Twelve Films At Christmas - 9

I have a soft-spot for biblical epics, so you may find me a tad generous in my assessment of the plodding and worthy King of Kings. It was filmed in Super Technirama and is at least defensible as a lovingly constructed series of rich tableaux of the life of the Christ. I particularly like the portrayal of Barabbas, who probably deserves his own film - you can have that one for free. 58/100.

Twelve Films At Christmas - 6, 7 & 8

No great films to critique on this occasion but sometimes you don't want a great example of cinema. Sometimes you have eaten and drunk too much and want a movie to sort of lap over you rather than having to commit yourself to a headlong dive into its waters. That slovenly mood has been upon me for the past couple of days so these films fitted the bill. First up is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is a grand tale but the juvenile acting still lags embarrassingly behind the very fine adult talent on display. I would rather read Harry Potter than watch the films. Almost sacrilegiously I feel the other way round about Lord of the Rings. Does this make me a bad person? Oh well. The Potter film - 60/100. 

 Well-paced and nicely mixing slap-stick with occasional pathos, Planes, Trains and Automobiles delivers plenty of laughs. The bedroom sharing sequence is my favourite, closely followed by the build-up to the car crash. This movie has no pretensions to be high art but it is good at what it attempts - 61/100. I discover that it is to be remade with Will Smith in the lead. Why? But equally, I suppose, why not? As another incidental aside, I think that we can just about call this a Christmas film - on the grounds that, to European eyes, one can elide Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Finally another warm-hearted and affecting piece of comedy. Baby Boom could have been thoroughly dreadful - perhaps one of those made-on -the-cheap TV movies that litter the fag end of the film channels. But here we see the benefit of good acting because everyone delivers fine work, most particularly Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard. Even the baby (actually it's a pair of photogenic twins) is good. 61/100.

Twelve Films At Christmas - 4 & 5

Is Die Hard A Christmas film? You do not have to delve too deeply in the interweb thingy to hear both sides of this debate. So here is the definitive answer: of course it is not. That settled, is it actually any good? Yes it is - a thriller full of great effects and with a modicum of comedy that reassures you it is not taking itself too seriously. Bruce Willis in his vest (clever how the plot is framed to rid him of his shirt - and his shoes) is cool and Alan Rickman is a scene-stealing villain. 68/100.

But now for something altogether on a different plane. My old office wall was dominated by my poster of Bogart as Rick in the final scene of Casablanca. That picture now stands at the top of our stairs, and a print of the movie poster is above my desk as I write this. If Willis is cool in Die Hard then Humphrey Bogart is off the scale in this his most famous role. This is a great film - tightly scripted and never a moment too long. It has melodrama, cynicism, style and, of course most memorably, redemptive honour. 93/100. 

Advent 24

To bring us to a grand conclusion, here it is, the song that is my current idea of my favourite cover version. I go through fads of opinion just like anyone else but this has been my rediscovery of the year. In fact it was listening to and admiring this track that got me started on this iteration of the OG calendar.

Behind the coveted Door 24 we find The Byrds and their cover of Dylan's My Back Pages. Enjoy - and take time to decipher the lyrics. In them I find that spirit inculcated by my second exposure to tertiary education. I look back at my last years in private legal practice and I conclude that I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. 

Thank you for your attention. Happy Christmas and may your God go with you.

Twelve Films At Christmas - 3

As screen-writing credits go the combination of Graham Greene and Terence Rattigan takes a bit of beating. They are together responsible for the script of Brighton Rock, an adaptation for the screen of Greene's own novel. That novel made an appearance in this blog as part of the 2012 advent calendar. The haunting conclusion is changed in the film but that should not put you off what is a skilfully realised portrayal of low-life gangsterism. The film enjoys the accolade of being the only four star movie of 1947 in my edition of Halliwell. Cinematically taut as a drum and Richard Attenborough is suitably terrifying as Pinkie Brown, the teenage hoodlum at the film's centre. 86/100.    

Advent 23

We're getting to the sharp end of this countdown now. Today's song doesn't seem to have an acknowledged author, rather it is a traditional folk song, recorded by many artists going back nearly a century. Those who've had a stab at it include Woody Guthrie and, rather exotically, Johnny Hallyday. However its definitve rendition has to by The Animals in 1964. Unrecorded is the version my mate Big Willy Mac (yes him again) launches into in the small hours of the morning in Irish bars. At those joyous moments my judgement is clouded by alcohol and I will swear that nobody does it better. Much as I love my mate, sober consideration comes down in favour of The Animals. The House of the Rising Sun. Brilliant.  

Advent 22

It is close to impossible to like all of Prince's music, there is so damned much of it. But here is a cover of a song that he wrote for The Family who were one of his Paisley Park project bands. It was written in the mid-eighties and this Sinead O'Connor version was released in 1990. O'Connor seems to be even bat-shit crazier than was Prince himself (I do not count this altogether a bad thing in the creative realms) but this is one of the most perfect pop confections of all time. Nothing Compares 2 U. 

Twelve Films at Christmas - 2

 

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a charming confection comprised of some authentic Victoriana and some knowing modernisms. Charles Dickens (a winning Dan Stevens) is on his financial uppers and suffering on the back of two literary flops (Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit) and so, with the aid of a cast of ghosts/apparitions, he bangs out A Christmas Carol - hey presto, writer's block cleared and Christmas duly invented. Uniformly well-played (in particular Jonathan Pryce in scene-stealing form) this deserves a place in the seasonal canon. 71/100. 

Advent 21

Hanging on the Telephone is so identified with Blondie that it comes as a surprise to learn that it is a cover version. The original version was recorded in 1976 by The Nerves - no, me neither! You can track the original down on Spotify and it comes out sounding like an underpowered cover of Blondie. The famed Blondie version is a more layered rendition and the stand-out track on the brilliant album Parallel Lines. This is one of the songs of 1978, the year I met the Groupie. Happy days.

Advent 20

This really is a great track. It is a cover of what is itself a stellar piece of music - Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Here we have the inimitable tones of Johnny Cash giving the piece a whole new life. It says much that my great mate Big Willy Mac, a man who knows his music, loves this version of the song. Happy Christmas Big Willy.

Advent 19

I am no expert but Muse seem to me to be the natural successors to the virtuoso stadium prog-rockers of the seventies. We have seen them live on two occasions and it has to be said that they are terrific. So it is apt that they also do a mean cover version. Feeling Good has been recorded by umpteen artists but its most famous iteration is by Nina Simone. Here are Muse giving it large. 

