Blue Remembered Hills

"Into my heart, an air that kills from yon far country blows. What are those Blue Remembered Hills? What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content. I see it shining plain. The happy highways where I went. And cannot come again." - extract from A. E. Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad'.

Blue Remembered Hills is a play by Dennis Potter, written for television as part of the BBC's 'Play For Today' series. It follows the success of his 1978 play 'Pennies From Heaven' and differs from it in a number of exciting ways, a significant change for Potter. The studio-based performances, recorded on video, of his previous work are replaced with film shot on location in Dorset. The result is a panoramic, sweeping feel to the film which alternates between moving shots that swoop past the characters and static, countryside-backed scenes. A memorable shot zooms down through the branches of a tree, hugging the trunk as the characters pass below. Excellent stuff.

But the main feature for which Blue Remembered Hills is notable is its depiction of children, seven of them, are all played by adults: Colin Welland (Willie), Michael Elphick (Peter), Robin Ellis (John), John Bird (Raymond), Helen Mirren (Angela), Janine Duvitski (Audrey), and Colin Jeavons(Donald). To begin with, there's something vaguely comical about Collin Welland's chunky frame, clad in grey flannel shorts and a knitted sweater, rolling about making spitfire noises, but after a while it all falls into place. The reminiscing begins: what it was like to be a child without adult supervision. The rosy glow of memory, and it's fun to watch. For a while.

Desperate for a bite of apple, Peter's character wrestles Willie to the ground, kneeling on his chest and spitting in his face. More friends join them, and a hapless squirrel is knocked from a tree with stones and then bludgeoned to death. All change, as a moment later they discuss holding a proper funeral for the poor creature. To say more would spoil the play, but suffice to say that children existing in a state of nature is all Potter needs to produce a gripping, horrifying, yet darkly humorous play, and one that's well worth tracking down on DVD.

Brown Girl In The Ring

So, Brown Girl in the Ring is a playground game, thought to have originated in the Caribbean. The players, both boys and girls, form a ring around one child. As the song is sung, the child in the middle of the ring skips around the inside until a specific point in the song: 'Show me your motion', at which point the centre child performs a favourite dance. Alternately, they may be asked 'Show me your partner', and a friend is picked to join them in the circle.

Which explains an awful lot. Arguably the most popular version of 'Brown Girl In The Ring' is by disco superstars Boney M, who released it as a B-side to their 1978 hit single Rivers Of Babylon. The A-side had torn up the UK charts, but as its success slowed and it made its way down to number 20, DJs began to flip the disc over, instantly mystifying an entire generation of ignorant Brits. Britain of 1978 wasn't the most socially aware culture, and traditional West Indian children's songs hadn't really registered. Indeed, a friend of mine recently confessed that they had but one black child at their school, and they would form a ring and sing this very song at her. That's not funny, by the way - it's sad.

Boney M aren't the only group to have released a version of Brown Girl In The Ring, of course, though it might be argued that their version is undeniably the best ever, depending on whether you're a die-hard Boney M fan or not. Regardless, see Waterloo And Robinson for a German version which uses the same arrangement as Boney M, or The Wiggles for an Australian feel. There's also a remixed '93 version from Boney M, if you're really, really interested.

Let's not forget Joe Simpson from Touching The Void: 'Bloody hell... I'm gonna die to Boney M!'

Andy Bell

Andy Bell: Singer And Performer, born April 25th, 1964

Primarily known as the singing half of Erasure and separate to the Andy Bell from Ride, in any interview with Andy it quickly becomes clear that this man was destined (either that, or just very determined) to be in the public eye. Flamboyant and openly gay from the start of his career, Andy appeared in the midst of a flurry of 80s synth-pop duos, a clear contemporary of Marc Almond and Jimmy Somerville, and quietly helped Vince Clarke make his follow-up to Yazoo a household name. Twenty-years later Vince and Andy are still churning out tunes as Erasure, even if they may trouble the top slots in the charts slightly less now, and Andy's has made tentative moves towards a number of solo side-projects. Andy is HIV positive and lives with his partner, Paul.

