Clutching At Straws - Incommunicado
 Introduction:
From an unnamed article in No1 Magazine
written by Debbie Voller on 30 May 1987, sent
to me by Kristie English:
Fish: "This
is a necessary diversion from 'Russians' and it's a sort of macho-gung-ho
approach! Torch really wants to be famous but he doesn't want the
responsibilities that go with fame. 'Incommunicado' is another word for
'pissed'!"
Dr. Peter Niedermueller said:
"'Incommunicado' is a Spanish word. It has no
direct correspondence in English (and in German either). Fish's translation
"pissed" is quite a bad metaphor. Mostly "incommunicado" means the status of
prisoners not being allowed to communicate with the outer world. But in a
more verbal sense it can also refer to somebody (as Torch) not being able or
not willing to communicate with people."
(I think what Fish meant was that he was using the word as a
euphemism for being pissed, in the same way that we sometimes say 'Tired and
Emotional' as a euphemism for the same thing - Ed)
'handprints in the concrete on Sunset
boulevard'
trevorw@ms.kallback.com said:
"Speaking of Los Angeles and lyrics, did you
know there are no 'handprints on Sunset Blvd'? They are in front of
the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard."
'Legoland'
Legoland being the theme park in Denmark, dedicated to the best toy a
child could have. Lego is a plastic building block toy. It now has gone
advanced with lights and sounds, but when I were a lad, you just
built your train and pushed it yourself... Lego had an interesting policy:
they never made any green blocks to try and discourage people from building
war machines. Naturally, you got used to red tanks after a while. There are
now several Legolands, including one in the UK.
'Fleet Street Afficiaonados'
Fleet Street would be interpreted as the home for the British print
media. In reality, even back in 1987, a large part of the press had moved
out to places like Wapping where they could house both editorial and
printing sides of the operation under one roof. Afficiaonados is a rather
appalling pun on Fish's name, and is referring to the paparazzi brigades of
rags such as the Sun and Mirror.
Dr. Peter Niedermueller added:
"'Afficinado' is also Spanish. 'Afficinados'
are fans of bull fights. But an 'afficinado' is much more than a mere fan,
bull fight is the only thing he believes in. Quite a long passage on 'afficinados'
can be found in Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Is Also Rising'."
'Tussauds'
Madame Taussard's. Brewers:
"The widely known London exhibition on wax
models of prominent as well as notorious people established by Marie Tussard
in 1802. She was born in Berne in 1760 and was taught the art of Wax
modelling at Paris and in due course gave lessons to Louis XVI's sister
Elizabeth. After a short imprisonment during the French Revolution, she came
to London to practice her art. She died in 1850."
'Marquee'
Cp. Cinderella Search
'Peter Pan'
Compton's Interactive Encyclopaedia says: "James
M. Barrie's best-known play, 'Peter Pan', was first presented in 1904. It is
the story of a boy who refuses to grow up and creates his own world of
Indians, pirates, and fairies. It was adapted as a play with music (1950),
and as a musical comedy (1954, revived in 1979) that was also performed on
television. 'Peter Pan' was also made into a silent film (1924) and a
feature-length animated cartoon (1952). Barrie retold the play in narrative
form as 'Peter and Wendy' (1911). Because he wanted his creation to benefit
youngsters as much as possible, Barrie donated his rights to 'Peter Pan' to
a London children's hospital." (Great Ormond
Street Hospital -Ed.)
'Taking the point... patrol fraternity'
To 'take the point' was an expression used by soldiers. I've not
encountered the phrase used before Vietnam, but I'm sure it must be older
than that. It was a nasty position to take in a patrol. The point man would
go several metres ahead of the patrol and check the path for danger. Usually
the one to tread on a mine, fall down a punji pit, shot by a sniper or
napalmed by his own side. To 'take the point 'means to feel out where other
will follow.
'Synchronicity'
Pear's Cyclopaedia: "An attempt by the
Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung to explain the apparently significant
relationship between certain events in the physical universe which seem to
have no causal link. This rather involved concept is easily understood if
one realises that almost all scientific and philosophical beliefs are based
on a principle known as 'causality'. We can express this in another way by
saying that an object moves because it has been pushed or pulled by another.
We see because light strikes the retina and signals pass up the nervous
system to the brain. A stone falls to the ground because the earth's gravity
is pulling it towards its' centre etc. For all practical purposes, every
event can be looked upon as being 'caused' by some other prior event and
this is obviously one of the most important principles of the operation of
the universe.
"Jung, however, felt that there is a
sufficiently large body of evidence to suggest that events may be linked in
a significant (i.e. non chance) way without there being any true causal
relationship between them. The classic example he held to be the supposed
predictive power of astrology by which there appears to be a relationship
between the stellar constellations and the personality and life patterns of
people on earth. Jung was scientist enough to realise that there could be no
causal relationship between the aspect of the stars and the lives of people
billions of years from them, yet felt that the evidence for astrology was
sufficiently strong to demand an alternative, non-causal explanation.
"The trouble with synchronicity, which
has not made much of an impression on the world of physics or psychology, is
that it is not really an explanation at all, merely a convenient word to
describe some puzzling coincidences. The real question, of course, is
whether there really are events occurring which are significantly but not
causally linked, and most scientist today would probably hold that there are
not. Still, it was typical of the bold and imaginative Jung to tackle
head-on one of the principle mysteries of existence and come up with a
hypothesis to attempt to meet it."
'Deja Vu'
The sense that one has experienced an event before and is
recollecting it in the same instant as the instance is actually taking
place. Many scientists believe that Deja Vu (literally French; 'already
seen') is an incredibly fast feedback loop where information is somehow
stored and retrieved far more quickly than usual. Others disagree, pointing
out that they have specific knowledge of when they first became aware of the
'Deja Vu' information. It should be pointed out that this is strictly
precognition.
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