Category: Other Culture (film, media, fine art, exhibitions, other people’s writing etc.)

We’ve Bin To A Meeting, HHGE AGM, 12 April 2016

Janie and I don’t like public meetings. We really, really don’t. We went to this one, because of our involvement in the Hanger Hill Garden Estate (HHGE) wheelie-bin campaign. So, we felt more or less obliged to attend, despite our near-allergy.

The committee provides a small incentive for people to attend; some half-decent wine to help the time pass. That pleasant gesture only helped us to a limited extent.

The opening act was supposed to be our local MP, Rupa Haq, but her arrival was delayed, so the opening act instead was a local copper explaining crime (or lack thereof) in our neighbourhood. The unfortunate spokesperson wasn’t really “our main copper”, although he is part of the local police team, so he didn’t seem completely on top of HHGE issues.

After the quintessential AGM business of accepting accounts, nominating committee members, etc., eventually Rupa Haq arrived on the stump, making much of the fact that she is a local lass, but mostly being party parochial rather than geographically parochial. I suspect and hope that public speaking is not what Rupa does best.

Eventually the meeting got round to the wheelie-bin debate; arguably the biggest deal on the agenda. Many people wanted, understandably, to have their say and raise questions and issues. But basically, when it came down to the vote on whether people wanted the service road collection idea (the idea I had advocated and helped get the Council to agree to do, if the local people want it), the vast majority of people voted in favour of the idea. Hooray.

It had been a long 135 minutes in the community hall, but basically a successful meeting, from a rubbish point of view.

Janie and I won’t be putting up our hands to attend public meetings again in a hurry. But I shall certainly be putting up my hand for the amazing pasta Janie had prepared for us to eat when we got home; a venison and veal ragù that defies description beyond a big adjective; tremendous.

Janis: Little Girl Blue, 28 March 2016

I wouldn’t normally post about a movie we watched on TV, but we so nearly went to see this one at the cinema last month – only missing out because we returned from Nicaragua just as the movie came off the Curzon documentary screens.

So we resolved to try and catch Janis: Little Girl Blue, “when it finally comes around on the box”, so I was really surprised and pleased to see it listed for the Easter weekend. That’s “coming around” pretty quick in my book.

So, we set the Tivo on Good Friday and gained redemption of the recording on Easter Monday.

In truth, Janie and I both found the movie a bit disappointing. A little bit of Janis Joplin’s music goes a long way for both of us, but we both thought that a documentary about her life and early demise would be very interesting to us. As it turned out, a little bit of Janis Joplin’s back story goes a long way for us too.

In contrast with Amy, which left us feeling far better informed about Amy Winehouse’s  back story and increasingly sympathetic, we both found Janis Joplin’s story surprisingly one-dimensional and even rather irritating.

In short, we’re pleased we’ve seen this movie but are equally pleased that we did so at ease, in the comfort of our own living room on the day and time of our choosing. It wouldn’t have been worth the schlep to Bloomsbury or wherever.

A Mini-Revolution in Hanger Hill To Avert Giant Wheelie-Bin Chaos, 20 March 2016

I was feeling quite cross after Janie and I were fobbed off last week when we got no joy when we phoned the Council and then were refused a reassessment on-line, ahead of the impending wheelie-bin regime here in Ealing.

The problem here is that our conservation guidelines for the Hanger Hill Garden Estate, quite rightly, do not permit bins at the front of the houses. But how terraced houses are supposed to bring giant wheelie bins to the front safely and hygienically is anybody’s guess.

I suspect that simply no-one has thought it through, as we have rear service roads here that should be able to do the job. After those unsatisfactory responses from the council’s regular channels last week, I decided to leaflet all the affected houses and e-mail same to the local big cheeses on Saturday.

As I went off to start my mini-revolution, Janie decided she needed an appropriately belligerent-looking picture of me. As I’m sporting one of my new Nicaraguan bandannas, she describes it as my “San-bin-ista look”.

San-Bin-Ista

Within 24 hours, I had received personal emails from the leader of the Council and from our local MP. The Director of Environmental Services has already been in touch asking for a meeting on site to discuss the sensible possibilities asap. Not bad on a Sunday.

If you want to see the note that kicked all of this off – here’s the very note, this is what I wrote: HHGE Wheelie Bin Chaos Prevention 18 March 2016 Version Sent

Meanwhile, a version of the above piece has gone down well on Facebook, with some friends preferring to describe the look as Wheelie-Bin Laden or perhaps Jeremy Cor-Bin rather than San-bin-o. Feel free to choose your own preferred name for the look. I’m more concerned about getting the right result. With so much progress in such a short time, I am quietly confident that common sense will prevail.