Advent 18

Today we have an almighty musical collision. This is what happens when hip-hop decides to put rock and roll in its place. The colliding bodies are Run DMC and Aerosmith, the latter's career being revived by this brilliant conflagration. The video has vim, vigour and a substantial degree of wit, a quality never to be sneered at. Just a thought - how on earth is Steve Tyler still alive? The tales of his substance abuse reach almost (I did say almost) heroic heights. Don't try this at home. Walk This Way.  

Advent 17

In my teens you were marked by the bands you favoured. In our school the most popular were ELP, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Genesis. I went for none of these, preferring the Moody Blues, a predilection I shared with just one other adherent, whose good taste in this regard I still thank. But here's the funny thing, the only Moodies song any of the unconverted knew was the dirge-like Nights in White Satin. I found this mildly embarrassing since I have never really liked the track. 

And here's another funny thing - some people think American Punk is an oxymoron. All I know is that when my least favourite Moody Blues track meshes with American Punk we get this joyous confection from the Dickies.

Advent 16

Now for one beloved of carousing rugby players - I particularly remember singing this in the company of my fellow-travellers at King's. We were young and stupid but ultimately harmless, passing our wild days before entering the forbidding adult world that was the early-eighties. I suspect most of us did alright in the end.

The song's history is as a Bahamian folk tune, recorded by many but mastered by the Beach Boys, probably the most accessible track on their seminal Pet Sounds album. Sloop John B.

Advent 15

I am an admirer of the Boss but there is something about his Dancing in the Dark that doesn't float my boat. Can't put my finger on it, just one of those things. Nor is synth-pop usually my cup of tea but when the two things collide in the hands of Hot Chip - I think the result is excellent. Is it only me? Tomorrow, one for the rugby players out there. Bet that's got you worried/wondering.

Twelve Films At Christmas - 1

The Guardian labelled it possibly the worst film of 2019 but did find space, ridiculously, to praise the film's clumsy Brexit bashing. The film in question is Last Christmas, co-written by the highly estimable Emma Thompson. It aims to achieve the exploitative heart-stealing stunt of Love Actually. It fails. The central performances are too sickly-sweet to bear and the plot twist is telegraphed. Worst film of the year? Doubtful but will I watch it again (even at Christmas)? No. 51/100.

An Ailing And Much Loved Family Member

I went to get my eyes tested last week. Nothing much to report on the general eyesight front - I'm getting some proper reading glasses but my distance sight is still fine, courtesy of the decade old laser surgery. Being me I managed to choose  a woundingly expensive pair of frames - Oakley don't you know, to go with my precious shades. The shades, as any fule kno, make me run faster so presumably this new pair will make me read more quickly. All good then.

Well not quite all good as it turned out. I mentioned to the optician (a very brisk and efficient young lady) that I had been suffering from a 'floater' in my right eye which had first appeared three weeks beforehand. So she had a a jolly good look and was concerned enough to write me a letter of referral and to despatch me post-haste to the Midland Eye Hospital at Dudley Road, there possibly being a retinal tear. And this is where the title of my piece today comes in - I'm not talking of myself but rather, figuratively, of the National Health Service. I read somewhere (I don't think it was me who coined it, but I have pilfered the phrase) that The dear old NHS is the nearest we thing we now have in this country to a shared religion. Now, let me be clear, my experience of dealing professionally with the NHS was often disspiriting - it has the nimbleness of an oil tanker (a bloody big one with a wonky rudder at that ) and I don't buy all that guff about its every employee being an angel. However it has safely delivered two children to us and it was there for me when I was at my lowest ebb. For all the inefficiency and waste it rather preferred that I should not harm myself when I was ambivalent (to say the least) on the subject. So God bless it.

My longish afternoon at the Eye Hospital confirmed that the service is creaking under the burden of demands but in the final anlaysis it just about got by. Despite the problem of patient numbers, the problem of multiple languages being spoken by patients and staff and the organisational demands consequent upon Covid, I was warned that it would take four hours for me to be diagnosed and that transpired to be spot on. I had expected as much and had a book with me, but this proved a false comfort once I had been triaged and had eye drops put in to dilate my pupils because I couldn't read a bloody thing. Anyway you will be relieved to know (well I am at least) that after a thorough examination (including with a rather creepy strong lens that actually skims the surface of the eye) I don't have a retinal tear. What I have is a posterior vitreous detachment which has stirred up the jelly in my eye. Time is the cure. So I felt relieved as I left the hospital and grateful to that much loved relative, for all its manifest faults. It remains a magnificent conception, though possibly one that can never be perfectly realised.       

Advent 14

If you do that interweb thingy and search for 'great cover versions', you will find plenty of lists and common to many of them is the Nirvana cover of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. Now the Overgraduate is not swayed by such things so here is the earlier, and to these ears better, cover version by Lulu. That's right, Lulu. There's my street cred completely gone. But do not fear dear reader, tomorrow we have a synth-pop desecration of a rock classic. Nice.

Advent 13

Number 13 - unlucky for some? Never thought so myself but I suppose that we can accord the dread number some unintended consequence as the random number generator that is my notebook serves up the siren but tragic Amy Winehouse giving a memorable vocal account of Valerie. Props of course to Mark Ronson who provides the backing and to the Zutons whose song this this originally was. The Zutons - best band name ever? 

Advent 12

 Istanbul by They Might Be Giants is not even the first cover of this 1953 novelty song but it is the best. Absolutely brilliant and dig the video. Why is it so good? That's nobody's business but the Turks. Enjoy.

Advent 11

It's bad academic practice to cite Wikipedia as a source but on this occasion I'll make an exception. Torn

This gives you the varied history of what ends up being Natalie Imbruglia's fifteen minutes of pop fame. A cracking good song. A cover.

Advent 10

This won't be the last we hear of Bob Dylan. By way of a contrast to yesterday's nuclear holocaust chic here we have Olivia Newton-John's oh so sweet cover of Dylan's If Not for You. There is another justly famous cover of this song by George Harrison but the marginal vote goes to ONJ and that clear as crystal vocal. I bet you didn't know I had a soft side. More tomorrow.

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

No, not the winsome song. If you want winsome you'll have to tune in for tomorrow's advent calendar entry. 

Instead I'm taking time out from the calendar to let you know that I set yet another PB on my three mile run this morning. All this really proves is that I have not hitherto been pushing myself, but, what the Hell, it keeps me happy, particularly as, touch wood, the old leg muscles are bearing up. All of which semi-strenuous exercise puts me in a good mood, the more so as Christmas looms on the horizon. It will be different, because of the Covid restrictions, just Groupie, the Pig, DN1 and DN2. But, and I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, I sense a societal desire to make the best of this bad job and a consequent elevation in public goodwill. People are certainly nice when I plod past them on the mean streets of Four Oaks. Let's hope I'm right.

