Cultural Review of 2009

As in previous years, I present my highly subjective review of the year.

Film
I managed to see all of the films that were nominated for Best Film, Best Actor or Best Actress category at the Oscars, mainly at the beginning of the year. My favourites were Frost/Nixon, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire (although I still think Trainspotting is a way better film). I also loved Moon, which won an award for best British Independent Film (although the OH hated it) and Rudo y Cursi, possibly the best football film ever.

Music
I may have to retire the music category if my apathy towards new music continues. I did get out and see a couple of bands - Maximo Park and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who were both fantastic and the support band at one of these gigs is my only new discovery of the year, Joe Gideon and the Shark. Rage Against the Machine being the Christmas Number One was probably my musical highlight of the year though.

Theatre
I achieved my aim of seeing at least one production for each month of the year, although amongst that list were some absolute stinkers. The highlights were seeing Sir Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot, the one-man show Stefan Golaszewski Plays and the very funny The Priory, but my favourite was Three Days of Rain with the wonderful James McAvoy.

Television
In the post-Wire era, any comments about television shows need to be preceded with the phrase "Its not as good as The Wire, but...". So with that disclaimer in place, I was impressed by In Treatment (although 5 episodes a week was a huge committment), Curb Your Enthusiasm was excellent and The Daily Show continued to inform and entertain. Embarrassingly, I became addicted to Come Dine with Me, but I'm hoping to ween myself off it. On DVD, we rediscovered NYPD Blue, which isn't as good as The Wire, but...

Books
I read over 100 books this year so its a wonder I found time to do anything else. The best were Tropical Fish: Tales of Entebbe by Doreen Baingana, Giraffe by J M Ledgard and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I also loved The Picture of Contented New Wealth by Tariq Goddard (I'm looking forward to his 5th book in 2010) and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley which left me wondering why it had taken me so long to get around to reading it.

That passed the time

VLADIMIR: That passed the time.
ESTRAGON: It would have passed in any case.
VLADIMIR: Yes, but not so rapidly.

A busy week with three nights out in a row, culminating in seeing “Waiting for Godot” at the theatre.

When I booked the tickets I was under the impression that I loved “Waiting for Godot”. What is actually true is that my 17 year old self loved “Waiting for Godot”, but experience has taught me that my 17 year old self can’t be trusted. My 17 year old self also loved “On the Road”, The Doors and someone called Dave who worked in a shoe shop.

The acting was great and I’m glad I’ve seen Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stuart on stage, but I was tired and wanted to go home. The glasses of wine I’d had at an event prior to the going to the theatre probably didn’t help (“You can’t go to see “Waiting for Godot” drunk, I’d explained to a colleague early in the week, winning the award for possibly the most pretentious thing uttered this week). But I think I enjoyed it more than the Australian I overheard on the way out saying “I would have just hung myself”.

On the way home I was thinking about great pairings who could play the lead roles and suddenly the best possible cast occured to me: Statler and Wardolf from the Muppets. I'm surprised it hasn't already been done, although a quick search did show up that Sesame Street did its own version called "Waiting for Elmo".

Cultural Review of the Year 2008

Not a vintage year for culture in the Sanddancer household, but as I've done it each year before, I thought I'd continue the tradition.


Music
Live music was strictly old bands. Jesus and Mary Chain were consistently brilliant, MC5 playing with Primal Scream was legendary, but truth be told I probably enjoyed the WonderStuff the most. I ignored new music again, with the only new band making an impression was Vampire Weekend, mainly because I spent a pleasant lunchtime in a cafe with a glass of wine and a book and they were being played.


Theatre
I did go to the theatre quite a lot this year, as I was determined to make better use of the free tickets offered at work and I returned to my old amateur theatre. However, I didn't actually pay to see any professional shows this year so it wasn't really that representative of my usual taste. Billy Elliot was probably the best show I saw, although Wicked was a lot of fun too.



Film
The films I enjoyed the most this year were comedies, which again is unusual for me, but perhaps a sign that in gloomy times that is what is needed. I loved Juno and Burn After Reading made me laugh more than anything else I can remember. J K Simmons was in both films, a great underrated actor.


Television
The final series of The Wire wasn't perhaps as good as the previous four series, but was still way better than anything else. The Daily Show with John Stuart became must-watch television, especially during the American election. The SkyPlus Box has changed my life as I can now record daytime detectives.



