Subscribe to Gonzo Weekly http://eepurl.com/r-VTD Subscribe to Gonzo Daily http://eepurl.com/OvPez Gonzo Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/287744711294595/ Gonzo Weekly on Twitter https://twitter.com/gonzoweekly Gonzo Multimedia (UK) http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/ Gonzo Multimedia (USA) http://www.gonzomultimedia.com/ Gonzo Daily Blog https://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/ LEST WE FORGET John Brodie Good Dave McMann Mick Farren 3 same sort of age or older than I am will know only too well that memory is far more fallible than it ever used to be) will remember that in my editorial of the last issue I went into a long, convoluted explanaon about how the last issue might probably be late (it was) because my lovely wife was on holiday. I implied at the end of this, that it was a one off and the next issue would see a return to normality. Well, a lack of punctuality is the new normal, I’m afraid, because Corinna is scheduled to go into hospital on Thursday for another operaon on her kidney. This in itself is nothing to be worried about, but Dear friends, I think that if I were to leap on her the moment she comes out of hospital, Welcome to another fun packed and jolly expecng her to do the proofreading and issue of the increasingly badly named the links within a few minutes of her Gonzo Weekly. geng home from being under the knife would be beyond the bounds of But before we go on any further, I would unreasonable. So, I strongly suspect that like to just retract something I said in the you will be reading this on the Sunday, last issue. Those of you with long rather than the Friday, but only me will memories (however, those of you of the 4 Well, a lack of punctuality is the new normal, I’m afraid, because Corinna is scheduled to go into hospital on Thursday for another operaon on her kidney. tell. Dolile? Now, before we get on to the main subject Well, at least he was white! of my editorial this me, I want to warn Well, I only have a few minutes here. I can those of a certain sensibility that I am hear the sirens of a squad of police cars going to open my main diatribe with a making their way down the ny country sentence that – if it were misunderstood – lanes to the village in which my household would probably get me arrested for a hate and I live (in a small house with a big crime. It is because I have had a cold this garden, just like Loing’s original), and I week and have been feeling generally guess I have to explain before they arrive. sorry for myself, and so, as I oen do The original books by Hugh Loing were whilst feeling sorry for myself, I take set in a small village in Gloucestershire refuge in films made for a family audience. during the reign of King William IV. Dr And, so, this me, I decided to check out Dolile was described as being short, the new movie, Dolile. plump, but very strong, and the pictures – I first discovered Hugh Loing’s which were drawn by the author himself – eponymous hero well over half a century show a short, plump, white man with a ago, and I have read his books so many slightly receding hairline and a big nose. mes that I cannot even begin to hazard a I would have no problem at all if somebody guess how many. wrote a film set in contemporary New And so, here we come to the potenal York, featuring a wise-cracking black hate crime arrest. What did I think of doctor from San Francisco, who can talk to 5 animals. Yes, I would probably watch it. late teens who gets kissed on the cheek by But I am red of people making movies some posh toy, and – oh yes – the doctor “based” upon books that I have known is married to a famous explorer who and loved, which turn out to have disappeared some me before events praccally no resemblence to the original portrayed in the film, which are vaguely source material. based on Loing’s 1922 book, The Voyages of Dr Dolile. So when I said that I am pleased that the new Dr Dolile is white, I am not showing One of the reasons that I am connually myself up as an insipid neo-Nazi, but as annoyed about the cavalier way in which someone who had hoped very much that these books have been treated is the the new film wouldn’t be as much of a extraordinary circumstances under which travesty as the ones that came before. they were wrien. Hell, even the 1967 film with Rex Harrison Hugh Loing served in the Irish Guards which actually bore more resemblance to regiment of the Brish Army during the the original books than any of the others, First World War. His children were very introduced a love interest, a load of songs, upset by this and so he wrote to them and had the doctor as tall and handsome. regularly, but – not wishing to upset them And three of the films actually have the with descripons of the veritable hell that doctor as a woman. he was going through – he made up stories This new film bizarrely makes him Welsh, for them; stories about a short, fat, doctor, and physically nothing like the character in from a hundred years or so before the the fourteen books which were wrien by me when Loing and his companions Hugh Loing between 1920 and 1952. were slowly rong in mud-filled trenches in an ulmately completely pointless war. The new film features Queen Victoria, and Furthermore, a doctor who could talk to Tommy, the ten year old sidekick of the animals. good doctor, is now a young man in his 6 Every me I read any of his books, the skin. sheer love of a father for his children The language used in the original books shines forth, and to see the stories has needed to be adjusted slightly for bastardised as they have been upsets me. contemporary values, but that doesn’t Aer all, doesn’t any author deserve to maer. Times change, we must change have what purports to be a dramac with them. But it is a great pity that – to recreaon of their work at least slightly date – nobody has made a film based on faithful to the original? the original character with the original Aer all, if one looks at the original novel stories, which are head and shoulders from which the source material for this above anything that Hollywood has yet book was taken, it was far more inclusive produced in Loing’s name. than the film. Than any of the films, in But that’s not to say that all contemporary fact. Two of the strongest and most heroic adaptaons of classic children’s books are characters in the book are not Caucasian. necessarily bad. Whilst sll feeling sorry There is an African prince called Bumpo, for myself over the weekend, I also and a Nave American medicine man watched the 2016 of Arthur Ransome’s called Long Arrow. All the way through the 1930 children’s novel, Swallows and narrave, John Dolile makes it clear that Amazons. he considers these two men as his equals in every way, and in one parcularly I was very much prepared for this one to heroic secon, the three men – be a snker. Aer all, they had graed on Englishman, Nave American and West a John Buckenesque spy thriller subplot, African – fight together in an unstoppable involving one of the major characters in triumvirate against an invading and the book, Jim Turner. immensely strong army. And, I would like to point out, that the only racist Watching the film, one realises how much generalisaons made in the books are effort must have gone into it. It is full of jokes about Dr Dolile’s stature and pale what I believe – in the current vernacular – 7 8 are known as ‘Easter Eggs’; small details “Ransome was a Don Quixote with a which are aimed to be appreciated by walrus moustache, a senmentalist who people who are more aenve than the could always be relied upon to champion average fan. the underdog, and a visionary whose imaginaon had been fired by the The fact that Jim Turner is portrayed as an revoluon. He was on excellent terms with agent of Brish Intelligence is an amusing the Bolsheviks and frequently brought us reference that the author, Arthur informaon of the greatest value." Ransome, was just that. During the First World War, he was the foreign Another addion to the plot, which I correspondent in Russia for a Brish believe works very well indeed, concerns newspaper, which means that he was Turner once again, but also his family. The perfectly placed to cover the Russian tular “Amazons” are portrayed in the revoluons of 1917. What is less well- books as being local girls rather than the known is that he was a Bolshevik upper middle class “Swallows”, who are sympathiser, and became friends with summer visitors. However, every previous both Lenin and Trotsky, eventually adaptaon of these books has portrayed marrying Trotsky’s secretary. His them as equally upper middle class, and it paymasters in Brish Intelligence were so is implied that they, too, spend term mes worried by Ransome’s le wing leanings away at a boarding school.