Raybeard

Question - "Is Madge infallible?"

2012-02-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

On the IMDb site (where anyone can rate and write a review of any film) as at today, 38% of 1106 people have given Madonna's first film as director, 'W.E.', a perfect 10/10 as a score, while 28% have given it the minimum rating of 1/10.
One would think that the in-between possible scores would be gradually graded, with increasing percentages approaching each end. But no - only one of the intermediate percentages is over 5% of total votes, and that only very slightly. So, opinions seem to be largely polarised.
I may be doing some an injustice but I'm assuming that a significant proportion of those who gave this film a max score (presumably because for them it's absolutely perfect in every possible way) opine that the lady just cannot do anything wrong and is beyond criticism. Dare I even ask if some were already prepared to give the film the maximum rating of "films-just cannot-get-any-better-than-this!" even before they'd seen it?
Having now viewed 'W.E.' myself, I find it hardly credible that anyone can think this film completely faultless - but, to be honest, I have never given any film a '10' - and those I've seen to which I've given even a just less-than-perfect score of '9' can be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
However, I cannot make a corresponding assumption that those who have scored it a measly 1/10 have such an aversion to La Ciccone that they think of her as simply unable to put a foot right, otherwise they would not have forked out good money to see this film in the first place. I therefore posit that those who scored it at minimum would tend to be more open-minded and had been prepared to give the film the benefit of the doubt. Is my logic at fault?

If you want to know what my own score was (you already know it wasn't a '10') you'll have to wait for the second instalment of my new monthly film review blog which will next appear shortly after the end of the month .
Oh, and btw, I used to be a totally keen Madonna fan, from the beginning ('Holiday' and 'Like A Virgin') up to and including the 1998 'Ray of Light' album. Since then, must admit that my enthusiasm, though still there to some degree, is not as fevered as it once was - and anyway, I'm gradually losing touch and sympathy with pop music anyway as I advance in years.

But am I eagerly awaiting the next Madonna-directed film? Ah, that would be telling!

Here it comes at last - 'Ray's Report on Recently Released Films' - seen Jan 2012

2012-02-02T03:20:00.000-08:00

The 'Raybeard' award for 'Film of the Month' goes to.................. 'HUGO' - with a score of 8/10.

Congratulations to all concerned - but especially to Mr S.
Well done, Sir!

Other contenders, in datal order of viewing were:-

Mission Impossible: Ghost protocol (7)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (5)

The Artist (7)

The Iron Lady (7.5)

Shame (6.5)

Coriolanus (7)

J.Edgar (5)

Haywire (6)

Now an additional word or two on some of them:-

'THE ARTIST' - very original (at least for the 21st century!), brilliantly executed though the storyline rather thin and predictable. But overall, it's definitely a remarkable and memorable film.

'THE IRON LADY' - nothing at all to complain about in Ms Streep (voice, especially, uncannily accurate). If anyone wants to see it as some sort of true account of the times they'll be misled. Very broad brush-strokes, but so what? - it's a film for entertainment, not a documentary! Apart from a brief period of the Falklands victory celebrations it looked as if the entire country was in the grip of non-stop anti-Thatcher riots.This was actually far from the case. She did, after all, win three successive General Elections (despite my own efforts in voting against her and her party in not only these three but every single local and European election during her terms!) Slightly disappointed that so much time was devoted to Mrs T in her present state of dotage - and could have done with a tad more political cut-and-thrust in her life as a politician, but what we got was more than admirable. A fine achievement of a film.

'CORIOLANUS' - I'm probably one of not many who know the play reasonably well, having read it at least a dozen times, though never seen it on stage. The updated setting worked effectively and the savage but necessary cutting of the Bard's text (by well more than half) was judiciously done, clarifying and making more sense of the story. Both Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler (the latter looking as hot as he ever has) play very well. Although it's true that Vanessa Redgrave is a blisteringly dominating presence whenever on screen (you just can't take your eyes of her!) I do wish that she, of all people, could have been more audibly articulate. There were times when she seemed to be mouthing the words with no sound coming out at all. We had to be lip-readers! Overall, though, a good, high recommendation.

'J. EDGAR' - It saddens me to say that a Clint Eastwood film could have been better, but I didn't think there was anything really special about this one. On specifics, although Leo d/C can be a good actor, I think he was miscast in this film. He doesn't have enough gravitas to carry off the role of what was, essentially, a megalomaniac monster. (More 'oomph' needed! Broderick Crawford in the 1977 film 'The Private Files of J.Edgar Hoover' did have the required heft and physical bulk.) Also, the prosthetics covering his natural baby-looking face in order to present us with the aged Hoover, were not that successful - actually distracting, in fact. But they were as nothing compared to those given to the Clyde Tolson character, who looked positively embalmed! Most disturbing. Also, I find it difficult to see Judi Dench popping up nowadays all over the place in widely differing roles. She always gives a very good performance, but I can't now see her acting without seeing her more as an actress playing a role. (I'm also afraid of seeing the marvellous Helen Mirren going the same way.)

'HAYWIRE' - reasonable but also forgettable. By the time it got round to the 'this explains all what's gone before' final few minutes I didn't really care and couldn't be bothered with following it. Having said that, it did have its share of quite entertaining 'moments'.

And a final word on this month's winner, 'HUGO'. Even though I only saw it in the 2-D version I could see that it was something special within the first minute or so. I even forgave the cliched accordion on the soundtrack (and which we actually glimpse) - Hint: This is Paris, FRANCE! Ooh La la!

The visual style did make me think of another exceptional film of recent years, the 'genuinely' French film 'Amelie' , which, I loved, though I'm aware that it has its detractors. But 'Hugo' was a thrill from start to finish, with very fine acting throughout, including Sacha Baron-Cohen who, after his memorable turn in 'Sweeney Todd', continues to surprise me with his versatility. I don't expect to see many more films this year as good as 'Hugo' - and will be lucky to see one significantly better. A jolly good film - and from me (who has never given a perfect 10 to any film) a score of 8/10 is an accolade indeed.

Till my report on February's films, then - THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

Devastated by news 16 hours ago - but been given a reprieve

2012-02-01T02:17:00.000-08:00

It wasn't so much being designated as diabetic yesterday morning. A nuisance, yes, but I can live with it as being one of those things about getting older. It was the telephone call at 6 p.m. from my doctor:-

"I'm afraid that on testing the (urine) specimen you brought in today, it's showing something I'd rather not have found. We've detected 'ketones', and if it's confirmed it'll mean you having to go into hospital. But it could be a one-off."

I was knocked backwards. I've never ever been in hospital once in my entire life, and it's been a lifelong dread. My worst nightmare. Speechless.
He wanted me to come in next day (today) as early as possible (it needed to be dealt with urgently) taking another specimen for examination.

I rang my sister with the news, the first and closest person in the world I can turn to immediately. Unfortunately, like my two surviving brothers, she lives 300 miles away. When I told her, it didn't help for me to have broken down straight away. She was as shocked as I was, offering comfort and consolation - as well as prayers (she's very Catholic-religious), even saying that she'd come down here if I really wanted. There's no way I can have that. She is now 74, her husband, 79, and they've got not only their own health issues but a very large extended family, each parent, child and grandchild having its own problems. (My brother-in-law is very supportive too, and far more level-headed in moments of family crisis than any of the rest of us).

What upset me at least as much as going into hospital was what was to happen to my dear pussy-cats. I don't know a single soul in the area who could take care of them, so the only thing would be the cattery - with those outside kennels (albeit 'heated', as they say) under the sharp frosts we are now getting every night. And for how long? Days? Weeks? Perhaps months? Would I ever even see them again?
My younger brother rang me after my sister had given him the news, generously offering all the money I needed for the cattery or anything else. I was quite overwhelmed by his offer, though I wasn't too surprised as generosity has always been his style.

Anyway, after a night which was largely given over to lying awake, I did get some comfort in a dream which saw me in Paris (of all places) having this second test done by a doctor (not my own) and who came out with a negative result, after which I found myself air-gulping deeply before I could get any words of relief out.

My appointment this morning was at 7.50. I'd got out of bed at 4.45, sitting silently, most of the time, just waiting for the hour to arrive.
I don't recall walking the 20 minutes to the surgery. Must have looked like a zombie - mind in another world.
When my name was called, I went in like an automoton, sat down - and burst into tears. Not a pretty sight.
He asked if I was upset at my being diagnosed as diabetic. I told him that it wasn't so much that, it was the thought of going into hospital for my first time ever - and that I have so much to sort out first. (I didn't mention the cats.) He tried to reassure me on the lines of "Let's not talk about that until we've checked this specimen." He took the bottle, went to the basin, put something into it and then a suspenseful minute (which seemed more like an hour) as we waited in silence, me still trying to stifle my sobs. Then he announced "Ah, you're okay. You don't have 'ketones'". I think he expected me to jump for joy as he repeated it. "That's what you wanted to hear, wasn't it? YOU DO NOT HAVE KETONES!". I suppose I ought to have expressed some gratitude but my emotions had been so much through the wringer, I couldn't turn them around just like that. At first I couldn't absorb what he was saying, but the message gradually seeped in.
He told me that, given that I'm negative on the test, the situation was now the same as it had been yesterday morning - start taking the new diabetes medication, see the diabetes nurse in 2 weeks and see him again in 4 weeks. I muttered a thanks, trying to smile through the drying tears, and walked back slowly - not with a spring in my step, but the relief at the news was getting through to my addled mind at last.

It's now 2 hours since I returned. I rang my sister and my brother, who were both appropriately relieved - and my two pussy cats are sleeping just a few feet away from me now, entirely oblivious of the emotional shake-up I've just been through.

So that's the position, my friends.

I'm feeling a bit too raw to do the promised film-review blog right now. I may come back to post it later today, but I think it's more likely to be tomorrow.

Btw: I found out from the internet that 'ketones' are produced when the body can't use energy from food-intake but has to use the body's own fats for its energy supply. It seems I'm not at that stage - yet.

.

'bye, Sugar!

