Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 22 - 1988

 A real case of "you had to be there"...

1988:

The trivia:

• As a protest against null voting, Brazilian magazine "Casseta Popular" submitted a chimpanzee named Tiao from the Rio de Janeiro zoo as a candidate in the upcoming election. Tiao was well known locally for his bad temper and habit of throwing mud and feces on visitors. In the election he incredibly received over 400,000 votes and came third. but of course his ballots were considered null. When Tiao died in 1996 at the age of 34, the city declared three days of official mourning. Shades of Mayor Dave the Orangutan in 2000 AD perhaps ?

• At the opening ceremony of the Seoul Summer Olympics, a large group of white doves were released to symbolise peace. Later the Olympic torch was carried into the stadium, and by now many of the doves had settled on the cauldron of the official flame. Despite this, the lighting of the flame proceeded as normal and worldwide TV audiences watched in horror at scenes of the doves being cooked alive on the world's biggest barbecue.

• Former NASA engineer Edgar C. Whisenant wrote a book predicting that the Rapture (when the Christian dead would be resurrected and join the living in heaven for eternity) would occur in September 1988. The book sold more than 4.5 million copies and some evangelical groups began to prepare their members for the coming event. When it failed to occur, at the appointed time, Whisenant followed up with other books - with predictions for 1989, 1993 and 1994. These failed to sell quite so well...

• In 1988 a huge controversy swirled around Hollywood regarding the attempts to colourise black and white films. Speaking to Congress about this activity, "Star Wars" supremo George Lucas passionately stated that "People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians...in the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives...our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten". I guess your movies don't count then, George?

The memory:

Destination Docklands

Electronic musical genius Jean-Michel Jarre had become a big part of my life by 1988. Thanks to my brother's friend Alan I'd been introduced to his music around the time that "Magnetic Fields" was released, and I'd never looked back - buying each album as it was released and playing them over and over again. Jarre had also become known for his large elaborate concerts - featuring lasers, fireworks and images being projected on the sides of tall buildings. When it was announced that - at the peak of his popularity - he would be bringing a show to the UK in support of the release of new album "Revolutions", I was obviously *extremely* keen to attend. 

Named "Destination Docklands", it would be using the partially derelict Royal Victoria Dock in London as its backdrop. Jarre felt the industrial, desolate environment with its cranes, warehouses and grain silos was suited for his music. Who wouldn't want to be part of that once-in-a-lifetime experience? There was just one teensy problem - I was going to be on holiday in the US for two weeks in September - and wouldn't you know it, the concert was due to take place right in the middle of that break, on 24th September.

Oh well, I guess I was destined not to see the great man live. I wasn't about to cancel a long-planned and very expensive trip overseas. That was that. Or was it....?

Earlier in the year, Jarre and his team had met with officials from Newham Borough Council to discuss the project. This was to be a huge event. Hundreds of thousands of people. Massive lighting rigs, Pyrotechnics. Lasers. A floating stage. Repainting the facade of the Spillers Millennium Mills building for the projections. The logistics were staggering. Expressing strong concerns about the size of the thing and the associated safety fears (not to mention getting that many people in and out of the area), the council did the usual bureaucratic thing, and took an absolute age to make a decision. After procrastinating for weeks, they finally rejected the application outright on 12th September - just a few days before I was due to fly out to the USA.

Such was the disappointment, that the decision made the UK news headlines - after all, it had been planned as the biggest show of its kind the country had ever seen. I felt slightly better about things though, I couldn't miss out on something that wasn't going to happen anyway could I? So I relaxed and proceeded to go off and enjoy my holiday. Goodbye London, hello Epcot.

Meanwhile, Jarre persevered with his planning application. He spent a hectic two weeks looking for alternative locations, while still working on the Docklands site - in the hope that he could satisfy the councillors issues. This was all still big news, even thousands of miles away in Florida (Jarre had experienced somewhat similar difficulties with his "Rendez-vous Houston" concert a few years previous). Semi-regular phone calls back to my parents in the UK, and the media coverage, meant I was aware of all the twists and turns, and this glimmer of a resurrection meant that my excitement levels began to rise. Maybe, just maybe, fate might have turned in my favour...

Eventually Jarre's tenacity paid off, and after making some logistical changes - and most significantly splitting the concert across two nights (thus reducing the attendance numbers for each one) - he won conditional approval on 28th September for two shows to take place on the 8th and 9th of October. I can't recall if those with unused tickets from the aborted 24th September performance could still use them for the new date or if they were refunded and had to apply again - but the vital thing was that *new* tickets were going on sale and everyone could apply. 

But hang on, I wasn't back in the country until 1st October - they would have sold out by the time I got home! No internet back then either of course, so no way of buying things online. You had to call a sales office in person. Fate was conspiring against me once more. Frantically I used the expensive hotel phone to contact my friend Neil and hatched a plan. Our circle of friends arranged for him to make the all-important box office call and do his utmost to get tickets for all of us. Eventually after several anxious hours, word reached my brother and I in Florida. Success ! We were going to the Sunday performance!

Building work contained in Docklands at a frenzied rate in order to be ready in time for early October. The 30m by 40m floating "battleship" stage on which Jarre and his musicians were to perform was constructed on top of huge steel barges towed down from the north of England. Large purpose-built display screens were erected, along with World War II searchlights positioned on rooftops. The buildings were painted white. In a strange moment, a giant mirror ball meant for the event fell into the road during transportation and was confused for a fallen satellite. Anticipation was building. This was epic stuff. Meanwhile, with a just a few days to go, my friends and I planned how we would get to the venue.

Eventually the weekend of the concerts came, and with it one final set of problems for the Frenchman - the unpredictable British weather. A howling force seven gale hampered final preparations. That giant stage (and the 400 tonnes of material on board) was meant to float back and forth along the dock, but the increasingly inclement weather, and concerns it might break free from its moorings, put paid to that idea. The Saturday was the wettest day of the year and rain lashed the temporary grandstands and dock area. Nothing could dampen anyone's enthusiasm however and the first show went ahead as planned. Then it was our turn.

We made our way to London (and again my memory fails me as I can't remember if that was by car or train. Not important I guess). In any case, as we walked closer to the venue there was a veritable buzz in the air. Hordes of people were arriving from every direction. Not everyone had tickets - some had come just to see the light show and fireworks from a distance. The streets and parks were full. The sky alight with searchlights. Closer still, the stewards herded us like willing sheep into the muddy area before the stage and up to the seating - the vast cranes towering over us as we waited patiently. The sun began to set - and then the rain began to *pour* down. Of course it did.

Nothing was going to dampen our enthusiasm though. Finally when the darkness was complete and everyone was in place,  the searchlights dropped. A solitary green hued laser light pierced out of the darkness with a "woosh"  and the windows of the building in front of us turned red as the crowds cheered wildly. As the opening bars of "Industrial Revolution - Overture" boomed out, Jean-Michel Jarre appeared in the spotlight, slowly walking down some steps. He was dressed in a smart long aquamarine jacket - with a roadie holding a large umbrella to shield him from the worst of the weather. As the music soared, so did the first of the fireworks into the night sky. As the first piece finished, Jarre punched his fist in the air in celebration. Despite the setbacks, stress and awful weather, he was determined to enjoy himself.

Well that's what you can see him do on the video recording of the whole event. To be honest the rain by this point was so heavy - and I was far enough back from the stage (which was also slightly to the right) - that all I could see was a coloured blob in the distance. Then one of my friends handed me a pair of binoculars he’d cleverly thought to bring along and everything came into focus - well until I had to hand them to the next person anyway. I pitied some of the people at the furthest reaches of the grandstand. They must have wondered exactly where the Frenchman was, twiddling his knobs and playing his laser harp.

