Life In The Old Dog Yet

I'm sick to the back teeth of lock-down but accept the need for it. I'm sick to the back teeth of Boris Johnson bur accept the need for him. Looking further afield, I'm sick to the back teeth of America's Republican Party but accept the need for it. So it is nice to concentrate on rather more parochial issues and to announce to you that I burned it up today and lopped a whopping thirty seconds off my seventh decade PB on my measured run. This is nothing special but, sod relativity, this is me competing against myself and today - I won. The Pig rules.

There's An Eerie Hush In The Close Tonight

The pandemic is still with us, its physical effect still being felt and its economic backwash still to come. There was a deadly attempted putsch at the U.S Capitol only threee weeks ago. And yet all already seems quiet and less worrisome than has been the case for four years. And it is all because the wretched man Trump has pranced off the world stage in a fit of high dudgeon - vaingloriously and with no sense of irony, going out to the most vainglorious song of them all - the problematic My Way. What a prick.

He will be back in the limelight in a fortnight when the Senate has to hear his impeachment trial. You do just wonder if the Democratic leadership is missing a trick with these proceedings. Might they be better off leaving him to sulk in his Florida redoubt or should they press on with trying to exclude him from future politics? My personal (and I accept vindictive) hope (a forlorn one I am afraid) is that enough Republicans gather behind the impeachment to convict the weasel. Take note of what his odious offspring, Donald Jr., barked at the mob at the Capitol on that lethal January day: 'This is no longer the Republican Party, this is Donald Trump's Republican Party.' Do the world a favour and prove him wrong. 

Henry VI Part 3

I was sitting down to think about it (well I didn't sit down with the particular aim of thinking about it but you get my drift) and do you know what I have never formally studied any of the History Plays. I have 'O' and 'A' levels and a degree in English and, forgive my immodesty, have picked up prizes along the way. But none of the curricula has strayed into the History Plays. Just the luck of the draw I suppose, that added to my own preference for the Tragedies.

Well, as you know, I am now embarked on my journey through Shakespeare in putative chronology of composition. All of which means doing Part 3 of Henry VI before Part I, the latter the original prequel.

Once more I am indebted to the BBC box set - a great resource, pity that the Antony and Cleopatra is so wretched. Anyway, Part 3 kicks off with shifts in allegiance and much barbarous revenge - and never lets up. I particularly enjoyed Oengus MacNamara's psychotic Clifford. However the growing presence in the play (a portent of much to come later) is Ron Cook as everybody's favourite psychopath, Richard of Gloucester. I saw this play on the stage at the Globe  a few years ago (all three parts in one day - a feat of endurance) and liked it then. Underrated?  

Henry VI Part 2

Here's an odd thing you might not know - Shakespeare wrote (or did he) Henry VI Part 2 before Part 1, indeed Part 3 also seems to have pre-dated the 'first' instalment. How very Star Wars.

I mention this as I have just competed the second leg of my chronological journey through the Bard. Once again I have relied upon the BBC production (1982). All three parts of the saga are generally rather maligned - there are the issues of authorship/collaborative writing and they can be a tad boring if the action is not rushed at you. However if you have the time and the inclination, Part 2 is actually quite fun - probably the wrong adjective, but hey ho. In the BBC production there is a fine Henry from Peter Benson - he would definitely have been a Wet in Thatcher's terms. Add to that a well-drawn Jack Cade from Trevor Peacock and the fast paced staging and you have a commendable way of spending three plus hours. Next up Part 3.

Just so you know how things stand, I do not mean to suggest (by my opening sentence) that the anti-Stratfordians are other than a bunch of amusingly misguided loons. I merely point to the possibility, no likelihood, of co-authorship in the Henry VI trilogy. 

Insurrection. Democracy Dies In Darkness

But reconciliation can’t happen without truth, and the truth is that the blame for the American carnage we saw unfold in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, can be laid at the feet of the president and his many Republican enablers. Those with integrity will admit, first to themselves and then to the wider world, their complicity in the deceitful and disgraceful presidency of Donald Trump. It is the only decent thing to do, and we’ve gone far too long with an absence of decency. (Peter Wehner in The Atlantic)

Yesterday afternoon in Washington a lunatic mob urged on by the sitting President of the United States invaded the Capitol. Four people lost their lives in the insurrection. I had been searching for a suitable summary of the depths of sadness I feel at this state of affairs. Wehner encapsulates it nicely. Read his whole article at Insurrection

I had originally intended my piece today to be an unsubtle excoriation of the loathsome Ted Cruz - a man of clear intellect who has, for reasons which can only be attached to his own ambitions, been an enabler in chief of the malevolent and conscienceless President. However, let us instead hope that yesterday will stand as the low-water mark of this Trump inspired era. It is difficult not to have doubts.

