A Horror of a Film

Elsewhere in blogland people have been talking about stepping out of their comfort zones and that is what I did last week. My little darling (17) convinced me that I should buy her a DVD about drugtaking. When I expressed concern that she should want to watch such a film she pulled the old “it will be good background for……[insert any appropriate school/college subject” card. Once they’ve played their ace you have no chance and so I found myself in Borders on Friday lunchtime being warned by the nice young man that it “isn’t a “pleasant film”.

Middle child had a half-day off work on Friday and so popped his head into the office on his way home. I was pleased to see him and eagerly thrust a cauliflower, a bag of fruit and the DVD into his hands. When I arrived home later that day he and his sister were watching the final seconds of the film and both were eager to sing its praises to me. I remained somewhat concerned about the subject matter. I prefer to read and watch more pleasant things and watch murder and detective films and programmes for the mise-en-scene rather than the bloodiness and cadaver quota.

Saturday began much earlier than usual as we were expecting the return of Big Daddy after his stint of more than a month in the lone-star state. It took me a while to clear his desk where I had been camping out during his absence and the kitchen table needed some serious surgery to allow more than three to dine at it. So with my brief housewiferly duties accomplished I was persuaded to sit down with with the offspring and experience “Requiem for a Dream”, directed by Darren Aronofsky.

The reason that my little darling wanted this film in the first place was because she had been to a gig, on Tuesday night, to see “30 Seconds To Mars”. The lead singer, Jared Leto. is also an actor and back in 2000 had been one of the main characters in the film. Out there in cyberspace he had been extolling the virtues of the film, urging everyone to view it. Consequently I was expected to observe the first few frames of the film and remark upon how gorgeous JL is. Apparently he had to lose quite a bit of weight for the role of Harry Goldfarb and therefore was a picture of slim slightly-goth youthfulness.

I am partial to films that look good and present me with interesting shapes and Aronofsky certainly does this in “Requiem for a Dream”. If I was better kine-educated there would would a multitude of filmic references on which to pick up. At the very least there are nods to de Sica and Busby Berkely. Like the films of Robert Bresson almost every frame is a work of art and the storyline is almost irrelevent, except of course that is what the whole film is about. My two companions were viewing for a second time and so could pick up on more and were able to absorb all elements of the split screens that occurred whenever drug-taking was involved.

There are brilliant comedic moments in this film and at times some of the protagonists are portrayed as caricatures rather than rounded personalities. Don’t allow this to let you think that the subject matter is not serious. Think of a Punch and Judy performance and you will have some idea of the effect.

I didn’t want to watch this film. I don’t enjoy “nasty” subjects and yet I couldn’t help myself. Just as the people in the movie were drawn into and down by what they started I couldn’t leave the room. The film is divided into acts and by the time we were moving from “Fall” to “Winter” Little Darling was saying, “I don’t want to watch this now, I don’t like this part.” Just like the addictions portrayed, the film has its hold on you and there is no escape. You don’t want to do it but you are there for the duration, whatever the consequences. It’s too late, you no longer have any free will.

Devine covers

No it’s not a typo or a spelling mistake just a nod in the direction of my inspiration for today’s post.

As usual I fell out of bed and turned the computer on before I even boiled the kettle. I used to have just one addiction but my self control is rapidly disappearing. You all know I can’t live without DGR but now my eyes and mind crave Stuck-in-a-book for his charmingly amusing and highly personal cartoons and Harriet Devine for well, I suppose just having the knack of posting about things that will appeal to me.

I popped over to Harriet’s this morning and she presented me with a Barbara Pym book cover in my favourite citrusy colours. You can see it top left in the picture above. Does it really matter what is inside a book when it looks like that? Instead of planning the remainder of my weekend I set off on a treasure hunt to see if I could find any more delightful Pym covers and just look what I found. I WANT THEM! There’s not a glimmer of foiled bling or an embossed aperture a la “Airport Books” in sight. There is no chance of these being mistaken for chicklit or even henlit which is a term I think I heard a certain MF utter on BBC Radio 4. I suppose they may verge on Bluestockinglit or perhaps even “OurVicar’sWifelit” (nod in the direction of SiaB) but I have a penchant for this sort of reading and I’m proud of it. It’s all a bit shabby-chic before it became chic.