Not that it mattered really. Jarre's shows have always been about the experience as a whole and in this respect he didn't disappoint. If anything the wind and rain added to the drama and he carried on regardless of the buffeting gusts (at one point in between tracks he even joked that "Frogs like rain..."). Synchronous with the music that I knew so well were more fireworks, lights and images than I had ever experienced before. Spectacular doesn't even begin to cover it. In fact, take a look for yourself at this excerpt from the official release, which really shows the extent of the weather and the scale of the concert:

The piece being played in that clip is one of my favourites - “Fourth Rendez-Vous". That grinning guitarist at the end with Jarre? That's the legendary Hank Marvin from "The Shadows", one of the most influential musicians of the 60s and 70s. He appears just on the track "London Kid" on the "Revolutions" album, but here was present through many other parts of the night. There was also a choir from Mali on stage for "September" - a tribute to assassinated South African political activist Dulcie September. There were tracks from all of Jarre's albums, each accompanied by amazing visuals and massive enthusiasm from the 100,000 attendees.

Eventually the show came to a conclusion with another gigantic burst of fireworks, and my friends and I made our long way home - cold and very wet, but extremely happy. Looking back now, what amazes me isn’t just the spectacle, but the sheer improbability of it all -  the cancellations, the bureaucracy, the frantic phone calls across the Atlantic, the last‑minute approvals, the storm that tried its best to drown the whole thing. And yet, somehow, on that rain‑lashed October night, everything came together. Jarre played, the cranes loomed, the fireworks roared, and we stood there soaked and exhilarated, part of a moment that felt bigger than any of us. It was messy, magical, and absolutely unforgettable.

Honourable mentions:

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit - I'm not including this film on the list because it's a live action / animation mash up classic with wonderful characters, a fantastic plot and more cartoon guest stars than you can shake a stick at (plus of course Jessica Rabbit, the first animated lady to apparently make men of any age feel a little bit funny...). Those things are all a given and any one of them make it deserving of being in any countdown. No it's here because of *where* I saw it.... In the heady days of the late 1980s there was still a significant gap between cinema releases in the US and the UK. - in this case it was going to be nearly six months before we Brits would get to see this hotly anticipated, highly unusual production. I'd read all about it in "Empire" magazine already and was pretty excited. Then as I mentioned earlier, I went to Florida for two weeks holiday with my brother in mid-September - ostensibly to do the whole Disney thing - but we also took in Kennedy Space Centre, Rosie O' Grady's Good Time Emporium, Wet 'n' Wild, Busch Gardens, Sea World, etc,etc. On a rare day of downtime in the packed schedule, we found ourselves in the local giant shopping mall and adjoining multiplex cinema (something the UK was only just starting to get). To our surprise "Roger Rabbit" was still playing and a showing was about to start. We couldn't believe it and quickly bought tickets. As great as the film was, I think we were more excited that we were seeing it way before any of our friends!
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• Killer Klowns from Outer Space  - I’ve mentioned before that horror films are not really my favourite genre. Well here's one of the exceptions to the rule, though it's more of a low budget slightly scary science fiction comedy than anything else. Plus, everybody hates clowns, right? The basic plot might be simple - mysterious clown-like aliens descend to Earth and attempt to kill all the inhabitants of a sleepy American town - but it's the imaginative and touch-in-cheek nature of how they do it (and how the townsfolk defend themselves) that makes this a thoroughly enjoyable 82 minutes. Where else could you see toy guns that fire deadly popcorn, a balloon animal dog that comes to life, a human puppet show and aliens that use a crazy straw to drink the liquefied remains of their victims (I knew Doctor Who had ripped off that little old lady in "Smith & Jones" from somewhere...) One of those movies that the word "cult" was invented for.

• Batman: The Killing Joke - Some say that this is the definitive Batman / Joker story - and there is no denying the book’s enormous influence on DC continuity. Barbara Gordon’s transformation from Batgirl to Oracle alone reshaped decades of storytelling. But I’ve never quite been convinced it’s the solid‑gold classic people insist it is. Part is that neither Moore nor Bolland consider it their best work. Moore has famously “disowned” pretty much everything he ever did for DC, but he has also said that "it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it". Bolland's artwork is immaculate of course, but for his part, has said he prefers the later recoloured edition because the original didn’t match the tone he intended. As for the story, it’s undeniably powerful, but it’s almost too neat in its structure. The infamous attack on Barbara Gordon is disturbing, but it’s also emblematic of a certain era of comics where violence against women was used as shorthand for “serious storytelling". Don't get me wrong  - it’s a good read, but it's also a little too cold, a little too calculated, and not quite as emotionally rich or psychologically deep as later Batman stories would become. It's almost as if Moore's name on the credits has put the story on a pedestal it doesn't quite deserve. Even if I'm not the biggest fan, it deserves a place here because of the sublime art  - and because it's impact is too great to ignore. 

• Doctorin' The TARDIS - I'm a "Doctor Who" fan, of course  I bought the 12" version of this! It's a novelty song, that mixes the TV shows theme music with "Rock and Roll (Part Two)” from dodgy 70s sex offender Gary Glitter, plus samples of Sweet's "Blockbuster" and catchphrases by comedian Harry Enfield's boorish plasterer 'Loadsamoney'. A Frankenstein’s monster of pop culture which, defying reason, the public absolutely adored. The masterminds behind it were Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty -  the chaotic geniuses who would later become "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu" and "The KLF". They knew exactly what they were doing - creating something so brazenly silly and shamelessly catchy, that it bypassed critical disdain and went straight to the nation’s collective funny bone. And then there was the “frontman” -  a Ford Galaxie police car. Why? Who knows. Who cares. It was the 80s. Things just happened. The music press hated it, naturally, but it sold millions worldwide, proving once again that sometimes people just want something daft and joyful for two and a half minutes. Judge for yourself...

• Tad Williams - The Dragonbone Chair - The first volume of the "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" trilogy, which even now still feels like one of the great pillars of modern fantasy. On the surface it looks traditional - no grimdark excess, no graphic violence, no edgy reinventions - but Williams uses the familiar shape of classic fantasy to build something richer, deeper, and more human than it first appears. What makes it so memorable isn’t just the world‑building (though Osten Ard is vast, layered, and astonishingly detailed) or the sheer size of the thing (these books are *long*). It’s the characters. Williams populates his world with an enormous cast, yet somehow gives each of them depth, nuance, and emotional weight. And then there’s the way he plays with genre tropes. He embraces some, subverts others, and quietly reshapes the rest. The farm‑boy‑hero setup is there, but Simon isn’t a chosen one - he’s a confused, stubborn, often overwhelmed young man who grows slowly, painfully and believably. The villains aren’t cackling monsters but complex forces shaped by history and grief. The magic is rare, strange, and unsettling. It all feels familiar and yet entirely new. "The Dragonbone Chair" was one of those rare books that completely rewired what I thought fantasy could be. It’s immersive, emotional, patient, and utterly absorbing. And the best part? Tad Williams didn’t stop there. His other books aren’t too shabby either.

