june book, film and TV review

welcome to this month's media review.

BOOKS

JANE AUSTEN: A LIFE, by Claire Tomalin. I have enjoyed this writer's previous biographies, especially of Samuel Pepys. There she was assisted by in her work by one of the most comprehensive contempoary accounts of his life one could ever wish for: his own Great Diary. In this case, however, nearly all of Austen's letters were destroyed by ignorant relatives shortly after her death. And, as she did very little in her life (other than producing several of the most famous novels in the English language), never marrying, never even going out much, then poor old Tomalin is pretty much stymied in her attempt to make anything of her life story. Me? I blame those idiots who destroyed her letters. They may have contained some fascinating stuff, as her few surviving letters attest.
THE HISTORY MAN, by Malcolm Bradbury. A priapic leftie university lecturer screws his way round a post-war, plate-glass campus, making little bits of history along the way. I saw a brilliant BBC TV adaptation of this back in the early 80s, so good in fact, that I didn't feel it necessary to read the book. I'm glad I did in the end though. It's very cynical, very dark and very funny.
THE LANCE AND THE SHIELD (The Life and Times of Sitting Bull)) by Robert M Utley. When he was born in the 1830s, Sitting Bull's people, the Lakota Sioux of America's north-west lived as nomadic tribes, following the vast herds of buffalo that gave them everything they needed. It was life of pure freedom. By the time of his death in 1890, the Sioux, and all the other Native American tribes, were a smashed culture, lied to and cheated by a white man who cared only for gold. It's the old, old story of what happens every time a more sophisticated culture encounters a less sophisticated one, but Utley brings it to life with his well written account of the destruction of a people and the man who more than any other personified its grandeur and wisdom- lost for ever, swamped by the "Great American Dream".
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, by Jean Maria Remarque. In 1914, a 19 year-old German lad is swept away by patriotic fervour at home and volunteers. For the next 4 years he does his best to survive the horrors of trench warfare. There he learns the really important things of life, like how to make a fire with damp wood, how to kill a man with a bayonet and how friends are more important than anything else. More than just a book, reading this is an overwhelmingly powerful emotional experience, as well as being one of the most potent anti-war tracts ever written. I would go further. For many years I have had a list of 5 books I would recommend absolutely everyone to read before they leave school:
1. 1984
2. Animal Farm
3. The Catcher in the Rye
4. Brave New World
5. Lord of the Flies
These books are all fairly short, easy to read and literally life changing in their impact. To this illustrious collection I would add a 6th: All Quiet on the Western Front.

FILMS

TIGHTROPE (1984) D- Clint Eastwood hunts a serial killer, then begins to notice he's killing prostitutes Clint himself has been patronising. Then his own family is targeted... Clint has provided good VFM in American films for over 40 years- he certainly saves this otherwise pedestrian vehicle. How many films has he saved? Hundreds?
L'AVVENTURA (1960) D-Michaelangelo Antonioni. A bunch of rich idlers land on a tiny uninhabited island for some fun, but a girl goes missing. Her boyfriend then seeks solace in the arms of another... The early scenes on the island, where the camera is constantly taking in the extraordinary volcanic topography of the Aeolian Islands, are quite gripping. But then, after the police are called and still the girl is not found, the party repairs to the mainland where the next 2 hours are spent following the affairs of the surviving members of the party. Put another way, this film is an hour too long.
TOGETHER (2000)D-Lucas Moodysson. A disparate collection of middle class anarchists more or less co-exist in a commune. But then a new family moves in, and the whole thing begins to fall apart. Just the sort of film the Swedes do well. Loved it.
WHIP IT! (2010)D-Drew Barrymore. A teenager discovers a talent for roller-derby, to the chagrin of her parents and the jealousy of other participants, whose skills she rapidly eclipses. Ellen Page shows once again she is one of the most exciting finds in recent years. You go girl!
CARMEN (1984) D-Francesco Rosi. The famous opera, lovingly realized on the screen with Julia Migenes as the sexy but flighty Carmen and Placido Domingo as her doomed suitor. You may have your doubts about the filming of operas, but this, and perhaps Bergman's Magic Flute, should demonstrate that it can be done, and done superbly.

