Reflected once again last night on the curious ability of a well-made 'feel-good' movie to make one, in short, Feel Good.
At the end of a day in which I achieved nothing more than some inconsequential domestic cleaning and tidying, followed by further cleaning and tidying, most of it carried out with extremely bad grace whilst railing silently at absent family members through clenched teeth . . . I was utterly ready for bed shortly after nine.
Was also feeling grumpy at having twisted my knee whilst negotiating a groyne* earlier in the evening.
While waiting for the kettle to boil for two large restorative mugs of tea, I slumped on the sofa, flicked on the telly and there was good old Bridget Jones's Diary. I've seen it dozens of times so I wasn't going to bother watching it again, especially given how out of kilter it was with my extremely foul mood.
Well, OK, just until I down the first mug of tea, then. Hmm, actually, it's worth watching just a tiny bit more, so I'll just pour myself a small glass of wine . . .
By the closing credits I was purring. And I went to bed a happy woman. How incredibly shallow and easily manipulated I am!
* note crucial spelling here - I'm referring to inadvisedly jumping off a wooden structure jutting out of the sea , rather than anything of a more intimate nature ...
. . . and that means (I have this instant decided and declared) that it's officially the Silly Season here on Musings.
Juggling work and children is taking up all my time and energy, so I've just crossed 'Write something mildly interesting for blog' off my lengthy To Do list, and I bring you instead . . .
Good to see Sam Jordison in the Guardian extolling the virtues of J L Carr's utterly wonderful short novel A Month in the Country - an elegaic, moving tale of two damaged survivors of the First World War, uncovering a medieval wall painting in a church in rural Yorkshire, during the long hot summer of 1920. It won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1980 and was shortlisted the same year for the Booker Prize.
This has long be a dearest favourite of mine. As indeed are all Carr's beautifully crafted and lovingly self-published novels. If you've never discovered them, then you must! Carr's voice and style are unique - and once you are hooked you will fall in love for ever.
Carr (1912-94) retired from teaching to write full time and originally established The Quince Tree Press as the publishing house for a series of ‘Pocket Books’: small selections from the great poets, idiosyncratic dictionaries, small histories and volumes of 'Fabled Saying' and illustrations by his favourite wood engravers.
The income from these popular little books allowed him to concentrate on his novels, which were all originally published by conventional publishers, but he bought back the rights and re-published them himself, in attractively designed Quince Tree editions. The Quince Tree Press continues as an independent family-run publishing house, now based in Suffolk.
Along with A Month in the Country, my other favourite J L Carr is the very different, riotously bookish Harpole and Foxberrow General Publishers- a brilliant, quirky novel about a small, chaotic private publishing house. This is real book-lover's book, it's wonderfully 'inky' and explores the whole concept of what books are, where they come from, how they're made and what they're for - and manages to be both comic and profound. If you have Richard Kennedy's A Boy at the Hogarth Press, Anne Fadiman's Ex Librisor Diana Athill's Steton your shelves and loved them, then I advise you to rush out and buy a copy of Harpole and Foxberrow right this very instant! - it's an addition to the TBR pile you won't regret.
Back to A Month in the Country, and I really can't better Sam Jordison's assessment of the novel, so I'll quote it at length here. His article starts with a review of the 1987 film, starring two remarkably fresh-faced actors named Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth. The film is gorgeous, but nevertheless Jordison is absolutely right:
'Somehow the magic that makes JL Carr's book so precious is missing. It's probably unfair to criticise the film for not being able to recreate this spellbinding quality. Not least because I'm unable to define it myself. Whatever it is that separates the book from its big screen incarnation is a question of feeling and atmosphere as much as anything solid. It's easy enough to catalogue A Month In the Country's merits (and I will shortly) but there's an extra elusive something that I can only suggest you read the book to understand.