• Black Kiss - Probably one of the the most controversial comics of the late 80s, primarily because of the explicit sexual content. Howard Chaykin's hard-boiled thriller is a decent enough story on its own, full of his trademark cynicism, grit, and razor‑sharp dialogue. It follows a washed‑up jazz musician who gets pulled into a spiralling mess of murder, blackmail, cults, and Hollywood sleaze after crossing paths with a mysterious woman and a stolen reel of film that everyone seems willing to kill for. But it's the nature of some of the scenes which forced publishers Vortex to seal each issue in a plastic bag so that under-age children couldn't peek inside. That was a big deal in comic shops at the time - it instantly made the book feel dangerous, forbidden, and slightly ridiculous all at once. Nowadays I'm not sure anyone would even bat an eyelid. Still, "Black Kiss" earns its place in comics history - not because it was the greatest noir ever written, but because it was one of the first independent books to test the boundaries of what the medium could show. A little pulpy, a little outrageous, and very much a product of its era

• Young Einstein - Didn’t you know that Albert Einstein was actually a Tasmanian who discovered the theory of relativity while trying to put bubbles into beer - and then went on to invent rock and roll, the electric guitar, and surfing? Well, 'Yahoo' Serious did, and he made a whole movie about it. "Young Einstein" is a slapstick comic fantasy that gleefully rewrites history with the confidence of someone who’s never let facts get in the way of a good joke. Serious himself is like a proto–Jim Carrey: all rubbery facial expressions, wild hair, and odd, spring‑loaded movements. But there’s a kind of innocent charm running through all the nonsense, as if the film genuinely believes that the world would be a better place if physics involved more surfing and guitar riffs. It’s very, very silly - a movie powered entirely by enthusiasm and whimsy -  and for some strange reason, I absolutely loved it. It’s been years since I last watched it, so goodness knows what I’d make of it now. Maybe it’s aged terribly. Maybe it’s still a delight. But at the time, it hit exactly the right spot - a goofy, good‑natured bit of cinematic nonsense that made me smile far more than it probably had any right to.

• Mr Jolly Lives Next Door - If "Destination Docklands" hadn't dominated 1988, then this would have been my number one pick without any hesitation. There are many superb episodes of "The Comic Strip Presents...", but only one which has such personal importance that I can repeat large swathes of it to this day. There is a seven year gap between my sister and I, and this is the film which really brought us together as she hit her teenage years in a shared obsession. Rik and Ade are at their unhinged best as the proprietors of  the "Dreamytime Escorts" agency (tagline 'Escorts, Bestcorts. Come in if you're saucy!'). Their business model basically involves them conning foreign tourists into take them on a binge drinking tour at their expense  - or stealing booze from Heimi Henderson's off-licence situated below their office. Next door lurks Mr Jolly, a psychopathic contract killer, played with manic brilliance by the legendary Peter Cook. When Rik and Ade accidentally intercept an envelope meant for Jolly, containing a wad of cash and a request to "take out" TV presenter Nicholas Parsons, the pair spend the cash on 1,574 gin and tonics and head off to meet him at the Dorchester hotel. What follows is a glorious descent into mayhem: exploding tonic water, Tom Jones blaring at full volume, a body count that would make an action movie blush, and the immortal competition‑winning catchphrase: “Never ever bloody anything ever.” It’s violent, chaotic, and utterly ridiculous - but for my sister and I it became something more. A shared language. A private joke that has lasted decades. A film we have watched so many times that it's become part of our language. Our love for this one‑off comedy is that deep and has lasted that long, that I’m fairly sure we’ll be in our twilight years and still shouting quotes at each other. An utter classic.

We're All Stories In The End 20 - Deceit

 Can a comic strip character cross successfully into prose?....

Deceit by Peter Darville-Evans

Seventh Doctor Adventures number: 13

Originally published: April 1993

Companions: Ace, Benny and... ?

"Take Arcadia apart if you have to."

The middle of the twenty-fifth century. The Second Dalek War is drawing to an untidy close. Earth's Office of External Operation is trying to extend its influence over the corporations that have controlled human-occupied space since man first ventured to the stars.

Agent Isabelle Defries is leading one expedition. Among her barely-controllable squad is an explosives expert who calls herself Ace. Their destination: Arcadia.

A non-technological paradise? A living laboratory for a centuries-long experiment? Fuel for a super-being? Even when Ace and Benny discover the truth, the Doctor refuses to listen to them.

Nothing is what it seems to be.  

This one features the return of Ace after three years away from the Doctor (in her timeline, anyway) and a guest appearance from infamous 1980s comics character Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer.

And it's definitely a novel in three parts.

The first is thoughtful and measured and with lots of different threads in play. It's also full of mysteries:  

• Why does Agent De-frees have Abslom Daak on ice? 
• What secrets has Scribe Francis uncovered? 
• Who are the hooded Counsellors? 
• Why does everyone die at age 30? 
• What does Lacuna want with Britta? 
• And what is the big experiment involving Arcadia?

To start answering these questions, the book jumps around between multiple points of view, sometimes giving us just brief glimpses before pivoting away to another location. Reading it, I wasn't exactly sure where it was all going  - and not much of it seemed to  involve the Doctor. But unlike other novels in this series where I might have been annoyed at that, this time I was gripped. This was excellent stuff -  full of great character development and backstory. A cracking start.

Ace generally felt like the same character, just more experienced - a bit more jaded and, dare I say it, grown up -  and with lots of exciting new gadgets to blow stuff up. Benny is perhaps less well served in this section, basically being trapped in a rapidly constricting TARDIS until she's expelled onto the surface of the pastoral-looking Arcadia. Thankfully she's still as sarcastic as ever. As for whatever was going on with Britta and Lacuna? Well, that was an unpleasantly abusive relationship if nothing else.

I'd say the second part starts as Daak is defrosted. He's as homicidal as I remember from the "Doctor Who Weekly" comics, although I don't recall him being quite such a boorish, sex mad, Conan the Barbarian archetype. There was always a bit of a sad, tragic element to his character, with him pining for a lost love that he hardly knew, and channelling his anger into killing as many Daleks as possible. That seems to have been lost in this written-word version - or maybe my memory is being kinder. I did like the tie-in to the "Nemesis of the Daleks" strip and Ace assuming that was in Daak's future, so she had to keep him alive, despite wanting to push him out of an airlock.

The book becomes like an action movie: huge set pieces with a starship destroyed, a cliff top crash landing and a massive battle with Ace and Daak and troopers fighting against endless Counsellor robots. There are also some nice ideas, such as the giant tortured faces made of rock; the fact that the monsters attacking were projections backed up by force shields to give them a physical presence; And the idea that Arcadia's natural flora and fauna were slowly retaking their planet back after the terraforming.

It's certainly fast-moving and there's plenty of peril and death, with the loss of the crew of the ship almost in an instant - and then Johannsen gets taken down by the androids on the planet. And it's certainly enjoyable, as the stakes get higher. But if I'm honest, I kind of preferred the writing in the first section. I also lost count of the number of times Ace had to rein Daak back in from doing something stupid, contemplate how annoying he was - but still a bit sexy - and then recall that she had to keep him alive. It got a little repetitive.

Finally, after some convenient transmat beams and shuttles, all our main characters end up on the Spinward station - and it's here where I feel the wheels start to come off… if only a little. I really liked that the Doctor realises that his past actions may have led to the atrocities committed on the people of Arcadia. The fact that Pool was composed of harvested brain matter is a nicely gruesome image - even if its plan to become a god in its own universe was a trifle cliched. And it was clever for the Doctor to plant the idea of the TARDIS connection socket in Benny's head so that Pool could read it from her.

But…with Pool being just a formless presence, its downfall doesn't carry a huge amount of weight and seemed to be over in a flash. Lacuna and Britta just…wander off together ? And Francis just accepts everything and goes home. It felt like much of the promising build-up for these supporting characters from the start of the novel didn't follow through  - and they didn't get the resolutions I hoped for. Maybe that was the point, but I did feel that, although I enjoyed reading the book, the end was a bit of a let down.

