I Suspect I Must Be Middlebrow

You see it's like this - on Friday we went to the Symphony Hall (a piece of civic architecture I love - am I wrong to like the fact that the weight-lifting is set to be held there when Birmingham hosts the Commonwealth Games?) but not for one of your full-on classical concerts. No this was the CBSO playing film music with an announcer introducing each piece to the assembled masses. I'm searching for the right words - yes I know, it was bloody brilliant. And to prove the point was the sight of the happy throng of fellow middlebrows at the conclusion. We had been for a McDonald's before the concert - I can't decide whether we were being ironic in doing this. I enjoyed it.

civic architecture

More culture on Saturday evening: this time to the King Edward's School/King Edward's High School joint production of Oh What A Lovely War. This was held in the rather magnificent Ruddock Performing Arts Centre, a building which serves to remind you of the privileges that can be attached to private education. A good production even if some of the dialogue was inaudible. As for the piece itself, which I had only previously witnessed in its filmed version, it retains its power to affect. A good programme note by the Head of History at KES which quite properly posed questions about the way the conflict has been culturally appropriated. Just as the British perhaps learn their middle history (unwarrantedly) from Shakespeare, so they also tend to rely a tad too heavily on Blackadder and Oh What A Lovely War (I make no denial of the brilliance of both texts) for their understanding of the Great War.

Two hundred and forty-five KES boys died in the Great War. Their names were projected above the darkened stage at the conclusion of the drama. Chilling.

more civic architecture

Talking of civic architecture (which I was three paragraphs ago) Lord Digby Jones was sitting two seats in front of me at the Symphony Hall. In my cynical middle-age I'm afraid I used to regard Jones as something of a charlatan (something to do with my own self-loathing attitude to the profession that spawned us both and the fact that he went to UCL) but I've grown out of that phase. His oft-repeated defence of business as the principal engine for societal wealth, is a tune far too few are singing.

There's A Lot Of Spleen Venting Going On

And quite right too. Mind you much of the venting is uninformed and, surprise, surprise, a lot of those making the wrong noises are our spectacularly daft politicians. Ignorance crosses all political divides it would seem.

First up - the horrid case of John Worboys, taxi driver cum sex pest - Worboys . This low-life has been released on parole amidst all sorts of administrative bungling. And after a surfeit of outraged concern the government have confirmed that they will not be seeking a judicial review. It seems someone finally had the bright of getting some legal advice before sounding-off on the subject. Worboys, it seems to me, was under-prosecuted back when he faced charges, net result being that he got a sentence ill-fitted to his actual criminality. And here's the rub, his parole board could only consider his case in the context of the proven record. For a judicial review to succeed it would need to be established that no reasonable board (acting upon the information properly available to it) could have reached the decision that was reached. It is the prospects of such a review upon which the government lawyers have now said their piece. How about re-opening the many other cases in which he was thought to be involved and using that as the method of banging the scumbag up for a proper interval? Just saying.

If you want to hear a slurry of old bollocks then a corporate collapse is often a good starting point. Take the shit and fan scenario at Carillion - Carillion Insolvency . Now this is an absolutely shameful situation and, enthusiast for open markets that I may be, I really do hope that the right people end up in the slammer for this one. Are you telling me that successive corporate fat-arse directors did not see this coming? That no one within KPMG (the auditors) had spotted that something smelt putrid? This sort of shit could turn a man socialist. But before politicians are let loose on the subject can someone give them remedial lessons in the difference between cash and profits and on the meaning of a profit warning. Due diligence anyone?

Cheery bye.

Sport, Bloody Hell

I've been musing on a weekend of rather pleasing sporting drama. On Friday night an inspired Llanelli eviscerated Bath on the rugby field. Simply beautiful. And rugby was not finished with us, still to come was a bloody-minded Harlequin victory over Wasps - Quins had nothing to play for whereas their opponents could keep alive their prospects of qualification for the European Cup quarter-finals. The explosion of delight from the Quins players when they scored the late and decisive try was a perfect illustration of the joy that is to be had from spoiling a rival's party. Cherishable even if it does leave us perilously close to there being no English team left in the competition. Hey ho, a bit of humility never goes amiss in English rugby.

Moving on to football, of the association ilk. The January transfer window is open so we are constantly reminded of the quite obscene bucketloads of cash that players and their agents take out of the game. But Sunday also saw lambent evidence of why this is the 'beautiful game' - Liverpool - 4, Manchester City 3. Beautiful, skilful, joyous.

And on again - the NFL play-offs, that mixture of ballet and brutality. Did you see the final and decisive play of the New Orleans/Minnesota match? Thrilling.

R.I.P

Finally a mention for an old hero who has died too young. Cyrille Regis was a muscuar Christian who graced the West Bromwich Albion shirt. In an age before footballers made millions, he lived round the corner from us and used to nod to me when he was out washing his car as I ran by on a Sunday morning. Football was played at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, end of.

Happy New Year

It isn't really the new year until Big Fat Pig has acted upon his resolutions and started running and cycling again. We are pleased to report that this time has come. Yesterday BFP trudged for three miles without actually grinding to a halt. This is a good thing and not a twinge to be had in the old calf muscles. Felt pretty stiff of limb this morning mind. So what did BFP do today? He checked the tyre pressures on the Precious Bike and puffed and panted up and down the unimposing alps of Four Oaks for nearly an hour. Again no muscular disasters so all in all the world is a better planet. I am not making any public pronouncement of my resolutions but I can report that thus far I have kept to them. I undertake to let you know when I have fallen off my pedestal. It doesn't usually take long.

