In 1968 I bought my first album and it was Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. I played this very loud, much to the annoyance of my brother who was an Elvis fan. The next year however I “discovered” the Beatles.

During my last term at Campion High School for Boys, the English Master challenged the class to bring some modern ‘Pop Music’ to school, and convince him it was worth listening to. After school had finished about 10 of us, plus the English teacher, went to an empty classroom with a record player. 

Each boy had brought along their favourite album and was allowed to play one track for the rest of us to listen to. I was clutching Pink Floyd under my arm, but the trendiest kid in our class had brought the Beatles White Album. He played ‘Dear Prudence’ and I was transfixed by the haunting sound.

I thought that the Beatles were just a ’singles’ band who played short catchy pop tunes, but Dear Prudence opened my eyes (and ears)! My Mother bought me the White Album (mono version) that xmas, and there were more delights waiting for me;  Happiness is a Warm Gun, Helter Skelter, Blackbird, and something more weird than even Pink Floyd – Revolution No.9.

I was converted, I bought the whole of the Beatles back catalogue and have been a fan ever since. So thank you John, George, Paul and Ringo, you have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years, and I’m very grateful.

John McNally

Higher in the sky, dominating the constellation of Cancer is a bright star with a red hue. You are looking at the next nearest planet to us, Mars. Known in the past as the God of War due to it’s connotations with blood. Mars is larger than Venus, but it is further away from the Sun, and is not therefore quite as bright as Venus.

None of the planets or satellites such as the Moon have there own light source, they merely reflect back the intense light from our Sun, acting like mirrors. Venus has a cloudy white atmosphere so is able to reflect the suns light more effectively.

Saturn, the ringed planet is visible the whole of March in the constellation of Virgo. You can find Saturn by following the curved handle of the Plough. The Plough is almost directly overhead at this time of year. Follow the line of the Plough’s handle through Arcturus and on to Spica, which is low in the southeast. Regulus is almost due South of Spica, and Saturn lies midway between them.

Constellation watchers can still enjoy Orion which dominates the Winter night sky, with the small Pleiades cluster nearby. The ‘Seven Sisters’ are hard to spot. You need to let your eyes adjust to the night sky, and you will see them as a small faint cloud, which seems to shimmer in and out of your vision.

Happy sky watching. I’ll be back for another update in April.

John McNally

There will be no other stars around as they are not bright enough to pierce the light pollution. So if you do see two bright ’stars’ low down, you know that they can only be the planets Venus and Jupiter.

Hopefully Tuesday 16th February will be a clear night because at 5.30pm you can see Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon above – a really wonderful sight.

Sunday 21st February at 6.50pm the Quarter Moon passes in front of the small Pleiades constellation, sometimes referred to as “the Seven Sisters“. Providing we are blessed with a clear sky, you will see the seven sisters disappearing from the sky one by one, as the moon blocks them from our vision.

Mars is still a bright object this month, and you will find the red planet passing through the Cancer constellation.

Cassipoeia is one of my favourite constellations because it is a striking “W” shape, and easy to spot. Look out for it this month and follow the arrow direction formed by the last three stars on the right hand side. Just below Cassiopeia is the M31 Galaxy in Andromeda. A great sight through binoculars or a telescope.

You can even see M31 with the naked eye on a clear night, but you may be disappointed that it is a bit fuzzy.Bear in mind however that it is over 2 million light years away! The light photons reaching your eye left Andromeda when our ancester Homo Ergaster first appeared on Earth.

John McNally

This month’s book choice is a good example of this in action. I have already read three HG Wells novels; The War of the Worlds, the Time Machine, and First Men on the Moon. I think it’s easy to spot the theme here! However I didn’t realise that HG Wells also did comedy very well.

I would never have chosen to read “The History of Mr Polly”. I wouldn’t have got past the title, it simply sounds too boring to me. What a mistake that was! The History of Mr Polly is one of the most enjoyable books I have read for a long time. It’s a mixture of PG Wodehouse and the ‘Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin’.

Mr Polly is a likable but flawed character who ends up performing a heroic deed despite also being a coward. He manages to vanquish his enemy in some hilarious scenes by doing a lot of running away!

The story involves a mid-life crisis which Mr Polly decides to solve with “a spot of arson and suicide”. The suicide attempt is abandoned when Mr Polly discovers cutting your throat with a razor hurts!