And before I forget, lets talk about Abslom Daak accidently getting decapitated by Ace ! But it's okay because he was only a clone. What was the point of him being there then? Why bring back such an iconic  character from another medium if you're not going to have him be responsible for anything meaningful in the plot?  Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see him pop up, but it did feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity. He didn't even get to kill any Daleks for goodness sake. What a waste of a legend.

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 21 - 1987

By my early twenties I was fully immersed in the comics industry - both as a reader and as a retailer. But an encounter with one of my customers lead to the discovery of a different kind of super-heroics...

1987:

The trivia:

• By 1987, the California Condor - one of the largest birds in North America - had been pushed to the very edge of extinction. Poaching, habitat destruction, and decades of lead poisoning from spent ammunition had whittled their numbers down to a mere 27 on the entire planet. Conservationists made a bold decision to help save the species - all of the huge birds were captured and placed into human care, split between the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.  Thanks to an extraordinary breeding program, the population slowly began to climb, until today, there are over four hundred California Condors, many living wild.

• American Airlines came up with a bold idea - sell a tiny handful of ultra-expensive unlimited first‑class tickets. No restrictions - just show up and fly anywhere in the world, anytime. It sounded like a dream - and for Chicago businessman, Steve Rothstein, it absolutely was. He bought his pass for a then staggering US$ 233,509, and over the next decade, flew more than 10 million miles, made over 500 trips to England, and took spontaneous flights just because he felt like it. Sometimes he’d book flights for strangers he met in the airport. Sometimes he’d fly somewhere simply to have lunch. Rothstein wasn’t breaking any rules. He was simply using the pass exactly as advertised, but the airline estimated his travels cost them around 21 million dollars in lost revenue. So by the mid‑2000s, they began scrutinising the few remaining unlimited ticket holders, looking for any reason to shut the program down. In 2008, they claimed they found one. Rothstein’s pass was terminated for what the airline called “fraudulent behaviour.” - his habit of booking companion tickets for people he barely knew. Whether it was truly fraud or not remains a matter of debate, but the result was the same - Rothstein's golden ticket was gone.

• 19-year old German amateur aviator Matthias Rust managed to fly his small Cessna aircraft all the way from Helsinki to Moscow and land illegally near Red Square. Despite being tracked several times by Soviet air defence, he was never shot down. Although originally sentenced to four years in prison he only served a few months and the incident allowed progressive Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to dismiss many of his harshest military opponents.

Okay so I guess before I start with the memory proper, I should provide a bit more context to that comment at the top of the page about being a comics "retailer". This might take a while...

By the mid-1980s I was getting my regular comics from specialist shops rather than newsagents. It started with all those trips to "Forbidden Planet" in London, but as I left school and (after a brief period in market research) started working in Southend-on-Sea, I switched to getting my weekly fix from the local independent book shop in the historically windy Victoria Circus Shopping Centre - known rather generically as "The New Bookshop" (I never did discover where the "Old" one was).

                                        

The two rather mature gentlemen who ran the shop were always friendly and I became a regular customer. Their shelves were crammed full of all the latest Marvel, DC and independent titles. Each week I would pick up the current releases (almost everything to be honest) which they had put by in a hi-tech filing system of brown paper bags with your name written in marker pen. Thanks to these lovely fellows I discovered comics from First, Comico, Capital, Eclipse and a vast range of other titles. More and more of my meagre wages was being spent on four-colour adventures (well I was still living at home and couldn't drive, so had very little outgoings). I reunited with some old friends in the shop as we all started to hang out there, and met some new ones along the way - including a very young Warren Ellis.

Then to my delight, in 1985 a proper specialist comic book store opened on the bottom floor of the shopping centre. "Collectors' Dream" was run by local writer, artist, musician (and sometime shoe salesman) Gary Spencer Millidge. Gary would become well known in comic circles in later years for his seminal series "Strangehaven", but when I first got to know him, he was focused on the new shop and associated mail order subscription service - along with near-forgotten news zine "Comic News Monthly". The "Collectors' Dream" shop became the new place for us comics fans to hang out.

It was a seminal period for my favourite medium. Many of the industry's most famous and well respected titles were published then. I was there when Gary unboxed the first issues of "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", marveling at the innovation on display. Titles such as the Giffen / DeMatteis "Justice League International", Kyle Bakers "The Shadow", the first ongoing series for Paul Chadwick's "Concrete", and so many more.

It was also in Gary's shop that we watched him work on the famine relief title that became "Food For Thought" - a charity comic that predated Marvel and DC's equivalent titles by a long way. Containing illustrations and strips by a wealth of creators old and new, it's become something of a rare item now. Luckily I still have my copy. As you can tell, we spent a *lot* of time in that basement level store - my younger brother even worked there for a while when he first left school.  Those were great times. Maybe I'll write about them in more detail one day.

But at some point not long after (and here my memory gets slightly hazy), Gary decided that he needed to down-size and move the shop to smaller premises. I really wanted to get into the industry in some way and convinced my brother and a friend that we should buy the "Collectors' Dream" mail order service and run it ourselves. With a cash loan from my father, we did just that  - and from my bedroom we somehow managed to run a small business on a complete shoestring.

We started with the customer list we had purchased from Gary and then expanded it by handing out flyers at the Westminster Comic Mart's. The ads looked great thanks to a custom piece of Alan Davis artwork we received with the business purchase (amazingly I still have it). Typing up the monthly order catalogues on a Commodore 64 computer, printing them out and pasting them together to then be photocopied - it would all seem incredibly primitive to modern eyes. We wrote humourous editorials to accompany the listings. Deliveries from Titan Distributors became a weekly occurrence, along with regular trips to the warehouse itself in Mile End for single issues (the minimum pre-order was two copies). All of our spare time was spent wrapping parcels, collating orders, banking cheques and keeping things afloat - all this while holding down regular jobs. It was hard work but hugely exciting. We made lot's of contacts, learnt a huge deal and of course bought a *lot* of comics for ourselves at trade prices!

One of our regular overseas customers was a young guy called Philip Chee who lived in Hong Kong, and he often sent us long letters with his large order, chatting about his love of science fiction and fantasy and comics. Over time we corresponded back and forth and developed a good relationship with this fellow fan who was half a world away. Then one month, Philip mentioned that he was going to be in London visiting family - and did we want to meet up with him for lunch or something?

Arranging to meet outside Tottenham Court Road tube station in the West End, the three of us waited somewhat nervously, until approached by a young dark haired gentleman in glasses. Yes, this was Philip -  and after a few minutes we found ourselves getting on really well, even if he did come across as very excitable and a definite comic book expert. We made a tour of all the London comic shops within walking distance (Philip wanted to stock up on back issues) and ended up at the famous Denmark Street "Forbidden Planet" store, which as well as comics had the best selection of SF and fantasy novels in the area.

Perusing the lengthy shelves for anything new, Philip picked up a US import book with a lurid purple-ish cover and a shining logo.. "The secret history of our times revealed" it claimed. "Had I heard of "Wild Cards" before?" Philip asked. I shook my head and he thrust the book into my hands. "You should try this series, it's really good". Not wanting to appear rude - and to be honest open for something new to read - I took a look at the blurb on the back. What I saw was enough for me to plonk down my cash - and a decades long love affair was about to begin...

