the breadwinner…

Moira and I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Nora Twomey’s animated film “The Breadwinner”. It’s based on Deborah Ellis’s novel about an 11 year-old girl in Afghanistan at a time when the country was ruled by the Taliban. The girl’s father is wrongfully imprisoned and she realises she needs to disguise herself as a boy in order to become the family’s sole breadwinner.
It’s a film about creativity and courage in the face of adversity, the strength of the family… and the power of storytelling.
I thought it was a stunning and powerful film (Moira wasn’t quite as taken by it, but we’re allowed to slightly disagree on this matters!) and absolutely beautifully animated (by the team behind ‘The Secret of Kells’ and ‘Song of the Sea’ films)(Moira agrees!). It’s also a pretty frightening and depressing film about how people are treated (along the familiar lines of “what have we become?”) and yet, despite this backdrop, it retains a sense of humour and is tremendously uplifting and hopeful too.
Apparently, when researching her novel in the late 1990s, Ellis spent time interviewing girls and women in refugee camps in Pakistan and one gets a very real sense that the film has retained its cultural authenticity. Just(!) because it’s ‘animation’, don’t be fooled into thinking this is a film for children (it’s classified “12A”). Animation needs to be seen simply as a medium in this respect… the book was written for young adults AND adults and the film keeps to this.  
It’s a wonderful, inspiring film… and I think you need to see it.

mirga (and the CBSO) at colston hall…

I went to Colston Hall last night to hear/see the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (you’ll know them better as the CBSO) performing Lili Boulanger’s “D’un Matin de Printemps”, Debussy’s “La Mer” and Mahler’s “Symphony no.1”. Actually, although I’m on Colston Hall’s emailing list and frequently check out their website, I’d completely missed that the CBSO were coming to Bristol… so it was ENTIRELY down to Moira (who spotted it on Twitter) that I ended up buying a ticket.
Let’s face it, the REAL reason for wanting to attend the concert wasn’t so much that it was the CBSO (brilliant though they are) or for the music to be played (although I’m a big Mahler fan and also love Debussy’s “La Mer”)…
It was because Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla was the conductor.
If you’ve never seen her ‘perform’, then you MUST make sure you do so at the earliest possible opportunity. She is simply wonderful.
The only previous time I’d seen her ‘in action’ was in January last year, at the Birmingham Symphony Hall (not long after she’d been appointed Director of the acclaimed CBSO at the ridiculously young age of 29). As you might be able to tell from my blog post of the time (it’s worth reading just for my ‘slightly’ over-the-top review!), I was utterly captivated by her.
Well, yesterday evening (AND six months’ pregnant!)(Mirga, not me), she and the CBSO gave the large and enthusiastic audience a night to remember.
Mirga, undoubtedly, is a true super-star.

I watched/heard the performance from the fourth row of the stalls (and the extreme right, facing the stage). Although this meant that much of the orchestra wasn’t directly visible, it DID provide me with the perfect position from which to watch the conductor perform from her rostrum.

It was a completely intoxicating experience… as a performer, she was mesmerising… and passionate, and powerful, and tender. Utterly enchanting and quite, quite magical.  
She has clearly already forged a formidable relationship with both the orchestra and the audiences.
The orchestra loves her.
She loves the CBSO.
I absolutely love her.
And, after last night, Bristol loves her too.
Photo: Receiving the audience's acclaim at the end of yesterdays concert (yes, she’s definitely pregnant!)

may 2018 books...

