a normal studio movie, it’s the very definition of “love it or loathe it” - and I’m sure you can guess which side of the fence I fall on. The story begins with the death of toymaker Kenneth Zevo, whose company is unexpectedly left not to his whimsical children Leslie and Alsatia (Robin Williams and Joan Cusack), but to his war‑obsessed brother Leland, played with icy precision by Michael Gambon. Almost overnight, the factory transforms from a pastel‑coloured wonderland into a militarised complex churning out war toys, drones and weaponised playthings. Leslie, who has spent his life drifting through the company’s dreamlike corridors, suddenly finds himself fighting for his family’s legacy. Beneath all the surrealism lies a surprisingly serious message about the militarisation of entertainment and the erosion of innocence. It’s a cautionary fable wrapped in bright paper, which is probably why so many people didn’t know what to make of it. What makes "Toys" so special though is the sheer amount of visual imagination on display. Barry Levinson directs it like a pop‑art fever dream - vast toy‑box sets, impossible architecture, candy‑coloured landscapes and camera work that feels slightly off‑kilter in the best possible way. The performances match the tone perfectly, leaning into the film's heightened reality. It also helps that the soundtrack is fantastic - Grace Jones, Thomas Dolby, and even a contribution from a certain Tori Amos. It isn’t perfect, but it’s bold, imaginative and utterly unique. And honestly, that’s far more interesting

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 25 - 1991

 This time two comedy legends create the funniest sitcom ever made...

1991:

The trivia:

• When robbers broke into the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam with the inside help of a security guard, it should have been the perfect art heist. They’d selected twenty paintings with care - works worth an eye‑watering fortune - and slipped out into the night with the kind of precision that usually only exists in films starring George Clooney. Unfortunately, their meticulous planning didn’t extend to basic car maintenance. Their main getaway vehicle had a flat tyre, forcing them to flee on foot, leaving all twenty paintings neatly inside. The police recovered everything just thirty‑five minutes after the initial theft, making it one of the shortest‑lived “masterplans” in criminal history.

• The record for the most people ever carried on a single aircraft was set in 1991, when an El Al Boeing 747 took part in 'Operation Solomon' - an airlift that evacuated Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Israel. Designed to hold a few hundred passengers at most, the aircraft somehow packed in an astonishing 1,086 people, with every inch of space used. That number became 1,088 by the time it landed, thanks to two babies being born mid‑flight. 

• When “Kentucky Fried Chicken” officially shortened its name to “KFC” , it should have been the most mundane corporate rebrand imaginable. Instead, it somehow sparked one of the strangest conspiracy theories of the decade. According to the rumour mill, the company had dropped the word “chicken” because they weren’t selling actual chickens at all, but cloned, headless, lab‑grown 'bird‑blobs' that couldn’t legally be called poultry. It was the kind of story that spread effortlessly in the pre‑internet era - half urban legend, half schoolyard whisper, and entirely ridiculous. In reality, the name change was simply about modernising the brand and avoiding the word “fried” at a time when fast food was under nutritional scrutiny. But the rumour persisted for years, proving once again that people will believe almost anything - especially if it involves secret laboratories and mutant livestock.

The memory:

Bottom

So at last we come to my favourite comedy TV show of all time - the one that stands head and shoulders above all others. It's the culmination of all the work that Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson had done in years past. The manic stunts of  "The Dangerous Brothers". The punk energy of "The Young Ones". The showbiz sleaze of  "Filthy, Rich & Catflap". All the chaos, all the anarchy, all the gleeful slapstick - it all funnels into "Bottom". It's bleak, violent, chaotic and incredibly silly. It's their masterpiece and I just bloody well love it.

Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elisabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmondson) are two crude, layabout, perverted nutters who live in a grim little flat in Hammersmith. Eddie mostly thinks about drinking. Richie mostly thinks about sex, despite having absolutely no idea what to do with a woman if he ever got the chance. They hate each other but seem to be stuck together, two hopeless men doomed to dream of better things and never get anywhere near them. As many have observed, it's Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" with added extreme "Tom and Jerry" style violence  Usually a frying pan in the face.

Each week would see the pair of losers make some pathetic attempt to improve their lot or fill the void of their meaningless lives - and fail spectacularly. Trying to attract "birds" down the "Lamb & Flag" with a pheromone sex spray. Stealing the gas supply from next door just as the gasman arrives to read the meter. Playing chess using some frozen prawns, a potted cactus, a bottle of ketchup and a large Spider-Man figurine. Richie deciding that he is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary due to some dodgy Christmas gifts. It was gloriously stupid and side-splittingly funny.

It was all carefully crafted chaos though. Rik and Ade worked on the scripts themselves, writing each others lines and trying to make the other laugh. You can feel that energy in every episode. The pair did most of the physical stuff too - the falls, the slaps, the chair‑smashing - and you can see them really getting into it. There's not a line or a look to camera wasted. The joy is in the delivery, the timing, the way Rik’s face crumples up  into that wounded‑puppy expression, or the way Ade would make a single raised eyebrow funnier than most sitcom punchlines. Ade has said more than once that Rik would go “full kamikaze” if he thought it would get a bigger reaction.

There were also some memorable guest stars. Brian Glover was suitably menacing (yet oddly tender) as next-door neighbour Mr. Rottweiler. Helen Lederer swanned in as rich aristocrat Lady Natasha Letitia Sarah Jane Wellesley Obstromsky Ponsonsky Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Oblomov Boblomov Dob, third Viscountess of Moldavia. And of course Stephen O'Donnell and Chris Ryan popped up repeatedly as Eddie's best mates Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog. But many of the best episodes were just Rik and Ade for the full half hour doing what they do best - insulting each other, and committing the most appalling acts of violence.

As the series went on, watching "Bottom" became something I looked forward to all week. The theme tune would kick in, the camera would pan across that filthy flat, and I’d settle in, knowing full well I was about to see something utterly crazy and utterly brilliant. There was a rhythm to it - the bickering, the delusions, the petty one‑upmanship, the inevitable explosion of violence - and I loved every second. 

I was also lucky enough to see three of the live stage shows. I recall the first tour being an unbelievably hot evening in the theatre, with Rik and Ade constantly wiping themselves down (ooo-err). Between the ruder‑than‑TV script, the ad‑libs, the mucking about and the attempts to make each other corpse, I think I nearly passed out from laughing. The live shows were like a parallel universe where Richie and Eddie somehow had even fewer boundaries. The first two are the best in my opinion, but honestly, any chance to see the pair of them live was worth grabbing.