The memory:

Wild Cards

It is a world parallel to our own - an Earth where an alien virus bomb strikes the Earth in the aftermath of World War II. Millions are killed, but a handful of those that survive are endowed with strange superhuman powers. Some are called 'Aces', gifted with extraordinary mental and physical abilities. Others are 'Jokers', cursed with grotesque mutations or unpredictable quirks. Some turn their talents toward helping humanity, others toward harming it. And from that simple premise the Wild Cards 'shared universe' was born.

On the surface, it might sound like a prose version of the Marvel or DC universe. But the difference was the “mosaic novel” format. Each character was created and written by a different science fiction author, but all their stories interlocked into a single, coherent narrative. The whole thing was shepherded by some guy I’d never heard of called George R. R. Martin (wonder what happened to him ?). These weren't your traditional throwaway stories either. Following the 80s trend towards more realistic portrayals of super-heroes, these characters were fully three dimensional - they changed and adapted and faded in out out of the narrative like real people and even died, sometimes in sudden, violent ways.  

The roster of 80s writers was astonishing - Walter Jon Williams, Roger Zelazny, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, Daniel Abraham, and many more. Even legendary X‑Men writer Chris Claremont contributed. It felt like a clubhouse of genre heavyweights all playing in the same sandbox. The first volume chronicled the events from World War II to the (then) present day showing the emergence of the Aces and Jokers and the impact they had on world history. It also sprinkled in delightful alternate‑history cameos - Mick Jagger as a werewolf, Jim Morrison as the literal Lizard King, and so on. More importantly, it introduced the characters who would become the backbone of the series:

• Doctor Tachyon -  a flamboyant Takesian who tried to prevent the detonation of his races virus bomb and now attempts to atone for their mistake.

• Croyd Crenson "The Sleeper" - cursed to fall into a coma and wake up in a new body every few months. Sometimes an Ace and sometimes a Joker, he never knows what will happen when he falls asleep.

• The Great and Powerful Turtle - possessed of the world most powerful mental abilities, he hides inside a metal shell constructed from an old VW Beetle

• Fortunato - the supreme sorcerer on the planet who recharges his powers via tantric sex.

• Captain Trips - a burned out hippy biochemist who can call forth five different super-powered persona through the use of designer drugs.

• Puppetman - a politician able to control the minds of anyone he touches and feed off their negative emotions? What could possibly go wrong?

I devoured the first book and immediately went back and brought the following two. Set in the late 80s, each one dealt with a particular threat, but sub-plots and continuing threads were interwoven and carried between all three. It got better - between 1987 and 1993, twelve books were published, spanning political thrillers, detective mysteries, space opera, and everything in between. A whole world of different heroes and villains were introduced and like the best comics multi-part stories, it took several volumes for all the events to unfold. Sometimes the heroes won. Sometimes they lost and people died. It was my comics world seen through an adult lens - violent, sexy, horrific, thoughtful, and utterly addictive. 

Around book six, a UK publisher (I’m fairly sure it was Titan) caught onto the "Wild Cards" phenomenon and reissued the series with new Brian Bolland covers. US publisher Bantam Spectra responded with their own new covers by "Grimjack" artist Timothy Truman and it's those that adorn my copies of books seven to twelve.

Then came a shift. With volume 13, "Card Sharks", a new trilogy began  - and a new publisher, Baen, took over. Barclay Shaw replaced Truman as cover artist. Released just a month after book 12, the book kicked off a conspiracy arc involving a deadly “antidote” to the Wild Card virus known as the Black Trump. The trilogy also wrapped up several long‑running character arcs and felt like a natural endpoint. For a while, it seemed like the series might be finished.

Seven years passed.

Then, in 2002, came "Deuces Down", published by iBooks -  the long‑awaited sixteenth volume. It echoed the structure of the first book, offering standalone stories across four decades. But this time it focussed on those less well known members of the Wild Card saga  - the “Deuces”, people with minor, often inconvenient powers. It was fun, but I was hungry for the main timeline again.

Four years later, I got my wish with Death Draws Five, a solo novel by John J. Miller. An apocalyptic thriller with religious overtones, it brought back favourites like Carnifex, Mr. Nobody, and Fortunato, and introduced the formidable Midnight Angel. But iBooks collapsed into bankruptcy, and once again the series needed a new home.

Enter Tor Books, who didn’t just rescue Wild Cards -  they revitalised it. Beginning in 2008 with "Inside Straight", Tor introduced a new generation of Aces and Jokers, a new global scope, and a new wave of writers joining the "Wild Cards Trust". It wasn’t a reboot (the series has never had one), but a widening of the lens. The old guard still appeared, but now they shared the stage with younger, stranger, more diverse characters shaped by the 21st century.

Tor’s run quickly grew into its own era. "Busted Flush" and "Suicide Kings" completed the “Committee Trilogy,” a storyline that pushed the universe into geopolitics, humanitarian crises, and the messy reality of superpowered interventionism. After that came a steady stream of new volumes - each one expanding the mythology, exploring new corners of the world, or revisiting long‑running characters in surprising ways. The tone ranged from noir to horror to political thriller to cosmic weirdness, to reality TV - but it's always felt unmistakably "Wild Cards".

The publisher also embraced the digital age. A whole run of standalone short stories and novellas appeared on Tor.com. Self‑contained, often free to read, they sometimes tied into or foreshadowed events in the main novels, but also worked as little snapshots of life in the Wild Cards universe. For long‑time readers, they feel like bonus tracks - for newcomers, they were an easy way to dip a toe into the world without committing to a full novel.

Meanwhile, Tor began reissuing the original Bantam books - some with new introductions, some with additional stories, and all with a consistent design that finally made the sprawling series feel unified on the shelf. For new readers, it was the perfect jumping‑in point. For old readers like me, it was a chance to revisit the classics with a fresh coat of paint.

Then, in 2023, the series did something unexpected - it returned to its original publisher, Bantam Books. For the first time since the early 90s, new Wild Cards novels were once again appearing with the Bantam logo on the spine. Tor’s final major contribution came two years later with "Aces Full", a second volume of its previously online‑only stories.

The Wild Cards universe has become something rare in genre fiction - a shared world with nearly four decades of continuous, unbroken history, spanning more than thirty books and multiple publishers. No reboots. No continuity wipes. No “multiverse resets". Just a living, evolving timeline shaped by dozens of writers and hundreds of characters. Sure regular superhero comics have caught up with some of the storytelling techniques used ("Astro City" springs to mind), but there is still something unique about the novels and the world.

Turning things almost full circle, there have actually been several comic mini-series telling original stories. Recently Bantam even branched out in graphic novels (although I have to say the new US cover designs are bloody awful). Plus there have been role playing games, audio books and translations into different languages. There (predictably) was even a live action TV show in development at one point.

I've bought all the books avidly since that original chance recommendation from young Philip Chee - and perhaps that's really why I love them. Because they’ve grown up alongside me. They’ve changed, taken risks, reinvented themselves, and refused to stand still - just like the best long‑running stories do. Every new volume feels like catching up with old friends, but in a world that’s still full of surprises. After nearly forty years, "Wild Cards" remains unpredictable, ambitious and utterly alive - and I can’t think of another shared universe that’s earned my loyalty the way this one has. 

