A Northern Interlude V

I am home now, after a diverted lengthy drive home yesterday evening - diverted due to a lorry that had made a horrible looking attempt to vault off a motorway bridge. Mucho traffico.

By the last day of the conference I was running on fumes. Coffee fumes. All in all it had been worthwhile. I learned much - sadly this included conclusions about my own limitations.

Dernier jour: chapeaux, toujours les chapeaux. Chapeau Nombre Un, il porte aussi les lunettes de soleil - dedans. A chacun son gout. Shortly after scrawling these words in my notebook I happen to find myself at a seminar addressed by Chapeau Un. He is very good. At this point he wears his hat but not the sunglasses.

Barrie Rutter

The day is bookended by two contrasting but equally brilliant lectures: Susan Bassnett on translation, and Barrie Rutter on his theatrical life. The latter sends us all on our way with a smile. Which is precisely the right way to finish. Thanks to all who put on this mammoth slug of Shakespeareana. I feel wiser and humbler. And bloody knackered.

Reasons To be Cheerful ... And Otherwise

Mostly otherwise I suspect. Today I find myself with a bit of a downer on the world and the world is retaliating by having a bit of a downer on me. I see on the horizon a future as an unloved and unemployable multiple graduate whose only marketable skill is the one he is adamant he does not want to use. It has come to my recent attention that I am not quite as clever as I would like to be, though I will bite back and say that I am neither quite as dense as my prime detractor would have it. The outcome is nonetheless disappointing. Heavy bummer man.

I ran the touch in a police cup match this afternoon which was a nice diversion but one spoilt by my thigh muscle straining itself again. My body is rather taking the piss out of my athletic ambitions at the moment. Further bummer man. To add to my self-willed gloom I timed my exit from the ground so that I could spend an hour and a half making the twelve mile journey home. Yet further bummer man. There was compensation in hearing my old mate Vince Cable on the wireless trying vainly to big up the inevitable inefficacy (see The Overgraduate 22 September 2010 where I told you this would happen) of Project Merlin, the optimistically named (inviting magic presumably) agreement by which the government has 'reined in' our fat cat bankers. As J.K. Galbraith might very well have said, what a load of old bollocks.

Not untypically a good old whinge has cheered me up so now I am going to tell you about our jolly good weekend in that London. We were there to celebrate (belatedly) the birthday of daughter number two who paid us the compliment of being pleased to see us. Good start. We went to see Blood Brothers at the Phoenix. For reasons not unconnected to blind prejudice I wasn't entirely convinced I would like this. I was wrong. Blinding good evening and the girl who used to be in Atomic Kitten (seriously, she played Mrs Johnston) was excellent. I had way too much to eat and just too much to drink both of which added to the fun. The underground was running smoothly and the hotel was good (inefficiency at the cocktail bar notwithstanding) so top marks to Boris's that London. I rounded off the weekend by watching the Superbowl which my Pittsburgh Steelers lost to Green Bay. I ate all eight hot dogs I had bought for the occasion from the 99p Store.

All of which left me decidedly leaden on Monday morning but my mood was considerably lightened by the delivered wisdom of the real David Roberts (Professor David Roberts) on the mightily important matter of Hamlet and other topics Shakespearean. I returned home feeling challenged, wiser and definitely curious. And when you sweep all the garbage out of the way that is what education should be like. That is what I am going to miss about it. Enormously.

If anyone out there has a job going which might suit a man like me, I'm available from May onwards. I scrub up quite respectably, I've been around some interesting places and learned a lot along the way. Put like that, what have you got to lose?    

Shakespeare Rocks

I wrote a little while ago about the gory fun to be had in Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, but now I've found something even better. Watched Julie Taymor's film Titus as part of my education yesterday. Even at his very worst this is why Shakespeare is incomparable. Forget Hanniabal Lecter, this is Anthony Hopkins really acting - brave, loyal, demented, vengeful, fearful and fearsome. You can catch it on YouTube but this really deserves as close to the full cinematic blast as you can get. At the very least turn the volume up for the opening - Titus Opening .

Advent 20

I didn't say this was the best play I've encountered this year. That would be a little number known as Othello. No, what I promised you was the piece I most enjoyed this year. And what is not to like about Ford's brilliant potboiler? There is comedy, incest, bawdiness, incest, violence, poetry, murder, religion and did I mention, incest. We finish with various bodies on stage and a human heart skewered on a dagger. People who enjoy Eastenders should be forced to watch this Caroline gore-fest to see what drama really is. Delicious.