I've located one good thing about the virus - it acts as a fine distraction as Brexit reaches its wholly predictable conclusion, that is to say, repeated failure to achieve a free-trade deal with the EU. Even those old Jobs at the BBC are struggling to summon- up angst about this 'catastrophic' denouement. The public outside the bubble, don't give a toss. When dealing with a protectionist leviathan like the EU, we should not expect anything else. The whole thing is weighed down by its own preposterous arrogance. Plu ca change as we don't say over here. 

More good news - I've already got my bumper Christmas edition of the Radio Times. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Advent 9

Funny how things work themselves into your consciousness. I was collecting Daughter Number 2's car from the garage the other day and, what with DN2 being a good deal more hip than her old man, the radio was tuned to Radio 6. They were playing something that I liked and I learned from the digital display (isn't science wonderful) that it was by a popular beat combo called The Postal Service. So when I got back home I fired up the old streaming service and listened to said combo. Nice but not earth-shattering. But lo and behold I also came across a cover of one of their tracks, We Will Become Silhouettes. Here it is in all its loveliness. By the Shins and imho notably better than the original. Listen to the lyrics. Quality.

Advent 8

And for my next trick - you've had Zeppelin doing a cover, and now I give you a fantastic cover of  a Zeppelin track. Accompanying the opening credits of the film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this is Karen O with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and their stirring take on Immigrant Song.

Advent 7

We've had two great rock leviathans already - Pink Floyd being covered and Yes doing an exuberant cover. It is then about time we had a band of the same vintage, possibly the band of that vintage, Led Zeppelin. Here is their cover/expansion of a 1929 number (written and recorded by the magnificently named Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie) - When the Levee Breaks. 

Advent 6

In case you were wondering about Leonard Cohen's reaction to Sid Vicious' visceral interpretation of My Way, my (admittedly meagre) research suggests that he thought it a definitive version of a problematic song.

Now for one of Cohen's own compositions. The songwriter's own recording of Hallelujah is magnificent and it has been much covered, but never better than by another doomed youth, Jeff Buckley.   

Advent 5

Apologies to anyone who's tuned in expecting a bit more Sinatra. Here we have instead the most profane cover of a classic ever made - the tragic Sid Vicious and his charismatic rendition of the Paul Anka penned, hubristic My Way.

If you have a minute it is worth tracking down Leonard Cohen's observations on this song and in particular on the Vicious version. Cohen gets another mention tomorrow.  

Advent 4

And now arguably history's finest vocalist with a song from arguably his defining album, Songs for Swingin' Lovers. Frank Sinatra delivered this version of I've Got You Under My Skin in 1956, twenty years after it was written by Cole Porter and won an Oscar for its appearance in Born to Dance. Effortlessness as sublime as Sinatra's takes a lot of hard work!  

Tomorrow another Sinatra classic - but no more clues than that.

Advent 3

There is a sort of link to yesterday's entry. I commented (I'm not the first to do it) that The Milk Carton Kids put me in mind of Simon and Garfunkel. Well here we have the masters of prog-rock, Yes, with their ridiculously brilliant cover (at three times the length of the original!) of Simon and Garfunkel's America. The seventies - bad hair, bad clothes, bad industrial relations, but man we had some fun.

Advent 2

Another piece of Spotify serendipity brought this one to my attention. I had been listening to Foy Vance and let it run over, at which point Spotify (eerily or handily depending on your mood at the time) takes over and plays you other things it thinks you will like. On ths occasion it was right. Continuing the Pink Floyd theme, here is the Milk Carton Kids' fine cover of Wish You Were Here. Don't they put you in mind of Simon and Garfunkel?

Can't promise such a seamless segue into tomorow's track I'm afraid. But then again, I've just had an idea.

Advent 1

How's this for clever. Our theme this year is cover versions and our first entry is a weird (and thereby brilliant) cover of the very song that was door 24 in last year's calendar - here are Scissor Sisters with their take on Comfortably Numb. Some serious Pink Floyd fans regard this version as tantamount to sacrilege but rumour has it that Floyd themselves approve, not that they really need the royalties. Tomorrow a variation on this theme.

Holidays Are Coming ... The Advent Announcement

I know, I know, you don't want any waffle or distraction you just want to know the answer to the biggest question on the cultural front. What is the theme of this year's Overgraduate Advent Calendar? Well may you ask - and the answer is that once again we are in the realms of music. We've had the albums, we've had the individual songs - and now we have cover versions. Twenty-four beauties of the species. Artists performing someone else's work.

See you tomorrow. I don't know whether it's a by-product of this sodding Covid business but I can't remember enjoying quite such a feeling of anticipation about Christmas. The Groupie and I even put up the tree a couple of days early. 

The Curse Of Catenaccio But A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Despite the time of year my lawn is looking pretty good. For once I have stuck to my little and often mantra as regards leaf sweeping and the result is rather pleasing. Mind you I've got twenty bags of wet leaves needing transport to the dump. So all in all, that's pretty good.

 I have a set course for my shorter runs of about three miles and I have started keeping track of my over-60's PB. I beat that PB by sixteen seconds yesterday. So all in all that's pretty good.

Eddie Jones is getting on my nerves. He has England playing the rugby equivalent of the dreaded old footballing Catenaccio - a system that takes as its key the bolting of the defensive door. Thus yesterday England beat a diminshed Welsh team in a stultifying encounter. Some ambition please. Oh and can someone teach Owen Farrell how to tackle properly. He has all the nerve required but constantly goes too high. It has already got him sent off once this year. An accident waiting to happen. So all in all, not so good.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - yes I know that's not how we spell 'neighbourhood' but it's an American film so we must allow them their way. This is a film which teeters on the precipice of saccharine sentimentality but performs a masterful balancing act to ensure that is does not topple over the cliff edge. Tom Hanks excellent as always and Matthew Rhys matching him all the way. Rather beautiful. 70/100. Groupie and I watched it last night after eating home-made (that is by the Groupie not by me) pizzas. Served alongside an organic Malbec for me - how woke is the Pig! So all in all, that's pretty good. 

Cultural Artefacts

When the break-up of the Beatles was still a recent thing the beastly, avaricious record company moguls put out two compilation albums respectively covering the periods 1962-1966 and 1967-1970. They are seared into the minds of those of a certain age as the Blue Album and the Red Album. They are brilliant and still the most effective primers for anybody who needs to be persuaded that the Beatles are important - incredibly bloody important.

