The Science Fiction Cult

I have a tale for you that sounds like it comes out of the Star Wars saga.

75 million years ago, Xenu, the tyrannical leader of the Galactic Confederacy transported billions of his own people to a distant rock floating around in space, in ships that resembled the aircraft that we know and love today. When they arrived at the rock, they were unceremoniously dumped out in the vicinity of volcanoes and wiped out with hydrogen bombs.

He sounds like a complete bastard, this Xenu character, doesn’t he?

Worse, the spirits of the billions of the dead aliens became immortal and after all of this time still roam the rock, which is now a lovely little blue planet teeming with life and beauty. That planet is our own beloved Earth and the spirits of the murdered billions, called Thetans, float around our planet and attach themselves to human beings. 

Basically we all have an inner Thetan and this is analogous to our soul.

Sounds like a great idea for a science fiction story, doesn’t it?

Except there are a large number of people who actually believe this story to be real; these people are called Scientologists.

The originator of this story is L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, who has somehow managed to convince thousands of people that their souls are immortal alien spirits that operate their bodies. Amongst those people are Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

L. Ron Hubbard is now dead but his legacy lives on. Scientology leaders announced his death as if he had shed his mortal body allowing him to continue his amazing research on another planet somewhere out there in the depths of space.

The leader is now a rather mysterious man called David Miscavige.

Scientology claims to be a religion but in reality it is more like a cult. I have to be honest with you, here – I am absolutely fascinated by it, not because I believe any of the rubbish that David Miscavige and his followers are trying to peddle (for huge sums of money I hasten to add). Rather, I am fascinated about how people can be taken in by all of this utter nonsense and actually change their lives to immerse themselves so deeply into it that they cannot escape without potentially having vile facts published about them, or worse, being totally ostracised by their own family members who choose to stay as part of the religion.

When I was a young naïve student, the church of Scientology tried to recruit my friend and I when we were backpacking around Europe. The incident occurred in Amsterdam and their “expert” tried to convince me that I was a manic depressive who was about to commit suicide. She claimed that only they could help and that rather than leave Amsterdam as I had planned, I should enrol in their course to help guide me away from such evil thoughts.

You see, I was wondering around Europe and as such was fair game. I was young and naïve, but not so naïve that I believed it.

Deep down I knew I was tremendously happy and that their words were ridiculous. I may have been naïve but I was not stupid.  They attempted the same thing with my friend who found the entire experience hilarious.

Since then, I’ve followed the exploits of Scientology with interest. Initially, I found it all amusing but in recent years, events have taken a disturbing turn for the worst and I no longer find it funny.

We even have a Scientology “church” in the centre of Manchester. One time, I saw a few people protesting outside and handing out leaflets.

There are a few accusations that have been directed at the Church of Scientology but, to be honest, I’m a bit wary about mentioning them.

Why? Because the first one is “attack the attacker”. Allegedly, anybody who attacks Scientology must be treated with hostility, which means that the church will investigate those who accuse them of wrongdoing and publish any findings to the press, employers, friends and family and even make counter accusations against them, potentially leading to things like running their career. There is no “turn the other cheek” philosophy in Scientology. Such people are labelled by the church as “suppressive persons”.

We also have “disconnection”. If you are a “suppressive person” who still has family who are Scientologists, then the church basically causes your family to cut you off completely. There are many examples in the documentaries that I have seen where people have left the church and been totally disconnected from family members who are still part of the church, Worse, those family members are allegedly so brainwashed that they completely disown them. Parents have been banished by their own children.

If you are a member of the Sea Org, the most dedicated elite within Scientology, and you don’t live up to the high expectations of the church then you are “rehabilitated” which involves being locked up and isolated and subjected to intense physical hard labour and “auditing”, an activity that involves a weird kind of question and answer session while you are gripping a metal cylinder in each hand that is connected to a contraption called an E-meter – a sort of strange emotion detector.

"Will I ever be famous"?

