FanstRAvaganza, Day 6: I'm A Believer

Turn-ons 4 and 5.

It's a tossup regarding turn-ons at this point. It's hard to choose!

Who would ever think that the slightly weird, retro and anomalous Ricky Deering could give Harry Kennedy, putative starched shirt, a run for his money?

First of all, Harry is the marrying type of guy. He's shy, sweet, has the most radiant smile, laughs all the time, and even though he wears pullovers/jumpers he doesn't seem awfully buttoned down to me.  This is a free spirit in accountant's clothing. And oh my! He reads! Tons! Books on top of books! What self respecting woman would not view him as the thinking woman's crumpet? Apart from the long luscious length of him?  He is accepting, kind and takes on everything with a gentle, canny grace which places him in the pantheon of potential domestic gods. With Harry, dreams come true.

Ricky Deeming, on the other hand, works with his hands, fracturing scrap metal and rides a majorly mean hog. He's got the flowing scarf and the black leather and the long, slicked back wavy hair; he's a man out of his time. He's a leader of the most genteel biker gang in history, who takes young men under his wing and gives them hope and dreams.

Hmmm, metal v numbers; the open road v books; leather v wool.

Here's the speech smackdown: Ricky really is a poetic soul in the misfit body of a large, steel bound hunk. Harry is a poetic soul in the unlikely body of a lanky, wool bound number cruncher. 

I was not believing in the Ricky character until he's holed up with George Gently and John Bacchus in the interrogation room; rumours are flying that Ricky is gay, that Ricky killed whomever; Ricky does not fit.  The implication is that Ricky leads young men down an evil path.  He gets this wonderful speech after Gently asks him what is being defended by 'The Durham Defenders', Ricky's bike gang:

We are, I suppose. From the bullshit.
Dead end jobs. Hand-me-down values. Second hand opinions. mortgages.
No offense but it's the sort of life that Johnny here leads.
Forty years of chasing guys like us up and down the streets so the world will be a safer place for other mediocre people to live their banal lives in.
You. And your little woman on the front of Whitley Bay and the whole world rolling on forever and the whole structure never skipping a beat. And nothing ever changing. Except the weather....
What did your world ever offer a little kid like Laurie Elton?  Real dad dead before he were born, mother abandoned him? Your straight world pushes him and pushes him into ever tighter corners. Failed at your schools, couldn't hold down your bullshit jobs, life of crime beckoning, predictable. Well maybe not, just maybe not....

He got himself a bike.
A family.
A set of shared values.
And you know what, George?
He took a look at your world and he wasn't interested in it. And neither am I.
Your world's coming to an end, George-- it's inevitable...
You won't know England in 20 years.

It only works because the Armitage inhabits the cadence of the speech and makes me believe, especially in a character that is so ambiguous, elusive, and peripheral at best. I believe in the unlikely visionary. I believe in Ricky's belief. You can catch the speeches at the 5.00 mark here.

I am just wild about Harry, and I think that most sane women would be.  Scratch that fuzzy, bespectacled exterior, and you get the following:

I loved you the second I laid eyes on you.

I absolutely know that we are meant to be together.





Forever.

And we will always be happy.   







What a pure-hearted and compelling speech! Oh, the earnestness, the all radiating and enveloping love and joy.  He makes you believe that even in the midst of a fairy tale that this is real and true and that he loves this woman totally and completely.

Yep.  I'm a believer!


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Tomorrow: The Laws of Attraction

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