 

So anyway I was saying - incredibly bloody important. And I would venture that it is the band's later catalogue that today attracts the most attention - the difference between the two periods perhaps best summed up the track counts and running times of these two albums. The Red Album clocks up twenty-six tracks and a running time of just one hour and two minutes; the Blue, twenty-eight tracks clocking in at one hour and thirty-nine minutes. Well what I rediscovered today is that early Beatles should not be disdained. I played the Red Album as the background track to some research on Antony and Cleopatra, of which play a little more anon. The Red Album? Well, compilation albums are not generally important cultural artefacts - these are. Has pop ever been done better?

As for Antony and Cleopatra - well obviously another significant cultural artefact. Arguably dear old Shakespeare's best (depending on my mood and the quality of the production), a play that is, to steal from another favourite cultural artefact (answers on a virtual postcard), polymorphously perverse. 

So after a slow start (the early stages of a new chapter of research are always a tad woeful) today has been a good day. In addition to the artefacts already referred to, you will, dear reader, be on tenterhooks about the theme for this year's Overgraduate Advent Calendar. I'm excited so goodness only knows how you're feeling. More to follow as December approaches. No teasers. You'll have to wait. 

The Pig Is A New Romantic

I'm feeling rather chipper, thank you for asking. The Groupie and I went for a bracing walk in (on?) Cannock Chase this afternoon. Got a bit muddy but good times - the sun shone for much of the time so I wore the precious Oakleys - said it before but it merits repetition - girls go crazy for a sharp-dressed man.

Anyway, what's this romanticism that's got hold of the Pig? Well may you ask - here we go: 

Government has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.

Percy Byssche Shelley in the conduct of his private life may have had the morals of an alley cat, but that is the only regard in which he might be compared to Donald J. Trump. The quoted lines make up the first clause of Shelley's Declaration of Rights, coined in 1812. They are brilliant. We should trumpet them and act by them.

Now for some damned fine coffee - Machu Picchu since you ask. Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three. See ya. 

Sinister Times

I blogged almost triumphally about Trump's electoral defeat. Of course I was premature. The man is not stupid - evil, yes, but not stupid. He had a plan all along and that was so to muddy the clear waters of democracy that enough of his gullible countrymen would believe his lies. Taken at one level (and I have been guilty of this for which I apologise) Trump is the stuff of comedy, but now in what should be his moment of humiliation we see just how dangerous this man is. He seeks to bring the rule of law tumbling down with him and frankly doesn't give a shit. Be afraid. Be  very afraid. Policies do not matter a jot in this scenario - morality does.

Roadkill

I sort of slagged-off David Hare's Roadkill last week. We watched the final episode last night and I've changed my mind. It was in fact slightly worse than I had suggested. I was put in mind of my old favourite, the Donald - everybody always talking in capital letters.

So, entertaining? Yes to a degree, but also tendentious drivel. Give me Paul Abbott, Andrew Davies or Jed Mercurio any day.

 

Lock Him Up!

It was one of those weird moments - I was drafting a paragraph in the old thesis that touched upon Timothy Snyder's excoriation of Putin and Trump. (What's that got to do with Shakespeare you might ask - we'll save that for another day, but trust me I'm right). Well, anyway, I was listening inattentatively to the football in the background when the BBC interrupted the commentary to announce that Joe Biden had won the US presidential election. I have made no secret of my utter loathing of Trump (admit it, you noticed) but only at the moment of his downfall did I realise just how much this wretched man had embedded himself in my psyche. I feel a lifting of a burden. This is silly but that is how much he had got to me. Unimportant little me.

There will be a hypocritical cacophony from Trump and his gruesome acolytes but let us hope that they are given judicial short shrift - if an election really has been stolen from Trump then it is time to abandon all remaining hope in America.

There is much that will handicap Biden, not least what is erroneously designated the 'progressive' wing of his party. These are people who seriously believe in the USA's own imitation of Magic Grandpa, the political sociopath Bernie Sanders. And we must not forget that the deplorable Donald bloody nearly won. But for now let us rejoice that the most powerful political voice in the world will not be coarse, vainglorious and contemptible.   

Political Drama

Later this evening the next episode of David Hare's latest offering, Roadkill, will screen on BBC1. It has a stellar cast who have all doubtless given breathless interviews to the Meeja about the honour that they feel in acting out the tired polemic of our national dramatist. I will be watching - it is quite diverting and beautifully played. Is Hugh Laurie ever anything but superb? What we should not do however is apply the adjective 'great' to this watchable hokum. Hare never whispers his message when he can shout it and that message is I suppose at least consistent - all Tories are bastards - without exception. 

By one of those nice accidents I was looking for our dvd of The Philadelphia Story this afternoon. Couldn't locate it - suspect it may be at Plas Piggy and thereby off-limits to these diseased English hands. But it it's an ill wind and all that because I came across State of Play and so the Groupie and I sat down to watch the first episode. It is the work of the reliable Paul Abbott and, I'll tell you what, somebody ought to send a copy to David Hare and let him know that you can make a point in ways other than bashing your audience over the head with your metaphorical socialist mallet.

And if you really want to see good political drama give YouTube a blast and peer through the hazy video quality and try the 1969 Play of the Month television adaptation of Julius Caesar - Julius Caesar. The play is artfully cut into the two hour slot that it was given and at no stage is the dramatist (or the director) screaming his bias at you. Which is rather the point. As the programme notes by Emma Smith for the Crucible's 2017 production of the play nicely put it:

Ultimately, we have to pick our own way through the rhetoric, the self-serving, and the fake news. The ethical challenge of Julius Caesar is precisely that it does not tell us what to think, but makes us think for ourselves. Not bad training for our troubled times.

Amen to that. Or as the Pig less politely might put it - stop shouting at me, I'm not bloody deaf.

     

 

Pop Will Eat Itself (Redux)

One can get to missing these things. The Conservative Party is presently in a dire state - BoJo having lost his mojo but his majority being large enough to preclude any serious rocking of the boat. And boy does the boat need rocking as we continue to sail our way blithely into an economic depression.

Still the good old Labour Party has come to the rescue and given us a nice bit of internecine warfare to warm the cockles on these cold evenings - Corbyn suspended 

This tawdry tale is all part of Kier Starmer's attempt to detoxify his party, or that at least is the way he tells it. What we ought to remember is that (unlike Andy Burnham who may be overplaying his mayoral cards a little but has a clean bill of health hypocrite-wise) Starmer served Corbyn as a loyal lieutenant during the last parliament. Starmer suffers from what we might call Mike Pence Syndrome - wherein an outwardly decent bloke uncomplainingly bows and scrapes at the feet of an utter shit. 

