The Shrinking Effect Of Adaptation - Edge Of Darkness

The television original of Edge of Darkness ran to close-on six hours. It screened in 1985 and was a huge critical success not least because it fed the liberal frenzy against Thatcherism and played into Gaia Theory. Nothing wrong with that. The filmed version transports the action to Boston, Massachusetts in 2010 and loses much of the fanciful Gaia thread. 

The film stars Mel Gibson. Any picture with Gibson brings its own unintended baggage to the table. Gibson has said some pretty unsavoury things - often about the English (whom he seems to detest - a widely acceptable piece of racism) and more notably about Jews. This nastiness does not remove his efficacy as an action star but does taint it.

So what do we have in this transplanted and stunted adaptation. We have a serviceable action pic but hardly a hint of the currency that so marked the televisual original. Was it worth the effort? Probably not. 57/100.

Partygate And Appropriate Swearing

I've read the Gray Report on what has predictably come to be known as Partygate. For those of you who may have been on another planet, or more accurately aren't British and are therefore less than interested in the machinations of our shitty political class, this is the sorry tale of the serial breaches of Covid Regulations that took place in Downing Street. I have let the dust settle for a few days and I find that my reaction has not changed. And here I have to apologise to more delicate readers because I will have to lapse into the coarsest language. My conclusion? Boris Johnson is quite clearly a complete f****** c***. He plays you and me, dear reader, for complete fools.

Let us remind ourselves that this man was educated at Eton and Oxford - now I didn't go to either of these august institutions but both sell themselves as being best in class. So let us first dispose of the most charitable interpretation of Johnson's behaviour - that is to say, that he misunderstood the tenor of the Regulations - those very Regulations he kept explaining to us at innumerable televeised press briefings. Horseshit. If he's that thick he shouldn't be in government. End of. I saw that dreadful creep Michael Fabricant pleading on Bozza'a behalf that a Prime Minister could not be expected to know the finer details of every Regulation - ok, I'll just about buy that but not of a man who had laid out to his poor old public what the rules meant. This shouln't really matter but Johnson's case is hardly helped when the man espousing it does so in a truly dreadful Boris Johnson fright-wig. Get a grip Fabricant.

So what other excuses have been paraded for the Downing Street shenanigans? Well, apparently they were all working very hard and under intolerable pressure. Oh the poor little poppets. Here's what Gray, in her fabulous civil service prose, has to say about that:     

Those challenges, however, also applied to key and frontline workers across
the country who were working under equally, if not more, demanding conditions,
often at risk to their own health. It is important to remember the stringency of
the public health regulations in force in England over the relevant periods and
that criminal sanctions were applied to many found to be in breach of them. The
hardship under which citizens across the country worked, lived and sadly even
died while observing the Government¶s regulations and guidance rigorously are
known only too well.

So what does the sober-sided civil servant  conclude about all of this?

I have already commented in my update on what I found to be failures of
leadership and judgment in No 10 and the Cabinet Office. The events that I
investigated were attended by leaders in government. Many of these events
should not have been allowed to happen. It is also the case that some of the
more junior civil servants believed that their involvement in some of these
events was permitted given the attendance of senior leaders. The senior
leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for
this culture.

All of this at the end of a report that also catalogues incivility towards the security and cleaning staff at No. 10. This sort of boorish behaviour upsets me even more than the odd illicit drink. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. So there we have it - Boris you're a c***. Resign!  

Waterloo

I remember being taken to the Palace Cinema in Erdington (a fact that dates me - it's been a supermarket since 1972) with my brother to see Waterloo. It remains one of WJR's favourite films. I re-watched it last week. I can't say it would be on any list of my favourites but it is a far from bad movie. It has truly spectacular battle scenes and an anti-triumphalist atmosphere of regret about the business of war. It is also a nice oddity being Sergei Bondarchuck's directorial debut on this side of the Iron Curtain. Rod Steiger perhaps chews the scenery a little but I think Bonaparte deserves that sort of treatment. 60/100. 

Are Brilliant ... Mark XXVII

I've been awol from the blog for a few weeks. Sorry about that. Things happen - but I will tell you more once I am authorised to do so. That sounds a little portentous. Nothing to worry about but even the Big Fat Pig has to observe the rules from time to time.

I've been awol from the 'Are Brilliant' thread for even longer, so here we go. Older readers may detect some duplication (or even triplication) but, hell, I'm not a machine.

So here goes. The precious bike. I was out for a few hill-climbs yesterday. Enjoyed it. And along with the golf, this is the only exercise I am getting because my sore Achilles heel is into its fourth month of discomfort. There is no better explanation than that I am getting old (already there?) and that I have subjected this body to more battering than is good for it. That said, there is not a day goes by that I don't miss playing rugby. The ruck remains the father of the maul. 

Talking of battering, the Groupie and I had really disappointing fish and chips from the hitherto reliable Mere Green Takeaway. You must know how it is - you are really looking forward to something, you have a raging hunger, and then the food is all flabby. The disappointment is heightened because of the intensity of the anticipation. Well found the antidote only a few days later, which brings me to the second brilliant item - haddock and chips in the conservatory (one eighty degree sea views) at The Trecastell Hotel in Bull Bay. Washed down with a couple of pints of pale ale. Fish and chips redeemed.

Waitin' Around to Die, by the tragic figure of Townes Van Zandt. Search his stuff out.

Amlwch. I have a fondness for landscapes where the industrial melds with the natural. Amlwch is an old working port but if you head westwards from the port carpark you are soon met by cliffs and clear seas and, best of all, even on a beautiful Spring day, you are largely on your own. What you do after you have walked is to go to the Trecastell Hotel for fish and chips (op. cit.).

The National Trust. I put up with some of its woke inanities because of the cracking job it does in preserving places of interest. We called in at Bodnant Garden on our way home from Ynys Mon. Been there countless times before but there's always something new to observe. I do love a well-stocked garden. I'm attaching pictures of the fallen redwood and the helpful expanatory notice. In case you can't read the script (isn't age a pain) - it stood over 50m tall and was brought down in the Winter storms. 

 

Finally - the concluding episode of the awesome Derry Girls that aired last week. Even by the standards of this great show, the hour-long finale was funny, serious and, most importantly, moving. In amongst the dross of reality television, it is reassuring that such genuinely important work is still being done on television.

Wailing And Gnashing Of Teeth

Or should that be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Biblical? Probably - anyway you've got the internet or you wouldn't be reading this.

Besides which, the wailing/weeping etc is that peculiar thing - an introductory aside. Because the wailing would be about Ofsted, and that is a subject about which I am forbidden to gnash teeth. It is a process entirely (well almost) well-intentioned but it is hanging like a sword of Damocles over me in my gubernatorial guise. Bring it on I say and I can carry on with my other jobs and get on with making a great school even better. You've got to aim high.

No, today's real business is to trumpet a candidate for the accolade of greatest British film director. As you will previously have gathered I can't be having Alfred Hitchcock, good though he might be. Lindsay Anderson? Too weird. No, no, no - my suggestion is David Lean. What brought this to mind was watching a beautifully sharp reprint of 1948's Oliver Twist. I might not be alone in preferring to watch adaptations of Dickens rather than have to read him - is that a sin? I have read him but it can be a bit of a trudge. I feel the same about Tolkien - and that's not just because he went to King Edward's School. 

Anyway, the Lean Oliver Twist is terrific - a rambling novel is tamed (I believe Lean co-wrote the script) and you can scan the full library of film noir and you won't find a better casting of shadows - right up there with Touch of Evil, and that is one of the best films ever made. Oliver Twist - 86/100.

Right, back to work. Progress 8 scores anyone?