And the remarkable thing is - it’s still going. New books, new characters, new directions. The "Wild Cards" universe looks certain to continue for many years to come - and I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Honourable mentions:

• Filthy, Rich and Catflap - a comedy series that's only six episodes long, is barely remembered by the mainstream - yet is absolutely essential if you want to understand the evolutionary chain that runs from the anarchic brilliance of "The "Young Ones" to the full‑tilt slapstick carnage of "Bottom". Rik Mayall plays Richie Rich, a talentless, delusional, permanently unemployed actor whose ego is so inflated it might as well have its own postcode. Nigel Planer is Ralph Filthy, the sponging, sleazy, morally flexible agent who’d sell his own mother for a 10% cut. And Adrian Edmonson is Edward Didgeridoo Catflap, Richie’s violent, drunken minder - a man who treats the world like a pub brawl waiting to happen. So far, so familiar. But the twist is that the show treats the' Fourth Wall' like a suggestion. Characters wander in and out of the studio audience, mock the production, and generally behave as if reality is something that happens to other people. It’s meta before that was a buzzword, and is gleefully rude about the Z‑list celebrity culture of the time. And yet, for all its energy, it never quite hits the same delirious heights as "The Young Ones". Maybe it’s the showbiz satire, maybe it’s just that the characters are totally unsympathetic. Despite that it’s still absolutely worth watching for the sheer manic commitment of the performances. It’s messy, loud, self‑aware, and gloriously unhinged.

• Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters - After the shockwave of "The Dark Knight Returns", this was DC’s second big “prestige format” gamble - a mandate to take a second tier character somewhere deeper, darker, and more human. I already knew Mike Grell from "Jon Sable, Freelance", where he’d honed that grounded, muscular, street‑level style. But what he did here was on another level. It wasn’t just a new coat of paint on Oliver Queen - it was a complete reimagining of who the character could be. Grell stripped away the trick arrows and the cartoonish villains. He acknowledged Oliver’s age and his scars. He dropped him into a world of serial killers, organised crime, and moral ambiguity. Suddenly Green Arrow wasn’t a superhero - he was an urban hunter. And that shift worked. It made me care about a character I’d never been particularly invested in before. Grell’s Seattle was moody, rain‑soaked, and lived‑in. His action scenes had weight. His violence had consequences. Even the relationship between Oliver and Dinah Lance felt more adult - messy, complicated and believable. The three issues were a mission statement which paved the way for Grell’s seven‑year run as writer (and occasional artist), a stretch that remains one of the most consistent and character‑defining eras any DC hero has ever had. For my money, "Longbow Hunters" is still one of the finest Green Arrow stories ever told.

• Weaveworld by Clive Barker - I never got into the"Books of Blood" or the "Hellraiser" movies. Horror stories are not really my thing and certainly in 1987 I had read only a mere handful of that type of novel. However I picked up "Weaveworld" because of the more fantasy-orientated premise - and boy was I glad I did. The book revolves around the secret existence of a race of magical beings known as the "Seerkind" and their struggles to remain hidden from the non-magical world inside "The Fugue" - a separate dimension woven into the strands of a carpet. The Seerkind have to face multiple dangers from human and non-human antagonists, plus the mysterious "Scourge" which seeks to destroy all magic. Full of religious allusions and themes, a multi-facted plot and truly evil and horrific threats, the novel was several worlds away from the more traditional fantasies I had consumed up to that point. I quickly became a Barker devotee as he published one excellent novel after another over the next ten years. Any attempt to turn "Weaveworld" into a film or TV series can only be doomed to fail in my eyes, as it would be practically impossible to match the imagination and power of Barker's prose.

• The New Statesman - It's Rik Mayall again in a razor sharp political comedy. What's not to love? As Tory M.P. Alan B'Stard he was selfish, devious, lecherous and utterly without shame - a man who treated service to the British public like an inconvenience. Heaven help anyone who got in his way, and whatever schemes, crises or scandals surrounded him, B'Stard always came up as top dog, usually with a smirk and a cheque in his pocket. It was a role tailor‑made for Mayall - all swagger, venom, and sarcastic brilliance - and it proved what some of us already suspected: that he wasn’t just a great comedian, he was a genuinely tremendous actor (I'm biased - I already considered Rik to be my comedy god). The show was savagely funny. Cruel, irreverent, and gleefully disrespectful to anyone in power. No party was safe. If you were a politician, B’Stard was coming for you - and any resemblance to real figures, living or dead, was absolutely deliberate. His toxic charm ran across four series, two specials, stage shows, and even newspaper columns and looking back, it’s astonishing how much of the show still feels relevant. Maybe that’s because politics hasn’t changed as much as we’d like to think. Or maybe it’s because Rik Mayall, in full B’Stard mode, tapped into something timeless - the idea that power attracts the worst people, and the only sane response is to laugh at them as loudly as possible.

• The Question - Another reimagining of a lesser DC character -  but this time it's the faceless vigilante from Steve Ditko, a hero originally steeped in it's creators objectivist absolutism. But Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan didn’t just update The Question - they rebuilt him. Vic Sage became a flawed, curious, introspective figure, wrestling with morality, identity, and the limits of black‑and‑white thinking. O’Neil infused the series with Eastern philosophy, Zen teachings, and a deep sense of moral ambiguity. The series wasn’t afraid to just let Vic meditate, question his own motives, or simply observe the world around him. It was a superhero comic that felt more like an philosophical detective novel that just happened to involve masks. These weren't distinct adventures - it was an ongoing saga, with the final issue referencing points made all the way back in the first. Sure there were mysteries, fights, conspiracies, and some genuinely great supporting characters - but the heart of it was always Vic Sage’s internal journey - the idea that the real battle was against your own self. Denys Cowan’s art was a perfect match for the book’s tone. His version of Hub City felt like a feverish, corrupt, rain‑soaked nightmare, a place where justice was always out of reach and the shadows had shadows of their own. For me it remains one of the most thoughtful, mature, and quietly daring superhero books DC has ever published. A quiet masterpiece.

• Star Trek Next Generation - We actually didn't get to see this show in the UK until September 1990, when it started airing in that cosy early evening slot on BBC2, but I've included it here as it was first broadcast in the USA in 1987. It came at exactly the right time for me. "Doctor Who" had finished the previous December and into that gap sailed the Enterprise‑D, all gleaming curves, diplomatic missions, and Jean‑Luc Picard’s magnificent bald head. I latched onto it instantly and it became my new favourite genre show. Thanks to some 4 hour VHS tapes and my trusty 'long play' Panasonic video recorder, I managed to cram up to eight episodes on one cassette. In later years this meant that my first wife and I (also a fan) would occasionally start watching an episode in bed, fall asleep and wake up the next morning to find that Captain Picard was still boldly going, having spent the night exploring strange new worlds while we snored! For a while I was obsessed with all things "Trek" and amassed a large collection of books, comics, fact files and assorted ephemera. Even if that obsession has faded and even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of "Deep Space Nine" in terms of dramatic arcs and long-form storytelling, "TNG" still has a cast of characters that I love to spend time with. It's one of those rare shows where despite having seen each episode so many times that I probably know the plots off by heart, when one comes on the TV I still stop changing channels and start watching. Engage!

• Marshal Law - First published by Epic Comics as a six-issue mini, before sporadically hopping around a number of different publishers and formats in the subsequent years, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill's savage satire of the superhero genre is a classic that deserved a much wider audience. Set in the future sprawl of San Futuro, the titular character is a government‑sanctioned hero‑hunter, whose job is to take down rogue superhumans with maximum force and minimum sympathy. He hates superheroes. He hates himself for being one - and Mills uses that as a scalpel, slicing into every major comic‑book archetype with savage glee. Over the course of the various storylines, no icon is safe. If you’ve ever worn a cape, Mills probably eviscerated you. It's a flamethrower aimed at the idea that superheroes are noble, pure, or even remotely sane. Match that with Kevin O'Neill's unique, grotesque spiky artwork and you have something really rather special. Later crossovers - with The Mask and even with Pinhead from Hellraiser - are odd little curiosities. Less acerbic, but still fascinating in that “I can’t believe they actually published this” way. They’re proof of how elastic the character was, how easily he could be dropped into other universes and still feel like the most dangerous thing in the room. If you’ve never read it, there’s a big deluxe collection out there, and it absolutely deserves a place on your Christmas list. "Marshal Law" is one of those cult classics that should have been huge - a blistering satire, a visual feast, and a reminder that sometimes the best way to work in a genre is to set fire to it.