After the third of the live shows, development started on a feature film spin-off', but was stalled when Rik had his near-fatal quad bike accident. Filmed while he was still recovering, "Guest House Paradiso" was eventually released in 1999 and featured Mayall as Richard Twat (pronounced "Thwaite" apparently) and Edmonson as Eddie Elizabeth Ndingobamba, with the latter serving as director. The film sees the pair operating a grotty remote guesthouse next to a nuclear power plant and feeding their guests radioactive fish, causing violence, mayhem and massive amounts of vomiting. Despite the characters and humour being in the same vein as "Bottom", it's really not in the same league. An interesting diversion perhaps. 

After two more live tours, Edmondson felt that it was time to stop the mindless violence, even though his co-star was still keen. There was an idea for a sitcom set 30 years later in an old people's home, but it didn't come to anything. Then in 2012, the BBC announced that it had commissioned a series based on the "Hooligan's Island" stage show, where Eddie and Richie cause havoc on a deserted tropical island. Edmondson later revealed that Mayall (possibly due to his quad bike injuries) struggled to accept that he wanted to move on and pursue other projects - and that he only wrote the initial scripts in the hope that the BBC would reject them, putting Mayall's aspirations to rest - but it got greenlit!. Two months later Edmondson put his foot down and the idea was scrapped. Of course Mayall then tragically died on 9th June 2014, putting an end to any plans.

As much as I miss Rik Mayall - and I think about him a lot - in a strange way, I’m glad "Bottom" didn’t limp on forever. The show remains this perfect, self‑contained burst of anarchic energy.

On a happier note, the really important thing about the series is what it meant to me at home. If  the mutual enjoyment of "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door" had brought my younger sister and I closer together, then "Bottom" was the thing that really cemented how much we had exactly the the same sense of humour. Our parents didn't get it and our brother could take it or leave it., so this was *our* show and we were utterly fanatical about it. I bought all the VHS videos and the "Bottom Fluffs" out take compilations. Episodes such as "Smells", "Gas", "Apocalypse", "Digger" and "Terror" were watched over and over again and the lines quoted endlessly between us.

Even now, birthday or Christmas cards between us always end with "Love from all the lads on the Ark Royal". A compliment sometimes gets an added "..and may I just say what a smashing blouse you have on?". Sometimes we just shout "Gasman!!" at each other. We spent one memorable New Years Eve texting each other trying to see who could recall the most quotes (it was a draw). I even have a mug which proclaims I am a "Sad old git". Our shared love of a daft TV programme has endured.

This show isn't just something I enjoyed watching. It hasn't just seeped into my consciousness. It's welded itself inextricably to my DNA.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Honourary mentions:

• G.B.H. - Alan Bleasdale's savage and satirical drama about the rise and fall of a militant left Labour city councillor arrived like a political hand‑grenade. It managed to balance pitch‑black humour, farcical behaviour and genuine rage at an elitist, class‑ridden society - while still giving every character enough depth that you felt for them, even at their worst. Robert Lindsay is a revelation as the angry, womanising Michael Murray, waging a war against an unlikely nemesis in Michael Palin's special needs teacher - each of them on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As revelations about his childhood are constantly on the verge of being revealed, Murray descends into an accumulation of  tics, jerks and involuntary Hitler-like salutes at the oddest moments. The political edge may feel blunted somewhat to modern audiences, but at the time it was electrifying. I remember being gripped by all seven episodes, week after week, as the story veered from farce to tragedy. And then, just when you thought you had the measure of it, Bleasdale would throw in something completely unexpected - like part of an episode set at a Doctor Who convention, complete with fans in costume milling around while the plot spiralled into paranoia. It was that mix of  the mundane and the surreal that made "G.B.H." so unforgettable - a drama that dared to be angry, absurd and compassionate all at once.

• The death of Freddie Mercury - The sad demise of the "Queen" front man was the first celebrity passing that genuinely affected me - the only other one that hit as hard was Rik Mayall, as I mentioned above. I didn’t know Freddie, of course, but his voice had been part of the soundtrack of my life for so long that losing him felt strangely personal, as if a light had gone out in a room I’d always taken for granted. Even now, decades later, I still think about the music we never got to hear, the songs that remained unwritten because... time simply ran out. When the announcement came that Freddie had died, the TV channels immediately began showing the stark black‑and‑white video for "These Are The Days Of Our Lives". I remember sitting there with tears streaming down my face. The vibrant, theatrical frontman I’d grown up with looked so frail, so diminished, and yet so determined to give one last performance. He must have known it would be one of his final appearances, and that knowledge hangs over every frame. There’s a moment at the end - just a small look to camera as he quietly says, “I still love you.” It’s simple, unadorned, and devastating. In that brief glance he seemed to acknowledge everything - the illness, the secrecy, the fans, the legacy, and the sheer joy he’d poured into his music. It gets me every single time. Freddie Mercury didn’t just sing songs; he inhabited them. And when he left, it felt like the world lost not just a performer, but a kind of electricity. The fact that his music still fills stadiums, still lifts people up, still matters - that’s the closest thing we have to proof that he never really went anywhere at all.

• Imajica by Clive Barker - The fantasy / horror maestro's largest book, and in my opinion his best. A vast, intoxicating blend of fantasy, horror, theology and metaphysics. The premise alone is staggering - the Earth is one of five Dominions, collectively known as the 'Imajica', overseen by the Unbeheld  god Hapexamendios.  However our sphere has been cut off from the other four for thousands of years by the 'In Ovo'  - a void that only the most powerful practitioners of magic, the Maestros, have ever attempted to cross. The last reconciliation attempt, two centuries earlier, ended in catastrophe, killing everyone involved and prompting the creation of the Tabula Rasa, a secret society dedicated to stamping out magic altogether. Into this already enormous cosmology Barker drops a seemingly ordinary man, his ex‑wife, her poet lover, and a mysterious assassin - and that’s just the surface layer of an iceberg so huge it feels like it has its own gravitational pull. Calling the novel “epic” doesn’t come close. Barker uses every one of its thousand‑plus pages (later split into two volumes because it simply wouldn’t fit between normal covers) to explore a story that moves between worlds, identities, genders, gods, lovers, betrayals and revelations that feel genuinely mind‑warping. He writes with such conviction that even the wildest concepts feel grounded, emotional, and strangely intimate. It’s a novel that doesn’t just tell a story - it builds a universe, tears it apart, and then invites you to step through the cracks. Truly brilliant.

