The Paralympic Torch Relay passes through Weston Turville

It was quite an event for our village, and there was a big turn out to watch the Paralympic Torch Relay come past last night. It was strange to see so many people lining Weston Turville Main Street so late at night. We all took up our positions around 10.15pm just before the torch was due to arrive. But it was over an hour late, so it was not until 11.30pm that the relay came through. The torch stopped right in front of us to change torchbearers.

It had turned quite chilly while we were waiting, so it was good to get home for a warm drink. And it was only took a few minutes to walk back. A memorable occasion.

Earlier in the evening, Alison went to see the Torch Lighting Ceremony at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, having been allocated a ticket in the public ballot. Apparently, after a slow start, it was a very enjoyable event.

The Hollow Crown

The BBC 2 Series of The Hollow Crown has set a new benchmark for the televising of Shakespeare. I had never previously thought that Shakespeare was successful on TV until, that is, David Tennent's Hamlet showed the way. Sam Mendes' production company Neal Street Productions have not only secured the best directing and acting talent, but have invested heavily in the sets, locations, costume, music, sound, lighting and all the other aspects of film making. So it all seems highly cinematic.The dialogue is not only beautifully spoken, it is crystal clear, something not always there on stage. All four plays have been adapted, but so are many in the theatre these days, Timon of Athens the latest.

The directors have all made the most of their plays. Rupert Goold has been a theatre director for fifteen years and an associate director at the RSC for the last two. Richard II is his first film and he has made a fabulous job of what is a pretty stodgy but very poetic play. Ben Wishaw is brilliantly unsettling as the king, well he does have all the best lines "the worst is death and death will have his day" ......... "let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs .....". The bloodless revolution is handled superbly, and Rory Kinnear is almost apologetic as he seizes the crown. Add in David Suchet, Patrick Stewart and David Morrisey, and there is so much to admire.

Both parts of Henry IV are directed by Richard Eyre. His filming of the quiet court in dull greys compared with the noise and colour of Falstaff's tavern works incredibly well. Tom Hiddlestone was a strange choice as Hal, but he manages to convey his deliberate association with the lower classes, so as to be seen in an even better light when he becomes King. Simon Russell Beale is a slight disappointment as Falstaff. Although his performance is top class, he just does not have that big physical gruffness the role demands. But he is surrounded by greatness in Julie Walters and Maxine Peake. Jeremy Irons is terrific as the old King, and it was good to see favourite TV actors such as Alun Armstrong and the follicly challenged David Hayman as Worcester almost unrecognisable in an extraordinary wig.

Thea Sharrock has for a long time been a brilliant theatre director, but had not really tackled Shakespeare until her 2009 As You Like It at the Globe. And as far as I can tell, absolutely no experience of TV or film. But her Henry V is very good. It is subtle rather than powerful. The King delivers his famous speeches with an almost embarrassed evocation. This is a man who does not glorify in war, but sees it as a necessity for the country. Sharrock uses music to up the emotion, especially as Pistol, Bardolph and Nim say goodbye to Mistress Quickly (Julie Walters) and the unnamed boy for the war in France. This is one of the best scenes in the whole series. I had forgotten how Shakespeare had made Pistol and his friends representative of the great British public with their reaction to facing yet another war. And who else could be cast as the Chorus except for John Hurt. From an outstanding Prologue to the eve of battle and "from camp to camp through the foul womb of night ....... a little touch of Harry in the night". It just does not get any better.

The Fear Index, Four Stories and Wish You Were Here

The description sounded good. A thriller by Robert Harris about a hedge fund sounded like fun. Unfortunately The Fear Index is all plot and little substance. It follows the legend that is Alex Hoffman, a financial genius whose life begins to unravel. The book has good pace and is what I'm told is a real page turner. It's just that I need something more out of a novel. I love thrillers on TV or at the movies. But not in books. But that's just me.

Alan Bennett has just not written enough fiction. And when he does, they are very short. The Uncommon Reader is a novella of 121 pages, but a masterpiece. Smut is two short stories and Four Stories is, well, four. "The Laying On Of Hands" is a fine and hilarious depiction of a memorial service. All sorts of famous people unexpectedly arrive as Clive Dunlop (the deceased) was a masseur. In "The Clothes They Stood Up In", an ordinary mature couple find their flat has been stripped bare. And I mean bare. Every last bit. How they eventually trace their possessions is a wonderful twist. Midgley visits his father who is dying in hospital. A comic story of a family finally  understanding their past. I had already read "The Lady In The Van", and it isn't fiction. It is from his collection of various writings called Writing Home that is one of my all time favourite books. And non fiction at that. The author allowed Miss Shepherd to park her van on his drive for fifteen years, after she struggled with the authorities for the previous five out on the street. His diaries tell an amazing story that sounds more like fiction than anything from true life.