Early Life And Education

Andy Bell was born on April the 25th, 1964 in Peterborough, England. Their small house, The Gables, was eventually to house four siblings - three more girls and a baby brother, and Andy enjoyed a pretty normal working-class childhood by all accounts. Dogsthorpe Infants was followed by Junior School, at which Andy joined the choir. Anecdotes about Andy's earlier leanings towards music are prominent in any interview, and quotes like "I did impersonations of Donny Osmond to keep my neighbours happy..." and "at that early age I thought that my voice was better than Aled Jones" abound. It quickly becomes obvious Andy's completely serious about this; he was one of those children who puts on variety shows for everyone, the sort of child who's dragged out at social gatherings to perform The Snowman.

Andy moved on to Grammar School, apparently because he "liked the uniform" and despite coming last in a regional choir competition with a 'slow version' of Little Donkey and some recollections of bullying, Andy attained 5 O-levels. Staying on to study for A-levels resulted in boredom for Andy, and he also recalls that he fell behind with his work. Inevitably, Andy left school, full of the usual dreams and aspirations and with a desperate desire to make his way to London.

London: Moving In and Coming Out

The impetus behind this desire to live in London is attributed to Andy's friend Jill, whom he describes as "a punk with a gay older brother". Andy, either oblivious at this stage to his sexuality or perhaps unwilling to follow that route, began to see a girl called Marion. Consequently, when Marion landed herself a social services position in Alperton, London, the four of them took the opportunity to make the move. Andy recalls living with a guy and a girl from Liverpool, and is particularly complimentary about their patience as they waited for the dole money to come through.

This was followed by a move to West Ealing, and it was at this point Andy felt he could no longer deny his homosexuality. Marion, if Andy's memories are accurate, was an incredible support to him, and apparently introduced him to The Embassy Club: Andy's first gay club. The candy store moment of realisation ("I couldn't believe the men were so good looking!") was accompanied by a heady mixture of punk, pop and New-Romanticism with a healthy splash of Donna Summer's I Feel Love for good measure.

Ealing Gay Group and Andy's first gay sexual encounter was quickly followed by Andy's first band, formed after Jill spotted an advertisement in a music shop window.

Getting Started: Dinger, Danny and Debenhams

The Void, as they were known, did no gigs and very quickly split. Bass player Pierre Cope and Andy were left, forming a short-lived duo known initially as Brume and then Dinger, the name being changed to take advantage of Mr Bell's surname. While Andy's later pairing with Vince Clarke may seem strange, this initial pairing was just as peculiar, if not more so. Pierre came from what Andy describes as "a rough sailor's home in Dover" and had some difficulty overcoming feelings of homophobia. Andy, meanwhile, moved into a bed-sit with his first proper boyfriend, a Greek chap called Danny. And while all this was going on Dinger made several demo tapes and eventually cut their first single, a minimalist synth-pop 7" called Air Of Mystery, coupled with Donna Summer-inspired b-side I Love To Love You. Despite pressing a thousand singles after Pierre met producer Pete Gage on a train and persuaded him to donate a little after-hours studio time, Dinger never managed a record deal.

Danny and Andy split up in due course, which was followed by a brief period of homelessness for Andy. After meeting Jonathan, to whom Andy attributes his true gay education, Andy took on bar work and a part-time job at Debenhams while Dinger continued to make music. It's during this period that Andy recalls following Vince's career. Avidly, he recalls, and usually follows this in interviews by mentioning the time he spotted Vince playing Space Invaders in a studio. Another favoured anecdote is the day his flat-mate Andy offered encouragement whilst they listened to Alison Moyet's first album, Alf: Next year, this is going to be you. "He was always a bit psychic," recalls Andy.

Erasure: A Compressed Chronology

By now, Andy was 21. Vince had already formed Depeche Mode with David Gahan, Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher, and after the first album left the band in Gore's capable hands. Yazoo quickly followed, hastily renamed Yaz for the American market, after Vince advertised for a 'rootsy blues singer', a request designed to complement his entirely synthesized backing tracks. Alison Moyet turned up, and an amazingly successful collaboration followed. And, since it worked once, when Yazoo split Vince once again advertised for an appropriate singer.