Books
A new category for 2008 as I read more this year than I have in any year since I finished my degree. I discovered the books of Magnus Mills, a genius of deadpan and inventive alternative worlds, and I read all five of his full novels. I hope in 2009 he will write some more, but I hear he is working as a bus driver. Fup by Jim Dodge and Naive, Super by Erlend Loe were other short, quirky favourites, and I loved Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Light of Day by Graham Swift too.

Totally Devoted

Is there anything that you love so much that you have lost all objectivity.? That you would defend to the death, defying all reason and can hear no other side of an argument to?

I don't mean things like "freedom of speech", "democracy" or anything else that we go to war over. I mean is there something that you are a fan of, but that, if you are honest, it has gone beyond that into obsession, fanatism?

The reason I've been pondering this is that in my little bit of freelance writing that I do, I made the mistake of mentioning a certain pop star and the site has since been bombarded with abusive comments and I wouldn't be surprised a death threat was imminent. I'm not going to mention the pop star's name here as it is obvious that these people receive notifications whenever and wherever he is mentioned on the web. All I said was that he was past his best and then the fanatics appeared quoting figures of record sales (since when has that been a mark of quality?) and alternating their messages of hate for me, with their messages of love for him (is he really going to be reading?).

What inspires such blind devotion?

I've given this some thought and there really isn't anything that I feel that passionately about (perhaps I'm missing out?). There are lot of things I love, but not to that extent. Actually, I even feel uncomfortable using the word "love". I love my family, the OH and my friends - feelings I have for a band, television programme, painting or book, aren't the same.

I really like the television programme "The Wire". There was an article in "Sight and Sound" about it recently that wasn't entirely glowing. I agreed with some of their less positive comments (namely the final season wasn't as good as the past ones), other criticisms I didn't agree with, but I've not written to the magazine to complain.

Musically, the band I've liked most consistently for the longest would be Primal Scream, but I will admit that whilst I like their last album, it wasn't as good as their second album, there is at least one album that I don't like at all and a few years back they went through a phase of being dreadful live. I realise they aren't to everyone's taste and I don't now expect to receive abusive comments from other fans on account of these opinions.

Differences of opinion, varying tastes make the world more interesting. And these fanatics are entitled to their opinions too. But its the lack of intelligent, adult debate, the lack of being able to see that someone might disagree with them that I find so hard to understand.

Variations on a Theme

It often seems to happen that little things in my life with coincide so it feels like a there is a theme. What I mean is that I will be reading a book about something and then quite by accident (or perhaps sub-consciously) I will watch a film or read a newspaper article on a similar subject. It happened a few months ago when I was watched Little Miss Sunshine and read Miss Wyoming, while the Miss World Competition was happening in the real world.

It has just happened again. Last night I went to see a film “The Inheritance”, that turned out to be a Scottish road movie (neatly coinciding with my weekend post). During the film I was contemplating the idea of a road movie in our small country, that you can really drive from one end to the other quite easily in a day. The film got around this by slowing the journey down by a) having a slow driver who wanted to take in the scenery, b) a useful navigator so they kept getting lost and c) a clapped out old camper van that broke down every so often.

Then there was a bit of dialogue in the film about Greggs. Greggs for anyone who doesn’t know (which means you definitely aren’t northern) is a chain of bakers. It started in the north where it is ridiculously popular – the high street of my hometown (which comprised about 40 shops) had 3 branches of it on that one road, plus a few others around the town. Pasties are their big thing. So these two brothers in the film, one who lived in London, the other who’d stayed in Scotland mention Greggs and I realised that Greggs is a huge subject in the north-south divide.

When I first left the north, I was horrified to find there were no Greggs in Norfolk. What was I supposed to eat? Babies in my town are fed Greggs pasties as soon as they are old enough to hold them. There were no Greggs in London when I first moved here either. So this became a valid topic of conversation, both with Southerners and with my family and friends on returning home, where I would have to gorge myself on their Cheese & Onion pasties every visit. Then a few years ago, they expanded and now there are quite a few in London. But here is the thing, they aren’t the same – the pasties are a different shape down here, smaller and of course, more expensive. So I never eat them down here, but now “the difference between Greggs in the north and south” has become a new topic of conversation when I return to the north.

So I concluded (during the film last night) that the issue of Greggs is the crux of the North-South issue.