TELEVISION

THE KILLING (SERIES 1)Denmark, written by Soren Sveistrup. A pretty young girl is horribly raped and murdered, and the clues seem to lead to the heart of the political establishment. 20 episodes, 20 days of investigation, led by a policewoman who, despite being hamstrung by her superiors, refuses to be deflected from the task of bringing the perp to justice. And indeed, it is her unswerving persistence that drives the whole narrative, as her suspicious and cynical colleagues gradually come to believe in her. The scenes which explore the grief of the victim's family are almost unbearably poignant. One problem for me was that I was not wholly convinced by the denouement, but the whole product is very definitely superior television. If you like a box-set thriller, try it...

babies undergo amputation

This morning I have been reducing 3 of my short stories down from around 3000 words to the regulation length of 2500 required by the stipulations of the Rhys Davies short story prize committee. Technically it proved to be easier than I thought, but the process was painful at an emotional level. Truncating the stories was like slashing at my own babies, my darling children I spent so much energy creating. Why should I be doing this? I thought. They're perfect as they are; they've received the approval of an acclaimed writer following his skilled editing. Yet I have had to removeup to 15% of their content; removing paragraphs which hitherto I had regarded as essential. There can't be a lot of padding in a story of no more than 8 pages- have I amputated the right bits, rendering the stories even better than they were before, or have I mutilated them beyond any hope of winning?

I know I probably won't win: I'm not stupid. They may not suit the zeitgeist of the judging panel, or someone may submit a stunner, eclipsing my own not inconsiderable efforts. And it is my first attempt. So I'll have to be realistic, and, like the owner of a lottery ticket, remain more in hope than expectation. But then, like the lottery, someone has to win and it just might be me.

1 day heatwave forecast

Charles II once said that a British summer is 2 fine days followed by a thunderstorm. And It seems we are due for just one fine day; today, when temperatures are said to rise to 29 degrees by 4 pm,(that being the hottest part of the day in high summer), but tomorrow cooler air carrying rain will once again sweep in from the Atlantic. Where we live, however, thunderstorms are uncommonm (more's the pity; I love them myself) Nonetheless: one day at a time. Today is looking like one of those "phew what a scorcher" days, so I'll use it as best I can. I shall read in the sun for an hour this afternoon, then later I'll do a walk on the coast prior to visiting my mum.

Late last night I discovered that entries for the Rhys Davies short story prize close on 21st July. You can enter as many stories as you want (fee: £6 per story) but they must be 2500 words max. This presents a challenge for me, because most of my stories come in nearer 3000 words, so I must now set about the task of chopping them down in length by 20%, hopefully without destroying them in the process. It will be the first time I have submitted a story to a competition, so I am holding out no great hopes for success. But I have read previous winning entries, which were good, but not, I fancy, quantum leaps ahead of mine. So we shall see. I shall keep my followers posted...

pelagius: an apology

After several month's practice, I am now refining my recyclable waste collection thing to a fine art. I have discovered, for instance, that the area around bus stops can provide particularly rich pickings, so much so that every couple of weeks I can pick up several pounds weight of the stuff from some of them.

Yesterday I was picking cans out of a shrub adjacent to one stop and laying them in a line on the ground prior to crushing them, when a woman began picking them up and carefully depositing them in a nearby waste bin. Distressed, as I know from there they will end in landfill and not the recycling dump, I stopped her and explained what I was doing. She had a lined, pinched face, and when she smiled I could see she had even fewer teeth than me. Her eyes were a dull grey, and it was evident there wasn't a lot going on behind them.
"I'm disabled, see", she explained. Before I could stop myself I shot back with:
"Well I worked that out."
Immediately I could see, even with her limited sophistication, that my remark had struck home.
"I was only trying to help" she said, and moved off to talk to someone else.

I have rarely felt such a bully. The Dalai Lama is often asked what is the secret of life, happiness, etc, and he often replies on the lines of:
"Really, the best way to live is to be kind to people."
I usually try to follow this precept, but on this occasion I failed badly, building, by what the DL preaches, some pretty bad karma for myself. So I say to you, disabled lady: I apologise for my cruelty. Please forgive my crassness of yesterday.

dental disaster #373

Away this weekend with my mum for 2 days at the Lamphey Court hotel in West Wales to celebrate her 87th birthday. Poor love, it has reached the point where she does remember that her driving licence was withdrawn several months ago, but can no longer remember that her memory loss was the reason.

