Tring Book Club- The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

 

It was when I read the contents page that I wondered what we had chosen for book club. "PART ONE How to bury a tree, PART TWO Roots" and so on. Should I have worried? Well, despite certain chapters narrated by Fig Tree, (some of which I liked and some I skipped) there is much to enjoy in this book.

The best parts for me were those chapters that involved sixteen-year-old Ada, the young daughter of Kostas and Define. The parent's story in war torn Cyprus is a bit of a Romeo and Juliet plot, this time with Greeks and Turks on opposite sides. Once I got over this obvious plot device, the scenes on the island from 1974 and onwards are interesting. These alternate with Ada in London in the 201o's. She has never been to Cyprus and feels isolated in a school where being an outsider can be hard.

When Ada's aunt arrives, stories of her Turkish heritage start to emerge. We know from the first few pages that Ada's mother died so those chapters about Define's relationship with Kostas are all the more poignant. So, this is partly a study in grief for both Ada and her father, whilst at its heart a love story from years ago. Just don't get me started about trees!

P.S. The review in The Scotsman caught my eye with a very positive review, when it said about the fig tree: "enough of this stuff, novels are about people ......... a lot of this novel is journalism". I couldn't agree more.

Garden in November

 

My best rose "Blue for You" kicks off some photos of the garden in November. Some of the flowers just seem to go on and on. Well. there has not been a frost so far. Today I brought in a couple of the buds that are still about to open.

Next, the pink rose, one stem left on the Delphinium Pacific Giant and the blue geranium.

Earlier in the month saw the last flower on the Poppy, the white Astrantia and the white rose.

I'm not sure why the early summer flowering Philadelphus has still the odd flower.

Below is the dwarf crab apple that has golden leaves and in front the Weigelia that I gave a massive prune after it flowered in May.

This is what it looked like in June.

The silver birch have looked good this autumn.

I'm now following advice from Monty Don on Gardner's World and using the lawn mower to pick up the leaves from the silver birch. Three notches up on the mower. Seems to do the trick.

Not sure what the starlings have found in the lawn?

Decision to Leave, Living and Watcher

 

I only knew director and co-writer Park Chan-wook from his superior English language feature Stoker that I have watched a couple of times. Decision to Leave is in his native South Korean language. I was not sure about all those five stars and his best director award at Cannes. Good detective falls for suspect. That's it. It's a bit like a Hitchcock psychological thriller without the suspense. There s a rock face.

Late on the dead victim's wife tells the detective "the moment you stopped being in love with me was exactly when I started loving you". There is a lot about mobile phones, (she has been tracking him ???(, with texts, pictures, video, messages and recordings. All got a bit too complicated for me. The last half hour seems like a rush, and even more complicated, after it had seemed that the previous plot had been resolved. Visually stunning, very clever and absorbing. I should really try to see it again sometime as things happen too quickly.

An Oscar worthy and career defining performance from Bill Nighy as Mr Williams lights up Living. Fantastic screenplay from Kazuo Ishiguro (I know I'm biased), is an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru and well directed by Oliver Hermanus. The large cast are all fantastic as if a role like these doesn't come along very often. To name just two: Nichola McAuliffe (Mrs Blake) and Tom Burke (Sutherland) but I thought the best was Patsy Ferran as Fiona, Mr William's daughter in law, as she battles against both men's reserve.

The film captures the period so well. London in the fifties was so familiar to me, even the London County Council badge on my junior school blazer. It seemed two thirds through that the film ended all of a sudden and far too early. But the last part gives us a highly emotional explanation of everything that went before.

It's a clever poster. Who is watching who. Julia or the man in the window seen here over her right eye. He is played by a familiar Burn Gorman who Julia finds disturbing. There is a definite  reminder of Hitchcock's Rear Window and this films could have been called just that. There have been murders, but these are unconnected to Julia's increasing paranoia, as she feels isolated in Bucharest. The film is quite slow to begin with, but the last half hour is much better and the ending is terrific. At first I didn't recognise Maiko Monroe as Julia, but hen remembered her as the lead in the creepy It Follows. Her mostly absent husband is played by Karl Glusman. A psychological thriller more than the advertised horror. 

