Britblog September 1, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentIf you’ve a little time on your hands, click on over to Redemption Blues, who is hosting the Britblog roundup this week. And particularly, take a look at her comments on right-wing women’s attitudes to abortion, a propos the appointment of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Quoting Andrea Dworkin, she talks about right-wing women seeing abortion (and presumably contraception) as robbing them of power in dealing with men. If that’s where Palin is coming from, and her view of male-female relationships is that bleak, its a sorry state of affairs.
It looks like McCain chose Palin to appeal to Democrats who wanted Clinton as their candidate. Its a very long way indeed from Clinton to Palin - I wonder if many would be such sore losers?
Somers Town, the Movie August 26, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden, Reviews , add a commentSomers Town is not grey. It has trees, and parks and with the warm honey and red brick of its low rise apartment blocks is as attractive as any densely built inner city area. The worst of the experimental social housing architecture of the sixties and seventies never made it here, and most estates are small. Some of us even tend plants in front of our buildings. Its streets are clean, and safer than surrounding wards. Filming in black and white makes it all look grimmer than it really is, and I suppose that was the idea.
Shane Meadows’ Eurostar-sponsored sequel to the award-winning ‘This is England’ is set a few years after the first film when Thomas Turgoose leaves for London, and ends up at St Pancras. Sleeping rough, he is attacked by some yobs who steal his bag and his money. A local woman buys him breakfast and gives him £10, before he hooks up with a young Polish lad, Marieck, and they set about hanging out in Somers Town.
The sponsorship is only obvious if you know it’s there. Marieck’s father is working on St Pancras, and at one point spouts a paean to the wonders of getting to Paris in two hours. The final scenes, in Paris (ie. after a trip on Eurostar), are shot in grainy colour.
Familiar landmarks abound. Marieck’s Dad drinks at the Cock on Charlton St, the boys fall in love with a French waitress at the Golden Tulip, and she lives in Levita House. They steal Tommo some clothes from the Chalton St laundrette and meet a bloke who, somewhat unlikely, rents deck chairs in Purchese St Open Space. Marieck lives in what seems to be a combination of Oakshott Court and a couple of other buildings.
This is an endearing if rather slight film. Tommo reluctantly wears checkered trousers and a dress, as the best clothes in the stolen laundry bag. Marieck’s father is struggling to give his son a better life, while the son spends his days taking photos and not having much to do. The two boys become good friends, but nothing really goes anywhere, and not much happens.
Other reviewers have commented that as the film is only seventy minutes it is a bit of a ripoff for cinema-goers. The Renoir in the Brunswick Centre have rectified this by showing it with a short, ‘ A Dog Altogether’, also by Shane Meadows. If you live here, or are a Shane Meadows fan, it’s worth seeing. Otherwise, perhaps one for a wet Sunday DVD.
Just Because It’s Catherine Tate, It Must Be Funny?? August 25, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentA brash slapper, Catherine Tate in Under the Blue Sky, has come back to his place and they’re getting down to it. He is a little premature and, given the amount of alcohol involved, the evening is over. She regales him with tales of former lovers and his own general inadequacy. Their relationship was ever thus, his unhealthy obsession fed by her stringing him along with contempt. He has compromising photos of her, threatens her and forces himself on her. The dialogue is witty, chuckle-provoking at first, but this is not a scene to provoke the hilarity found by some members of the audience. It’s uncomfortable, a slice of an unpleasant side of life. Although there are shades of her trademark chavs, the comedy here is very black indeed.
This is the second of the three vignettes of love between teachers which make up Under the Blue Sky. Life in the staffroom is fraught with unrequited lusts and misunderstandings. In the first Helen (Lisa Dillon) is in love with commitment-phobe Nick (Chris O’Dowd). He ‘values their friendship’, she can’t let him go. She’s the sort of woman who, if you know her, you just have to sit there waiting for the train crash and pick up the pieces.
The third is the only one which sorts itself out well. Francesca Annis does a poignant turn as Anna, the teacher in her fifties in love with her thirty-something friend. Angst at the age gap is overcome, and the audience gets to leave on a happy ending.
I went for the names - Catherine Tate and Francesca Annis - and they justify the hype. Tate’s very physical acting as she morphs from desire to disgust to fear seems over the top on the small screen, but from 50 metres in the stalls, is gripping.
Under the Blue Sky is at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 20 September. For 90 minutes with no interval, its probably not worth the silly West End ticket prices (£47.50 for a good seat - ouch) but get 50% standby tickets from the TKTS booth in Leicester Square.
Where did the corn go? August 20, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , 2 commentsIt’s August. There should be corn on the cob. Proper corn on the cob, with leaves.