In order to rise up the rankings you basically have to throw money at the church and study religious doctrine for every hour God sends.

No wonder they want somebody like Tom Cruise to be the acceptable face of the church.

Allegedly, their “pope”, David Miscavige is said to behave like a psychotic despot, sometimes physically assaulting people working for him.

I hasten to add, all of this comes from documentaries and films about the “church” – I have to say this in case I suddenly find myself being followed by Scientologists or have the name “Plastic Mancunian” splashed over cyberspace as an evil liar.

Oh well – if such a thing happens then maybe we’ll see whether the “attack the attacker” accusation is true or not.

I’m really looking forward to seeing “My Scientology Movie” by one of my favourite documentary makers, Louis Theroux. Here’s a trailer for it:

Let’s hope I am not labelled as a “suppressive person” as a result of this post.

Duck Face

I learned something last week from a bunch of young people and I can’t believe that I’ve never heard of it before.

I am talking about the duck face, an expression that is used by people, usually females, to appear sexy. I know that some women do this, but I have always called it the trout pout.

The idea that the woman concerned seductively pushes out here lips as if she is about to kiss you. The young man who pointed it out, showed me numerous examples, mainly on his dating phone app, Tinder, with most women standing there holding a phone, having taken a selfie in the mirror, from above while shaping their body such that they appear to be thinner.

He moaned about it because having looked at so many duck faces, he couldn’t actually tell how attractive the women really were.

What has happened to the world?

In the past, photographs of women used to show them with an attractive natural looking smile on their faces in a largely natural pose. Personally I would like to see a woman smiling or laughing in a natural pose than to see her pouting her lips with her hand on her hip and her legs crossed in a kind of surreal posture that looks like a human teapot.

If I were young, free and single I wouldn’t want to date a woman whose only photo made her look weird. Imagine meeting her in a bar based solely on a duck face photo; I probably wouldn’t recognise her unless she pouted and then I’d expect her first word to be “QUACK!”.

I blame the cult of celebrity.

Many actresses use the trout pout and the same pose when they are on the red carpet at some stupid award ceremony. In fact, it’s not just photographs. A lot of actresses pout at every opportunity when acting in a movie or a TV programme. Imagine a scene in a restaurant and the leading man is chatting to his leading lady. As she listens to his romantic words, she pouts like a trout as listens – after all, she has to look good, doesn’t she? I would love it if a waiter came up at that point and said “We have two specials today; duck bill and trout lips”.

Worse, it seems that celebrities are taking this a step further and actually "enhancing their lips”, making them plumper by injecting them with an expensive and horrific chemical to do this. One of the main reasons, I believe, is an attempt to make them look younger and more seductive, particularly as they get older.

I’m sad about this because I always believe that people of both sexes should grow old gracefully. The problem is for female actresses as they get older, they are overlooked for parts as film makers choose younger and more attractive women in their place.

This is ridiculous.

The only ugly people you see in films and television series are bad guys or evil people. There are a couple of American television shows that I watch regularly and everybody in them is totally attractive – even the older people.

We seem to be losing the realism. Why can’t characters be portrayed by real people?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some ugly actors, but the latest trend seems to be that the actors portraying ordinary people have to be beautiful people.

No wonder young women are resorting to pouting their lips to look like Donald Duck.

When I was a kid, I did briefly want to be an actor. I appeared in a couple of junior school plays, in particular, Sleeping Beauty where I played the “handsome prince” and had to kiss Clare Bloggs (name changed to protect the poor girl’s identity) during rehearsals and in front of her parents. I also played the Griffon in Alice in Wonderland where I had to dress up with wings and feathers.

I thought I was a good little actor – I was only nine or ten at the time – and had delusions of being the next Laurence Olivier. Sadly as I got older, I realised that I wasn’t a beautiful person and would probably have faced numerous rejections for looking like a strategically shaved orangutan.

The Plastic Mancunian auditions for the part of Jack Reacher

This is just another thing I will change when I become President of the World.

