| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.19.230 |
You can look through them here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCTollO0xG8 Other videos of his include his screen tests for the role of John Horridge. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.133 |
What were we saying about non-cosy horror? | ||
| Pete_a (Pete_a) Username: Pete_a Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 75.85.10.161 |
Hilarious, Ramsey! I love his little whistle-a-happy-tune bits between the "going pear-shaped" and "bit of a hairy moment" cliches. Haven't risked clicking on his other videos yet, but look forward to his Horridge audition. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Try his blog sometime, Pete! Or if you're feeling brave, there's always his 'Hardcore' blog (I kid you not.) | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Christ on a bike (as it were.) http://tinyurl.com/3da465a Even by his standards, a new level of simultaneously hilarious and terrifying insanity has been reached here... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.211 |
I'm not sure I understand the image on the pamphlet. Do I assume the chap is gay and the lady at his back has strapped on Steely Dan? | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
I believe it's a still from 'Braveheart', Ramsey. (Presumably he pictures himself as William Wallace?) Although I like your explanation better...  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.38 |
Yes, this is scary and sad, and the parallel with John Horridge is uncomfortably close. After decades of books on human sexuality that were driven by various academic and cultural agendas, the Kinsey Report blew away most of our culture's received wisdom by simply reporting, in neutral detail, the diversity and range of human sexual behaviours. One of its most important conclusions is that only a minority of people are exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. It also presented a wealth of evidence regarding the diversity of heterosexual behaviours. Carvath's health arguments are both narrow and distorted – the phrase 'tunnel vision' springs to mind. It's a matter of fact that the prevalence of sodomy (or anal sex) among homosexual men is considerably lower than is popularly believed, and varies between cultures (the Americans are relatively keen on it, the French less so). The AIDS epidemic has significantly affected the readiness of homosexual men to 'go all the way'. A crucial issue for global control of AIDS is the widespread practice of unprotected sodomy between men and women. Better sexual education could have saved millions of lives. So could the Catholic Church reaching its current position – that barrier methods are acceptable for disease prevention – three decades ago. Mr Carvath is, of course, quite right that the back passage is not designed by nature for sexual intercourse. However, he seems to have forgotten that it also is not designed by nature for speaking out of. But beyond this dismal spectacle of hysterical panic, a wider point is worth making: what is 'natural' for people is to be different from each other in many ways. The attempt to define a human norm from which all deviations are pathologies has some medical value (e.g. a normal range of blood pressure or kidney function), but its application in social, psychological and moral contexts is always problematic and often serves destructive purposes. Democracy means pluralism. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Don't get him started on Kinsey- apparently 'Kinsey’s work has since been proven to be fraudulent and has been discredited as seriously biased and grossly misleading.' (Translation: it doesn't fit in with what RC wants to think/has been told is the truth by the voices in his head.) | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.204.183 |
"Mr Carvath is, of course, quite right that the back passage is not designed by nature for sexual intercourse. However, he seems to have forgotten that it also is not designed by nature for speaking out of."  "But beyond this dismal spectacle of hysterical panic, a wider point is worth making: what is 'natural' for people is to be different from each other in many ways. The attempt to define a human norm from which all deviations are pathologies has some medical value (e.g. a normal range of blood pressure or kidney function), but its application in social, psychological and moral contexts is always problematic and often serves destructive purposes. Democracy means pluralism." Well said, Joel! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.211 |
(Translation: it doesn't fit in with what RC wants to think/has been told is the truth by the voices in his head.) By gum, the blighter's pinched my initials! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
Is this for real? It's like something Monty Python used to write to wind folk up. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
If it is real, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so pernicious. "It’s time to save Scotland from the perverts!" is the funniest thing I've read all week. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.211 |
It's real, Gary, believe me. And here's a like mind (I quoted a less restrained election leaflet of his in the Centipede Press afterword to The Face That Must Die): http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/3639/ And here he is on patrol. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1466044/Gay-dean-is-installed-to-praise-n ot-protest.html | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.211 |
Interestingly, Braid keeps changing the name of the party he represents, and sometimes his own too: http://by_elections.blogspot.com/2005/06/david-braid.html | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
"It’s time to save Scotland from the perverts!" That's why I was exiled to the south coast. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