To encourage this pleasurable undertaking (and brief, I might add, since it clocks in at less than 100-pages), here's a list of a few of those virtues. The story of the narrator's secret love for another man's wife and ongoing struggle to recover from the trauma of being a signaller in the first world war is moving. The rural setting is beguiling with its evocation of a lost world "at the end of the horse age" full of alarmingly plain speaking, but unfailingly generous Yorkshire folk. The writing is lovely too. It's as simple and rich as the countryside it describes ("ditches and roadside deep in grass, poppies, cuckoo pint, trees heavy with leaf, orchards bulging over hedge briars"), but shot through with a mordant wit that ensures the book has an edge to sharpen all that easy bucolic softness. Finally, there's also the added physical appeal of the slim volume itself - at least if you are lucky enough to have the splendid Quince Tree Press edition designed by the author himself.
But even accounting for all these various delights, A Month In The Country is far more than the sum of its parts. It's full of emotive, nostalgic intangibles that the Germans probably have an admirable long word for, I can't define and it would take a hell of a film to recreate. The one showing this weekend falls short, but the ICA has done enough just by programming it: they've sent me back to the book.'Like Sam, I'm just off to dig out the book and re-read it for the umpteenth time . . .
Up to my neck in stuff right now and not feeling very bloggy. But here are a few completely unrelated things which have managed to draw themselves to my attention in spite of everything, and so I thought I might as well share:
Alexander McCall Smith's emailed newsletter just arrived, and with it his thoughts on the tragic premature death of Anthony Minghella. I was going to post a link to the News page of AMcS's website, but it seems not to be working properly at the moment, so for those who can't at present access the site, here are the relevant passages about Minghella and the forthcoming TV premier of his film version of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency:
'Last night I went to the premiere showing in London of the film version of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It was a bitter-sweet occasion: that very morning the director of the film, Anthony Minghella, that good and kind man, died in hospital from complications following an operation. We were all shocked by this sad news: Minghella was the United Kingdom's most distinguished film director and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is now his last film. As I am sure you can imagine, I felt very sad. Anthony had been planning for years to make the film. I had complete confidence in him - indeed, I counted myself most fortunate that it was he who was going to make the film. And now this. And yet we must remind ourselves that the film he has made is a wonderful, joyous hymn of praise to Botswana and to Mma Ramotswe. Everything in it is perfect. The actors and actresses are just right: wait until you see Mma Ramotswe, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi - each one of them is just exactly as he or she should be! And the whole film is permeated by love.
The film is a stand-alone feature film that was designed to set up a subsequent television series. It will be shown on television stations throughout the world, but may also be shown in some theatres. We await news on that. But there is very important news on the television front: HBO in the United States and the BBC in the UK have teamed up to commission a thirteen-part television series which will start to be filmed in mid- to late-2008 and will be shown in the USA, the UK and throughout the world in early 2009. This is wonderful news indeed, and it came in time for Anthony Minghella to enjoy it. . . . Anthony Minghella was a great man who brought happiness and a very humane vision to this world. I feel very happy that he loved Mma Ramotswe, and I know that she would have loved him.'
He also mentions that he's just finishing work on volume five in the Isabel Dalhousie series, and has also completed volume five of the Scotland Street series, to be published in the UK in July under the fabulous title The Unbearable Lightness of Scones. I know I'm not alone in barely being able to wait!
Elsewhere: I'm indebted to Baroque in Hackney(a truly excellent and must-read blog in every way, rather belatedly discovered by me) for the link to this highly therapeutic site .
Some interesting thoughts on 60goingon16 relating to mathematical ineptitude (from which I suffer a particularly pathetic form), following on from the latest programme in this fascinating series on Radio 4 .
I first encountered the inspired bookshelves of Jim Rosenau on Alex's new(ish) Bookshelf site (a spin-off from the more famous Shedworking) and was reminded of them again this week by Susan at the Green Chair Press . This into That is well worth a visit.
