“a nation’s self-respect hangs by a thread as high noon looms”…

It’s just 62 days until 29 March (Brexit leave date).
Just to give you an idea of how time flies (really?), it’s now 53 days since Mrs May opened the debate of her Brexit ‘deal’ on 4 December. It seems to me that not much, if any, ‘progress’ has been made over the past 7 weeks or so and, I don’t know about you, but it seems that anything to do with Brexit has been happening ‘under the radar’ over the past week or so.
It’s almost as though the powers-that-be are running down the clock to ensure that we end up with an ‘acceptable deal’ that is only marginally less disastrous than a ‘no-deal’.
But what do I know? I’m no politician… and there are frequently times, these days, when I feel completely perplexed, lost and hopeless.
But don’t worry, rest assured that some of our politicians are well and truly focused. For example, we hear that Mr Johnson was given a £10,000 ‘donation’ by JCB this week before his Brexit speech in front of a digger (and just happened to mention the company several times)… and ‘poor’ old Mr Davis (former Brexit secretary) has secured a £60,000 20-hour-a-YEAR gig (that’s an HOURLY rate of just £3,000!) to ‘advise’ that very same JCB organisation.

Meanwhile, MPs continue to squabble about the important things in life… I refer you to this from journalist Marina Hyde in today’s Guardian:   

"Quote of the Week must still go to Nadine Dorries, who went on telly to express contempt for Brexit-cautious MPs ‘who really don’t care about their careers going up in flames’. Did the erstwhile gobbler of kangaroo testicles just say that out loud? To hear Nadine speak at the best of times feels like intruding on private stupidity, but even by her standards, this is eye-catching from the member for Mid-Bedfordshire. It can’t really be that Nadine should have been in parliament for almost 14 years without anyone informing her that politicians are in fact SUPPOSED to act out of a higher sense of duty than personal career advancement”.
Obviously, I’ll look back at this post in a couple of month’s time and think: “What on earth was I worried about?”… then again.
PS: Will there be an Article 50 extension? Will a decision be taken to allow a “People’s Vote”? Will the Villa be relegated?

free solo…

Blimey!
I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Jimmy Chin+Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s “Free Solo” documentary about free soloist climber Alex Honnoid as he prepared to achieve his lifelong dream of climbing the face of 3,200ft El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, USA in 2017… without a rope.
I have to tell you that, for me, watching this film was a very brave thing to do(!) because I’m absolutely petrified of heights. And yet, despite this fear, I have to admit a deep fascination for mountains and for mountaineering books.
It’s an utterly compelling film – beautiful scenery, stunning views and wonderful photography (undertaken by a remarkable group mountaineer/cameramen and the odd drone), but coupled with the drama of the preparation, Honnoid himself and the other characters involved (including his girlfriend, mother and other mountaineering friends).
Rest assured that the knowledge that one single mistake would cost Honnoid his life – not to mention the memory of three of his free soloist friends who had previously lost their lives on various similar expeditions – was never far from the audience’s minds (a pretty full cinema watched in utter silence!).

I had assumed that the entire documentary would be step-by-step footage of Honnoid’s breathtaking ordeal but, in fact, much of the film was taken up with preparation, rehearsal (with ropes) and making copious notes – literally writing out and learning his own script of the precise movements, specific hand and foothold shifts/balance. Seeing him making numerous attempts (whilst roped) of several impossible-looking manoeuvres… and frequently failing/falling.  

Watching Honnoid climb a sheer mountain face that seemed to lack ANY hand/footholds was absolutely spellbinding... obviously, you KNEW he was going to succeed (but actually he had apparently agreed for the film to be completed even if he’d perished) and, in some ways, that removed some of the tension. But you were just left watching in awe… seeing someone achieve the ‘impossible’ (well, that’s how it was for me).
A remarkable athletic feat and a remarkable film.
It gave a completely new meaning to ‘hanging on by your fingernails’.