The book starts with Mr Polly thoroughly bored with life to the point of contemplating suicide, yet ends with his life completely changed in a really excellent ‘happily ever after’ ending.

The theme resonates with Internet Marketing theories covering Positive Mental Attitude and the current vogue for the ‘Law of Attraction’. HG Wells sums it up in chapter 9 – The Potwell Inn;

“But when a man has once broken through the paper walls of everyday circumstance, those unsubstantial walls that hold so many of us securely imprisoned from the cradle to the grave, he has made a discovery. If the world does not please you, you can change it. Determine to alter it at any price, and you can change it altogether.”

John McNally

John consulted the American psychoanalyst Arthur Janov and subjected himself to the extreme ‘Primal Scream’ therapy. Janov was a follower of Freud and Jung, believing that adult problems can be found in a child’s formative years. His therapy stripped away all the protective psychological barriers to determine where the childhood problems lay.

Once any hurt was exposed, the patient was encouraged to release the pain and frustration with a huge ‘Primal Scream’. John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band was straight from the psychiatrists couch, and Lennon released his pain, screaming through intensely personal tracks such as ‘Mother’, ‘I found Out’, ‘Working Class Hero’ and of course ’God’ where Lennon upset millions of Beatle fans……

“I don’t believe in Beatles…..I just believe in me, and Yoko, and that’s reality………..The dream is over, What can I say? The dream is over, Yesterday. I was the dreamweaver, But now I’m reborn. I was the Walrus, But now I’m John. And so dear friends, you just have to carry on………………….The dream is over…………..” God by John Lennon

It still upsets me when I hear those words, but the whole album is a musical masterpiece, a complete contrast to the much happier ‘Imagine’ and ‘Mind Games’ albums. If you have any interest in the Beatles and John Lennon, you need to hear this album – It’s a unique experience.

John McNally 
PS. If you want to know just how poignant this album is, listen to the short fade out track “My Mummy’s Dead”:

The Director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to avoid the obvious cliche of telling Lennon’s story through his and the Beatles songs, instead there is plenty of the 1950’s music that inspired the Group during their formative teenage years.

There are only two musical references that are out of sync with the period. The opening credits starts with a loud guitar chord from ‘A Hard Days Night’ and fades to the fans screams of those later years. The closing credits finish with Lennon’s track ‘Mother’ from his first solo LP, (although the version used in the film was a studio out-take).

The Mother track was the most poignant, and the lyrics are basically the films entire plot;

“Mother, you had me but I never had you.
I wanted you but you didn’t want me……..
Father, you left me but I never left you.
I needed you but you didn’t need me………”


I’m a long-time Beatle fan so I already knew the whole story, but I was reaching for the Kleenex tissues long before the end. Even if you don’t know Lennon’s background, if you like a good tear-jerker, this is the film for you.

To understand the origins of the  Beatle phenomena, you only need to watch two films; ‘Nowhere Boy’ dealing with the formative childhood years, and ‘Backbeat’ covering the Hamburg and Cavern years where the Beatles honed their stagecraft. Both films are historically accurate, but more importantly great entertainment as well.

John McNally

Although Stan Lee created the character and wrote the origin story, Steve Ditko felt restricted by Lee’s editorship and asked if he could plot the Spiderman stories. Lee eventually agreed to this, although no other Marvel artist in the early 1960s had won this concession.

Ditko would hand over the completed Spiderman illustrations and Stan Lee would insert the dialogue. This created the unique Spiderman style with numerous pages dealing soley with Peter Parker’s private life, instead of battling the latest super-villain, which tended to happen in other Marvel titles.

The partnership lasted for over 30 issues until Ditko resigned over the direction the Green Goblin character should take.

Marvel recognised both Ditko’s style and the huge sales generated for Spiderman, and the next artist, John Romita, continued very much in the Ditko vein.
 
My favourite Spiderman story  is “The Final Chapter” in issue 33, and I’m not the only one who like this. Stan Lee himself cites this Ditko illustrated Spider-Man as his favourite:

The cover of Spiderman #33 has always fascinated me. It’s such a simple image yet Steve Ditko manages to imbue it with a real sense of restrained power. The cover shows Spiderman trapped under a huge block of metal, the floor flooded and more water pouring down over him.