• Max Headroom - Trying to explain Max Headroom to anyone who didn’t live through the mid‑80s is a bit like trying to describe a fever dream. “He was the world’s first computer‑generated TV star… sort of.” “He hosted a music‑video chat show.” “He advertised New Coke.” “He was in a pop single with Art of Noise.” “He had his own cyberpunk drama series.” All of these things are true, and yet none of them quite capture how omnipresent he was. For a few years, Max wasn’t just a character - he was a cultural phenomenon. Born from a one‑off British TV drama, Max Headroom was played by Matt Frewer under layers of prosthetics and video trickery, delivering lines in a stuttering, glitchy voice that became instantly iconic. He looked like a computer simulation, sounded like a malfunctioning AI, and behaved like a caffeinated talk‑show host who’d been left alone with too much electricity. And somehow, it worked. The drama was great, but my favourite incarnation was the US TV series. Set in a dystopian near future (aren't they all?), it imagined a world where television networks ruled everything - politics, culture, information, even law enforcement. It was stylish, inventive, and surprisingly sharp for its time, tackling media exploitation, corporate power, surveillance, and the manipulation of truth. Watching it now is a strange experience since so many of the things it predicted have sort of come true. What once felt like satire now feels uncomfortably close to the evening headlines. The show was weird, clever, anarchic, and utterly of its moment -  and yet somehow still relevant. "Twenty minutes into the future" never felt so close...

Star Cops - This little SF show arrived with ambition, intelligence, and a grounded approach to space drama decades ahead of its time - and then promptly vanished under the wheels of scheduling chaos and BBC indifference. The premise was simple - in the near future, humanity has begun to spread into orbit and onto the Moon, and with that expansion comes crime. Smuggling, sabotage, espionage, even murder. Enter the International Space Police Force - the “Star Cops” - a small, underfunded, politically beleaguered team trying to keep order in an environment where one mistake can kill you. What made it special to those of us who loved it was the tone. This wasn’t glossy space opera. It was procedural science fiction, grounded in physics, bureaucracy, and the messy reality of human behaviour. The tech felt plausible. The politics felt depressingly familiar. And the characters - especially David Calder’s wonderfully grumpy Nathan Spring - felt like actual people doing an impossible job. Sure the effects and the weightless scenes are bit shonky, and the theme tune by Justin Hayward widely derided (except by me), but the whole show has a real intelligent charm. It treats its audience with respect. The tragedy is that "Star Cops" never got the chance it deserved and it struggled to find an audience. Only nine episodes were ever made - and yet it left a mark. It's a clever, thoughtful gem that pointed the way toward the kind of grounded sci‑fi storytelling we’d later see in things like "The Expanse", and it remains a show that is really special to me. Thankfully in more recent years Big Finish have picked up the baton, and continue to produce audio stories with many of the original cast members. Amazingly they genuinely feel like the TV episodes we never got to see. If we ever do get a base on the Moon, we have to remember that "it won't be easy"...

Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 20 - 1986

  We love you. That's why we're here...

1986:

The trivia:

• As a fundraising publicity stunt for the "United Way" charity, organisers released one and a half million balloons into the skies above Cleveland, Ohio. It was intended to be a harmless spectacle, but unfortunately it all went disastrously wrong very quickly. The balloons were released early due to an approaching storm and drifted back over the city and Lake Erie, clogging roads and waterways, causing traffic collisions, and even shutting down a runway at the nearby airport. Worst of all, the Coast Guard were forced to suspend the search for two missing fishermen because the lake’s surface became covered in thousands of bobbing balloons, making it impossible to spot bodies or boats. The men were later found, but had sadly drowned. Multiple lawsuits followed, with damage claims running into the millions of dollars.

• The dark comedy fantasy "Troll" stars Noah Hathaway (more famous as Atreyu in "The NeverEnding Story") as a character named… Harry Potter Jnr. He is introduced to a hidden world of magic by a mysterious old woman who lives in the apartment upstairs. Why follow is a battle against dark forces that spills into the everyday world. Just coincidental similarities to the J.K. Rowling publishing phenomenon? Who knows, but the film has become a magnet for conspiracy theories and tongue‑in‑cheek comparisons. The “Troll” producers have leaned into it over the years, insisting that Rowling must have been influenced by their film, while Rowling has repeatedly said she’d never even heard of it. Whether it’s coincidence, cosmic synchronicity, or just one of those delightful jokes of pop culture, it has given “Troll” an extra layer of fascination it never could have predicted.

• An estimated 30 million people tuned into a two-hour television special to watch star Geraldo Rivera open a secret vault beneath Chicago’s Lexington Hotel.  The hidden room had long been rumoured to belong to legendary crime lord Al Capone. The hype was extraordinary - teasing the possibility of hidden bodies, piles of cash, weapons, or long‑buried evidence of Capone’s criminal empire. It became the highest‑rated syndicated TV special in history. After hours of drilling, dynamite, commentary, and breathless anticipation, the vault was revealed to be completely empty - except for a few dusty bottles, some rubble, and a very awkward Geraldo Rivera standing in front of live cameras, trying to salvage the moment.
  

The memory:

A Very Peculiar Practice

Famously only written by Andrew Davies because he discovered he owed the BBC £17,000, this darkly comic satire is probably the finest thing actor Peter Davison has ever been part of (and that includes Doctor Who). Set in the fictional Lowlands University, "A Very Peculiar Practice" sees Davison play the painfully shy, mild mannered and idealistic Stephen Daker, who joins the campus medical centre. All he wants is to make people better and get through the day. But instead of a set of highly professional colleagues, Daker discovers he has walked into a practice on the verge of collapse. 

At it's head is the booze-soaked Jock McCannon, played with feverish relish by the incredible Graham Crowden. Jock used to be a good doctor, but now is disillusioned and apoplectic about the changes planned by the university Vice Chancellor, Ernest Hemingway (no, not that one), who Jock is convinced has it in for him.  Dictating his mythological treatise on the ills of modern life - "The Sick University" - into a tape recorder, Jock also bemoans his loss of virility, purpose, ability to cure and the crushing inevitability of his own demise.

Alongside this old retainer is the arrogant, constantly underachieving Alan Sugar wanabe Bob Buzzard - always one step away from a hyper active nervous breakdown. It's a role that was made for David Troughton. Bob has no interest in his patients, seeing them as an unpleasant distraction from his goals of climbing the corporate ladder. His scheming and sycophantic attempts to better his lot in life provide many of the best elements of humour.

The final piece in the Lowlands medical jigsaw is the white-coated Nurse Rose Marie played by Barbara Flynn. A radical ultra-feminist bisexual who believes that men are the root of all that is wrong with the world, she also oozes a powerful sexuality and manages to tie poor Doctor Daker (and any watching red-blooded males) in confused knots.

In between coping with the oddball behaviour of his fellow doctor's, Daker tries to support the student's emotional well-being, cure the faculty of their various malady's, handle the outbreak of an STD *and* deal with the machinations of the amoral Hemingway - who just wants to cut funding and earn tons of cash from foreign students. He also begins a tentative relationship with research student (and police woman) Lyn Turtle, who helps him overcome his touch phobias.