There’s something comforting about worn loose covers and flowers from the garden and shopping lists. Its not a life I have ever experienced and I don’t have the relevant housewiferly inclinations but its one of the places I enjoy inhabiting when I allow myself to be wafted away by a good read.

And what about these beauties? Wouldn’t you be content if you had these on a slim bookcase in your study? Tall and slim with a slight Arts & Crafts feel or a touch of Bloomsbury?

Tomorrow – a guest blogger: Weaver from the Sticks

I have persuaded a virtual friend of mine to do a guest spot on this blog. I live within the M25 (London’s orbital motorway), she lives “out in the sticks” and weaves. No mention of weaving in her guest appearance tomorrow though. Watch this space.

What did we do before t’internet?

I finished my working day feeling extremely proud of myself. For a while I’d been aware of a gap in our coverage of the world. Well actually several large holes but as with everything in life you can’t eat the whole elephant at once and you have to nibble away at little bits. So, gap identified and a possible filler, alias a photographer in the right area, identified. It sounds simple enough but sometimes trying to find the contact details for someone is harder than finding a needle in a haystack. Try googling your own name and see what happens. Did you find the real you at the top of the list? If your name is unusual and you are Famous, with a capital “F” then possibly you really are top of the heap. With lesser mortals and those with more common names this is not usually the case. Usually you will find a reference to someone who plays some strange team sport out in the mid-west of the US or the runner who came 3rd in a marathon in the north-east of England. Another amazing fact is that of you search for a slightly “foreign” name you will stumble across a fire-fighter of that name. I’m not making this up, I promise.

My target had a short biblical first name and a surname that he shared with a character played by Robin Williams. There was even my proverbial firefighter staring at me from my computer screen. I found plenty of references to his work, several of them on Amazon: photography Fred Bloggs (name changed for privacy). What I couldn’t track down was his webpage or email address or anything that would actually lead me to him. It was time to bring in reinforcements so I decided to approach people who had had their places photographed by him, one was an architect, the other a small music centre. My money was on the architect but I placed my bet too soon and my email bounced back to me “refused”. Obviously the recipient could tell I was an unsavoury character without even accepting my message. I wasn’t going to be thwarted and I typed up my email, don’t you love copy and paste, and faxed it immediately to the practice that had refused my communication. Then I resigned myself to never finding my prey.

Just before I left work I had an email from the outsider in this race, a lovely reply from that musical place laying out all the contact details I could ever wish for.

God bless t’internet and all who surf in her!

Yesterday’s haul

Don’t you just love those charity shops that still have some items at charity shop prices? This from my local Geranium Shop for the Blind. 30p per paperback. Admittedly most of the books were not to my liking but just as well really or I would have needed to buy a wheelbarrow or shopping trolley to take my purchases home.

 

Do you recognise any of the above? Any recommendations for which to read first?

 

 

 

That’s my boy!

No. 2 son has been published! (Actually so has No.1 son but I have yet to see the article.) I was quietly working yesterday making sure that publishers and magazines who need pictures were kept happy when an email with the subject header “I’m famous” landed in my in box. It was from No.2 son and contained a link to HIS article in The New Statesman! If I haven’t already bored you by emailing you personally about his moment of glory then pop over and read all about it.

The photo above shows the whole junior tribe quite a few years ago when a strange arrangement of time caused all three children to start a new school, one infant, one junior and one secondary. Jamie looks eager, Greg uncooperative and poor little Celia decidedly apprehensive. Do you see the potential there? World-famous football coach, national journalist & video star!

We’re going to have a full house this weekend, the other half returns from his second 6-week stint in Houston, Texas and as Hampton are playing this weekend we get to see No.1 son as we are the most reasonably-priced doss-house in the proximity of Hampton & Richmond Borough FC’s home ground.

Lazy Weekend

 A lazy weekend, apart from a bit of a walk with my little darling in the Woodland Gardens at Bushy Park.

The daffodils and crocuses have all died down, of course, but the rhododendrons were wearing their Sunday best even though it was only Saturday.

The light  under the oak trees was magical. I know that Keats (or was it someone else?) is supposed to have made up the word “beechen” for the colour of beech leaves.

Somehow “oaken” will not capture the essence of the colour that we experienced yesterday.