I had only ever read one book by Graham Swift and that was his prizewinning Last Orders. So when his latest novel came out in paperback, I thought it might be worth a try. This is not a fun book. It tells a distressing story of Jack and Ellie, childhood friends from neighbouring farms in Devon. Now married and in their late forties, the death of their parents still haunts them (well Jack anyway), even though their lifestyle has hugely improved having inherited a profitable caravan park on the Isle of Wight. Jack cannot put out of his mind the mad cow disease that crippled their farms. And to top it all, they receive news that his brother Tom has been killed in Iraq. As I said, not a fun read. As Jack makes the journey (think Last Orders) for Tom's repatriation (a wonderful portrayal) and funeral, he ponders on the past. The narration does jump about between the present and the past, possibly a bit too much and as a result I found the storytelling quite a bit uneven.  But this is definitely a "condition of England" tale, and one that is important to tell.

Timon of Athens at The National Theatre

I had forgotten what a wonderful space is the Olivier Theatre. The largest of the three that make up The National Theatre, when it is full it creates a superb atmosphere. The open revolving stage and the fan shaped auditorium needs a big production to do it justice, and this is exactly what we get with a modern day version of Timon of Athens. It had received terrific reviews and it lived up to it's reputation. It was so good, you wonder why the RSC had not performed it for the last twelve years, especially as it fully resonates with the current Greek debt crisis. And the play is all about wealth, money, moneylenders (these days it would be banks) and debt. You could just believe that Timon was a metaphor for Greece itself. Inheriting wealth, he gives it all away, just to be a friend of the rich. But when the time comes when it has been surpassed by debt, and the moneylenders come calling, his so called friends don't want to know.

In the second half of the play, we see a destitute Timon pushing his supermarket trolley around a deserted building site, unable to find the redemption offered along the way. It reminded me so much of the fall from grace of King Lear. I believe the success of the production is all down to Nicholas Hytner who has been the Artistic Director of The National Theatre since 2003. He is the genius behind One Man Two Guvnors. His modern staging of Timon is breathtaking. There is a huge cast who fill the big spaces of the stage so that there is almost too much to see. It could all be happening in London itself, the bankers, the riots, the city. The acting, of course, is first rate and in Simon Russell Beale as Timon, we have a great Shakespearean actor at the height of his powers.

Shakespeare: Staging the World at The British Museum

One of the principle objects to be found in The British Museum's current exhibition "Shakespeare: Staging the World" is an original First Folio. Secure in it's glass case, it is what meets you as enter the first of the nine sections situated in the old central Reading Room. However, apart from the Robben Island Bible just before the exit, what is left in between is pretty ordinary.

What the exhibition tries to do is to give the viewer a glimpse of what influenced Shakespeare to write the many different types plays. Starting with Shakespeare's London (obviously), then The Forest of Arden suggesting the Warwickshire countryside responsible for "As You Like It", The Classical World (for "Julius Caesar") and so on. But the actual exhibits (a rapier, the proclamation of a plague, a woollen cap, a venetian glass goblet) were very ordinary. Some of the portraits were interesting, as were the old maps of Venice and designs for the Union Flag of Great Britain. But how relevant were all these?

The best feature ( and what enticed me to go) were the clips of scenes acted by members of the RSC scattered through the exhibition. We never see the witches, but we heard them. And Anthony Sher with lines from "The Merchant of Venice". However there is one inescapable reason why I'm so glad I went, and that is seeing the interior of the Reading Room. This architectural marvel, completed in 1857, is now almost entirely used for major exhibitions for which you have to pay. And boy, is it impressive.

Using cast iron, concrete and glass, it was built in the centre of an open courtyard which was surrounded by the four wings of the museum. It was restored when the Foster designed Great Courtyard was constructed in 2000 for a cost of £100 Million. The interior was brought back to it's former glory, and seeing it above the exhibition was well worth the price of admission.

The layout, lighting and display of the exhibition is of the highest quality that now is the benchmark of such events. So full marks for presentation, but very few for content.

I now realise that I had not before seen the Great Court since it was refurbished in 2000. I had been meaning to go for a long time, but nothing at the museum had attracted me before. As I expected, it is a completely spectacular construction. What was basically a courtyard garden is now the largest enclosed public space in Europe, with the Reading Room at it's centre. The glass roof is awesome, and the facings to the buildings seem as if they were renewed only yesterday. Very, very impressive, as the number of photos I took will testify.



The New Drive

It was goodbye to the old concrete drive and hello to brand new block paving. Not without it's moments of distress (note the attempt to destroy our neighbour's hedge), the final result is all we could have wished for. My role of Project Manager was even lonelier when Alison went to stay with her sister for the three worst days, the neighbours with whom we share the drive having escaped on holiday. But I was glad to make sure everything was right, including the very important pattern and it's critical junction of the two drives. A seamless wonder.

London by Thea Gilmore and Sandy Denny

You can imagine my surprise when I heard the music that accompanied a montage of Gold Medal Winners on the BBC. Obviously chosen for the words "I wish I was in London, that's where I wanna be", the song "London" is a collaboration between Thea Gilmore and Sandy Denny and is from the album "Don't Stop Singing". Two of my favourite artists and the Olympics. How good is that? This is how it happened, courtesy of www.forfolkssake.com.