Where The Streams Come From (Chris Goan): Although we’ve never met, I regard poet Chris Goan as a good friend. We’ve collaborated together (alongside Ian Adams and Si Smith – I merely provided some photographs) on a book for Proost and our paths have also crossed in connection with the “World Turned Upside Down” exhibition in Leeds last year. He lives in Dunoon, Scotland, and is a member of the Aoradh community. I love his poetry and really enjoyed this collection – which focuses on nature, spirituality, love, compassion (and a whole range of other things, including CalMac ferries!). He certainly has a way with words and I very much liked the fact that most of his poems were accompanied by brief background notes putting his words into context. One of those special books that I’ll be dipping into again and again over the coming months/years.
Autobiography (Neville Cardus): I bought this 1947 first edition for 50p(!) at the Taunton Cricket Ground secondhand bookshop. Cardus (1888-1975) came from an impoverished family background and was largely self-taught (he reckoned he was ‘unteachable’ at school, but spent countless hours in the local library reading). Somewhat bizarrely, in 1919, he found himself as the cricket correspondent of the esteemed Manchester Guardian… and subsequently, in 1927, also its chief music critic (his main passion)(this book contains some wonderful descriptions of his conversations with Thomas Beecham). My own knowledge of Cardus is as a cricket writer… and I’ve loved his eloquent, flowery descriptions and his articulate, romantic fervour for his subject (and his humour). He wrote this autobiography when he was 52 (he wrote three others!) and, yes, his stuff is ‘of an age’ and, on occasions, he comes across as something of an egoist… but, nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith): I like McCall Smith’s stuff (No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency). This is a little different – about characters and life in Edinburgh – which he started writing as a daily serial for ‘The Scotsman’. The storylines are relatively straightforward and uncomplicated, and all the characters readily identified as ‘types’ we’ve all met. Yes, it might be light reading, but thoroughly entertaining, enjoyable (and pretty gentle) light reading!
English Cricket (Christopher Brookes): A fascinating book, published in 1978 (just after Kerry Packer launched his ‘cricketing circus’), tracing the game’s evolution over the past 500 years. In the 18^th century, the game was essentially one played and organised by the aristocracy and their upper-class friends. By the late 19^th century, it had developed into a game which made particular distinctions between ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ (with amateurs and professionals having their separate dressing rooms and, sometimes, even entering the field of play by a separate gate!). Ridiculously, this distinction lasted until 1962 - and I can remember the last Gentlemen v Players (ie. amateurs versus professionals) match at Lord’s taking place that year. Brookes talks about how the game has had to become a business in order to attract finance and how, for the counties, the limited over formats probably represented the ‘way forward’ in order for the game to survive (he quotes a newspaper report from 1971, which noted that the average daily attendance at county championship matches in 1970 had been just 581!). The book is a reminder that cricket has faced many upheavals over its development (long before Packer, for example, in 1846, William Clarke’s All-England XI of ‘wandering professionals’ threatened the very future of the game) and this will no doubt continue to be the case – despite my own selfish moaning about the current demise of the County Championship!
Freeze Frame (Peter May): This is an “Enzo Macleod Investigation” (and, true to form, I later discovered that this was book four of a series of seven!). Scott Enzo Macleod is a forensics expert who has taken on a bet to solve seven ‘cold cases’. This investigation is set on a small island off the coast of Brittany and relates to the notorious, unsolved killing of a tropical disease specialist and entomologist in his study some 20 years earlier. A very clever book (sometimes just a little too clever and fanciful perhaps?) which I read in a day and a half. Dark and powerful. This was only my second Peter May book, but there will definitely be more!

