The Way I Found Her, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and Eeny Meeny

I have very mixed feelings about The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain. At times it compared with anything written by this brilliant author and at others it became rambling and boring. I'm all for the odd description of a dream, but this book overdid this device. The descriptions of Paris were great to begin with, but these also became a little repetitive. The development of the main plot is interesting when thirteen year old Lewis sets himself a quest because of his adolescent adoration for the voluptuous Valentina, with whom he and his mother are staying for one hot Parisian August. But the last hundred pages could have been halved to better effect. There is a fascinating undercurrent about plagiarism and a cute use of this in this novels' narrative. A good story that could have been better.

I'm just a sucker for this type of conversational prose written in the first person, especially when it is done so well. Karen Joy Fowler's writing is so good, it didn't matter about the plot. Our narrator, Rosemary, tells the story of her extraordinary childhood and the effect it has on her time at the University of California, Davis. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always gripping. On the one hand a light family drama, on the other a highly literate discussion about science and philosophy. An amazing combination.

Gruesome detective fiction that is badly written is just not my sort of book. It seemed like M.J. Arlidge was just preparing a draft for a TV series (where it will actually work a lot better). Give me Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie any day.

The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries

Peter Morgan has done it again. His specialism in dramatised documentaries of recent events has made for a brilliant piece of television. I dont mind the creation of fictitious scenes when they are done so well and when they want to encapsulate a piece of the real story. There is a scene late on when Jeffries is in waiting room with Steve Coogan as they await their turn to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into press regulation. This never happened. But as well as portraying Jeffries as a eccentric academic when he doesn't know who Coogan is, it makes for a fantastic conversation as the actor is so at ease and bares the faults that the press latched onto. Thereby helping to tell the story of a press out of control which is the essence of the drama. There was also a clever comment on fandom. Jeffries' awesome QC Louis Charalambous played by Paul Polycarpou (if there is an award for best supporting actor, he should get it) comes to collect Jeffries and in meeting Coogan he is for once in his life stumbling over his words. He gets "Night at the Museum" all wrong.

But I cannot go any longer without mentioning Jason Watkins. He was made for the part of Jeffries as well as looking so similar. His performance is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he grabs it with both hands. Awards await. So they do for both Peter Morgan for the superb writing and Roger Michell for direction. It just goes to show that movie director Michell has moved back to TV because of the wonderful script and cast. The drama was shown in two parts and after the first when at the end the real murderer is arrested, and I thought then that the second half might be boring when it was all about suing the papers, it actually turned out to be just as good. Fabulous television.

The Imitation Game, Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and Paddington

Perhaps I was  looking forward too much to The Imitation Game, and perhaps I knew too much about what happened at Bletchley Park. So the story on the screen was a big disappointment. In hindsight, maybe they had to reconstruct the drama to make a decent story. But most of the changes for dramatic effect did not work well. They had changed the personality of the Bletchley chief Commander Deniston (played by Charles dance) so much that he was unrecognisable. And where was Gordon Welchman? The movie was saved by the superb Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing and Keira Knightly as Joan Clarke. But nil points for direction and screenplay.
Interestingly, Mathew Goode was fine as Hugh Alexander who succeeded Turing as head of Hut 8 in 1941 (it seemed in the film he was the head at the beginning), and in the book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park Alexander testified his admiration for Turing: "There should be no question in anyone's mind that Turing's work was the biggest factor in Hut 8's success. In the early days he was the only cryptographer who thought the problem worth tackling ...... he also shared with Welchman and Keen the chief credit for the invention of the Bombe." But no sign of Welchman and Keen in the movie!

It was good to see that there are no longer any Hunger Games in Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. This made for a competent enough big budget movie with some decent action sequences. It was just a shame that Jennifer Lawrence in the starring role of Katnis Everdeen looked so bored with it all. Julianne Moore and Philip Seymour Hoffman may have been, but at least they didn't show it.