Montblanc Meisterstuk Platinum-Coated Ballpoint Pen

 

When I was looking at my first posts on this blog, now nearly sixteen years ago, I noticed that the pen that was presented to me on my retirement was a Montblanc ballpoint pen. On their website it is described as:

Montblanc Meisterstück Classique Platinum-coated collection is a design that writes history. Introduced in 1924, a word meaning “Masterpiece,” the Meisterstück has become the symbol for high quality luxury writing. The cap and barrel are crafted in black precious resin featuring the iconic white Montblanc emblem inlaid in the cap top.

Now I knew that the collection "had been enormous", but what I didn't know was that it now retails at £360.00. That was quite a surprise. I still use the pen most days. 

Driving through old London in the 1950's New A.I. enhanced version (HD)

At dinner with some friends on Friday night, I happened to mention the shop (John Buckle) my father managed in the 1950's, and how there  is an old  video where in appears. However, this video no longer exists, but there in one on YouTube with the title above. The following is included in my post of 7th February 2012.

It was in 1953 when we left Alton for London. Dad had found a much better job, managing John Buckle on Kensington High Street, and what was one of the largest grocers in London. It occupied a double frontage of a building that is now occupied by Whittard and Ryman. I put an entry on my blog on 24th May 2009 about the visit I made to Kensington, and how I found John Buckle on the Internet as being 1 Newland Terrace, now part of Kensington High Street.

17th March 2015. I changed the photo below as John Buckle is not now Whittard and Ryman. It is actually now Trailfinders, the shop to the left of the white van. How do I know? It was an email from Graham Carruthers (who works at Trailfinders) that drew my attention to a website: http://londonist.com/2011/08/video-driving-round-london-in-the-1950s.php. At 1minute 45seconds  and 4 minutes you can see quite clearly the John Buckle shop. Thanks Graham.

However, as I said above, that video does not exist. But on the YouTube video, John Buckle is there at 1 minute 43 seconds. And in an HD restored version. At the restaurant, I could not remember how I was in touch with Graham Carruthers. But the above note confirms it was Graham who found the post on my blog and sent me an email.

Irma Vep on Sky Atlantic

 

I'm over halfway through the eight episodes of Irma Vep, (now finished - see below) a story about making a TV version of a film remake of an actual 1915 movie called Les Vampires directed by Louis Feuillade. With me so far? Alicia Vikander plays an actress called Mira Harberg who is playing Irma Vep. Vincent Macaigne plays the director Rene Vidal, based on the actual writer and director of the original 1996 film and this remake, called Olivier Assayas.

I think that the  Guardian review got it right when it says:  So Assayas has made a TV remake of his own film, which was about making a remake of the 1915 original, with a director (named René Vidal in both) who is based on Assayas himself. 

So now we have that right, what is so great about this series is the portrayal of what is like to make a movie or, in this case, a TV series. Vidal insists it will be a movie despite what the studio says. Everything is going on in the background, from the producers thinking of sacking the director, the stars wanting changes to the script and so much more. All except Mira. She is just so level headed compared to all the rest. Vikander plays her with an almost constant smile. Now that must be hard work. Of course it's all nonsense but I loved it. 

We see excerpts from the 1915 original, clips from the new scenes all mixed up with the rushes. Lots of fancy hotels, the villas of the top producers and, of course, the studio where it is being filmed. Very near the end, we see the big boss of Dreamscape cosmetics, (sponsoring the series for Mira as their brand ambassador) amazingly a really nice guy playing golf, when he hears Mira has left early "She's gone home" and not fulfilled her cosmetics shoot as contracted to do. His intelligent view was that taking Mira to court they would be on a hiding to nothing. He replies "I've been expecting this. You don't sue Mira Harberg. We'd be in the wrong. Too bad for us". Her freedom is what the brand is all about, cannot complain. So he lets it go. A superb piece of writing.

Again at the end director Rene Vidal ( who we remember is not the most stable guy), his conversations with his therapist, and then on the phone to his wife, he is so calm and erudite that I thought was a wonderful ending. 

In the last episode, not only do we see more clips from the factual black and white silent movie Les Vampires, but also a fictional portrayal (in colour) of that movie being filmed. With the same actors as in this modern remake. This was brilliant television. 

And lastly, just a note of some of the songs from the series that were familiar to me (a lot I had never heard before):

Episode 2: 99 Lufft Ballons by Nena.