april-may 2018 books…

Spark (Alice Broadway): I’ve previously blogged (separately) about this book – daughter Alice’s second book in the ‘Skin Trilogy’. In this world of power and control/ haves and have-nots/ morality and corruption/ manipulation and duplicity/ judgement and risk/ belief and unbelief/ integrity and hope, this is a wonderful, thought-provoking, wise and powerful book. It might be labelled as ‘Young Adult’ (YA) novel, but it has a message for young and old alike. I absolutely loved it. A brilliant ‘page-turner’ if ever there was one.
Travelling To Infinity (Jane Hawking): I bought this remarkable book on the day Stephen Hawking died (from the £3 Bookshop!). It tells the story of Jane and Stephen Hawking’s extraordinary life together. They were married for over 25 years and had three children. They met in January 1963, shortly after Stephen had begun research in cosmology in Cambridge. Within a matter of months Stephen was diagnosed with a strain of multiple sclerosis (later confirmed as motor neurone disease) and given a ‘couple of years to live’ but, despite this, they married in July 1965. The story tells of Stephen’s celebrated achievements in physics, astrophysics, cosmology (and beyond!); the huge list of awards, medals and titles that were bestowed on him from governments and famous institutions; his amazing capacity for sitting for hours working out incredibly complicated theorems in his head; his love of being the star attraction at conferences throughout the world. But behind this frenzied lifestyle came the unrelenting, pivotal, 24/7 support he required to sustain things. Jane was clearly the person who enabled Stephen to achieve so much of what he did (providing the 24/7 care in the early years of their marriage - and a good deal beyond that; juggling family life; making necessary travel and complicated accommodation arrangements; organising suppers and receptions for distinguished visiting scholars and the like; accompanying him on his numerous engagements and providing constant ‘nursing’ support; and later co-ordinating his ‘external’ nursing support and balancing his escalating needs). Stephen and Jane divorced in 1995 (his second marriage to his nurse ended in divorce in 2006 and Jane remarried in 1997), but, since 2006, they were “able to associate freely again and enjoy many a family occasion together”. The book makes compelling reading. It’s a brave, honest, painful account of their lives – with all the triumphs and excitement, together with all hardships and sacrifices. I still haven’t seen the film (“The Theory of Everything”), but I suspect that it begins to tell the story of Jane’s vital role in Stephen’s life – something about which, in this world that concentrates so much on celebrity and success, I suspect that most of us never knew. It’s a long and complicated story – Jane is an excellent writer and she tells the story in a tender, non-vindictive and respectful way. I urge you to read the book for yourself.
Morality For Beautiful Girls (Alexander McCall Smith): I needed some gentle light reading after the in-depth account of the Hawking family! Another gentle, joyful, humourous book of African wisdom.
The Making Of Modern Britain (Andrew Marr): Marr is a brilliant communicator (I’ve also watched both the “Making of” and the “History of” versions on TV). In this book, he covers a lot of ground (from Queen Victoria to VE Day), but is particularly adept and entertaining at telling the stories behind the stories. Here are just a handful of the obscure bits that absolutely fascinated/appalled me:
a)    Unsurprisingly (although still depressing), the late 19^th/early 20^th century Britain saw rigid class distinctions (and these were only emphasised in parliament). Indeed, scientist Francis Galton (in 1901) was keen to introduce what he called “The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under the Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment” – endeavouring to classify people by their ‘civic worth’. I won’t shock you with the details but, essentially, “Society should stop the lower sort from breeding so enthusiastically, and encourage the elite to breed more”! Frighteningly, many powerful and influential individuals (including Churchill!) were supportive. The messages were also “well heard” in Germany where, in 1905, an organisation called the Race Hygiene Society was formed.    
b)   Medicals from WW1 recruitment underlined the huge nutritional and health differences between the classes: “on average serving soldiers were five inches shorter than officers”!!
c)    “Failure in Flanders had led Kitchener to make one of his most chilling remarks of the war, complaining that the British commander Sir John French had wasted shells, rather than men. The men could easily be replaced, he said; the shells could not”.
d)    I was struck by how powerful/influential the press barons (eg. Northcliffe and Harmsworth) of the early 20^th century were… and how it mirrors the present-day world of Murdoch and his like.
e)    Similarly, in some strange way, between Lloyd George and Trump (although the latter continues to appal me!): referring to Lloyd George: “He believed in himself, and in doing. He was increasingly drawn to self-made  and ‘go-ahead’ business people, rather than party loyalists or other MPs. His power came from his actorly self-projection…”.
f)     I certainly wasn’t aware that, at the outbreak of WW1, there were more than a thousand suffragettes in prison and that the leaders of the WSPU (Women’s Social+Political Union) were “either in jail or on the run”.
g)    I found Britain’s attitude towards and actions in the Middle East (c 1917) thoroughly depressing (“Arab humiliation”). As Marr says: “We have made-up countries with imported puppet rulers; Arab nationalism first encouraged and then mocked; extremist forms of Islam left to flourish; and the old Caliphate abolished, leading to a debate about what should replace it in the Muslim world. The consequences of the First World War amount to more than paper poppies once a year; they are all around us still”.
All this before the end of WW1! I could add far, far more examples but, hopefully, you ‘get’ my enthusiasm! Marr writes engagingly, even-handedly and knowledgeably in great detail (and with frankness and much humour). I found it an utterly compelling read.
Follow On (EW Swanton): This book was first published in 1977. Swanton was, primarily for me, a very well-loved cricket journalist and broadcaster (he died in 2000 at the age of 92) whose observations on the game were usually intelligent and sensible (although, for some, perhaps just a little too measured and dry?). He was a traditionalist and VERY much a figure of the establishment (conservative with upper and lower case ‘C’!) and this autobiographical book has constant references to players and committee men (sadly, women don’t seem to exist in his world… and, for goodness, don’t even whisper the possibility of ordained women in the Church: “to give countenance to the idea of admitting women to the priesthood… would seem to be lunacy”!!) who, it seems, were primarily from Eton, Harrow (and one or two other prominent public schools) and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Swanton was certainly not given to romantic descriptions of the game (like Neville Cardus) and, frankly, he frequently comes across as quite a serious, almost pompous, man in this book… which is perhaps a little unfair (albeit that he’d grown up in a different age). Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed reading his thoughts on the game… and, if he was alive today, I suspect that his views on demise of County Cricket would echo my own!

the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society…

Moira and I went along to Bristol’s Cinema de Lux (no, not the Watershed… and yes, my second film in two days!)(I know) to see Mike Newell’s film "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", based on Mary Ann Shaffer+Annie Barrows book of the same name. I read the book in 2010 (and thoroughly enjoyed it) and think it’s probably time I read it again.
It’s set in 1946 and takes the form of an exchange of letters between a writer (Juliet Ashton, played by Lily James - and very lovely she looked too) in London and a Guernsey pig farmer (Dawsey Adams, played by Michiel Huisman) – the latter being a member of the GL+PPS book club. In his letters Adams conveys some of the struggles the islanders suffered during the German occupation… and, in due course, Ashton decides to visit the book club in Guernsey to learn more of their stories.
As I suspected, I didn’t enjoy the film anything like as much as I’d enjoyed the book.
The film was too sugar-coated for my taste (and the same applied to the sections which included musical accompaniment – which was all a little too soft and ‘twinkly’!).
It all looked rather beautiful and cosy – but just a little too charming, if you know what I mean. The Guernsey Tourist Board will no doubt be delighted – even if, apparently, much of it was filmed in Devon and Cornwall (not to mention Bristol harbourside!). The film script invented lots of stuff that wasn’t in the book and I also thought Michiel Huisman seemed a strange choice for the Dawsey character (Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian describes him thus: “one of the handsomest pig-farmers in the world, a stubbled exquisite”!).
But, hey, having said all that, I found it a perfectly enjoyable, feel-good film – just right for a rainy Sunday afternoon perhaps, when you’ve nothing better to do?
Photo: Film poster with Bristol’s very own ‘Balmoral’ ship in the background.
PS: I’d forgotten my previous experiences of Cinema de Lux – a) over half an hour of adverts and previews before the film(!) and b) just how ridiculously loud the sound system was (I would go as far as to describe it as ‘unbearable’!).