Those who might feel a bit squeamish about seeing books used for purposes other than reading should start with Rosenau's account of how the 'near religious relationship to books' in which he was raised ('like all observant families, we were taken once a week to the library for worship') led him to consider using discarded books - outdated reference works and novels nobody wanted to read, left over at the end of library sales - as a raw material for creating something new. Personally, I find his work enormously amusing and visually appealing.
Finally, finally - there has been a lengthy exchange of comments on a previous post, following a complaint that Musings takes far too long to load. If anyone else is having serious problems, please let me know. I can only gauge what happens here on my medium-speed broadband connection but I'd be worried if I discovered that my too-large photos, too-numerous widgets or too-lengthy homepage were sending readers away in angry droves. So - please tell me how it was for you.
(Hmm, for a non-post, this has actually taken up quite a lot of space.)
I don't watch a huge amount of telly. But when I do, I don't approach it in constructive, multi-tasking fashion. I don't knit, or iron, or mend things, or do anything useful at all. I simply slump. On a sofa. Surrounded by cushions, with my feet up on a stool, and a glass of wine to hand.
Sorry. It's not an edifying image. And it explains why, unlike some of my more industrious fellow bloggers, I have no sumptuous photographs of glorious scarves and socks and shawls to post here for your delectation. All I have to show for my telly-time is the odd cork or two and maybe, if I'm lacking in willpower, the wrappings from the fair-trade, dark chocolate cherry brandy liqueurs which the Mersea Co-op was selling off after Christmas at £1 a box. One pound!! A box!
Well, what's a girl to do, I ask you? That's about 5p a choc! And nowhere near their sell-by date yet. And delicious. And plain chocolate is immensely beneficial, medically speaking. Lowers blood-pressure and everything. I don't think it contains any calories, either. Well, not any I care to be informed about. So, anyway, I stockpiled.
And so the scene is set. I sort through the vast array of zappers, wondering which one will actually turn the telly on and select the channel I want to watch. I press a few buttons and, lo! It is ER!
Now I can't stand Casualty and I seriously hate Holby City and I avoid TV Soaps like the very plague. So why do I love ER with such devoted and undying passion?
It is, I assure you, nothing to do with the fact that it once starred George Clooney because - alone amongst women - I do not and never have found Mr Clooney attractive. In fact I find the general adulation of his acting abilities rather mystifying, too.
Goran Višnjić as Dr Kovac is an entirely different matter, however - I freely confess. Sigh. Yet he's not in the current series, and I'm as enthralled as ever. Maybe it's the lightening speed of the action, the quick-fire dialogue, the high-calibre acting, the intense, dense, claustrophobia of so much of it. Maybe it's the refreshing unslushiness (for a US production) of its handling of death, disaster and love. Perhaps its the non-formulaic approach to the construction of each episode. The show rarely looks tired or shows its age.
After ER it was time to enjoy that thrilling crackle as a brand new DVD was relieved of its cellophane. Inspired by the recent heartfelt outpourings from Kitchen-lovers over on Elaine's blog (Kitchen as in Michael Kitchen, that is) I acquired a copy of Stephen Poliakoff's early TV film Caught on a Train, starring the fascinating Mr K and the divine Peggy Ashcroft.
Caught on a Train, which dates back to 1980, when Poliakoff was only 28, did not disappoint. Everything about it is wonderful! The 'train-movie' scenario, with its deliberate echoes of The Lady Vanishes and Murder on the Orient Express, is the perfect setting for what is essentially a dialogue (with some bizarre and occasionally nightmarish interruptions) between Kitchen's character - a young publishing executive en route to a book fair in Linz - and Ashcroft's imperious Frau Messner - a feisty, domineering relic from a bygone age, who is travelling home to Vienna.
Kitchen is excellent - though it's interesting to note that how much more at home he seems with himself now that he's older. There were odd moments in this film when he almost appeared unsure of quite what to do with that extraordinarily expressive mouth, and the powerful gaze of his unusual eyes.