Episode 3: Hang on Sloppy McCoy's and Walking the Dog by Rufus Thomas. The latter reminded me of my digs in Brighton in 1963 as the track is on the first album by the Rolling Stones that belonged to the family there.

Episode 5: Village Green by The Kinks.

Episode 7: Beatnik Fly by Johnny and The Hurricanes. Yes, the 1960 version when I was fifteen, and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness by Kurt Vile. Not John Prine or Nanci Griffith whose version I have on one of her albums.

Episode 8: Judy in Disguise by John Fred and his Playboy Band.

21st April 2023

A short article in this weeks Sunday Times Culture magazine.

Superstar by The Carpenters

 

Listening to the saxophone and other wind instruments at last night's Woman to Woman concert reminded me of how I love the oboe in the Carpenter's version of Superstar. It takes the introduction solo at the beginning of the recording and it is played by Earle Dumier (photo below). Now the oboe is not my favourite instrument, but here it works perfectly in the haunting melody. Later it is complemented by the brass section on Richard Carpenter's re-recording with an orchestra. His arrangement of the composition by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell is outstanding. My favourite Carpenter's track.

Woman to Woman at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

 

Alison has been a long term fan of Julia Fordham and we both love Beverley Craven so their date at Aylesbury with Judy Tzuke and Rumer was booked months ago. What made the evening for me was the five piece band that accompanied these four singer songwriters. Led by keyboards and lead guitar, the band also comprised drums/percussion, bass guitar and saxophone. Julia did introduce the band at one point, but I could not remember their names and the internet is no use. The alto sax player also played flute, soprano sax and harmonica. Also what might have been a sopranissimo or an even smaller saxophone. I guess if you can blow it, he can play it. He was brilliant.

The ladies alternated in singing their numbers, Beverley accompanying herself on a grand piano and Julia playing guitar. I thought Beverley was the best but Alison obviously preferred Julia. I only knew one song by Judy and that was Stay with me till Dawn. We do have a Rumer CD and her stand out track Slow went down well. Although there were songs I had never heard before, the music and performances made them great. We had seats in the middle left of the eighth row which were the best in the house, right opposite Beverley's piano. They were so close. A great concert, one that Alison was so pleased she had seen.

Oh William!, Armadillo and The Master Bedroom

 

In Elizabeth Strout's "My Name is Lucy Barton", the narrator says she will never talk about her marriage. But here we are, years later, when it all spills out in torrents. The early part of the book introduces Lucy's two children, both girls. And at the same time, she talks about her ex-husband William's mother Catherine who is now dead. But Catherine's relationship with Lucy was complicated and her ghost haunts this story. Lucy's early childhood of abject poverty (remember her family lived in a garage in the previous book) rears its head, especially when she remembers that neither her mother nor siblings attended her wedding. But these days, Lucy is a successful writer and her girls both grown and settled. There is one really emotional passage when they all meet up with William after his third wife has left him.

It is then that William takes centre stage as he invites Lucy on a road trip to trace some of his roots. Lucy's second husband has died, and she is still on reasonable terms with William as they travel around some deprived rural areas of closed down America. When Lucy talks about her marriage, it is so revealing that it seems as if we are intruding in something so personal. But the story is never less than enthralling and the spare prose from this wonderful writer grips our attention.

There is something unusual for me to pick on a character after reading about her a good few years ago, and in this case a real treat. I started off with Laura Linney in my head, having seen her as Lucy on stage, but that soon passed, and Strout's real Lucy took over. I will have to wait until next year to read "Lucy by the Sea".

I was pleased to hear that "Oh William" was shortlisted for the Booker prize, despite its short length. Andrew Holgate is leaving the Sunday Times after 23 years, 14 as literary editor. He chose Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" as his best novel of the 21st century. But I prefer the author's Lucy Barton novels.

Having enjoyed William Boyd's latest eight novels, I went back to this earlier book. Lorimer Black is a loss adjuster. having come across them on occasions in my profession, all I thought they did was to check the figures in an insurance claim. But here they are more interested whether there is an actual loss or whether some fraud is in play. However, there are a couple of mistakes: "a ten grand a week penalty clause if you were late". A penalty clause would be thrown out by the courts, instead it should be "liquidated and ascertained damages". A genuine pre-estimate of the costs of delay.