 

Bushy Park is undergoing significant restoration with the aid of a Heritage Lottery grant and as a consequence it has been severely tidied up.

 

The overgrown jungles that served as hiding places for the children when I walked through the gardens with my aunt have been tamed and replanted with young plants that will last for the next generation of weekend visitors.

The house is Bushy House, originally built around 1663 for the extravagant amount of £4000. It is not actually in the Woodland Gardens, but just outside as is the tree stump that yielded me my texture pictures.

 

 

Following in the blogsteps of others

Those of you who know DGR will know that she’s been talking about Penelope Fitzgerald again. This prompted me to burrow around in what I call my house to find a book that I knew I had. I bought it in Cambridge when I spent a weekend there, several years ago with Dovegrey Reader, Random Jottings and a few others. You can see that it is still in its protective plastic covering. That’s right, I haven’t even looked at it.  I think that the collection of Katherine Mansfield was probably bought because a certain young man, the artist now known as Stuck-in-a-Book, waxed lyrical about KM.

I am a product of my age, born in 1957 with parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles who had the thrifty practices of wartime living still coursing through their veins. Again I quote my maternal grandmother, “put it by for later”. This behaviour has its rewards. I am currently attempting to “be sensible” and not spend money on non-essentials but because of past lapses there are treasures to be unearthed on my own territory. All this means that I receive double or even triple pleasure. First comes the slightly guilty delight of buying something that you have absolutely no need of whatsoever. Second comes the joy of finding something you had momentarily allowed to slip from your mental filing system and no doubt there is that third stage, the consumption of the goods.

The KM stories are in an ex-library copy so I will not be the first to have gorged on those fruits. The PF looks almost pristine, so pristine I wonder if it has even been read before.

Garden Patchwork

The garden was so inviting this morning …………………

that I couldn’t resist popping out and grabbing myself some scraps for a garden patchwork.

Such Devoted Sisters – me and mine

Reading the Virago collection of short stories about sisters prompted me to post this photo of me and my two sisters.

I’m the eldest and Clare followed just 16 months behind me. In the few years before this snap was taken we were often mistaken for twins. I’m not sure if my mother dressed us identically because of this or if it was just that it was easier to buy two of the same. Clare and I were born at the end of the fifties, me in 1957 and she in 1958. I think this coupled with our parents being a few years older by the time Anne was born in 1964 has led to us having quite different memories that have been distinctly shaped by the era into which we were born.

 

I remember our parents buying a second-hand record player several years before Anne joined us. It came complete with 2 or 3 records. I’m not sure what the others were but I can still recite some of the words sung by Pat Boone. Wang dang taffy apple tango, ma mo, a cha cha cha. How’s it go? I don’t know. Ooh la la la la la la. Now all night long he did it wrong but still it ended right. They did the wang dang ….. As usual with me, I never remember all the words and just go round in some sort of a manic loop that bears absolutely no resemblance to a piece by Steve Reich.

 

Anne was born in 1964 and I’m sure that was the year that I remember hearing my first Beatles song even though I didn’t know that’s what it was. Our next-door neighbours had some strange habits, or so we thought. They had a teenage daughter who used to listen to the radio IN THE GARDEN!! It wasn’t turned in to the BBC Home service either. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” My mother was constantly telling us that she would not be a slave to fussy eaters like Mrs F next-door who cooked a different meal for each member of the family. We were fascinated by the idea of this whilst being well-behaved children and learning to eat everything on our plates and “cut across the fat”. Don’t get the idea that we were flawless though. I managed to reach adulthood without eating many tomatoes and absolutely NO beetroot. Clare still doesn’t like spaghetti although she has nothing against any other sort of pasta. Where is the logic in that? They are the same thing for goodness sake. This woman has two science degrees, under and post-graduate and yet she doesn’t understand that all pasta is made from the same ingredients until you start bunging in spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and squid-ink.

 

I’ve wondered hugely off the point here, if there ever was one. I think what I am trying to say is that you can never explain to someone who doesn’t have sisters what it is like. It just IS. You love them to bits and yet there are times that some of the old petty jealousies and rivalries rise to the surface even though you are unaware of this till someone points it out to you. The moments that stand out from “Such Devoted Sisters” are the ones where the sisters are arranging their father’s funeral and later sorting out his clothes and possessions and they still feel his presence and disapproval. They regress to the favourite taunts, “You’re the eldest” and “I’m the tallest”. It’s rather like how I feel if I ever eat in the street. I’m sure that someone will telephone my school and the headmistress will be horrified to have to remind us that “young ladies do not eat in the street”.