let the sunshine in…

This afternoon I went to the Watershed to see Claire Denis’s “Let The Sunshine In”. It’s just possible that the main reason I wanted to see the film might have been that it starred Juliette Binoche (I think she’s got a bit of a soft stop for me too!).
Binoche is Isabelle, a divorced artist in Paris, now single, living alone and frustrated with her life and her (several) somewhat shabby liaisons… and perhaps asking herself: “Is that it? Is that really all that life has got to offer?”. It’s a film about growing older, about the need for companionship, about the fear of loneliness… and it almost goes without saying that Binoche pulls off her role superbly.
Despite lots of tears (from Binoche), it’s actually rather a funny film – beautifully understated, tongue-in-cheek… and the piece at the very end involving Gerard Depardieu, as a fortune teller with suspect motives, did make me smile.
I came away not quite knowing whether I really enjoyed the film or not… I think I did.

first day of the cricket season…

The new cricket season started today… and I went down to Taunton to watch Somerset ‘entertain’ Worcestershire.
The sun shone all day; there were over 350 runs scored and, somewhat ridiculously, 18 wickets fell. The wet conditions of last week turning to glorious sunshine this week clearly affected the wicket – in fact, across the country, the top innings score on this opening day was a mere 256 runs (perhaps the gradual demise of the county games means that players don’t get enough practice of the four-day game?).
Despite the fact that, at 10am today, the visibility from the train was reduced to 150metres at one point (you’re going to tell me it was ‘heat haze’, aren’t you?), by the time the match started at 11am, the sun was shining brilliantly and didn’t stop shining throughout the day.

The day’s cricketing honours went to two young players: Worcestershire’s Ed Barnard took his first five-wicket haul and Somerset’s Matt Renshaw scored an unbeaten century. 22 year-old Renshaw (born in Middlesborough, but already capped for Australia) was making his debut for Somerset and, ironically, he was a last-minute replacement for Somerset’s original Aussie signing, Cameron Bancroft – who you might recall was ‘caught up’ in the recent ball-tampering scandal.

It was all very idyllic – perfect weather, entertaining cricket, a very good crowd and people clearly delighted to meet up again and bore each other with their respective knowledge of cricketing records (that only other cricket fans have any interest in at all). Life is good.
PS: The day’s other points of note included: a) the old lady sitting directly behind me, watching the cricket and constantly humming quietly to herself (and me), b) me buying THREE old cricket books for a TOTAL price of £2 (yes, I’m feeling slightly smug!), and c) the woman announcer at Taunton station (ok, I know it was a recorded message) explaining to passengers that our train was running 29 minutes late due to a signal failure – but, at the same time, actually seemingly to infer something along the lines of “well, that’s what they told me anyway – but, frankly, who knows?”.
Photo: The above image probably should have been added to the “day’s other points of note” … this was the very first thing I was confronted by when I arrived at the ground: the bizarre sight of a press photographer(?) desperately trying to take a photograph incorporating a pint of Thatcher’s cider, a cricket ball and a boundary rope (and I just love his ‘leg action’)!!

facebook…

Like many people, I struggle with the mysterious world of information technology, smart phones, social media and the like… and I simply know that I’ll always struggle.
And like many people, I’ve been appalled by some of the recent revelations/accusations regarding facebook and Cambridge Analytica (eg. the analytics firm apparently having harvested more than 50 million facebook profiles without permission; staff boasting about using manufactured sex scandals, fake news and dirty tricks to swing elections around the world etc etc) and other stories about a digital services firm linked to Cambridge Analytica receiving large payments from a pro-Brexit campaign organisation which potentially violated referendum spending rules.
As a result of these apparent violations to privacy agreements, there’s been a growing #DeleteFacebook movement.
A few of my best friends have decided that they‘ve “had enough” and have either deleted their facebook accounts or are about to do so. I understand that and, obviously, such decisions are very personal and need to be respected. But it saddens me. Will such actions have any real effect? Will the power of facebook or google or one of the myriad of other similar organisations get to them anyway? I really don’t know.

