Back in the early 80s I was regularly intrigued by an ad I saw in the back pages of The Stage for a performer of some kind that had a B&W silhouette of a man’s head in profile with his name at the top and the strap line International Man of Mystery at the bottom. It was a tiny ad. About 3cm x 3cm, if I remember correctly. I assumed it was for a magician, but all it said was the guy’s name (which I’d soon forgotten), so the Mystery was genuinely a mystery to me and that amused me and intrigued me no end.

I was directing the Cambridge Footlights Revue in 1982 and found myself with the task of collating the casts' biogs for the programme notes, and one notoriously lazy performer hadn't delivered his to me, so it struck me that it would be funny to use that strap line to describe him. That one line became the entirety of his biog.

Another member of the cast was a chap called Neil Mullarkey, who later spent a while as part of a comedy double act with Mike Myers while Mike was living over here here and involved with impro at the Comedy Store. I met him a few times when we both worked on a children's TV show as writers. Neil carried on working with Mike, and after they split up and Mike went back to the US, Neil got cameo roles in Mike's films. During this time Neil and I lost touch completely.

When the Austin Powers movies came out using that line, I didn't make the connection to my use of it in the Footlights programme. But about a 15 years ago, I bumped into Neil at a BBC function of some kind, and Neil astonished me and the group of people with us by telling us all that I was responsible for the use of that term in the Austin Powers movies. Neil said he had always liked the phrase and had passed it on to Mike Myers. I told him that I hadn’t coined it, but that I'd got it from the back pages of The Stage, but at the time I still didn't remember the name of the man who was in fact the original Man of Mystery.

It was only more recently because of the internet, and idle curiosity, that I was able to look up the name of the performer who had placed that odd little advert. In fact he had been a massive TV star magician in an era before that ad went out, an era before even Paul Daniels.

David Berglas and his family must have wondered for years how it ended up as a movie strap line. I do hope they didn't mind, and at the time, neither Mike Myers nor Neil Mullarkey knew where it had come from.

Owen Jones’s Argument of Why He’s a Remainer Who Accepts the EU Referendum Result (Stripped of Rhetoric and Repetition)

JONES (edited for simplicity):

"Although the referendum was technically only advisory, the government, the Official Opposition and the official Remain campaign all made it clear that they would honour the result, so if the result is rejected, it could cause a backlash and loss of public faith in democracy, especially because one factor which drove the Leavers was their disillusionment with the political elites.
 
The argument that the referendum result was illegitimate because campaigns on both sides were full of lies doesn't hold water either, because election and referendum campaigns all over the world are often full of lies. 

One-off single issue referendums are unlike parliamentary elections, as these happen every few years to give us the chance to reject an elected government. That doesn’t mean that a referendum result is permanent, but we would have to convince enough of the electorate that another referendum is necessary before holding another one with the same question. 

Labour does not owe its unexpected success to support for the Remain cause. Labour held the same position on Brexit during the election as it does now. Attempting to reverse the referendum was clearly not a priority for Remainers, as they still voted Labour. Younger voters, who are predominantly Remainers, had the option of voting Lib Dem, who promised to hold a second referendum, yet hardly any did. Remaining must therefore not have been a priority for them, and at least Labour has pledged to guarantee EU citizens’ their existing rights. 

That’s why I think Labour should honour the referendum result. They are right to show leadership on the issue -  even though Labour MPs representing Remain constituencies had no choice but to defy the whip over Article 50. 

It’s bad for our country, but we have no choice but to honour the referendum result unless there is a decisive shift in public opinion, in which case we can think again. 

This is why I think the debate now has to be what Brexit we should have  -  rather than whether we should have Brexit at all."

Rambler's diary - just as evidence, just in case

At 2.02 pm on Monday December 7^th I was crossing a field with my dog on her lead on a South Easterly, roughly diagonal route on a public FP which has been ploughed up and overgrown with crops, on land owned by R. Hancy and Sons, when I saw a farm vehicle (a crop-spraying tractor, I think) coming down a track that leads south from the R. Hancy farmyard, heading towards the field I was crossing. I stopped and turned on the video recorder on my phone, as I have suffered abuse and intimidation in the past from members of the Hancy family for walking on Public FPs that cross their land, and wanted to keep a record in case I suffered the same intimidation again. By the time I had activated the recorder, however, the tractor had used its first opportunity to turn round at the point where the farm track reaches the field. It then headed back, stopped for a few seconds, then started again and reached the farmyard, where it stayed parked. I could see that the driver had got out. I felt it was possible that the driver had seen me and was returning to the farmyard to report it. 

