In The Deep Midwinter

It's snowing. It's snowing. I love the snow. It excuses isolated indolence within our lovely home. In fact we haven't been utterly indolent - yesterday we walked down to the shops, no doubt inspired by the Shackleton documentary we'd watched the night before. We bought Mexican food which we had for tea last night.

Well, what have I been up to in the post-Christmas lull? Ooh, this and that, you know, this and that. I've been putting in some time with my old Victorian mate Walter Bagehot - there may be an element of the self-fulfilling prophecy but I find a lot of modern resonance in good old Walt's oeuvre. Remember that con-artist Tony Blair and 'Education. Education. Education.' Well try this for size,

Our University has shown upon what principles a sound and sensible culture can be given to young men sincerely bred in different religious creeds, without sacrificing either the faith to the culture or the culture to the faith … The cry should now be “Educate! Educate! Educate!”
 

That was Walter to the graduates of God's own University of London in 1867. A time, by the way, when the University had its own MP voted for by the alumni. Sounds a great idea to me. I see no sound reason why I shouldn't have at least two votes to the one of most mortals.

We went to see Merry Wives of Windsor at the RSC. A beautifully staged production of a lesser play which, to my mind, tails off in the final acts. A good night though. I do recommend the rebuilt Royal Shakespeare Theatre as a congenial performance space.

Time spent with Walter also gets me thinking about the stinking morass that is modern constitutional politics. I've been having some thoughts as to what Bagehot would make of the EU. To the extent that it disenfranchises its citizens and leaves government to an elite, he might be anticipated to approve. However Bagehot accepted such arrangements to the extent that they were either efficient or dignified. You will have a job convincing me which category le Grand Projet can squeeze itself into.

I'll tell you who is efficient - that Alex Salmond. He has manoeuvred the SNP into a position of beautifully unaccountable power. You have to admire his method. And even more skilfully he knows his limits - he will always struggle to tick the dignified box so he would keep the monarchy for that purpose. Hard to deny that Queen Elizabeth II does dignity in spades. I bet he's read his Bagehot. She definitely has. Daft they ain't. Heard him the other day on the radio and his latest little tic is never to say just 'Scotland' but 'oil rich, green energy rich, Scotland.' I wish him well. If the Scots transpire to want the sort of Scotland Salmond would want, a Scandinavian annexe, then they can go with my blessing because the majority of the English, to the extent they ever really think about such things, want something fundamentally different. In an uncomfortable way I rather admire Salmond.

Ronan O'Gara has received  a one week ban for full-on kicking a bloke last weekend in a Heineken Cup match. Apparently they took account of his 'previous good record.' Wtf - if you added up all the yards he has run over the years to land a cheap shot in fights that were none of his damned business you'd get to Cork and back a good few times. Gobshite. 

12 Films At Christmas - 11 & 12

A pair of enjoyable caper movies to finish off the dozen. First we pose the biggest question in the film world - how was it that Guy Ritchie simply could not make a decent film whilst married to Madonna but, as soon as he got unspliced, he relocated his mojo? Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a right good lark and Robert Downey Jr may have his personal issues but he has watchability in spades.

And it is watchability/star quality/charisma which carries our final film - The Sting. Newman and Redford. Enough said.

So that is it - a dozen films selected rather at random and, I am pleased to conclude, only one dud amongst them. This is the last time I will mention Anonymous but if I ever learn that you have watched it despite my warnings then I will ban you from this blog. It's for your own good.

12 Films At Christmas - 9 & 10

We next come to two adaptations from children's literature and this gives me an excuse to vent a bit of prejudiced steam at what constitutes good reading, as if you hadn't had enough of that through Advent.

The Harry Potter novels have much to answer for. I did my English degree with members of the Potter generation and if they got their taste for books from Potter then I'm all in favour. As plain story-telling they are great - a ripping good yarn. And yes I did read them all because like everyone else I cared what happened to the characters. However the later books in the sequence have no sense of self-control. Had Rowling become too important to be edited? These books are hundreds of pages too long. There is another problem - magic can cover-up any number of implausibilities of plot and circumstance. It is a lazy device if not treated carefully. But on balance I very much approve - something about which the author will I'm sure give not a damn.

All of which very long-windedly brings me to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Second in the sequence and not  a bad film if you like that sort of thing, which, on the whole, I do. But it works like this - I prefer the Potter books to the films, whereas I prefer the Lord of the Rings films to the books. Does that make me a bad person? Final word on this film - it includes Dobby the house elf, a great creation, and it contains next to nothing of the Weasley twins thus sparing us from surely the worst sustained cinematic acting of all time.