But the film is made - completely dominated and overwhelmed - by Peggy Ashcroft. Perfectly cast as the spoilt, fastidious but now impoverished daughter of a Nazi-sympathising family, she is absolutely stunning and immensely beautiful.
It's a great film, and compared with some of Poliakoff's later work, it's neither too grandiose in its ambition nor over-long in its execution. It must have been quite amazing to have encountered it when it was first aired (which unfortunately I did not).
The recent surfeit of nineteenth-century costume dramas - faithfully rendering or monstrously misconstruing some of the glorious masterpieces of Eng Lit, depending on one’s viewpoint and taste - has been exercising the book-blogging community no end in recent weeks. And rightly so.
Once a scriptwriter ‘adapts’ a well-loved, much-studied ‘classic’ for the screen and casting directors and a production team get going on it, then they must expect some pretty close scrutiny from those of their audience who have actually read the book, rather than simply seen the previous TV version (and nine times out of ten there will have been a previous TV version – often within the last decade, which raises cries of ‘why another so soon?’, as well it might).
The latest offering from the BBC, Larkrise to Candleford, has been baffling us all (see, eg, Elaine’s Random Jottingsand Maureen’s Random Distractionshere and, more generally, here).
Apart from the obvious overlap of actors (and thanks to Elaine for providing a comprehensive list), which turns Cranford/Sense and Sensibility/Lark Rise into a kind of vast, bonnetted, Ven Diagram – can there really be such a small pool of costume-thesps for these casting people to choose from? – the main source of anxiety is the transformation of what is essentially a collection of autobiographical vignettes and vivid accounts of fast-disappearing country ways into a long-running period soap (there's talk of a 'second series' already), with a newly fashioned narrative thread, specially created ‘comedy’ characters and (as Diane so pertinently commented) a complete lack of authentic muck and filth.
It is very wholesome and pretty and easy to watch and will no doubt be essential, cosy, family viewing, here as much as anywhere else, but Lark Rise to Candleford it most certainly ain’t.
Here’s my well-thumbed copy from the 1970s, just to prove that I know what I’m talking about here!
Re mud (and I speak as something of an expert on the subject ) - this is one of the many reasons (but an important one) that the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds version of Persuasion remains one of my all-time favourites. It's gloriously mud-spattered. The characters go for a long walk and the backs of the dresses and the men's coats are filthy. Which rings entirely true. When you consider the effort involved in laundering in those days, it’s very likely that the general condition of the average sprigged muslin dress, let alone cloaks and coats, was pretty grubby most of the time.
And while on the subject of Jane Austen: I’d always considered myself something of a Janeite.
35 years [eek - so many!] years of reading her novels; enthusiastic study of them at school and university; subsequent immersion in biographies and letters; plus annual re-reading (or dipping-into, at the very least) of one or another of her works – oh, and an awful lot of viewing hours of television adaptations, of course . . . Surely I could claim to be a bit of a bona fide fan?
Well, so I thought until I dipped my toe into Internet Janeism and – woah! – my interest is mild to the point of borderline non-existent when compared with the passion for the subject displayed on a zillion or so blogs and websites devoted to the Blessed Jane. A huge number are based in the US. Some are indescribably awful (to my English eyes, anyway – sorry!), but here’s a rather lovely one, Jane Austen Today , which gives a flavour of the best (and links to many, many more).
(Warning: Don’t even think of going there if you haven’t quite a lot of time on your hands, though – it’s dangerously easy to disappear into CyberJane-land and not re-emerge for hours and hours. If you dare to visit and you come back in one piece – do please recount your adventures in a comment here!)
Well, as previously intimated, my Christmas ended up a bit of a rub-out all round.
On Sunday, after a final (surprisingly leisurely) stroll round Sainsbury’s, spent the evening in the company of friends - and friends and neighbours of friends – which was all very jolly and congenial. My attempts to cauterise the onrush of attacking viruses by the judicious application of alcohol were unsuccessful from a medical perspective, but released my usually (very) well hidden reserves of wit, charm and erudition right up to the Unfortunate Incident with the Wine and the Natural Fibre Floorcovering some five hours later. After which (and following some strenuous blotting) a hasty retreat was effected.