This morning, I started reading the book “Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North” by Stuart Maconie. It was a present from my friend who has never left the north as she thought it would be appropriate for a “northerner in exile”. Its easy enough reading, amusing but not life-changing. I felt that I could have written something similar myself. Within the prologue, he discusses whether a road trip is possible in England and Greggs the Bakers. Actually so far, I feel as if I have written it already.

So there it is, the common themes in my life at the moment are UK road trips and what a chain of bakers means to regional identity.

Pretty Vacant

We watched "Factory Girl" on DVD last night. I have more than a passing interest in the 1960s, love the Velvet Underground and don't mind a bit of Warhol now and then, so I thought it might be interesting. It wasn't.

How such an interesting time with so many iconic characters could result in such a dull film is quite remarkable. The film was supposed to be the real girl behind the image of Edie Sedgwick, but on the basis of this, there really wasn't much behind the image. Her father abused her as a child and one of her brothers was killed in an accident but nothing more is offered about he as person. She was then, allegedly, exploited by both Warhol and Dylan. I say allegedly because the film caused outrage in both camps, with Warhol's estate insisting she was not cut off by him and had already left his entourage of her own accord and Dylan tried to have the whole project blocked. Then this film comes along and exploits her image in much the same way.

The Dylan bit was actually hilarious - unintentionally I should imagine. To get around the legal problems with Dylan being unhappy at being accused of causing the downfall of someone he claims to have barely known, the filmmakers could not call the obviously-Dylan character, Bob Dylan. Instead, they made this unnamed musican as Dylan-like as possible - he entered with a harmonica around his neck and spoke in the same way that Dylan sings (I'm pretty sure Dylan does not speak in the same way he sings) which had us laughing everytime he came on screen. Lou Reed was apparently also appauled when he read the script although this may have been as much to do with someone from Weezer playing him.

This is the first thing I've seen Sienna Miller in other than gossip columns (or when I saw her in real life) and she is nominated for a BAFTA at tonight's awards. So how was she? She wasn't bad at all. She was ok. But then she was playing a pretty rich girl who wants to be famous and respected, but is best known for who she hangs around with and what clothes she wears. So not much of a stretch there really. And at times it did feel like the purpose of the whole film was just an excuse for her to wear lots of pretty clothes. But on a positive note, the clothes were very very nice.

Cultural Review of the Year 2007

In the time honoured tradition (i.e. I did it last year), here is my Cultural Review of the Year. I realise it is a bit early but doubt anything is going to make a last minute bid for a place.


Film
A pretty good year mainly due to Raindance Festival and film club. Favourites were In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Control and Zodiac. On DVD I loved Lives of Others and Little Miss Sunshine (even though I sobbed my way through the latter)

Music
Better than last year in that I did actually get out to see a few bands and in particular the Connect Festival, but my interest in new music is still waning. Reading The Observer Music Monthly’s Top Albums and Singles of the Year, I knew shamefully few. Anyway, my album of the year would be Malcolm Middleton’s A Brighter Beat or Maximo Park’s Our Earthly Pleasures. Live act of the year would go to the Jesus and Mary Chain, followed by the Polyphonic Spree.

Theatre
Without a doubt the best production I saw this year was Rock and Roll. The best production I’ve ever seen at all in fact.

Television
The final series of the Sopranos was better than the one before but ‘Homicide Life on the Street’ was my favourite show of the year, even though it is very old and we were watching it on DVD so is possibly cheating.


So what were your highlights of 2007?

Funny Bone

Going to see live comedy is not something I do very often. The reasons for this are:

1. I live in fear of audience participation and being bullied by the comedian
2. There is nothing worse than seeing an unfunny comedian die on stage
3. I’d usually rather go the cinema/theatre/concert

It is not because I have no sense of humour. My own mother accused me of this once a few years ago when I wasn’t looking forward to some improv thing, but that is not true – I just don’t share my family’s sense of humour which shamefully seems to amount to Jim Davidson and Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown (shudders at the thought and hopes that neither of these have new DVDs out this year in case I have to endure them at Christmas).

But last night we went to see Frankie Boyle do his stand-up, having enjoyed his contribution to Mock The Week. He did question and tease members of the audience more than I’d expected so that worry hung over me throughout the performance. And I’d heard him use some of the jokes before on the television, but still it was a good show and I laughed a lot.

Unlike some members of the audience. Three people walked out after about 10 minutes. Another couple, who he had bantered with, then sat there stony-faced for the rest of the show. Admittedly, his style can be quite offensive, not in a rude crude way, but he isn’t the most politically correct and I can understand that he wouldn’t be to many people’s taste, but why go? The show was sold out, so I don’t understand how people ended up there who didn’t know what it was going to be like.

