Gangs And Young Girls
I was born in 1947, and at my primary school in North London, there were girls who hung around with Teddy Boys. Just look at John Borman’s film, Hope and Glory, which is a true reflection of children’s behaviour during the Second World War.
Skyfall
I went to see it this afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s only about the fourth or fifth Bond film, I’ve actually seen. I saw the three early ones; Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, before I went to University.
Although C and I were together for forty years, I think we may only have seen one together and that could have been Thunderball or You Only Live Twice.
She wasn’t really keen on that sort of action film.
For many years too, whilst we were raising the kids, we rarely had time for the cinema and tended to go to the theatre or out for a meal.
I did see Quantum of Solace on the way back from Hong Kong, but does that really count as it wasn’t in a cinema.
In fact, I must be one of the few people, who’ve never seen a Bond film on the small screen. After all, Bond has always been on a channel with adverts and I don’t like intermissions.
I don’t think we even took the children to see any of the others.
So if my memory is correct, Skyfall was the sixth Bond film, I’d seen in the cinema.
I said that I enjoyed it and in some ways very much how I enjoyed the early ones. It was fresh and different with just the right amount of humour to go with the action.
I’ve read all of the novels, including some in French, and I think Sam Mendes has captured the exotic themes of the books. To someone like myself growing up in a London suburb, places like the Caribbean and Istanbul were very exotic to say the least. The choice of Hashima Island for the villain’s lair was the sort of idea of which Ian Fleming would have approved.
So in some ways the film went back to the 1960s for me.
As ever though, the computing in the film isn’t as good as it could be. But that would be my only major gripe. Although, the tube train is a deep-level one running between sub-surface stations. It’s actually because it was shot in the old Charing Cross platforms for the Jubilee Line, which turn up in quite a lot of films and videos.
We Nearly Bought A House On A Film Set
Yesterday, I went to see It Always Rains On Sunday and thought the church featured was very familiar. A bit of research said it was in Hartland Road just north of Camden Town. So I went and had a look this morning.
Looking at old pictures, the spire was larger than in the film. But now it seems to have been completely demolished. It apparently was damaged in the Second World War.
In about 1970, we trried to buy a house in Hartland Road. It was possibly number 7 or 9 and would have cost the grand sum of £8,000. Today it must be worth at least £800,000. It could possibly have been the one used in the film.
In the end we moved to the Barbican.
The church was originally an Anglican one called Holy Trinity. Now it is a Roman Catholic one called Holy Trinity with St. Barnabas
It Always Rains On Sunday
I went to see this film last night at the BFI. It was rather appropriate given last night’s weather.
It was definitely worth seeing and if you get a chance go. I recognised some of the locations and might try to find them this week. The end chase sequence takes place in Temple Mills. This used to be a large marshalling yard, which has gone now and is used to store and service Eurostar and other trains.
In fact, the end chase sequence, is one of the best I’ve seen in years and this is even more astounding considering it was shot on film with large cameras and no or few special effects. And it was all made over sixty-five years ago!
There’s A Lot Of Skyfall About
Skyfall seems to be everywhere and especially on the buses.
Usually, lots of bus adverts indicate that a film isn’t as good as it might be.
I shall go, as I once bought a house from Daniel Craig‘s stepfather.
What’s Happened To Me?
This is not a bad post, but I’ve changed over the last few weeks.
I think it is actually that I have got much more confident. Why I don’t know, but my confidence seemed to improve greatly, when I changed my doctor. Perhaps, it was the decisive act of changing or it could be that the new doctor has actually fixed a couple of my problems. I don’t know and I don’t care why!
But take today! I went for a lunchtime drink with my financial advisor and normally, I just have a drink and go. But today for some reason, I made the decision to stay behind and have the kedgeree. It was almost, as if I’ve got some sort of fear of the unknown and generally only eat in the same places.
Before and after lunch, I also found it easy to post to my blog and I wrote several complicated e-mails to people. It was almost as though something had unlocked in my brain. Strangely, this has happened before and also it happened before I had any stroke. I remember coming home after a glorious holiday in Malaysia and virtually vegetating for several months.
And then this afternoon, I felt I ought to see a show of some sort this evening. So I went up to the Angel to get a paper and checked what was on at the cinemas there. I noticed that Untouchable was on at 20:10 at the Vue. I didn’t expect I would go, so I bought myself a supper in Waitrose.
But I did go in the end and bought a Senior ticket for £7.10. It was in a new screen and a lot better than last time, I went to that cinema.
I thoroughly enjoyed the film.
Coming out I also solved my friend’s dress problem. Or at least in my mind, I got a plan of action! She will hate my solution, but it has to be tried.
In some ways this extreme decisiveness started on Saturday, when my son told me to go down to John Lewis and check out carpets. But I’d already gone to Primrose Hill to sort out bathroom suites, as requested by my builder.
I might have a theory that works.
I think by nature I’m a man who likes to be ordered around and people have always used that to get the best of my brain. There’s nothing more I like, than to be presented with a problem and told to go and solve it. Living alone, I don’t get that stimulus!
C didn’t take advantage of me, but would get into a flap all the time, knowing that I’d rescue her from her predicament, often with an unusual solution. I remember one day, she was in a very sour mood, as she was doing a very difficult and disturbing case for the local County Council, where the other side was represented by a QC. What made her angry as well, was that she had the difficult side and the QC was getting three or four times she was. So I asked, what would happen if they got a QC on their side? She said that the Council wouldn’t pay. I said why not and all her barrister’s insecurities kicked in and she said they were mean and wouldn’t. But I said you had a good argument as the other side had a big gun and surely fairness should prevail, so I told her to ask. The Council capitulated and she was led by a real gentleman of a QC, who used all the work she had done and eventually won the case. Her clerk put in for the largest fee she ever earned and we had two weeks holiday on the result.
My problem now, if I have one, is to sustain this mood, which is not unlike the one I had that night in the Star at Lidgate, as we trawled through her problem.
It’s now just after midnight and I’m not tired. I’ve also only had one drink of half of cider all day, other than tea, coffee, milk and orange juice.
So it’s not the alcohol talking, as that’s long gone from my system.
Actress Or Actor?
I thought that these days, the term actress wasn’t used, as female actors, prefer to be called actors.
But the BBC has just used the term, Actress under Keira Knightly‘s name on an interview this morning. However, Miss Knightly is referred to as an actress on Wikipedia.
So it would appear that different organisations have different rules.
RIP Tony Scott
I did see a couple of Tony Scott‘s films, but I wasn’t a great fan.
RIP Tony Scott
However, I’ve never seen a cinema put something like this on the front.
Judging By The Number of Adverts, Keith Is A Lemon
The film Keith Lemon is getting a lot of bus adverts.
Judging By The Number of Adverts, Keith Is A Lemon
This generally means only one thing; the film is terrible.
The Anonymous Widower 