• Defending Your Life - Albert Brooks plays Daniel Miller, an advertising executive who dies in a car accident and finds himself in the serene, modern surroundings of  'Judgement City' - a kind of cosmic waiting room where the recently departed must stand trial to see if they have matured enough to pass to the next phase of existence, or whether they need to return to Earth for another try. During his hearings Daniel meets and falls in love with Julia, played with charismatic warmth by Meryl Streep. She has led a life of generosity and courage, while Daniel's actions have always been ruled by his own insecurities. Their romance is gentle, funny and unexpectedly touching - two souls trying to connect while the universe itself is judging them. The whole film is full of wonderful understated performances , including great support from veteran Rip Torn as Miller's defence lawyer. You wouldn't think that a young man in his twenties would like an American romantic comedy built around musings on fear, regret and the nature of existence - but something in this whimsical fantasy drama touched me.  Maybe it was the idea that our lives are shaped far more by what we’re afraid to do than by what we actually accomplish - or maybe it makes the afterlife feel less like a threat and more like a second chance. I know that at that point in my life I had a terrible fear of death. Whatever the reason, it’s remained a pleasant, oddly comforting movie ever since I first saw it.

• Hudson Hawk - I don't care that almost no-one else seems to like this film. I love it. It's surreal, crazy, over-the-top, inventive, outlandish - and frequently makes no sense whatsoever. And that's all part of its charm. The problem was never the film - it was the marketing. People went in expecting another "Die Hard", when what they actually got was a 1990s crime‑caper cum spy‑spoof in the spirit of the 1960s "Our Man Flint" movies. It even has James Coburn in a supporting role, complete with that unmistakable telephone ringtone, as if the film is winking at you from across the room. Richard E. Grant meanwhile is chewing the scenery with such unrestrained joy that you can practically see the teeth‑marks. By all accounts the production was hellish, but the pain was worth it, because the finished film has a kind of unhinged, anything‑goes energy that you simply don’t get from carefully managed studio projects. Instead of the tough‑as‑nails John McClane persona everyone expected, Bruce Willis is far closer to the charming, wisecracking detective from "Moonlighting" - loose, playful, and clearly having the time of his life. For me, that’s all the better. The film’s musical timing‑based heists, its cartoonish villains, its sheer refusal to behave like a normal action movie. It all adds up to something delightful.

• Toxic! - Conceived by Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, Mike McMahon, John Wagner and Alan Grant, the whole point of this new British weekly was to give creators ownership and control of their work - a direct contrast to the rights‑stripping model of the comics establishment at the time. From the very first issue, Mills set the tone - louder, bloodier, ruder and more anarchic than anything else on the stands. "Marshal Law" was the flagship strip with O’Neill’s jagged, lurid artwork. Alongside it came "Accident Man", "Muto‑Maniac", and a rotating cast of strips that felt like they’d been smuggled out of someone’s nightmares. The second issue introduced Wagner and Grant’s "The Bogie Man", while the notorious strip "The Driver" caused such offence that the police actually visited the offices after a reader complaint. The comic’s ambition was enormous, but so were its problems. "Marshal Law" began missing issues, and behind the scenes the publisher struggled to pay creators. Sales dropped, deadlines slipped, and by issue 31 the whole enterprise collapsed. Many creators were never paid, and some never worked in comics again. And yet… "Toxic!" mattered. It forced 2000 AD to up its game. It gave early breaks to new creators, and several of its strips lived on. "Toxic!" didn’t just push boundaries - it gleefully trampled them, set them on fire, and then cracked a joke about the ashes. Short‑lived? Absolutely. A failure? Maybe on paper. But for a brief, brilliant moment, it made me feel like 1977 all over again...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 24 - 1990

So one thing completely dominated my life this year. The owls are not what they seem...

1990:

The trivia:

• Long before the hugely successful musical comedy series concerning the William McKinley High School Glee Club, there was another TV show that tried to fuse drama with big show tunes. "Cop Rock" was created by "Hill Street Blues" supremo Stephen Bochco and centred on the Los Angeles Police Department as they went about their usual duties, but routinely broke out into musical and dance numbers throughout the storylines. It's bizarre nature and a critical drubbing meant it lasted a mere eleven episodes.

• An even quicker departure from TV screens was the fate of an incredibly ill-considered "situation comedy" from fledgling UK satellite TV channel 'Galaxy'. "Heil Honey I'm Home!" was a parody of early American domestic comedies with their corny characters and wildly applauding audiences. The problem was that the situation was Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun living in Berlin and repeatedly trying to get rid of their Jewish neighbours next door! Needless to say although a number of episodes were recorded, only one was ever shown amidst a storm of protests and the whole thing was quietly shoved under the carpet never to be seen again.

• Launched in October 1990, the now world‑famous Internet Movie Database (IMDb) started life as a simple Usenet posting by British film fan Colin Needham. Back then, however, it wasn’t the sprawling encyclopaedia of global cinema we know today, but a tiny, oddly specific list called “Those Eyes”, dedicated entirely to actresses with beautiful… well, eyes. A handful of enthusiasts trading notes across bulletin boards, gradually expanding their interests from favourite performers to filmographies, trivia, and eventually full cast and crew listings. Within a couple of years, Needham’s hobby had evolved into a structured database. By the mid‑90s it had become an indispensable resource for film fans - and by the time Amazon acquired it in 1998, it was already the default reference point for anyone wanting to know who directed what, who appeared where, or why that actor looked familiar. 

The memory:

Twin Peaks

There are certain moments in your life when you can feel the ground shift beneath your feet - when something arrives that doesn’t just entertain you, but rewires your expectations of what a medium can do. For me, 1990 was one of those moments - the year a strange little show from David Lynch and Mark Frost slipped onto BBC2 and quietly detonated inside my brain.

I didn’t know what to expect. Nobody did. The trailers were cryptic. The cast was unfamiliar. The premise - a murdered homecoming queen in a small American town - sounded like the setup for a fairly standard police procedural. But from the moment that haunting Angelo Badalamenti score began beneath images of sawmills and misty forests, I realised this wasn’t television as I knew it. It felt like being invited into a dream - one that was beautiful, unsettling, and just a little bit dangerous.

