There Now Follows An Advertisement From Big Fat Pig

BFP Productions are proud to announce the subject for this year's Overgraduate Advent Calendar.

With your indulgence (well, without you too I suppose but you can always stop reading - please don't) I am going to write of twenty-four places that have happy memories for me and as I do so I will attempt to describe those positive feelings.

We start tomorrow with somewhere distinctly unglamorous.

On another topic, I confirm that I have dutifully finished watching Black Earth Rising. I find admiration and ambivalence wrestling to be my prime reaction. Admiration for tackling its excruciating subject matter (the Rwandan genocide) and ambivalence because of its self-conscious styling and some overwrought acting. Well above the televisual norm though one has to say. Would I watch it again? Very possibly.

Also on at the moment is yet another Le Carre adaptation, The Little Drummer Girl. I've read the book but enough years ago not to remember how it will end. I'm enjoying this though the Groupie found it too slow to get anywhere. I can see her point but the prevarications are half the point with Le Carre - I'm still not sure about the need for Ricki Tarr in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but I've loved watching the television adaptation whenever they show it. In Drummer Girl I also enjoy the loving recreation of the drabness of the 1970's - every sighting of an Austin Allegro stirs a nostalgia in me. We didn't know any better - which is rather what made the 80's even more fun.    

The Last Cut

I think that's going to be it for this year. I cut the lawn today, more a matter of mulching and collecting the remaining leaves from the lawn than a serious manicure. If I say so myself, it looks pretty good - the patches killed by the summer heat have all now recovered and the whole suits its autumnal deep green.

Mind you the cutting was not without its mild sadness - my precious petrol mower has served me well for two decades and on three lawns, the old scabby affair in Streetly and both the original lawn here in Four Oaks and the beautiful new one that was laid when we had the garden re-done. My Christmas present to myself will be a nice new mower - not a sit-on, that would be de trop, but definitely a powerful petrol self-propelling model. Stripes a-go-go.

By the way I bet you're all salivating at the imminent prospect of the Overgraduate Advent Calendar. It will be all systems go on Saturday morning. This year's subject is ... I'll tell you later in the week. 

The Critical Tide ... And Swimming Against It

I really enjoyed Killing Eve, so on that score I was with the critics. Phew.

However I must confess to struggling with Black Earth Rising. Now in my defence I am a few episodes behind so perhaps it will rescue itself but, whisper it only, I think it's just a tad (and damagingly so) overwrought. Now I can hear the howls of anger from my miniscule readership - of course it's overwrought you idiot - the subject matter is so ghastly (and I accept therefore important) that the series has to shout when other dramas might favour subtlety. I don't agree - the shouting can be alienating. It's all a bit Oliver Stone if you know what I mean.

Mind you, I will keep watching. 

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

I've just revisited One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and must admit I had forgotten what a stimulating film it is. As a mental heath patient myself (no point being coy about it) I think I had told myself that this movie took liberties with an important topic. I was wrong - it is thought-provoking, affectionate and uniformly well-played. That final shot as the escaping Chief Bromden disappears over the horizon is arresting and all the better for the lack of dialogue. 8.5/10.

I refer You To My Earlier Answer

Today's unavoidable headline is the draft Brexit Agreement. I've been watching the proceedings in the Commons and have to admit to a grudging admiration for our poor beleaguered Prime Minister - she has dealt politely with a queue of backbenchers all waiting patiently to ask the same specimen of question - 'You no longer enjoy the confidence of this house, please therefore let us off the hook of doing our job by mandating another referendum, which will hopefully give a different answer and we can get on with the job of ceding our sovereignty inch by dying inch.'

I said grudging admiration for she has, of course, been comprehensively out-manoeuvred in negotiations by the EU mandarins. May is right up there with Major and Callaghan in the running for the title of worst PM under whose yoke we have laboured during my lifetime. Could be worse. Couldn't it? Corbyn anyone?  

Two Films Recently Watched

I've pondered for a week since watching Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and I've decided that my initial reaction was correct - this film is brilliant. Frances McDormand fully deserves her Oscar bur there is so much more, not least a stellar turn from Woody Harrelson. This film has dark humour, horrible tragedy and a realistically small hint of redemption. As, I say brilliant. 9/10.

From Here to Eternity achieved something that eluded Three Billboards - it won the Best Picture Oscar. Mind you there has been some right old tripe that has triumphed at awards time. From Here to Eternity is decidedly not tripe, in fact it's rather good. Sadly when the film you had last watched before revisiting From Here to Eternity was Three Billboards, you are still bedazzled by the brilliance of the latter. Still, as I say, not remotely tripe - 8/10.

Small Moments Of Perfection

I finished my last entry by ruminating on what to put in this my thousandth blog offering. I needn't have worried.

At eleven o'clock yesterday morning a crowd of all ages formed a disciplined semi-circle around the monumental dedication stone at the Aston Old Edwardian Memorial Ground in Perry Common. The carving on the plinth records that the ground was acquired and dedicated in 1927 in memory of one hundred and twenty-three Old Boys of the School who died in the Great War.

At eleven o'clock the two minute silence was beautifully observed. A boy bugler from Camp Hill RFC, in his full rugby kit ready for the match to follow, sounded the Last Post. Wreaths were laid by every section of the Rugby Club and by The Association President.

At three minutes after eleven a fine low November sun broke through and dazzled me. After the small but moving ceremony the youthful players dispersed across the playing field to enjoy our wonderful sport. I felt proud to be alive to see such courtesy and gratitude afforded the dead and the delights of the game afforded the young.

I've Heard Of Winning Ugly But This Is Ridiculous

England -12 South Africa - 11. One can only assume that Eddie Jones played his Get Out of Jail Free card at half-time. In the first half the team was plain dreadful: out-muscled; out-thought; out of it generally. Maro Itoje started as if brain-dead, giving away puerile penalties and getting sin-binned. That bane of modern technique showed its annoying face (I speak as an old coach here) - tackles were routinely aimed at the torso when the situation cried out of for the good old-fashioned low (or 'chop' as the absurd vernacular would have it) tackle. Edge of the seat stuff. Did the better side win? No, but who cares - rugby, red in tooth and claw, just as it should be.

A more than passing word of credit as well for the Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi, who must have been absolutely gutted but spoke magnanimously at the finale.

losing with style - respect

Finally, that 'tackle' by Owen Farrell at the climax, which the referee adjudged legal. For me, this was both the right and wrong decision. Right so far as my own stance on our game is concerned. Wrong by all the indications from matches I have seen in the early months of this season. Our sport should not be emasculated -but that is a debate for another day.

Next week New Zealand - and if that doesn't scare you nothing will.

Please note this is my nine hundred and ninety-ninth blog post. I am trying to think of something spectacular to mark the thousandth. Suggestions welcomed.