The day started well with an excellent episode of WandaVision, made all the more enjoyable for a quick peek at online reaction from fandom, seemingly upset that things aren’t being spoon fed to them.
Current reading
Lunch followed, and I settled in to read my book, but was promptly overwhelmed by an urge to nap. This was nothing to do with the book, which is enjoyable. I’ve quipped here previously about the urge to hibernate, and some days that feels very real.
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Just as I was writing this, our Prime minister and his advisers gave a news conference. 1401 more people have died. To put this in context, in Australia there have been 909 deaths attributed to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. Also, they made the suggestion that the Covid-19 lineage first discovered in Kent might lead to marginally increased mortality. This news was first leaked to the Sun, which makes a change from leaking it to Robert Peston, I suppose. There is no hard evidence that there is an increased mortality, just a possibility at the upper end of the confidence level, so I guess they only announced it because it would inevitably leak (or in case they’re accused of suppressing it when the inevitable public enquiry comes along.
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Back in the day, I was a big fan of Babylon 5. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did get into it I was hooked. To the best of my recollection it was shown here late at night on channel 4, and often I had to set the VCR and hope I’d recorded it. Later, I bought the DVDs which I still have. Even now, thirty years later, I can watch it and enjoy it, though it would be nice if there was ever a proper restoration for Blu-Ray (there won’t be though).
Anyway, there was a hardcore of characters who were constant throughout it’s five seasons, one of whom was Delenn, initially introduced as the Minbari ambassador but assuming a more significant role as the series progressed.
Delenn was played by Mira Furlan, who died last night. RIP
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Music: the theme and incidental music for Babylon 5 was by Chris Frank, who oldies like me will have likely first encountered when he joined Tangerine Dream in 1970. The early Tangerine Dream albums, which are my favourites, were highly experimental and influential, and, in my view, heavily influenced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Largely because of their championing by John Peel, they became unlikely stars for a while, their washes of sound appealing to an audience who either got what they were trying to do or found them an accompaniment to getting stoned in bedsits and student digs up and down the country.
Their sound changed, and after the fabulous Phaedra, they released Rubycon, which is the last of their albums I normally play, usually at as high a volume as I can get away with. Rubycon consolidates their approach with this line up of the band (Froese, Baumann, Franke). On both of parts 1 and 2: they start with washes of sound, not a million miles away from Delia Derbyshire’s music, then sequencers kick in and melodies and textures are developed, all based around the ever-shifting sequencer patterns. Part 2, with its evocation of WW2 bombing raids, remains unsettling.
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