To be honest I don't really want to talk about the minutiae of the plot or the quality of the scripts and actors and programme makers. Far better people than I have written thousands of words on the subject. But for the sake of those who may have been living under a rock, let 's get the basic information out of the way first - the stuff that pretty much everyone is aware of even if they have never watched the show. Special Agent Dale Cooper. Who killed Laura Palmer? A body wrapped in plastic. Damn fine coffee. Diane. One-armed men, giants, owls and a killer called BOB. A red curtained room where things bend backwards - and lots of weird stuff that no one quite understood.

It’s hard to explain to anyone who didn’t live through it just how all-consuming that central mystery became. “Who killed Laura Palmer?” wasn’t just a tagline - it was a national obsession. People discussed it in offices, in pubs, in newspapers, on radio phone‑ins. Even my non‑geek friends were hooked. Every week, the show would offer clues that felt like answers, and answers that felt like riddles. It was maddening, surreal and intoxicating in equal measure.

As it's popularity grew during those dark evenings of late 1990, it became obvious that Twin Peaks was a place that existed just slightly out of phase with reality. A place where log ladies dispensed cryptic wisdom, where the mundane could turn uncanny with a single word, and where nightmares bled into waking life. I remember watching the Red Room backwards-talking sequence for the first time and feeling genuinely unnerved. Television simply didn’t do that. Not back then.

My friends and I moved beyond just individually watching the show, to having weekly "Twin Peaks evenings", where we could get together, view the episode and then dissect what it all meant. The soundtrack album became our backdrop. We poured over every new snippet of information in newspapers and magazines. Amazingly, considering the UK was six months behind original transmission at the start, I don't remember any spoilers leaking out. Quite frankly, we were obsessed.

Then came the shooting of Agent Cooper at the end of episode eight. Luckily the show had become such a talking point that the BBC rolled straight into season two, and we only had to wait over the Christmas break before finding out the resolution. That gave me time to devour "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer" - an official tie-in novel that fleshed out the personal history of the tragic teenager and her descent into a world of prostitution, drugs and the manipulations of an evil creature called BOB. It was the perfect way to continue my fascination with the series and it's characters.

When the programme returned in January it was full steam ahead into twenty-two episodes of drama, weirdness and horror. The revelation of Laura's killer was just the start. Nadine as school girl with super-strength, An early David Duchovny as Denise Bryson, the transgender, DEA agent. Josie getting trapped in a door knob, Laura's twin cousin Maddy. Even Lynch himself as FBI Chief Gordon Cole. Of course, I know now that the show suffered through network interference and Lynch stepping away, and it's true that things wobbled. But even at its weakest, “Twin Peaks” was more interesting than most shows at their best. And I may be in the minority here, but I really enjoyed the involvement of Cooper's old partner Windom Earle and the lengths he went to to gain access to the Black Lodge. The more mystery and mythology the show added the better as far as I was concerned - which meant that the final episode was an astonishing mix of the mundane and the mad, culminating in one of the best cliff-hangers in TV history.

Sadly there was to be no immediate follow-up. I felt devastated, so I consoled myself with the other assorted official merchandise. "The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper" gave a lot of background to the unconventional agent. "Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town" became my travel guide to a place that didn’t exist. But my favourite was "Diane... - The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper". Performed by Kyle MacLachlan, it was a cassette-only release which consisted of newly recorded Cooper messages to his unseen assistant, mixed in with sound clips from the broadcasts. This was material set both before and during his trip to Twin Peaks, including Cooper being shot and recovering afterwards. It was as close as I could come to a new episode.

Of course in 1992 we did get something new, although "Fire Walk With Me" wasn't quite what I personally had in mind. After the cliff‑hanger of season two, I think most fans were hoping for answers - or at least some sense of resolution. What Lynch delivered instead was a descent into Laura Palmer’s final days. Raw, harrowing, and stripped of the quirky humour that had made the series so accessible. It's disturbing narrative and time-twisting prequel / sequel nature meant that on first viewing many didn't get it - including, I hate to admit, me. It wasn't a "Twin Peaks" continuation - more a David Lynch horror movie set in the same world. Of course with the benefit of hindsight, I've come to realise what a brilliant and essential piece of cinema it is, and how the film seeds many of the themes that Lynch would explore decades later.

In the years that followed, I continued to stay connected to "Twin Peaks" fandom, buying the regular magazine "Wrapped In Plastic" from Win-Mill Productions. But by the time that folded in 1996, any sign of a third series was non-existent and the television world had moved onto other things. But the show lingered. It resurfaced in odd places - a reference here, a parody there, a knowing wink in some other show that owed it a debt. You could feel its fingerprints in things like "The X‑Files" or "Lost" - in every prestige mystery show that tried to blend the mundane with the uncanny. But nothing ever was "Twin Peaks". Nothing even came close. So for a long time afterwards, it lived at the back of my mind as this strange, beautiful, unfinished thing. A relic of a time when television briefly dared to be art. The series never really left my thoughts, so I eagerly purchased the various DVD and Blu-ray box sets as they came out, relishing the additional material each one provided.

Every few years, rumours would flare up. A reboot. A movie. A miniseries. A web project. A way to explain everything and resolve the dangling plotlines. Most of them fizzled out. Some were never real to begin with. There were interviews where Lynch would say he’d love to revisit the world “if the stars aligned,” and then go off to make something completely different. But the hope never quite died, there was still this persistent ache - a sense that the story wasn’t finished. That Cooper was still trapped in that mirror. That Laura Palmer still had something left to say.

What’s funny, looking back, is how much the TV world changed during that long silence. The medium that once treated "Twin Peaks" as an oddity eventually embraced the very things it pioneered - long‑form storytelling, cinematic ambition, surrealism, moral ambiguity. By the time we reached the 2010s, the landscape was full of shows that owed their existence to Lynch and Frost’s experiment. And yet, none of them quite captured that same feeling.

When the announcement finally came in 2014 that “Twin Peaks" would return, it felt unreal. Part of me was ecstatic. Part of me was terrified. Nostalgia revivals rarely go well. After all those years, how could it possibly live up to the weight of expectation? How could you go back to a place that had existed for so long only in memory? But what we got in 2017 didn’t feel like a standard revival. Lynch and Frost weren’t interested in nostalgia. They weren’t even interested in picking up where they left off. This was something stranger and infinitely more ambitious. 

