Welcome to the 24th May 2025! It’s raining here in the hills of West Yorkshire, but our outlook is sunny. We’re 112 episodes deep into our now five and a half year journey into podcasting and, despite still running into persistent technical goofs with technology, microphones and set-ups, we’re still having a bloody good time. That’s a major bonus, as time remains the enemy when it comes to getting more episodes out the door and I’m getting even worse at reading in bed (three pages and I’m snoring is generally the pattern these days).
Covering Slade’s banger of a movie last time out was a treat and, having talked about Hawk the Slayer recently and covering the films of The Final Programme and The Land That Time Forgot before that, we will probably do a bit more in that direction. Provided of course they have a good novelisation to go along with them, and that they have some kind of resonance that goes beyond, “Yeah, good film that.” It will have to be something that fits into that bracket much like Moorcock. Films that made our brains tick.
On films, I mentioned Privilege on the Slade in Flame episode, but I think I said it was a Pete Walker film. It was in fact Pete Watkins’s first feature film, the guy who had previously directed docudramas Culloden and The War Game for the BBC and would go on to make the incredible Punishment Park in 1971. If you haven’t seen that, seek it out. It’s a beast of a film that is more resonant now than ever.
I suspect my slip was Freudian, because I’m a big Pete Walker mark. Inseminoid has lived rent free in my head since Dad rented it on Betamax in the early 80s and it beat Alien into my psyche by a couple of years at least. It was also responsible for my Stephanie Beacham awakening. As it happens, Inseminoid has a novelisation. Published by NEL. And it’s fucking terrible. And it’s the most one-shit bookiest one-shit book you could hope to find. So maybe we’ll do it at some point. One for the Halloween poll perhaps…?
[Editor’s note* – thanks Ben for pointing out that Norman J Warren directed Inseminoid, I blame the Anchor Bay coffin box sets for mashing them all up in my head.]
*there is no editor, just me
Other candidates that are bound to feature on the ‘maybe’ list (and that have novelisations that might be obtainable without selling a kidney) and that I and/or some of our regular co-hosts have a passion for:
Zardoz
The Keep
The Wild Geese
Krull
Who Dares Wins
Performance
Rollerball (although I did talk Rollerball quite a bit with Andy Nette on one of our older episodes so maybe that’s already covered)
OK, some of these are actually film adaptations of existing novels, but whatever. WE MAKE THE RULES.
Anyway, this is something for the future. In the meantime we have more Moorcock on the way with The Sundered Worlds, the conclusions of The Runestaff, The King of the Swords and Phoenix in Obsidian and some other bits n bobs like the New Worlds collections that I’ve been picking up over the last few years.
I’m also feeling the pull to talk about some more Moorcock RPG action, like the two Hawkmoon games that we’ve had over the years (the English language ones anyway, much as I’d love to read the French one it’s beyond my capabilities) and the Darcsyde Corum supplement for Elric!
We’ll see.
Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking with us on our voyage. More thoughts soon via a new Weetabix File.
Breakfast in the Ruins Podcast 