Having painted myself into a literary corner with my efforts on Antony and Cleopatra, I took myself off to Ynys Mon and the country estate to try writing in a different corner. A sort of rest-cure cum writing camp. It sort of worked - I feel a repeat coming on.
Whilst not writing I watched (on Netflix, who are very possibly taking over the filmic world) Mank and greatly enjoyed it. Having said that I woud probably have to concede that one might find the film more than a tad bewildering if not armed with a more than trifling knowledge of Citizen Kane. However, the Overgraduate, aka Big Fat Pig, aka the Boy Roberts, is armed with such knowledge - and if you are not, then what is wrong with you? Put this right immediately. You will thank me.
Anyway I won't spoil either film for you. Citizen Kane is one of the greatest films ever made. Mank is not but it is an arresting speculation on the lives and loves of some of the stratospheric talents involved in Kane. The cinematography in Mank is beautiful and, in itself, an homge to Kane. Gary Oldman is a very convincing drunk. The script is clever and taut. Recommended. 81/100.
I have on occasions demeaned the Brabazon Course at the Belfry as not even the best course in Sutton Coldfield and I'll (just about) stick to that judgment, but it certainly presented itself very well when hosting the British Masters this week. A proper test of golf and a tournament that produced a fairytale victory for Richard Bland, a journeyman pro playing his 478th European Tour event and achieving his first victory at the age of forty-eight.
John Betjeman. I spent an enjoyable hour viewing a 1970s documentary in which he visited Norfolk's churches. You'll find it on iPlayer. It evokes a world now gone and an established church no longer known to us. Mind you, didn't we wear horrible clothes in the seventies.
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