I will make it illegal to pose with a duck face, make cosmetic surgery illegal and also ensure that ugly actors and actresses get key parts in films.

I mean – look at Tom Cruise, a man universally considered to be a good looking actor. He is a very good actor and I love a lot of his films but there is one part that I genuinely laughed at when I heard he was playing it. I’ve read a couple of novels by Lee Child when on holiday. He is the man who created Jack Reacher, an ex-military policeman. They sound cheesy and they are – but they are good reads for travelling or a holiday as long as you can stand his writing style (which isn’t brilliant) and can suspend your disbelief. Lee Child describes Jack Reacher as a huge man, 6ft 5 inches with a 50 inch chest who looks like he can literally tear a man in half. Yet the actor chosen to play him is Tom Cruise who is not huge at all – at 5ft 7 inches he is almost a foot shorter. Tom Cruise is almost 5 inches shorter than I am!

Dwayne Johnson might not be as good an actor but at 6ft 5 and built like a brick shithouse, he would at least look like a Jack Reacher type fellow.

I’m sure there is a parallel universe out there where I am a successful Hollywood actor or maybe President of the Earth.

And in either of those places I can promise you this; I will not have a duck face!

The Alphabet Movie Meme

I discovered a brand new movie meme while browsing the web. It may not be new but I haven’t seen it before – so I am going to have a go. It’s an Alphabet Meme so let’s dive in:

Anctipated Movie in 2014

If I can persuade Mrs PM to go to the cinema then it will be the sequel to one of my favourite films:

I will start working on her now.

Book Adaptation I Would Love to See

A couple immediately leap to mind. Bryan Lumley’s Necroscope would shatter all illusions about the pathetic vampires we see in movies today. A really good adaptation would terrify anybody who thinks that the dreadful Twilight Saga contains quintessential vampires.

Having just read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, I think that too would make a fantastic film or series of films, particularly the fearsome Shrike:

Celebrity I’d Most Love To Meet

I think that would have to be Clint Eastwood, as long as he promised not to pretend to talk to Barack Obama. If I could resurrect a dead celebrity, I would choose two: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, circa 1940, and chat to them about their hilarious movies.

Dream Director/Actor Pairing

I would probably put somebody like Quentin Tarantino with Robert de Niro. That would be interesting.

Essential Classic Movie

Now here’s a question. What exactly is a classic movie these days? Movies made in the 1970’s are 40 years old and when I was a kid, old black and white movies from the 1930’s also fell into that category. I am going to cheat and name a proper “classic” movie – and a “modern” classic.

First, The Public Enemy, from 1931, which is a marvellous film about a ruthless gangster, perfectly portrayed by the brilliant Jimmy Cagney.

Second, and moving into a more modern era, The Godfather Part 2, which sees two of the greatest actors, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro, sharing the limelight in this magnificent sequel to another great film, the original Godfather.

I see that I have picked two gangster films – that is just a coincidence.

Favourite Film Franchise

I am a sad geek so there is only one choice; Star Trek. I love most of the films but my particular favourites are:

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn

Star Trek: First Contact

Star Trek (The JJ Abrams Remake)

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Genre I Watch Most

You can probably tell from my answers already that I am a massive fan of science fiction. However, I would go further and add super hero films as a kind of “subset” because they are, strictly speaking, science fiction films – don’t you agree?

Hidden Gem

Long before Jurassic Park hit our screens with its fantastic marauding dinosaurs and superb special effects, there was another movie about a theme park gone wrong. That movie was, of course, Westworld, the story of a couple of guys who go on holiday to a theme park where they can immerse themselves into a wild west experience with robots playing the part of the of cowboys and gunslingers. Of course, it’s perfectly safe – that is until the robots break their programming and start killing the guests. Yul Brynner is superb as the gunslinging robot pursuing our hapless hero through the theme park with one intention only – to kill him. 