2012-01-31T02:32:00.000-08:00

Well, hardly a surprise, but after tests I was this morning officially diagnosed as a diabetic, joining the ranks of many millions all over the globe.
Obviously it's something one doesn't like to see happen but put in the context of people living with the Big 'C' or the Big 'A', my health problems are really quite puny. Indeed, with this latest addition to my little 'list' of high blood pressure and a few varicose veins in one calf, I know that there are very many people with much more serious conditions who would gladly swap what they have with what I've got, so moaning about it would be totally selfish - indeed, it's further reason to count my own blessings. I'm also pretty sure that there must be, among those with whom I have regular blog-contact, several having the same condition. Anyway, I'm now a fully-qualified member of the 'club'.
C'est la vie!

Right, enough of that. Tomorrow, I hope, will be my first film blog, and I'm looking forward to posting it.

Future Attraction - My New Monthly Film Report

2012-01-29T05:19:00.000-08:00

    Shame that only now I've thought about sharing my film-watching experiences. Been listing every film I've seen since 1966 (only those viewed in a cinema count), and, rather wastefully, have been keeping it all to myself. (4,353 films to date) For the most recent twenty of those years they've each been given a score, but not so much in terms of being an intrinsically bad/good film (I don't feel qualified to do that), rather more for its appeal to me alone - in terms of enjoyment, profundity, my being moved or its being clever etc.

   My monthly blog may be particularly useful to avid cinema-goers as they'll be for films which have only recently been given release (at least here in the U.K.) and may well still be in cinema circulation - so if anyone thinks my opinion carries any weight, and s/he was vacillating about seeing it at all, it may not be too late to see it in the format for which it was intended.
I can't say how long I'll continue going to the cinema regularly. I've long since reduced the frequency of visits, generally because of the expense - and now with question marks appearing over my health, I don't know if there'll be the desire or even the ability to carry on and on. I certainly can't see myself going frequently after hitting the age of 70 in 5 years time - but then when I started at around 19/20 I didn't think I'd be doing much cinema-going after reaching 40! So whether it's for just a few years more, or perhaps even just a few months, I'll post a cinema blog shortly after the end of each month. (2012 has got off to a good start. I've already seen eight films, with possibly two more in the next couple of days).

I must also acknowledge Stephen Chapman's most interesting and admirably concise monthly movie blog @
http://the state of the nation.blogspot.com

   My 'reports' will differ from Stephen's in that the choice will be more narrowly focused. Whereas his blog covers a wide range of films, as well as covering a considerable time-range of original release date, mine are biased towards so-called 'art-house' films, and will all be recent releases. I do see certain kinds of block-busters too (e.g.all the 'Harry Potters', 'Missions Impossible' etc) but, essentially for financial reasons, I tend now to avoid films which I'm unlikely to like, because of critics' views or what I already know about them (such as the recent 'War Horse').. Consequently, most of my film scores turn out to get either the average score of 5/10 as a minimum, or higher- though sometimes an occasional low score will get through where it would have been better to have saved the money. Long gone are the days when I used to see everything within reason, whether wanting to or not.

So, in a few days time the first one will appear. We all hope for favourable reactions to what we post, though I'm aware that feelings towards film can be so subjective and I'm prepared for words of disbelief at some of the scores I'll be giving.

Anyway, let's give it a spin and see what happens.

My first ever 'me-me'

2012-01-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

This posting comes about via Jason Shaw's rather excellent blog - www.seafrontdiary.com - on 25th Jan 2012, and is my initial foray into the world of revealing 'warts-and-all'.

At this stage I'm just going to dip my toe in and play only one of the items he lists viz answering questions he's set about oneself. I may follow up on the rest of it later.

So here we go:-

1. What is your favourite cartoon character?

Not the most auspicious start. Never been a particular fan of the genre, but I remember rushing home from school to catch a daily 'Popeye' cartoon - though it was his getting out of predicaments with the aid of that spinach that amused me rather than the character itself.

2. Coffee or tea?

Tea. Could I have PG tips de-caff PLUS some earl grey, please? (A few slices of lemon as well would be perfect.)

3. The best thing you've ever done in your life?

Running a London Marathon, perhaps, in 1997 - but renouncing the R.C. faith would also be a biggie. Then there's having the courage of moving to Germany, alone (even though it didn't work out).......

4. The worst thing you'll ever admit doing in your life.

Easy - but painful, so please forgive lack of detail.
By my careless action in one case and my laziness in another, causing the death of the family pet canary and another family pet, a lovely all-white cat. Both happened in my teenage years, about 3 or 4 years apart. Never forgiven myself since - and the experiences have been hanging around like an albatross ever since.

5. How many people will answer the above question honestly?

   Most would, I think - though those who've committed a heinous act and/or crime may understandably not wish to divulge. I was totally honest with my own answer.

6. Is there a god?

   Probably not. But if there is, then he/she/it hasn't made a very good job of 'Creation'. I reckon that I, and most people with even average intelligence, on being given total omnipotence and omniscience could have done a great deal better.

7. Do you like Brussels sprouts?

   Love em! But then I live alone!   ;-)

8. Would you lend me £150?

I think so, but I'd first need convincing that it was absolutely vital for you (or for anyone else) to have it. I'd also be telling you (or whomever) what a nuisance it was pulling it out of my funds which are being kept sacrosanctly intact for a particular purpose.

9. Would you lend a politician £150?

   You've got to be kidding! But if said person was also a friend I probably would.

10. Peanut butter or jam (American 'jelly') ?

   Peanut butter. Crunchy, please.

11. What has been the most memorable place you've ever visited?

So many to choose from, but could well be St Petersburg - or Leningrad, as then was (1974). Only there for 3 days but it's lingered in the mind, moreso than Moskva did.

______________________________________________

So there we are. It's been fun, Jase. Thank you. Must do it (or something similar) again sometime!

Lightening the mood - solutions to those Xword clues

2012-01-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

I cannot leave my previous blog sitting there as my most recent posting, giving the impression that nothing has changed.
I've replied individually to all the messages of support so I'll now just make the general remark of how I was immeasurably moved and deeply humbled by those who assisted me with their kind words through the last few days - all the more remarkable because no one pressed me to be more specific than my very vague indications of the root cause. Even though I lack friends here in person I know now more than ever that I'm incredibly lucky to have such lovely friends in Blogland. Thank you all!
One very last thought - at least for now. It's the sort of thing that comes round for me, thankfully, only every few years. Something equivalent probably will happen again sometime but I'm not going to live the life that's left to me by quaking behind the settee in case it does.
Okay, enough! Let's move on!

Now, what seems like an eternity ago (though it was just 9 days), I posed three crossword clues and said I'd be giving the solutions after allowing a chance for anyone to come up with answers. The fact that I didn't get one single solution suggested may be an indication of apathy to crosswords (though I know in a few cases that it's not so) or too difficult - or even too easy? (but I doubt it)
Whatever, just to round the subject off I think you'll find the solutions entertaining:-

Clue 1 (which I think a number of you may already have known)

HIJKLMNO    (5 letters)

Solution -' water'    .

This was posed to me by a friend who was another crossword fan when I was about 20. I'm one of those people who won't give in. ("Don't tell me! Do NOT tell me!")
After mulling it over for some considerable time, my friend and I retired, as was our wont, to a certain local establishment to imbibe some 'liquid refreshment'. We chatted on then I suddenly recalled the riddle and said "Okay, now let's get back to this crossword clue. So the clue consists of all the letters from
H to O?".......................(clink!)

Clue 2

heggs      (11 letters)

Solution - 'exasperated' (explanation = 'eggs' aspirated.)    Isn't that just so neat?

Clue 3

What Methuselah and Madame de Pompdour had in common?     (12 letters)

Solution - 'antediluvian'     (explanation = Methuselah is classified as one of the 'Antediluvian [i.e. before The Flood] Patriarchs. The most famous saying of Madame de Pompadour [though it is sometimes attributed to her 'lover', French king Louis XVth], was "Apres nous le deluge.")
I did solve this one myself after a long time rummaging around in a public library. I should imagine it would be easier to solve nowadays with, should one need it, the use of the internet.

So, I hope some of you have been entertained by this little diversion. If I've put the slightest smile on any of your faces (rather than grimaces of puzzlement!) I'm a happy chappy.

Hurting like hell, deep down inside.

2012-01-23T02:04:00.000-08:00

It's one of those occasions when having a friend here in person would have been so nice.

I've been lying awake in my bed the entire night. No exaggeration.

Can't go into details for fear of breaking confidences but yesterday evening had the singular worst blogging experience since I began here 6 years ago - and I'll be carrying a weight around inside for at least a few days until it hopefully dissolves, but it'll surely leave scars.

During the night, with thoughts whizzing here, there and all over the place, had made up my mind to close down the Raybeard blog permanently, as well as blocking e-mails from all my blog-pals. Now in the cool light of day I've put that plan on hold as being unlikely, as I'm now possibly better placed to get the whole incident into proportion. The other person involved in this calamity may actually read this blog and, could, in fact be suffering as much as I am, or even more, so I'm going to halt any burgeoning appeals for sympathy.
Even my dear little Blackso, maybe sensing that something was not quite as it should be, unusually refrained from coming into bed with me, until around 5 a.m. Before then he was sleeping and snoring in the living room. I would so have appreciated the comfort of his presence throughout the long night.

    To cap it all, I've just returned from a visit to the doctor's surgery to have blood taken for examination. My doctor thinks I may be my exhibiting the early symptoms of nascent diabetes. Results will take a few days, but if it turns out to be so, that's all I need!

Some individuals here in this situation may have wanted to crack open the virgin bottle of J.D. I have in the kitchen, but I'm not inclined to do that, at least not yet. (When my mum had reached the stage when she was thought likely to go at any time, 7 years ago, I kept such a bottle of 'support' for when the time actually arrived. But when it did I just didn't feel like drinking. In fact don't think I had any strong drink until after the funeral 10 days later, and that was only in moderation.)