It's the constant references to 'botty-holes' that tip it screaming over the edge of absurdity... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I wonder how he'd feel if we changed every instance of "heterosexual" in the piece, to "vadge-pokers"? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.150.142.134 |
Does anyone else read that and think "CLOSET!" | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
Certainly something beginning with C. | ||
| Pete_a (Pete_a) Username: Pete_a Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 75.85.10.161 |
Interesting that he seems to think sodomy and oral/genital contact are exclusive to gay people. What a very dull fellow he must be in the sack. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
Interesting that he assumes "normal" sex to - decreed by nature, no less! - involve procreation. So presumably, if you have two kids and are "normal", you've only ever had "normal" sex twice. What an utter fuckwit. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
He must be one of the anglicans that lives across the road from the Yorkshire catholics in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. I'd post the link but I'm at work so I can't access youtube | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
... but I do wonder, if he weren't so fuckwitty about it, such an asshole, would - or should - we be so offended? Someone might try to convert me to their religion, but do it in a very kind and well-meaning way. They might just naturally think I'm going to Hell, because I'm not of X religion. I don't hate those people - I can even sympathize with them, and understand how they would certainly believe that. I can respectfully say no thank you, and both sides can exist in peace - one that believes I'm bound for the pit of darkness, and one who thinks the other's sadly misguided, but both treating others with mutual respect. But are there some realms that we say are outside this way of dealing with things? To even misguidedly believe or entertain the notion that homosexuals are on the "wrong path," or "just haven't understood heterosexuality enough," or what have you - does that on its very basis mean all respect, manners, decency, in the debate and interaction, are necessarily gone? Better: Can one be friends with someone who believes the other is "on the road to Hell" for any number of reasons? Sexuality, alcohol and drug-abuse, religion, womanizing, political points-of-view, liking THE MIST....? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
If someone gives you a look of sorrowful sympathy and gently hints that they know you are HIV positive (when you are gay and are not HIV positive), implying that you have their understanding and support in facing the inevitable consequences of your lifestyle, you really can't get angry. Just run far, far away and weep for the vandalism done by dogma to the human spirit. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
More generally it depends on what in particular your friend's views are, how they are expressed, how they respond to being challenged, and so on. It might be a turning point that causes you to question their general outlook. Or it might be something that can be worked through, or worked around. These things are dynamic, they aren't usually a single complete decision. People can stop being friends over political disagreements, but usually there is an attempt to negotiate the issue, and it's only if that negotiation is a negative experience that trust breaks down. But when it comes to music taste, there can be no compromise. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.127.208 |
But when it comes to music taste, there can be no compromise. In a nutshell! | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.131.61.19 |
I can be friends with someone I disagree with on certain topics but if our beliefs were polarised as far as "You're bound for hell" and "You're a nutter - there is no hell" I can't imagine we'd have enough in common to be friends in the first place.  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.30.124 |
Unless by 'hell' they mean 'Facebook'. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
I have a few friends at university who seem to function as proselytising agents. I often have the impression that this is a front for personal unhappiness. The militant stance is, I think, a defensive posture against too much exposure. I remain tolerant. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Perhaps "Hell" is too extreme, too abstract, and too uncertain (since most Christians do tend to believe God alone can make that ultimate decision). Like Joel implies, it might be the difference between disapproval, and disdainment. I could be friends with people who don't approve of me, perhaps, but it would be difficult to be friends who actively look down on me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.38.33 |
Good to see that, on the advice of the medical profession, the Government is finally lifting the ban on gay and bisexual men in the UK giving blood. They will now place 'men who have sex with men' (an awkward phrase but it gets around issues of 'identity') in the same risk category as sex workers and men who have sex with them. That means they can give blood if they have had no 'risk' activity in the previous 12 months. While that doesn't really do justice to men who practise safe sex with men, it's a major step forward. We need to work towards better screening and consultation procedures for all blood donors. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
True, Joel- which, as you can imagine, given his steadfast refusal to allow little things like facts to get in the way of his crack-addled, arse-brained prejudices, has sent Richard Carcrash into fresh paroxysms. At least I've been inspired to start re-reading The Face That Must Die. The John Horridge resemblance is remarkable, although in Carcrash's case I think there's a bit of Jack Orchard thrown in (the tendency towards grotesque comedy, rather than any of that character's more sympathetic traits.) | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.24.220 |