Important Moment in my Film Life

I would probably say that it was the day my dad succumbed after weeks of me pleading with him to watch a horror movie. He let me stay up to watch the 1958 Hammer horror film, Dracula, starring Christopher Lee. It scared me half to death but kindled within me a deep fascination with horror and vampires in particular.

Just Right for a Rainy Day

Marvel’s Avengers Assemble (or if you are in America, just Avengers). Just switch you brain off, forget the weather outside and immerse yourself in two hours of total mayhem. It’s got everything – incredible (and flawed) super heroes, endless action sequences and an incredible villain – as well as some fantastic moments of humour.

Who can forget the moment when The Hulk takes on Loki? I laughed so much at that scene.

I truly love this film and can’t wait for the next one.

Kiddie Movie I Still Shamelessly Enjoy

Toy Story 2. My lads wanted to see the sequel and I hadn’t seen the first one. I promised to take them on a Sunday afternoon and took the opportunity to rent Toy Story on the Saturday – just so that I knew what was going on of course. I loved Toy Story but the sequel was so much better.

It’s funny and heart-warming – and I have watched it probably about six times now (as a guilty pleasure).

Location I’d Most Like To Visit

Predictably – the bridge of the Enterprise. Just give me a part as an extra on the next Star Trek – that’s all I ask.

Movie That I Know By Heart

Monty Python sketches are legendary, so much so that I can recite a lot of them. It’s sad I know. So it stands to reason that I can also recite a huge part of The Life of Brian – my favourite comedy film of all time.

“He’s not the Messiah! He’s a very naughty boy!”

“And what about you? Do you find it risible when I say the name … Biggus … Dickus?”

Netflix Movie I Actually Watched

I don’t have Netflix.

One Movie I Watched More Than Once

Again it was The Life of Brian. The entire movie had me crying with laughter so much that I had to pay to see it again just to see some of the other jokes I missed the first time.

Preferred Place to Watch a New Movie

There is no better place to watch a huge action movie than the big screen itself. My answer is definitely the cinema.

Quote That Inspires Me

There are lots – but I particularly like this from The Matrix:

“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

Remakes – Friend or Foe

I don’t mind remakes if the film is an improvement on the original. There are cases where they truly do work, for example the two recent Star Trek movies are pretty good. Some remakes are pointless, like rebooting Spiderman just a few years after the original trilogy was produced.

A remake needs to add something new and exciting and sadly a lot of them do not.

Snack I Enjoy Most

Don’t get me started on cinemas and snacks. There is so much wrong. In the UK, the queues for popcorn and fizzy drink are usually so huge that you simply don’t bother. Also, cinemas don’t allow you to take in your own snacks, which means that you have to buy overpriced huge buckets of fizzy drinks and colossal bags of sweets and popcorn. I once missed the start of a movie because of queuing just to keep my kids happy.

When I become World President, there will be changes! I promise!

Twist That Blows My Mind

It has to be The Usual Suspects. If you haven’t seen the movie, then I won’t spoil it for you – but it still sends a shiver down my spine when I think about it.

Unapologetic Fan Person For 

I actually like almost all of the movies I have seen Tom Cruise in, to be honest. I know that as a top Hollywood movie star, he has the first choice of the best movie scripts but before he really became a huge star he appeared in some great movies, such as Born On The Fourth Of July and Rain Man. Mind you, I’m not really a fan of Top Gun, bizarrely.


Also, he is the same age as I am – although I am much better looking.

Judge for yourself:

Plastic Mancunian

Tom Cruise

OK - maybe he is better looking than me.

Very Excited For Award Season?

Not at all. Some of the movies that win awards are worthy of them but there have been lots of examples of Oscar winners that in my humble opinion simply do not deserve it. Take Lincoln for example. I watched the movie on a flight to Oman last year and it bored me to tears. Daniel Day Lewis may have done a half decent impersonation of what people think Abraham Lincoln looked like and spoke like – but nothing bloody happened. It had too much boring political dialogue and is only truly of interest to an elite group of people who know and love that particular period of American history. So no – I don’t get excited by the award season at all.