   I've got a pre-purchased ticket for an afternoon showing of Clint Eastwood's latest, 'J.Edgar' today. Don't know how I'm going to keep awake for all of its 2hours 20 mins length.

   Also, have to finish off the entry I should write into the book accompanying the Spo-shirt, which is being transferred onwards tomorrow. What I write really ought to be in an up-beat mood, and that is how I've started it. But the way I'm feeling right now it'll be more like a clown wearing a painted smile whilst crying on the inside.
Btw: It would have meant so much if a particular one or two of the previous wearers of the Spo-shirt had at least written a comment under my blog of 2 days ago. I was so much thinking that it had clad their own bodies when I had it on myself. But maybe they haven't seen my blog, have nothing in particular to add - or, as I suspect, their social lives are too busy. But I think of them with affection anyway.

Oh dear, all this self-pity sounds horrible!

Going back now to slide under the duvet and hope that the good god Morpheus grants me maybe a couple of hours of restful shut-eye 'cos, boy, could I do with it!

The Question - opening instalment.

2012-01-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

This is the first of Stephen Chapman's - thestateofthenationuk.blogspot.com - latest regular blog feature, and I am pleased to be able to offer a contribution.

Stephen says:-

Welcome to 'The Question'... a single question to be answered by bloggers on the same day, with the aim of sparking some conversation, debate and shared experiences on various blogs around the world. If you choose to answer The Question, please add your link to my page and therefore, I hope that responses will then be compared.

The question this month is:

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

My Answer: I would work towards a significant reduction in the suffering of animals and bring about increased respect for them (e.g. by writing a book on the subject which has a global influence, giving a talk, presenting a TV/radio programme which gets wide coverage....and so on.)

I've given this question a great deal of thought over recent days and my answer will hardly surprise anyone who knows me through my blog. Of course I appreciate that some would be enraged at my choosing animals for attention while there is so much human suffering all over the planet. Or should I have elected to engage in gay issues or AIDS or scientific research etc.? All these are valid questions but here is not the place or time to put forward justifications for my choice. All that will have to wait for a future of blog of mine.

I had thought first about more mundane things like learning to swim, learning to drive. (That's right. I can't do either!) Then I thought about learning to read Sanskrit and that really grabbed me. Reading is more likely to be of greater value than conversing in it as I would love to have the ability to read the sacred texts directly without the need for a translation, which inevitably makes it second-hand.

But, being honest to readers of this and of Stephen's fine blog, I adhere to the choice I've made.

Spo-shirt reaches England!

2012-01-21T04:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, happy times! The renowned globe-trotting garment of Dr Spo touched on Albion's southern shore (in Worthing, West Sussex) a few days ago and I've been ever so proud to have had it in my company - and even moreso since reading the entries in the accompanying book, which underlines how privileged I feel to be a link in the chain of 'celebrities' whom I could only dream of ever meeting.
Now, with apologies for my inability to 'smile to order', I ask you to take it that what may be interpreted as scowls are, in fact, expressions of being overwhelmed by the honour of being allowed to put on this majestic garment.

Displayed here is the Spo-shirt in close proximity to my most special friend in the entire world, my little (sleeping) Blackso, who, I'm afraid, is quite underwhelmed by the experience.

I took the shirt for an alfresco treat this morning to a location which has an especial significance for many of us. These are the precise environs (saving the extensive demolishment and re-building works) where, during an extended stay in this southernmost part of the country, our Oscar wrote his final masterpiece, 'The Importance', just before his life took that wretched and tragic crash - and what an inglorious fall from grace it was! Those of you familiar with the play will know that one of the two principal characters, John (Jack) Worthing, had his name given by O.W. from this very town.
(You may just notice the blue plaque on the apartment block wall in the background.)

The Spo-shirt greets its master.

No, that's not a paunch. It's the way I'm slouching!

And so, sadly, we must shortly part. My only regret was that the prevailing weather was not conducive to wearing it outside. (Maybe on some future occasion when it circles the planet?) In a few days it makes its way a mere dozen miles or so eastwards along the coast of this scepter'd isle and into the good and capable hands of........

Crossword ability - still there!

2012-01-16T03:38:00.000-08:00

I think I've got some justification in feeling a bit chuffed with myself. I've just completed a certain crossword in under 24 hours without resorting once to a dictionary, reference book or the internet (as well as having completed the 'Speedy Crossword' from the same paper).
    Doesn't sound very remarkable, but when I was between my late-teens and mid-20s I did manage, or attempted to finish, the 'Everyman' competition crossword from our Sunday 'Observer' newspaper every week, occasionally sending them off to try to win the prize - though it was never won by me. Then when I moved house and lived alone, away from my parents, the habit fell into desuetude. I'd always kept the resolution to resume this satisfying practice sometime, but it never transpired (through always thinking about lack of time) - at least until yesterday, some 40 years later!
The 'Everyman' crossword is by no means the most difficult around, though I don't think many would classify it as 'easy'. Clues are in the direction of being 'cryptic', though anagrams, letter sequences, abbreviations also all appear - and it helps to have a reasonable grounding of general knowledge.
   So, now that I know I still can do it, I'll probably make it a weekly feature. Flexing and using those brain 'muscles' and achieving the desired result is oh so very satisfying!

Now while on the subject, how about if I offer, purely for entertainment, three classic clues and publish the answers in a few days time? The first has become a bit of an old chestnut by now, but it's possible that some of you have not seen it before. It was posed to me by a friend all those decades ago. Even though I say myself that I did get the answer, eventually - that 'eventually' took some time to come.
The second I heard on the radio some years ago where the very clever answer was given immediately. I'm dead certain I would never have got it - but it's a word we've all heard and used.
And the third was one I did eventually get - but only after considerable research in the local public library. I should imagine that, using the web, it would be possible to come up with the answer in a very short time, perhaps even a few seconds.

Clue 1)    H I J K L M N O                 (5 letters)

Clue 2) heggs                               (11 letters)

Clue 3) What Methuselah and Madame de Pompadour had in common?         (12 letters)

So, if you're inclined have a go. None of them is impossibly difficult. Well after all, I got two of them!
If you work them out or want to offer an answer please don't write them in a comment (otherwise I might have to delete it) , though a comment that you'd got them, without giving away the answer(s) would be nice. But if you want to suggest anything to me by e-mail I will respond through that medium. However, I will be posting the answers here in a few days time anyway. Good luck!

My two classical music 'gods'.

2012-01-14T02:39:00.000-08:00

I've postponed it too long. Because I've considered it something of an academic subject which may not interest many of my followers, only now, on my 240th blog, do I talk a little about the two composers who have meant so much to me through at least five decades, one of whose music I can never get enough of listening to, the other who gets into my mind with such force that I actually go out of my way to avoid listening to him, feeling emotionally drained by the experience.

     It's a bit odd that J.S.Bach, surely being one of the ultimate 'cerebral' composers does not tire me in the least, even though most of his music appeals on an intellectual level. His music has been called "mathematics in sound" which, I suppose, can be dismissed as absurd, though I think it contains more than a germ of truth.
There is a purity of vision in his compositions, an inevitability and a perfection which I think outdoes every other composer who has ever lived (a point of view that admirers of Mozart would undoubtedly challenge, but which I would maintain). There is practically no composition of his I can think of that could be improved. Yet it is difficult to believe that in the years following his death his worth was not recognised and his fame was far surpassed by several of his composer-sons. It was left to Mendelssohn, a century later, to re-claim him out of the obscurity to which he had sunk and to place him on his rightful pedestal from where he has towered ever since.

   Beethoven, by contrast, is the eternal voice of the human spirit, aspiring for perfection, but never quite getting there. I can hear such greatness in his music while simultaneously recognising the faults in it - and, not only that, but arrogant as it may sound, in my mind I think I know how it could have been even better. While Bach is, for me, the supreme intellectual composer, Beethoven appeals on a combination of the intellectual, spiritual and emotional levels. For this reason, virtually anything by dear Ludwig is such an 'event' that listening attentively to his music simply tires me out.
   One of the very first live concerts I ever went to (I would have been maybe 16) was an all-Beethoven programme of the 'Egmont' overture, the 'Emperor' concerto and the 'Eroica' symphony. Not just three 'Es' but the two major works were in the same key of Eb, which by itself would be a challenge! Being so young my tastes and preferences hadn't quite settled yet and I thought the whole experience was wonderful. However, I know full well that I couldn't listen to such a concert these days. I'd feel mentally suffocated after nearly two hours of such passionate intensity!

But these two, for very disparate reasons, are two beings who have given such meaning to my life that I cannot imagine what it would have been like not to have experienced them. If I had to live with one of them to the exclusion of all other composers it would just have to be Bach because he always leaves me wanting more - even though Beethoven may occasionally have the ability to penetrate even deeper.

My own favourite compositions of theirs:-

   Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
Fidelio
9th symphony (the first movement rather than the last)
Emperor Concerto
Piano Sonata in C minor Op.111
'Rasumovsky' & 'Harp' Quartets Opp. 59 & 72

   Bach - Mass in B minor
Christmas Oratorio
St Matthew & St John Passions
Preludes & Fugues - 'Well-tempered Clavier' (both books)
So many of the cantatas, both secular and religious.

Right, I've set out my 'stall'. Come and comment if you wish.

Was the film 'Bambi' to blame?