Our staircase walls are adorned by twenty-one framed reproduction Herge prints from the Tintin books. They look great. I grew up with these books; my older daughter has a set of the books bought for her by an attentive and wise godfather. So I came to the Spielberg adaptation with trepidation - these books deserved a heady mix of reverence and chutzpah. I need not have feared. Bloody great film even when seen in boring old 2D. I am thinking of adding Spielberg to my Christmas card list. Boy done good.

12 Films At Christmas - 7 & 8

We delved into the Woody Allen box-set again a couple of nights ago. Most inappropriately Sharon and I have taken it in turns to be unwell since Christmas so we have watched a lot on the television whilst kept from our normally giddy social life. Those detecting a heavy dose of sarcasm in that last remark will not be wide of the mark.

The only problem (and for reasons I will go into it is probably not really a problem anyway) with watching a lot of Wooody Allen is that you can see some of the jokes coming. Not that I'm complaining - I have always liked Jewish masturbation jokes. In this film it comes (ooh err Mrs) early on - Woody's wife suggests that they cannot have children because he has 'ruined' himself - perhaps by excessive masturbation - 'Leave my hobbies alone' ,Woody snaps back

Hannah and Her Sisters isn't really a film with anywhere to go but it meanders beautifully and is graced by a performance from an absolute master of cinematic acting, Michael Caine. Less is so much more in his hands. As to the familiarity of Allen's themes and methods, well, when Wayne Rooney scores a goal one doesn't bemoan having seen him do it before. Woody Allen is a prolific goal scorer.

And next we have the absolute antidote to the complete guff that is Anonymous (see film number 1 in this thread). I have often opined on the role of the clever bastard in cultural delivery and now I give you Exhibit A - Tom Stoppard. What an absolute blinding screenplay he delivered for Shakespeare In Love. Where Anonymous pretends to learning, Shakespeare In Love wears genuine scholarship lightly. Where Anonymous insults great reputations, Shakespeare In Love gently burnishes them without being po-faced. And another thing - hiding behind the Oscar winning efforts of Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench there is a seriously good supporting turn from Ben Affleck. A cracking good film. In case you have missed the point - Anonymous is a steaming pile of manure.

Old Dave's Almanack 2013

Including a review of last year's predictions and this year's less than confident sooth-saying.

Here was my predictive menu for 2012:

2012? Well France will win the Six Nations now they have a decent coach. Wales will not be as good as their followers are being encouraged to anticipate. England will be half-decent which will make the appointment of a permanent new coach all the trickier. Anticipate serious civil unrest in southern Europe. My capital wealth will be further eroded by the malfeasance of others. Goldman Sachs will prosper, though hopefully not in India. GB will win 16 gold medals at the Olympics. Our press will charcterise this as failure. Public sector employees will eventually have to accept that their pensions are unsustainable and their industrial action will fail to attract its own Billy Elliot style romanticism - there will be no ballet dancing son of a geography teacher plucking at the heart-strings of the public.
 

Time to eat some humble pie.

• France disappointed me but they do have a decent coach and their autumnal hammering of the Australians augurs well. They suffer from the same problem that besets English professional soccer - a domestic championship stuffed to the gunnels with foreign galacticos.
• Wales set off as if determined to rub my nose in it, winning all five games to take a Grand Slam (albeit with some spineless assistance from that show-pony Steve Walsh) but have since then lost seven consecutive matches, including home defeats by Argentina and Samoa. On balance I got this one right.
• I was spot on about England and the coaching appointment.
• 25% unemployment in the southern european states can surely not be sustained peacably for too much longer.
• According to my banker I am marginally richer than I was a year ago. This is a recovery built on foundations of sand.
• Gloriously wrong on the Olympics. See earlier blogs from my vantage point as a volunteer under label 'London 2012'. A sheer bloody triumph - the Olympics that is, not my blog.
• Public sector pensions - start a conversation on this one with friends in the pub and wait till the teacher present goes for a piss to find out what people really think. Not pretty. Actually, don't start that conversation - save your sanity and just let this run its own mucky course.

2013: France to win the Six Nations but no Grand Slam; England to continue to progress but haltingly; Wales to recover; Lions to win series in Australia. I can't be arsed with any precise political predictions because we will merely have a tiresome early setting of ground for a UK election not apparently due until 2015 - this setting of the date years in advance being one of the powers President Dave vainly took unto himself upon his non-election in 2010. America will stagger towards recovery not because of any political will but because it is America. The American century may be over but don't expect this remarkable country to lie down and be upstaged without a fight, certainly not by as immoral a beast as China.