Most revivals try to recapture a mood. Bring back that old magic. "The Return" refused to. Instead, it confronted the very idea of returning - to a place, to a story, to a version of yourself that no longer exists. It embraced the whole twenty‑six‑year gap. It made the waiting part of the narrative. Forget answers. Forget a weekly procedural. This was a 17‑hour cinematic tour-de-force of pure undiluted Lynch, framed through his decades as a film-maker. He was older. We were older. And you really can't go back again.

The fan reaction was… complicated. Some people wanted cherry pie and quirky humour and a neat resolution to Cooper’s cliff‑hanger. What we got instead was Dougie Jones shuffling through Las Vegas for hours on end, a glass box in New York that devoured people, a nine‑minute atomic bomb sequence that felt like the birth of evil itself, and a finale that left the world collectively staring at their screens in stunned silence. 

But for me, it was mesmerising. It was like Lynch was speaking directly into my brain: "You thought you understood this story. You didn’t. You never did." Nowhere was that clearer than episode 8, which probably deserves its own essay. It's one of the most astonishing hours of television ever broadcast. A black‑and‑white nightmare - Lynch at his most uncompromising. I remember sitting there afterwards trying to process what I’d just seen. It was terrifying, beautiful, and utterly unlike anything else on TV. Again.

And then came the finale. Even now, I can still feel the chill of that final scene. The sense that reality had slipped sideways - the same jolt I’d felt back in 1990. I remember watching the online discourse unfold - confusion, frustration, awe, anger - as if they’d all watched different endings. It was like the show had split the audience into their own parallel realities each one convinced they’d seen the “real” version. And in a strange way, we probably had.

In the months after "The Return", there was that familiar flicker of hope again - whispers of a fourth series, interviews where Lynch hinted that the story might continue. In the meantime, Mark Frost’s books arrived like unexpected postcards. "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" and "The Final Dossier" didn’t feel like continuations so much as attempts to make sense of the world we’d just revisited. Part archive, part epilogue, I read them with a sense of curiosity, but they didn't really scratch that "itch". And then, when Lynch sadly died in 2025, that lingering hope of more finally softened into a gentle acceptance that the door to "Twin Peaks" had closed for good. What we had was what we had, and somehow that made it all feel even more precious.

Looking back now, I feel the reason "Twin Peaks" has stayed with me for so long is exactly because it never let itself be pinned down. It wasn’t just a mystery, or a soap opera, or a horror story, or a surreal experiment - it was all of those things and none of them, constantly shifting just when you thought you’d figured it out. It was challenging and frustrating and at times bloody weird. But most importantly I think - and apt for these "Golden Sunsets" posts - although many people see it as a battle between good and evil played out on a cosmic scale, I've always felt that at its heart it was a show about the instability of the one thing we can't control - memory. 

Honourable mentions:

• Parker Lewis Can't Lose - In the wake of the success of the 1986 movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", the Fox TV network debuted a high school comedy series that riffed on the same idea of a student constantly getting one over on the teachers and other antagonists. The difference was that "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" embraced a far more surreal element that saw it teeter on the edge of destroying the fourth wall. As the titular cool guy, Corin Nemec strolled through the halls of Santo Domingo High with his best buds with unshakeable self confidence, a plan for every situation and an endless supply of loud shirts. Every episode brought a new problem - whether it was outwitting the machinations of the Cruella de Vil-like Principal Musso or Parker's own maniacal little sister. There was an almost Chuck Jones cartoon-like quality to the production, with endless sight gags, visual cues and pop culture references (that will seem incredibly outdated by now). Importantly it was one of the first shows that I ever watched on satellite television. Late 1990 was the year that we got a Sky box after my parents had initially gone with the "squariel" dish  and the five BSB channels - not the first time that my dad backed the loser in a technology race. In a plethora of new imported shows on "Sky Channel", this little comedy stood out as being fresh and different, even if it was a little cheesy.

• Dances With Wolves -  Kevin Costner’s epic historical western was my favourite film of the year by a wide margin. I’d already grown up on the classic westerns (thanks mum and dad), but this felt like something bigger and more sweeping in its ambitions. I vividly remember going to the cinema with my friends and being completely absorbed from the opening moments (even if the projectionist initially had the aspect ratio wrong, squashing everyone into strange shapes until they restarted the reel). At a time when three‑hour films were still a rarity, it felt like a genuine event. The landscapes were breathtaking, the Lakota characters were treated with a respect and depth I hadn’t seen before, and John Barry’s Oscar‑winning score was the icing on the cake. I was so taken with it that, like "Jaws", I’ve ended up buying multiple versions over the years - VHS, DVD, Blu‑ray, with of course the four‑hour special edition making the whole experience feel even more immersive. It’s one of those films that arrived at exactly the right moment for me, and it’s never really left.

• Shade The Changing Man - Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo’s comic arrived as part of DC’s early‑90s “proto‑Vertigo” wave, and it felt like nothing else on the shelves at the time. What began as a revival of Steve Ditko’s oddball 1970s character quickly mutated into a surreal, psychedelic road‑trip through the American psyche - a comic that mixed political satire, psychological horror, pop‑culture and dream logic with a confidence that bordered on reckless. Bachalo’s art was a revelation - angular, fluid, and constantly shifting, as if the panels themselves were being warped by Shade’s Madness Vest. Special mention also has to go the Brendan McCarthy's incredible covers. It was unpredictable, ambitious, occasionally baffling, and absolutely riveting stuff. Even when the series arguably went on longer than it needed to, I stuck with it because it still felt special in a way few comics did at the time. Looking back, it’s no surprise that "Shade" became one of the pillars of early Vertigo; it had that rare combination of style, strangeness and originality that defined the imprint at its best.

• Postcards From The Edge - Carrie Fisher’s semi‑autobiographical novel was already sharp, funny and painfully honest, but the film - with Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale and Shirley MacLaine as her formidable mother Doris - adds a layer of  Hollywood magic. Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman and Richard Dreyfuss round out a prestige cast, but the reason it earns a place on this list is the ending - specifically Suzanne’s performance of “I’m Checkin’ Out.” Even if you’re not a country‑music fan, the song lands with a huge jolt of energy after a film full of rehab, career anxiety and fraught mother‑daughter drama - a declaration of survival disguised as a honky‑tonk showstopper. The camera pans in, the band kicks off, and suddenly the film that began with a drug‑induced collapse ends with a woman standing upright, singing her way out of the wreckage. It’s a terrific film, but that final performance is just wonderful.