2012-01-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

Big hoo-ha on this evening's news about the Royal Premiere in London of Spielberg's latest. The big man himself is there, complete with the titular four-legged star-'actor' in all its equine presence - and with Wills and the lovely Kate being the royal pair in attendance. (Btw: Good job the lovely Camilla isn't also there otherwise someone may mistake......No, I will absolutely NOT say it!)
    'War Horse' is another major film I'm going to let pass by me for the reason of its depicting horrific suffering to animals - even though I know full well that any film coming out of North America, western Europe or Australasia would never have been made where actual pain had been caused to any such being. (The roof would cave in on the film-makers if it was made known or discovered to have taken place!)
Nevertheless, though I'm fully aware of this, just witnessing animals being shown as going through hardships and pain, even when contrived, is something I cannot bear to watch. At least human beings have a choice, they are getting paid and, should they be unintentionally injured, they will be compensated.
   The film is based on the stage play of the same name which has been wowing critics for many months. I haven't had the opportunity to see it but in the 1980s I did see the Peter Shaffer play 'Equus' on the West End stage before the Richard Burton film came out. (It's been done again recently on Broadway with Daniel Radcliffe) On stage the horses were stylisedly played by actors carrying horse-shaped frames, in the same manner that horses are being depicted in the stage play of 'War Horse'. In the film of 'Equus' actual horses were used and though no animals came to any harm in the climactic and realistically shot horse-blinding scene, it had been intended to look real and that, for me, was a step too far - and I've not seen the film since or do I want to see it again.
     Generally, seeing what is meant to depict the suffering of animals on screen is something I cannot abide. (There are, incidentally, other things which make me miss films, mainly because they just bore me to tears - boxing, in fact any films which features a sport in a big way, plus films with over-smart or wise-before-their-years kids teaching adults how they should live their lives.)

I think it all started with Bambi. Must have been about 8 or 9 years old when I first saw it at the cinema with my mum. It wasn't until decades later - when I was in my 30s or even 40s - that I discovered that one particular scene which had devastated me on that first viewing, but which I had kept bottled up during all the intervening years, not mentioning it for fear of being laughed at, had also traumatised many of those of my generation, and of both sexes. Yes, it was that scene when Bambi is told that his mother has been killed. For years after seeing the film I wept inside, and possibly outside too, thinking "How could they do that to her? - and leave poor Bambi to suffer?" Then I tried to rationalise it by arguing to myself that it was a way in which the film-makers were teaching children about the realities of life and death. Cruel, though it made a sort of sense. But even so, I was deeply wounded by the experience - and have never seen the film since. I wonder if that scene is having the same effect on young children seeing it on DVD for the first time? - or are they all inured against such scenes these days? But DVD doesn't have the immediacy and impact that a huge cinema screen had in my young days.
I cannot say that 'Bambi' is definitely the reason why I find witnessing the suffering of animals in particular, so hard to take. Most likely I'd be the same way if I hadn't ever seen the film. But the fact is, that particular film left me with a life-long mental scar which, in a peculiar kind of way, I'm actually content, even a little bit proud, to still bear.
But sorry, Mr Spielberg. I won't be tipping any of my money into your pockets for 'War Horse' - and besides, why do you have to have made such mawkish films in recent years. (The rot started for me with 'E.T.' - a film I wouldn't see for a second time even if I was paid to!). Let's have another 'Jaws', 'Close Encounters' or even the wonderful 'Duel' please! - but 'War Horse'? No way, Jose!

My films of 2011

2011-12-31T07:37:00.000-08:00

Just before turning the page........
This was not only the year when my cinema visits (56) were the fewest since 1974, but was also the first year during which I've read more books (60) than seen films.
Due to that it would hardly be fair to name a 'Top 10' of films when there were relatively few contenders. However, I see in my 'register' that there were just 5 films which earned a personal score of 8/10. The entry is made immediately on returning home after viewing (my evaluation can sometimes change after time) - and it should be pointed out that they are marked in terms of the profundity and/or enjoyment of my own filmic experience rather than whether they are films of a high standard. (I wouldn't claim to be able to rule on that.) So, in order of seeing them, they are:-

'The Way' (Estevez)

'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' (Alfredson)

'Melancholia' (Von Trier')

'Contagion' (Soderbergh) - apologies to Cubby @ Patently Queer for including this, but there you are!

'We Need to Talk about Kevin' (Ramsay)

The film I 'enjoyed' least was - with apologies to Andrew @ The Widow's World, who was knocked out by it - I'm afraid, it bored me beyond stiff:-

'Senna'

There were regrets in missing two particular films which had praise lavished on them -
Tyrannosaur' (Considine) which I couldn't bear to go to when I read that in the first few minutes the excellent Peter Mullen plays a character who kicks his own dog to death. I was thinking about going but staying in the foyer until after about 10 mins, but will now have to catch up on it when TV time comes.
Also 'The Deep Blue Sea' - Terence Davies' take on Terence Rattigan's play, which I know quite well. (This gay playwright, is certainly coming back into fashion now after a few decades in the doldrums) My excuse for not seeing this film? The timings of showings were such that I'd have returned home in the dark and my pussies would have been wondering, perhaps even fretting, about what had happened - and we couldn't have that!

So that's it with this year. Will 2012 mean more frequent cinema visits or is this an indication of my slowing down? Can but wait and see.

Wishing an exceptionally happy 2012 to ALL visitors to my humble blog. Thank you so much for your visits, my dears. Your presences are very much appreciated indeed. (Mwah, mwah!)

LOL

2011-12-28T03:50:00.000-08:00

This is one of several dozen books I picked up at various car boot sales this year but one which I've only now got round to perusing. All his most acerbically entertaining ones are here - as well as new ones (at least to me), many of which raised a smile Though I haven't been through the entire book yet, this is one which I hadn't known and which begat a loud guffaw this very morning.

The background is that Churchill and playwright Bernard Shaw enjoyed a mutual antipathy which went way beyond politics - the playwright was profoundly socialist, while Churchill, at around this time in his early political career (1914) was hopping back and forth between the Conservative and Liberal parties.

The London premiere of Shaw's latest play was a major event and Churchill was already a prominent politician by this time.

Thus, in telegrams:-

GBS to Churchill: "Two tickets reserved for you, first night Pygmalion. Bring a friend. If you have one."

C's reply: "Cannot make first night. Will come to second. If you have one."

( Sounds like a case of 'handbags at dawn'!)

Christmas Eve nosh.

2011-12-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

I've just devoured my main Xmas Eve meal and here are the ingredients. A special one this year - cauli, sprouts & garden peas (my 3 favourite vegs) all mixed up with Bombay pots (to give it a bit of body) with a large fried onion added. Was afraid it might turn out to be uneatably awful but it was really nice. I finished all of it and it took less than half an hour to make - a very important quality.
For tomorrow it'll be the greatest meal ever devised - fried eggs, chips (fried potato) + in a separate bowl, baked beans, with a generous pinch or two of curry powder for that 'zing'. Could there possibly be anything nicer?

I wish a VERY happy Christmas to those who grace my blog with their presence by reading and following it. I am honoured indeed. And may 2012 be a year of peace, happiness and harmony for each and every single one of you. Love to all.

Why do false memories get to be so hard-wired?

2011-12-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

I don't think I'd be a reliable witness to a crime or an accident taking place right in front of me. I wonder if many others feel the same way.
A couple of nights ago I watched 'The Big Lebowski' (left) for what must be the seventh or eight time. (One of my very favourite films of recent years - surely counting among the Coen brothers' very best to date.) Yet, as in other films which I re-watch, there were so many points where I was mistaken in what I thought had been the actual dialogue, as well as being in error in my recalling the visuals of certain scenes. I find this curious phenomenon in nearly all films which I watch for a second time or more. It usually takes until about the twentieth time of watching for my mind to stop resisting and to give in to mentally recording what was actually the 'truth'. In my case it's films like 'Gone with the Wind', 'Citizen Kane' and '2001 - A Space Odyssey' (which just happen to be my all-time favourite films) where my visual and aural memories have eventually gotten into sync with reality. But why does it take so long? I'd be willing to bet that my own mind is not so unusual in this.
So if this is the situation in cases where all one's attention is fixed on what one is watching and listening to, (and with minimal distraction, hopefully), how about witnessing real life incidents which just happen to occur unexpectedly? How can one reasonably expect to recall with accuracy such events - and give true descriptions of those involved? But, furthermore, why on earth does the mind do this? Does it serve some purpose? It's not as though one's recollection has to be 'softened' as a means of self-protection to make the recollection any more comfortable (though it might indeed be that in certain circumstances). But in witnessing a harmless film, even if it's a comedy, why does the mind keep adjusting or distorting things? There must be some reason behind it - but for the moment it beats me.

Further thought added on following day:-
I know that training in observation is (or used to be) given in the Scouts (presumably also in the Guides) - and, importantly, in the armed forces rigorous practice in acute and accurate observation and recollection is done for what might become life-and-death situations. I assume that when one has undergone such training it remains for the rest of one's life. Those of us who have not received this privilege must necessarily stumble on through our days with all the vagaries to which our undisciplined minds are subject.

Blessed warmth is back! Oh, praise be!

2011-12-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

After my most uncomfortable few days in quite some time, at last my landlord has got my heating back on. He was here for five hours yesterday, hammering here and there, clumping up and down the stairs to fetch this and that, eventually having to replace the pump in the central heating. Maybe not quite there yet as he reckons it will probably take a little while to settle down, but at least it's now warm enough not to have to wear parka, scarf and wooly cap indoors. (In the kitchen I had been reduced to keeping one of the stove hot-plates on just to generate a bit of heat!) My pussies are now far more content as well, probably thinking I turned off the heating deliberately just for 'fun'. Now we can all luxuriate in the cosiness. Thanks so much to those of my blog-followers who expressed their concern. Thank goodness it's over for now.

Final 'Five on the Fifth' - Winter Weekend

2011-12-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

My contribution to Stephen Chapman's final '5 on the 5th' feature.

WINTER WEEKEND

On the coach to Brighton (to visit Odeon to see new film 'My Week with Marilyn') using my Senior Citizen FREE bus pass - one of the compensations of getting old.

Brighton promenade - not the best weather to see it in.

Brrrrrr! Brighton seafront in the Winter drizzle.

Brighton's skeleton of a West Pier, looking even more forlorn than usual.

'Ginger', my newest regular visitor, wants to come in out of the cold. I let him in, but pity that, because my heating''s broken down, it's as cold inside as it is out there. (My previous blog explains.)

Perfect timing - NOT!

