Good Things:17: Second-Hand Bookshops

They struggle to make ends meet nowadays (with amazon.co.uk for competition), but I love strolling through those musty surroundings of undiscovered literary treasures. It's like the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I'm also reminded more and more nowadays of the film Fahrenheit 451, where there are scenes of immersed private libraries - one character treasures her literature so much that she would rather go up in smoke with them, than to live in a world without books.

Goodbye to Natasha

That the loss of Natasha Richardson is a tragedy goes without saying, but I'm also reminded of a time when her husband Liam Neeson had a motorbike accident in 2000, for which Mrs. Neeson kept him off the vehicle from then on, to prevent any fatal repetition. Sadly the fates were unable to allow Liam to do the same for his wife, and I pity him as much as anyone.

In some ways, I think she was a better actress than her mother Vanessa. That's how much of a loss she is to the acting profession.

Sad reflections are also due for the jaded life of Jade Goody.

To both ladies, this link is suitably dedicated: Cabaret title song

A good neighbour: Rosalie Miles

It's funny the things you learn about people you used to know in your own back yard. Just a few doors down Granville Road lived Rosalie, who was, as the Clacton and Frinton Gazette says, a figure locally often seen walking her two dogs through the nearby Recreation Ground, with the replacement electronic voicebox for her lost larynx. I always found her amiable whenever I saw her - although I confess in later years I was often too shy to chat because of her Dalek-like voice!

The Broader perspective

The unprecedented terrorist attack on a cricket team in Pakistan has prompted an equally outspoken response from the ICC Test Match referee, Chris Broad, who returned from the cancelled Test Series fuming at the lack of "top level" security promised by the Pakistanis towards the visiting Sri Lankan team and the match officials. It's a sad and inevitable reflection of the climate in that country at the moment that the terrorists were allowed to just walk away and disappear without the authorities being able to track them down. It may be the last international sporting event in Pakistan for some considerable time.

In the war of words however, the Pakistan Cricket Board have spoken out against Mr. Broad's criticisms: six policemen have been killed in the ongoing battle, and "top level" security can only go so far when a war zone is suddenly involved, as was the case near the Gadaffi Stadium (unfortunately but appropriately named) in Lahore.

I can't help wondering if history still rankles with the PCB; back in 1987, during the controversial England tour of Pakistan (when Mike Gatting came to blows with umpire Shakoor Rana), Chris Broad refused to leave the crease after being "dismissed" by the Pakistani umpire during the First Test that troubled autumn - at the Gadaffi Stadium, Lahore.

Three Tall Tales - and all true

Either the Media know something that the rest of us don't, or there's been a tremendous fashion just lately for Margaret Thatcher tributes or programmes about her legacy (30 years after she first came to power). A few months back there was The Long Road to Finchley with Andrea Riseborough (whom I saw in the English Civil War drama The Devil's Whore recently, reminding me in some ways of Kate Winslet) as the young Margaret Roberts, and now we've had Lindsay Duncan in Margaret, an account of the Caesar-like conspiracies that led to her downfall on 22nd November 1990.

I was fearing a Tory-biased sympathetic portrayal, but this was offset by an extraordinary chalk-white appearance to Lindsay Duncan's face (her husband Denis is played by "Emperor Palpatine" himself, Ian McDiarmid!) and the halls of No. 10 Downing Street as represented here have never looked so cold and foreboding.

In amidst all this, I also saw Ian Amos's production of Three Tall Women at the Headgate Theatre, Edward Albee's autobiographical 1994 account of the troubled relationship with his (adoptive) mother, as played here by the ever reliable Sara Green. The first act follows a relatively conventional path, with the 91-year old character's Alzheimers, but in the second act, the three main actresses (SG, Maggie Brush and Charlotte Cocks) all become various stages of this woman's life - together with a very neat stage trick of having two "Sara Greens" on stage - with the younger version dressed as an elegant, attractive 1930s girl, intermingling with her later self in the 1960s and 1990s respectively.

The three actresses are very deliberately contrasting in style, and all perform well. At various points in the play the youngest one says to the eldest one: "I will never become you."

I wonder if both Margaret Roberts in The Long Walk to Finchley and Lindsay Duncan's Margaret would both be inclined to say that to the real Baroness Thatcher.

Cultural Highlights of the Year

With Oscar Fever all over the place at the moment, here's a different kind of award that I'd like to share with you.

In the BBC's Late Review (aka. Newsnight Review) the regular reviewers at the end of each year would be asked for their cultural highlight of the year - their choices were often varied, eclectic and sometimes unusual: Tom Paulin in 1997 for example selected the speech given by Earl Spencer at the funeral for his sister Princess Diana.

The idea set me thinking of whichever cultural event or landmark was the one (or more) that made the most vivid impression on me each year - some are sport-related, others a little more obscure such as amateur plays I've been involved in, and in the case of the early 1990's working back, a certain amount of scratching my memory banks was required; dangerous, because nostalgia can give one a better impression of the year than the actual immediacy of the time does.

Here they are, roughly from remembered years:

1975: going to school at St. Joseph's RC, Aylesbury
1976: family holiday at Paignton
1976/77: The Nativity Play - I played my namesake patron saint
1978: Star Wars (surprise, surprise...)
1979: Superman The Movie
1980: The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Ipswich Town's UEFA Cup winning season
1982: holiday in Hastings
1983: Essex v. Middlesex: Benson and Hedges Cup Final at Lord's
1984: Tour of Wembley Stadium
1985: The death of Jason Ellis & Bradford City FC fire
1986: "Kids Aid" at St. Benedict's School
1987: The Mission & Return of the Jedi (video)
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989: breaking of the Berlin Wall & Dead Poets Society
1990: England v. India - First Test at Lord's & resignation of Margaret Thatcher
1991: Return to Ypres & 75 Not Out
1992: JFK
1993: Jurassic Park
1994: Star Wars Trilogy Day (Elstree) & Cabaret (Harlequin Productions - Walton-on-Naze)
1995: Nasty Neighbours & Countdown (featuring Teresa Sales)
1996: Brighton Beach Memoirs
1997: Eating Avocado & Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions & Hobson's Choice & The Merchant of Venice
1998: John Williams in concert: Barbican Centre
1999: Teresa Sales in Talking Heads: Cream Cracker Under the Settee
2000: Napoleon
2001: The Herbal Bed
2002: Miss Julie
2003: Russian Ark
2004: The Passion of the Christ
2005: Revenge of the Sith & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Making Waves)
2006: Journey's End & I Have Been Here Before
2007: Alone It Stands & King Lear (Headgate Theatre)

For cultural highlight(s) of 2008, see previous blog.

Now There's Something You Don't See Too Often...2

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(I'm not expecting any freebies from Nationwide for this.)