Inside the comic it takes Ditko numerous panels and many pages to show how Spiderman finally struggles free. By the time he succeeds the reader feels as exhausted as Spiderman! This multiple panel, extended plot device was typical of Ditko’s unique style.

I have painted many different comic characters using oils on canvas, but it was only when I painted the cover of Spiderman #33 that I realised just how good Steve Ditko was. Although Ditko uses simple lines, it takes genius to capture the sense of power that the image contains.

If you are interested in comic book artwork take a look at my website: http://www.popartoilpaintings.com/Steve-Ditko

John McNally

If you follow the line to the right you’ll reach Taurus the Bull and the Hyades Cluster.

Carry on beyond the Hyades and you’ll find the Pleiades (or ‘Seven Sisters’). This is a tight grouping of seven stars, but if you look through binoculars or a telescope you will actually see hundreds of stars.

Look above Taurus and you will see Auriga the Charioteer, with the yellow star Capella at its top.

The top left hand star of Orion is the red giant Betelgeuse. Carry on up past here to the left and you will reach Gemini,  representing Twins of the Ziodiac signs.

Below Gemini and to the immediate left of Betelgeuse is Canis Minor, one of Orion the Hunters dogs. This small constellation contains the star Procyon which is only 10 light years from Earth.

Mars is the best planet to see this month. It is prominent in the southern evening sky and will be at it’s highest point around midnight. From 9th January it will be in the constellation of Cancer.

Jupiter can be seen early evening in the south-west, but it sets by 8pm. Saturn rises in the middle of the night at 2am and its rings are slightly open for those with telescopes.

John McNally

“In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…”

Kublai Khan was a thirteenth century Mongolian prince who inherited the largest land empire in history from his grandfather, Genghis Khan – and doubled it! His empire reached from the Pacific to the Urals, from Siberia to Afghanistan – 60% of all Asia, one-fifth of the world’s inhabited land area. He was perhaps the most powerful man who ever lived.

Kublai Khan only seized power in his forties but he never questioned Genghis Khan’s belief that Heaven had given his people the world. His first Capital city was Xanadu on the Mongolian grasslands, but he soon realised that China was the key to a world empire due to its massive population.

He made Beijing his new Capital and after twenty years of war became the first ‘barbarian’ to conquer all of China. I was fascinated by the political and military use of barbarism that the Mongols employed. The Mongolian army would march up to a walled city and send messengers inside.

“Open the gates and your lives will be spared. Resist, and we will slaughter every man woman and child”. If the city fought back, then the Mongolian army would simply camp outside the walls for anything from 3 to 5 years until resistance crumbled. They would then carry out their threat and slaughter the city population.

Word soon spread around China, so the Mongolian army very rarely had to fight!  City gates were opened as soon as the army arrived, and the conquest of China was only delayed by the speed at which the army could march around the vast territory.

If you want to know more about Kublai Khan I can highly recommend the fascinating biography by John Man.

John McNally

What are Shooting Stars? Well, the first thing that they ARE NOT is Stars! Stars are huge nuclear fusion furnaces like our Sun. Shooting Stars are normally just bits of dust entering our atmosphere.

Shooting stars are usually no larger than a grain of sand. However, they are travelling at thousands of miles per hour, and quickly burn up in our atmosphere. That’s when we can see the ’shooting star’ effect.

Shooting stars are technically ‘meteors’ though only larger particles are normally refered to as a meteor. An object the size of an apple travelling at up to 50 miles per second would take longer to burn up in the atmosphere and you may be lucky enough to actually see flames. (I have seen this twice in 40 years of star gazing).

Some meteors can be quite large, and they may not burn out completely, reaching the ground with an explosion. These objects are known as Meteorites. They are quite rare, and usually fall into the sea. However really huge meteorites have hit the Earth.

In 1908 a meteorite fell in Siberia and the impact blew trees down for 60 miles around. The explosion was heard up to 500 miles away, and even 100 miles from the impact, people were knocked over by the shock wave!  This incident whilst rare, was entirely natural, but features in a number of conspiracy/alternative science theories.

Keep looking up, on dark clear nights, and you will see Shooting Stars. Happy star gazing.

John McNally