BFP in his latest photoshoot for Oakley

Political fun today. This blog's favourite shitbag Donald Trump is accused of referring to certain third world countries as 'shitholes'. He denies this but you tend to think that he indeed said something very similar  and equally indefensible. No matter, it is boring for me and (more importantly) for you for this blog to become an endless rant about Donald. No, today's fun is Boris Johnson having a pop at the risible 'pompous puffed-up popinjay' Sadiq Khan. Now that's more like it. Spot on. Welcome back Boris.

Two More Films

Clint Eastwood makes stark, businesslike films. So it is with Sully - notwithstanding that (unless you've been living under a rock) there can be no real suspense in the film, it does its work rather in the manner of its eponymous hero - methodically. Tom Hanks is predictably good in the lead. It is a quiet tribute to a strong man doing his job with no expectation of thanks and without histrionics. 6.5/10.

You may have read of my recent failure to be swept away by La La Land. It is a far stretch from a bad film, indeed it's perfectly good. But (and this is the point) it's not that good. I was reminded quite why I was so underwhelmed when rewatching My Fair Lady. Bags of swank and great tune after great tune allied to lyrical wit. This is what musical cinema can do. 8.5/10. If I was feeling po-faced I might essay some observations on the sexual politics of the film but, really, can anyone be bothered? Enjoy the spectacle.  

Ruminations On A Year To Remember/Forget (Delete As Applicable)

2017. What to say? There is no doubt as to the person who hogged the news. An entire liberal class, in several languages, has been banging on about the one and only The Divine Combover, the supreme shit wagon that is Donald Trump. I'm sorry but even when the man does something laudable (low taxes anyone?) it comes across as self-serving and vile. Somewhere in the depths of the year I read a piece that argued for the bringing back into fashion of the word 'ghastly' on the premise that it best summed up Trump. Agreed, the man is plain ghastly. The great sadness - so is Hillary Clinton (though not I concede on quite such a grand scale), which rather explains how we find ourselves in a sorry old state where the President takes to Twitter to boast about the size and effectiveness of his nuclear button. Ghastly indeed.

It's a small thing (not something you'd ever hear Trump say - boom boom!) but in 2017 this blog passed its one hundred thousandth hit. Thank you.

Politics in Britain was almost as bad a joke as Trumpland. We had an election which Theresa May fought so ineptly as to defy belief. Jeremy Corbyn has come to look electable. Ed Balls is reconfguring himself as a cosy media personality. His former antagonist George Osborne meanwhile manages to project himself as an even bigger c*** as a journalist that he was as Chancellor. Brexit (and yes I know I voted for it) is being handled as brilliantly as the Tory election campaign. Mark my words - there will be tears, not all of them British.

Good thing: the drawn Lions' series in New Zealand, reminding everyone that there doesn't always have to be a winner. The hard-fought draw is honourable.  A great pity that this nostrum is lost on modern professional cricketers.

Bad thing: my betting record at the Cheltenham Festival. Not a winner in sight.

Good thing: the Cheltenham Festival.

Bad thing: my golf - infrequent and incompetent.

Good thing: Cleeve Hill Golf Club, where I played in the company of good men and true and my little brother won the Question Mark Trophy.

Bad thing: Donald Tru...... Oh sorry I've already done that.

Good thing: I'm still in there swinging.

Bad thing: I'm still in there swinging.

Here's to a year of sensible political resolutions, wise gambling and good golf. Some chance - I'll lay you 100/1 the treble. For those of you of a legal bent, this is an invitation to treat not an offer susceptible of acceptance. Just thought I'd make that clear.

Happy New Year.

12 Films At Christmas - 11 & 12

And so it is all over for another year. No more public holidays until Easter and the decorations in their last sad few days. So it goes.

The films I have reviewed this festive season have generally been a good bunch, two of them quite outstanding: It's a Wonderful Life (no surprise there) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (rather more left field). Wilderpeople is available on Netflix if that helps.

We finish with two more perfectly good films. First up is The Big Short. I can see that the idiosyncratic styling of the film might grate with some viewers, not least because of the Brechtian breaches in the fourth wall, but I loved it. The text explores and tries to make some sense of the financial crash of 2008. It pierces the veneer of respectabilty that allowed markets to behave so callously and laments that the bad guys are still with us and still collecting their fat bonuses. It has Christian Bale (who is uniformly brilliant on the evidence available to me, going right back to Empire of the Sun), Steve Carell and Brad Pitt portraying those (all on the autistic spectrum) who saw it all coming and won big time by betting against the housing markets. The rather damning conclusion we are left with is that this could happen all over again. An important film. 8/10.

La La Land. Most critics raved about this. As a lover of old-style musicals I had my reservations. Is it  a great film? Did it deserve all those awards? I think no on both counts. That is not to say that it is anything other than a well-realised piece of film. There is an old-fashioned love story in there, wrapped around the protagonists' separate love affairs with their respective arts. But (and this is crucial with a musical) there are no commanding tunes, not to this admittedly tin ear anyway. I liked it but wondered quite what all the fuss had been about. 7/10.