Andy was the 41st candidate Vince had auditioned, and while there's clearly some sort of rosy tint at work here, both Andy and Vince recall that they clicked almost instantly. Creative juices flowed, and Erasure crackled out a sparky set of tracks on their first album, Wonderland. Success was slow to follow, but a tough regime of touring and promotion followed, and Erasure hit the big time with their track Sometimes, taken from their second album, The Circus.

Whatever you might think of Erasure's music, it was a dream career move for Andy, a collaboration that has so far produced more than twenty million sales, twenty-five singles in the Top 20 and five number one albums. Erasure's career is chock-full of glitter, scattered about with entirely gay abandon: Abba tributes, disco classics, unnecessary costume changes and sex with a capital X. Songbird was released in 2005, following an album of cover versions including Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill, and neither Andy nor Vince are short of ideas for the future. And with success, of course, comes financial security, leaving Andy settled down with a partner and, apparently, happy and content.

Solo Career

Vince, of course, has a long history of side-projects, and fans of Erasure know that Andy's made many a comment in interviews about a solo album. Details have always been vague: will it be an album of Country and Western tracks, or a set of Andy's favourite sixties tunes? Disco cover versions or original acoustic songs? To be honest, every time Andy mentioned it there was something different about it, until one reached the conclusion it was all pie in the sky.

And then, in 2005, Electric Blue appeared, with a suitably shiny Andy Bell on the cover and an accompanying single, Crazy. The album is the result of work with DJs from Manhattan Clique and features collaborations with Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters and Claudia Brücken from Propaganda and Act. Sound-wise, it's standard electronic pop, not too dissimilar to Erasure, but clearly lacking the Vince Clarke twiddly bits.

Homosexuality

Of course, it would be foolish to confine Andy's achievements to his music career. Erasure right from their first album (featuring the song Pistol: "we've got boys down at the station") were out and out gay. Not convinced? Then try Hideaway from the second album: "One day the boy decided, to let them know the way he felt inside." - Andy Bell was out and proud, and Vince was just as proud to be a part of it. And so Erasure, as so many other bands did, made waves when it came to sexuality. Margaret Thatcher's administration in the UK was, for whatever reason, an intensely homophobic time. The government were keen on family values, and Section 28 produced hate campaigns and misinformation on an immense scale. AIDS was a source of much confusion and fear for the average person in the UK, and the tabloids and, indeed, many members of the general public took every opportunity to vilify and discredit homosexuals. (Even now, for example, the urban myth about semen and stomach pumps is attached to Andy's name, an honour he shares with Marc Almond.)

Andy Bell, as part of Erasure, was only one of a significant number of openly gay pop front-men at this time. Andy, Jimmy Somerville, Boy George and their like were revered and reviled at the same time, and it's more than one confused teenager who took comfort from seeing that the world didn't have to be that way. The impact of popular music on politics is small but significant, and well understood by politicians (take the Rock The Vote campaign, for example), so it's pleasing to see music provide a means for social change as well as listening pleasure.

"I can't take credit for all of that because it doesn't mean what it did anymore. It mattered to me then, and you think it's going to matter for life. But then things start happening, the age of consent comes down, gay people getting married, all that stuff that you fought for. In general, we're in a much better place."

HIV

Andy's contributions in this field continue, however. In December of 2004 Andy revealed himself to be HIV-positive. First diagnosed in 1988 following a bout of pneumonia, Andy is undergoing combination therapy and is keen for the world to know. It's an educational thing, he says, and his decision to be honest is one designed to promote honesty and increase awareness. The press release was close enough to the release of Nightbird for many to be cynical, and in interviews Andy isn't always as sincere or sensible as it may seem: "Who knows where we got it? The number of blow jobs I've given in club toilets!" Nevertheless, there has to be some benefit to being open and honest about it all.