And as if to bring me yet more fun, the infantile SNP is also eviscerating itself with the odious Alex Salmond cast in the unlikely role of avenging angel - Saint Alex of Salmond  

Finally if you want to see how low an Englishman can stoop, track down the clips of Nigel Farage eulogising the shit's shit, the Donald - An Englishman Abroad   

As a wise man said to me only last week - life is like a glass of champagne, drink it while it's fizzy.

I'm Spartacus

Spartacus is a cultural artefact as old as Big Fat Pig. Regular readers might know that the Pig is not a particular devotee of the oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick - deeming A Clockwork Orange a pernicious little film, 2001: A Space Odyssey a monolithic slab of pretension, and Doctor Strangelove grossly overrated. On the topic of that last mentioned film, I'm afraid Peter Sellers also leaves me cold most of the time. These are not fashionable views. The Pig perhaps redeems himself a little in the eyes of the cinematic bien pensant by admiring Full Metal Jacket, but generally that has been the limit of any pleasurable engagement with this oft acclaimed directorial genius. 

But here's the thing, we actually got round to watching all of Spartacus at one sitting yesterday. Hitherto it has been one of those films I have seen in snippets, generally around Christmas. It's good, marked in particular by a sharp Dalton Trumbo script, by its pace and by several (Kirk Douglas, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Laurence Olivier) heavyweight performances. 70/100. 

Doctor Zhivago

Not the book. Haven't read it. I understand it weighs in at one hundred and sixty thousand words so I've read longer. In fact I'm in the middle of Moby Dick which is even longer than that. 

No, I'm talking about the film. It's a leviathan of a movie. As one critic said, it tries to do for snow what the same director's Lawrence of Arabia did for sand. In that aim it fails. Lawrence of Arabia is Lean's masterpiece, Zhivago is an emptier vessel - magnificent to look at and despite its length never dreary but with a vacancy at its core. Another problem - the music is famous but in its context within the film it fails. It jars - there's a bad pun wrapped up in that statement - I'll leave you to work it out. 68/100. 

It Makes You Think ... Which Is A Good Thing

A glorious autumnal day, the sun flecking the doomed foliage and the temperature neither too warm nor too cold. Venue - the National Memorial Arboretum. 

The whole place is splendid and it goes without saying that it is moving.  A banal observation I know but it does make you think. And the memorial that particularly got me thinking seems to have affected many others in the same way. By the weird un-science of surfing I note that googling 'Shot at Dawn Memorial' provokes a tally of 352,000,000 hits. I wouldn't normally recommend that you jump into the rabbit hole of the internet but on this occasion it is worthwhile. What you will find (and no I haven't read all three hundred and fifty-two million entries - does it look more when in figures or words?) is a surfeit of excusable lax thinking - twenty-first century sensibilities being applied to an early twentieth century tragedy. We all do it but the process can leave you a little queasy. Search hard enough and you will find more nuanced reactions to the tragedy - there's that word again, but tragedy is right.

The arresting memorial commemorates three hundred and nine Empire soldiers executed for cowardice or mutiny in the Great War. All were pardoned by government fiat in 2007. This monument unequivocally does belong in the National Arboretum but it is an indicator of our sensitive modernism that it should provoke the most thought. And on balance - that is a good thing.

The Bright Side

It seems we got out of Wales not a moment too soon. Not satisfied with the various travel bans the administration has now gone the whole hog and mandated a full lock-down for a fortnight starting on Friday. At least you can't accuse them of muddle - everyone knows where they stand and they better bloody well stay there. I wouldn't want to be a legislator just now. Here's an admission - the Pig has lost his usual unbearable certainty on any given topic. Not quite true of course - there are some things on which I haven't lost my voice, Trump prime amongst them. Even when the alternative is the tedious Joe Biden, Trump simply has to go. It is tempting to venture this opinion on the grounds that the democracy is at stake. I may in fact have done so - no I'm pretty sure I must have done. I'm sorry - democracy is as democracy does, the least bad way of running things. No, what is at stake is that elusive construct, the rule of law. A victory for Sleepy Joe will not deliver us entirely safely from harm - he will have to escape the clutches of his own pudding-brained left - but he is our best chance. And for those who wonder why I get so exercised about America, I repeat that I love the stupid, irritating place, just as I love the stupid, irritating United Kingdom. There is (as often) a line in Kipling that would sum up why America must remove itself from its present self-absorbed, self-harming malaise, but its use would be misconstrued so I won't do that. Just get a grip folks. Please.

How a calf muscle should look

Enough of that- I promised you the bright side. The news you've been waiting for: today, fully five weeks and two days since he was so tragically lamed, Big Fat Pig went for a run this morning. Thirty minutes (that's about three miles at Piggy pace) and although he is now stiffening up, the Pig feels all the better for his efforts. Sod Covid, sod Trump, sod political posturing, he's back.

More good news - tomorrow the Pig takes his golf game to Cavendish Golf Club, which, as any fule kno, is the Pig's favourite golfing destination.

Do you know what, the corny Christmas film channels are already broadcasting, have been for a couple of weeks. It's daft but I have decided to be charmed by it. It speaks of unusual optimism in a time of doubt. I know it's all probably driven by dire marketing ploys and a hunger for advertising revenues, but I am rising above it and so announce an elongated season of goodwill to all (well not all of course - see above). I've even got a good scheme for this year's Overgraduate advent calendar. My lips are sealed. 

My charitable mood towards the commercialisers of the birth of Our Lord, may have something to do with the scent of turkey soup dominating the kitchen. The Groupie is working her way through the contents of our freezers and that has included a turkey carcass. Her turkey soup is most excellent.

Putting The House To Bed

Big Fat Pig and the Groupie rushed to fit in a few days at the old country estate before the Welsh government threw the English out of Cymru, ostensibly on account of Covid although in the Pig's fevered imagination it is the product of unconscious racism - still, no one likes us, we don't care. The Pig's view on all of this is, not unnaturally, stoked up by the payment of double Council Tax for a property he now finds himself prohibited from even visiting. 

Wylfa Head

Enough whining. We had a lovely time. We even found a stretch of the Coastal Path we had not walked before - from Wylfa Head back to Cemaes. Cracking. Another rather muddy adventure took us down to Ynys y Fydlyn, this second walk being celebrated with drinks and a bowl of chips each at the Trecastell Hotel in Bull Bay. Sausages for tea, washed down with Romanian red. Tidy.