I have a friend in America, a wise and good man - JB. He is a lifelong Democrat and he and I would diverge on many matters of policy. However what we would agree on is the mandatory preservation of the rule of law and, more flowery I know but still true, the need for common decency. Trump has trashed both of these concepts and done long-term damage to the serious Right. Let us put it in terms Trump would understand and let us do it in his own childish font - LOSER!!! This is apparently a term that Trump despises - there are nastier and yet justifiable epiphets one could use but let's keep it simple shall we. Sleep well America but rise wisely.

So Begins Another Task

During my second undergraduate incarnation I set myself the task of viewing all thirty-seven plays in the First Folio in the course of one academic year. With a bit of travelling and resort to the BBC Shakespeare, I managed it. Now I'm heading for the same destination but by a different route. Of course there are no theatrical productions for me to enjoy in Covidland but there are plenty of other resources. Thus I have re-watched the Jonathan Miller BBC production of Taming of the Shrew. During the course of 2021 I will attempt to call at all thirty-six of the remaining stops and report on the view from the culture train.

I can vaguely recall the controversy at the time of the original production (1980) when it was announced that John Cleese had been cast as Petruchio. Here's the thing - it works. In spades. Cleese brings all the ostensible mania that marked Basil Fawlty but, importantly (and this was missed by many critics), his character is this time in control of his actions. As his Kate, Sarah Badel is brilliant. Sure the sexual politics of this play remain troublesome but by playing the two protagonists as equals Miller makes those politics easier to negotiate. Quite an achievement.

I had not previously taken the time to like this play. I was wrong. I can even accept Miller's decision to ditch the Induction in its entirety. After all screen Shakespeares start with a framing device in the very confines of the image. A good start to my journey. 

Twelve Films At Christmas - 12

And so to the last doings of the Christmas season, with a film I seem to recall I enjoyed rather more when first I encountered it - The Adventures of Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn. I have to declare an almost vested interest in this one - I love Herge's source cartoon books and we have twenty-one beautifully framed prints from those books adorning our stairway. Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a bad film, but in all the motion-capture chaos (not helped by Spielberg having fallen for the false god of 3D technology) some of the delightful wit of the source is lost. Nice try, could do better. 64/100.

Twelve Films At Christmas - 11

Expanded plays can sometimes get lost on the big screen and there is an element of that problem in Educating Rita. However the central conceit (hackneyed though it may be) is strong enough to retain our interest and the two central performances are very strong. Michael Caine brings particular skill to the drunken blocked poet. 64/100.
   

Goodbye To all That

2020 is at last behind us. The year started in the shadow of my father's death. We did at least get to give him a memorable funeral before the darkness of Covid engulfed us all. By government dictat we spent much of the remainder of the year cowering in our homes - could it have been handled better? Well yes possibly but no plausible candidate for stewardship of the ship of state suggested him or herself. Perhaps the only political illumination in the year came last week when the largely risible Michael Fabricant kept referring to Keir Starmer as a smarmy lawyer. 

My golf did get marginally better but paranoia sufficiently clouded governmental sense to mean that we could hardly even lock ourselves away in the Anglesey home we own and on which we pay punitive tax. What did they think we were going to do - run around the village coughing our nasty English germs through people's letterboxes?  

Anyway, it's over now and the new year does at least arrive with the hope inherent in the new vaccines. And in nineteen days Donald Trump will cease to be President of the world's most important country. Do you think we ought to tell him he lost? Loser.

 

Twelve Films At Christmas - 10

The best film version of the much adapted Dickens staple, I endured Scrooge in the lamentable 'colorized' version on Channel 5. Nevertheless the efficacy of the telling shines through with Alastair Sim superb in the title role. Next year (and it is on every year) can we have it in the untainted monochrome please. 72/100.