NEIL: No, listen, Stonehenge…No, listen, everybody, right, listen…

[frustrated, Neil silences the loud music by smashing the record player with his truncheon. Everyone is quiet.]

Right, listen…

[he realizes what he's done]…

Oh, no…Led Zeppelin! Anyway, listen everybody, right, like I don’t want to bring the whole evening down or anything, okay, but basically you’re all under arrest.

[Stonehende collapses aginst her wall. Warlock discovers Neil's radio and takes it out of his belt.]

Okay, roll the film!

What we are hearing are the strains of Electric Gypsies by Steve Hillage. Fifteen years later, the very commercial, radio-friendly Led Zeppelin are still getting the credit for music they’ve nought to do with. Whatever else the late Willie Dixon might’ve thought, they’re not even close:

The Canterbury scene (or Canterbury sound) is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many prominent British avant-garde or fusion musicians began their career in Canterbury bands, such as Hugh Hopper, Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen, Mike Ratledge, Fred Frith, and Peter Blegvad. Over the years, with band membership changes and new bands evolving, the term has been used to describe a musical style or subgenre, rather than a regional group of musicians.

Here’s the Gong in its entirety.

Manny searches for the right passage

In the episode, Manny Bianco (as in white), an accountant under a great deal of stress, who hates his job, accidentally swallows his copy of The Little Book of Calm during an unpleasant exchange with his supervisor. He bought the book for £2.50 (decimalized British currency) from Bernard Black, the putative proprietor of the Black Books establishment located in some London High St area.

Whilst Bernard searches for distractions from doing his accounts for the Inland Revenue menace, engaging Johovah’s Witnesses in philosophical discussion and folding a huge pile of socks, Manny, now in hospital, is being advised by an NHS doctor, played brilliantly by Martin Freeman, that his chances of survival were 30% which was consider quite good by current standards. He reinforces this prognosis by reading a passage from the The Little Book of Calm visible on an X-Ray of Manny’s abdominal area. The surgery scheduled for Manny is abruptly canceled when it’s discovered the book once lodged in him has disappeared without a trace, apart from an odd transformation in his disposition. The doctor surmised that the book must have been assimilated.

Manny has assimilated the book

In hospital gown, robe, and sandals, Manny wanders the hospital and the streets quoting from the book at each stop he makes, where someone or something is in distress. In most cases, the stress is relieved. However, he ends up battered outside Black Books by skinheads loitering nearby who only became more agitated than they already were by his calming advice and responded with a predictable degree of disapprobation. The shock of the ASBO breach brought him round to his old self in quick order (or did it?).

Manny calms an alarmed car

This homily is delivered as a warning not only to CPSC but the general public at large, as well, of the dangers of tiny books. There is a very grave risk of some unsuspecting skinhead being turned into a hippie.

A few passages from the book:

Incidentally, The Little Book of Calm is also available in tablet form.