 

Such Devoted Sisters – the end of the journey

Most of my reading is done to and from work on a South West Trains train from Hampton to Kingston-upon-Thames. The journey takes less than 15 minutes each way so it doesn’t take a genius to work out that I end up with approximately half an hour reading time per day. In a good week that gives me 2.5 hours reading a day. My preferred diet is short stories because I have been known to finish a whole one in one direction. This happy state affairs is usually due to the late arrival of a train. The day that someone was taken ill on a train in the Wimbledon area may not have been good news for the patient but my weekly reading quota went up considerably.

On the track at the moment is the Virago publication, SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS edited by Shena Mackay
The short stories in the collection are:

Jean Stafford, In the Zoo; Edna O’Brien, The Connor Girls; Mary Flanagan, White Places; Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Quality of Mercy; Marilyn Duckworth, A Game of Pretend; Bani Basu, Aunty; Janet Frame, Keel and Kool; Anjana Appachana, Incantations; Nann Morgenstern, Sorority; Cynthia Rich, My Sister’s Marriage; Elizabeth Jolley, Five Acre Virgin; Merle Collins, My Sister Cherish; Fiona Cooper, The Sisters Hood; Dyan Sheldon, Day and Night; Louisa May Alcott, From Little Women and Good Wives; Wajida Tabassum, Hand-me-Downs; Eliabeth Gaskell, from Cranford; Georgina Hammick, Tales from the Spare Room; Marjorie Barnard, habit; Katherine Mansfield, The Daughters of the Late Colonel; Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market.

You may spot a few extracts rather than actual short stories and I feel cheated by this. I found that I couldn’t read the Little Women extract. Was this because I KNEW it wasn’t a short story or didn’t it feel complete? The same feeling came upon me with the piece from Cranford. If I hadn’t known they weren’t complete would I have just accepted them and read them without these misgivings?

My bookmark is currently resting in the middle of Katherine Mansfield’s, The Daughters of the Late Colonel. After that there only remains Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market” which I have never really read before. I remember my mother’s copy of a book of poems with a sepia and brown swirly cover. I loved the illustrations in that book and that is all I remember about Goblin Market. Will I feel that including a poem in a book of “short stories” is as unethical as printing parts of a “proper” book or will I look on it as an unexpected treat for reaching the end of the line?

 

 

Not just the peacock

 Many years ago I read a detective story about an Indian Inspector who becomes involved in the hunt for a missing person whilst on a visit to England. I wondered if there were any more stories about him so I went looking. If I read one Inspector Ghote book every month it would take me two whole years to read them.

The author is H R F Keating who has written many other crime books, several of them about detective Harriet  Martens. That name seems familiar. I suspect there may have been a TV or radio series at some time. Can anyone enlighten me?

H.R.F. Keating writes about Inspector Ganesh Ghote :

(in reverse date order)

Breaking and Entering 2000
Bribery, Corruption Also 1999
Asking Questions 1996
The Inspector Ghote Mysteries 1996
Doing Wrong 1994
Cheating Death 1992 The Iciest Sin 1990
Inspector Ghote, His Life and Crimes Short Stories 1989
Dead on Time 1988
The Body in the Billiard Room 1987
Under a Monsoon Cloud 1986
The Sheriff of Bombay 1984
Go West, Inspector Ghote 1981
The Murder of the Maharajah 1980
Inspector Ghote Draws a Line 1979
Filmi, Filmi, Inspector Ghote 1976
Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote 1974
Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart 1972
Inspector Ghote Goes by Train 1971
Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg 1970
Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker 1969
Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock 1968
Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes 1967
Inspector Ghote’s Good Crusade 1966
The Perfect Murder 1964

The call of the Bush(y)

I have one friend who lives “out in the sticks” and told me that she pops in here for “scrappettes of life-up-town”. I’m more of a suburbanite than an “up-towner” but I suppose all things are relative. I am definitely enjoying the fruits of my planting at the moment. Don’t you just love spring and all things green that shoot and sprout? IT’s great to have some in your own garden but if I want to wander a little further I am so lucky to be close to the second largest of the  Royal Parks, Bushy Park which covers an area of 450 hectares (1,099 acres). The Longford River, an artificial waterway 13 miles long originally created by Charles 1 in 1639 to bring fresh water to Hampton Court, feeds Bushy Park’s many streams and ponds.

