Jingle jangle

[altariel]

Wow, ages since I've posted. I've been busy tippy-typing away, currently putting final touches to a short story which I've been thoroughly enjoying and may write more about at some point, if it all turns out as planned. We have taken to going into Starbucks each day to work, and the exceptionally lovely folks there have adopted us (and another regular too): we are having coffee tastings there almost every day. It's been really busy in there since Easter, all these people revising for exams... and now the tumbleweed wafts gently between the tables, and only we old-timers remain hunched over our bitter draughts to reminisce about the way things used to be. I imagine it'll start filling up again in September.

Yesterday's coffee tasting didn't happen until after 3pm. I should have known better (a dose of espresso takes about 12 hours to work its wicked way with me), but I couldn't resist. As a result, I was wide awake until 4am this morning (just in time to hear the birds get up). The upside of this was that I had time to polish off Sarah Waters' astonishing, marvellous, breathtaking, unputdownable The Night Watch. Oh, it was all "Little Gidding"! Tongues of fire and doves descending and ends that are beginnings! I was disappointed to see its 3.5 rating on LibraryThing, so I blethered about it briefly there and gave it a socking great 5 stars, which has made no difference to its average. Bah.

Um, what else have I been up to? We have been having a Powell and Pressburger retrospective, seeing some that I haven't seen in the past, including the terrific propaganda film 49th Parallel (for which Pressburger got an Oscar). I have had a biography of Pressburger on the shelf for YEARS, so I started on that late last night as the night watch ended and the sun came up. It's written by his grandson, Kevin Macdonald who directed The Last King of Scotland... and is also an Oscar winner. (I wonder how many other families have multiple Oscar winners?) All life is linked (a line said in B7 by Kathleen Byron, who also played the Mad Nun in P&P's Black Narcissus). There, I'll stop being nerdy now.

Have also started watching mid-80s BBC Civil War drama By the Sword Divided. Even though Gareth Thomas, Janet Lees Price, David Collings and JULIAN GLOVER are regulars [1], I've never seen it before. For some reason, the whole Civil War period is a blank to me. I think hearing about the plague village of Eyam at an impressionable age scared me off the seventeenth-century. Because it is DAMN SCARY. Middle ages scary, but with bigger fucking guns. Anyway, the people who brought us By the Sword Divided also helped bring us Upstairs, Downstairs and the Granada Sherlock Holmeseses, so I feel I am in safe hands as I dip my toe into worlds beyond the ken of the sociologist. All part of general thinking I am doing right now about historicals, my current favourite wisdom on this being from Peter Dickinson, in the introduction to his children's novel, The Dancing Bear (set in Byzantium!, no less): "I have had to invent quite a lot, partly because I am not especially good at finding things out..." Words to live by.

[1] Did anyone else see Julian Glover doing his one-man Beowulf on the Michael Wood thingy on BBC Four? I wonder how much to hire him and a hall and have a feast?

Comments

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

My words to live by would probabluy be: "I have to find out quite a lot, because I am not very good at inventing things." :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[sugoll.livejournal.com]

> Did anyone else see Julian Glover doing his one-man Beowulf on the Michael Wood thingy on BBC Four? I wonder how much to hire him and a hall and have a feast?

You and iainjcoleman? I sense a conspiracy.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

[1] Did anyone else see Julian Glover doing his one-man Beowulf on the Michael Wood thingy on BBC Four? I wonder how much to hire him and a hall and have a feast?

I believe he's going to be at Regenerations in Swansea come September... ;) I'm trying to tempt Matt Hills to go (once I've figured out if I can afford it, that is).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

If all else fails, we could download the audiobook, build a Giant Wicker Glover, and still hire the hall.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I bet he'll put on a good show for the convention.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Julian Glover or Matt Hills? ::g::

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

The image of those English Starbucks tumbleweeds may be with me forever.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Ah! I hadn't known it was out on DVD - thanks. Always wanted to see that series.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for your tippy-typing and I look forward to hearing more. And I am glad that your Starbucks takes care of its regulars.

Only 3.5 stars for The Night Watch? They are all fools and Just Plain Wrong. I am looking forward to reading The Little Stranger too.

The mad nun was a very mad nun indeed. I did not recognise her as being in Blakes 7. And hurrah for 80s drama! I am pretty sure that I did see the original but have absolutely no recollection of it whatsoever.

I wonder how much to hire him and a hall and have a feast?

Will there be meat and quaffing and dramatic recitations? If so, that sounds perfectly splendid!

[kathyh]

Did anyone else see Julian Glover doing his one-man Beowulf on the Michael Wood thingy on BBC Four? I wonder how much to hire him and a hall and have a feast?

I saw him and wondered the same thing :)

the exceptionally lovely folks there have adopted us

I wondered if the niceness of the people in my regular Starbucks was a one off. Glad to hear that's not the case. One of the baristas has my coffee ready for more almost before I've set foot in the shop!

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Eric Portman, who starred in 49th parallel - nobody has heard of him nowadays. He also starred in that most peculiar film by P&P, 'A Canterbury Tale' I think it's called, as a man who attacks women and rubs glue into their hair or something? Very strange.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Julian Glover magnificent? For me, a little Michael Wood goes a mighty long way, but Glover made the programme worth the entry fee all on his own. The BBC need to film his performance properly, without all those irritating travelogue bits interrupting him.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I've heard of Eric Portman! Soames!