When my brother was down here from London recently I asked him to contact the DVLA for news of her appeal. His efforts were of little use; he certainly did not bring the situation forward at all. So, taking advantage of the inclement weather (it rained intermittently when it was not raining persistently)I rang them myself and found the problem. While we were able to obtain a letter from her GP some months ago which stated (only in slightly ambiguous terms) that she was still safe to drive, her consultant at the memory clinic sent a much more negative response. I tried to contact him directly, and his secretary assured me she would pass on a message to ring me back. He never did, and while we waiting for the weather to improve (it didn't) I composed a letter to him requesting that he reconsider his decision and suggest that a further assessment be carried out to test her ability on the road objectively. We shall see if this has any effect, but while I continue to make positive noises to my mum about her prospects, I am privately gloomy about the possibility of her ever driving again.

Next to the hotel stands the remains of the medieval bishop's palace at Lamphey, which we eventually braved despite the rain. Clearly it was once a huge and lavish place. In the 14th century it was used a "holiday home" for the bishop of St Davids, a man made exceedingly wealthy through the huge tracts of arable land granted to the diocese by the crown. Now an elegant ruin, it must at its height have been a massive compound, as big as a fair-sized village. I have to say I was most impressed by how well my mum dealt with the challenge of walking through the site, with its many steep and treacherous steps. She negotiated several, but when she was confronted by a particularly steep and narrow spiral staircase, she prudently declined and waited for me at the bottom.

In my letter to the consultant I made sure to give an account of how well she had coped.

Yesterday, at breakfast, I was eating a bowl of muesli when my upper right 2 snapped off at the gum. This is an incisor tooth, and losing it has given me the faintly comical appearance of the original gap-toothed yokel. I now need to contact my dentist ASAP, who will presumably remove the still embedded roots, before proceeding to yet another implant (price £2600). Until then I'll have to learn to avoid smiling. I already have 2 implants (or cyber-teeth, as I call them) and 2 more are planned for July- this will make a 5th. I was wondering what to do with my new-found wealth on receiving my pension lump sum. Now I know...

car ferry motor show

Our return trip on the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth was shared with hundreds of people, mainly men, who had been at the Le Mans 24 hour race. And they demonstrated their love of their chosen sport through their cars: an extraordinary collection of famous sports cars. They were all there, from the Testarossas to the Boras, from the Mistrales to the Aston-Martin Lagondas. There were brand-new, gleaming TVRs and Porsche 911 turbos; and high-charisma classics from the past, battered old Morgans and Auatin Healey 3000s. E Type Jags were particularly popular: models of every marque amd colour littered the car decks. And then at last I saw it: the "car of the show", a Ferrari 275 GTB Berlinetta coupe, 1972 vintage, in (what else?)fiery Marinello red, with its lines like Gina Lollabrigida in a skin-tight dress, it was one of the most beautiful and sexy cars ever built.

Yes, it's true; in my youth I used to be a terrible petrol head. Then I grew up, and put away childish things. But the memories linger on...

monet for money

Today, our penultimate day in Normandy, we travelled the 30-odd miles to Giverny, Monet's home, and site of the famous gardens and pools with their much-painted water-lilies. We, and a substantial fraction of the population of the French, American and Japanese nations first trudged round his house, literally shoulder to shoulder. I got a couple of photos off, but was shouted at on both occasions. Even my wife took a couple, but was taken to task by an American woman: "I don't think you're allowed to take pictures in here." Good thing she didn't try it with me. I would have shot back with something like: "What, are you some sort of self appointed police officer then?"

Then at last out into the gardens, just as congested, but fortunately slightly less claustrophobic. I think summer has been a litle late arriving here; the lilies are not yet in bloom, which, as it were, takes some of the bloom off the experience. Crowds choking every path, every conceivable nook and cranny, is not, I suspect, exactly what the great French master had in mind when he dsigned this beautiful garden. With everyone firing their digi cameras at every flower in sight, I found it hard to find an original shot anywhere, but I tried. Later when I reviewed them I found the predominant colour to be green, which is not a bad thing, but not the explosion of floral colour I had been expecting.