(I have today been emailed with reassuring photographic evidence that the floorcovering – and thus, more crucially, the highly valued friendship – seems to have survived more or less intact, thanks largely to my serendipitous preference, that evening, for pink over red wine.)
Christmas Eve I don’t really remember, apart from a lot of belated wrestling with paper and sellotape. On Christmas Day – having 'achieved' lunch (very slowly, while everyone else was off out singing carols) – I retreated to the sofa, upon which I reclined, as elegantly as possible under the circumstances, for most of the rest of the ‘festivities’. Thankfully, I had received a copy of Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader , which was just the thing to read between snoozes. I had never been in any doubt that I would enjoy this delightful little flight of fancy and I wasn’t disappointed. It was every bit as amusing, droll and gently satirical as I’d anticipated.
I have read some whingeing comments by some of the more serious book-bloggers complaining that it is some kind of cynical rip-off, an overpriced little outing on the bandwaggon by its author and publishers alike. I beg to disagree quite noisily. Plenty of Alan Bennett’s previous shorter works – including Father! Father! Burning Bright and The Clothes They Stood Up In have been published as modestly priced paperbacks and even given away free with newspapers, I seem to remember. From time to time, however, Christmas being pre-eminently one of those times, there’s nothing more cosy and satisfying than holding in one hand a nicely produced, small hardback book which one can read and enjoy without very much effort while clutching a life-enhancing/sustaining mug of tea or a glass of mulled wine (for example), in the other hand. The Twelve Days of Christmas [correspondence]was one such. The Uncommon Reader is another.
To complain about its price per page of text, or to compare it somehow with the cost or importance of a weighty, award-winning biography, for example, is to take it entirely out of context. The publishers got it just right, in my view, so enjoy it for what it is and stop moaning, is my seasonal message!
Having polished that one off and had another snooze or two, I started on Margery Allingham’s Mystery Mile . I hadn’t read any Allingham before, but this one had been on my list because it is set on a small island which purports to be in Suffolk but which was, in fact, based on Mersea, where Allingham had holidayed as a child. The island has shrunk to a fraction of its true size and population (even in the 1930s), and the Strood becomes the ‘Stroud’, but there’s a pub called the Dog and Pheasant and the vivid descriptions of the marshes, the mud and the estuarine tides will be easily recognisable to anyone who knows Mersea.
It was a good one to read while under the weather, though I confess that some of the urge to turn pages very quickly owed more to my frustration with the endless, camp, bletherings of the aptly named hero, Albert Campion, than it did to the compelling interest of the plot. It was rather like watching a pantomime, I thought – with too much magic and disappearances in puffs of smoke (or Mersea mist, indeed) – for my liking. Now you see him, now you don’t, but look – he’s right behind you! It seemed very much a 1930s period piece and I don’t feel terribly inclined to pursue the Campion series further. There’s an interesting page about the Mersea connection on the Margery Allingham Society website, though, and I’m quite interested in laying my hands on a copy of her first published novel, Blackkerchief Dick (1923), which is set entirely on Mersea, but it seems never to have been reprinted and the original editions are rare and command prices unfeasible for the merely curious.
The remainder of my recumbent day was spent enjoying the fabulous Royal Ballet production Prokofiev’s/Kenneth Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet, with Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo. Just sublime. This has long been my favourite ballet of all time, and Prokofiev’s score some of my favourite music full stop (in fact, strike all other ballets from the repertoire and just leave this one – it has everything one could possibly need). The music is replaying in my head even now. There are some clips of Rojo and Acosta rehearsing and talking about the production here , here and here.