I have been known to cycle through the park to work. It takes me about 35 minutes door-to-door with the journey split into convenient thirds. The first third involves getting to the park, the 2nd third cycling through the park and the final third the least pleasant negotiating the periphery of Kingston-upon-Thames by doing dreadful things like riding on the pavement. I’m not a confident road rider and I excuse my transgression by telling myself that I hardly ever see anyone walking on the pavements at the time when I am riding.

My ride to work takes me along the very bottom of the park. I cycle along that lower white path towards the Diana Fountain (the circle of blue surrounded by the orange road). The fountain, the surrounding pond and road bisect the mile long Chestnut Avenue planned by Sir Christopher Wren as a formal approach to Hampton Court Palace for William & Mary. The avenue has a single row of horse chestnuts and four rows of limes. From there I cycle the white path along the bottom right of the map, carefully avoiding the see-saw, the giant “P”, the woman in the puffball skirt, her pot-bellied companion and the wheelchair user!! Our family name for that path is “the rabbit path” for obvious reasons. If I am early enough my initial stage in the park allows me to see a heron and sometimes a flock of green parakeets.

My standard weekend, one-hour, walk takes me into the park at the bottom left of the map (the same entrance I use for cycling to work. From there I head north through the woodland gardens (orangey-brown areas on the map) and out again by Hampton Swimming Pool. Both these journeys only touch the edges of the park but I am a bit of a townie and anything more strenuous would probably be too much for delicate little me. Last year I blogged about this walk but the camera battery packed up halfway round so you can only see half the walk. Maybe I should return and finish the photoshoot?

 

Borrowed frits

 

I’ve had quite a little flurry of visitors due to my posting of the snakeshead fritillary. It even caused an old virtual pal to get in touch again and then send me HIS pics of them in the meadow at at Magdalen College, Oxford. If you enjoy amusing cartoons and books then you must definitely head over to his blog.

 

You never know with the book police visiting me so regularly now I may even be forced to blog about a book.

I can’t believe it’s a real flower!

As promised here is the answer to yesterday’s  puzzle, Snakeshead Fritillary, alias The Guinea-Hen Flower , Leper Lily or Fritillaria meleagris. No one dropped by my blog, let alone guessed the answer.

Can you believe that I have reached the age of 49.75 and never seen one of these in real life? It’s true and when I won the war between me and the pg (see previous posting) I was determined that “one of the things to do before I die” would be to see one. I went one better and planted a couple of bulbs. They were tiny and only 2 or three in a packet at my local garden centre, so obviously they are quite precious. I had forgotten all about them till yesterday when as I stepped out of my car I glanced a couple of feet to my right and lo and behold ……….. my very own snakeshead fritillary.

I can’t remember how old I was when I saw a painting of these by Charles Rennie Mackintosh but I believed he was just doing that arty shading thing that painters do. He wasn’t, they really are just like that and if you have never seen one then I advise you put it on your OOTTTDBID list.

Tulips from Hampton

Just in time for Easter Sunday. I had a battle with my front garden last autumn and wore myself out repelling the hoardes of perennial geranium that looks so wonderful but every year attempts to annexe the crazy paving and encroach on the drive and strangle on our way into the house. It’s my fault. Ground cover, pretty delicate pink flowers, low maintenance. Hah! Only if you don’t mind it taking over the world and smothering everything else. It had to go I was determined that my arum lily and day lilies would be allowed to have their day.

The problem was that I was left with vast areas of bare earth so I thought some forward planning was called for and decided on tulips in “black”, white and pink. I can’t remember how many of each I planted but the pinks were in the lead and as they rounded the first bend the blacks picked up speed. Trailing behind at the moment are the whites. I do hope that I will have the pleasure of seeing them all flowering at once.

To complement the colour scheme I will show you something soon that when I saw a painting didn’t believe were real. I thought the artist had taken artistic licence too far. Can you guess what I planted?