• The Crystal Maze - The original and best version of the classic puzzle-solving adventure game show, with mercurial host Richard O'Brien. The challenges saw teams of contestants travelling across four different "zones" to compete in a series of different mental, physical, skill or 'mystery' games against the clock. Each successful game won a time crystal, which allowed the players a certain amount of time in the "Crystal Dome". Here they had to collect as many gold tokens as possible from the hundreds blown into the air by gigantic fans. Getting over a certain number of gold tokens won a stellar prize (usually activity days out). O'Brien was a perfect if unconventional host - genial and welcoming but also quick with a deadpan quip and jokes to camera about the contestants stupidity. His presence made the programme hugely successful and I religiously watched every week. After his departure it limped on with Ed Tudor-Pole but it was never the same. However the format was so well regarded that there was a 2017 revival with Richard Ayoade as host. I'm not his greatest fan, but he actually did manage to make it his own thing. There are even real world versions you can take part in. I really must get a team together...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 23 - 1989

This time, I’ve gone with a series of books which a lot of people will never have heard of, but which were far better than things might suggest...

1989:

The trivia:

• Scuba diver William Lamm was swimming in eight feet of water off Hutchinson Island in Florida - the kind of shallow, calm depth where the biggest threat is usually stepping on something spiky. However, he drifted too close to the intake pipe for the island’s nuclear power plant, and before he could even register the mistake, the current grabbed him like a giant invisible hand. What followed was 1,600 feet of high‑speed, pitch‑black pipeline travel with  no idea where he was going. And then, unbelievably, he popped out into the plant’s cooling pond like a confused otter. No broken bones. No burns. Not even a dramatic scar to point to at during dinner parties. Just a man who survived the worst waterslide in Florida and now had to figure out how to explain it to friends without sounding like he was making it up.

• An amateur collector of 18th century maps bought an old tattered painting of a country scene for four dollars at a Pennsylvania bargain sale - purely because he liked the frame. The artwork itself was worn and frankly, unremarkable. When he got home and took it apart, he discovered a folded copy of the US Declaration of Independence hidden behind the canvas. Thinking it nothing more than a reproduction curiosity, he just put it to one side until a friend convinced him to contact an expert. It turned out to be one of only 200 "John Dunlap broadsides" printed on the evening of 4th July 1776 - of which fewer than thirty were known to survive. When it finally went to auction two years later, it sold for... US$ 2.4 million.

• A MiG‑23 fighter jet taking off from a Polish airfield in 1989 suffered a malfunction that caused the pilot to believe the aircraft was about to crash. He ejected almost immediately after liftoff. The problem, however, corrected itself the moment he left the cockpit. With no one on board, the MiG levelled out, climbed, and continued flying on autopilot. The aircraft crossed into East Germany, then West Germany, and kept going for more than 500 miles. It finally ran out of fuel over Belgium and crashed into a house near Kortrijk, the impact sadly killing a teenager inside the building. The Belgian government demanded an explanation, and the Soviet Union issued a formal apology, acknowledging the chain of errors that led to the accident. The pilot was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

The memory:

The Cineverse Cycle by Craig Shaw Gardner

In the wake of the success of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels, publishers realised that comic fantasy could be big business. The truth is that a more light-hearted take on the standard fantasy tropes had been around for a long time, but it had never captured the general public's imagination. in quite the same way until now. Almost overnight, the fantasy shelves in the UK seemed to shift. What had once been a scattering of Tolkien clones, coming-of-age quest sagas, and the occasional oddball paperback with a pun in the title suddenly blossomed into a riot of new comic fantasies. For a teenager wandering the aisles of  London’s Forbidden Planet store, it felt as if the genre had cracked open and started laughing at itself.

During regular trips to the shop I’d make a beeline for the paperbacks, scanning for anything new. I didn’t have a system - I judged by titles, by blurbs, by whatever caught my eye. So I ended up with John DeChancie's "Castle Perilous" series, Simon Hawke's "The Wizard of Fourth Street", Christopher Statsheff's long-running "Warlock" sequence (although he’d been writing for years before the boom), and Alan Dean Fosters "Spellsinger". Plus  I continued to collect the ongoing "Xanth" adventures from Piers Anthony, plus many of his other novels. Yes, I bought a *lot* of books.

Amongst the dozens of new titles on the shelves, one new author particularly stood out - but what attracted me to his name was not the description on the back, but the cover. You see, in a canny move, the publishers decided to get Discworld artist Josh Kirby to also produce the covers for the books by American writer Craig Shaw Gardner. Kirby’s instantly recognisable swirling, chaotic, overstuffed illustrations told you exactly what kind of ride you were in for - anarchic, colourful and possibly slightly unhinged. I guess they felt that readers who already strongly associated his work with Pratchett's books, would make the same leap and assume "this is more of the same kind of stuff". Well guess what - it worked on me!

Gardner originally released "A Malady of Magicks" in 1986, but it was some time later when it, and the other two volumes in his first trilogy ("A Multitude of Monsters" and "A Night in the Netherhells")  reached UK shores, complete with their Kirby coves

The main plot is fairly simple - Ebenezum is possibly the greatest wizard of the age. After an altercation with a demon, causes him to be cursed to be allergic to magic,  he and his hapless apprentice Wuntvor must journey to the City of Forbidden Delights in search of a cure, all the while avoiding death, disaster and perils such as tap-dancing dragons, enchanted chickens, etc, etc. 

It's your typical episodic quest narrative and very reminiscent in places of "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" with its send-up of standard fantasy. It's light, whimsical and occasionally funny - good enough to while away the time on a train journey but certainly nothing mind-blowingly original. 

Nonetheless I enjoyed the books enough to pick up the sequel "Wuntvor" trilogy, which ventured into fairy tale territory as the helper becomes the hero and has to save the world with help from (amongst others) an amorous unicorn, a ferret and a cowardly sword. None of the books demanded much, and maybe that was part of their charm. They were warm, silly, and just self‑aware enough to feel clever without ever trying too hard. 

However, these Pratchett-pastiches are not the core of this particular memory. That’s because Craig Shaw Gardner's next series was far more in tune with my tastes - especially my love for all things from the worlds of movies, pulp serials and comic books....