Paddington was a treat. You always felt the bear was real and the voice provided by Ben Whishaw was completely right. The Brown family were always interesting and although Hugh Bonneville has never been funnier, it was Sally Hawkins who made this film. She lit up the screen whenever she appeared. There were lots of laughs and some subtle choking moments. And an evil Nicole Kidman reprising her role in The Golden Compass. Paul King does an amazing job as director and writer. The only downside was the ending, too contrived and not enough of Paddington. Otherwise superb.

New Car

Someone wanted to see a picture of my new car. A pre-reg (September 30th) Toyota Auris Icon 1.6 V-Matic with 8 miles on the clock. Alison dropped me off at Welwyn Garden City station where I caught the train to Cambridge where I changed for the train to Kings Lynn. I was picked up at the station and taken to Marshall Toyota where we completed the sale. Quite a long journey home but well worth it. Got a great deal for cash. So far so good.

Daniel Day Lewis in "Shoestring"

On the 2nd November 1980, the BBC showed episode five of the second series of Shoestring called "The Farmer Had A Wife". In a tiny role, Daniel Day Lewis played a DJ. Here he is in the background on the right with the black hair,  sharing a studio with Trevor Eve on the left. Well, everyone has to start somewhere. If you don't believe me, have look on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFpc7inRDRI

I heard this mentioned on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on Radio 2, coming home in the new car from Kings Lynn.

The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

Aylesbury Choral Society joined with Aylesbury Festival Choir for concert at a sold out Aylesbury Waterside Theatre on Saturday 29th November in remembrance of the start of the First World War. They were accompanied by the sixty piece Oxford Festival Orchestra in performing Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams and The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace by Karl Jenkins.

The choirs had been rehearsing very hard and Alison had been to rehearse with both choirs, it was that important. All the hard work paid off as we were treated to an excellent performance, both with the singing and the orchestra. The big surprise of the evening were the two pieces performed by Aylesbury Youth Orchestra, William Walton's Crown Imperial and Edward Elgar's Nimrod from his Enigma Variations. The orchestra was far better than I had imagined from a local youth orchestra. A very successful evening.

Scott and Bailey - Season 4 - The Finale

The Finale of Season 4 of Scott and Bailey was a double episode that was quite brilliant. We have loved the whole four seasons, but these two episodes seen together were fantastic. Amelia Bullmore was the writer as well as playing the departing DCI Gill Murray. Such an interesting character as a top police chief put into a job actually below her awesome capabilities.

Well supported as ever (well I guess they are the stars) by Lesley Sharp as  DC Janet Scott and Suranne Jones as the newly promoted DS Rachel Bailey. But it was the structure of the plot and the fabulous writing that transported the drama to another level. Roll on Series 5.

Tring Book Club - "When I Lived In Modern Times" by Linda Grant

Given that this was my recommendation for my book club, I was quite disappointed. I had been really impressed by Linda Grant's latest two novels "The Clothes On Their Backs" and "We Had It So Good" but this earlier book was not nearly so well written, even though it won the Orange Prize. It didn't help that our narrator, the 20 year old Evelyn Sert, is so bogged down with an identity crisis about her Jewish background, having been brought up in London, that there is a complete lack of humour and wit. The mood of her experiences in the Palestine of 1946 is sombre and lacking in emotion. It doesn't help that it is hard to feel any sympathy for Evelyn. She is naïve, attractive, totally self centred and thinks like a racist (being anti Christian with what she calls "their second rate God").

But I guess this is all meant to describe the complexities of the characters involved with the emerging new state of Israel. A lot of the people Evelyn comes into contact with are actually quite nice compared to her. Except (and crucially) for Johnny. The author has certainly done her research and I was very interested in her descriptions of these dangerous times. There are a lot of philosophical questions raised about national identity and I guess that we who are so lucky to have one find it hard to understand those who have not. Not an easy read, but one that is worthy and necessary.

P.S. I think everyone else at Book Club enjoyed it more than me, which was a relief. There was a lot of discussion about Jewishness and the formation of Israel. So I guess that is what Book Club should be.