2011-12-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

My heating has stopped working - both water and central heating. Only found out when I got up 3 hours ago. Rang landlord an hour later, having to leave a telephone message. Far too early to start panicking yet, but he does tend to go away for days at a time. If he doesn't come today (assuming he can put it right) there's an uncomfortable time ahead. The only alternative at the moment is a single small fan heater, which hasn't been used for over 12 years, and which used to give off a spark every time it was switched off. Other than that I'll have to buy another one - and this p.m. too, being Sunday tomorrow. Oh dear! at least today is mild and tonight it's forecast to go down to 5 degrees Celsius, which is bearable with, if necessary, hot water bottle and electric blanket. But tomorrow night it's due to plunge to freezing, so that won't be any fun, both for me and the pussies. Dare not get someone else out to fix it as, considering the exorbitant prices some rogue fitters charge, I just don't have the dosh to pay for it. Oh well. Can do nothing but sit here with fingers crossed hoping that Mr Landlord will come round and work some magic.

Sad news that Ken Russell is no more

2011-11-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

So this sensational odd-ball of a British film director has left us, at the age of 84.

His films were always such an 'event' in the late 60s/early 70s - always controversial, maddening to many, and certainly never to be ignored. When they were released they were so eye-popping in terms of visuals on those huge cinema screens in pre-multiplex days. One hardly dared to blink for fear of missing something!

Those I show here are the films which, in my opinion, show him at the very peak of his art (I've no doubt that some may deride my choices - particularly including 'Valentino' and 'The Boy Friend', two films which Russell himself detested. Even 'Tommy', I find, gets somewhat wearing to watch after an hour or so.). Pity that, in my opinion, in the 70s he lost the plot big-time and never recovered. His films then became for me, if not parodies of a parody, then, frankly boring - surely one of the ultimate crimes in film-making!

But he has left a canon of work which, in terms of lapel-grabbing images has rarely been equalled, let alone surpassed.

Ken Russell - a name that deserves to be remembered for a very long time.

Warning: Absolutely NOT for nervous types!

2011-11-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

Scroll down -

.......and again....

Just a little further.......

Nearly there......

(Tee hee!)

Tom Cullen, Welsh actor - What a hottie!

2011-11-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

I wasn't aware of this 26-year old until today. I've just returned from seeing the new film 'Weekend' which has received, as far as I can see, universally positive reviews. It concerns a two-day (hence the title) gay affair. To tell the truth I found the film itself on the edge of boring but was absolutely transfixed by this sensationally good looker. I've given the film as a whole a 6/10 on Imdb - the average score given by contributors at the time was 8.4. But in my books 'hotties' don't come much hotter than this Mr Cullen. Definitely earns a "Phwarrrrrrr!"

The film is a virtual two-hander and here is my beauty with his co-actor, the pretty nice Chris New - though when it comes to a choice between the two, well, although New certainly isn't bad, there's just no competition!

Mini Me-me.

2011-11-17T08:38:00.000-08:00

Q: Have you ever had sex with a cardinal?

A: I don't think so.

An historical challenge to be relished.

2011-11-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

During the 1960s there started a wave of publishing series of magazines in weekly instalments devoted to one specialised subject. One of the very first was 'The History of the English Speaking Peoples', taking as its template and title the 112 chapters of the multi-volume work by Winston Churchill. (Incidentally, many people are not aware that Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, though rather in recognition of his previous writings rather than for this breath-takingly ambitious and admirable work.)
I had collected all 112 editions which cover the immense span of history between Julius Caesar's Roman invasions of these islands (in 55 B.C.E. and the following year) right up to the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.

Just a few days ago these magazines of mine saw the light of day again for the first time since I parcelled them up in Oxford prior to my emigrating to Germany in 1988. My eyes moistened when seeing them once more. There has been so much water under the bridge for me in the intervening years - status and financial comfort and security lost, but most poignantly, the loss of very nearly every one of the few friends I had, both in England and other parts of Europe..
I tried to keep up with reading the magazines as they were first published one by one, but eventually fell behind. Then in the late 70s I gave it another go, this time getting up to the 17th century and the English Civil Wars, but then had to put the project aside.
Now, inspired by the re-broadcast on one of the BBC's digital radio channels, entitled 'This Scepter'd Isle' in bite-sized 15 mins instalments, again based on the same chapters by Winston Churchill, with readings not only from his work but also from other historical sources relating to the period, I'm giving the challenge another shot - which could well be my final chance.

The magazines also fill in those areas where Churchill is inadequate, weak or he just ignores, with articles by other historians. For example here on the left is the start of an article on Britain's pre-Roman inhabitants, showing a giant figure chalked into an English hillside, which is still renowned as a favourite tourist site, though I can't think why, of an early warrior brandishing his big stick. (If you're not familiar with this, the 'Cerne Abbis Giant', look closely!.
Each magazine is a veritable treasure-trove of information and reading them sits well with my lifelong unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I plan to read one mag (with all its articles) per week Really looking forward to this!

Just as a post-script, at secondary school the history we were taught covered the period from the ascent of the Tudor Dynasty (from Henry VII in 1485) up to the Unification of Germany in 1870. Though we learned a lot about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, there was precious little said about the American War of Independence, which seems rather curious now. Also, given the range of dates, there was, of course, no coverage of either of the two world wars. (I believe that for some time now all children are taught at least something about World War 2). When I was at school, the 1939-45 conflict was still raw in the minds of many families and all of my teachers would have lived through it. Perhaps the dust hadn't quite settled enough.

My boorish barney with a Bible-pusher

2011-10-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of hours ago I had a brief, heated exchange on the doorstep. Well, more accurately, it was I who became the 'heated' one.
Before my own memory starts modifying and embellishing the event in my own favour and against the Bible Lady, here is my best word-for-word recollection of the conversation.
(There were actually two callers, the one I talked to being middle-aged, the other much younger - presumably a 'novice' there to learn the ropes).

BIBLE LADY: "Good morning. We are asking around the neighbourhood for people's views on the Bible. Have you ever....."

ME: (starting calmly and with a cordial self-satisfied, 'I-know-it-all' smirk) "Actually I've read the Bible six times cover-to-cover in three different versions - and each time it gets more and more preposterous. It's the reason I lost my faith." (Oh, too clever by half! - and why did I say "lost my faith" instead of "discarded", which I am always telling others to use, and which would have been nearer the truth?)

SHE: (After slight delay - of surprise? - But she smiling also.) "Oh, why do you find it 'preposterous'."

ME: "Well, for one thing, Jesus fell so far short of a 'good example'. He said nothing about having love for animals. He even ate them, for Christ's sake." (Even if it was a valid point, it wasn't the best idea to pull this one out of the hat first. And to top it off with a blasphemy wasn't so savvy in the circumstances either).

SHE: (staying calm, unlike me.) "So are you a vegetarian then?"

ME: (voice rising) "Yes, and have been for fifty years!"

SHE: "Oh, I was a vegetarian for twelve years....."

ME: (starting to shout) "Well get back to it then!" (oh dear!)

SHE: "You really love animals?"

ME: (showing additional signs of frustration at this going in a direction I didn't want.) "YES!" (and then adding, just in case she was going to write me off as a rabid animal-rights terrorist-sympathiser) "And I love people too!" (Oh cringe! Was it really necessary to say that?- Then, trying to drag it back.....)   "And I've read the Koran nine times - and it's the same old shit!" (My voice now quivering and getting higher-pitched.)

SHE: (her calm enviably sustained - her young companion looking on, dumbstruck) "I was wondering if I could just leave you with this leaflet......."

ME: (practically shrieking like a banshee) "NO YOU CAN'T!". (I slam door in her face).

                                          __________________________

And that was it. The whole mini-exchange probably lasted less than one minute tops, but it got my heart pounding like mad. I was, more than anything, annoyed at myself for rising to the bait, letting my blood pressure shoot up. Even after I'd got back upstairs, looking out of the window and seeing them walking to the next house, I felt an intense urge to call out to them - "And I suppose you think that the earth is less than ten thousand years old and that Adam and Eve really existed - and with the dinosaurs!" (Even now I half-regret I didn't.)

   I didn't get round to knowing what denomination they were peddling, but it's a fair bet that they were J.W.s.

It would be too easy to say that I was only mad at the lady herself - even though that was indeed the case. But not so much for her pushing the Bible. It's the fact that she kept her composure while I, in that short time, completely lost it. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, even sullied by my own reaction. How much better I could have dealt with the situation if I'd also maintained my own equilibrium. But it pains me to have to concede ultimately - she was the one who'd 'won'! (Damn and blast it!!!)

But BEWARE, Mrs Bible-Lady - my dander is up! If you ever so much as dare to come round here again, I'll present such a model of self-composure, and then you'll see how I can really give you 'what for'. Just you wait! HAH!!!

......and nobody is getting fat except MY TWO CATS (do doo....do doo.....do dooo)

2011-10-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

But hang on there. Could there now be a THIRD? Oh NOOOOO!!!! (I jolly well hope not. But read on!)