A few years ago, I had been crossing the same field watched by Reginald Hancy from his car, which slowed down and stopped to observe me, and the next day, I found that all four of my cars tyres had been slashed in our driveway overnight. I therefore felt the need to record any activity that may show either that I had been observed or to record any intimidatory behaviour that might follow. I suspect the tyre slashing might have been done as a warning to me not to use that FP. I have no proof, however, that this crime was anything more than a coincidence, hence the need to keep recording moments such as these, to try and establish a definite pattern in the vandalism that had been done to my property.

By 02.09 pm I had crossed the field and headed South along the farm track (which is also a public FP) towards the SE corner of the field. While there I stopped to photograph a scarecrow which had been put up in the corner of the field. 

 

It seems that the scarecrow might be put there to deter not just crows. It has a Hi-Viz jacket, is holding a rough cut-out piece of wood attached to a rod, seemingly to look like a long-barrelled gun of some kind, and bizarrely is wearing night vision goggles.

 

Just as I had photographed the scarecrow, I saw a car leaving the farmyard and head south towards me. I left the field and continued a little way on the footpath, onto the property of an adjoining farm. I waited and filmed the car as the driver slowed down to look at me through a long gap in the boundary hedge as the car passed on, the driver, (a woman, I think) turned to look at me, and I could hear a dog barking inside the car. I walked a little further south along the path and saw that the car (a grey Volvo) had turned sharp right and was now heading west along the track that skirts the southern edge of the field I had just crossed. I filmed the car again, as it had stopped about 150 metres away and let the dog (a black Labrador) out and then driven on. It parked at a junction where another FP crosses the track, at the South Western corner of the field. There the driver got out and walked southwards with her dog along a footpath.

Knowing that if I had continued my walk and gone in a huge clockwise circle (as I normally do), I would in all likelihood have to meet this woman and her dog, I decided to double back and walk home the way I’d come.

I walked back across the field on the diagonal path (this time SE to NW), keeping an eye out to see if the car was still parked where I had last seen it. It stayed parked.

Keeping to the path, I headed West, then crossed an E-W ditch, and following the same path, headed North  on the FP in a straight line, with the R Hancy farmyard about 300 yards away to my right. It was from this path that I noticed that the grey Volvo had reached the southern approach to the farmyard, but had stopped just short of the farmyard itself. The driver had got out and appeared to be watching me. I waved.

As I was nearing the last third of the straight N-S path that leads eventually to Heath Road on the edge of Banham village, I saw that a 4x4 which I suspected at the time to be the one that belongs to R. Hancy, heading North, parallel to me, and also towards where his farm track meets Heath Road about half a mile to the East of where the path I was on meets it.

I saw the car turn right at the junction with Heath Road.

As I neared Heath Road, I could see the same car was parked on Heath Road, pointing in my direction, about ¼ of a mile away, from a spot outside the only house that is on Heath Road between me and the trackway to the R. Hancy farm. I crossed Heath Road then stopped to look at the car to identify it. It then drove quite slowly Westward along Heath Road towards me. I waited and started my video camera just in case the driver felt the urge to threaten me, but then it stopped again. I waited a little while, then continued to walk Northwards on the FP that leads behind some back gardens that adjoin a field.

I turned as I walked and saw that the car had started again, and so I turned on my camera and filmed Reginald Hancy as he drove past me in his Blue Nissan 4x4 at about 15 mph, staring at me through the open driver’s window.

All this is on record in case anything happens to us or our property in the coming days, to help eliminate coincidence.

My reply to the notion that Assange should submit to Swedish justice

Somehow I was unable to add my comment as a reply to this blog: http://pme200.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/assanges-balcony-speech.html

So here's my reply as my own blog:

You invoke the judicial process yet defy one of its main principles: in criticising Assange’s refusal to express remorse, you presume that he’s guilty until proved innocent; then you deliver an ad hominem attack, a ploy which only ever succeeds in discrediting the author's own argument. It’s like saying “He’s guilty because I don’t like him, and I don’t like him because he’s guilty”.

You and other Assange detractors follow the logic that only a guilty pervert would be afraid to face the Swedish justice system, and that people who want to see him escape to Ecuador are conspiracy theorist nutjobs so blinded by their political fanaticism that they think even rape can be brushed aside in deference to their cause. That makes Assange a rapist and his supporters into rape apologists. That should shut them up, right?

But if we consider the other possibility - that Assange is not guilty of rape, then, knowing this as a fact, it would be understandable for him to think that the attempt to extradite him to Sweden is no more than a witch hunt and that the rape allegations don't merit a mention except to acknowledge that a smear campaign is being conducted against him.

Wikileaks has exposed the US government’s contempt for due process, international justice, truth, human rights, the sovereignty of nation states and the right to life of its opponents. Assange has helped to expose mass murder. Isn’t it possible that those same mass-murderers are trying to determine his fate? Wikileaks has already proved what evil these people are capable of, and Assange should know more than anyone whether this is about a sexual assault or a government’s track record for perverting international justice.

I'm Free!