Help me

Apologies for the rubbishy screen grab, but it perfectly illustrates my problem:

I've been searching high and low for a stash of 1950s Physique Pictorial/Athletic Model Guild images of wrestlers in action. You know the sort of thing -- where clad only in a thong they pretended to be killing each other since if they were actually embracing they would have been sent to prison for perversion and obscenity.

Anyone found a stash of decent-res images?

Poster mystery

Well, now, that's interesting: a new-ish poster for booze at London's Earl's Court underground station:

Stella Artois, a vaguely northern European lager, has chosen this rather odd image to illustrate its wares.

I was taken, of course, not by the glamour of (some of) the people, but by this delightful wee thing poking into the picture:

Those "shovel nose" diesel locomotives were built in the early 1950s in North America and, as far as I'm aware (but please do tell me if I'm wrong) this configuration and livery was used in Uruguay. Like this:

Even though these are in a rich green, originally (I think) they would have been in Uruguay's light blue livery, with the strong wasp stripes emphasising that huge shovel nose:

I confess that, despite having actually been to Uruguay, I have not seen any of their (sadly diminished) railway system, apart form some forlornly disused bits.

The idea of this kind of round-house round-up leaves me drooling:

Just on the left of that shot you can see an old Brill diesel-engined railcar of the sort developed for the very final stages of the US interurban networks -- the difference is that here they are still plying the rails:

These final two images (above and below) are tiny, but I couldn't resist them -- here a shovel nose locomotive is about to do what it was designed for, hauling a heavy express passenger engine:

I still have absolutely no idea why they have now appeared in London on posters advertising beer. Anyone?

Driven

I think it goes without saying that actor Ryan Gosling is babe-a-licious:

He also seems delightful -- as here when, on the red carpet for his latest film Drive, he suddenly launched into a heavy snog with director Nicolas Winding Refn:

Refn looked a little discombublated but not, it has to be said, entirely displeased:

Then again, apparently one of the fastest growing hash tags on Twatter is by straight men who are #GayForGosling.

Drive is an interesting film: with scenes of sickeningly vicious violence of the type that Refn is apparently trying to turn into a trade mark, the whole thing is gripping and engaging.

Ryan is, of course, utterly wonderful (despite not even removing his top), but look out for the undersung actor Albert Brooks as a terrifyingly amiable Mob boss.

Kindle? More like Swindle

More evidence, as if any were needed, of the wretched deal offered to British consumers. The Amazon Kindle (not a product I have any interest in purchasing) has been relaunched with assorted new versions.

The new Kindle light will be sold in the US at $79 (or roughly £50.50).

The new Kindle light will be sold in the UK at £89 (or roughly $139.20).

I am eagerly awaiting the Euro prices (which I expect to be pitched at roughly 1:1 with US dollar prices).

But I am genuinely mystified: why would this piece of crap apparently cost nearly double in the UK what it's being dumped for in the US? How is this evidence that there is anything like a free market? Or are Amazon just consumer gougers?

Flexible fun

A lovely present from a lovely reader, and you know how I love receiving presents!

Posting is a bit thin on the ground at the moment, for which apologies. I seem actually to have a bit of a life. Sorry.

Frasier

I loved Frasier. Adored it. And here is a simple piece of business that shows much of what I love (to get the most out of it, you have to know that Frasier's brother Niles (for it is him) faints whenever he sees his own blood, and he is very wary of Eddie the dog):



Possibly the funniest thing ever.

God, I miss Niles. And Frasier too, of course.

Two ring Circus

We all assumed that 1979's BBC tv adaptation of John le Carre's novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, was definitive.

Starring Alec Guinness in what was probably his most exhilaratingly brilliant role, the series was immensely intelligent and utterly beautiful.

Now there's an upstart film challenging for the title of Most Brilliant Ever adaptation, and this time it has improbably cast Gary Oldman as the retired spy-master (and wildly inappropriately named) George Smiley:

Oldman isn't bad. He manages to keep all those actorly fireworks in reasonable check, but the sad fact is that he's no Alec Guinness.

And nor, alas, is Colin Firth shown to be in the same league as the late, great Ian Richardson:

They are just not up to the job but there are worse things: Kathy Burke's portrayal of Connie Sachs is disastrous. Her supposedly plummy (Oxbridge blue stocking) accent sounds like a bad parody of Helena Bonham-Carter. She isn't anywhere near the same league as the late, great Beryl Reid, whose dipsomaniac (and possibly lesbian) Connie Sachs was a tour de force:

And John Hurt, despite his considerable wattage, is not Control; that role will forever be held by under-rated character actor Alexander Knox, an extraordinary physical presence of decay and imminent death, whose final frantic -- and ultimately doomed -- efforts to find the traitor within are the only thing keeping him going.

So much for the negatives, the new film has a lot going for it: Tom Hardy's Ricki Tarr is much more credible than Hywel Bennett's rather cerebral spy (despite a line in the mini-series, it is impossible to conceive of Hywel Bennett ever doing the football pools). Hardy is helped in his interpretation by his rather gloriously thuggish presence:

Smiley's bodyguard Mendel, a retired Special Branch Superintendent, was brilliantly played in the mini-series by George Sewell, a portrayal far beyond the reach of Roger Lloyd-Pack; but Benedict Cumberbatch brings a rich new perspective to Smiley's sidekick Peter Guillam.