In these days of financial stringency when we're all having to count our pennies - unless you happen to be a member of the jury in a TV 'talent' show, a member of the British Cabinet (21 millionaires out of 29 at the last count - or maybe it's down to a mere 20 since the recent ignominious departure of the Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox?) or a banker slavering after his/her forthcoming bonus. But if you're not one of these then too bad! But there is another group which ought to be mentioned as inured against the financial constraints the rest of us have to suffer, viz. domestic pets, and in particular, my own 'Dynamic Duo', Blackso and Noodles, above.
We've known for some time that even Her Gracious Majesty, the Queen, regularly glides around Buckingham Palace at night like a phantom, switching off the lights in needlessly illuminated rooms. I have no doubt that when she is succeeded by the lovely Camilla (bless her jodhpur-clad royal thighs!) that this practice will continue unabated.
Meantime my pussies expect, nay, demand, to be fed at any and every hour as though money grew on trees.
And now, not only my regular two, but bang on cue, after the prolonged absence (and, surely, sad demise, of one of my several regular window visitors), comes yet another one - and this one owns the biggest appetite of all! :-

I've no idea where it came from. I suspect with the timing, that it may actually be a replacement for the dear recently-disappeared pussy. I haven't established its sex yet but, with staggering imagination, I've been calling it 'Ginger', which it now responds to. And boy, can it eat!
     It wears no collar but I'm hoping like anything that it does have its own home. It comes in at least twice a day, sometimes more frequently, - every time with an appetite as great as it itself is small. A really forward, cheeky little thing (much smaller and, I'm sure, much younger, than my own two) and with such a loud voice. Blackso has a soft, croaky miaow, Noodles a high-pitched but 'polite' one. Ginger just bellows its little lungs off - and if the kitchen window is shut and it sees me in the room it'll cry out there for attention like it's a life-or-death emergency. Seeing as though I get up at around 5 a.m. when it's still dark, and I can't avoid going into the kitchen, this is not a neighbourhood-friendly cat. So in it comes - and it just will not shut up until I attend to it, never mind the other two who are sitting silently, patiently, looking on curiously The other day I had to open no less than FOUR food sachets because what I'd offered was not good enough for it. And did it eat after the fourth serving? Did it hell! A flick of the tail and it was gone!.
   If I knew that it didn't have a home I wouldn't be able to resist taking it in. Trouble is, I'm not supposed to have any pets at all. My landlord has been aware for some years that I'd got Blackso (who'd left his own house down the road, preferring to move in with me) and said he'd turn a blind eye to that one. Then a couple of years ago when he was in here he noticed Noodles. His reaction led me to believe that he's also a cat-lover, though he didn't say anything to me directly about him. (Noodles, like Blackso, had decided to leave his own home - a different one, on this same road - and also to move in.) But now for me to take in a third? That really would be stretching things. With the cold weather coming I do hope Ginger will be less frequent in presence. But if it's going to be perched on my window sill in frost and snow, crying, I know there's no way I could to refuse to let it in.

      So, while we are all having to tighten our belts (me literally, as through eating less in order to save money, I soon expect to have the flattest tummy in Sussex - West AND East!) my pussies just carry on as before, letting the world's economic problems just drift by them - and even smiling at it. What a life!

No Pink Triangles in this 'classic' work.

2011-10-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

My third read of this hefty tome was as long ago as 1985 so a further one should be long overdue. After publication it quickly became considered to be a definitive account of World War II (including its causes and prequel) even though it was written just 14 years after the end of that war. Research since then would be expected to have given arise to revisions, corrections and amendments, but there have been none. (The author has been deceased since 1993 anyway.) However, I do remember it as being so awesomely detailed and so damnably readable. BUT.....
The second time I read it I noticed a curious omission. The next time it had become an irritation. There is no mention at all of the gay victims of the Nazis, though there is of others. The overwhelming concentration is on the plight and fate of the Jews, which could be argued as being fair enough (the author, by the way, was not Jewish himself). But not only is there no mention of the persecution, internement and extermination of gays, from what I remember the only times homosexuality is mentioned at all is in connection with the gay Ernst Roehm, the some time leader of the S.A., where his sexuality is perceived as part and parcel of his advocacy of Nazi doctrine and methods - in other words, "What else can you expect from such a degenerate?" And not only does Shirer display that blatant prejudice in language which leaves us no doubt where he stands on homosexuality, to aggravate this horror, somewhere in the book (I can't put my hand on ezxactly where at the moment) he lists the numbers of the non-Jewish victims of Nazism - Poles, Gypsies, Communists, Intellectuals. Liberals etc - every group excepting one! The message I get is that "the persecution and extermination of gays isn't really worth mentioning, or if it is, it wasn't all that bad". In fact I ask myself if Shirer might even have supported it!

I've found on the web a well-written piece by Peter Tatchell (1995) on this very subject:-

http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/history/a_false_history.htm

I'm now not sure whether I want to re-read the volume now. Like so much literature (fiction as well as fact) as well as films etc of those dark pre-enlightened days, Shirer was probably doing no more than espousing opinions which were, at that time, widely held. But if that was the case and if he did change his views, why did he not amend his book later when he had over 3 decades to do it? I suppose he would have said (assuming that he did regret the omission) that it was a question of priorities. But that's only surmise.

If I do decide to read it again I'll have a nasty taste in the mouth even before I start.

Dental View - Deja Vu.

2011-10-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well here I am again this very morning - just as I was in my blog of a mere 5 weeks ago (12th Sept) - once more sitting on the sea-front of Hove Actually, waiting for the time of my dental appointment, for treatment for another filling that has fallen out. For the last one she did a temporary filling which may itself come out at any time, and for this recent one she did remedial short-term treatment but strongly advises that both teeth are capped as soon as convenient. Only one problem - total cost £408 (American $640). Not what I wanted to hear when my finances are already scraping bottom. So, I'd better start saving. At £1 per week should get there by the time I'm 73. But before then will yet another filling come out?

A Day of Significance - My Life in Pictures

2011-10-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, today I become what used to be known as an 'Old Age Pensioner', now p.c.'d to a more acceptable 'Senior Citizen'.

So here is a golden opportunity to parade my life in visual stages:-

The only photo of me taken as a baby (1 year old). And the only time in my life I could fairly have been described as 'fat'.

At maybe 7 or 8.

About 10? Left - with my mum, sister & younger bro.

18 - my first ever holiday abroad - in Prague. (Note my relaxedly 'casual' holiday wear.)

21/22? The guy disappearing down in the background was a good school chum, one of only two I kept contact with after leaving. He was tragically killed in a car crash about 2 years later.

24 on holiday in Greece (Athen's port Pireaus in background)

36, in Amsterdam. The bearded era has started - and continues still.

40-ish? Paris? Practising that 'smouldering' look.

40-ish Munich (or was it Berlin?). All leathered-up for a night of disco-dancing and cruising.
(I must have sweated like a pig!)

50-ish? The grey starts to appear.

And finally, just one week ago - and still truckin'!

Well, in a few days time I should start receiving my state pension. In many cases this would be cause for rejoicing because of the extra income. In my case it means the reverse as I've only survived thus far by eating into my savings until it's practically all disappeared. If it had gone on much longer I wouldn't have had even enough left to give me a decent burial, let alone a funeral service (which I don't particularly want anyway), and it would have left my surviving brothers and sister to pick up the bill. But I think I can stop that from happening. I've got to tighten my belt still further to stop using up what's left - particularly difficult with soaring heating costs plus all the other increases around - not to mention having to provide for my own two pussies PLUS another three (at the moment) 'visitors' who come through the window with nary a thought as to how I can get the money to feed them. But feed them I must. For a long time I've been spending more on cat food than I do on food for myself. It all still means that there's no possibility of my having a holiday, even though my last one was now almost 21 years ago. (Awwww. Poor me!)
But today's a day for celebration and I shall mark it by having a main meal of fried-egg sandwiches, using lashings of butter, with ladles of salt and pepper on it - plus a dishful of twice-fried chips (fries), likewise over-loaded with oodles of salt - and a bowl of baked beans with a tongue-scorching quantity of curry-powder mixed in. And all washed down with a half-bottle of cheap n' cheerful California Red. Can you imagine anything nicer? No, I thought not!

Two things that make me seethe - but I say nothing, while boiling inside.

2011-10-08T02:02:00.000-07:00

1) Shoes on train seats
When I was young this was considered to be one of the heights of bad manners, disrespectful to anyone who might want to sit down in that place, even if that person was not yet on the scene. If this uncouth habit was done at all it was only by unthinking youngsters who could be guaranteed to be told off by nearby or passing adults - and certainly by train conductors and inspectors. Now everyone does it, irrespective of age - leaving me to just sit there, trying to bury myself in a book but my mind not on it, while my blood pressure rises and rises. I know that if I said anything I'd almost certainly be ignored, told to "Go away!" or laughed at or even be set upon. Train staff themselves, passing through, hardly ever seem to care. It wouldn't be quite so bad (though still bad enough), if the seats were bare wood or plastic or metal, something which could be easily wiped clean. But they are invariably upholstered with some kind of fabric which retains the dirt and would need professionally cleaning to get it out. Very occasionally one might see the 'offender' taking their shoes off or, better still, placing their shod feet on a newspaper spread out on the seat. That I can live with, though it is very rare.
I can't help wondering if in their homes they place their shoes on chairs, settees etc. Actually on TV I see that nowadays they do indeed do that - even sometimes raising their shoes onto beds, for crying out loud! I can fully understand that such people might not respect others whom they live with. That's their own business. But in public places I was brought up to assume that the other person, even if a total stranger, was automatically entitled to respect. To my mind, putting shoes on seats where other members of the public may sit, categorically flouts that. Just what is society coming to?

2. Plastic carrier bags
It must be a good 20 years ago when I stopped using these environment-damaging items for shopping, turning to re-useable cloth bags. Yet even now, despite ALL the publicity, every time I go to a supermarket, most of the customers in the queue at the cash till ahead of me are using several bags. I've recently counted one person using no less than TEN! And they can't be re-using them - they just cannot be!. Each time they go to the shops they'll ask for more - and more - and more - as though using these receptacles is an essential part of shopping procedure.
I've heard that each of these bags can take anything from 200 to 1,000 years to degrade. A statistic that brought it home only last week was that in Wales alone (population 3 million), where it has been decided to put an insultingly lowly price of 5 pence per bag, around 400 million of these bags are used every single year. Of course there are the predictable vociferous complaints about this levy - "nanny state", "personal choice" etc.- as though there's no such thing as community responsibility, or that it should at be an 'option'.
We've all seen the dire damage these polluting items can do to wild life, both animal and plant-life - and the hideously painful and slow death they can mean to those of the former who ingest them thinking that they are food. But even if the users aren't moved by this I would have thought that at least that they'd be concerned about the damaging effects they are leaving to future generations - and to their very own children and grandchildren in particular. But no, it doesn't occur to them. Even if it did, they don't even seem to care!
I find the same as with climate change. Even though I say it myself, it seems remarkable that so many of those with greatest concern for the future are those who are without children of their own. Not every single one, I grant, but certainly those I've known and worked with who do have children are the ones most likely to laugh off such concerns.