january 2019 books…

The Living Mountain (Nan Shepherd): I love coincidences. I first came across this exquisite, short book at Hannah+Fee’s and then, within a couple of days, watched Robert Macfarlane’s ‘Secret Knowledge’ documentary on TV. Nan Shepherd (1893-1981) was a rather special woman. She was born and lived almost all her adult life in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen and worked for 41 years as a lecturer in English at what is now Aberdeen College of Education. She was a keen hill walker and lover of nature. She wrote ‘The Living Mountain’ (the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland) during the years of WW2, but the manuscript lay untouched for more than 30 years before it was finally published (in 1977). I found it breathtakingly beautiful in its quiet simplicity; it’s not a mountaineering book or a travel guide (and doesn’t contain a single photograph or illustration), it’s a book that reflects a life lived within these mountains – the sounds, the senses, the air, the light, the colours, the plants, the climate… and much much more. It’s a very gentle book that one needs to take time reading… digesting her words and realising (yet again) the importance of looking+seeing, listening+hearing, stopping+digesting… just as Shepherd took her time to fully appreciate the environment in which she lived. I couldn’t have asked to start the New Year with a better, more rewarding book!
The One Who Wrote Destiny (Nikesh Shukla): I met Shukla at the launch of our local bookshop (StorySmith Books) in November and this is the second of his books I’ve read. This novel focuses on a Gujarati family settled in Bradford with roots in Kenya. It seems that the family is inter-generationally doomed by fate… with huge consequences for those left behind when young lives are tragically cut short. Covering three generations within a time-frame of 1966 to the present day, this is a funny, poignant, powerful story of family relationships, of things passed on between grandparents, parents and siblings, of frightening racist confrontations, of integration, of health and ageing, and ultimately of determination, defiance and hope. Growing up in Birmingham in the 1950s, I was well aware of colour prejudices and resentment issues (from my parents’ and grandparents’ generations – mine included)(although I never personally witnessed any racist violence). Sadly, today in the UK, some 70 years on, we’re experiencing similar despicable (but different) ‘hate crimes’ against refugees and immigrants. The book also dealt with the life of a particular individual being cut short by pulmonary fibrosis. Having myself being diagnosed (incorrectly, as it turned out) with the same terminal illness 18 months ago, it brought back all the same emotions and memories. I thought it was a quite brilliant book… and it’s given me much food for thought.
Ravilious and Co (Andy Friend): Everyone’s heard of Charleston and the Bloomsbury Group of artists, writers and thinkers, but far fewer will be familiar with the work of their contemporaries such as Eric Ravilious and his network of influential artists, including Paul and John Nash, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Douglas Bliss, Percy Horton, Peggy Angus, Thomas Hennell, Helen Binyon and Tirzah Garwood (a somewhat less privileged group!). I’d previously read a fair amount about Ravilious (a memoir by artist Helen Binyon, a book of his High Street illustrations and his artist/wife’s wonderful autobiography ‘Long Live Great Bardfield’) and Friend’s book adds further superb detail to these (using access to diaries and letters from the time). The book also contained fascinating connections for me personally – reference to Ravilious and John Nash painting pleasure-steamers in Bristol in 1938 (Nash described Bristol as “the best port in England”!); Hennell’s time in a ‘mental’ hospital (St John’s Hospital, Aylesbury: the location of my first ever architectural project… long since demolished!); mention of the Kynoch Press (where my father worked for some years in the 1960-70s); and references to visits to John Nash’s home in the village of Meadle in Buckinghamshire (where one of my architectural partners also lived). This is a brilliant, extensively-researched and lavishly illustrated book and I absolutely loved it.
The Pebbles On The Beach (Clarence Ellis): I am a great lover of beach pebbles and this rather lovely book, first published in 1954 (re-published in 2018), provides an excellent source of information and advice. I think, however, I’d prove to be a huge disappointment to Ellis! I love the pebbles as objects in themselves – I have no real desire to cut, scratch or polish them… whereas Ellis would be urging me to hack and scrape them and take my ‘prizes’ off to the local lapidary for cutting and polishing before, of course, displaying my finest specimens! The book is very much of its time (and, in many ways, delightful) and appears to have been written for 12 year-old boys (in the mid-50s)(one gets the very clear impression that pebble-collectors and lapidaries are all male in Ellis’s view!). The language is both dated and rather patronising… some examples: “Thenceforward your progress will be rapid and joyous…”; “You must not expect to find good specimens of it without prolonged search…”; “If you crash one stone against another you risk the loss of an eye. That would not only bring your seaside holiday abruptly to an end but rob you of your zest for pebble-hunting once and for all…”! The book also contains a well-illustrated ‘Spotter’s Guide’ within the book jacket. I think the book only helped to underline the fact that I’m not very good at identifying things from book descriptions/illustrations and, although I might have learnt to apply a couple recognition hints, I’m never going to become a pebble expert!
A Year Of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion): I’d only previously read one Didion book (‘Blue Nights’, 4 years ago) and vowed then that I looked forward to reading ‘Magical Thinking’ (published in 2005) in due course. It’s taken me some time! Her husband John Gregory Dunne died, aged 71, of a heart attack… quite suddenly on 30 December 2003 in an armchair while Didion was cooking supper at home. Just days before, the couple had seen their daughter fall seriously ill (and much of the first half of the book juggles the loss of Didion’s husband with her daughter’s grave illness – her daughter died in 2009, aged 39). This beautiful, desperately honest book about loss and grief was written in the 12 months immediately following her husband’s death… replaying their last conversations in her head; coming across things he had written; dealing with her own self-pity; asking if there had been something she could have done to prevent his death; remembering things about their time together that she had long since forgotten; ridiculously refusing to throw away his shoes ‘in case he returned’… This a story of a year spent wishing – a year of ‘magical thinking’. Several times, I found myself reflecting on Didion’s words. Here’s just one example: “We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all”. Another passage that really struck me was after a cancelled restaurant birthday meal (due to heavy snowfall) when her husband sat by the fire and read out a passage from one of Didion’s own books. At the end, he closed the book and said: “Goddamn. Don’t ever tell me again you can’t write. That’s my birthday present to you”… as she recalls the occasion, Didion’s concludes the chapter thus: ‘I remember tears coming to my eyes. I feel them now. In retrospect this had been my omen, my message, the early snowfall, the birthday present no one else could give me. He had twenty-five nights to live’. It’s a remarkable book. It’s not sloppy or sentimental (far from it), but it addresses emotions and fears that we’ve all experienced and pondered – about our own mortality and that of family members and friends. “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends”.