Ynys y Fydlyn

And so we have done with Plas Piggy (or should that be more modestly Ty Piggy - no, Pig doesn't really do modesty - admit it you've noticed) what the National Trust do - Plas Piggy is now asleep for the winter, eagerly awaiting the day when the powers that be let us return. Damn this virus and the ham-fisted legislative response to it.

 And I'll tell you what's nice - nice is when the house opposite chops down its horrid leylandii and unclutters your view of the Great Orme. 

And I'll tell you what else is nice - a free-flowing M6 that allows the journey to Mon to be done in well under three hours.

One final thing that's nice - Joe's Pizza swilled down with a ruby ale I got for Christmas and about which I'd forgotten. 

Worth looking up on Netflix - Jimmy McGovern's Broken - by turns tragic, affecting and finally redemptive. Actually rather more than worth looking up - it's a must see. 

Three Games Of Golf

QMT (I've said before, it's a long story) Golf Tour got pushed to October by Covid. Destination Newark. Outcome: brilliant fun. A combination of comic wisdom, plain wisdom and quite a lot of plain daftness.

First up was Newark Golf Club. Nice course and the weather stayed dry. RW won the QMT trophy for the umpteenth time. I played. Badly.

On Friday the majority of us went to Rufford Hall Golf Club - not Blob who quite shamefully had gone home. Beautiful golf course. It rained. Not too much. I played. Well. Seventeenth hole simply spectacular. The picture below does not do it full justice but you get the idea.

Saturday, AO entertained JS and the Pig at his home course, Stoke Rochford. Another nice course. It rained. Heavily. I played. Adequately.

Good golf, great company. Good beer. Life is good.

  

Once Upon A Time In The West

Once Upon a Time in the West is nearly, but not quite, a great film. It is big, brash and stylish but ultimately does not really know what it wants to be about. Hell, even the titles take twelve minutes to get done. Still Sergio Leone is, well, Sergio Leone and ever watchable, plus Claudia Cardinale is magnificent to look at. At almost three hours it is a long ride but always fun. 73/100.

I'm Younger Than That Now

Nobody should doubt the brilliance of Bob Dylan as a lyricist. He's up there with Clive James - and anybody who knows OG's predilections will know that this is praise indeed.

I was reminded of this when Spotify (as it does - these algorithms are clever you must admit) pointed me in the direction of the Byrds. Their version of Dylan's My Back Pages is, whisper this only, better than Dylan's own version but it is the lyric that makes it:

Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

That Nobel Prize was well-deserved.

The Small Pleasures Of Things Done Well

I can't honestly say that I watch very much on Channel 5 but a happy exception to this fact has materialised. All Creatures Great and Small in its original televisual form was that unusual thing - a very good adaptation of the source novels. Now Channel 5 have dared to have a new go at the texts. They have nailed it. Samuel West is particularly good as the irascible but noble Siegried Farnon, good enough to make us forget the estimable Robert Hardy whom one would otherwise have thought had made the role wholly his own. I recommend watching it after tea on a Sunday evening accompanied by a smooth Italian red. A thing done well.

Another thing done well is Renee Zellweger's portrayal of the tragic Judy Garland in Judy. Well enough done to have won her an Oscar - no argument here. The text (expanded from a stage play) concentrates largely on Garland's last year of life and in particular her residency at London's Talk of the Town. She died in London in 1969, relatively impoversished and at the age of only forty-seven. The film takes a commendably low-key approach to this sad tale of a great talent brought to its knees. 71/100.   

Golf But Not As We Know It

Golf as the Pig knows it is a barmy distraction, played out with old mates in pleasing locations. Yesterday it was AK, BH and CL at Aston Wood Golf Club. Golf as Bryson Dechambeau knows it, is a rather charmless sequence of smash and gouge bolted onto stellar putting.

 The Pig (paired with CL) lost yesterday. DeChambeau won the US Open on Sunday at something approaching a canter and the voices of concern are loudly pronouncing the death of this daft game. Time for the Pig to have his say. The Pig finds it hard to warm to Bryson notwithstanding  his manifest gifts. It's not the ugly power game that I mind so terribly, it's the painful slow play and I still haven't forgiven him for the dishonourable business with the burrowing ant. Pathetic. But here's the thing, the object of the exercise is to propel a tiny ball into a distant hole with as few blows of ill-suited implements as possible. DeChambeau was markedly the best at this and we must live with it. Those who set up golf courses for tournament play must adapt. It can be done.

Last week saw another pleasing golfing discovery. Courtesy of GC, and in the company of BH and NJ, Droitwich Golf Club was a thing of beauty. And not a hint of smash and gouge in sight.  

Now I've Had Enough (Part II)

 Let me quote to you section 38(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020:

The Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign.

No equivocation, no ifs, no buts. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Now, the difficult bit. Will someone please tell Gina Miller. Will someone please tell the Supreme Court. Will someone please tell Nancy Pelosi, no, come to think of it, someone tell Nancy Pelosi that it's none of her damned business.

It makes you wish that we could revive Tony Benn. Or Enoch Powell. Or Michael Foot. At least the debate/argument would be edifying and informative.

I'm Sorry But Now I've Had Enough

I was watching CNN this afternoon and they showed some voxpop from a Trump rally. The line of questioning was 'Why aren't you wearing a mask?' Some predictably parroted the lines about their constitutional freedoms but the prize for most entertaining (in a quite horribly morbid manner) has to go to the shaven-headed biker type who answered in all seriousness, 'Because it's a fake virus, it doesn't exist.' You have to marvel at the potency of a deep state that such idiots believe could pull off a stunt on that scale.

I'll tell you what constitutes the best argument against the existence of these bizarre plots. The performance of our own dear government in the face of the virus, that's what. To fake a response to the pandemic every bit as inept as the one we are seeing, would take administrative genius on an unprecedented scale. No the sad facts are these: the virus exists and our leaders have completlely lost both plot and control.

So yes, I am (after an implausibly long period of biting my tongue) now officially pissed off with the whole shebang. By the time (if ever) we come out of this, our economy will be shot to pieces. Actually, that's unfair - it's already shot. I know it's difficult lads but please, please, can we have some hint that there is a strategy underlying the constant changes in policy. I will at least concede that the virus looks pretty.

