Which Was Nice

Dude can sing

Do you sometimes switch on the television and see someone and just think, gosh he seems like a nice bloke? No. Well I do. Yesterday it was the cookery slot on BBC1 and the improbable guest, Chris Isaak. He sat in the Saturday kitchen and was generous, modest and funny. Then he sang a song - bloody great voice. Just thought I'd say.

My day continued with a highly enjoyable game of rugby at Saltleians. My thanks to both Salts and their visitors, Old Halesonians, who made refereeing fun and easy, even if the beastly hamstring was behaving like a sulky teenager.

Weary but elated I settled down to a classic English Saturday tea - fish and chips (Mere Green Chip Shop - world class) and a 2011 Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc. This is a combination which works though it does drive up the cost of your average fish and chip supper. Pretentious, moi?

I'll 'ave Cloudy Bay with me cod mate

Not just one but two classic films to finish off my day. Casablanca does not need the Overgraduate to big it up, but it does sit in that difficult category of untouchable classics it is perversely tempting to diss. Avoid the temptation. This is crisp, professional Hollywood film-making of the highest order. By turns cynical, witty, seedy, glamorous and ultimately noble - and all coming in under two hours without a hint of artistic self-indulgence. It benefits from being in black and white - highlights the shades of grey. Also incidentally a fantastic advertisement for the sexiness of cigarettes and alcohol. Who would have known they could be so bad for us.

I finished off my Saturday watching Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar in bed. This had been recommended to me (the film not bed) by an interested academic when I was enduring the only painful interlude of my second undergraduate life (this elephant never forgets) but I have only just got around to checking it out. This defies categorisation, is genre bending and was beloved of the gurus of the French nouvelle vague. Is it a Western? Yes but no but yes. Is it a melodrama? Yes but no but yes. Is it early feminism? No but yes but no. Shot in lurid Trucolor but in 4:3 frame. Mainstream but insidiously bonkers. You can pick it up on Amazon for next to nothing and my version even has a little introduction by Martin Scorsese the patron saint of cinema. Recommended.

Just to ensure I didn't become too euphoric I heard Billy Bragg on the radio this morning being interviewed about the right to protest. His earnest views inevitably collapsed into drivel when he got to the point of comparing the Occupy protesters at St Paul's to Rosa Parks. Sometimes Billy, there are shades of grey - in fact we might take a film like Casablanca as our text in this regard. But me? I'm just a lawnmower, you can tell me by the way I walk.