COOPER AND CARSON - TWO GOOD READS.
Towards the end of last year I finished reading Jilly Cooper's Wicked! (Corgi Books 2007) and read Michael Carson's The Knight of the Flaming Heart (Black Swan 1996).
I like Jilly's bonkbusters. Never read one without feeling that (1) she's having a laugh and (2) it will sell and sell and sell. Her research is thorough, whatever the subject, and she is a darned good story teller. Wicked! runs to close on a thousand pages and is well worth buying with your Christmas book vouchers.
The Knight of the Flaming Heart is a slightly fey, very Irish tale in which the ghost of Sir Roger Casement appears and performs miracles in Africa and Ireland. I found it an amusing and interesting read and am still wondering why nobody has adapted it for film or television.
Come to think of it, though, I was the one who did not know that Philip Pullman's Northern Lights had been filmed under the title The Golden Compass, so perhaps The Knight of the Flaming Heart exists in movie form but has been renamed Roddie or Miracle at Ardfert or Boma's Ghost or something.
Oh well, back to...
THE GOLDEN COMPASS.
We saw this film last week: Roz, Jess and me. Jess and I had read Northern Lights so knew, individually, what we expected of it.
Roz is still threatening to borrow my copy of His Dark Materials so she had no preconceptions. No matter. We all enjoyed it. Director Chris Weitz stuck closely to Philip Pullman's book. The well chosen cast - Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra in particular - acted sublimely and the daemons and bears were equal to the imagination of the most demanding Dark Materials fan.
A super film.
NCIS (FIVE - Fridays)
Episode 5/24 of series four and Gibbs has got rid of the moustache. Perhaps he, too, has seen The Golden Compass and concluded that Sam Elliott will be Lee Scoresby for keeps. Or maybe he has heard that Johnny Depp is the rumoured choice to play Wyatt in the next Wyatt Earp film. (With Daniel Craig as Doc Holliday?) If he's heard that I'll be surprised. I just made it up.
Anyway, he looks better clean shaven.
POLITICS (Very briefly)
Our radio and television news is currently filled to bursting with the American political scene. Don't know why.
I cannot imagine that America gives a shit about our political scene. I doubt if ninety percent of Americans know we exist.
So it matters not to me whether the U.S. gets its first black President or its first controlled-weeping female President.
I have made known my views on politicians as a race and when I see thousands of excitedly screaming supporters hailing the victory of one or other of them in any country my heart sinks at the gullibility of those so easily conned into the belief that the victor is there for anyone other than him or herself.
I'll say no more (sniff) for fear of losing New Hampshire.
NEGLECTED ONES.
"You've been neglecting me," said the cat Shadow. "This festive season malarkey has occupied you far too much."
From his chair at the end of the computer room he gazed past me and took in the heading of this item.
"Is that part of the 'Old Ones, New Ones' thing you come out with sometimes?" he asked. "Where did you get it?"
"Semprini," I said. "Albert Semprini. Very good pianist. Popular on BBC radio many years ago. Always started his programme by saying: 'Old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones.' Then he'd give you half an hour or so of charming pianoforte. That's back when music was music, not the stuff you hear now."
"Don't be a music snob," he admonished. "You like Katie Melua and Beth Nielsen Chapman."
"Well, yes, and I liked Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore and Doris Day. I liked Al Bowlly, too. Heck, there were loads of singers I liked back in the old days. Some bloody good composers, too. Best CD I've heard over the years has been Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. All stuff by wonderful composers like Irving Berlin, Sylvia Fine and Gus Kahn. Michael Bolton did a similar thing a few years back and that was magic, too."
He dropped down off the chair and stretched. "Need to feed and beat the bounds," he said. "We must talk music again later. I like hearing about who was who in your day."
"Why not," I said. "I've bored everybody else daft with it. Why should you escape? I'll try to avoid reeling off a list of names, though, that's taking the boring old git persona a tad too far."
"Breaking the habit of a lifetime, then, just for me. You are kind," he said.
And was gone.
FOOTNOTE.
Am currently reading The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman and Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter.
Keeps me off the streets.
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