Wish I Had Never Watched

I' m sorry to mention it again but having just moaned about it, I cannot let it go. I wish I had never watched Lincoln. I had such high expectations based on the awards it won – but it was boring and tedious. I am sorry to go on about it but it was.

XXX Movie You Watched At A Young Age

The Exorcist – and it scared me to death. I had sleepless nights for weeks and weeks and I have never watched it since, such was the impact it had. At the time I was 16 years old and still half believed the preaching of the Catholic church. The Exorcist exposed a deep-seated terror within that I had no idea existed, and then attacked it with maximum prejudice. Vampires are one thing, but Satan is another prospect altogether, particularly scenes involving demonic possession of a poor innocent child.

I still shudder when I think about it.

Your Latest Movie Related Obsession

The Marvel Super Hero movies without a doubt. I love every one of them: Iron Man, The Hulk, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Captain America, Thor, X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. And the great news is that there are many more of them due.

Keep them coming I say.

ZZZ – Catcher

Dare I say The Twilight Saga again? I got a bit of stick for my negative views on the Twilight movies (read them here). They are so mind-numbingly boring that they are a great cure for insomnia and I apologise to readers who actually like them (on second thoughts, thinking about it, I don't apologise at all!).

And Finally …

As usual, please feel free to steal this – and let me know your A to Z – I will genuinely be interested.

Hey Stoopid

I am an idiot, a stupid blithering idiot who never ever learns from his mistakes.

Why am I being so hard on myself?

I’ve just been away for a few days to visit friends in Abu Dhabi, the friends who owned Liquorice, our hellcat, before we did. And before you ask, the hellcat is, for once, not the subject of this post. I’ll tell you about the trip in a future post, but for now I have to focus on one particular aspect of it that highlights how stupid I am.

Before the trip, Mrs PM asked me a question.

“Do you want to go to up the Burj Khalifa?”

“The what?” I asked.

“The Burj Khalifa – the world’s biggest building. You know, the one that Tom Cruise climbs in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”

Regular readers will know where this is going. For new readers, you need to know a fact about me; I am scared of heights. In fact, I am so scared that I can’t even look up at a tall building without suffering a bout of knee-trembling dizziness, sheer panic and breathless nausea; a sort of inverse vertigo, if you like.

In 2005, Mrs PM persuaded me to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I should never have done that. I am an idiot. Here is proof:

Mrs PM thoroughly enjoyed herself and the look of serenity on her face is genuine, whereas for me the calm look of serenity on my face is masking a turbulent, heart-wrenching, gut-tearing panic.

When I thought about the bridge climb, I considered the prospect of the Burj Khalifa.

“No way,” I said.

“You’ll be inside,” she said. “There’s no way you will fall.”

My answer was “NO” and it stayed “NO”.

That was, until I considered it. And that’s why I am an idiot. I persuaded myself this time. This is how my thought processes ticked over:

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You’ve climbed the Eiffel Tower, the CN Tower, the Empire State Building and you have survived. The Burj Khalifa is a masterpiece of architecture – a modern wonder of the world. You will be safely screened behind glass and you cannot possibly fall. You will not be outside. You will not die. The views will be spectacular. And besides, you will be accompanied by Mrs PM and Sarah, another friend. What could possibly go wrong?

Before I go on let me tell you about the Burj Khalifa.

It is the tallest building in the world and also the tallest free standing structure. It is over 820 metres tall – that’s over four fifths of a kilometre.

In a moment of madness (and I am very prone to such impulsive bouts of insane stupidity), I said “Yes” – and Mrs PM booked it online.

And now to the trip.

As we approached Dubai in the car, I peered out of the window searching for the skyline. I spotted a couple of tall buildings and thought “That’s not too bad”.

And then I saw it. It looked small at first but as we approached, it seemed to grow, like a mad grizzly hulk raising itself to full height. Adam, our friend who was driving said:

“There’s the Burj Khalifa”.