 

Hitchcock/Truffaut, Curzon Bloomsbury, 11 March 2016

We hadn’t been to the movies since our “Christmas break Curzon film fest”, unless you count watching movies on the plane crossing the Atlantic on the way to Nicaragua as “going to the movies.

The decision to put this movie shortage right came within minutes of the Curzon Spring brochure coming through the post. First on our list was Hitchcock/Truffault – see IMDb entry here. 

Good movie, this. Probably aimed more at aficionados and media studies types than at us. (Hard for us to tell who it was meant to be attracting, given the super-sparse late afternoon/early evening audience when we attended.)

Truffaut was a fan of Hitchcock and approached the great man in the early 1960s hoping to interview him. The resulting series of interviews became a seminal book on the art of cinematography. The relationship between the two directors also blossomed into genuine friendship for the remainder of Hitchcock’s life. Truffaut’s life was tragically cut short just a few years after Hitchcock died. Both of them died when I was at Keele, which gave the Film Society good excuses (if such were needed) to have mini festivals of their works.

I must confess that I have always been fascinated by Hitchcock’s films, although his movies are not really “my type of films”. I should also confess that I have never really “got” Truffaut. I know that I was supposed to like Jules et Jim, which on paper is my type of film, but I didn’t like it.

Still, what I did like was this Hitchcock/Truffaut movie about Truffaut’s interviews and resulting examination of Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Some fascinating additional notes/appearances by modern directors such as Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese add somewhat to the “meeja-studdies” feel of the movie, but joking apart also add a great deal of sensible and interesting comment on why Hitchcock’s work and Truffaut’s examination of same were so important to the development of the art of movie making.

If nothing else, if you have never seen the very best shots and clips from Hitchcock’s movies, this is a great way to see most of those in one short sitting. If you have seen them before, you know you’ll relish seeing lots of those clips in one sitting.

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet To Matisse, 26 February 2016

While we were away, Janie got very excited about the prospect of seeing this show about gardens. Janie is a friend of the Royal Academy now, so we can go when we like.  We both thought that the Friday afternoon of our return might be a good bet. Perhaps 16:00ish – between the earlier in the day Friday-offers and the after work Friday evening-istas.

But of course it didn’t work out that way. “I’ll be over around 15:00” became “15:30” and then at 15:30 came the call, “I’ll probably be another hour or so”. It enabled me to get other stuff done. In the end, Janie turned up at the flat around 18:00 so we decided to load up the car and drive in to Mayfair – so we got to the Academy at the prime time for the late crowd, especially as the free guided tour was kicking off.

At the start I saw several stylish works that all resembled the backs of peoples’ heads rather than gardens, but then Janie came up with a cunning plan to whiz through to the end of the show and work backwards-ish, avoiding the heave. This cunning plan pretty much worked, apart from the last room with three of Monet’s giant water lilies.  I thought we’d seen them before in the major Monet exhibition some years ago, but Janie insists these particular three are ones that hadn’t been exhibited before. You need to be an expert/completist to tell one triptych of Monet water lilies from another IMHO.

Reviews in major papers such as the Guardian and Telegraph tell you all you need to know about what you are and aren’t getting in this exhibition. Yes, you are getting lots of Monet. No, you don’t get much Matisse, nor much Klee, Van Gogh etc.  Only one Kandinsky but it is a cracker. Ditto Klimt.

Worth seeing, this exhibition, especially if you like gardens and you like Monet. It is beyond chocolate box but it is mostly easy-going eye candy.

 

Gresham Society AGM and Dinner, National Liberal Club, 4 February 2016

A convivial evening at the National Liberal Club; the Gresham Society AGM and dinner. Michael Mainelli said he was going to miss not only the pre-AGM drinks but even the AGM, so suggested that I leave the office ahead of him.  But by the time I had got there and made his excuses to everyone, he arrived; a good 5-10 minutes before the AGM started.

In the hands of Tim Connell, an AGM is neither painful nor lengthy. So there was time for more chat between the AGM and dinner. Several people were complimentary about my maiden baritone ukulele performance at December’s Gresham Society soiree, which certainly made me feel good at the end of a long day.

