A Collection of Writings
You know that feeling when you leave home without taking the precaution of ‘going’ before you go? You sit on the Underground while it stops and stutters in the tunnels and waits interminably at stations before closing the doors and getting on with what it’s supposed to do. Then you reach your destination, fight your way through the mob - and find that the Ladies has a big sign up saying "Closed for repair". Disaster!. That’s just how I felt when I woke up on November 3rd and found that George W Bush had taken over the world. So discouraged that I couldn’t even muster the necessary bile for a tirade at even the most innocuous level. The weeks have gone by and I’m still stunned but I am now beginning to feel the way the kidnapped are said to feel towards their kidnappers. Maybe Bush will recover a sense of proportion? Nah! Maybe he will realise that when you are the most powerful man in the world you ARE allowed to show restraint? I doubt it! Maybe he will stop making veiled threats about going to war against Iran and Syria, North Korea and - whoever else his finger stops on when he spins the globe of the world in the Oval Office? Not a chance. And I say this desperately hoping he will prove me wrong.
Blair was puffed up by the results in America. He thought it presaged an automatic return to Downing Street. Did look a bit that way for a while. In fact it looked impossible for him to lose. It seemed almost a waste of money to have a formal election. It seems that he was so cocksure that he felt he was untouchable. Mandy Mandelson was given a lucrative job in the EU, his Nero-esqe spin doctor was brought back into power to make sure that the directors of the BBC didn’t get ideas above their station, and he thought he was powerful enough to lend David Blunkett a belt when he was metaphorically caught with his trousers around his ankles. Then little trails of the farmers' friend hit the air conditioning. It didn’t matter how much Our Tone prefaced a declaration with ‘Look!’ to underline how honest he was, how much he beat his chest and said how wonderful the NHS is, there was always the awkward fact that it wasn’t. He also got in a very dodgy habit of waiting until the leader of the opposition, Michael Howard, said something and then, like a spoilt kid, jumped in with, ‘I said that first”. The best that can be hoped for is that the splintering of the vote in the next election will mean that he will have some sort of realistic opposition.
But who cares about that when we have Camilla and Charles? Forget, if you can, the way they acted towards an innocent girl. How they hung fire until their nominated youthful breeding machine had produced the ‘Heir and Spare’ and then coldly and calculatingly ditched her, making it impossible for her to continue in a marriage that was making her the laughing stock of the world. Just give us the facts, Mam - as they used to say on Dragnet. Charles is the head of the church. An adulterer! He is to marry an adulteress. If he does - or when he does I suppose I have to say now - he can no longer be the defender of the faith - or faiths for that matter. Do I want a King - do we want to pay for a King - who lies, cheats and lets his life be ruled by the fact that he didn’t get enough affection as a child but grew up into a rarefied form of Yobbo as bad as any you can find on a sink estate? And whose highest expectation in life is to be a Sanitary Towel?
Ingrid Pitt while filming Los Duendes de Andalucia
And talking of dumb animals....... Now that the Government has decided to use Draconian measures to destroy yet another part of English life and ban hunting with hounds, perhaps we should have a cast around for the next atrocity that is plaguing our way of life. But not war of course. The vested interest in weapon manufacturing and construction is too vast and powerful to go against. And war makes a much better headline for a shiftless leader who likes to refer to himself as a WAR PRESIDENT. My take on the hoary subject of hunting is relatively simple. Coursing where a hare is brought to an enclosed field and let lose so that dogs can tear it apart isn't my cup of tea I'm afraid. Of the four main activities which end up with an animal being dead, I, mas o menas approve. Well three of them anyway. The fourth I'm not so sure. You don't care? Hard luck I'm going to tell you how I feel anyway.
1) Fox hunting. A fox is a wild animal which kills anything it comes across. Not always to eat. I think in its place I would prefer to be given a sporting chance of living to run another day. Or die in an adrenalin rush. The alternatives are gassing in its hole or being shot, possibly only wounded and bleeding slowly to death in the bushes.
2) Stag Hunting: I know they merit a huge aaaah factor but the same applies to them. There is a further merit in the fact that when a deer is caught, the meat is eaten. And they die naturally. Unlike domestic cattle. I once knew a butcher who killed his own cattle. Every Sunday night a cow was taken into a shed at the back of his shop to await death on Monday morning. As soon as the animal was led into the shed it started shivering. All night it moaned. Moaned - not mooed. In the morning the butcher drove a spike through its nose., thread a rope around it and through a ring concreted into the floor, pulled on the rope until the poor animal's head was on the ground that then drove a spike through its brain. I'm not talking about a hundred years ago either.