Maybe I just ought to accept that my attitudes on the two matters above are conclusive proof that I'm really an old-fashioned, wingeing and crusty fuddy-duddy. Oh well, maybe there won't be too long to wait before I'm finally 'out of it' for good . But if there is an after-life, and on the carrier bag issue especially, I'm still likely to be biting my nails as I look down and see what's going on.

5 on the 5th for Stephen Chapman's blog

2011-10-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

Pleasure #1 - Enjoying an unseasonally hot Autumn sun.
This is Worthing seafront on what was the hottest October day ever recorded in southern England - 30 degrees C (87 F) in one area. Although this pic was taken at 3.30 p.m. the lower sun at this time of day gives the scene a somewhat eerie feel, rather like during the very nearly total solar eclipse, seen here in 1999 . Although it's all very well to enjoy this unusually late hot sun, I'm also a little apprehensive as to it being yet another worrying sign of climate changes on the way. The number of oddities in the weather, though they may be dismissed individually as mere chance variables, just keeps on increasing.

Pleasure #2 - A burst of Autumn colour
I'm not one who appreciates the visual arts such as painting, architecture, sculpture, design etc, very profoundly as some do, though I am familiar with basic facts and can usually recognise the work of renowned artists. But there is little 'response of the soul' there, as there is for me with music and literature. However, one visual experience which does touch me within - and that is seeing flowers - any flowers, singly or in bunches, displays etc. Even simple wild flowers like the humble dandelion, buttercup, daisy etc just knock me out with their beauty when I stop and gaze at them.
I couldn't resist snapping this wonderful profusion of yellow in a garden just down my road. I don't know what flowers they are but they seemed to have sprung out of nowhere, lasted for a few days and now, alas, have largely gone - rather like a wonderful flash of lightning. Lovely sight!

Pleasure #3 - a delicious meal (some people may say "Yuk!")
While my Friday main meal is almost invariably a variant of omelette, and Sunday's is a veg pie, on Saturday it's nearly always an oriental something like this - lentils with cauliflower and fried onions on a pile of (usually Basmati) rice. I don't skimp on the curry powder, salt and pepper - and always add a sensibly-modest amount of turmeric. This delicious meal is about as advanced as I get in cooking - largely because I can just set things on the stove and go away and read while things are simmering away. Yummy!

Pleasure #4 - My own 'Cinema Paradiso'.
Although there are about 20 cinema screens relatively easily accessible to me - here in Worthing, westwards in Brighton and eastwards in Chichester - I see 75% of films at this place, the single-screen Duke of York's in Brighton, This 'art-house' cinema (one of the very oldest in the entire country) is where I see nearly all films which do not get a cinema release in the big multiplex chains, including non-English language films. My life would be a lot poorer if there was not this admirable establishment within reach. Almost a kind of life-saver, in a way.

Pleasure #5 - Flea comb
The pleasure here is really for my cats, though it pleases me too to see them content. While Blackso will purr loudly for any reason at all, such as just picking him up, Noodles here only seems to purr when I give him his daily flea-combing. He gets so stimulated that he wants to rub against anything in sight but if I continue too long it pushes him over the edge and he'll try to bite my hand - while still purring. Timing is of the essence. It's a sort of "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" - the hand! (Ouch!)

Cities where I got an unexpected........ 'welcome'!

2011-09-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

In a previous blog I've told about my one and only visit to New York (1969) and the very first time I went out of the hotel when, within a couple of minutes, I was menaced for money by a gang of youths who surrounded me, one holding out his hand with a big grin on his face, knowing they had got 'easy meat' - which they indeed had. In my naivety, I'd gone wandering out alone, camera hanging round neck, looking up in wonder at this famed place, which everyone knew of and, at least at that time, few non-Americans had visited.. I was a sitting duck - and I'd advertised it..
That was an unpleasant lesson which I've never forgotten. Ever since then I've tried to look as inconspicuous as I can and walk purposefully, even if it's in a place where I've never been before.
However, there have been experiences less alarming, though not particularly edifying - like my first visit to Amsterdam when, again after leaving my hotel for the time to take in the marvels of the city, the first 'marvel' to greet me was the sight, in broad daylight, of a man having a wee into a canal.

In the mid-1980s I went to Vienna for the first time to spend a week and a half in this city, surely the ultimate destination for those with cultural tastes and aspirations. Arriving at the Westbahnhof (by train from Munich) my mind was buzzing, overwhelmed with thoughts of "Ah, Vienna! Here you are at last! Glorious home of sophistication, beauty, elegance, incomparable history. What wonders have taken place here!" (My distracting inner musings somehow made me take an 'Ausgang' which was not the main way out. But no matter. Here I was!) - "......Ah, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, Johann Strauss, Mahler......champagne....fashion.....untold aristocratic delights....balletic horses......towering intellect.....Freud! Einstein!.......
I walked out of the station - and lo!.....there, facing me, chalked on a wall in clear letters at least two feet high, was a somewhat unsavoury graffito. And what did it read? It read:-

F U C K O F F

(Charming!)

It was a few years after that when I made my first visit to Bonn (I was shortly to take up a three-year residence in nearby Cologne.) A major reason for visiting Bonn was it being not only the capital of the then West Germany, but more importantly for me, it was the birthplace of Beethoven, one of my two ultimate 'music-gods' (the other being Bach, since you ask.) I'd already visited the great man's shrine-grave in Vienna but here I was in the very place where he first drew breath. I knew that in Bonn's Beethovenplatz there was this statue (left) of the hero. Her gracious majesty, our Queen Elizabeth herself, had left a bouquet at the foot of the statue on a state visit a few years earlier. So I approached, camera at the ready, hardly able to believe that after all these years I was about to achieve one of my longed-for goals, to be present here in person at this hallowed place.
I was nearing the statue from the side, my heart thumping in anticipation. But I had to get a full-on front shot first. So, camera poised, I moved to the front. And there - below the glorious name of 'Ludwig Van Beethoven', was spray-painted in large red letters:-

" .......IST EIN ARSCHLOCH"
(Translation: "........is an arsehole".)

Well, all I can say is "Is nothing sacred? Really!!!"

No, don't worry. I am NOT going to get all Bible-preachy!

2011-09-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

I couldn't let this 'event' go without a few pithy comments:-

I've just completed my SIXTH cover-to-cover reading of this book.
This time it's been read over 14 months, a couple of pages (sometimes more) per day - with my making, or rather, adding to, notes from previous readings.

My first time of reading was when I was around 20 and, being then a still-practising and seriously devout Catholic, read the 'Church approved' version - the Douay-Rheims translation. The exercise was more of a 'duty' on my part then, though there was no outright instruction, as such, that one ought to read it through. At that stage of my life the reading would have been unquestioning and blinkeredly uncritical .

My next two forays were into the more modern Church of England 'New English Bible' published in the 1960s with translations claimed as being not only up-to-date but also more accurate. (Even the Lord's Prayer was revised! - And why not?)
I suppose after then, at around the age of 50, I was having serious doubts about the veracity of the Bible. (I'd kept my Catholic faith up to my mid-20s, but even after discarding it, still considered myself a Christian for about a further 25 years, being quite an active member of the Gay Christian Movement for some of that period).

Then it must have been on my fourth read-through (now it was the turn of the authorised King James version) that I felt that my disbelief was starting to outweigh any residual faith I was still clinging onto. Some of the narrated incidents, claimed as historical fact, were striking me as not just implausible but practically inconceivable, even preposterous. Furthermore my notes started throwing up inconsistencies and contradictions (just within the four gospels alone, for example) as well as, frankly speaking, obvious injustices being held out as being manifestations of 'God's wisdom' - and therefore not to be challenged.

Now after the sixth read my notes have expanded even more. Each time I see a lot of things not noticed before. It would be easy to say that I'm now only looking for things to criticise (which was certainly not the case for at least the first three readings) but I do make a conscious effort to stand back and observe the subject-matter dispassionately.

I'd be willing to bet that most people in the U.K. who define themselves as 'Christian', even Church-going Christians, have never read the entire Bible through even once. So why do I do it? Simple. Intellectual curiosity! I can't stop wondering why it is that so many people find this book so appealing. There's a compulsion about this inquisitiveness.
At the beginning my own readings started as a self-challenge. Then it became a desire to share what others were experiencing, as though I am the one missing out on something. (I still get this feeling of exclusion when there's a piece of music, or even a type of music - in my case, jazz - which I can see gives enormous pleasure to many, yet I myself cannot appreciate it.) But the result of my Bible-study has been that every time that I notch up another reading I become even more convinced that it's largely fantasy (not completely - I do believe that Jesus actually existed, - and was almost certainly crucified) but masquerading as fact. It's hardly the reaction which might be hoped for by those hard-line Christian zealots who exhort us all to read the Bible every day!
Well, who's to say that my views won't change sometime in the future? But time is running out for me - and fast. Anyway, I don't particularly want to undergo a re-conversion, feeling perfectly comfortable (in fact, more comfortable) in my current highly sceptical state of mind.

I was actually going to make this blog into a listing of some specific examples of things I've found in the 'Holy Book' which are inconsistent, unjust and contradictory. I may indeed do that in a future blog, but I know it's bound to raise hackles in some quarters and I don't particularly want to offend any of the score or so of the band of kind followers to my blog, each of whom honours me with their time, something which really causes me to feel humble. But we'll see......

Okay, then. Now that this particular task is over, tomorrow I'll start on my eighth through-reading of the Koran. So, let's think - which of the six translations I possess shall I read this time round?

EEK! - The invasion has begun!