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I looked on imdb, and apparently that was Eric Porter. Portman is even more unknown this is him. He was chief British officer in the film of Colditz I think.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Oh the embarrassment. Portman was the SBO in The Colditz Story, and very good he was, too, as were all the cast. My only excuse, poor though it is, is that it's been one of those days. My apologies.

[brendan-moody.livejournal.com]

My mom has Sarah Waters' latest book from the library; I'll have to give it a whirl once I work through my own backlog of library stuff.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I've never seen 49th Parrallel, but I do have the soundtrack (by Vaughan Williams) and love it to death...

[muninnhuginn]

A giant wicker Glover: now that's far scarier than anything the 17th century could throw at us ;-)

(I loved the 17th century when I was 6 or 7: civil war, plague, hanging drawing and quartering....)

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I just finished Night Watch the other day - it was extraordinary! I got nothing else done for several evenings and was fined by the Library for being late back with it! Isn't it fabulous? I love the fact that it goes backwards in time so the origins and causes gradually reveal themselves, and all the complexities of the relationships between the main characters (and the fact that they're not even aware of some of the connections themselves), and the fantastic descriptions of being out at night in the Blitz, and, and, and...

[dissolves into incoherent worship of Sarah Waters]

(Oh, and I loved By the Sword Divided when I was a kid! I was a sucker for Cavaliers, I'm afraid, Wrong but Wromantic and all that - I blame the feathers in the hats and the sexy topboots...)

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Why I write fanfic and not o-fic - just look it up in the Appendices or the Unfinished Tales...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*shocked* You don't have UT memorized?! ;-D

[altariel.livejournal.com]

And Number Two in Free For All.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's ages since I've seen A Canterbury Tale! I saw it at the local arts cinema at a screening for which members of the University of the Third Age could get cut-price tickets: I think I was the only person in the audience under the age of sixty. It was weird and wonderful, I must see it again.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

They are most polite and drift out of the way if you want to get past.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did keep thinking, "Very nice, Michael, but please stop talking now so we can get back to Julian..." It would be wonderful if the BBC recorded a performance (there is an audiobook, at least).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Enjoy! We got a new batch from LoveFilm today.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

Well, only the footnotes to the Tale of Galadriel and Celeborn. Specifically the fragments about Oropher and Thranduil and the Grey-Elves and Wood-elves [ahem not-at-all-Wood-elf-obsessed]

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

A giant wicker Glover: now that's far scarier than anything the 17th century could throw at us ;-)

Who are you going to incinerate inside it as a ritual sacrifice though? Michael Wood? ;-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Old episodes of Doctor Who.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. This is the first of hers I've read, though I've had Affinity on my shelves for ages.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

One of the baristas has my coffee ready for more almost before I've set foot in the shop!

LOL! We now have two espresso mugs kept for us at the counter.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I was weeding ancient and decrepit stock at work yesterday and came across a 1970s pamphlet, from some Christian educational organisation or other, on how to teach about myth to schoolchildren - and there on the cover was Jon Pertwee about to strangle a Sontaran...

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

I was wondering where you'd gone - it's good to have you back. I'm getting too well known in my local Caffe Nero - the staff all seem to know my predilection for an Americano but today the barista served one up without me even asking. Psychic baristas - kinda scary. :-o

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wow, I wonder what that would get on eBay!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hurray for lovely baristas!

Our Starbucks doesn't (yet) have free wifi, which is one reason I'm not online so much. Good for work, less good for LJ.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

How fascinating! Did you get the soundtrack because it was Vaughan Williams? I don't think I've ever got a soundtrack without having been switched on to it by seeing the film first.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's the only one of hers I've read so far: I read someone's thesis on it earlier in the year, and was so blown away by her enthusiasm for her books that I decided it was time to catch up (particularly with a new one coming out). Galloway and Porter now has an excellent remaindered fiction section in the basement, so I got it v. cheap from here.


I was a sucker for Cavaliers, I'm afraid, Wrong but Wromantic and all that - I blame the feathers in the hats and the sexy topboots...

Well, Cromwell wasn't exactly popular in our Irish Catholic household...! I think you would enjoy seeing the show again, they are terribly Wromantic throughout.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Only 3.5 stars for The Night Watch? They are all fools and Just Plain Wrong. I am looking forward to reading The Little Stranger too.

I think people didn't get on with the structure. Which I thought was brilliantly done, so suspenseful, and isn't this how we find out about people all the time? We meet them at a stage in their life, and then slowly their stories are revealed to us.

I'll be brave and wait for The Little Stranger to come out in p/back, although even h/b books are madly cheap at the moment. I have Marilynne Robinson's Home up next.


Will there be meat and quaffing and dramatic recitations? If so, that sounds perfectly splendid!

You betcha!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found a couple of compilations of his soundracks - the 49th Parrallel was one of the longest suites on the CDs, but there was quite a few covered or at least touched on, mostly his war work.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I really recommend the film (although of course you may have emotions and images attached to the music that you don't want to risk dislodging). Delightful icon!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I'll keep an eye out for the film (I actually like TV and film music to write to as well... I find their tendency to emotive clairty helps sometimes. But that's just me)

I will say sometime the music can win me when I don't care for the film... Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to Crimson Tide did to the point where I ignored the action onscreen because I was fixating on the music :) And then there's Shostakovich, but like Vaughan Williams he's a special case :)

And the icon was a gift, I saw that little black and white kitty pic and loved it.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's absolutely worth downloading. I had no idea he'd done this.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Of course, I'd forgotten about that. Or thought it was Eric Porter. Or something.