The Two Funniest Scenes Of All Time

Don't say I never spoil you. I have mentioned both scenes before but I was put in mind of the topic last weekend when the Groupie and I revisited that glorious comedy The Philadelphia Story. To po-faced moderns the sexual politics of this film are no doubt unacceptable, but those with broader minds will see this for what it is - a truly great movie. And the scene from it that I cherish above all others? Virginia Weidler, of course, as the juvenile Dinah Lord plonking herself at the grand piano and singing Lydia the Tattoed Lady - 'On her back is the Battle of Waterloo / Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus too'. Priceless. As for the film itself - 95/100.

'The other scene', I hear you cry. Well it comes from a far coarser age but is equally sde-splitting. It is of course the 'dead box' scene from the first series of Green Wing. Also priceless. 

The Washing Of Dirty Linen

I seem to recall raising this point before, I think in the context of the Robert Redford movie, The Candidate. A good film but one most memorable to me because I have a teenage memory of having watched it with my Dad. My father (an exceptional and wise man) commented that he admired the American ability to wash its national dirty linen in public. Well, the two films under consideration today are about two lots of dirty societal linen, one primarily Irish (though it has wider implications), the other American.

Philomena is, on one level, an unlikely buddy movie - Judi Dench's warm-hearted and genuine Irishwoman and Steve Coogan's cynical and world-weary journalist turned disgraced spin doctor. But at its best, it is so much more than a mixture of sound leading performances and a skilfully tear-jerking script. It is an airing of the catholic church's scandalously dirty linen. I won't spoil the plot for you because I want you to see this film. Suffice to say that for anyone who cannot help getting misty-eyed about Irish catholicism (and I, a convert to that faith, stand guilty on that count) this is essential viewing. 79/100.  

My go-to source of cinematic critical wisdom is the Ebert website which continues the work of the great and now deceased Roger Ebert. In a bizarre twist it can be reassuring on the rare occasions when I find myself disagreeing with the Ebert view. This provides a small measure of validation - I am something more than a purveyor of second-hand postures. Which brings me to a movie that the good people at Ebert find 'dull'. The Report may be dry and highly verbose but it is vital stuff, conveying measured outrage at the shaming use by the CIA of torture. It is held together by a compelling leading performance from Adam Driver, As the posters said, 'Truth Matters'. Though not quite of the same supreme quality as All the President's Men, nevertheless The Report desreves to be mentioned in the same context. 82/100.

A Question Of Media

Our brief topic today is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. A book, a television series, a film. I have reconsidered each of these media recently. The order of my original consumption was television, book, film. All are meritorious, indeed if I was to teach a course on literary adaptation I might take these texts as my basis.

The book is very good, not, I think, le Carre's best - that would be A Perfect Spy to my mind. Mind you my enjoyment of the novel was partially obstructed by having seen the television series and thus knowing who the culprit was in advance. To be precise I had in fact known that outcome the week before the final episode of the television production, thanks to a mean and small-minded hint delivered by Philip Purser in his Sunday Telegraph column the weekend before transmission - what a knob. I recall Purser's name with enmity even at the distance of four decades. 

The television series was (and remains) superb. It hoovered up awards and Alec Guinness as Smiley may just have given his finest performance. It can still be re-watched profitably even if the original suspense is absent.

The film is also well done but it is this version with which I have the greatest difficulty. Perhaps it is the lack of supense, perhaps if I came to it unburdened I would have enjoyed it all the more. But sometimes the longeurs are the thing. So in the novel, so in the television series. The film, admirable as it may be, is too short to do justice to this particular tale. The film - 69/100. 

Gosford Park

Robert Altman is one of my favourite directors - M*A*S*H is a gloriously anarchic, sour and funny film, Nashville is unjustly neglected, and The Player contains a tracking shot that rivals Welles for ingenuity. To that list we must, of course, add Gosford Park - a country house whodunnit that manages to be funny, moving and astringent as it manoeuvres its vast cast (a veritable who's who of British talent, with a sprinkling of Americans) into and out of the focus of its brilliantly utilised wide-screen.

The script is Julian Fellowes' finest hour - never mind his far less challenging but similarly located Downton. But it is Altman's roving camera that steals the show, sometimes focusing on the person who is talking but sometimes calling our attention to a subsidiary conversation. You have to pay attention but this is never a chore in this clever and beautiful piece of cinema. 82/100. 

The Return From Injury Of The Big Fat Pig

September was pretty much a complete write-off so far as BFP's physical fitness was concerned. The injuries I sustained when falling so gracelessly while out running just before I set out for Woburn, most particularly the rib damage, took an age to heal and it is only this week that I have ventured back out onto the mean streets. I have managed three successive days, never tackling anything more than 5k, but being pleasantly surprised by the evidence of the stopwatch. At the Pig's advanced age it is not reasonable to expect to get faster but I am only getting slower by small increments. 

Another obstacle to the Pig has been a reminder of those far-away days before we all ran obsessed in the opposite direction to Covid. I've had a stinking cold - sore throat (lost my voice), feverishness and totally snotted-up. And no, it wasn't Covid - I had a test and everything. And if you want to fight against the after-effects of a cold, well I can thoroughly recommend a short run. Clears the pipes something wonderful. I'm back, large as life and twice as ugly.

Hemingway

I've not long finished reading A Farewell to Arms and have to admit that I fell for the lucid power of Hemingway's prose. The style is sparse but evocative and the product of a profoundly masculine experience. And that is, of course, the problem - even allowing for the strictures of Barthes in The Death of the Author (which properly posits that an author has no sovereignty over his/her words) it is near impossible to read Hemingway without being affected by his acknowledged brutisness. This is particularly so if one has just seen (and if you haven't you really must - it's on iPlayer) Ken Burns' typically magisterial documentary on the writer's life. Hemingway was a bit of a pig, particularly to his women. He loved bull-fighting, big game hunting, and alcohol. None of this makes him acceptable to modern sensitivities. But good old Barthes had a point - put your preconceptions aside and admire the quality of the writing. 

Great Moments In Sport

It shows how long it has been since the Pig was last in contention for even a piddling little prize that he felt the nerves when he teed it up as leader in the Dunmore Shield at Bull Bay on Wednesday. I had accumulated a meagre two point advantage over the opening three days and, after some intervening drama, I had by the end increased this to nine. It had been down to just one after eleven holes but an unlikely long putt on the twelfth kept the lead intact and turned out to be the turning point. Now it has to be conceded that I beat Big Willy with his chronic bad back, and the Boy Bacon who was incubating a strong cold, and that ViperJohn had been prevented by ill health from even turning up. But still - the Pig won.

Ynys Mon proved a fine host to our mature high jinks. I doubt that we will return to St. Deiniol any time soon, but The Anglesey was a pleasing new experience and cracking value for money at twenty-five pounds per head. The best was kept for the final two rounds however - Holyhead was as good as first impressions had intimated those few years ago; and Bull Bay which hosted the finale was, as ever, a quality venue. Worth every bit of the forty pound green fee.

Holyhead Golf Club

This festival of inept sporting endeavour was made all the better by food at the Tavern on the Bay and a gargantuan takeaway from The Talent House. Where to next year?

18th at Bull Bay - scene of the Pig's triumph