RULING OUT RADICALS.
Somewhen way back, somebody - probably Giles Turnbull - sensibly advised that a blog should be added to regularly and frequently or reader interest would wane.
Ah well...
It was the 11th of July when I last published a post and 14th June when I proffered the one before that. As Anonymous John remarked: "It was a long time coming..."
Perhaps I should feel more urgency about things, but I try not to kid myself that my views are of earth shattering importance. A month free of my meanderings will not have global repercussions. For that matter, I do not think the opinions of most people, no matter how honestly held, are of particular consequence, either. If they think anybody gives a toss they are sadly mistaken.
A couple of days ago I was forwarded a strange email. Mostly they are simple lavatory humour. Proof, as Alan Bennett has remarked, that the writing is on the wall. But this one allegedly stemmed from a woman in New Brunswick who had originally sent it to her local newspaper. Why they printed it - if they did print it - Christ knows. It was jampacked with anti Islamic vituperation and jingoistic, allegedly Christian, propaganda. I was invited to forward it to unsuspecting friends and was warned that if I deleted it I should 'please not complain when more atrocities were committed by radical Muslims.'
I deleted it.
Seems to me most of the trouble in this world is caused by religious fanatics and politicians of every persuasion.
I cannot be bothered with them: or the blinkered morons who support them.
BOOK SCENE.
A couple of months ago I mentioned I was reading The Tiger In The Well, a Sally Lockhart story by Philip Pullman: I had started Untold Stories by Alan Bennett and was plodding with The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter. I have finished the Philip Pullman, which was enjoyable even if the mystery villain was immediately obvious to anybody who had read The Ruby In the Smoke; I am still reading the Alan Bennett and plodding with the Colin Dexter.
In the meantime I have read Murder Between Dark and Dark by Max Long, a page turner set in Hawaii and first published in 1939; read it in just under three days. Never manage to get that involved in Dexter's stories, or Ian Rankin's for that matter. My fault I'm sure. Have always found the television adaptations of their stuff totally absorbing, but their books, like Dickens at school, slow going.
Incidentally, I was born about half a mile from Dickens's birthplace in Portsmouth, Hants. His is still standing and has been turned into a museum. Mine was demolished and absorbed into redevelopment. Serves me right. I always hated A Tale of Two Cities, it was my least favourite set book at school. Couldn't stand that soppy sod Sydney Carton.
Now my Leader has set me to reading Spilling The Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright. There will be much I find irritating I'm sure, but I'm now at page 30 and already hooked.
Ho hum...
FILM SCENE.
Recently watched the film Miss Potter starring Renée Zellweger as children's author and spirited conservationist Beatrix Potter. Ewan McGregor was Norman Warne, the publisher who fell in love with her, and Emily Watson played his delightful sister, Millie.
An excellent supporting cast included Barbara Flynn and Bill Paterson as Beatrix's mother and father.
However, the icing on the cake for me came right at the end when, with the credits rolling, Katie Melua sang the theme song When You Taught Me How To Dance.
You can pick it up on YouTube.
It's magic. Give it a go.
TELE SCENE.
A couple of episodes of Foyle's War were repeated: Anthony Horowitz's splendid reminder of wartime England, with its thoroughly believable cast, is still worth watching
CSI: Miami is back and also still worth watching, if only for the self parody of its uniquely mannered hero. The package now includes ever more ludicrous story lines and what appears to be some hilarious piss taking by the rest of the cast.
Bonekickers continues: the actors do their best but this, too, is complete tosh.
OBSCENE.
In the only one I have seen of Gok's Fashion Fix (C4), the fashion designer Gok put a bunch of girls on a catwalk wearing clothes obtained from a £200 budget.
They were in competition with a lineup of models in designer wear.
The designer wear was valued at several thousand dollars/pounds.
This in a world where entire countries are facing starvation.
Somehow I find that obscene.
AN OCCASIONAL DEPRESSION.
Around this time last year in my post Don't Rely on a Personhood of Bloggers I quoted the second part of some lines from John Elliot's book MOGUL, The Making Of A Myth (Barrie and Jenkins 1970) which in full went as follows:
"Actors, on the whole, are happy or unhappy extroverts. They work in public and in groups, travelling around together and calling each other by their Christian names. Their experience of life is tactile and they are constantly rubbing shoulders with and projecting their personalities at their fellow men. All this makes them, in general, lively and nice to deal with. Writers, on the other hand, live in shells, sucking nourishment from the world and only giving out squirts of ink. They brood. They harbour grievances. They are subject to fits of depression; and are tortuous and difficult to know. They are cast down by criticism and elated by praise, but secretly, and it goes into their work."
Though it irks me to admit it, Mr. Elliot's dour reflection on the misery of the muse frequently leans on an open door here.
I sometimes think I would like to have been an actor: but know I could never have made it.
I have a dread of being regarded as a show off, suffer excruciating stage fright and am mortified by rejection.
As compensation, I get great pleasure out of watching professional actors skllfully practise their craft and I enjoy putting together a few words about them when they have particularly impressed me. I feel I need not worry that they may read it. The good ones will be too busy learning their lines. Heck! This is an elderly chap's occasional blog, not a column in a national daily.
Anyway, for what it is worth, as a scribbler I suffer depression occasionally and fools not at all. The depression usually comes at the outset of winter or when the fortnight which constitutes summer has gone. It is remedied by bright colours and plenty of light. The remedy for fools is deletion.
And if you are the sort of smart arse who says it takes one to know one...
Click!
AND LASTLY, A GENTLE SMILE.
Grandson Ellis (3) arrived with his mother who carried him from the car. She had a dental appointment and his grandmother would be taking him to meet her when it was over.
It was a hot day and he happily played, barefoot, until it was time to leave.
Came the time and Maureen said: "We must go, pet, let's put your shoes on."
No shoes.
"I can't see your shoes anywhere," she said eventually. "Did you have them on when you came?"
He smiled contentedly. "No," he said, "I came in my toes."
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