Lorimer is a kind of anti-hero, his hidden wealth never really explained, and his treatment of friends and lovers is pretty poor. "Why did he need another (smart) place to live? ........ insurance, he supposed. Same old story". I actually preferred the parts that involved his family and their background (Transnistrian gypsies, originally from Romania but then all over Europe). Three wonderful sisters would have made for a better book.

Instead, we get a lot about sleep disorders, Lorimer is a sufferer and is in the hands of an experimental clinic. We have repeated explanations about REM sleep etc. However, halfway through the story starts to disintegrate when things go pear shaped. I'm not sure if the book was supposed to be humorous, but to me the plot was fairly thin. The author certainly improved with this next novel: "Any Human Heart"

The main character is Kate Flynn, ("I'm really not very nice"), forty-three and a woman to be avoided at all costs. "The right way to live, the good way, had been invisible to her: now she was locked out of it, peering in through its windows". But David and his son Jamie are fixated by her. Talk about a ridiculous triangle. Kate is back in Wales to look after her elderly mother Billie. Sort of. David has two young children with his second wife Suzie after Francesca died. They all know each other. Best of all was Billie, a bit doo lally, ("what am I cooking Kate? .... Cake!) always buying clothes " white, pink and pale yellow ......... she looks every day as if she is dressed for a wedding". I liked all the conversations between the various characters, especially those of Kate with teenager Jamie (" The deserts of distance between us").

I have never read a book where one of the main characters has the same name as me. Quite weird: "He remembered he hated parties". Right at the very end, Kate sees young men playing football on "frozen mud". That takes me back to the mid sixties. playing on muddy pitches on Wormwood Scrubs that the next week were frozen ruts. Not very nice.

The Bedding Border through the Year

The first photo is from January when the bulbs are beginning to grow. 

In February, they are doing well.

March, and the daffodils are a great display.

Some nice tulips in April.

In May, the bulbs are all over and later in the month, their foliage is cut back and the bedding dahlias are planted.

In June, the dahlias were coming into flower.

Getting bigger in July.

At their best in August despite the lack of rain.

Still great in September.

A new lease of life in a mild October.

Into November and the dahlias have gone. The border is ready for the first of the spring bulbs.

Emily, The Banshees of Inisherin and Triangle of Sadness

 

Here are the Brontes once again. This time the film concentrated on the sister's lives before they became writers. Writer/director Frances O'Connor sensibly wanted us to know how Emily was inspired to write Wuthering Heights. Emma Mackey is terrific as Emily, all ferocious energy that is particularly aimed at  her father. Adrian Dunbar is equally good as the parish priest. he is so familiar to us on British TV, but here he is so much better. The story, I imagine, takes liberties with the truth. Emily's doomed affair with tutor William Weightman is all madness. But O'Connor wants us to see how this young woman could write something so modern and dramatic. Even her father is impressed.

I was slightly disappointed by The Banshees of Inisherin. Martin McDonagh has reunited Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a flimsy story set on an island off the mainland of Ireland. It's 1923 and a civil was is raging across the sea. Whilst the writing is, of course, wonderful, the thin plot revolves around the repercussions of the two men's alienation. The performances, location and the dialogue are all fine. I particularly liked Kerry Condon (another of Mcdonagh's tribe from Three Billboards}. She deserves a supporting actress nomination.

A biting satire on the ultra rich as they inhabit a luxury yacht. All they seem to do all day is take selfies. Of course we get comparisons to the crew and the even more lowly foreign workers as toilet cleaners and deck scrubbers. Triangle of Sadness is a film in three acts, the shortest being the terrible first. On board for the second, we come across the main characters including an unreal drunk captain (why Woody Harrelson?) and a fat mega rich Russian plated by Zlatko Buric. His is the best performance by far. When asked how he made his money his standard reply is "in shit", actually fertilizer. At least he was fun. All the others seem to have been recruited for how they appear, not how they can act. Strange casting.

The second act revolves around a storm. It was again unreal that the food served for dinner was so inappropriate. But writer director Ruben Ostlund wanted the rich to suffer. This part "ends" with the elderly rich English couple (nobody says "We are from Great Britain") who made their money in grenades before they traded up to landmines. There has been much criticism of the third act, although I found it OK. The best thing was that I didn't see it coming. It's a long film (too long) but it makes a big impression, if not all in a good way.