Overall billed as "The Cineverse Cycle", book one - "Slaves of the Volcano God" concerns Roger Gordon - a bored public relations worker, who accidentally activates his childhood Captain Crusader Decoder Ring (found inside a cereal packet) and is transported into the 'Cineverse', a multiverse where the rules of low‑budget cinema are literally true. Westerns, jungle adventures, musicals, serials - each world runs on its own genre logic, complete with cliffhangers, stock characters, and the kind of physics that only ever made sense on a studio backlot. When Roger’s girlfriend Delores is kidnapped by the evil Doctor Dread, he sets off on a rescue mission that takes him through a series of increasingly absurd film‑worlds, picking up unlikely allies and crossing paths with villains straight out of the 1940s. Behind it all lurks a larger mystery - “The Change” - a shift in the Cineverse that has thrown its once‑predictable movie worlds into disarray.

"Bride of the Slime Monster" raises the stakes. Roger is now stranded in the Cineverse without his Decoder Ring, leaving him unable to control where he ends up next. Doctor Dread has gained the upper hand, unleashing hundreds of celluloid villains across the multiverse, and Delores is being pursued by the revolting Slime Monster. Roger’s only hope is to find the legendary Captain Crusader, the one hero powerful enough to restore order. His journey takes him through increasingly chaotic genre realms, including an extended detour into a beach‑party movie complete with musical numbers and surfer gangs. As Roger begins to understand the Cineverse’s rules more clearly, he realises that the crisis is bigger than any single villain - the very structure of the movie worlds is starting to break down.

The trilogy concludes with "Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies", where Roger has, in a true plot twist, become Captain Crusader himself - just in time for the Cineverse to fall apart completely. Genres are collapsing, villains are multiplying, and the underlying logic of the multiverse is coming undone. But the most unexpected complication is personal - Roger’s mother has stumbled into the Cineverse and been transformed into a dominatrix‑style villainess. As Roger tries to rescue Delores, confront Doctor. Dread, and uncover the truth about the enigmatic Plotmaster, he must also deal with the surreal horror of battling his own mother. The trilogy barrels toward a finale that blends affectionate parody with a genuine love of the strange, rickety magic of the movies that inspired it.

I think what appealed to me most about the Cineverse is that it’s obvious Gardner has a deep, abiding love for the B‑movie genre and all its gloriously conventions. His story isn’t just sprinkled with references - it’s built from the same raw material as those old films, with every world operating according to its own lovingly reconstructed rulebook. You can feel the affection in the way he handles cliffhangers, the way villains monologue just long enough for the hero to escape, the way science is always performed in laboratories full of sparking machinery. There’s a deliberate echo of those black‑and‑white Republic serials - the breathless pacing, the weekly peril, the sense that the plot is being made up on the fly but somehow still holds together. Gardner isn’t mocking these tropes - he’s celebrating them, treating them as the building blocks of a universe where the power of cinema means almost anything can happen. 

And all of that was exactly what I needed, because my own childhood was steeped in that same kind of stuff. I grew up on the original serials - Buster Crabbe’s "Flash Gordon", "King of the Rocketmen" - all those earnest heroes in tin‑foil spaceships battling rubber‑suited monsters. Saturday mornings were filled with creature features like "Them!", "Godzilla", or "It Came From Beneath the Sea" -  the kind of films where the special effects wobbled but the imagination behind them never did. These weren’t just movies, they were part of the fabric of my early life - the background of my weekends and school holidays. So when Gardner created a universe where those worlds were real, where their rules mattered, and where someone like Roger could step into them and treat them with the same mixture of awe I always felt - well, it felt like he’d written the Cineverse specifically for people like me. 

It's a far more original work that the humorous fantasies of Ebenezum and Wuntvor - satirical rather than trying to be "funny" and all the better for it. It also helps that there is a rollicking good plot inside the pages. I lapped up all three books in quick succession and enjoyed the hell out of all of them.  Gardner would never replace Pratchett in my affections, but he certainly was up there with the likes of Douglas Adams, Robert Rankin and Tom Holt.

Gardner went on to write one more light fantasy trilogy (the "Sinbad" series), before trying his hand at a a traditional "fish-out-of-water" story with the "Dragon Circle" novels. Both got published in the UK with the requisite Josh Kirby covers, but I never even saw copies of the latter, let alone read them. He also started dabbling in movie adaptations (when those were a thing), with the most successful being novelisations of Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989 (more on that movie below), plus all three of the "Back to the Future" movies. I recently discovered he later started used pen names for other series - I guess 'Craig Shaw Gardner' had become too synonymous with comedic fantasy...

While there was an omnibus edition of the "Cineverse Cycle" in 1992, the paperback books have been long out of print and prices in the second-hand market are variable. E-books of most of Gardner's novels appear to have emerged around 2014 (complete with the truly woeful US covers), so the stories are still out there if you want to give them a go. For me the trilogy is a bit of a lost pearl amongst an ocean of parodies and Pratchett copycats - a series that understood its influences so well it could play with them rather than simply imitate them The more you know about the movies, the more you will enjoy these books. Not every story has to be epic or life changing or worthy of the Booker prize. Sometimes you just need a series that is really good fun - something that reminds you why you fell in love with stories in the first place, and why a well‑timed cliffhanger or a rubber‑suited monster can still make you smile decades later.

I took one of Gardener's books to a Terry Pratchett signing once. He looked it over and just wrote "nice cover..." on the inside...

Honourable mentions:

• Batman - He could never better the late great Adam West, but Michael Keaton made a pretty good Dark Knight and an even better Bruce Wayne. The costume is excellent, the Batmobile looks suitably cool and Gotham had the right mix of gothic exaggeration and urban decay - even if it did sometimes feel like you could see the edges of the set. Keaton’s casting was loudly criticised at the time, but he shut that down quickly once people saw what he could do with the role, bringing a controlled and grounded performance. I’ve never been fully sold on Jack Nicholson’s Joker though. Yes the Clown Prince of Crime is meant to be theatrical and over the top, but Nicholson went too far in the wrong direction for my personal tastes. Still, in 1989 superhero films were a gamble, and the studio clearly wanted a marquee name to anchor the whole thing and reassure audiences. Of course the strategy worked and the film was a huge success, so clearly I know nothing! Despite this one niggle, I still loved the film when it came out and even though I wasn't the greatest Prince fan, bought both soundtrack albums. As for Vicki Vale Vale - the less said, the better...

