Gavin Scott |
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Gavin Scott

04 Apr

The Beatles Revolutionary Year

I’ve just read Beatles ’66, The Revolutionary Year, a terrific book by Steve Turner about what changed the Beatles between December 1965 and December 1966 as they made the leap from Rubber Soul (1965) via Revolver (1966) to the extraordinary achievements of Sergeant Pepper in 1967. On Rubber Soul, Turner points out, 13 of the 14 songs were about love: but on Revolver, 9 of the 14 were about other things entirely, starting, of course, with Taxman. And then came Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields … Most of the book is...

10:18 / Blog Post / Pop Culture
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08 Mar

18th Century Movie Mogul

This amazing drawing by an eighteenth century French artist called Edme Bouchardon reveals a woman who was clearly going around Paris in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth showing movies. She’s winding a barrel organ and carrying a portable projector on her back - and presumably a portable screen in the box. Here’s one of the actual projectors from that era she might be using, and another with the slides inserted. #AgeofOlympus @TitanBooks And we are talking about movies: if you slid the glass plate back and forward it did look...

10:26 / Blog Post / Film & TV / Pop Culture
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21 Feb

The New Duncan Forrester

I'm pleased to announce that in two months' time Titan Books will be publishing the sequel to last year's Duncan Forrester novel, The Age of Treachery. This one is called The Age of Olympus and it's set in Greece in 1946. Forrester has gone back there to retrieve the mysterious Minoan stele he came across in a cave in the Gorge of Acharius during the war, and finds himself in the run-up to the Greek civil war. A famous poet is murdered, a heroic general is implicated, and Forrester and Countess Sophie...

16:57 / Blog Post / Books
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03 Nov

Entertaining Miss Sloane

I've just finished an exhilarating Q & A for BAFTA with the writer, director, producers and stars of the excellent political thriller Miss Sloan, at the AMC Century City in Los Angeles. My director hero John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) gave the movie a cracking pace and Jessica Chastain and Gugu Mbatha-Raw lit up the screen as a couple of stop-at-nothing Washington lobbyists....

21:21 / Blog Post
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09 May

The Dangers of Metaluna

During my visit to San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy bookstore this weekend to promote The Age of Treachery I unwisely bought a model of Metaluna, the monster from the great 1950's sci fi movie This Island Earth.  When I brought him home, however, while my back was turned he not only attacked a San Francisco cable car, but did grievous bodily harm to some of the most beloved characters from fantasy and science fiction.  What would have happened to these two poor oblivious kids from Autopia if I had not intervened, I dread to...

16:57 / Blog Post / Books / Pop Culture
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08 May

Mysterious Galaxy Event

Just had enormous fun with fellow authors helping celebrate the birthday of San Diego's excellent crime, mystery, sci fi and fantasy bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy and being interviewed by Joe Hogan for his podcasts on Geekitude.com ...

21:17 / Blog Post / Books
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27 Apr

Another Victory in the Battle for the Great Airport Park

Great news! Justice Aviation, the flight school that was fighting Santa Monica tooth and nail to keep its lead-fuelled planes flying over our houses from Santa Monica Airport has just agreed to get out! Bravo to our councillors and city staff Rick Cole and Nelson Hernandez for standing up for our safety. Now let's get rid of the wretched private jets and get on with building our Great Park. ...

10:24 / Blog Post / Santa Monica Airport
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25 Apr

More insights into 1946 from David Kynaston (Austerity Britain)

“Britain in 1945. A land of orderly cues, hat doffing men walking on the outside, seats given up to the elderly, no swearing in front of women and children, censored books, censored films, censored place, infinite repression of desires. Divorce for most an unthinkable social disgrace, marriage too often a lifetime sentence …  Marriage is seldom companionable, with husbands and wives living in separate, self-contained spheres, the husband often not telling the wife how much she earned … Children in the street to act off by strangers, children in the...

08:30 / Blog Post
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