Last Sunday’s The Reunion programme on Radio 4 was a special on Withnail & I. In the 45 minute show, recorded before a live audience at the BFI, Sue MacGregor chats to Bruce Robinson, Ralph Brown, Richard E Grant and Paul McGann about the film, with a short contribution from Richard Griffiths. You can currently hear the show using the ‘Listen Again’ link on the right of that page, although I don’t know how long it will be there.
(If, like me, you have to install bloody Real Player to listen to it on the BBC site, don’t bother entering fuckrealplayer@bbc.co.uk during the mandatory registration - someone’s already used it. Perhaps fuckrealplayerwhynotopensource@bbc.co.uk or director-general@bbc.co.uk…)
I found myself strolling up Whitehall on Saturday, and couldn’t help but admire the National Monument to the Women of World War II. I don’t recall noticing it before - mind you, you could probably count the number of times I’ve walked along Whitehall since its dedication in 2005 on the fingers of a hand that’s been involved in a horrible farm machinery accident. (One thing I will say in favour of illegal and immoral wars - the protest marches provide one with a great opportunity to take in London’s streets and architecture, in between shuffling along, shouting “Down with this sort of thing!”).
Anyway, the monument is a 22 feet high, 16 feet long bronze sculpture, designed to commemorate the role women played during the Second World War. 17 individual sets of clothing and uniforms - including those of farm and factory workers, the armed forces, hospital staff and the emergency services - ‘hanging up’ around the sides represent the hundreds of different jobs women undertook in the war and later gave back for the homecoming men. It struck me as a wonderfully effective bit of work and a great tribute.
The monument was created by sculptor John W Mills, whose other work includes the National Firefighters Memorial, and several anniversary coins for the Royal Mint.
If you have a chance to vote in the election for the London mayor today, please, please stop Boris Johnson being elected. He may play the loveable buffoon, but the reality is that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a hard-right Thatcherite, who:
despises anyone not of his class
was pro-Iraq war
was against the Kyoto treaty
is against the minimum wage
was fired as a journalist from The Times for making up quotes
will not back Ken Livingstone’s pledge to make 50 per cent of all new homes cheap enough for ordinary workers
If you don’t like Ken, but want to keep Boris out at all costs
1st Choice Not Ken or Boris
2nd Choice Ken
If you’re still not sure who to vote for, the Vote Match site will tell you which candidate most closely matches your views. This is what it came up with for me:
I’ll be voting for Siân Berry (Green) as my first choice, and Ken as my second choice. As Ms Berry says,
I’m after every first preference vote I can get in this election, and pointing out wherever I can that there’s no risk of letting in Boris Johnson by putting me first and Ken Livingstone second. If you already support the Greens, or if you are fed up with Ken, but anxious not to turn our city over to the Tories, this is probably the ideal combination of votes.
I’m not a big fan of Ken any more and it pains me to vote for a New Labour candidate, but it’s the only way to stop Boris Johnson. (Interestingly, the Federation of Small Businesses has said that the Green Party manifesto is best for small businesses.)
If Boris Johnson does get voted in on Thursday, a law should be passed immediately prohibiting Londoners from making jokes about George W Bush. Only fair, I think.
A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan, who had founded a Jedi Church
and
Earlier, when Hughes failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: “I hope the force will soon be with him.”
and
Mrs Lloyd said: “He was wearing a black bin bag and a cape and had a metal crutch in his hand.”
Mrs Lloyd said he was shouting “Darth Vader”.
She added that Hughes hit Barney Jones over the head with the crutch, leaving him with a headache.
and
he had no idea where he got the crutch from
To be fair, we’ve all had nights like that.
Of course, most people know that before he turned to the Dark Side, Darth Vader was also the Green Cross Code Man. Apparently this particular 1970s Green Cross Code film was shot round the corner from me, on Northcross Road in East Dulwich. It could be, but I’m not 100 percent…
The undoubted highlight of my social calendar last year was the raucous week spent on Rhodes for Jonathan & Suzanne’s wedding. Although it fell during my somewhat extended blogging hiatus, I can tell you Lindos was lovely, we met lots of good people and had fun in rather epic proportions. Once back in Blightly I put together a little site for the photos, should you wish to view strangers getting married/drunk in Lindos: Escape to Athena (named after the classic Roger Moore/Telly Savalas war film which used several locations around Lindos).
Of course it’s never easy maintaining one’s sartorial elegance in warmer climes; the slightest fashion faux pas could even lead to one being mistaken for Johnny Foreigner. With that in mind I took it upon myself to put together a little fashion guide for the Groom and Best Man, well in advance of the wedding. I’ve kept the page in case it comes in useful for anyone else getting married abroad: looking cool at a hot wedding. Sadly Jonathan and Simon chose to disregard my advice.