And he doesn't like turquoise either... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRKQK1N4Z-E | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Who is this tit? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.180.123.7 |
Someone who doesn't realise it's possible to buy left handed guitars. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
He just keeps getting better (i.e. worse) http://tinyurl.com/75bnht6 Love the bit about the police, social workers, mental health workers and probation officers deliberately lying... He's touchy about the whole mental health issue. Wonder why? And then there's this... http://tinyurl.com/6q88ct9 The choice of hyperlinks in the post are hilarious, but- be warned- DECIDEDLY NSFW. (Worth pointing out, btw, that the lady he's talking about described herself as an 'adult film star' rather than 'film star'. Sadly, he no longer publishes comments on his blog. Funny that. And yes, to hear him calling somebody (or indeed anybody) else 'sadly deluded' is something of a jaw-dropper. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.29.187 |
Well, maybe Mossad will hire him. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Ramsey, I think you should use this character for a truly comic horror novel. One that is scary as fuck and genuinely hilarious, at the same time, in a way you came so close to achieving with 'The Count Of Eleven'. Instead of trying to get inside the protagonist's mind you could maybe present him as a broad caricature - that people would feel comfortable laughing at - and only in the epilogue reveal that he was based on scarier than fiction (or satire) reality. It could work! | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
He's basically John Horridge crossed with Alan Partridge. Sort of the Keystone Bigot. And then there's this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_70-4cfouw | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.147.142.153 |
Ewww... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Do you think he realises what a natural comedy performer he is and plays up to it? I reckon so. Wonder what he thinks of the Irish? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.17.230 |
Well, Stevie, I did invent John Horridge... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I'm glad to hear it, Ramsey! I'm always made to wonder, when reading convincing character portraits of psychopaths, if the author had some individual, or composite of characteristics, they had personal experience of in mind. Was there a model for Horridge? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.17.230 |
Alas, to some extent my mother. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I know exactly what you mean, Ramsey. The words of Philip Larkin spring to mind. Yet, for all his insane leaps of "logic", there are moments of clarity for the character that made me want to reach out to him, metaphorically speaking, and pray that he would find redemption. Remember the time when he confronts the "political activist"? This was a man trapped within his own delusions and yet convinced that what he was doing was for the betterment of his fellows. Not all psychopaths are as painfully human as poor John Horridge. Nor all psychotic fools... as the idiot above amply demonstrates. By coincidence (that word again) I just read the first few chapters of Derek Raymond's 'Dead Man Upright' (1993) at lunchtime and, believe me, what the psychopath portrayed there was put through by his mother, and did to his mother, is unrepeatable. Raymond is miscategorised as a crime writer, imo. All five of the Factory Series novels are amongst the purest and most frightening, yet (like your own, Ramsey) oddly beautiful and transcendent, psychological horror novels it has been my "pleasure" to experience. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.10.56 |
Stevie, that's what we should expect from crime fiction. And what we can expect from a dozen or so of its greats... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Know where you're coming from, Joel, but I do think there are specific works that deal with specific subject matter in a frighteningly head-on way which straddle perfectly the fence between horror and crime. It may be interesting to compare the five “crime” novels I have read by Ramsey (a horror writer) to date with the five “horror” novels of Raymond’s (a crime writer) Factory Series: 1. ‘The Face That Must Die’ (1979) 2. ‘The Count Of Eleven’ (1991) 3. ‘The One Safe Place’ (1995) 4. ‘The Last Voice They Hear’ (1998) 5. ‘Silent Children’ (2000) 1. ‘He Died With His Eyes Open’ (1984) 2. ‘The Devil’s Home On Leave’ (1985) 3. ‘How The Dead Live’ (1986) 4. ‘I Was Dora Suarez’ (1990) 5. ‘Dead Man Upright’ (1993) All ten books deal with particularly gruesome murders perpetrated, in frequently gut-churning physical detail, against recognisable ordinary people in everyday surroundings, for the most part, by exactingly convincing psychopathic individuals whose deepest mental processes are delved into fearlessly and uncomfortably throughout. We share their drives, their memories, their fears, their aspirations, their nightmares and their every sordid action in ways that become cumulatively unsettling to an extent that unquestionably lies under the remit of horror literature. Even those books that don’t deal specifically with psychopathic serial killers still utilise all the trappings of horror fiction for their disturbing effect. ‘The One Safe Place’ has one of the scariest families I’ve encountered since ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and the fact that they are Manchester chavs only makes them all the more terrifying. ‘He Died With His Eyes Open’ is a nightmarish tale of abandoned hope and invited torture and death in a sado-masochistic ménage à