Skyfall

You may not have noticed, but there is a new Bond movie out this week. You may not have noticed because you live in a lead lined box. Otherwise, you would know.

You don't really go to see a Bond film for the powerful deep script do you? You don't even go for the beautiful girls, or the hunky Bond. No, you go see a Bond movie for the chase scenes. The script just ties them all together and the girls add a little allure as you get your breath back for the next car chase or fight scene. And on that basis, the new Bond film is possibly the best. There isn't an iconic image from it, like the cat stroking or Ursula Andress appearing out of the sea, but the quality of the chases is imperious. That's clearly where the budget is blown, although I guess Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench make a few bob out of it. But who dreams up the chase scenes? I mean, I went to Istanbul too, but at no point did I think, "Oh, the roof of the Grand Bazaar will make a great venue for a motorbike chase."

It was also good that a lot of it was set in London. Well, I guess we have to recognise that London is cool and hip again. Of course you have to suspend belief just a tad to enjoy this sort of thing, but overall a decent way to spend a couple of hours. Looking forward to the next one.

Haywards Heath

A weekend in Sussex. My friends, having missed my 50th birthday due to a holiday, invited me down for a weekend in Sussex, with a view to going out on Saturday night for a meal.

First was a walk with their two tiny tots in Ashdown Forest. A surprisingly breezy day, ending in rain, meant the kids did very well, and were indeed well-wrapped up for the experience. Given how sunny it was when we set off, this was a bit disappointing. But a nice hilly walk, interrupted by various forms of roaming farm animals, sheep, horses and cows. Very rustic.

Our first attempt to enter a pub for lunch in the by now teeming rain met with defeat as it was heaving, no doubt in part with walkers attempting to escape the downpour.

But second time lucky. And a chance for the little ones to look cute on the leather furniture.

The evening meal was something else. Ockenden Manor is a Michelin star owning restaurant in a country house hotel and spa. Tremendous meal. We went for the taster menu - 7 courses each with a different wine. Pumpkin soup, scallops, venison, sorbet, cheese trolley, lemon tart, and oh, another one too. sorry, the wine took its toll by the end, along with the champagne and canapes beforehand. I could cope with this sort of lifestyle.

But I have to admit the Sunday was a slow day! We were all just a teeny bit hungobver. Well, there were an awful lot of wine glasses to drain with the dinner, and it was all so good it would have been churlish not to do so. A very enjoyable Sunday lunch, and the kids had a bit of a runabout in the garden. And we managed to take in the two live games on TV. Bliss!

Daddy impressing an adoring audience

Daniel Sloss

I can't really claim to have my finger exactly on the pulse of modern culture. But on the other hand I do keep my ear close enough to the ground to pick up acts before they are particularly big. So maybe I am not in at the grass roots, but am about in the vicinity of young shoots. So I would say I was with Daniel Sloss, a 22 year old Scottish comedian who is just starting to break into the big time, doing the odd bit of TV work, and touring some not very big venues, but still a cut above playing the back of pubs.

I saw him at the Bloomsbury theatre a comfortable, modern but modest theatre. He is touring with a Geordie comic called Kai Humphries who I had never come across before. Kai was genial, fresh but his act just felt a little forced. May get better with age and a bit more, and stronger material. But not bad.

Daniel Sloss however, was terrific. He has it all, good, funny material, really well presented. He has the ability to sound like it is all just off the cuff, rather than trying to dredge it up from his memory. I have seen enough before to know that it is in fact the product of being very well rehearesd. He is just very funny - I admit maybe not to everyone's tastes and I think some women might be a trifle offended, but overall I think he would go down extremely well on a bigger stage. He also has the plus point of being a good looking guy, for which I feel a female following might forgive the sexist jokes. Sample "Don't talk to me during sex. I had to listen to you for 3 hours to get you into bed, surely that's enough?"

After the rehearsed acts, the pair of them came on stage and did a short question and answer session with the audience. This of course was rather more spontaneous, and they both came out of it with great credit. This was a really good night out. At £15 an absolute steal compared to seeing Michael McInytre say, and I don't think I would have been better entertained by him. My mate seemed to enjoy it too, despite suffering from a hangover from the night before. Daniel was that good. Check him out, before he gets expensive and you have to see him in row Z of a stadium. We were in the second row. Perfect.

55 Days

Many a trip to the theatre is a trip into the unknown. If you are going to the West End to see an Ayckbourn play, or to Stratford to see Shakespeare, then yes that's a known commodity. But often when I go its to see a play on the strength of nothing more than a couple of sentences in the advance publicity.