I sat next to Elisabeth Mainelli on one side and Noel-Ann Bradshaw from the University of Greenwich on the other side, which made very pleasant company; indeed at Gresham Society functions, pleasant company is more or less guaranteed.

The speaker was Michael Binyon, whose tales of derring-do as foreign correspondent for the times didn’t quite match Boot of The Beast (Scoop is one of my favourite novels) but raised several laughs none-the-less. A memorable tale about Messrs Foot and Healey meeting Brezhnev sticks in my mind, as does the problem of dictation down the phone line which led to the reporting of “dead sea squirrels”. What a by-gone era story that makes, although it occurred within living memory).

No doubt Michael Binyon had to dodge a bullet or two as a correspondent, but he struggled to dodge a “question-bullet” about the Times pay-wall, claiming that the iPad version of the Times is making money now.  As the economists, accountants and operational researchers on our table might put it; that depends on how you count.

I imagine that the merriment continued in the bar long after I sloped away, but at the end of a long day I decided to quit while I was still feeling very much on top.  A most enjoyable evening.

 

 

 

 

Meet the Patels, Curzon Bloomsbury, 2 January 2016

You could be forgiven for assuming that we spend half our lives at the cinema (indeed the Curzon Bloomsbury) if you simply look at the recent posts on this blog.  Four of the last five things we have done being visits to movies at that place.

In reality, we haven’t tended to go to the movies all that much, but over the festive season we usually go at least a couple of times.  Not least, to catch up on the handful of art house films to our taste that come out over the autumn which we don’t get around to seeing until Christmastime.

The difference this year is that the new Curzon Bloomsbury really is specialising in such films and is very convenient for us to visit at holiday time.

This movie, Meet The Patels, is well documented on IMDb (and indeed elsewhere) so really doesn’t need our two-penneth. Suffice it to say that you learn more about ethnic arranged marriages/parental pressures and the like in 90 minutes than most people in the west get to experience in a lifetime. It is a heart-warming and genuinely funny movie.  Just what Janie and I needed towards the end of another traumatic “mother in hospital over the festive season” variety.

Could next year be a hat trick of those for us?  Who knows, but for 90 minutes we could laugh and cry with the young Patel siblings and their parentally-challenged search for love. Highly recommended.

Listen To Me Marlon, Curzon Bloomsbury, 1 January 2016

We’re back at the Curzon Bloomsbury again today, our first cinema visit of the year and I am now a proud member of the Curzon for 2016. I would have saved a bob or two had I joined before we started this season’s film feast.  Never mind.

This documentary is well explained on IMDb, so I won’t repeat the stuff that is so comprehensively reported there.  Suffice it to say that this film is long but fascinating throughout and well worth seeing.

Janie and I both subscribe to the camp that believes Brando to have been a fine actor. We neither of us realised how many lemons he made along with the great performances. We also didn’t realise quite what a mess he made of his life, despite (or perhaps because of) the fame and riches. He did support and work hard for many good causes, however, which is always a redeeming feature in our eyes.

 

 

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Curzon Bloomsbury, 27 December 2015

Straight back to the Curzon Bloomsbury (we’re going to have to join this darned thing) to see Peggy Guggenheim: Art Critic – IMDb will describe it better than I could.

Word seems to have got out that it was easy to navigate London yesterday afternoon – far more traffic this afternoon.  Still, free holiday parking and that Bloomsbury neighbourhood is quiet, quiet, quiet.

Fascinating film, especially as Janie loves those 20th Century art movements and several of her clients move(d) in those circles. So lots to talk about afterwards.

I liked the stuff about Peggy’s eccentricities and her “rich but bonkers” family as much, if not more, than the trail of great artists which she (in her inimitable styles) patronised.

Taxi Tehran, Curzon Bloomsbury, 26 December 2015

What an exceptional, yet strange movie this is.  We both loved it.  You can read all about it on IMDb – you don’t need me for that.

We also really liked the Curzon Bloomsbury this time.  Last time we went to that place, it was still the Renoir and looked a little sad.  Curzon have given it quite a makeover, so Daisy’s slight reluctance turned to joy.

Not that we had a choice of venue for this movie.  This Christmas season, most of the art house movie theatres we like are trying to cash in on Star Wars.  So our habit of catching up on limited release movies over Christmas is somewhat impeded this year.

Still, we hope to see one or two other limited release movies over the season, not least at the Curzon Bloomsbury which now has a lot of, mostly quite small, screening rooms, ideal for those “less-glam movies” we tend to like.