“It’s not so big,” I said.

“It bloody well is,” he replied. “We’re still miles away from it.”

As the building seemed to rise out of the ground, I shrank into a little ball.

Was it too late to back out? Of course it was. My ego, a little voice screaming out in a crowd of utter chaos, cried:

“YOU HAVE TO DO THIS! EVERYBODY WILL THINK YOU ARE A TOTAL COWARD”.

Captain Paranoia said:

“Did you know the building moves in the wind? It will blow over and take you with it.”

Our hosts, Adam and Abbi, opted to wait for us in the adjoining shopping mall because they were climbing the Burj Khalifa at a later date, while Mrs PM, Sarah and I found our way to the “Climb to the Top of the World”.

The very phrase made my legs tremble.

“Are you OK?” asked Mrs PM.

“Yes,” I lied, allowing my ego to lie on my behalf.

“So did Tom Cruise really hang off this building with just wires?” asked Sarah making casual conversation as we queued up for the lift.

“Yes,” said Mrs PM. “He did all of his own stunts.”

I watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in the cinema and remember one thing about the section of the film in Dubai – watching Tom Cruise on a big screen and feeling vertigo, watching him throw himself about at insane heights.

We entered the lift and as it set off at high speed, I began to feel my ears pop. Accompanying this disconcerting feeling, the count of the floors raced upwards so fast that it had reached 124 before I could blink. The fast lift was accompanied by the deafening soundtrack of a rocket taking off.

“How many floors does it have?” asked Sarah.

“160,” replied Mrs PM.

“So we’re not at the top then,” said Mrs PM.

That was a relief.

And then the doors opened. And although we were inside protected from the outside by huge panes of glass, I saw a sight that made my legs almost cave in:

A revolving door leading OUTSIDE to an OBSERVATION DECK.

AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!

I blindly followed Mrs PM and Sarah through the door and felt the wind, unimpeded by any other tall buildings, blowing a gale. There was glass protecting us from the very outside but when I looked up, all I saw the rest of the building - and it looked like another skyscraper! I was suddenly caught between a serious bout of vertigo and inverse vertigo. You might think that they cancelled each other out - they didn't.

Instead, my poor brain reeled in total confusion and disorientation.

That was it. My knees buckled, my heart lurched, a massive dizzy spell slapped me in the face and I stammered an apology to the girls as I lurched back towards the revolving door.

“I’m going inside,” I almost screamed.

I watched as Mrs PM and Sarah went right up to the glass and peered out, marvelling at the cityscape below.

I very nearly shat myself.

I managed to stand inside some six feet from the window and enjoy the view with trembling legs.

I slowly walked around the inside observation deck and my thoughts went back to Tom Cruise and his fearlessness. And if you doubted his fearlessness – here he is right at the very top of the building.

Back inside, Mrs PM spotted an ATM machine for gold. Such is the opulence in the United Arab Emirates that it is possible to buy gold from an ATM. Mrs PM thought it would be a good idea for me to pretend to be buying some as it might make a good photo.

Sadly, the gold machine was a little too close to the window, so with my heart in my mouth I posed for her again.

Here is the photo.

 That was the second attempt. Here is the first, which gives you some indication how terrified I was as I yelled “JUST HURRY UP AND TAKE THE BLOODY THING!”

Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale and can now add the Burj Khalifa to the many huge structures I have stupidly climbed.

Here’s a photo of where I would prefer to be in relation to the building – at the bloody bottom!

I was actually scared of being in this photo too because inverse vertigo had kicked in. Here is the building in its pure, unadulterated and terrifying glory.

So dear reader, there you have it. I am stupid.

And I just want to make a statement, for myself, for Mrs PM, for Captain Paranoia and my idiotic ego.

If anybody, anywhere builds anything taller than the Burj Khalifa – I AM NOT CLIMBING THE BLOODY THING!!!!