Face Fuzz

Racial stereotypes and highly flammable unnatural fibres. Blackpool, 2015.

(I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine

Works Outing

The Mounds and Circles team are off to Blackpool for our annual works outing. Last year we went to London and enjoyed ourselves so much we wanted another trip, so this time we're heading off in our charabanc to enjoy the great British seaside, ride donkeys and show off our sticks of rock.

We're not sure what we'll be getting up to yet but we're expecting a mash-up of Carry On at Your Convenience and a Situationist dérive, blending the lavatorial with the conceptual, from the bawdy to Debord.

Dolly's already grinning and wearing his Kiss Me Quick hat. And nothing else.

If all goes well we'll send you a postcard.

Circuit Benders

Reach Out

Dors On Men

Sexy Di's millions of readers were not disappointed with her far ranging and often merciless comments on the not so fair sex. She pulls no punches, especially when it comes to Nicholas Parsons, who gets almost as scathing a write up as Charles Manson.

Here are some extracts:

A is for AYATOLLAH (KHOMENI)

This has got to be the most sinister looking man ever! It's hard to imagine him as a baby (certainly one only a mother could love I'm sure) and even harder to imagine him as a young man fooling around with females. Perhaps he never did...Indeed I cannot imagine him doing anything that is in any way human, and if I had to name a man who gave me nightmares, the Ayatollah with his grim black, long beard, and beady eyes, would take precedence over every other man in history.

M is for CHARLES MANSON

This man should really go under D for Devil because if the devil ever appeared in human form it was in the form of Charles Manson.

Manson, through his cult following instigated the murder of actress Sharon Tate and is now serving nine life sentences for murder, but he has the audacity to apply for parole!

P is for NICHOLAS PARSONS

Honestly, straight up, I have never met a man or woman, who does not seem to find this man anything but a pompous, crashing bore.

Obviously from the smile on his school-masterly face, and probably from the size of his bank account (for he has been in show business THAT long) one way and another Nicholas is delighted with himself and considers he has oodles of talent.

I dare anyone to stare him right in the eyeball and tell him he hasn't.

T is for TYRANTS

I have never known of a tyrant yet who did not eventually wind up on his arse!

V is for VOYEURS

These sick men are almost as bad as 'gay' vicars, but at least the have the decency to keep their behaviour private, locked away in the closet or wherever they choose to hide the spy holes they use to watch others doing things they are incapable of themselves.  

PLEASE NOTE: THE VIEWS AND GRAMMAR REPRODUCED HERE BELONG TO THE LATE DIANA DORS. WE MAY COME BACK TO HER THOUGHTS ON JOSEPH GOEBBELS, BARRY MANILOW AND JIMMY SAVILE.

Sheer Shire

Absolutely no mention of Saucy Nancy from Worzel Gummidge, though. Very poor. 

Underground, Overground

This modest book seems like an apt object with which to bid a personal farewell to the Mounds & Circles project, in that a suitably tatty old paperback captures the central theme we have examined during the life of this blog: sex, or rather smut. I found it in a second-hand bookshop in Lyme Regis last summer, a last lingering residue of 20th century British seaside vulgarity.

This book, dragged up to look like some pseudo-psycho-sociological study (look, it's introduced by a real doctor!) was originally published in hardback but propbably didn't sell well so good old Panther picked up the rights and re-issued it in paperback (easy to slip into one's dirty mac) with a suitably salacious cover, (only) partly revealing a dominatrix and slave.

The book looks at various aspects of pornography from respectable jazz mags such as Penthouse and King, through pulp and underground magazines for more 'minority' interest groups, before finishing in a slightly bizarre twist with an examination of the sexual psychology of comic books. It's all entertainingly superficial with plenty of 'spreads' to enlighten readers with limited literacy.

British culture has a long and complicated relationship with matters sexual. Rarely approached openly, we prefer to so sidle up coyly or snigger from a distance. We can't take it seriously, or when we do and judges, politicians and the church get involved, disapproval and censorship are usually the result.

Hard pornography (filth) remains socially unacceptable (quite apart from arguments of moral and economic exploitation) and yet the need for titilation and amusement, coupled with the prurient attitude of the media, forced the British sexual desire to take on a not so subtle guise: smut.

What's the difference between filth and smut? One definition might be filth leaves nothing the imagination; all is laid bare in livid gynacological detail. Smut is more evasive, suggestive rather than graphic; soft porn, saucy postcards, Page 3, Carry On innuendo, tits and arse but no flaps or stiffies.

Filth stays behind the twitching curtain, under the counter, deep in the hard drive. Smut filters into the culture, enriching and undermining society for better or worse. M&C doesn't take a view on these things but we don't want it brushed under the carpet either. The mores of smut interest and entertain us and we hope you've enjoyed it too.

I hope this post sort of sums up Mounds and Circles, some of the things we like, and the cultural marginalia where the dank undergrowth festers in the shadow of the mainstream. Grotty old paperbacks, Penthouse Pets, pseudoscience, Tom of Finland, cross-dressing, the permissive society, BDSM, lesbian perversions, 1960s, The Avengers, guns, rubber, The Bash Street Kids, Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. Something for everyone.

Friday Night Film: La Donna Scimmia

‘The Ape Woman’ is the poignant story of Maria, a woman born with an excess of body hair who ends up working in a convent, far away from the stares and jibes of the general population. A travelling salesman spies her and realises that there is money to be made in exploiting her unique characteristics and, after marrying her (at the nuns insistence) sets her up in a jungle themed side show where she makes out that she is a primitive monkey woman from darkest Africa.

Ferreri usually cameos in his own films. He's the one with the chin strap beard.

Ow!

Showtime.

The happiest day of her life...

In fact, she is a sensitive, kind woman who is capable of enormous love and tenderness and, hairy or not, she’s very sexy. Her husband Antonio, however, is only interested in her commercial prospects and treats her appallingly, at one point trying to sell her virginity to a rich man with an interest in bestiality. When the increasingly disgruntled Maria goes on strike, Antonio is forced to be kinder to her and, at her insistence, they start a relationship that goes beyond a business partnership and marriage of convenience. Unfortunately, against Doctor’s orders, Maria becomes pregnant and she and her baby die in childbirth. Antonio is heartbroken and, when he finds out that her mummified remains are on display in a museum, he fights to get her body back – so he can exhibit it himself in a travelling sideshow.

Based on a real life story from the 19th century, ‘The Ape Woman’ is both funny and terribly sad, and the relationship between Maria and Antonio (Ugo Tognazzi) is beautifully and realistically drawn. Although there is no doubt that, eventually, Antonio comes to love Maria (and who can blame him, she’s gorgeous) he never diverts from his primary instinct – to make money out of her unique appearance – and, because Maria loves him more than she loves herself, she is prepared to do more or less anything to make him happy, including stripping and making chimp noises while dressed as a lady Tarzan.

Subtly directed, wonderfully acted, gorgeously black and white, ‘The Ape Woman’ is an unusual film with an unusual subject – perfect Friday night viewing

Twisting With Old Ned

You know how it is. Mounds & Circles would like to think that our theme music would be some cool, modal jazz - something hip and slightly impenetrable. The reality, of course, is something quite different: it would have to be 'Steptoe & Son' played as a twist number...

Spence of Humour

Culture Centre for Bahrain, 1976

Barbapapa's House, 1974

Design for City of Gold and Lead, 1947

Hutchesontown, Glasgow

Sea & Ships Pavilion, Festival of Britain, 1951

Basil's Space Age Bachelor Pad, Beaulieu

Crown of Thorns sculpture, Coventry Cathedral, 1961

Possible source of Basil's inspiration?