My favourite joke involved a tramp, LCD and a unicorn. He ended the show with a sweet story about his daughter asking him what his favourite thing in the whole world was, to which he answered ‘You are, of course’ and she replied ‘For me, it would have to be sausages’.

The rest of his jokes weren’t really suitable for reprinting here in case all of my readers pick up their coats and head for the exits.

Teenage Angst

I subscribe to an arts news & jobs service and received this notice this week.

Part public-service, part anti-vanity project; we are putting together the
most wonderfully, desperately, earnestly poor collection of teenage poetry we
can source and are hoping that you can help us. We will accept work from anyone
over 20 but the work has to be your own, the subject something you can look back
and laugh about now, and the quality along the lines of; '1it's a mystery how
this has escaped burning! The glory will be non-existent as the poems will be
printed anonymously, so this isn't a good option for anyone who is secretly
hoping that someone will think their poetry is really rather good and offer them
a massive publishing deal. Similarly, comedians need not apply, we're only
interested in work which is unintentionally humorous. Unfortunately we can't pay
you; this enterprise is purely for fun and to celebrate a shared pubescent
talent-deficit, however a lovely copy of the anthology can be sent to you for
the meagre cost of home-printing and postage. Please have a good root through
your old journals and select us some thrilling oddities! Poems should be sent to mailto:chickenwire_woman@hotmail.com

Sadly, I seem to have lost my book of teenage scrawlings somewhere along the line, otherwise I'm certain I would have several contributions to make to this.

Harry Potter and the Overblown Emotional Response

I have seen a bit of the first Harry Potter film one Christmas and it didn't seem that bad in an easy-to-watch-slumped-on-the-sofa-with-the-family-at-Christmas kind of way, but I have never read any of the books. It might partly be snobbery - there are so many books out there that I should have read that I don't have time to spare reading kids books. But mainly, its that I have no interest in wizards.

But I don't really care that other adults read them. I'm not one of those people who think that anyone over 14 caught reading a HP book should be sentenced to ten years hard labour and a crash course in Dostoevsky. Its good in this digital age to see that people can still be excited by books. Its just not for me.

I'm not even going to pass judgement on those people who camped out over night to be the first to buy it or the American girl I heard on the news who was on holiday for the weekend in London but said she'd be sitting in her hotel to read the book as it was more important. That's their choice - it wouldn't be mine.

But now we come to my problem with this.

I read yesterday that ChildLine is concerned about their switchboards being jammed with children unable to cope with end of Harry Potter. ChildLine provides an invaluable service for children who are being abused or bullied or feel they can't talk to anyone they know about their feelings, and I'm certain I read recently that the service was under threat due to underfunding. It will be a disgrace if their time and resources are wasted on kids upset over the end of book, if the lines are blocked dealing with calls about this so that a child who is in need of real help can't get through.

I'm sure many children will be genuinely upset if their favourite spell-caster is bumped off at the end (or falls nobly on his own wand), but surely this is something that their parents should be able to console them over? And if they really fear it is going to have this effect on them, why on earth let them read it in the first place? But I suspect in many cases it will be the parents encouraging this over-the-top response (like that woman who claimed her 4 year old had depression because she didn't get in their choice of school who was blatently using her child's feelings to gain attention for herself because really 4 year olds move on pretty quickly when it comes to friends). I think this will be an occassion for great one-upmanship at middleclass dinner parties and school gates, parents competing to see whose little darling was most upset - rather than distracting them with a Playstation and a bag of sweets, which for once does seem like a good option.

Sensory Overload - A Day at the V&A

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum today. I think it might be my favourite museum. There is just so much to see. It also has the John Madejski Garden which is definitely one of my favourite places in the world. Its just so civilised (despite the overpriced and chaotic catering outlet in its corner).

I still haven't managed to see everything in the museum - partly because I keep getting lost and partly because I keep returning to the same favourites. But today I walked around a good proportion of it - taking in the silverware section (dazzling, I was like a magpie in there) and looking over at the sculptures (stunning - my pictures don't do it any justice).

I mainly went with the intention of seeing the Surrealism exhibition - which was interesting enough but I'm not going to dwell on it as I'll probably have nightmares tonight about being unable to reach someone on my lobster phone.

Party Politics

I don’t have an answer to the Irish problem. I don’t particularly have any strong views on the situation one way or another except my rather hippy thoughts of ‘why can’t everyone just get along?’