It is midday on 1 January and already I feel tired. Best advice I can give is that which I use to sustain myself: don't let the bastards wear you down.

 

An Automotive Tale

Now I want you to look at this picture. Can you see the battery? No, neither could I. This is the engine compartment of an Audi A4 diesel. It is important to our story. That story is of what the Roberts family spent the latter part of Christmas Eve doing. In hearing it you will find the answer to the burning question - how many Robertses does it take to jump start a car?

Dramatis Personae:
D1 - daughter number 1
D2 - daughter number 2
PF - pater familias aka the Overgraduate
Mrs R - the true leader
Fifi - D2's car, a Ford Fiesta
Peugie - D1's car, a Peugeot
the Audi - Mrs R's car

Our tale is this: D1 goes out for a drink with some friends - not a wild session just a civilised tipple with mates. Destination, Mere Green at a specified pub. D2 who is staying in for a change (social animal) will pick her up later. PF listens vaguely to these arrangements and gets the gist. At the appointed hour D1 telephones D2 to pick her up. She is no longer at the original public house but at another more congenial and around the corner. D2 sets off in Fifi. Simples? No. D2 arrives at the pub and meets D1. She stops Fifi for this purpose. She then quite naturally tries to restart Fifi. She fails. In the mistaken (but charmingly trusting) belief that PF knows about cars she phones him to report the dilemma. PF assumes it is a repeat of an earlier problemn with the key, grabs the spare key and tears out to the original pub to effect a rescue. He goes in the Audi. In his disorganised and inattentive hurry he does not take his phone, nor does he acknowledge the change of drinking venue. At the original pub he finds neither Fifi nor his daughters. He drives home very fast and is informed of the correct destination. He sets off again, now armed with his phone. He meets D1 and D2. Fifi does not start with the new key. A call to the AA looms but first PF will try the jump leads - which are in his precious Jag back at the family seat. He and D's 1 and 2 return home in the Audi. Jump leads collected, PF and D2 return to the locus in quo. By this time some innocent fool has parked next to Fifi so that it is not accessible from the Audi. PF eventually pushes it out into an open space while D2 steers. Audi is then moved alongside. PF opens the bonnet of Audi - can he find the battery - can he bollocks. Consults handbook. Can't read it. Needs reading glasses. D2 can read it but cannot locate the info. So D2 phones Mrs R and requests her presence with PF's glasses. Mrs R and D1 now attend in Peugie. All members of the family and three of its four cars now invoved in the enterprise. It transpires that the battery is hidden away but that there are jump start points if you know where to look. These are (with some difficulty) located and, very much to PF's surprise, Fifi sparks to life. PF modestly assumes heroic mantle having demonstrated his ascendancy over machines. The tribe now returns to the family seat in convoy. All agree it's good to do things as a family. Happy bloody Christmas. 

12 Films At Christmas - 5 & 6

It is easy in this age of wide screen television, high-definition and early dvd release, to forget the former cultural importance of the full-length Disney cartoon. They took years of patient hand production and they were accessible only by cinematic release. Most certainly Disney did not until recently expose them to the butchery of poorly formatted televisual display. No, we queued round the block to see them at the local flea pit, in my case the long-ago demolished Palace in Erdington. We attended with gangs of school friends, converging free from parental restraint on the High Street from our various corners of the borough. There was always a supporting film for us to tolerate and to serve to ratchet up the anticipation of the feature. During the support we would boo any romantic moments. The Palace Erdington was not a place for romantics. So it was with relish that I sat to watch 101 Dalmatians with my family on the splendour of our own big screen and with a whole leather sofa to myself. On certain days this is my favourite Disney cartoon, on others not. Damned fine entertainment either way.

We watched 101 Dalmatians by choice but Lady and the Tramp on the following day was a happy accident of the television schedules - shown uncut and uninterrupted by advertisements on a suitable screen. Another lovely film. I hope we might see their ilk again but the commoditisation of the cartoon art makes this unlikely - for example I note that there was a direct-to-video sequel to Lady and the Tramp and that there is a clearly inferior Tinkerbell product doing the Christmas rounds and culling a few easy holiday dollars. A shame. If you want to hear a more expertly voiced polemic on the demise of the true cinema I recommend the estimable Doctor Mark Kermode's The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, available from all good bookshops. There is of course plenty that can also be written about the death of the bookshop. Another time.