Then we headed for nearby Chateau Gaillard, a massive limestone fortress high above a loop of the river Seine, built by Richard the Lionheart in just 2 years to prevent Phillippe Auguste from retaking Normandy, which at that time (1196) was still in British hands. It worked, but then only 7 years later Richard died and his successor, John Lackland, ran away (was he our worst king ever? he must be close) and the French re-incorporated Normandy into the greater kingdom of France. It has been in French hands ever since. The site is now a magnificent ruin, on a limsetone bluff, watching over the quiet waters of the Seine. And the 100 metres of ascent required to reach it ensures that this site at least is not overrun by tourists in the same way as is Giverny. Which is a blessing...

welcome to normandy

Reporting live from Rouen, having previously stayed 4 nights at a very pleasant gite in Balleroi, in the heart of the Calvados Departement, a few miles south of Bayeux. Which was naturally our first destination, to see the great tapestry (note: it actually isn't a tapestry at all, but an embroidery)Everyone has heard of this great cultural monument from their childhoods, and hence it had been hyped up massively in my mind. I am delighted to report that it in every way fulfilled my expectations. Not too crowded in the early morning, and with a useful A/V system to explain the profusion of incredibly well preserved images; a winner's view of history of course (it clearly says it was all Harold's fault for renaging on a promise to hand the throne to William, though it doesn't say whether that promise was extracted under duress- well, it wouldn't, would it?)

Our next appointment was at Omaha Beach, now a peaceful and beautiful seaside resort, but on 6th June 1944, the site of the massacre of thousands of American infantrymen. An oblisk marks the place where, after nearly 50% losses, they finally established a beach head. Just before we left for France, we watched a documentary on the Discovery channel, which told the tale of one German soldier who, from a secure position, trained his machine gun on the troops as they disembarked their landing crafts. He may have killed as many as a thousand troops by his own determined efforts. His technique apparently, was to wait until the bow door of the craft fell into the sea and then spray the troops therein. In this way as many as half of them were killed before they even entered the water. Later the same day he was captured and taken to America where, understandably, he kept his extraordinary exploits to himself until long after the war had ended.

The following day we visited Caen and its famous twin abbeys, the Abbaye des Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames, the latter of which, founded in 1062 by Matilda, wife of William the Conquerer, is, with its amazing, pure white limestone Romanesque arches, one of the most wonderful pieces of architecture I have ever seen.

Now we are in Rouen, staying at the sumptous Hotel Bourgtheroulde (pronounced, interestingly, "Bortord") in the city centre. Formerly a home for the high nobility of France in the 16th century, now a place where you can secure a reasonably good cocktail, and within sight of the famous cathedral, perhaps the ultimate achievement of Gothic architecture in the whole of Europe. We did a lightning visit this afternoon, after we had dried off from having been thoroughly drenched on our way to the Satie museum in Honfleur. Tomorrow we shall give it a lengthier appraisal. Please see subsequent blogs for more detail on this and other wonders, like the site of the burning at the stake of Jeanne d'Arc, just a couple of hundred yards from here.

wandering around ross

This morning we drove to the ancient town of Ross on Wye for an 8 mile walk up and down nearby Penyard Hill. We began the walk in brilliant sunshine, but by lunchtime (mulligatawney soup and assorted Indian snacks) it had clouded up. By the time we got back to the town centre to secure our customary brandy and dry ginger it was pouring. Even so, we prefered to drink it outside the pub, as there was a big, angry dog at the bar, barking at an amazing level of decibels; at what neither we nor anyone else was able to determine.

Back home we caught the second half of the women's final from Roland Garros and were able to savour the first victory from an Asian woman in any Grand Slam event. Witnessing her performance, I predict a glittering future for Ms Li.

Speaking of tennis, yesterday saw a resurgent Roger Federer end Djoki's run of 43 consecutive victories on the tour- an incredible achievement, and no disgrace to lose to a Fedski in some of the most devastating form of his life. Nadal likewise swept past our plucky boy, who also didn't disgrace himself, but was well outclassed. The final tomorrow threatens to be a classic.

COMMENT: WHO CARES ABOUT SYRIA?

So wffective is the clampdown on any reporting from Syria that it's difficult to work out what's going on, so it doesn't get much coverage, and what there is often comes with the caviat of "unverifiable". But reliable reports are suggesting that as many as 50 protesters may have been shot yesterday in Hama. I've visited Hama myself; marvelled at the medieval waterwheels, struggled to make myself understood in a place where no one spoke English, and felt the atmosphere of tension that pervades the streets. A Muslim Brotherhood uprising there in 1981 was savagely repressed, but today's protests are much more than the work of a single pressure group. Even though the government is placing snipers in high windows with orders to pick off protesters one by one, thousands of ordinary people continue to throng the streets on a daily basis in towns and cities all over Syria. Government supporters would have us believe they are all foreign agitators- what utter bollocks. These are Syrian citizens, demanding the right to live in peace and freedom- and they will not be silenced. I salute them.