The very silly but good fun (if you like that kind of thing) Dr Who Christmas Special was followed by the girls going off to watch yet more of the endless Strictly Come Dancing spin-offs (I’m all Strictlied-out and won’t be able to bear another dose for at least six months), while I dozed with the menfolk in front of a DVD of The Battle of Britain, which I hadn’t watched for many years.
Always intriguing to observe that, although authenticity was (to my untrained eye, at least) achieved in so many ways, the women’s makeup and hairstyles were anachronistically 1960s. Was this a refusal on the part of actresses (Susannah York in particular) to contemplate assuming the appearance of their mothers’ generation? Did nobody notice that short, feathered hair and pale lipstick just didn’t achieve the wartime ‘look’? Or was it simply considered an unimportant detail for some reason? This is by no means a unique phenomenon in 60s films, but it jars even more distressingly against the WRAF uniforms than it does in other 60s 'costume dramas'. Perhaps it is only with hindsight that we can see these things clearly.
On the home front, not only is the Christmas cake still uncut . . . it hasn't even been decorated! It's merely a huge white blob of naked icing. I'm just about to do something spontaneous and creative with some gold paper and a red candle. But whether anyone will actually attack it with a sharp knife today is anyone's guess - we're all still stuffed after a late lunch of spaghetti carbonara plus stir-fried sprouts with Black Farmer hickory smoked bacon.
Haven’t really got terribly involved in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing - the fact that everyone else in the family is glued actually means that it’s quite a good opportunity to get on with other things while the coast is clear. But, things have been seriously hotting up, so I duly sat down with a scone and jam and a large mug of tea and watched most of this evening’s semi-final. Wasn’t too bothered which of the guys got through – I thought they were both equally hunky and desirable (oh, and quite good at dancing, of course). Absolutely needed the gorgeous Alesha to be in the final, so hooray that she came out tops, and I jolly well hope she wins. (I'm still a bit peeved about Denise and Emma not winning, to be honest.)
But more than all that, there were Victor da Silva and Hanna Karttunen performing their latest ‘showdance’. Who could forget last year’s appearance of this amazing couple in all its leopardsuited thrillingness? More like a trapeze act or a magic show than a dance: ‘how did they do that?’ one gasped, blinking and rubbing one’s eyes.
Well, there they were, back again and . . . O.M.G! This isn’t ‘dance’ – it’s something else altogether and I’m not sure it should be allowed on air while young persons are eating their tea! Mesmerising stuff. The duo have a disappointingly bad website, with bad photos and an even worse video. There are some fuzzy clandestinely recorded videos on YouTube, but I just want to see that ‘dance’ again. To catch those ‘sleight of body’ bits between Hanna lying on the floor and then suddenly standing in mid-air – her (impossibly long) legs having performed some unfeasible 180 degree miracle while her partner twirled her effortlessly on one hand, with presumably some behind-the-scenes assistance from one or more of his interestingly tattooed biceps. Is this art or high-kitch circus? I really don’t know. But I could certainly watch it with my mouth unbecomingly open for a lot longer than the four minutes we were allowed tonight.
And so to Cranford. Ahhh, Cranford. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Cranford is a triumph – a total, 100% triumph – of BBC costume drama. Hardly any point listing the consummate performances, the fabulously authentic costumes and interiors, the telling reminders of the ever-present threat of death, the brilliant adaptation of three novels into a single narrative . . . one could go on and on and on.
I – yes, stiff-upper-lipped moi – was in floods of sniffing and blubbing from start to finish. That Alex Etel as young Harry Gregson . . . heartbreaking. The gorgeous, lovely, good Mr Carter, played by Philip Glenister – how I wept.
And of course, Judi Dench – surely our most priceless National Treasure (well, female National Treasure – Alan Bennett just pipping Humph to the post as male NT, obviously) – just perfectly perfect as Miss Matty, with her scruples about having to go into ‘trade’ but at least tea was not a 'sticky' commodity and would not ‘leave a residue’ – more sobbing from me. Gosh, I’m exhausted and dehydrated from all this lacrymosity.