However, today at work, I’ve had to contact the Sinn Fein!

I know they are a legitimate political party etc etc but the association with the IRA is still there in my mind and it felt rather risqué looking at their website.

I do worry from time to time that I might be on some sort of ‘list’ based on my internet usage, book buying habits (i.e. I’ve bought a couple of books by Mark Steele, the Motorcycle Diaries and various Spanish books off Amazon, which I’m sure now has me marked down as a wannabe revolutionary in South America!). Browsing the website of a controversial political party can’t be helping with this profile if someone out there is tracking my moves.

Anyway, I couldn’t find the information I was looking for on their website so I had to email them! Again with some trepidation. I’ve also emailed their big rivals the DUP as well as the Welsh National Party , Plaid Cymru too today, but so far the Sinn Fein are the only ones who’ve replied to me. They were very helpful so whatever else they may represent, I can’t fault their efficiency!

A twisty mystery tale

Last night we forced ourselves to go to the theatre. We were both tired, stresed and overworked but I thought it would be a good idea to get out and do something rather than just collapsing in front of the television.

We went to see Underneath the Lintel, which sadly has had its run cut by a couple of weeks so it was our only chance to see as well. I'm glad we made the effort. Richard Schiff (Toby from the West Wing!) was excellent. It was a one-man show - the OH was astounded that anyone could stand on stage for 80 minutes talking on their own and remember all their lines!

The play is about a lonely Dutch librarian who gets caught up in a mystery involving an overdue library book and in his quest to hunt down the borrower, he lives his quiet life and travels the world.

The premise of the monologue is that he has hired some community hall type venue to give a talk on his adventure, so he looks out and speaks to the audience. Rather aptly, as he peers out into the auditorium at the beginning he says something like 'Is this all there is? I put up lots of posters but they were covered by other posters. Its very expensive here so I'm only doing this tonight'. He could have been talking about the productions own struggle competing against the big musicals. There was an unruly mob outside of the Lion King and baying crowds waiting for Evita, while this play struggled.

Still at least it meant I got the tickets cheap.

Its only Rock n Roll, but I like it

Last night, we went to see Rock n Roll. We'd been meaning to see it for ages and I don't know why we kept putting it off, because it really did have lots of things I'm interested in; politics, music and Syd Barrett, and it starred the wonderful Dominic West.

It really was excellent. The play covers the lives of people in Cambridge and Prague between 1968 and 1990, and between each scene they played a piece of music from that year, - Dylan, the Stones, Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, even the U2 and Guns n Roses songs didn't ruin it. It reminded me again how much I love Pink Floyd - as unfashionable an opinion as that may be. I've also have a long-stranding fascination with this period in Czech history, stemming from reading alot of Milan Kundera and I loved Prague (except the food - I'm not a fan of meat, potatoes and dumplings), but I'm not sure that was essential to enjoying the play.

If it doesn't win the Olivier Award for Best New Play, I will eat my hat as they say.

What is Britishness?

There has been a lot of talk this week about the move to teach Britishness in schools. And this has got me thinking, what is Britishness? Despite having lived my whole life in this country and needing to go back four generations to find anyone not even English (great-grandmother was Irish), I'm really not sure what it means.

Our defining characteristics as far as I tell are:

• An endless fascination with the weather
• The ability to queue
• The inability to complain effectively
• Irony

Somehow I don't suppose these are the things that they will be teaching.

Tolerance and value of multiculturalism seem to be the qualities they are talking about and whilst these are undoubtedly good things a) it isn't unique to this nation and b) I'm not convinced these are things that can be taught in the classroom if children are surrounded by hatred and intolerance outside it.

Most kids pick up their beliefs from their parents and their peers, not their teachers and I think parents should take more responsibility for this. Likewise the falling levels of literacy cannot just be the fault of teachers and the government, some blame must lie with parents who foster a culture of ignorance is good (see Jade Goody).

We have produced some great works of literature, so perhaps they should concentrate on making sure everyone can read properly, so they can appreciate Shakespeare, Chaucer, Pinter, Shelley, Bryon, the Brontes etc. We do popular music pretty well too, I suppose.

Why did I agree to this...

"Cabaret of days gone by is the order of the day, courtesy of the Marie Lou Revue, Comedian Magician Steve Klinsky and a smattering of surprise burlesque - all wrapped together and delivered by Mr Dusty Limits with wit as sharp as Kate Moss's cheekbones - hell, her razorblade even"

This is what I'm going to tonight. What was I thinking of? I think I was dazzled by the array of cocktails on offer.