The Siren Idiocy Of 'Make America Great Again' ... And Some Cheerier Stuff

The message is delivered knowingly by a dangerous man who cares for nothing other than his own crude ambition. If his blandishments have their desired effect then America (which we of course concede has on occasion been a great force for good) risks slipping idiotically into a politics of eternalism in which unpalatable truths are treated as invention and decency is sacrificially slaughtered.

The politics of eternity consumes the substance of the past, leaving only a boundless innocence that justifies everything. (Timothy Snyder)

Enough I hear you say. Ok - for now let us have some faith in the American electorate coming to its senses. 

What is the cheery stuff? Nothing startling or new but sometimes old nostrums bear repetition. After the second recent occurence of my calf injury I am back on the roads again, now wearing my very silly-looking calf warmers. Touch wood, so far so good and I am definitely feeling the benefit of the relatively large amount of running and cycling I did in the Summer. The nicest aspect of running the same route most days is that I see familiar faces - this morning was particularly gratifying as a succession of senior citizens (yes even more senior than the Pig himself) waved or spoke to me. As Blur nearly said, it gives me a sense of enormous well-being. Actually, come to think of it, that may even be precisely what Blur said. Answers on a post card etc.

Yesterday was the forty-ninth anniversary of my starting at School. I've said it often enough before but King Edward VI Aston School has been an overwhelming source of good in my life. As if to illustrate how some gifts just keep on giving I played fun and sociable golf yesterday evening with NJ, BH, JRS, CDL and RM, all of them part of the Aston community. Life's been good to me so far.    

 

Are Brilliant ... Mark XXVI

 It's been a while since the last 'Are Brilliant' so I thought I'd better revive it. Besides a change being as good as a rest it has been one of those good to be alive holiday weekends so the revival is timely.

Are brilliant: 

the Groupie. I'm here at the old country residence with her and that always makes me feel blessed.

Ynys Mon: we walked yesterday on the Menai Straits (well not actually on them but you know what I mean) and I marvelled at the perfect fusion of man and nature that is the sea and the two Menai bridges.

The Anglesey Coast Path - one hundred and twenty-five miles of grandeur.

Gregory's Girl, watched yesterday night and which is every bit as charming and downright funny as I had remembered.Out of the top draw. 88/100.

Sausages. Good sausages.

Malbec.

Welsh Chilli Chutney, a jar of which one of our visitors left in the fridge. Spicy, nice with cheddar.

Pig On A Bike. No Crashes. Another Two Films

It's been another mildly troubled week for the Pig. Out running on Monday when the right calf twinged again. He finished his half hour and then strapped on the ice packs. He hasn't been running since but managed a seesion on the cross-trainer and then this morning lasted the full two and a half hours on the precious bike, including four substantial (Pig standard) climbs. His porcine legs are very stiff.

Those films. DN2 and I viewed The Imitation Game on Friday. It's goes without saying that Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as the tragic genius Alan Turing but it perhaps comes as more of a surprise to add that Keira Knightley is also very good. The cracking of the Enigma codes has become the stuff of legend but Turing himself remains, well, something of an enigma. This film relates a very British tragedy unfussily. A solid 2:1 - I'm thinking of films in degree terms I've decided. 69/100. 

Very different but another solid 2:1 is Bridesmaids. It contains some of the features of the gross-out comedy but has a tender heart and is well played by its ensemble cast. Makes you laugh out loud and also makes you smile without getting too lachrymose. 68/100.

I've just been thinking about that 2:1 analogy and it occurs to me that I have, by this new standard, probably been over-marking certain films in the past. Well what can I say  - I'm not a bloody machine, though perhaps I am an enigma. Is that a good thing?

A Two Film Weekend

Daughter Number One has been home for the week and we've watched a couple of films with her this weekend. One is newish and recommended, the other one of the all-time greats.

Bad Education is an HBO production which premiered on television during the lockdown. I'm not sure whether that disqualifies it from consideration for the major cinematic awards - a pity if it does because there is top-grade work on dislay from Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney. It is that most necessary and rewarding of things - an American morality tale. Good stuff. 76/100. 

The all-time great? A movie that pushed the cinematic horizon and remains to this day a thing of beauty to look at. Two million sketches were produced in the making of the film and a quarter of a million final paintings. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 96/100.

DN1 will be heading back to that London tonight. I will miss her, just as I miss DN2 who is hunkered down in locked-down Manchester. The Two Man Idiot Show is out of town but there is always a welcome for it here at Casa Piggy.

Suite Francaise

 I haven't read Irene Nemirovsky's novel but have now seen the film of Suite Francaise. It is a quiet film about desperate times and rather beautiful. Its cast includes the reliably excellent Kristin Scott Thomas. The end seems hurried but perhaps that is inevitable when the source is an unfinished novel. No matter. 70/100.

 

What else has the Pig been up to? He's been a very good boy exercise-wise. When last he reported to you he had taken his first tentative run after the calf strain. Since then he has been for another thirty minute run in broiling heat and then, yesterday morning, in more conducive (though humid) weather he surprised himself by staying out for ninety minutes. His weight is down and today he is going to test his refound golf game at Harborne. He is maintaining a mood of quiet pessimism although the temptation to be positive is lurking. Watching CNN soon dulls any positivity: Trump gets worse by the day and Biden is tragically limited. 

Pig Gets All Cultural

 The Tempest has always bothered me. It is lazily described as Shakespeare's 'late masterpiece' but I've never really got it. I studied it for A level and my version of events has always been that it was badly taught, unlike our other Shakespeare text Hamlet which the great J.G. Smith made sing. I'm still sort of sticking to this self-exculpatory version of personal ancient history but I do now have to admit that the play has more to offer than I have been willing to admit.

Colin Morgan as Ariel

 

What has provoked this Damascene conversion? Well, it's the cultural offering on iPlayer that's what. I was beguiled by the recent transmission of the 2013 Globe production. Roger Allam (Peter Mannion to all Thick of It fans and, let's face it, that should be all of us) is a brilliant Prospero and there has to special praise for Colin Morgan's balletic Ariel. Brave new world indeed. 

Le Pig Sportif

 An interesting couple of weeks for Big Fat Pig and his fitness drive. You may recall that the Pig was for several years plagued by calf injuries. The purchase of some expensive made-to-measure insoles for the running shoes seemed to have cured this blight. But a fortnight ago the Pig was twelve minutes and fifty seconds into his first plod of the week when the right calf pinged in protest. A regime of ice, compression and elevation thus followed and the Pig made his comeback this morning. Thirty-one minutes and no damage done. Le Pig est retourne.

