The Unmutual
Reviews:
2022 Prisoner Mind Mash
Review by Leslie Glen.
On Saturday 22nd October 2022, myself and other Prisoner enthusiasts gathered together at The Reliance public house for an afternoon's and evening's celebration of all things The Prisoner.
The event kicked off with one of my brain-challenging question papers on the TV show, The Best of Prisoner Interrogation. This was a collection of 18 of the best questions from my first published book, The Prisoner Interrogations . Gary Murfin took the honours, and the prize, for achieving the highest score of all the entrants. His tally was a magnificent 15 out of 18. Well done Gary!
Next up, I led a presentation cum discussion on the patterns of numbers found within mathematics, followed by a revealing display of how the shapes of numbers actually came about, and finally an analysis of six quirky "numbers" featured in The Prisoner : 240, 24, 12, 8, 6, 2. The title of my piece was Play in 3 Acts , a reference to a working title of the episode "A. B. and C."
There then followed what can only be described as a blockbuster presentation from Gary Murfin on the purchasing and assembly of his Caterham roadster, an audio-visual rollercoaster wittily entitled The New Number Seven . We were all entranced at the display Gary laid before us and his hour's work on the floor seemed to just fly by. Many thanks go to Gary for all his hard work and effort in putting his magnificent presentation together for us on the day.
How to follow that? Not easy. The next piece of work by me was entitled All Cards on the Table , a study of the mind-reading cards featured in "The Schizoid Man", and what the shape of these cards, created by Karl Edward Zener, meant. The sequence is: one edge (a circle); two edges (a cross); three edges (three wavy lines); four edges and four points (a square); six points (a star). Why does the sequence jump from four to six? Why not a five-pointed star? The answer lies with symmetry. All the shapes of the cards seen in "The Schizoid Man" are symmetrical: they are exactly the same shape upside down. The five-pointed star is asymmetrical. Cold War paranoia was also touched upon in this presentation.
An auction was held for the sale of the late Vincent Tilsley's signed and mint-condition book Silent Night and I am delighted to announce that Rick Davy secured the bid. Following this, the raffle, and with it, all sorts of prizes up for grabs. I can happily report that nobody left empty-handed. Everyone was a winner!
Just before the auction and raffle took place, Dave Lally informed us all of his adventures in the States, in a piece called Borne in the U.S.A. Dave had been "across the pond" to attend the World Con science fiction event in Chicago. He regaled us all with some wonderful stories and happily informed us that he left information about The Prisoner and Rick Davy's essential Unmutual website at the event. What a trouper!
And so, another successful Mind Mash had come to an end. Happily, we all raised an amazing £240 for the children's hospice. A big thank you goes to Mario and Remie at The Reliance and to all the lovely people who attended my event.
BCNU next time.
Leslie Glen .