Advent 2

Yesterday I felt satisfyingly yuletidey. Today's efforts in the world of commerce have left me a little deflated but worry ye not for salvation is at hand. Yesterday we had a behemoth of the screen, a four hour epic. Glorious. Today we have a wee British film. Glorious.

Gregory's Girl is warm, funny and compassionate. Watch out for the scene in which Gregory attempts invisibility as he arrives late at school. Or the repeated motif of the child roaming the school corridors in a penguin costume. And remember to keep dancing, otherwise you might fall off.

Advent 1

I've just spent a capital afternoon with my soul mate. We caught the train into Birmingham, which, as Sharon says always feels more of a treat than driving in. We then got all multi-cultural by having a bottle of champagne at the German Christmas Market. This seeming over-indulgence was based on sound economic considerations, the full bottle price per glass being a full 60% lower than the per glass price. We don't like wasting money you know. Times are hard.

Thereafter to Cineworld and the community savouring in shared darkness of the cinematic greatness that is Gone With The Wind. A fresh new print of the film shown in its original 4:3 Technicolor. I know this film inside out but this was my first proper theatrical exposure. Everyone should do it. The official trailer is linked below. The embedded advertising for male incontinence treatment perhaps tells you the demographic they were expecting to take this golden opportunity.

Advent - A Public Announcement

The Overgraduate advent calendar will be back by popular demand. Last year was books so this year will have to be films. Not necessarily the best films but interesting films, meaningful (to me) films. Some films have already appeared on previous posts but I lack the energy to be relentlessly original. I am going to see the first film on the list at an actual cinema on Sunday so watch this space for the low-down on how it bears up to large screen scrutiny. Some of you may already have guessed what it is. Well clever old you.

Pyramid Selling: A Song Of Modern Management

up-sell

callage

partnership

pretty unique

critical mass

process mapping

bow tie approach

a brave new world

supply chain route

key influencer

multiple touch points

to much more focus on

far less failed deliveries

a whole nother suite of rooms

it's all about the customers

no second chance to create a first impression

 

selected for economy

a room too small

and smug with faux conviviality

fearful and loathing all

leaderene spitting vitality

oozing corporate offal

 

audience interaction

(non) participation

inanity

inaudible

how do you know?

trust me

 

money money money

must be funny.

 

Bloody hilarious.



 



 

 

List Number Two

small minds
black dogs
inbox inbox
second childishness and mere oblivion
hell is other people

List Number One

Old ladies in hats drinking convivial commercial coffee,
Talking of Michelangelo.
Grammar school education.
Poetry Please.
Christmas in prospect.
The Men Who Stare At Goats.
Remembrance.
Group therapy.
Ynys Mon.
Jaguar's 4 litre V8.
Unsatisfied, Nine Black Alps.
Silly jokes.
Puns especially.
Sonnets.

Titus Andronicus And Professional Wrestling

I drove on clear roads at relatively high pace in my precious Jag from home to Stratford-upon-Avon. I walked between the raindrops toward the theatre but deviated to buy a bag of chips which I then ate as I walked by the river. I disposed of the chip paper responsibly. Thus fortified I entered the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and enjoyed a glass of white in the bar before I took up my standing position in the Swan auditorium - my ticket had cost all of £5. The programme contained an article by the matchless Jonathan Bate and the show in question was my old favourite Titus Andronicus. Professor Bate has these wise words,

Critics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could not cope with such incongruity. Its affront to stylistic decorum  was thought to be on a par with the play's shocking lack of respect for the principle of poetic justice, in which the evil are punished and the good. are duly rewarded. In our time, though, we have become sceptical about easy divisions between good and evil, black and white. 

Perhaps this modern scepticism explains the success not only of this RSC revival but also the National Theatre's recent revisiting of the misanthropic Timon of Athens. Two under-performed plays which catch the disenchanted Cameroon zeitgeist. And this thought leads me, as these things often do, to professional wrestling and the works of Roland Barthes. All of this was brought into plain sight on television this morning as I watched Daniel Bryan launch himself over the ropes onto the conveniently assembled Shield before springing back into the ring to pin Randy Orton.

Then these same people wax indignant because wrestling is a stage-managed sport (which ought, by the way, to mitigate its ignominy). The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so; it abandons itself to the primary virtue of the spectacle, which is to abolish all motives and all consequences: what matters is not what it thinks but what it sees. (Barthes, Mythologies, 1957, trans Lavers 1984)

So, put plainly I enjoyed this Titus thanks to a cocktail of a fast car, some fast food, some English criticism, some French philosophy and some American grapple. It's good to be back.