Sunday, January 29, 2006

The New World


Went to see Terrance Mallick’s film “The New World” this afternoon. Enjoyed it a lot. There’s something kinetic about his style of movie making that appeals to my brain. Something in the way that he uses cuts, fades and music that adds up. It makes sense and is almost mildly hallucinogenic, for me anyway. I loved the scene where the Pocahontas character arrives in London towards the end of the film. You experience the sensation of what she sees, the buildings, the strange shapes that the human mind have made. This is for her “the new world”. And maybe at its core this is what the film is about. That our quest for change is unstoppable. That whatever order lies at the heart of things depends on this flux. . It’s a good love story too, not in the Brokeback Mountain league, but then I don’t expect anything will for a while. A fine movie though.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Dublin Skyline


The snow that has been falling over most of Northern Europe hasn’t reached Ireland yet. It’s getting colder though. I took this picture of the skyline from my window this morning. Portentous?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

the way we were


I Just watched a TV programme on BBC about genealogy. During the last number of weeks they have had well known people tracing back through their family tree. Tonight they had the actor Stephen Fry who traced his family on his mother’s side back to Slovakia. Being European Jews, living where they lived in the last century, it was no surprise to find that members of his family perished in the concentration camps. No surprise but raw every time it is revealed again. I went to the BBC web site to find out a bit more about the programme and found they have a section of the site showing people’s family photos, with an open invite to anyone to send in JPEGs. Here’s the link : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/your_history/your_photos/ Browsing the photos I came across a photo of a woman taken in Suffolk in 1955. Ester Everitt in her sweet shop.

With this description: An interior view of an old fashioned sweetshop, showing the owner (my grandmother) Esther Everitt in the mid 1950s. The shop sold a large selection of wrapped and loose sweets which were sold by weight, usually weighed in 2oz or 4oz paper bags. Alongside the open boxes of sweets, chicken feed, corn and meal were also sold, sometimes making the sweets a little dusty at times, but I lived to tell the tale having had many free samples in my time. A black manx cat always sat on the doorstep. The shop closed in the late 1950s.” The photo was send in by C Everitt.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

farewell jewel cases


Last night of Christmas. Spent most of the day taking audio CDs out of their jewel cases and putting them into folders for easier storage. I hardly ever use them nowdays as I have most of them on my ipod. Now, I only remember my old CDs when a song I haven’t heard in a while comes up on shuffle! How quickly we have become digital. I couldn’t imagine myself doing this years ago. I loved the shape and the look of CDs, and the artwork. Mind you, I am saving the sleeves and the artwork just in case I ever feel the need of buying jewel cases and putting them back on shelves again. I doubt it very much.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

History

not sure if this is true?

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
- Voltaire

Monday, January 02, 2006

new year


Feel asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow last night – though I did listen to a little bit of Melvin Bragg and his panel talking about the “Oresteia”. Didn’t do much today. Went into town and bought a cookery book by Nigel Slater that was reduced down to €9 because it had two missing pages. I’ll probably never do much cooking from it, I just love reading the way he writes about food. Had a ciabatta roll and a coffee in “Insomnia” while reading a magazine that came with a part work of “Dad’s Army” that has just been released. Another British institution that I love. I must stop myself from collecting the “set” as part works hope you will do. At this stage of my life I need to start divesting myself of “collectables”