I have over 600 facebook ‘friends’ from all over the world. Of course, I’m probably only in proper, regular contact with a relatively small proportion of these friends but, nevertheless, facebook is the way I ‘keep in touch’ with them… and I love that. “But”, I hear you say, “if they were REAL friends, surely you’d make every effort to see them on a regular basis?”. Well, yes, wouldn’t life be wonderful if we were able to do that… but such options are both impractical and unrealistic. Yes, I could email or telephone my friends (I hate the telephone!), but it wouldn’t be same and it would be hugely time-consuming and inconvenient… not to say, far less effective (and enjoyable).

So (perhaps selfishly?), I’ll be staying with facebook – at least for the time being – and only hope that the privacy issues etc can be satisfactorily and quickly settled… and that I learn the very best ways of protecting my personal data (and that my friends learn to do the same).
I’m really sad that some of my lovely buddies have already decided to delete facebook, but recognise and accept their perfect right to do so (and will miss them big time).
But, of course, as they’re no longer on facebook they won’t be reading this.
Photo: illustration by Mitch Blunt.

wonderstruck…

Ok, I admit it, I went along to the Watershed at lunchtime primary to have a glass of wine, some chunky chips and to do some surreptitious sketching in the bar… but, given that it was a rotten wet day, I also booked in to see Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck”.
The film is an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s young adult novel of the same title. According to the Watershed’s blurb, it’s “both a children’s film for adults and a refreshingly grown-up film for children” and, if that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite, “Wonderstruck is a movie that will leave you just that”…
Given such cheesy descriptions, I really should have known better!
As far as I was concerned, the film was neither a “children’s film for adults” or a “grown-up film for children”.
The main action takes place in New York 50 years apart (1927, in black+white, and 1977, in glorious colour). The two principal characters, Ben and Rose (both 12 year-olds, I think)(played by Oakes Fegley and  Millicent Simmonds respectively) are both deaf (actress Simmonds is actually deaf in ‘real life’) and both “desperately unhappy”. They both dream of a better life and head off for the Big Apple in search of a) Ben’s absent father, following his mother’s tragic death and b) Rose’s silent movie star heroine.
They both end up being drawn to the American Museum of Natural History as the two stories become interwoven. I think I’ll leave it at that… (frankly, the plots are pretty ridiculous and unconvincing – but the music is good!).
Look, it’s a perfectly ‘pleasant’ film (for a horrible, rainy day) but, frankly, I would have been much happier if I’d gone to watch “Isle of Dogs” again!
PS: On the positive side, I did do three very rapid scribbled sketches before watching the film (and I don’t think I was ‘spotted’ by any of the ‘victims’… and without either spilling my wine or covering them in mayonnaise!)

we all need ‘spark’ in our lives…

I’ve just finished Alice’s second book, “Spark”, in her ‘Skin Trilogy’.
Don’t worry, this is a *no spoilers* post – I’m definitely not going to give away any clues about the storyline!
All I will say is that, in my humble unbiased opinion, my daughter is a brilliant, BRILLIANT storyteller!
I absolutely loved it. An outright ‘page-turner’ if ever there was one…
So, I’m not going to spoil things for you… I’ll just repeat some of the words on the book’s inside cover: “This sequel to bestselling ‘Ink’ is a story of deception and truth, of old foes and new friends, of abandonment and acceptance. These words will get under your skin”.
In this world of power and control/ haves and have-nots/ morality and corruption/ manipulation and duplicity/ judgement and risk/ belief and unbelief/ integrity and hope, this is a wonderful, thought-provoking, wise and powerful book. It might be labelled as ‘Young Adult’ (YA) novel, but it has a message for young and old alike.
Having three, talented, creative daughters who constantly make you feel massively proud… How special is that!?
The BIG question is… how on earth am I going wait another year for the final book?!