• Truckers by Terry Prachett - So after I headlined one of his 'imitators', here comes Terry himself with the first in the "Nome / Bromeliad" trilogy. It was the first non‑Discworld Pratchett novel I read, and it immediately showed how much range he had beyond witches, wizards, and homicidal luggage. The central idea - an entire community of Nomes living under the floorboards of a department store - is one of those concepts that sounds whimsical until you see how carefully he builds the world around it. The characters are small, but the story isn’t. Their search for where they came from and how to get back there gives the book a sense of scale that goes far beyond its setting. The whole Bromeliad trilogy stands alongside his best work - sharp, funny, and surprisingly moving. "Truckers" proved he could write character‑driven adventure with just as much clarity and heart. The 1992 Cosgrove Hall stop‑motion series is also a strong reminder of how adaptable his ideas are. The studio behind "Danger Mouse" captured the tone of the book perfectly, and it remains one of the better Pratchett screen adaptations.

• Doom Patrol - I’ve never really counted myself as a Grant Morrison fan. Too often his work feels like an attempt to be clever for its own sake, a kind of bargain‑basement Alan Moore impression that leans heavily on abstraction without always earning it. But every so often he hits on something genuinely original, and his reinvention of the 1960s DC super-team of freaks and rejects with Richard Case is one of those moments - rebuilding them into something stranger, sharper, and far more ambitious. What drew me in were the ideas - the Brotherhood of Dada, the Scissormen, Danny the Street - concepts so bizarre and specific that they shouldn’t fit, yet somehow do. The stories are absurd, and occasionally pretentious, but they’re also compelling in a way that’s hard to shake. Morrison leaned fully into the team’s outsider status and used it to push superhero comics into territory they rarely visited at the time. For all my reservations about his broader body of work, this run stands out. It’s messy, inventive, and completely unlike anything else DC was publishing. Even if you don’t buy into every choice he makes, the sheer insanity of it carries you along.

• London Boys - The Twelve Commandments of Dance - It's cheesy Europop synth dance music and to be honest it's pretty awful. Why is it even on the list then? Well apart from the fact that the songs were never off the radio in the summer of 1989 (although popularity is no measure of quality), it's here because it was an album I bought and tried to like in order to impress a girl I was genuinely infatuated with. Listening to "Requiem" or "London Nights" now instantly transports me back to a time and place when I was young, naïve and a little bit too keen. No wonder the lady in question tolerated my friendship and nothing further...

• Metropolis :The Musical - With, let's be fair, only a couple of really good tunes, this stage version of the Fritz Lang classic needed something else to make it stand out. Thankfully it marked the UK debut of Judy Kuhn, who brought real presence to the dual role of Maria and Futura.  Opposite her was Brian Blessed at full power - that unmistakable voice and sheer physicality doing a lot of heavy lifting. Jonathan Adams is also in a great supporting role. The production itself leaned heavily on spectacle. The huge metallic set, with its rising platforms, moving walkways and cradles descending from the ceiling, was designed to echo the scale and machinery of Fritz Lang’s original film. What made it memorable wasn’t just the scale but the constant movement. Scenes didn’t simply change - they shifted, rotated, unfolded. The set behaved like a piece of machinery in its own right, echoing the film’s themes of automation and dehumanisation. It created a sense of depth and height that most productions of the time couldn’t match, and even when the score faltered, the staging kept the audience’s attention. Yes it wasn’t subtle, but it was impressive, and for anyone who loved the 1927 movie, it was enough to justify multiple visits. I went three times in quick succession, partly for the cast, partly for the staging, and partly because I knew it wasn’t going to last. And it didn’t. After just 214 performances, "Metropolis" closed and slipped quietly into the category of interesting theatrical footnotes. The machines were beautiful, but only for a very short while...

• Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children - This was the first title launched under DC’s short‑lived Piranha Press imprint, and it immediately set itself apart from anything else the company was publishing. It wasn’t really a comic in the traditional sense - each issue was essentially a prose story accompanied by Dan Sweetman’s stark, scratchy illustrations. But the format suited the material. These were unsettling, off‑kilter fables with titles like "A Cotton Candy Autopsy", "Die Rainbow Die" and "The Santas of Demotion Street" - stories that lived in the margins, far away from capes, continuity and the brightly coloured optimism of mainstream superhero books. Dave Louapre’s writing was bleakly funny, often uncomfortable, and completely uninterested in giving readers sympathetic characters or tidy resolutions. Sweetman’s artwork amplified that tone perfectly. His distorted figures and jagged linework made the world feel unstable, as if everything was slightly out of alignment. The combination created something that felt genuinely different. Across its run, the series was experimental without being pretentious, strange without being incoherent, and confident enough to let its stories be abrasive when they needed to be. For a brief moment, Piranha Press had something truly distinctive on its hands - thirty issues of sharp, unsettling brilliance that still stand out in the landscape of late‑80s and early‑90s comics.

• Legion of Super-Heroes - I fell in love with the Legion during the 80s Paul Levitz era. The series started with a new number one on higher quality "Baxter" paper and Levitz had a real knack of maintaining decades long continuity, yet creating fresh stories for a new audience. Those 63 issues are a high watermark in the team's history - still well regarded all these decades later. But what came after was very, very different. Levitz stepped away and genius writer/artist Keith Giffen took the reigns. We had a new first issue and an ominous title page - "Five Years Later". Giffen along with Tom and Mary Bierbaum took the team into darker territory, presenting a 30th century where the United Planets was crumbling, Earthgov was compromised and the Legion itself had splintered into scattered, damaged former heroes. It was a shock to the system, especially for readers who’d grown up with the cleaner, more straightforward adventures of the earlier runs. What made the book compelling was its willingness to commit to the premise. Characters aged, relationships broke down, and the idealism that had once defined the Legion was replaced by a sense of loss and disillusionment. Giffen’s dense, nine‑panel layouts and heavy use of shadow gave the series a striking visual identity. It wasn’t always easy to follow, and it certainly wasn’t always welcoming, but it was ambitious in a way the Legion perhaps hadn’t been for years. I really loved it, but the changes divided the fanbase. However it did prove that the property could evolve rather than simply repeat itself. Buy the omnibus editions - you won't be disappointed.