Series two sees the university purchased by smooth American Jack Daniels and his defence-contract buddies, who have an eye on stopping all that annoying ‘learning’ nonsense and turning the site into a pure research facility. Lyn has left to go back to the police force and Daker instead gets involved with feisty Polish art student Grete Grotowska.

The series is a biting satire on the state of British society as much as a character piece and is full of wonderful guest appearances from a bevy of British actors - including a very young Hugh Grant. There is a surrealist element to proceedings too - most prominently with the ever more bizarre antics of two unnamed and silent nuns, who are always digging through the rubbish bins, speeding round the campus in a Mini and getting drunk. The nuns seem to be like the ravens at the Tower of London - if they leave, the university dies. Andrew Davies even writes himself into the narrative, in the form of Ron Rust, a creative writing tutor who owes a large sum of money so tries to pen a television series based on Lowlands, The problem is, every outlandish idea he comes up with keeps coming true! 

The final moments are terribly bleak, yet oddly fitting with what has come before, and testament to the over-riding vision of the series sole writer. Davies wrote over the top characters and some of the situations could even be deemed as farcical, but every single episode was wonderfully enjoyable. Again this was one of those shows which I recorded off the TV onto video tape and watched repeatedly - in fact I don't think I found anything else quite as special outside of the SF and Fantasy genres until Alan Bleasdale's "G.B.H" in 1991.

1992 brought a sequel TV movie "A Very Polish Practice". While it was nice to see Stephen and Greta and mad Bob Buzzard once more, outside of the university setting something was missing, and to be honest, I've no real desire to watch it again, even with a supporting actor of the calibre of Alfred Molina. I'll stick with the twelve episodes of mad brilliance thanks. 

Honourable mentions:

• Comic Relief Utterly Utterly Live - The first (and some would still argue the best) "Comic Relief" event wasn’t an all-evening-telethon, but a gloriously chaotic stage show in the tradition of Amnesty International’s "Secret Policeman's Ball". Performed at the Shaftsbury Theatre over three consecutive nights in early April 1986, it pulled together a who’s-who of alternative comedians, celebrities and musical guests to raise money for good causes, including famine relief in Africa. All three nights were recorded, as for each show the line up (and some of the routines) were slightly different. It was hugely popular, especially as the four stars of the BBC's "The Young Ones" performed their chart-topping single "Living Doll" alongside the one and only Cliff Richard. Other highlights were just as memorable - Lenny Henry in full ‘Theophilus P. Wildebeest’ mode, grinding against a mortified audience member; Ben Elton manically delivering his infamous "double seat" routine; two Frank Bruno’s quoting the Bard’s immortal lines from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ - and a parade of sketches, songs, and oddities that captured the spirit of the era. But for me, the highlight was the wonderful Kate Bush, singing romantic duet "Do Bears Sha La La... In The Woods" with Rowan Atkinson. It shouldn’t work. But it does, and it’s hilarious because both play it absolutely straight.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller's alternate-world take on an older, embittered Bruce Wayne remains one of the most influential comics ever published. Set in a future where Batman has hung up his cape after the death of Robin, the world is a more violent, chaotic and frightening place. Mutant gangs terrorise the streets, the media is unreliable and Superman has become a compliant tool  of the government. It’s a grim, politically-charged vision - and one that still feels scarily sharp all these decades later. Miller is one of those credited for ushering in the "dark age” of comic books  - and influencing a generation of new writers and artists… for better or worse. My clearest personal memory from that period is being in my local comic shop as that week's new releases were unboxed. We all gathered round staring at this strange new "prestige " format with its square binding and glossy pages. It certainly made a statement - this was the start of a new age of graphic storytelling. And I was lucky enough to be there at the beginning.

• Crossroads - Not the terrible ITV soap opera, but the musical drama starring former "Karate Kid" Ralph Macchio. The film was inspired by blues pioneer Robert Johnson, specifically the legend that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in order to play better than anyone else. That’s twined with the idea of a "missing” song by the guitar maestro that no-one had ever discovered. While it may not be the world's most original story - at it’s core it's still the tale of a young man's relationship with an older mentor (much like Macchio's previous successes) - it’s the performances and the "supernatural" elements that help keep it fresh and watchable. Though what has mainly kept it alive in my memory is the music. I've always been a fan of the blues, and talented artists such as Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters - right up to more modern day players such as Eric Clapton or Chris Rea. In "Crossroads" the score comes from accomplished guitarist Ry Cooder and it's just wonderful. The final duelling guitars scene with a performance from Steve Vai is also worthy of particular praise. It’s the kind of soundtrack that seeps under your skin and gives the whole film a texture that feels lived‑in and authentic. It might not be a film I return to for the performances or the folklore, but for the feeling it does capture so well: the sense that music can be a kind of magic. As an aside, I seem to have a liking for musical takes on the "battle with the devil" theme. Two other guilty pleasures are 1979's "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" by the Charles Daniels Band and 1975's "Spanish Train" by Chris de Burgh (hey - don't judge til you've heard it...)

• Dice Man - A short-lived spin-off from 2000 AD that aped the "Fighting Fantasy" choose-your-own-adventure stories but in comic strip form. Readers had to jump between pages and panels dependant on decisions they made from the multiple choice options - either progressing through the adventure or dying a horrible death. The stories featured 2000 AD stalwarts such as Judge Dredd, Nemesis and Slaine plus original characters created specifically for the magazine. As good as the format was, when really hooked you was the simply stunning artwork. It’s a showcase for some of the best illustrators of the era such as Bryan Talbot, Kevin O' Neill, Steve Dillon and David Lloyd. Every page packed with detail, energy and that unmistakeable 2000 AD attitude. It only lasted a mere five issues, but during that time it dared to be different.

• Biggles : Adventures In Time - Take a World War I flying ace who started in nearly 100 novels and stories. Mix in a dash of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Add a large pinch of "Back to the Future" or even 1979s "Time After Time". What you get is this hodge-podge of a movie, which if I'm honest is not the greatest thing in the world but still has a place in my affections. Salesman Jim Ferguson (Alex Hyde-White) falls through time to 1917 and inadvertently saves the life of pilot James Bigglesworth (Neil Dickinson). The pair then find themselves flung backwards and forwards in time whenever the other is in danger - all the while trying to stop the Germans changing the course of history. Chiefly remembered now as being the last ever screen appearance by the legendary Peter Cushing, it's a great little action movie. Just overlook the plot holes and go with the flow. There’s a very 80s theme song and OTT soundtrack from "Yes" frontman Jon Anderson too. Dickinson even ended up reprising his performance as Biggles (sort of) in the Pet Shop Boys 1987 musical "It Couldn't Happen Here" - while amongst many other things, Hyde-White went on to play Mr. Fantastic in Roger Corman's infamous unreleased version of "The Fantastic Four".

• Watchmen - It's undeniably Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' masterpiece and the comic book that changed the face of the industry forever (some would say not entirely for the better). But if you want to show non-comics readers that the medium can be so much more than superhero slug-fests, don't show them this. There are a hundred and one other excellent titles out there to do that. To fully appreciate "Watchmen" I think you need to have at least some understanding of the comics form, because as well as a significant piece of literature and a logical extension of the "what if superheroes were real" concept, it's also a love letter to the way comics work  The structure, the symmetry, the visual motifs, the pacing… it’s a book that rewards readers who already know the language. At the time of its original publication, it was an absolute event and I freely admit I was addicted. I bought every version and every piece of merchandise going (yes even the smiley face watch). All these years later, it’s still a great comic. The "squid" ending though?  That hasn’t got better with age…