trios that outdoes anything in The Pan Books Of Horror Stories. And ‘How The Dead Live’ is pure gothic horror with its decaying mansion in the country inhabited by a mad old scientist who conducts gruesome experiments in the basement while his wife haunts the shadows, her face permanently veiled. As for the rest… when these two guys set their minds to creating psychopathic monsters, like; Hector Woollie, Henry Cross, John Horridge or the self-mutilating axe wielder in IWDS [shudder], then it’s time to head for the hills! Other great crime writers – Chandler, Hammett, Highsmith, Thompson, etc – wrote of evil individuals and terrible crimes (not always murder) but they didn’t write horror fiction. I contend that in the Factory Series of crime novels Derek Raymond achieved the same level of stark unrelenting psychological terror that Ramsey Campbell manages when he turns his hand to the form. As such I’d rank Raymond equally worthy of consideration as one of the greatest horror writers of them all. 8 chapters in and ‘Dead Man Upright’ is scaring me rigid. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.29.207 |
Well, thanks indeed, Stevie! The Fancy family in The One Safe Place drew quite a bit on families of pupils Jenny taught at school. I would contend Jim Thompson wrote horror, though (as, in a different way, did John Franklin Bardin). Savage Night? The coda of The Getaway (too extreme for even Peckinpah to film)? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Only speaking the truth, Ramsey. I said on here when I read 'The Getaway' a couple of years ago that the ending was as nightmarish a portrayal of arriving at a hell on earth as I have experienced in literature. It makes one look back over the entire novel as one long descent down the old Highway to Hell. Not so much a getaway as rushing headlong into oblivion... I'd agree that 'The Killer Inside Me' is another perfect balancing of crime and horror literature, with good old boy, Lou Ford, easily matching any of the psychopaths mentioned above. The fact that he represents the Law in his town only makes him all the more believably scary, imo. Haven't read 'Savage Night' but I do have it in one of the Thompson Omnibus volumes. Can feel myself heading for another chrono read with 'Nothing More Than Murder' (1949) next in line. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Hadn't heard of John Franklin Bardin before, Ramsey, and those three novels of his from the 40s sound fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation. That's another one for the list. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Poor Jenny! I had an uncle who had to give up teaching in an inner city secondary school in Birmingham after a nervous breakdown brought on by people just like the Fancy family.  He later ended up teaching in a nice little country school somewhere near Durham, so all's well that ends well. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.9.232.89 |
Except for the person who replaced him in Birmingham, perhaps? | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Oh good grief and sweet baby Jesus: http://tinyurl.com/7fq8yeb | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 213.106.77.123 |
He's back, and this time he's actually hit the big time... if you can call it that... with his comments on the Tony Nicklinson business. http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/8/22/does-this-set-a-record-for-smu g-nastiness#.UDe_ZqBzKwc | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.206 |
Making allowances for Carvath's trademark lack of any finesse or sensitivity, I think in this case he's steering quite close to the wind of the anti-euthanasia lobby. In particular, he's using that classic and misguided argument, the relativity of suffering. If someone who is terribly disabled can legitimately be helped to die, what about someone who is less disabled or is suffering rather less? Pain and loss are a continuum and nobody is unique. That's the core argument, and Carvath is not alone in making it. However, in this case and similar ones, it's quite presumptuous to assume that suffering is relative. For certain people under certain circumstances, it has become absolute. This is not a legal or philosophical problem for us all to debate, it's somebody's real experience. The irony is that the trauma of losing the court case probably killed Nicklinson, though his having started a hunger strike may have contributed. But he was denied the dignity of the mode of passing that he had chosen. I find the court's verdict hard to justify in terms of the realities of the case – the verdict seemed to be based on hypothetical cases, or at best on real cases other than that of the individual in the courtroom. I'm aware of a case in the past where a teenager going through a breakdown was restrained from suicide in hospital, and a lawyer tried to defend his 'right to die'. In that case I don't think the argument for euthanasia was justified: keeping the patient alive to undergo treatment was the more humane alternative. What we need to accept, however little it may satisfy our need for moral universals, is that different people have very different experiences and needs, and the questions they face cannot be answered by reference to some notional human standard. Instead of constructing a theoretical model of 'human nature' we need to deal with the specificity of human behaviours and experiences. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 213.106.77.123 |
Absolutely, Joel. What is right for you isn't necessarily right for me, and almost certainly won't be right for [INSERT RCMB MEMBER OF YOUR CHOICE*] Recognising other people's right to live their lives as they choose as long as they don't forcibly impose their values on others is the appropriate response. Sadly, the Carvaths of this world take a 'one size fits all approach' which they KNOW to be the truth whatever the evidence says. * And yes, I am aware how very wrong that sounds. |