march-april 2018 books…

The Fading Smile (Mike Burke): Author Mike Burke is an Anglican clergyman who came and spoke at one of the recent ‘Resonate’ events at Saint Stephen’s, Bristol. I suppose one would categorise the book as ‘Christian fiction’ – and, although I haven’t read many such books, this genre probably rates as one of my least favourite! The book is set in the 2020s (although, frankly, there are several references that are simply too far-fetched to fit into such a time-frame… maybe 2040s or 2050s would be more credible?) and draws us into a world where things are covert and shadowy and neither individuals nor governments are in control. Huge private security firms seem to call the shots with their ever present surveillance and multinationals wield immense power… and people’s lives have become severely controlled and monitored. Religion isn’t part of this world… although the re-emergence of a language of faith and prayer (albeit in ‘underground’ form) shapes a central core of what the book is about. It’s a political thriller (of sorts) which explores an alternative future centred around the fear of terrorism, rampant consumerism and the suppression of information. I certainly didn’t think it was a brilliant book, but I DID find it thought-provoking – especially given all the recent reports about #CambridgeAnalytica, the apparent violation of social media accounts and ‘smart’ messaging to influence behaviour.
Words From The Well Of Wisdom (Laurie Farnell): This is a rather beautiful book of aphorisms gathered over the past 20 years or so (in tiny bound notebooks) by a man who was homeless for a ‘considerable period’ of his life and who started to write aphorisms as a way of coping with severe depression. He was eventually introduced to an organisation called ‘Converge’ at York St John’s University and began to develop his writing skills and sing in a choir… and, importantly for him, ‘become part of a community where I’m not labelled or judged’. His words made me smile, think and wonder. Here are just a few examples: “All adventures start with a dream imagined”; “An adventure is only an adventure when things go wrong”; and “To progress is to remember what we’ve learnt from the mistakes that we’ve forgotten”… and I have no doubt I’ll continue to re-read the book several times over the coming years.
The Way Of The Carmelites: A Prayer Journey Through Lent (James McCaffrey): This was my ‘spiritual’ book through Lent. It’s a beautifully-written, gentle, wise book about Carmelite spirituality – essentially in the “company of the Carmelite saints” - and, in particular, about prayer.  As someone who constantly struggles with his prayer life (or lack of it!), I was especially struck by the chapter on ‘Teresian spirituality’ (focussing on St Teresa of Avilam 1515-82), which I found very helpful and enlightening. I think my one criticism of the book was that, at times, it didn’t seem to be focussing on our respective journeys through Lent itself (well, as much as I’d hoped anyway). Nevertheless, an insightful and very helpful book.
Goodbye To All That (Robert Graves): First published in 1929, Graves wrote this autobiography in his early 30s. He described it as his “bitter leave-taking of England” before departing to live in Spain. I can’t quite believe I’d not previously read it. It provides a brilliant, candid account of his life: from childhood and his unhappy days at Charterhouse to his harrowing time serving as a young officer in WW1 (and the depressing daily register of the lost lives of his colleagues)… together with his encounters with fellow writers and poets (including Sassoon, Hardy and TE Lawrence) and his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Probably the best personal account of the Great War I’ve ever read – of experiences and scenes that were to haunt him throughout his life. A really wonderful book.
Tears Of The Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith): Some welcome light relief after the gruelling horrors of conflict! Another of McCall Smith’s enchanting, pleasurable and refreshingly heart-warming books. I love the characters, the gentleness, the humour and his writing style.

isle of dogs...

Moira and I went to the Watershed this afternoon to see Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs”. It’s a ‘stop-motion’ (animation) story set in an imaginary Japan of the future (the Japanese setting was apparently simply chosen because of Anderson’s love of all things Japanese… or something along those lines) where dogs have been exiled to a vast refuse-dump called Trash Island. Essentially, in Megasaki City the cat-lovers have the upper hand and with outbreaks of dog flu and snout fever(!), the Mayor (boo hiss) has quarantined all dogs on to the island. In order to show an example to his fellow citizens, the sinister, dog-hating mayor starts the process by dispatching the dog (Spots) of his 12 year-old nephew, Atari. But Atari isn’t going to accept this situation (oh no!) and he sets out on a daring rescue mission to Trash Island… where he meets a group of abandoned dogs who are determined to join him in his search.
Well, let me be quite candid here… I think Anderson can do absolutely no wrong when it comes to producing films. I absolutely LOVE his eye for design, detail, colour… and his humour.
As far as I’m concerned, this film has them ALL in spades.
Despite its affectionate and funny backdrop (I spent most of the film with an inane grin on my face!), the film also has bite… there are powerful references to rigged elections, fake news, hackers, environmental issues and (given the recent Florida shootings and the stand taken by students, for example) its young people who are left questioning authority.
The animated characters are simply wonderful and I adore Anderson’s eye for detail.
I absolutely LOVED this film (and so did its Watershed audience, who applauded at the end!). You definitely need to see it… you’re in for a treat!

"don't talk to me about cricket..."

Another truly AWFUL day for the England cricket team on the first day of the First Test against New Zealand in Auckland today (remember they lost 4-0 to Australia earlier this winter). England were bowled out for a meagre 58 (with five batsmen scored ducks!). BBC commentator Jonathan Agnew summed things up thus: “I don't think anyone who watched the play would claim England were bowled out for 58 because of tricky conditions. That was not the case and New Zealand's reply put the performance into context”.
At the end of last season, I blogged about the sad demise of English County Cricket – which is the closest format to playing Test cricket (they play 4-day games compared with 5-day Test matches). Agnew raised similar concerns in his report on the BBC website today: “Cricket's administrators are responsible for protecting the game and they seem keen to protect the 50 and 20 over formats - but the majority of people who love cricket want the same devotion to Test cricket. The administrators have to be extremely careful. If Test cricket gets squeezed, more and more the standard won't be what it should be”.