2011-09-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

In this part of the globe September is Spider-month.
I've lived in this present flat and (surprisingly, considering the state of the place) I had never seen a spider in here - until about five days ago. In the bedroom, parked motionless high up on a wall, was one of these creatures, at least 4 inches leg-tip to leg-tip.
I've always been an arachnophobe but, since my teens, have avoided killing one. As for all non-humans, I always automatically put myself in THEIR place and try to see things from their point of view. And anyway, I shun any thought of snuffing out a life when it just isn't necessary. So, gritting my teeth, I got a small brush and a plastic bucket, stood up on the bed and, hardly daring to look, tried to give it a gentle sweep into the bucket, intending to tip the creature through the open window. Of course the spider was easily dislodged but, naturally, it missed the bucket, landed on the carpet - and ran under the bed. I wasn't going poking about under there while still shuddering inside.. When bed-time came round I just had to block out the thought of where it might be. Forcing myself to dismiss any thought of it, I haven't seen it since.
I was just starting to recover my composure when last night, while watching 'Watchdog' with Anne Robinson (the very same who had a moment of worldwide glory as questioner when 'The Weakest Link' started on American TV), I detected a a movement in the corner of my eye. Then - a similar sized arachnid scuttled over the carpet, right in front of me, and lost itself among the stacks of cassette tapes amassed below the T.V. My blood ran cold - an automatic response. Usually at this time my faithful friend Blackso is sitting in my lap for a couple of hours nap before his nocturnal prowling, but it would have to be that last night, very unusually, he wasn't in the room. He might have solved the problem for me. If he hadn't noticed it I could have let him sniff around - though even if he did find it, after a moment or two's curiosity, he probably would have got bored and returned to his slumbers.
So here I am this morning, knowing that as I type this somewhere behind me, lurking in a cranny, is a creature that makes me recoil with seemingly hard-wired, uncontrollable revulsion. It's very probably waiting for evening time to come out and run around again - and somewhere in the bedroom is still that other one. One? I suppose they could well be the same one. But couldn't they also have families? - There could be dozens and dozens of them......Oh NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Biding my time.

2011-09-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, sitting on a blowy Autumnal-feeling sea-front at Brighton (well, Hove actually) awaiting emergency dental appointment to replace filling which fell out, just 5 days following six-monthly routine check when I was given the thumbs up. Even under our admirable National Health Service had to pay for both visits. Oh well. Better that than no treatment at all.

She who gives an extra polish to the word 'lovely'.

2011-09-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

Doris Day was an integral part of the soundtrack of my infant and pre-teen years. How clearly I can recall every one of her dozen or so hit records, even her very first British hit in November 1952 - 'Sugarbush' (with Frankie Laine). Actually this was at the time of the first ever official British 'pop' chart - Number 1 was 'Here in my Heart' by Vic Damone, which I also recall. 'SugarBush' reached number 8.
I mention this beautiful lady today because tonight on one of our BBC channels there is a three-hour D.D. splash. A documentary with film clips, a 1992 interview of her talking to Betty White (of 'Golden Girls', of course) which I've never seen, and a 1971 TV show of hers, with guest stars Perry Como - and Rock Hudson! But, dammit, the Doris-fest starts at 9 p.m., a time when I'm preparing for bed.
I'm an early retirer (this morning getting up at 3.15), so if I can't stay awake tonight I'll have to watch the progs on the computer later. Fine, but it's never as comfy as watching TV. (Being on a digital channel I can't video them.)
The Divine Doris reaches 90 next April. (Or is it 88? - the sources I look at differ.) When her time is up I know I'm gonna weep buckets. She was - and still is - mine!

Growing up as a devoutly-practicing Catholic boy, it seemed that from about the age of 11 or 12, whenever I went to confession I was owning up to having 'impure thoughts'. I never ever got round to confessing actual acts, except just the once when I got so tongue-tied and stutteringly incoherent I was berated by the priest for not being 'explicit' enough. He wanted to know ALL the details - sitting there behind a wire grille in his little darkened box. (Any further comment is superfluous!) After that humiliation I never dared attempt verbalising any 'impure' actions again. (Oh, the mortal sins that deliberate omission must have brought down on my head, further compounding the 'evil' of those unmentionable acts! And it gets even worse. I was still going up to receive Holy Communion every Sunday - so that my family and school mates wouldn't ask questions about why I didn't go. Horror upon horror! I reckon that when I meet my Maker, being condemned to an ETERNITY in hell still wouldn't be long enough.) Anyway, what I was going to say was that whenever I mentioned these sinful thoughts, my penance, in addition to being instructed to say one or two 'Our Fathers' and a few 'Hail Marys', was always to pray to the Virgin Mary to deliver me from this wicked temptation, which I always did, but which never seemed to work. I can't help feeling that a more efficacious target of my prayers would have been to Saint Doris, who at least she was easier to picture. It certainly couldn't have been any worse. (Sorry to have taken so long to get back to the subject of this blog. I admit the connection is tenuous, to say the least.)).

Btw: I remember when there was talk about the filming of 'The Sound of Music', around 1962/63, they'd narrowed down giving the role of Maria to either Julie A. or Doris Day. If they'd gone with the latter I wonder how it would have looked and worked out. I don't know if their respective ages had anything to do with the final choice (Doris was elder by 13 - or is it 11? - years). I imagine it would have had quite a bearing. But it's an intriguing thought.

And now, my friends, let's have a chorus of a song whose lyrics resonate with a lot of us:-

"ONCE I HAD A SECRET LOVE - THAT LIVED WITHIN THE HEART OF ME........"

If you want a thumping good read......

2011-09-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

(I'd better post this quickly, very soon after my blog of only yesterday morning. With a bit of luck it might distract attention from my '5 on the Fifth' entry which must have raised a few eyebrows.)

I've just finished reading this remarkable trilogy. (I realise it's probably old hat to other avid readers who may have been through them when they first started being talked about in literary circles, a couple or more years ago.) But I've just read them through uninterrupted by other reading - around 1700 pages in all - in just over a fortnight. No, I didn't read some every single day, but they do have to be read in order. I cannot recommend them too highly. If you want a meaty thriller that's involved without being so over-complicated that you give up trying to follow the twists and turns, this trilogy is for you. Such a shame that the author died in 2004 at just 50, not knowing what a phenomenon these books were to become.

I saw all three Swedish films (in the correct order). They are currently being re-made in America. One question - why? Well, we actually all know the answer - because they'll be in English. (Sigh of resignation!) The Swedish originals were themselves significant accomplishments and I'd be very surprised indeed if they can be improved upon.
So, as I say, if you like thrillers - here is my strong recommendation for a cracking read.

.

5 on the Fifth : Subject: 'MESS' --- Presenting my flat - O judge me not, ye blog-brethren!

2011-09-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

Thinks: "I'm only glad I'm not showing a pic of my bathroom!"

Dressing that pulls the eyes downwards to the ground.

2011-08-31T02:22:00.000-07:00

Day before yesterday I was watching Worthing's annual carnival parade along the sea-front. I was really too far away for the photos to look very meaningful to anyone who wasn't there, so I won't bother showing them - and anyway, it was a very modest affair, being local, after all - and in times of austerity too!
But I took this photo of the back of a youngish guy in a choice of dress that has always perplexed me - dark top, middle-shade centre and white(ish) shoes - and it's the last of these that jars. When seeing anyone wearing such an arrangement I always find the eyes are dragged downwards too far. I don't mind it when the seat and belly areas are highlighted - in fact it can be dead sexy - but with wearing light shoes as well it does look odd to me. What he needs here with that top and shorts, is dark, preferably, black shoes - and then all our attention would rest on his delectable middle. He was actually so good-looking (possibly Mediterranean or Middle-eastern origins) that I was hoping he'd turn around so I could get a mug-shot but without him seeing what I was doing, but I had to give up waiting. I couldn't even get him in profile, the spoilsport! Oh, and he was with a girl - you can just see her legs standing in front of him.
But is this the reputed gay fashion-sense coming through? (I'm actually not entirely sure that I've got any). But even when I'm wearing a dark top with jeans (other than black) I can only wear black shoes, otherwise the picture other people see of me looks unbalanced. Of course if you're wearing black top and black jeans then anything other than black shoes is a big 'no-no'. Even Elton John realises that!

A couple of 'downers' in the last few days.

2011-08-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

1) I'm without a phone. Noticed it was dead on Saturday morning but may have been off for several days before then as only use it about once a week, and then mainly only to talk to my sister. Never had a mobile and don't have access to anyone else's phone.
Website of firm from whom my phone is rented from gives phone number to ring if there's a fault to report. Brilliant! They apparently have no email address to contact them - and they're at the other end of the country.
Went out on Mon looking for a public phone booth which takes coins (such a rarity nowadays). Only found one - and it was out of order!
So to Post Office where saw a middle-aged lady (with purple-dyed hair!) who kindly rang the number I'm supposed to ring on my non-functioning phone. Passed it to me and, after explaining problem was told it'll be put right later that day or, at the latest, by end of Tuesday (yesterday). It's now Wed. Same situation, and I have no means to ring them back unless I return to Post Office and ask a favour again - or write, which will take several days to get response. Maddening! Feeling very vulnerable. Hope I don't have a need to call any emergency services in this period.

2) One of my small retinue of feline visitors through the window has not appeared for some days and I fear the worst. Growlie (my name for her) was the smallest and longest-lasting of my visitors who'd been in and out for about 10 years, but last week she started getting sick in my flat every time after just pecking at the food I gave her. She got untypically quiet and not her usual feisty self, nodding off in the corner of my kitchen. I've seen her sitting in the front window of the house next-door but one where I don't think she was very well cared for. Her suspicious and downright hostile attitude to all other cats, and even to me at first, led me to believe that she was being mistreated and not unnaturally felt that the entire world was against her. But she got to trust me and only a couple of months ago for the one and only time, she curled up in my lap.
She may yet re-appear but I get the feeling that her illness, whatever caused it, may have signalled the end - and that her owners had decided she wasn't worth the expense and trouble of keeping.
Maybe I'm making too much of it, and it's only a rehearsal for the inevitable time when one of my own duo leaves his own pampered life, but the thought that poor little Growlie may have indeed gone for good, as it's looking, is still a wrench.

Btw, Maybe there's no cause for concern here, but does anyone know what's happened to blogger Andrew from 'The Widow's World'? His (currently) two and a half weeks' silence is rather unusual for him. - and, while of course hoping he's okay, I am missing his blogs.