Kernow

The worst thing about any holiday is that you have to go back to work afterwards. Holidays can be rated inversely by reference to the extent that you can face work at their expiry. Cornwall 13 ranks high. Tomorrow will not see me at my best in the office.

Cornwall/Kernow. A beautiful county perched on the extreme left edge of England, bordered only by Devon. Some highlights: the beach and coastline at Sandymouth, a contender to take Bamburgh's hitherto unchallenged best beach in the world award; walking in the mist and rain from Sandymouth to Bude and back; St Ives - make sure you don't make the rookie mistake of trying to drive to the centre of the town, instead take your medicine and park at one of the outlying car parks and steel yourself for a vertiginous descent and eventual knackering ascent; Tate St Ives - though in truth the exhibits will always struggle to live up to the aspect of the building; the Hepworth Museum - I thought this was a surprising gem that served to give context to the sculptures - they do a joint ticket with the Tate which makes good value.

The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden

 As one should on holiday we ate plentifully if not always well. As one should also do on holiday we took the chance to watch some films on the old dvd box. And jolly good they were too, none new to us but unwatched for several years and unreviewed on this blog. So here goes.

Thirteen Days is the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis told from the viewpoint of a Kennedy White House insider. The Russian perspective is barely considered. That is not a criticism. A good film. I am precisely of an age to have lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis but not to have experienced it (I was two). Is it taught in modern history lessons I wonder? It bloody well ought to be.  As the tag-line has it  'You'll never believe how close we came'.

Kevin Costner is much derided but it seems to me that he is in a goodly proportion of decent enough films - Thirteen Days included.

Heartburn is Nora Ephron before she wrote the brilliant When Harry Met Sally. Jack Nicholson does his usual matchless portrayal of Jack Nicholson and I'm all in favour of that. Meryl Streep is predictably competent even if there is that annoying hint that you can see the method being applied. This is a slight film with human beastliness at its heart and matching human resilience fighting against the nastiness. This theme it shares with the final entry in our own little Kernow Film Festival.

The Purple Rose of Cairo is another slight comedy with betrayal at its centre. Halliwell dismisses it rather (though granting it a single star - more than it affords Heartburn) as nothing more than an elongated sketch. That is true of many of Woody Allen's films but perhaps he is a victim of his own successful method. When The Artist seemed to me to deploy all manner of Allenesque tricks it was hailed as innovative. When Allen does it, it is repetitious. Not Allen's best film but not by any means anything other than a good one.