The number of Test matches played has remained roughly the same, but the huge difference is the number of One-Day International and Twenty20 games that now take place.

I’ve been comparing the forthcoming season’s County Cricket fixtures with those of, say, the 2000 season. In 2000, teams played 16 games; now, in 2018, they play 14 games. Here’s the comparison of when those County matches take place (with the figures in brackets denoting the number of fixtures in the respective months for the 2000 season):
April: 2 (1)
May: 2 (3)
June: 3 (3)
July: 1 (4)
August: 2 (2)
September: 4 (3)

In other words, it seems that cricket is no longer a “summer game” – unless you regard the 50 and 20 over formats as “proper cricket” (which, old codger that I am, I don’t!). ONE championship game in the whole of July for goodness sake!!

The County game is effectively the ‘nursery’ for young players and a stage for them to both ‘learn their trade’ and to attract the attention of the England team selectors.
The trouble is that cricket (or at least the County Championship element of it) has now been shunted towards the start and end of the season (the season now starts at least a week earlier and finishes a fortnight later than in 2000) in order to make ‘space’ in the fixture lists for the 50 and 20 over formats in the prime of the English summer – so that clubs can make some money from the dumbed down version of the game.
Not In My Name!

 

you were never really here…

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Watershed to see Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here” (Ramsay was the director of the acclaimed “We Need Talk About Kevin”).
Oh. My. Goodness (think: blood, guns and ball-peen hammers!).
Joaquin Phoenix (Joe) is a hired gun with a reputation for brutality – he’s ex-military and specialises in retrieving lost children. His task is to track down the teenage daughter (Nina, played by Ekaterina Samsonov) of a politician; she’s has been abducted, drugged and sold off into sexual slavery.
Joe himself is a shattered, fragile man. A combat-shocked veteran, he’s haunted by his past – his abusive, violent father… and the film is peppered with flashbacks and horrors from his past. Suicide never feels far away (plastic bag over head; dagger blade in mouth; looking at jumping from bridges; drowning – you get the picture!). But he also has obligations: caring for his aged mother and an apparent moral crusade to rescue Nina from her nightmare existence.
The soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood is excellent – and absolutely right for the film.

Even though the film only lasts for 90 minutes, it’s still pretty overwhelming. At times, it’s dream-like, at times it's surreal and disorientating… and exhausting.
Phoenix’s performance is spell-binding (you wouldn’t want to confront him in ANY way!).
On the face of it (ie. with all the blood and bodies), this really isn’t my kind of film… and yet, I was completely captivated by it.
I think you should see it – you might be pleasantly surprised (ok, well perhaps ‘pleasant’ might be the wrong word!).
PS: The film has very little dialogue, but (and you’re going to think these are merely the ramblings of a slightly-deaf, aged codger!) I actually found that the little there was was virtually incoherent. I definitely needed sub-titles!

