Poat 510. I.W.. FESTIVAL 2024.

ATTRACTED 50/60,000 FANS.

GREEN DAY TOPPED THE BILL.
A long weekend of cheerful bedlam (don't talk to the people who live nearby and weren't making money out of it), and then it was over for another year.  Experienced and talented rock band Green Day, formed in 1987 by lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong and bassist/singer Mike Dirnt, brought the proceedings to a highly successful conclusion.
Our grandson, Ellis (bass guitar), had a short spell in the Platform One tent. Mo and I have a video of it sent to us by his father, Mark. So far as the main show went, we sat in our armchairs and watched selections on Sky Arts. We're too bloody old for huge crowds. I always have been.
Rumour has it the organizers have renewed their booking of the site for the next ten years.
Well, the festival doesn't last long, and the fans (despite the shit they leave behind) are a breath of fresh air. Pity so many businesses are no longer around to benefit from their visit.
FOOTBALL.
Aided by her husband's unceasing invective, Mo has become an expert on how not to score goals. Goals are not scored by immaculately passing the ball from one side of the middle line to the other side of the middle line and back again. Goals are not scored by playing 'from me to you' for endless minutes in your own half of the field. And in England's case currently: goals are not scored. Nothing is helped by those silly camera decisions either. It's all a load of rubbish, ain't it. Very expensive rubbish. I watched about twenty minutes of one England game then looked for:
A FILM.

I found a great old western, The Far Country (1954), starring James Stewart, Ruth Roman, Walter Brennan, Corinne Calvet, and John McIntire. It was directed by Anthony Mann and is best remembered for the scene where James Stewart's horse ("That little horse liked me. He nearly killed Glen Ford: ran right into a tree") with a bell on its saddle pommel, walked alone down a long dark street to fool the villains into showing their fire power. Great scene. Great old western.
We got back in time for the end of the football. Nil - Nil. So to:
READING.

I held out when I should have known better. I avoided Richard Osman on the grounds that he is a media man, and I seldom like media men. If you can walk into a television studio the day your book is published and sell several thousand copies of it before you depart, you're on to a pretty good thing are you not? So I let prejudice rule my head and, despite disappointment with two Times best selling suggestions from Amazon, ignored granddaughter Jess's sound words on The Thursday Murder Club: "It's a good book."

It is a good book. Very good. 

So good that we have now invested in the other three of Mr Osman's Thursday Murder Club quartet: The Man Who Died Twice, The Bullet That Missed, and The Last Devil To Die.

Ah-h-h. They'll be so much better than football on television.

Enjoy what you like.

Post 509. STILL WRITING.

WHY? (Stock shot of old bloke at keyboard)

BECAUSE I CAN...
Those select souls who look in are worth every moment of the increasingly concentrated effort required by me to complete a seemingly simple scribbling. I tire quickly now, and would not be surprised if they did too. But, bless 'em, they stick with it. I strictly edit it, because this is the twenty first century and some critical clown will be determined to diss me at the hint of an un pc word. Fortunately the people who discreetly run it all do believe in discretion. Good ol' Google.
Mo is meeting friends Sue and Heather at Sue's house this afternoon. Gives me writing time. 

AND IT SAVES ME FROM TV.

Which, to my surprise, has of late given us some weirdly wonderful viewing combinations. A few nights ago we saw  a repeat of the film Darkest Hour, directed by Joe Wright, with award winning actor Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill. (a watchable evocation of fictionalized facts), and on the same evening saw the finale of The Piano wherein all the finalists bettered their railway station performances, tears bucketed, Claudia, Lang Lang and Mika looked possessively emotional, and I wondered .(as I do when television people are involved) whether the finalists were really there for their pianistic skills, or for their "great tele innit?" appeal. I fear the latter in all but the youngest performer (Lang Lang insisted on his inclusion) 10 year old Sum: a future star if ever there was one.

But they were all great entertainment and I wish each of them well.
CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS.

My current email address,  in case I haven't already told you, is dennis.barnden@gmail.com.
 Always pleased to hear from friendly folk. 

The unfriendly will be ignored, told to hop it or, if they are of musical bent, to Carl Orff.  

Cheers, one and all.

 

Post 508. SORRY, DYLAN.

 I'M HOPING TO GO GENTLE

INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
I'm sick to death of raging
At this world's sorry plight.
Mr. Thomas was a wordsmith who drank a lot. Had we ever met I doubt we would have liked each other. But he was a one-off, and I admired that. He would probably only have conversed with me if he thought I was good for a drink. I admired John Betjeman's gently humorous verse, too, though always thought there had to be something awry with the lifelong lover of a teddy bear: he would never have glanced in my direction anyway: he liked men with titles and girls with double-barrelled names. It's a funny old world. Have I said that before? (Imagine the shrug.)
I have just been through a series of tests at our sole remaining hospital, hence the thoughts on kicking the bucket. Dr' Osman, my oncologist, rang last Friday to say the cancer still looks to be in one place - not spread - and he will speak to me again in a fortnight when he has discussed my future treatment with his colleagues. I wish him well with that.
Death comes to us all. Physically losing touch with Mo, the family, and our few remaining friends will be my only regret at going; the big sleep doesn't bother me. I have no belief in an afterlife. Look how crowded it would be. Billions of spirits jostling for the ether. Ugh!
I have no fear of ending up in some overcrowded land of perfection or perdition, either. Gods and devils are fictional characters. I might get a surprise, but I doubt it. 

And nothing could ever surprise me more than the gullibility of the human race.
UK NATIONAL ELECTION/
Gets more like America every day.

Whichever of this pair gets in

Don't expect miracles. Don't expect the truth.

Did you ever?