If we want people to vote we need to modernise the process

There’s been a lot in the media this week about the poor voting turnout at UK elections and an initiative to try and enthuse the under 25s to register to be able to vote after it was revealed a significant proportion of them have not. Meanwhile there are those who point to the fact that people once risked their lives here to get the vote and in some countries this is still happening. So the argument goes that we should make voting compulsory with a fine for those who don’t bother. Other theories suggest it is public disenchantment with politicians- especially after the expenses scandal- that had contributed to voter apathy. While all of this has merit surely the real issue that is preventing a higher turnout is the antiquated method by which we exercise our democracy?

Exciting isn't it?

The Musketeers - Sleight of Hand, Commodities

Sundays @9pm on BBC1 and on the iPlayer
`Sleight of Hand` written by Adrian Hodges / directed by Toby Haynes
`Commodities` written by Susie Conklin / directed by Saul Metzstein

 Of course any series can charge in with a great opening episode but the real test comes in the second and third weeks. Can The Musketeers maintain momentum like Ripper Street or will it take a Merlin like saunter down all sort of less dramatic lanes?  Thankfully the answer is the former; in fact it shares with the BBC’s unfairly cancelled (but possibly revived) Victorian series a glorious sense of melodrama and dark visual tones, Nobody is claiming it is period accurate or even faithful to Alexander Dumas’ book but it takes the key elements and gives them a modern sheen. Most of all it is hugely enjoyable. Some series- even those we like- do have episodes that are, frankly, a chore to get through but The Musketeers is so well constructed that this does not seem to be the case, at least not yet. In fact each of the opening trio seem a lot shorter than their hour running time.

She soon regretted going to Sainsbury's on a Saturday.

Top of the Pops 79 - 18.1.79

BBC4: Top of the Pops 1979 18/1/79
Watched by Chris Arnsby

Peter Powell. "Hi! It's Top of the Tops! And also the chart run down! Here is Shalamar!"
Chart music: Shalamar: Take That To The Bank [30]

Olympic Runners: Sir Dancealot [53]. Sir Dancealot is a song forgotten by history. None of the usual lyrics websites contain the words to this song. Via the cunning ruse of turning on the subtitles I can exclusively reveal that this song is about a man known as Sir Dancealot (not to be confused with Sir Oinks-a-lot the pig mascot of Springfield A&M from The Simpsons) and we should watch him dance because he's giving it all he's got. The tambourine player looks distractingly like Gil Gerard from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Anne Murray: Lay Your Love On Me [28]. "Here's Anne Murray at 28," says Peter Powell. Apparently he means 1928 judging by the state of this faded and murky promo film which looks like a hand-tinted telerecording of The Quatermass Experiment. That's not Anne Murray. It's Reginald Tate defending Westminster Abbey from an alien life form.

In her later career Anne Murray recorded more serious songs.

Inside Llewyn Davis

In cinemas now
written & directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Set in the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961 Inside Llewyn Davis shows us an unlucky and fruitless week in the life of a singer whose refusal to compromise his ideals in exchange for commercial opportunities has seemingly condemned him to an endless ritual of playing his morbid songs to the same crowd each week at the small Gaslight Club. In between he crashes on people’s sofas and usually ends up annoying them forcing him to move on. There are several routes you imagine the narrative to take and pleasingly it opens out into something like a road movie albeit one that offers no real reward for its protagonist, unlike the viewer who comes away richer.

Inside Llewyn Davies: One reviewer has described every shot as looking like an album cover.