"Being HIV-positive does not mean that you have AIDS. My life expectancy should be the same as anyone else's, so there is no need to panic. There is still so much hysteria and ignorance surrounding HIV and AIDS. Let's just get on with life."

A Brief Discography

Dinger

1985 Air Of Mystery / I Love To Love You (7" Single)

Erasure

1986 Wonderland
1987 The Circus
1987 The Two Ring Circus
1988 The Innocents
1989 Wild!
1991 Chorus
1992 Pop!
1994 I Say I Say I Say
1995 Erasure
1997 Cowboy
2000 Loveboat
2003 Other People's Songs
2003 Hits!
2005 Nightbird
2007 Light At The End Of The World

Andy Bell

2005 Electric Blue

Freescape

"When the Freescape idea was conceived several programmers approached turned down the opportunity to be involved, saying it couldn't be done."

(Ian Andrew, Incentive Software)

In the time before dedicated 3D graphics cards, true 3D games were a rarity. Many people will fondly remember Wolfenstein 3D, the first truly popular game which (like its contemporary, Ultima Underworld) featured a texture-mapped, three-dimensional environment. Prior to this, back in the days of the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and even the 16-bit machines, a more common approach was to fake 3D, either through isometric projection or careful layering of pre-drawn graphics. There were some genuine 3D games, of course: Elite, with its simplistic vector graphics, and The Sentinel, whose filled vector polygons were a step up on Elite. Even so, upon its inital outing as part of the game Driller, the Freescape system was rightly considered to be an astounding achievement.

This was late 1987. Incentive Software had spent some time developing a way of rendering a three-dimensional environment and allowing a player to move through and interact with it. It was slow - each screen took a second or so to draw - but you could understand why: these graphics were amazing! Accurately shaded polygons with proper perspective, not just isometric approximations. Perfect! Well, as perfect as a Spectrum's graphics got - you wouldn't give it a second glance nowadays, but back then to see that kind of thing on your screen was a rare treat. True 3D graphics, which could be moved through and viewed from any angle, all rendered in this perfect perspective: it was stunning.

Due to the intense calculations and the consequent framerate of less than one per second, the Freescape engine was suited more to adventure games than shoot-em-ups, though this was perfectly familiar territory for a company who was responsible for the Graphic Adventure Creator. Driller, the first freescape game, its box proudly boasting 'Solid 3D!', was released for Speccy and PC, with a plot based around a mysterious moon. Chock-full of problems and puzzles, it became intensely popular, and led to a release of Dark Side on the same platforms.

By this time the commercial success of Freescape was becoming apparent and the system was ported to the Commodore 64, allowing Total Eclipse, replete with ancient Egyptian feel, to be released for three platforms in 1988. Although now aging somewhat, the Freescape engine produced a couple more games of a similar ilk: both Castle Master and Total Eclipse took the gameplay to a higher, more polished level and also saw a release for the Commodore Amiga. The final outing for Freescape, opened out to all and sundry as the 3D Construction Kit, allowed you to inflict your own levels upon unsuspecting friends and, ostensibly, produce another Freescape masterpiece in your own living room.

Hydra

The Hydra, from Greek mythology was, like the Nemean lion, one of the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. Possessing the body of a serpent and a multitude of heads, the Hydra lived in the swamps near to the ancient city of Lerna. As so often happens in myths, the actual details of the Hydra vary; in some accounts it is possessed of a hundred heads, being similar in this respect to its father. In other accounts, the Hydra possesses as few as five. There is, however, a general acceptance that the Hydra, before encountering Heracles, was equipped with nine heads. Advantageously, one of these heads was immortal, and the remaining eight would quickly regrow if severed. Indeed, some versions of the myth specify that the severed stump would regrow two extra heads.

As if this weren't enough, the Hydra's breath was deadly poison in itself, and could quickly do away with most attackers, not to mention its prey. The Hydra would emerge from the swamp and gorge itself on herds of cattle, along with any local townspeople who happened to be in the way.