Its for a friend's birthday, a girls night out apparently which is not something I usually do. At the same birthday last year, one of her other friends (notice I'm distancing myself from them) was sick into her wine glass. It was truly one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen and it was only about 8.30, although to be fair, her aim was quite good. The warning signs were there though as this girl had got rather aggressive earlier in the evening when I asked if her beads were from Topshop and I thought she was going to hit me over it. She caused panic by thinking she had lost her bag which turned out to be on her chair. Then came the wine glass incident.

I ask again, why I am I going?

Cultural Review of 2006

What an poncey title that is!

Album of the Year
Primal Scream - Riot City Blues (rather predictable but I hardly bought anything that was actually from 2006). My most listened to album this year was Big Star #1 Record/Radio City, but these were recorded in the early 70s.

Film of the Year
Probably Capote (although this might be coloured by the novelty of seeing it on New Years Day in a cinema in New York). Also really liked Good Night and Good Luck.

Theatre Production of the Year
Avenue Q (I saw it twice admittedly I didn't pay to go either time, but it still takes alot for me to see something twice)

Television Programme of the Year
The Wire Season 4 (a bit of a cheat as we watched it on DVD as it hasn't made it over here yet). I also watched a hell of a lot of Law & Order SVU, watched Celebrity Big Brother for the first time and the Apprentice.

High & Low

Last night, not only did I watch the final of 'I'm a Celebrity..' but I also watched the extra show on ITV2 afterwards (quite pleased the young Busted lad won).

Then today, I watched 'Make me a Supermodel: The Winners Story' (dazzled by the handsomeness of the winner, Albert).

In an attempt to salvage some brain cells, I've made myself watch some more high brow stuff tonight. First The Culture Show - not sure Karl Pilkington, Faithless and designer handbags count as highbrow really and I found myself rather distracted by Lauren's outfits and lipgloss.

Next, I watched The Turner Prize Challenge, sort of a reality tv programme about finding an new critic to overcome the problem of connecting with modern art. Not typical Saturday night viewing, but very interesting. I thought one of the 'contestants' was dreadful though - she kept on about wanting art to relax her and be beautiful which seemed rather a naive view even to me who knows a miniscule amount about the subject.

Of course, I do realise that I could turn off the television entirely and read a book or listen to some music, but that might a step too far.

Pretty Pictures

So to balance out the blockbuster film and reality television this week, I took myself off to the National Portrait Gallery at lunchtime to see the Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.

In previous years, this has been sponsored by Schweppes and previously by John Kobal but not this year. A special award was sponsored by Deloitte but there was no headline sponsor. This worries me somewhat, because as much as I was envious of the big galleries’ sponsorship deals when I was running the poverty-stricken children’s gallery, if the big names can’t get the sponsorship, what hope is there for the smaller arts organisations? Obviously, it would be great if the arts could get by without corporate sponsorship as there is still something quite distasteful about this idea, but in reality (at least in the UK and more so in the USA) it is increasingly necessary.

Anyway, end of rant and back to the art…

There were some really great photographs. I especially liked one entitled ‘Cyril’ which was an old man (the photographer’s grandfather) stood in a near empty room, having sold most of his furniture prior to moving into a home. Another one that stood out for me was a ‘The Wedding Car’, a photograph of a wedding band in Indian stood in front of car. Of those that won prizes, my favourite was the fourth prize, a picture of a young girl singing into a microphone with her gran playing keyboard, with Lake Placid in the background – its absurdity appealed to me.

With many of others though I didn’t really see what was so special about them – there were too many baby pictures for my liking, and one with an Ethiopian tribeswoman with a rifle seemed such a cliché. Still better than wandering aimlessly around H&M and Urban Outfitters in my lunchtime.

I feel queasy

Just tried to watch the film 'A Hole in My Heart' , but had to turn it off after 10 minutes because it was making me feel ill. I'm not normally squeamish really, but this was awful. Basically, the plot was about people making an amateur porn film and the young women in it had had her cosmetic surgery on her bits. There were quick shots of her 'bits' and the talk of surgery made me feel quite sick. I had absolutely no idea what the film was about when I rented it - I just picked it because I have liked the director, Lukas Moodysson's other films (Together, Lilya 4Eva, and F***ing).