Waitrose only has cobs on little plastic trays wrapped up in plastic bags.
It’s worse than Sainsbury’s wine by the glass. We’re doomed, doomed.
A life as Everyman - Michael Frayn’s Afterlife August 17, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : London, Reviews , add a commentWhen Michael Frayn’s new play, Afterlife, opened in June, it was to mixed reviews. Using the medieval miracle play Everyman to tell the life of Max Reinhardt, the German Jew who established the Salzburg festival in the 1920s with the play as a centrepiece, is either appreciated or not.
Everyman, or Reinhardt (played by John Allam), is summoned by Death to the presence of God to be judged. He calls upon his friends to join him on the journey, but they decline. His worldly goods are no use to him. The Poor Neighbour, spurned by him early in the play, changes into Muller, the Nazi who takes over his house after Austria is occupied and Reinhardt flees to America.
The many women in Reinhart’slife are represented by two, who are Everyman’s redemption. His mistress and later second wife, Helene Thimig, played by Abigail Cruttenden is Faith, and his Deeds are represented by his secretary, Gusti Adler (Serina Griffiths).
Frayn weaves the stories of Reinhardt and Everyman together to present an impression of the character of the man more than biographical detail. He appears to have lived as if on a stage, better with an audience than making conversation in a small group, shown through the rhyming couplets and repetition of parts of the script, breaking of into ordinary prose when events are more mundane. As he rehearses his household staff for a banquet, you see the Reinhardt who was notorious for directing every last detail of a play, down to the actors gestures and tone.
The sets are spectacularly simple. Most of the play is set either on the steps of Salzburg Cathedral, where Everyman is performed, or in Leopoldskron, the baroque palace which Reinhardt and Thimig restored and which he believed would be his most lasting legacy. Each is represented by huge, white frontages which move back and forward as the scene changes and imply grandeur.
In the end, Reinhardt’s real legacy is the annual production of Everyman, which continues this summer in Salzburg, and so this play grasps the significance of the man. It is clever and polished, like Reinhardt himself.
It is on at the National Theatre until 30 August, and well worth seeing.
Apartment security August 3, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentWalk up York Way past Kings Cross, the new Guardian offices and Arts Centre of Kings Place, until you’re in the heart of the developments yet to appear. Turn right, through a small park which might be a bit dodgy at night, past new flats too expensive to have attracted many inhabitants, to the sixties-style council estate behind. So far, so inner London. It scrapes through the high heels after an evening in the pub test*.
Go through three massive, intercom controlled steel doors to get to the flat. CCTV everywhere. There must be a reason. This doesn’t feel good.
It’s a nice enough flat, needing some work but a good size. The vendor refuses to leave the fluffy wee kitten, but will sell the appliances. The garden is through a glass door in the kitchen, with a flimsy wooden fence and a gate even I could get over, though perhaps not in high heels after a night in the pub. A fit burglar would take minutes to break in.
If I had come in the back way, I’d have liked the place. Now I’m just wondering who would design a security system with such an obvious flaw.
*I refuse to live anywhere I don’t feel safe walking home in high heeled shoes, carrying my laptop bag and a few drinks to the wind. Fortunately, I’m not easily scared.
London Bones July 29, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden, Reviews , 1 comment so farIn a rotunda on a traffic island, the Museum of London stores the bones of 17,000 former denizens, recovered from burial sites dating from Roman times through to the 19th century. Their names are rarely remembered and even the date of their death is often unsure. Some come from the outskirts, Merton Priory and Chelsea Old Church, but most are from the older parts of London itself, the City, Spitalfields, Holburn.
Twenty six of these skeletons can be seen until 26 September at the Wellcom Collection’s Skeletons exhibition, which had a private viewing last night. Most of the people on display were the victims of awful diseases with symptoms showing in their bones. Syphillis, tuberculosis, osteoarthritis, healed and unhealed fractures, all making me very grateful to live in an age with antibiotics and anesthetics.
A few showed signs of bathrocephaly, where the skull has a step at the back. This can occur for many reasons, including diseases and being born in a breech position, and affected 1/10 of the population well into the nineteenth century but is now very rare. The cause of the change wasn’t clear in the exhibition, though I wonder if it reflects a change in the way breech babies are delivered?
It was a fascinatingly macabre way to spend the evening, arousing curiosity but at the same time disturbing. Looking closely at the skeltons, its easy to get some idea of their lives, and to wonder about them. Those broken ribs had healed, but how did they happen? How did deformities of leg-bones affect the person’s mobility? The private viewing was for members of the Wellcome Collection’s club, many of whom are medics, so there were plenty of people with well-informed ideas.