It is no surprise, then, that more than a few people wanted the Hydra dead and gone. Enter Heracles, sometimes known as Hercules, particularly by Disney and the like. Appollodorus tells us that Heracles was instructed to slay the Lernaian Hydra as his second labour. Driven by Iolaos, his nephew, Heracles travelled to Lerna and sought out the hiding place of the Hydra. Drawing the monster out with flaming spears, Heracles quickly came up against the problem of the regenerating heads. Striking each head with his club produced only more heads, and the Hydra quickly wrapped her coils around Heracles' foot. Things weren't looking good for Heracles, particularly when (in a rather bizarre addition to the story) a giant crab turns up to assist the Hydra.

Crushing the crab, Heracles calls upon Iolaos to make torches and sear the Hydra's regenerating heads, thus keeping them from growing. This strategy worked well, it seems, for Heracles was eventually able to crush and remove the final immortal head, which he chose to bury beneath a large boulder. Never one to waste good venom, we are told that he dips his arrows into the poison for later use.

Amuse Bouche

Amuse Bouche, on occasion known as amuse gueule, are delicious little delicacies served in many good quality restaurants to tantalise and whet our palates in anticipation of the meal to come. Indeed, the very phrase amuse bouche translates as mouth amusement, a little treat to excite the tastebuds; a taste experience crammed into just one mouthful. Once a relatively unknown feature of French culinary tradition, amuse bouche have now become increasingly common, the modern equivalent of the once-popular hors d'oeuvres.

Sometimes an espresso cup of soup, a single scoop of savoury sorbet, a mere spoonful of dressed salad (perhaps actually served on a spoon) or a single, bite-sized tart, the attraction of the amuse bouche has to be its sheer decadence. Rarely, at home, would one devote the time to produce food in such tiny servings, all for a half-minute of heaven before the main course. Eating out, however, and the situation sees a sharp change: if someone else is prepared to stand around and do it for you, and serve it cooked to perfection at just the right time, a bite of Blue Cheese Foam with Port Wine Reduction seems like just the thing to pass the time before the starters arrive.

However, one shouldn't give the impression that the amuse bouche has to be complicated. Rick Tramonto's book Amuse-Bouche: Little Bites That Delight Before The Meal Begins features page after page of these miniature treats, many of which incorporate no more than four or five ingredients. The simplicity of Creamy Corn Grits with Butternut Squash and Sweetcorn sits happily alongside Charred Lamb With Truffled Vinaigrette and Oven-dried Tomatoes, both just begging you to put in the time and effort.

For an even simpler start, straighten shrimp on bamboo skewers; two per person is adequate. Marinade in soy sauce and ginger for at least half an hour. Remove from the marinade, dip into sesame seeds and briefly grill just prior to serving. Provide a small bowl of chilli dipping sauce.

Your mouth, and any dinner guests, will thank you for it...

Hip Roof

The hip roof is an extremely common type of roof which slopes down to meet the walls on all four sides of a building. Essentially, it's a roof with sloped, rather than vertical, ends. Clearly, for this to occur each pair of adjacent sides must meet. These intersections are known as hips, and are covered by special hip shingles.

The size of the flat roof is defined by the primary hip truss, which is set back from the walls by a specified distance, often a distance of seven feet. This primary hip truss forms an elongated letter A. From the upper corners of this primary truss to the edge of the roof a downward-sloping shape is formed from hip rafters. These unbroken members intersect the 90 degree corners of the building, forming two sections of 45 degrees.

Having defined the basic structure of a hip roof, we are now in a position to understand the function of the hip jack. At some point our roof must meet the edges of the building - the rafter plate. Simply put, any part of the roof frame which travels from the hip to the rafter plate is known as a hip jack. At the wall end these rafters are cut perpendicular to the wall, and meet with the hip itself with a 45 degree cut.

For comparison, the hip jack's counterpart, the valley jack, connects the roof ridge to the valley rafter in a similar fashion while the cripple jack, on the other hand, is placed between valley and hip - essential for joining up those awkward non-rectangular roofs.