march 2018 books…

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith): I think I started reading this book about ten years ago, but didn’t get very far with it at the time. (As you probably already knew) Precious Ramotswe sets up a detective agency in a small Botswanan town (the only lady private detective in the country) with the proceeds of the sale of her father’s cattle and duly enters the mysterious world of wayward daughters, missing husbands, curious conmen and the like. Miss Marple she is not… but I found it all delightfully different: gentle and even joyful in Ramotswe’s attitudes and her approach to life, people and circumstances. Beautifully written and a rare pleasure.
Six Weeks (John Lewis-Stempel): This is a brilliantly-researched, powerful book about young officers in WW1 who, as the book’s title suggests, had an average six-week life expectancy on the front line. These very young officers were invariably public school-educated (or occasionally from grammar schools). I found myself feeling quite prejudiced against this world of privilege and class whilst reading the book… but ultimately had to acknowledge that, with a need to form a huge army from scratch, this was probably the only practical option. Nevertheless, comments such as these from Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Hamilton (written in 1874) still rankled: “The soldier in his hour of need and danger will ever be more ready to follow the officer and gentleman whom education, position in life, and accident of birth point out to be his natural leader… than the man who, by dint of study and brain work, has raised himself (much to his own credit, certainly) from the plough or anvil”. But, having said this, Lewis-Stepel’s book is quite brilliant – containing, as it does, numerous, poignant extracts from letters written from the Western Front (often, they proved to have been the last words written by these soldiers before their deaths) - and skilfully conveys some of the harrowing, unimaginable reality of life in the trenches and all its horror and its dignity (and sometimes its humour, despite everything). A memorable book which provided further insight into the bleak experiences my grandfather Frank went through on the Somme and elsewhere.   
note: Somewhat strangely, the book also reminded me of my own experience as a working class, grammar school boy in the early 1960s. The school had its own Service Corps - complete with shooting bunker/mini-firing range(?) and armoury - which was taken VERY seriously (I well remember one of the ‘old’ teachers dressed in his full Army uniform riding a white horse on the Corps Annual Parade day!). I was in the ‘Remove’ stream at school - fast-tracking boys to sit O-Levels in 4 years instead of 5 - and the school clearly saw us as potential officers of the Corps. Given this background, you can imagine their utter disbelief when only a couple of boys out of the entire class indicated that they wanted to join the Corps. The school hierarchy was horrified by our actions (but, hey man, this was the swinging 60s!)… the powers-that-be even came to lecture us about our ‘duty and obligation to the school’. Even so, we dug in our heels and resisted!
The Full Cupboard Of Life (Alexander McCall Smith): Another book about the life of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency… and, once again, I found reading it a hugely pleasurable experience – gentle, kind, funny and beautifully written.
Inside The Wave (Helen Dunmore): Helen Dunmore died last year, aged 65. This book of poems is her final collection… they’re concerned with the borderline between the living and the dead. They relate to her interest in landscape and the sea but, crucially, about her personal experience of dying (she knew she was dying of cancer)… “To be alive is to be inside the wave, always travelling until it breaks and is gone”. I found them both eloquent and moving (there’s something rather powerful about poets writing in the knowledge that there life is coming to an end – although he’s still alive, but ailing, Clive James’s “Sentenced To Life” comes to mind). A lovely book that I’ll re-visit on a regular basis. Dunmore and I shared two connections: living in Bristol and loving St Ives. This short interview with her children is rather nice.   
Weather: A Very Short Introduction (Storm Dunlop): I originally thought that any book that describes itself as a “very short introduction” to a subject implied that it would brief, but also relatively straightforward. I was wrong… this book is FULL of complex information! I ended up feeling hugely inadequate intellectually. Typically, I’d read a page full of complicated terminology (which I didn’t really understand), only to be told that “obviously, this is just a very simplified explanation”! And all this coming from an author by the name of Storm Dunlop – anyone called “Storm” who writes a book about the weather doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously! Having said that, I feel sure that I’ll be consulting the book at various times over the coming years (Dunlop obviously knows his stuff!) and, maybe, it’ll all start to make complete sense?

oneweek100people…

My friend Charlotte posted a recent link about this ‘challenge’. Essentially, it involved sketching 100 people between Monday-Friday 5-9 March… anything goes: quick scribbles to more detailed drawings; any medium; ideally, drawn ‘out on location’, but copying from postcards/photos is fine too.
So, I decided to give it a go.
From the outset (and given the time constraints, not to mention other stuff I needed to be working on), I knew it meant that my own sketches would be not much more than very rapid caricatures. In fact, I experimented in the Watershed bar one lunchtime and soon realised that my offerings needed to be limited to one-minute sketches (literally).
In order to keep things simple, I gave myself some specific ‘rules’, namely:
1.    7x4.5cm ‘picture frames’ (ten per A4 sketchbook page x 10 pages).
2.    The sketches would be very simple, ink LINE drawings only – no shading or black infilling.
3.    On completion, I would ‘colour’ (with watercolour markers) backgrounds to each sketch (limited to just three colours: red, yellow and blue).
4.    Every sketch I produced would be included in the final 100 images – NO editing or corrections allowed!

Most of the other people participating would no doubt have been entering their respective offerings on Instagram: #OneWeek100People2018 (for some reason, I can no longer update my Instagram account via my laptop… so I abandoned Instagram a few months ago).

For me, I decided that I would simply post a SINGLE image, incorporating all 100 scribbles, on my One Day Like This blog and also this blog.
The resulting sketches were hardly inspiring art(!), but I did enjoy the process AND the challenge. The vast majority of my images were indeed produced ‘on location’… most of them are VERY ordinary, lots are absolute rubbish, but perhaps a handful are quite good (well, I like them anyway). Lots simply look like pretty awful cartoon characters!
For my taste, I ended up concluding that ‘keeping it simple’ was the key.
If I did it again, I’d probably do things very differently… I don’t think the three-colour backgrounds worked very well… and my insistence on drawing ‘frames’ for every image ended up making them look a bit like those old cigarette cards (you’re probably MUCH too young!). Although restricting my sketches to very small frames simplified (and therefore speeded up) the ‘100 people’ challenge, I also think it would have been good to vary the style, size and medium (and not just heads)… Having said that, the use of ‘frames’ (as opposed to lots of random scribbles covering pages of my sketchbook) made it easier to come up with very sparse, graphic images – perhaps I should have concentrating on producing more of these?
Anyway, I’ll be fascinated to see what work other people end up producing.
PS: You'll need to click on the image to enlarge it... but it'll probably be a little blurred!