Despite the troublesome calf the Pig has not been completely idle. The cross-trainer has been dusted off and the golf has continued. Monday nights with the lads at Pype Hayes and an additional outing last week at Hatchford Brook where the Pig had his best round of the year (of several years in fact) such that the handicap is inching back towards respectability. On a different golfing front the Pig backed Paul Casey at 80/1 for last week's PGA and the each-way pickup was a healthy return on investment. Le Pig - il est genius. 

I've just finished reading a real curiosity of a book. Caesar was the first published work of Patrick O'Brian - a seriously good author whose Aubrey/Maturin novel sequence everyone should try. Caesar was written when O'Brian was only twelve and published when he was fourteen. It is concise and elegant. Remarkable. 

The sun is shining, the garden is looking good and it is almost too tempting for the Pig to break his midweek alcohol ban. Almost. Le Pig est mentally fort. He's going to make a sandwich and eat it outside. Le Pig est faim.

A Move Away From Emotionless Aplomb

I remember reading some Martin Amis when at university (second time around) and thinking myself moderately smart when I described him as easier to admire than to like. His early stock in trade was, putting it mildly, the world weary.

When his tenth novel Night Train was published in 1997 (I have only just read this one) the Guardian reviewer mentioned Amis's history of 'emotionless aplomb' (wish I'd said that) but only to distinguish Night Train from its cynically arid predecessors. Because this one is not without feeeling. Nor is it without faults but it reads easily enough and leaves you with an oddly gratifying sensation of sadness. Clever. It also succinctly (the best way) shows an understanding of my own illness;

There goes out clear blue sky. Because lithium is used in the treatment of what I have heard described as the Mike Tyson of mental disorders: Manic depression.

That capital letter after the colon is not a transcription error - it reflects a typographical affectation that punctuates the novel. It's probably me being silly but I have to admit that vexed me.  We are nothing without our prejudices I suppose.

Billy Elliot

Some things surprise you when you come back to them. Such transpires to be the case with Billy Elliot, a film I have seen several times but which I now suspect I was taking for granted. I paid proper attention this afternoon and can say this - it is a beautiful thing, affecting and  just on the sensible side of cloying. Fine acting all over the piece but particular credit goes to Gary Lewis as Billy's beleaguered father. Not a wasted frame in view. 86/100.

Now for something a deal removed from ballet but possessed (to certain of us) of a beauty of its own. It is the Pig's recurring nemesis - golf. First of all a positive note - played at Stonebridge with the rugby lads last week and, praise where praise is due, encountered greens as fine as I've played and, despite rumours to the contrary, I have played at some nice courses.

But that, I'm afraid, is enough of the positivity because someone in golf has got my goat - enter stage left Bryson DeChambeau. Great name, very fine golfer but more than a bit of a plonker. It is not his scientific approach to the game that I dislike though I find his method inelegant. No, it is his demanour that grates. During the first round of the WGC currently being played in Memphis he sought the connivance of a rules official in deeming a single red ant a burrowing animal. The official quite properly stood his ground though fell short of employing the language the Pig would have deployed, namely 'Play it as it lies you spoilt brat'.

The Overgraduate has been known for his pithy golf commentary in the past, indeed the purple prose of 'Tiger Woods is a knob' still attracts hits on Google. Don't get me wrong I do not question the athleticism that Woods brought to the game, nor do I object to DeChambeau bringing sheer power to bear on the game. However until Bryson mends his manners I will not be rooting for him. Grow up you knob. You play a game for a (very healthy) living and some humility would not go amiss.   

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead

I've found another interesting thing on Netflix. If you haven't yet taken my advice and watched Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons on iPlayer, I urge you to do it now and then go to Netflix and take in the fascinating but infuriating documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead. It is the fractured story of the making (or not) of Welles's  last film The Other Side of the Wind, a picture only released thirty-three years after Welles's death. I've not yet seen that film but will track it down and let you know. But for the curious cineaste the documentary is, despite its weaknesses, a treat. It jumps all over the place (apparently a nod to the atmosphere of The Other Side) and unless you are very up on Welles you will wonder who the numerous contributors are - their names are not shown in subscript and some voice contributors - I noted Simon Callow's distinctive tones - go unattributed altogether. It is though, as Welles himself, beguiling and an insight into the creative process. 77/100.

The Road To Unfreedom

The Road to Unfreedom is one of those tomes that American academia can produce - the outpourings of a suave professor (in this case Yale no less) that can knock on the door of the bestseller lists. And, as it happens, quite right too. Enticingly written it ranges over Trump, Putin, Brexit and much else and has serious things to say about serious subjects.

Snyder and I would disagree over Brexit (like most Americans he doesn't get it) but we can park that because my enemy's enemy is my friend. And Snyder clearly loathes Putin and the man he regards as that rogue's Manchurian candidate, our old mate Donald Trump.

We are in the realms of Right Hegelians (Lenin) and Left Hegelians (Ilyin and latterly Putin). We are in the danger zone where an inevitablist view of history disappears up its own behind and abandons the field to the eternalists. We are in the death-zone for individualism.

The politics of eternity cannot make Putin or any other man immortal. But it can make other ideas unthinkable. And that is what eternity means: the same thing over and over again, a tedium exciting to believers because of the illusion that it is particularly theirs.

 

 

A Speculation On Faith

Don't worry this is not me getting all theological though I can't promise never to bother you with my half-formed views on the mysteries of faith. No, for today I am concerned to review The Two Popes. There are serious critics who are bothered by the entry into film production of the big streaming services. The Two Popes is a Netflix production, a very good one. There is nothing LCD about this, nor does it tip over into morose seriousness. It is a speculation on the meaning of faith, most particularly the meaning of faith to successive popes. It invents a dialogue between Popes Benedict and Francis, the pair played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce respectively. It is warm, occasionally funny, and adult. Highly recommended. 85/100.  

That Tricky Second Album Syndrome

Orson Welles' first picture was Citizen Kane which I think we have to agree was one hell of a debut. Next in line was The Magnificent Ambersons, a film legendarily maimed by RKO Studios who took the final editing out of Welles's hands and left us an eighty-five minute film whose ending is hurried and unsatisfactory. That much is unfortunate (particulary since the excised hour of footage was destroyed - a considerable act of vandalism) but what is left is nonetheless arresting. Welles is a master of shadow and his chiaroscuro palette is on fine display, as in Citizen Kane and as it would be deployed so brilliantly in the later Touch of Evil. All in all we have what remains a great (yes I use that term advisedly) movie but one that leaves that sensation of what might have been. 83/100.

Both Kane and Ambersons are currently available on BBC iPayer. Reason enough to pay the licence fee. Well nearly.