And how many millions of miles ahead of the ‘costume drama’ on which I wasted my time last night when I decided it would be a good idea to catch up with the DVD of Becoming Jane . What a load of ineffectual nonsense! A romanticised ‘account’ of Jane Austen’s life pre-Pride and Prejudice, in theory it would seem to tick all the boxes – high-budget, big production values, top name actors, great locations, bla bla bla. But . . . several hundred yawns and a lot of anachronism-spotting later – I officially declared it a Load of Old Tosh.
Anne Hathaway is lovely, gorgeous and absolutely fabulous in The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries II and Ella Enchanted (and as a mother of two girls, believe me, I have seen these in the cinema and then ad infinitum on DVD). In such films she is perfect and utterly adorable. As Jane Austen, she really couldn’t have been more disastrously cast. She tries very, very hard – to an ‘aw, bless her’ degree. But . . . her winsome eye-rolling and shoulder-shrugging and stomping off with exaggerated arm-swinging . . . is not only, like, sooooooNOT early nineteenth century, it’s just, like, soooooo American. As are her looks.
And, please, if we're going to talk about National Treasures, you don’t really get more National Treasurey than Jane Austen. The Ultimate Englishwoman. Yes, I know Meryl Streep’s 'done English', and Gwyneth Paltrow’s 'done English' and let’s not forget Renee Zellweger, either. But they really are exceptions and Anne Hathaway is just not in their league when it comes to ‘doing English’ convincingly. She could probably do a very passable 2007 English, but she can’t do Costume Drama English. Sorry.
And if the poor viewer is constantly on the edge of her seat with anxiety that some American inflexion or other is going to creep into the heroine’s every utterance (as it often did, though she tried so hard, aw, bless her), then ‘convincing acting’ it is not. And if the viewer can’t engage with the heroine, then what hope is there? One is not drawn in, one is pushed out and becomes a critical observer, who starts noticing other niggling things – inauthentic costumes, hairstyles, anachronistic expressions and behaviour. And before the viewer knows it, she is picking the whole thing to tiny bits and getting in a big rage and counting the minutes until the whole wretched, artificial saga is ended. Frankly, the DVD ‘extras’ were more interesting than the film itself. It is such a shame that so many misguided mistakes were made in this production– which could have been enjoyable even while being recognised as the confection that, ultimately, it was. There were great performances from Julie Walters and Maggie Smith, among others, but they were let down by a very silly script, as much as anything.
Looking forward to seeing what the BBC comes up with in this week's adaptation of Oliver Twist - should be perfect pre-Christmas viewing. It's got Timothy Spall in it. So that bodes well.
No easy segue into my final topic for this evening. The children discovered a hedgehog in the garden at lunchtime. Moving, very slowly, in broad daylight, across the lawn. It must surely have been disturbed in a neighbouring garden and emerged from its hibernation nest. As quickly as we could, we filled a cardboard box with hay, carefully lifted the hedgehog into it and then buried the box, on its side, underneath a big pile of hedge trimmings etc. Will it safely go back to sleep again and survive the winter? Everyone's been instructed not, on any account, to disturb it. I suppose we will only know the outcome in the spring. I shall have to Google hedgehogs to find out more, I suppose. Meanwhile, all comments/suggestions welcome, but I imagine I'm right in believing that the prognostications are not encouraging?
But more than all that, there were Victor da Silva and Hanna Karttunen performing their latest ‘showdance’. Who could forget last year’s appearance of this amazing couple in all its leopardsuited thrillingness? More like a trapeze act or a magic show than a dance: ‘how did they do that?’ one gasped, blinking and rubbing one’s eyes.
Well, there they were, back again and . . . O.M.G! This isn’t ‘dance’ – it’s something else altogether and I’m not sure it should be allowed on air while young persons are eating their tea! Mesmerising stuff. The duo have a 
And so to 
