You Cannot Avoid Stopping To Think

If you read my entry for yesterday you will have gathered that I was in a rather good mood. Today feels different. I had a disturbed night and, no, it wasn't the bottle of Malbec or the home-made broccoli and stilton soup (home-made by the Groupie you understand). No, it was that foul oaf Donald Trump. His latest effrontery is to impose trade tariffs on his supposed allies if they will not connive with him in the annexation of Greenland by the good old U S of A.

It does not need repeating that I am no fan of the EU. However I have always been steadfast in applauding the work of the (admittedly imperfect) NATO alliance. The United States has been the generous cornerstone of that alliance and, notwithstanding the inelegance of how he has said it, Trump has been quite justified in coaxing his allies to increase their defence spending. But this latest megalomaniac attempted land-grab is utterly immoral. The man has no shame, not an ounce of decency. And I'm totally fed-up of having him spoil my sleep. Now, I'm going to church.    

Shining On The Self-Righteous At Plas Piggy

Here on the island for the first inspection visit of the year. All is well, in fact it seems even better than that. In marked contrast to last week's covering of snow at Casa Piggy, Benllech is bathed in glorious winter sun and the Pig is feeling very good about himself having run for forty minutes this morning. By way of climatological proof I reproduce the rather crappy photograph taken from the front window showing the waters glistening on Red Wharf Bay and the Great Orme looming in the distance. I can't give you any documenatry proof of my run - you'll have to trust me on that one, but why would I lie?

It is on a day such as this that one glimpses the illusion of the runner's high. Actually that is unfair - the high really does exist, it is just that you feel it less frequently as age and lassitude restrict activity. On the basis that the public sharing of a new year resolution makes compliance more likely (because failure is so much the worse when suffered in the open) I will admit that I have the ambition to get back to running for an hour by June this year. My other resolutions are for me alone.

I will say this - running here in Benllech is even tougher than back in the environs of Casa Piggy (which is atop a hill) as the village climbs steeply out of the Bay. Today I ran/staggered half-way down to to Red Wharf Bay and back. I feel good.

Another reason to feel content - I have realised that itvX harbours Once Upon a Time in America in its listings. I'm too mean to pay for the ad-free version but I may watch it tonight and put up with the adverts. I haven't seen the movie for a decade or more but I remember it as Leone's masterpiece. Am I right? 

Deep and Crisp And Even At Casa Piggy

I have started the new year with the usual slew of resolutions. More exercise, less eating, more reading, blah blah blah. Thus far I have been pretty good and I am even keeping a regular check on my blood pressure - this is going particularly well as it happens - the drugs seem to work. But plans for my third run of the week have been well and truly scotched by Storm Goretti (who thinks of these names?), as can be seen from the photograph of the drive at Casa Piggy taken by our staff photographer (aka the Groupie) yesterday evening.

I said last week that the film of Charlotte Gray is a bit of a dud. Instead you might look for Operation Mincemeat on iPlayer - a nice bit of staunch Britishness in the factual context of WWII. 63/100. 

I have now almost eaten my way through the remains of the Christmas chocolate (it would be impolite not to eat it all, resolutions or nay) and I shall next do some reading. I already have an ambitious literary project in mind for this year's Advent calendar but you will have to wait until 30 November to hear more! If that doesn't keep you reading, well what on earth will.  

Twelve Films At Christmas - 11 & 12

And so the story ends. With two films directed by the great David Lean as it happens, one his epic masterpiece and the other a much more constrained ensemble piece expanded from Noel Coward's theatrical text.

Let us start with the older monochrome film, This Happy Breed. Modern criticism latches onto what it sees as miscasting of upper-middle-class actors in the working-class leads. That is reductive. What we have is a taut journey through an England fractured by the aftermath of the Great War coupled with clues as to how that society had the sheer bloody guts to resist fascism. It is a happy film. 70/100.

I have reviewed Lawrence of Arabia before - 22 May 2013 to be precise. I did so then in a spirit of recrimination against a small man who had taken pleasure in belittling my intellect. I shall not name him but my rancour remains. He is part of that small class of people I wish I had struck. Even as I write that sentence I feel diminished by the sentiment and the victory is his. That is how small men triumph. Enough.

Lawrence of Arabia is a truly geat film. It is about faith; it is about betrayal; it is about masochism; it is about imperialism; it is about parochialism; it is about masculinity; it is extraordinary. I did not give it a rating in 2013 but I do so now - 96/100.  

Twelve Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

Christmas is officially over here at Casa Piggy - the lights and the trees came down at the weekend. There is a tinge of sadness in seeing them go but a greater urge (for the Pig at least) to look forward and to make 2026 a good year. As I now realise I have had a discreditably lengthy period of sunning myself in the minor glory of completing my PhD. This is not a good look and there is some catching up to do on some cherished projects. Onward and upwards!

But before anything else I need to tidy up the strand of films watched over the holiday. Thay have been a good bunch with only one dud and even that not too bad in truth. I refer to Charlotte Gray, which turned out to be a sadly uninvolving adapatation of Sebastian Faulks' well-received novel. I'm not sure that it is anyone's fault in particular but, you know how it is, some entertainments just never come together. This is one such. 58/100.

Now for something very different and very good. BlacKkKlannsman is directed by Spike Lee (not automatically a recommendation) and borders on the superb - actually I think it just topples into that category. It is strident and chillingly funny about the dangerous clowns in the KKK. Highly recommended. 82/100.    

Twelve Films At Christmas - 7 & 8

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Parts I and II. We watched these two films a day apart which probably helps in keeping-up (well to some extent) with the labyrinthine plot. I came to them with no great expectations other than for superb stunts and effects, and indeed you get plenty of those. However, much to my pleasant surprise, bubbling beneath all the crashing and banging there is a serious point trying to get out. I was put in mind of the stunning ending of the original Planet of the Apes, and of the gut-wrenching denouement in Fail Safe, two superb movies. Now the final fling of the MI franchise is not quite in the league of those classics, there is too much clowning inbetween the action for that, but on balance you have to say that this is adventure film-making with its brain left switched-on. No spoilers from me. You do need to watch both parts to get the full benefit. 75/100 each. To use my favourite word when it comes to criticism - these films have nuance.  

Advent 24 Canon

When you stop to think about it, reading is one of man's many remarkable skills, arguably the greatest. The act of writing gives words a portion of permanence and the reading of that script allows reception and adaptation to mediate the text. Reading is a singular experience - yet it opens up to communal reception. It is in that context that compiling this year's Advent calendar has been a privilege. Not all of the books reviewed have been of the first rank but even the feeblest of them has provoked thought and added to my sum of knowledge.

A year in which you read The Leopard and Behind the Scenes at the Museum can be nothing but a good one. These are remarkable novels. It is then all the more notable that neither of those offerings is quite the best thing I have read this year. That accolade belongs to a book I had been running scared of for too long. Booker Prize winners can disappoint and Midnight's Children is probably the most trumpeted of those victors. It is a six-hundred page slab of a book, a size that can be forbidding. If you have not read it yet, don't delay any longer. For once the back-cover blurb is right, quoting the New York Review of Books, 'One of the most important books to have come out of the English-speaking world in this generation'. This is a generous, mordant, uplifting and magical history of the miracle that is modern India. It defies easy definition.

So: there were knees and a nose, a nose and knees. In fact, all over the new India, the dream we all shared, children were being born who were only partially the offspring of their parents - the children of midnight were also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history. It can happen. Especially in a country which is itself a sort of dream. 

That is it for another year. It has been a blast. Happy Christmas and may your god go with you.