In 2007, while compiling Sandy Denny’s unrecorded material for what would become last year’s monumental eponymous 19CD box set, the late Fairport Convention singer’s estate uncovered several sets of lyrics unused and unscored before her untimely passing in 1978, aged 31. These were then entrusted to lifelong Fairport fan Thea Gilmore, and Don’t Stop Singing is the result.

This process lends the beautiful ‘Pain In My Heart’, in particular, an extra poignancy. “Stage fright and thoughts of you stir up the butterflies”, Gilmore sings – a lyric intended by Denny for a lover, but which surely must apply equally to its performer’s thoughts of its writer.

Elsewhere, the loneliness that afflicted Denny is catalogued on ‘Song #4′ (“Will he come, will he ever come, home again to me?”) and ‘London’ (“The hotel is just like yesterday’s/ The city has no name… I wish I was in London, that’s where I wanna be”).

Emotional closing track ‘Georgia’, in honour of Denny’s only daughter, counters the feeling at the time that the increasingly troubled singer cared little for her child – husband Trevor Lucas took the infant, who has never publicly spoken about her mother since, home to Australia out of concern over Denny’s substance abuse and erratic behaviour, while fellow songstress Linda Thompson recalled in the Guardian that Denny was “crashing the car and leaving the baby in the pub and all sorts of stuff”.

Gilmore’s stunning voice represents the perfect medium for Denny’s words, and her arrangements bring the best out of them, but it is essentially a selfless performance and it is easy to forget it is not Denny herself on the record. ‘Long Time Gone’ perhaps best captures the project’s ethos with the lyric “If I don’t make it before I die, then I just ain’t gonna die” – Denny never achieved the mainstream success she craved and her talent deserved (certainly in comparison to, say, fellow Fairporter Richard Thompson) but projects such as this mean she will never truly be lost.

Words: Tom White

London 2012 Olympics - Day 8

It was called Super Saturday, and we were there. When we entered the ballot for tickets, we thought that we had more opportunity for a morning session. And with Jessica Ennis competing in the Heptathlon, it promised to be something special. Earlier I had found the Stadium seating plan, and our seats were just above the long jump pit, absolutely ideal to watch Jess in her event.

We boarded the 7.15am train from Watford. Unusually for that time on a Saturday it was packed. It looked like everyone was going to the Olympics. At Kings Cross we took the Underground to West Ham, avoiding the long wait at St Pancras for the Javelin train to Stratford. It was a twenty minute walk to the Olympic Park along The Greenway, an old footpath/cycle path that has been upgraded for the Olympics.

There was no wait at security as we had a choice of empty lanes. Inside the park, we looked for a water station to fill our bottle but we had to wait a long time in the queue, probably the only fault we found during the whole day. We took our seats with half an hour to go before the start and were entertained by our commentary team on the big screens.

This is a picture of the lighting tablets that were used for the opening ceremony. There was one between every seat.

The start of the session saw Jessica Ennis competing in the long jump, the fifth of the seven disciplines in the Heptathlon. She came in leading the event, but she had experienced problems with her run up in the  long jump  all year. She started with a safe but short effort, but then had excellent jumps of 6.40 metres and then 6.48 metres, only 0.03 behind her personal best. When none of her challengers did anything special, she had increased her points lead to a massive 258. I think we knew then she had won gold. I will always remember the standing ovation she recieved as she walked back from that last jump.

It only got better in the next discipline, the  javelin. Jess threw 47.49 metres, a personal best. And although this is one of her weakest events, she took a lead of 188 points (or a distance of 13 metres) into the final 200 metres later that evening.

There was so much going on at the same time. After the men's 100 metres preliminary heats, there was Round 1 of the 400 metres going on at the same time as the long jump and pole vault where GB's Holly Bleasedale qualified for the final.

After the heats of the women's steeplechase came the main event on the track, Round 1 of the men's 100 metres. And of course it was Usain Bolt most people wanted to see.

The morning session actually concluded with the Heptathlon javelin, so that all other events had finished and all eyes could watch Jessica Ennis and her rivals. Leaving the Stadium, we made our way to the Orbit where we had timed tickets for 2.30pm. However, so had everyone else and we had to wait half an hour in a queue. But we were luckily under cover for the two heaviest showers of the day. Was it worth the wait? Definitely. We had great views over the Olympic Park and the City and Canary Wharf in the distance.

It was mid afternoon when we descended the steps form the top of the Orbit. We grabbed a coffee and a cake (no queue) and sat on our mats in the sunshine. Refreshed, we set off for a walk around the Park. It was so impressive. The planting is great, and the various venues look good. But it is the atmosphere that has to be experienced. It is brilliant.

It was just before 5pm that we left and this time we headed for the main gate and Stratford International station. The route out was very quiet and our carriage on the Javelin shuttle train (6minutes to St Pancras) was almost deserted. It was the end of one of the best days ever. Little did we know what would happen in the Stadium that evening.