the passenger…

I went along to the Watershed again this morning(!) to see Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic 1975 film ‘The Passenger’, starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. I’d not seen the film before and, apart from knowing that it was an Antonioni (1912-2007) film about an arms dealer and featuring Jack Nicholson, that was the sum total of my knowledge (sorry!).
It’s an engrossing, somewhat haunting, ‘thriller’. Nicholson plays a disillusioned American reporter (covering the Chad civil war) who stumbles across a man’s corpse in an adjacent hotel room in the wilds of North Africa. He takes the opportunity to change identities with the dead man (as you do) in a quest to ‘start life over again’ (he hates his work, his wife is cheating on him etc etc).
Sadly, for him, passing himself off as someone else doesn’t mean he can escape his past… the man he’s impersonating turns out to be an arms dealer with connections to the rebels in the civil war.
Oh dear.
He ends up meeting up with a mysterious, young architectural student (played by Maria Schneider) – someone who seems almost as ‘lost’ as him. He persuades her (improbably in my view) to retrieve his luggage from his hotel room in Barcelona, they become lovers (of course) and he ends up explaining that he’d swapped identities with a dead man.
I suppose that when one is discussing a 44 year-old film, there is no need for ‘spoiler alerts’, but Schneider’s character and actions raised no end of questions in my mind (ok, you could just say that this was all part of the film’s psychological backdrop): Would she really have responded to Nicholson’s initial approach so willingly? Why was she sitting on a bench in a scene apparently filmed in Camden (was Antonioni simply just playing with us to see if we were concentrating?)? Accepting, without question, Nicholson’s instruction/suggestion after their car needed repair and jumping on a bus… but then immediately signing herself in to a hotel room (somehow knowing that Nicholson would end up there himself)… Really?
But, hey, maybe it’s just me…
Clearly, having been made in 1975, the film is somewhat dated… with a thin, young Nicholson - complete with Cuban heels, flared trousers and hair!
I found it a fascinating, engrossing film (Antonioni was clearly a brilliant director). It’s beautifully shot by Luciano Tovoli in France, Spain and North Africa and I particularly loved the final sequence (*spoiler alert*!): filmed, without dialogue, through the narrow bars of a hotel window to frame Nicholson… moving into a courtyard then moving back to look through the bars again. The first time we see Nicholson, he is alive. The second time he is dead! Oooh err! Quite brilliant!
Moral: arms dealing is bad for your health.
PS: There were a total of six of us in the audience – accommodated in the Watershed’s biggest cinema! One woman disappeared to the loo at a crucial point in the film and then disappeared again, never to return, just before the film’s final, brilliant conclusion. Hey ho!

the favourite...

Moira and I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see our first film of the New Year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “The Favourite”. At the end of it, Moira – not a person noted for her over-the-top reaction to cinematic entertainment – summed up her reaction to the film in just one word: “extraordinary”!
And it WAS… simply extraordinary!
The film is set in England in the early 18^th century. Queen Anne is on the throne. The country is at war with France. Land taxes will either need to be doubled to fund the war or else perhaps a peace treaty will have to be signed to ‘save money and lives’? Decisions made on a whim or based on the latest piece of speculation or perceived personal advantage for the political figures (a bit like Brexit perhaps?!). I’d be the first to admit that my knowledge of Queen Anne’s reign is somewhat sketchy(!) but, in the film, Anne (brilliantly played by Olivia Colman) is portrayed as an unconfident, overweight, gout-riddled ruler who ultimately relies on the advice of her friend (and lover) Lady Sarah Churchill (wonderfully played by Rachel Weiz) – who effectively runs EVERYTHING (including serving as the Queen’s proxy in parliament). Into this rather ridiculous enclave comes Abigail Masham (superbly played by Emma Stone), Lady Sarah’s cousin who has ‘fallen far’ and now seeks employment in the royal household.
The film is dark, bawdy, outrageous, extravagant, strange… and, frequently, very funny. The sets, the make-up, the over-the-top costumes, the soundtrack are all remarkable and slightly weird. There is duck and lobster racing, pet bunnies and lots of silly dancing!! There is also, as the film title suggests, a question of favouritism… with Lady Sarah and Abigail competing for the Queen’s affections (literally) and influence.
The three female actors are all simply brilliant – with Olivia Colman utterly outstanding (Best Actor Oscar?)… and you get the feeling that all the principal actors had an absolutely hilarious time playing their respective characters.
It’s an unsettling and hugely entertaining film… and you definitely need to see it. Extraordinary indeed!