Fred Dibnah TV - Michael Jackson - Oldboy 2013 - The Comic Strip Presents ... TV - Alan Jay Lerner - Blaise Pascal - Truman Capote - Lynne Reid Banks - The L-Shaped Room 1962 - Thomas Hardy - George Orwell - Single Room Occupancy 2017 - Michio Kaku TV - Sin City 2005 - George Orwell: A Life in Pictures TV - History's Greatest Mysteries TV -
This, Fred, is something of a contrast. This is a genuine Robert Adam dining room. The reason it’s here [Lloyds Building, London] is that ... part of Bowood House in Wiltshire, which belonged to the Marquis of Lansdowne, was being demolished, and this room was due to be destroyed. So Lloyds collectively purchased the room. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone: Preserving Our Past, BBC 2006
The Lloyds Insurance building … all its innards are on the outside. Fred Dibnah’s Monuments s1e4: Places of Work, BBC 2000
Lloyd business: a genuine Robert Adam dining room. ibid.
I have my own secret room with a moving wall and mirrors. That’s where I talk to Lee. His is the voice I hear in there. I feel his presence so very close to me. He is like my guardian angel. He’s even given me permission to record his theme song. Michael Jackson
Twenty years in the same room. Jesus Christ, I’d would have lost my mind. Oldboy 2013 starring Josh Brolin & Grey Damon & Elizabeth Olsen & Sharlto Copley & Erik Gersovitz & Samuel L Jackson & Michael Imperioli & Brett Lapeyrouse & Linda Emond & James Ransone & Max Casella et al, director Spike Lee
Don’t go in that room ... ever. The Comic Strip Presents ... Consuela starring Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders & Adrian Edmondson & Rik Mayall & Peter Richardson, writers French & Saunders et al, him to new wife, Channel 4 1986
All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air,
With one enormous chair;
Oh wouldn’t it be loverly? … Alan Jay Lerner, song 1956
All the misfortunes of men derive from one single thing, which is their inability to be at ease in a room. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 1670
Other voices, other rooms. Truman Capote
There wasn’t much to be said for the place, really, but it had a roof over it and a door which locked from the inside, which was all I cared about just then. I didn’t even bother to take in the details – they were pretty sordid, but I didn’t notice them so they didn’t depress me; perhaps because I was already at rock-bottom. Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room
My room was five flights up in one of the gone-to-seed houses in Fulham, all dark brown wallpaper inside and peeling paint outside. On every second landing was a chipped sink with one tap and an old ink-written notice which said, ‘Don’t Leave Tap Dripping’. ibid.
I couldn’t see the whole room from where I stood at the end of the short arm of the L. This was as narrow as a corridor. One wall – the partition – was bare; along the other ran some rudimentary cooking facilities, consisting of a wash-basin-cum-sink with a draining board and a small cupboard with a top just large enough to hold a gas-stove, about a foot square, with a grill and two small elements. Under the window, with its dirty-looking brown curtains, was a small kitchen table scarred with ancient cigarette burns. ibid.
The floor was lino’d; it looked as if it had had football played on it with cleated boots. There was a Hallowe’en coloured rag rug in front of the fire. Lying on this was a metal ashtray, which had evidently slipped off the chest of drawers. I picked it up. It had CINZANO printed across it in patriotic colours. I looked round for a waste-paper basket to throw it into, but of course there wasn’t one. ibid.
I could see him groping his way to the bed the tablet of soap in his right hand. ‘Now!’ John ordered. I switched on the light, and at the same moment he hitched back the covers from the bed and made several lightning dabs with the soap, moving it from place to place on the mattress as if making a feverish move in draughts. I watched, fascinated and horrified, while Toby stood at my elbow, holding the rug in his arms. John straightened up and examined the under surface of the soap. Then he showed it to us. It had four small black corpses embedded in it. John was delighted with himself, and crowed like a child.
‘We got ’em! We got ’em!’ ibid.
But I missed the L-shaped room. Each morning I woke expecting to find myself in it. To have been wrenched away from it so suddenly made me feel like a snail with a broken shell. I was sucked back irresistibly for one last look. ibid.
For a minute she hesitated. Then she said firmly, ‘No thanks, once you start turning a room into something there’s no stopping. I’m just not bothering.’ ibid.
‘How about fifty bob seeing as we won the war together?’ The L-Shaped Room 1962 starring Leslie Caron & Tom Bell & Brock Petres & Cicely Courtneidge & Bernard Lee & Particia Pheonix & Emlyn Williams & Avis Bunnage & Gerry Duggan & Mark Eden et al, director Bryan Forbes, landlady
‘You’ll soon get the hang of it. Every Friday.’ ibid.
‘You never catch them all [bugs]. You just catch enough to show Doris.’ ibid. Johnny
‘I beg your pardon. Did you say bugs?’ ibid. landlady
In this process the chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and luxurious; the shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the richness of tapestry: the brass handles of the chest of drawers were as golden knockers; and the carved bed-posts seemed to have some kinship with the magnificent pillars of Solomon. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101. George Orwell, 1984
‘I’m under siege. They’re gonna throw me out of yet another home. I don’t want to move. For any reason … I was a nobody living on 110th Street.’ Single Room Occupancy, short 11.16
I’m going to show you how to create a world where reality collides with mind-bending technology. One room where you can do anything and be anyone. Michio Kaku, Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible s2e11: Holodeck, Science 2009
The night is hot as hell. It’s a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town. I’m staring at a goddess. She’s telling me she wants me. Sin City 2005 starring Jessica Alba & Mickey Rourke & Brittany Murphy & Clive Owen & Bruce Willis & Elijah Wood & Rutger Hauer & Makenzie Vega & Devon Aoki & Alexis Bledel & Powers Boothe & Rosario Dawson & Benicio del Toro & Michael Clarke Duncan & Rick Gomez & Carla Gugino et al, directors Miller & Rodriguez & Tarantino
His [Orwell’s] BBC Office was Room 101. George Orwell: A Life in Pictures, BBC 2003
A stunning treasure worth half a billion dollars lost without a trace … The disappearance of a work of art so remarkable that’s it known as the 8th Wonder of the World. History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e3: Amber Room
Will we ever be able to find the incomparable Amber Room? ibid.
‘After the Nazi siege of Leningrad, the Amber Room goes missing.’ ibid.