3) Bullfighting: I lived in Spain for about 6 years and although I wasn't a regular bull-fighting aficionado I had my moments when I was going out with a Torero. It is a bloody sport and the crowd roaring approval doesn't exactly make you love them but think of it from the Bull's point of view. It leads a wonderfully free life until the moment it is driven into the arena. Then it is sent crazy by the Picadors and Bandilleros and wants nothing more than the feel of a horn tip piercing the dazzling traje de luce worn by the prancing tormentor in front of him. When he dies, he dies in the heat of battle. Light years away from the terrifying death of his distant cousin in the butcher's shop - or indeed in the abbatoirs of the world where the smell of death is all pervading.
Ingrid Pitt in Minotaur
Number 4 on my list I'm not so sure about. Fishing! Fishermen - I'm sorry - Fisher-persons, claim that fish have no feelings. So that's all right then. But of course it is utter tosh. Just think about it. Fancy sitting on the village green, a hunk of fillet mignon with a big hook buried in it, attached to a rope. When a sweet little puppy trots up and grabs the meat the hook drives into the roof of its mouth. You pull the puppy in, yank the hook from its mouth and throw it into a bucket of water where it drowns. Dramatic I know but it is the equivalent of what is happening on the river banks throughout the world. But where are the protest groups? Where are the officials dedicated to stopping animals being tortured? Keeping their nose out of it - that's where they are. Fishing is the biggest sport in this country - possibly the world. No politician is going to risk his career taking on a lobby like that. At least at the moment! Perhaps the Fisher-persons of England would have done themselves a bit of good if they had backed the Countryside Alliance more vociferously. Now that the do-gooders have virtually won the battle against hunting - fishing, and I suppose shooting, are ripe targets.
At least the wild-life has got it right. “Sod politics and the PC restrictions” the squirrels say as they take suicidal leaps across the tree-tops with the sole intention of ravishing a wanton female. The birds have a little more decorum but just as much fun as they flutter and preen in the bare branches and wait for some passing trade. What about the rats? Especially the ones which are only six feet away from you as you sit and gaze at your screen, They haven’t had it so good for years. Plenty of humping, food provided by the detritus spilling out from the fast-food industry and no cold winters to bring a deadly chill to their breeding lust.
I was able to forget about all these heavy matters while I slipped off to Luxembourg to do a cameo part in a film about the Minotaur. (Cameo Part means you’re really an extra but you get a good billing.) The story roughly follows the Greek legend. Theseus, commonly known to his mates as Theo, decides he is going to stop the iniquitous trade of white slaving said mates to the labyrinths of Athens and the Minotaur. He gets included in the next draft, borrows a skein of ribbon from Ariadne, a girl he met down by the docks, does the Minotaur in and marries the Grecian Squeeze. The bit I like about the Minotaur story is how the Minotaur was born with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. It seems that King Minos’s wife, Parsiphea, had a spell put on her. Her husband was supposed to sacrifice the Bull to the god of the Sea, Perseidon. But he didn’t and Parsiphea was made to fall in love with it. So madly in love with it that she had a replica cow made with a hole in a strategic place and hid inside it. The Big White Bull did what Big White Bulls do best and Parsiphea, as they say, conceived of a child - or maybe a calf - The Minotaur. That’s one for late night viewing - but has nothing to do with Minotaur the Movie. I play a Leprous Sibyl with a leaning towards Cassandraism and get my come-uppance in the first five minutes or so. Dispatched messily by Rutger Hauer - remember him in BLADERUNNER? But I do get to come back and do some ghostly business amongst the trees all through the film.
Ingrid Pitt and Rutger Hauer
Jesse Lilley, of Scarlet Street fame, now publishing Worldly Remains, has kindly offered to put me in contact with the world. To this end she had me burning the penny candle at the midnight hour. We had our first get-to-gether on Valentines night. It was well attended and quite a lot of fun. I particularly liked it when a portentous script came up every so often proclaiming that ‘Wossit has left the room’. Being of a rather low caste of mind I immediately imagined callers sloping off to the bog or putting the kettle on for a invigorating cup of Earl Grey. I found out later that it was just that their tenuous connection to the Yahoo! airwaves had broken down momentarily. But, as I said, it was good fun and I expect to be doing it again in the near future. If you want to find out more have a look at Yahoo! Groups. Ingrid Online.
Don’t forget Memorabilia at the NEC in Birmingham on 2-3 April. I will be tucked away in my usual corner on stand A6 and just dying to have someone drop by and say hello. In July, 22nd and 23rd, I will be at the Dracula Society Festival in Dublin to say a few words and flog some gear. Hope to see some of you there.