Top of the Pops 79 - 11.01.79

BBC4: Top of the Pops 1979 11/1/79
Watched by Chris Arnsby

Kid Jensen. "What ever your music taste you should find it covered tonight on this week's edition of Top of the Pops!"
Chart music: Chaka Khan: I’m Every Woman [14]

Rocky Sharpe & The Replays: Rama Lama Ding Dong [24]. Uh-oh, its Proustian Rush time. Suddenly I'm 7 again*. There's the colour television in the corner which blanked out right at the start of an edition of Emu's Broadcasting Company, damn you striking power workers, there's the gas fire, and behind me is the sideboard on top of which is the long-necked china cat I knocked over and broke while playing (luckily Dad fixed it with some glue). What I don't get is why Rocky Sharpe & The Replays should be the people to provoke such a flood of memories. A quick internet check leaves me pretty certain Rocky Sharpe & The Replays never played this song on Swap Shop, or Cheggers Plays Pop (both essential sources of top pop for any fashion conscious 7 year old). In fact, not to spoil upcoming editions but Rocky Sharpe & The Replays never even played Rama Lama Ding Dong on Top of the Pops again. I must have watched this edition of Top of the Pops, and I'm just left wondering what made Rocky Sharpe & The Replays so memorable. Their sub-Darts clowning is acceptable and the song is catchy but frankly I'm baffled. The only explanation I can come up with is that I thought "Rama Lama, Rama Lama Ding Dong" was an unlikely name for a girl. 

Rocky Sharpe & the Replays spot their fan.

12 Years a Slave

At cinemas now
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael Fassbender
Directed by Steve McQueen

There is no doubt that 12 Years a Slave is a harrowing film that even with our knowledge of acting and effects makes for uncomfortable viewing. It must have been harder to act it but I suppose the rigours that some of the cast had to go through is nothing compared to what the slaves in the story endure. Based on true events the film is set in the mid -1800s where free family man Solomon Northup is tricked into accompanying two supposed entertainers to Washington where he is promised earnings way in excess of the norm for his violin skills. However the men get him drunk and sell him to a slaver. Solomon wakes the following morning in a bare brick walled cell chained to the floor. Thus begins a dozen years of mistreatment and abuse as he is hauled around several owners. 

Plaything of Sutekh Issue 3

Issue 3 of the Doctor Who fanzine Plaything of Sutekh is now available.

Don't Shoot - He's British! - Matt Kilburn looks at the cultural influences on the Doctor's identity.
Matt Finish - John Connors looks at 2013's new episodes and Matt Smith's final episodes
Messiah! - Greg Bartlem looks at the changing depiction of the Doctor in the post-2005 series
Seasonal Gear Changes - Jez Strickley spots similarities between Terror of the Zygons and The Seeds of Doom.
Pat's Back - Were they worth the wait? A look at the two recently recovered Troughtons.
Secret Who - underrated stories Enlightenment and The Invisible Enemy
Plus  a new angle on stories recently released on DVD The Tenth Planet and The Mind of Evil and more

40 A5 pages, fully illustrated with colour covers

To order, please send a Paypal payment (via paypal.co.uk or paypal.com to playthingofsutekh@mail.com

Please add your address in the notes section. You can also pay by cheque - please drop us an email for the payee details. Price £2.40 - please add postage below.

Plaything of Sutekh is a non-profit publication.

Plus postage:-

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Mr Selfridge versus The Musketeers!

ITV / BBC Sundays @ 9pm from 19/01/14
The Sunday evening drama clash of swords and silk ends in victory for D’Artangian and co but both shows shine.

Imagine! Here come the Musketeers fearlessly striding down the streets, swords at the ready and round the other corner is Mr Selfridge who has nothing but his shouting, beard and millinery to fight with. Yet hold on; he’s actually had Agnes build a false wall into which the Musketeers walk, causing them to fall over whereupon the store’s staff charge armed with tape measures. Only they don’t know that the Musketeers actually carry muskets (is that where the moniker comes from?) and they mow down the enormous hat wearing army. It’s a tempting thought to imagine the loudest entrepreneur of the early 1900s doing battle with the 1600’s finest swordsmen but these two shows are clashing in an old fashioned scheduling way. Nowadays of course we can watch both but which would you choose if you could only have one? 

"Come on Musketeers, we can beat you easy!"

 

"You can't dance like Take That though can you Harry?"