Cumberbatch, who is fast becoming one of the strongest actors of his generation, gives us a Peter Guillam who is a closet homosexual (not the very straight action-ish man of the mini-series - I can't remember what le Carre made him) who dumps his live-in boyfriend when Smiley instructs him to tidy up any loose ends in his private life: his character is both ruthless and wretched, wracked by grief, one double life inside another.

Verdict? If you've never seen the mini-series you'll love the film. And even if you have, there is much to enjoy here.

Completely random

This is possibly my scrappiest post ever, consisting of two images which are related and a third which is utterly unconnected. Let's start with the pair, the first of which is, itself, a pair...

I love this trick, now played by many photographers, of having a dressed/undressed model in the same position, side-by-aide, though I don't really approve of the headlessness -- the whole point for me is to enable us to see the extraordinarily powerful influence that clothes have on our reaction to portraits, which is trickier when the head isn't there. Though this model has a very lovely body so I do forgive them all.

Same model in the next shot, but this time it's an "x-ray" image where a clothed shot is superimposed on a naked shot, to excellent effect:

See? Interesting but in a very different way to the clothed/unclothed image, despite using exactly the same elements. How fascinating is that?

On a completely different topic, here's a photo of the late, great James Dean:

This Sex God/stud puppy would, today, be nowhere near "fit" enough to be a sex symbol (just look at the natural curves of his stomach flesh). How tragic is that? A society so artificial that we could no longer lust after a contemporary James Dean...

Fannying around

There's an intimacy about most of the images in this post, which at least in part derives from the strange angles and the close cropping.

It's one of the reasons I like both of those techniques.

This next one introduces noir-ish lighting effects, to heighten the sense of intimacy.

Enough of all that photographic theory twaddle: let's go back to an old-fashioned, naked God walking from the sea:

And, on a related theme, this next one has a sort of Pan-ish playfulness about it:

While I'm being playful let's end it here, with my favourite pornographer in rather uncharacteristically jolly mood:

That has to be one of my most eclectic selections ever, doesn't it?

Government bastards. Again.

Intriguing. Elements in the Department for Education have been caught out trying to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act by using personal email accounts to conduct their government business. They then argue that the information need not be disclosed since it's not on government systems.

This is Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education.

No, honestly, he really is.

Fascinating. Their commitment to openness and honesty, to transparency and good government is pretty much at the level I would have expected from these devious, cheating, lying, power-crazed fuckers.

Michael is Big Boss of the Department where people seem

to be trying to the evade Freedom of Information Act

Interestingly, an adviser actually employed by the Department for Education (remember that -- education) wrote to all his new colleagues that he would no longer be looking at his official email account and, instead:
"I will only answer things that come from gmail accounts from people who I know who they are".

Er... sic.

Michael seems to be as camp as a boy scout convention

So this ill-educated pillock (the adviser, not Gove) is now advising the government on, er, education policy.

And we are paying his wages while he tries to keep his devious dealings secret from us.

Breathtaking.

Smite and blow

I've recently discovered the work of this photographer:

I love the simplicity of what he does -- a simple background, more often than not just a naked man but, occasionally, a very simple prop (like that lovely chair back).

His men are carefully chosen, too: all normal and unmanicured (in a good way).

He sometimes treats us to a strange angle, too, which I find particularly engaging:

Let's end with a trio of loveliness:

I've no idea who this model is, but I love his long, extended body, the manly gentleness of it:

My photographer appears only to have released a single nude of him, but it's a goody and a perfect place to bring this post to a climax:

Magnificent. Even down to the watch-strap, the sole piece of manly dressing in the image. Utterly delightful. I am smitten.

Misfire

You were scheduled to get a review of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and a comparison with the original glorious tv mini-series but, due to my lovely friend D. booking tickets at the wrong cinema, the three of us ended up eating cake instead.

And you get that delightful image by way of compensation. For some reason I had it in my head that it was called "Three Friends" (thus making it entirely appropriate), but it is, in fact, "Into the Woods". Delightful. I only know of this one image, alas.

Such a waste

A trip to the new Westfield development in Stratford, east London, one of the biggest, brand-new retail developments anywhere.

It has to be one of the ugliest, most soul-destroying places on earth.

That, above, is the view from Stratford "International" DLR station -- could they have made it more depressing if they'd tried?

While this is the soulless concourse of Stratford "International" railway station -- from which not a single international train runs:

Here's the outside of the DLR station, an ergonomic nonsense and a design disaster:

And here's a vista of the 1960s, Brutalist, Soviet-style "architecture" that we apparently think is the best face to put to the world in the 2012 Olympics -- these will be assorted athletes residences:

This is what counts as an architectural flourish at Westfield, the spiral multi-storey car-park ramp (complete with riot squad on stand-by):

Even when the sun comes out, these buildings don't look good...

The shopping centre itself is like something from Blade Runner, a veritable Hell-hole of pointless consumerism and vile Narcissism:

Having thoroughly depressed myself with this appalling development I set off for the real objective for this trip, a few stops further along the Central line: the 1950s bus station at Newbury Park:

Sitting alongside and parallel to the Underground station (though a stupid ticket barrier layout means you can't now interchange directly from one to the other), this remarkable building is all the more surprising for being in somewhere like Newbury Park:

On a grey, bleak, rainy day like today, it stood out as an obvious place of shelter, a beacon of hope in the miserable surroundings:

Unlike Stratford, Newbury Park feels like a properly designed place where care and attention has been lavished on the details (whether that's the plinth supporting the Underground roundel or the light fittings):

Such a sharp contrast with Stratford, where nothing seemed to be designed in any meaningful sense of that word.