I’m always a little ambivalent about exhibitions of dead bodies, whether its that sad naturally mummified body in the British Museum, or the proud Pharaohs reduced to spectacle in Cairo, and it is important to remember that these were real people, who lived around here. This is a very respectful presentation and, in an odd sort of way, renders them more human. I wouldn’t mind if that was me, in a few hundred years time.
The exhibition is on until 26 September, free, and well worth seeing. Oh, and if you’re a bloke who doesn’t fancy a prostate check, go and have a look at the skeleton who died of prostate cancer, and then pluck up the courage for a doctors visit.
The Dark Knight July 27, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentThere’s something deeply appealing about the dark edginess of Batman, and particularly Gotham, the city of which the Joker once said “Decent people shouldn’t live here. They’d be happier somewhere else”. It’s rarely daylight in Gotham, and Batman is the dark hero it deserves. Cameron Bale’s arrest last week seems almost in character.
The late, and much lamented, Heath Ledger stands out with a superb turn as an insane, devious Joker who’s only objective is mayhem. Its hard to believe this got a 12A rating, given the violent menace Ledger creates as he explains how he got his smile-shaped scars while holding a knife to a victim’s face. The Dark Knight seems far more in need of censorship than the sensitively portrayed tragedy of Brokeback Mountain, rated 15, given current fears about knife crime.
Ledger is certainly the highlight of the film, which is otherwise exciting, aesthetically pleasing in a black, mechanistic sort of way and in serious need of being a good 30 minutes shorter.
Cameron Bale’s Batman is overshadowed by the Joker and, to a lesser extent, Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, the idealistic district attorney who competes with Batman for the heart of Maggie Glynhaal’s Rachel Dawes and ends up driven over the edge by her death.
And where on earth is Michael Caine’s accent supposed to be from? It sounds like Bruce Wayne’s faithful English butler, Alfred, is an American trying to sound Cockney. Very odd indeed.
Go for Heath Ledger and the cityscape and forgive Michael Caine.
Sainsbury’s Wine by the Glass July 26, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , 1 comment so farIt’s amazing what you discover when trying to find the right brand of catfood. Out of my small friend’s favourite Gourmet at 9pm, I ventured to the big Sainsbury’s on Camden Rd. It’s not my usual haunt, and in fact I haven’t been in such a big supermarket for years.
I’m deeply disappointed that my phonecamera was out of battery, because this really needs a picture. Two plastic glasses, filled with a red liquid purported to be wine, sealed with tin-foil and wrapped in cardboard. Ideal for a picnic or if you’re meeting a friend. I certainly hope I don’t have any friends like that.
I like screw tops, can see the point in wine on tap in pubs, but this is a clear sign that the collapse of civilisation is upon us. Revolting.
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely July 21, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentIt says a lot about economics, that there have to be studies to show that people do not always, perhaps even often, behave in an economically rational manner. It also says a lot about the lack of realism in modern politics that the ideas put forward in this book are considered revolutionary.
Through a series of studies, mostly on MIT or Harvard undergraduates, no doubt an excellent representative sample for the general public, the author looks at how people make decisions and conduct themselves in economic situation. It is useful that he establishes clear evidence for some pretty obvious things - that its one thing to say you’ll use condoms in a survey, quite another in the heat of the moment, that if the doctor gives an expensive medicine, we’re more inclined to get better than if he just gives some advice (yes, the placebo effect works - otherwise, how would homeopathy ever have any credibility), that if you expect to do well in a test, you may do better than if you expect to fail.
Although the conclusions reached may not be very surprising, it may be revolutionary to bring them to the attention of policymakers and politicians, with evidence to back them up and separate the common sense from the common nonsense.
It does point to simple but potentially effective policy interventions. For instance, if employees had to opt out of company pension schemes rather than opt in, its likely that more would stay in them. As someone who managed to miss out on three years of a fixed salary pension scheme once, through a combination of laziness, mistrust of pension plans and always thinking I’d leave the job soon, I’d have gained from that one.
Given that advertisers and marketers have known a lot of this for a long time, it is also useful for spotting sales techniques and not automatically falling into their traps. For instance, when faced with two different options, and a third option similar to, but less good than, one of them, people are inclined to go for the more attractive of the two which are similar, neglecting the one which does not have an obvious comparator. Knowing that, one can consciously ignore the less attractive, and concentrate on the two different options.
A lot of what we do is not particularly rational. Understanding that gives us a chance to think our way through the mass of ingrained habits and skillful marketing which contribute so much to our choices and actually make some good decisions.