I had an unexpected email yesterday, from someone at the Evening Standard who’d read my take on the best british sitcoms (written in 2004) and wondered if I’d be interested in writing a few words on Gavin and Stacey winning a BAFTA and the state of sitcoms in general. Despite not exactly being an avid Standard reader, I am a fan of Gavin and Stacey, so I quickly tapped out a few paragraphs and emailed it over. I didn’t think what I wrote was particularly good (certainly less potentially libellous than my original) - writing hundreds of words is so much harder than writing thousands - but it was kind of fun seeing it in the paper today.
I know it’s best to best to cater to your audience, but sadly the short nature of the piece meant I wasn’t able to include any references to Ken Livingstone funding illegal immigrants bent on evil terrorism. Still, probably goes without saying to the average Standard reader. Anyway, thanks to Josh at the paper for including this URL in it.
On to more interesting things…. In between meetings today I managed to pop in to the British Museum to see The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock exhibition, and very good it was too. With about 150 prints covering a wide range of styles and subject matter, I thought the exhibition did an excellent job of examining American artists’ responses to the changing culture and politics in the first half of the 20th century.
Many of the images in the intervening period explore the changing urban landscape of New York, the onset of the Depression, the romanticised visions of the American heartlands by the Regionalists, the response to the rise of Fascism in Europe and America’s entry into the Second World War.
It’s on until September and admission’s free, so highly recommended if you’re in central London with a bit of time to kill.
It’s been a very, very long time since I last felt inspired to post anything here, but after going to see Russell Maliphant and French ballerina Sylvie Guillem performing Maliphant’s PUSH at the London Coliseum on Saturday night, I felt I had to write something.
Now I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d make of it; although I’d heard of both dancers (so they must be pretty darn good!), my appreciation of ballet doesn’t really extend far beyond Miss Piggy dancing with Rudolf Nureyev on the Muppet Show, and watching the Royal Ballet’s Tales of Beatrix Potteron the telly at Christmas. My knowledge of contemporary dance is even more non-existent (think “pretending to be a tree at infants school”-level).
So when I took my seat for PUSH, which comprises of three solos and one duet - Solo (Guillem), Shift (Maliphant), Two (Guillem), and Push (Guillem & Maliphant) - I had no idea what to expect.
Solo, performed to the Spanish guitar of Carlos Montoya, is a beautiful contemporary piece, with hints of flamenco and more classical ballet (well, to my uneducated eye at least). Guillem - bathed in wonderful light - is truly incredible; astoundingly flexible, her movements are both graceful and quick. I could certainly see why she’s been described as the greatest ballerina of her generation.
Although a solo piece, Shift sees Maliphant accompanied on stage by his own shadow. Michael Hulls’s incredible lighting really transforms the slow, graceful yoga/tai chi-like movements into something rather special. Narrow beams of light from the front of the stage create six panels on the backdrop, forming large silhouettes of Maliphant. The different angles of the lights mean that at times there are up to four Maliphants on stage, each slightly different in appearance. Moving and thoughtful, not to mention very clever.
Two was my favourite piece of the evening. Guillem is trapped in a box of light, which she begins exploring with her arms and head. Her movements become faster and more intense as Andy Cowton’s score increases in intensity. By the end she’s swirling about furiously, optical illusion making her movements almost strobe-like, her hands and feet taking on the appearance of flames as they break the edges of the box. Utterly, utterly mesmerising.
As the lights came on at the interval, it took me a moment to come back to reality, such was its spellbinding nature. The video below will give you an idea of what I’m trying to describe, but it can’t quite capture the impact of sitting in the dark experiencing it live (as one of the commenters points out, the video’s camera angles aren’t great).
The final piece, Push, is an intimate, sensual duet between Maliphant and Guillem. It begins with Guillem kneeling on Maliphant’s shoulders as he walks on stage, and for much of the 30 minute piece she barely touches the floor, snaking and twisting around his body. Gorgeous stuff, full of balance and counter-balance, strength and grace. Maliphant is clearly a great choreographer, and both he and Guillem are incredible to watch.
In her review in the Telegraph, Sarah Crompton describes PUSH as “dance you want to watch for ever”, and that it “lingers in the mind long after the curtain has fallen.” Very true - I was totally blown away, and left the Coliseum feeling that my eyes (and mind) had been opened to a whole new art form.
This evening of dances choreographed by Russell Maliphant for himself and Sylvie Guillem comes about as close to perfection as dance can.
I may not know much about dance, but I can’t imagine it gets any better than PUSH either.
The BBC Trust has released its provisional conclusions on the BBC Executive’s proposal for on-demand catch-up and simulcast Internet services. Now they want our feedback.
The Microsoft-based DRM strategy for seven-day TV catch-up over the internet
The BBC Executive proposes a digital rights management solution which would require consumers to be using Windows XP (or above) and Windows Media Player 10 (or above) to be able to access seven-day TV catch-up over the internet.
Our understanding is that the BBC Executive aspires to offer an alternative DRM framework, which would enable Apple and Linux users to access the service, but has yet to identify a satisfactory solution. In either case, we will expect this to have been addressed within 24 months.
If you’re a licence fee payer, please take a few minutes to let them know that a Windows-only DRM solution is a very bad idea by completing the short survey.