So it was with 55 days at the Hampstead Theatre. Its set in the Civil War, the 55 days being the time Charles I was held before his execution, and it starred Mark Gattiss (who I only knew in comic roles) as Charles. More than that I did not know.

My companion, who is much more learned about the history of this than me, said it was pretty true to what is known about the period. But I quite liked not knowing more than the general background. Otherwise its a bit like seeing the film of a book - you are forever comparing what you are watching against what you know. But this was one of the best plays I have seen. Completely absorbing and entertaining without having any laughs, any real action and of course, any suspense since everyone knows what happens in the end. The morality of it all is what makes it so entertaining. The wrestling with the concept of the ends justifying the means, and with what legality really entails. It was important to try the King, to show that things were being done legally, but of course there was no legal authority to do this. So they just did it and made it up as they went along. The only object was convicting the king, however that was done. But one is quickly stopped from really sympathising with the King, not because of his arrogance, but because its clear that he will break any promise to save his position. Ends justifying means. How far will we go? I can't help feeling that its not one of those back and white issues. Ends can justify means, but sometimes if you have to go too far to do so, you just tip over the edge. A dilemma we still work with today - torture of terror suspects etc.

But cracking play. Well worth seeing.

Brentford v Coventry

Coming home on Tuesday night from watching Coventry lose 2-1 at Brentford, going down to a penalty conceded in the 4th minute of injury time, I thought, "How has it come to this?" To think, I once watched City win an FA cup final against Spurs. And now reduced to this, below Shrewsbury, Crawley and Stevenage in the league! No parrot has ever felt as sick as I did after this game. (Well apart perhaps from the Norwegian Blue of Monty Python fame).

"We weren't good enough", says the manager, but he is talking about the performance. The real problem is that the players just aren't good enough. With the exception of Robert Fleck and striker David McGoldrick (who isn't even a City player, only on loan) they just didn't seem to have the quality needed to play at this level, and this level is what in old money is Division Three! Its the basic inability to kick the round thing to the place they want to that they aren't good at. And that is pretty much all the game is about. Oh dear.

On the plus side, Griffin Park is quite a nice ground to visit. They give all of one end to away fans, allowing those who want to stand the ability to do so on the terrace behind the goal, and for those of us who prefer a seat, we can take up the stand above, giving a very decent view. Only gripe is the lack of a scoreboard, not for keeping count of the goals which isn't too hard, but for the time and the players names, for which one has to rely on a muffled tannoy.

Dara O'Briain

My morning/afternoon in Kew was partly attributable to the fact that I was seeing Dara O'Briain in the evening at Hammersmith Apollo, just a few stops along the line. To make maximum use of the the day, I had also arranged to meet up with a teenage friend from West London who was thinking of becoming a lawyer, particularly a criminal barrister. And one of the mates going with me to the comedy gig is just such a barrister, and since the lad lives only a few stops down the lube line, this couldn't have been a more serendipitous arrangement, barring that he had to leave early for fund-raising event.

Nevertheless, it gave us a bit of time to give a hint of unvarnished truth as to our careers. Could probably do with a second gathering to cover the ground a bit better. But what most struck me was just thinking how much a leap in the dark careers are. I had absolutely no idea what law was going to be like as opposed to anything else, and even when one starts one's legal  career you have no idea what you will specialise in. I think its fair to say that while some kids may have grown up wanting to be a zoo-keeper, or train driver, the tot who always wanted to be a pension lawyer has yet to be discovered. I think when it comes to careers you just have to launch yourself blind-folded in a vaguely favourable direction and the rest is a matter of seeing where the winds blow you, with a bit of battling against the storms as best you can manage.

As the lad parted, the rest of my comedy gang gradually gathered in the pub across the way from the Costa coffee we had had to meet in. (Interesting isn't it that in Scotland they want to give 16 year-olds the vote, but can't trust the little darlings with the really big decisions - like whether they can have a drink. Probably says something about the seriousness with which one should take Scottish independence, that it is a far less important decison than having a pint.) Then the four of us (one sporting an impressive facial injury from a rugby match in the afternoon) went across the road to see the prodigiously talented Dara O'Briain.

At one point in his routine Dara did say that if this career, ie being a comic, doesn't work out, he is f***ed. This is, of course far from the truth, not that it will need to be tested as the success of ehis massive tour demonstrates. But his success is partly built on him being a brilliant sharp-witted man. You see, although we sat there for 2+ hours, you didn't really feel you were listening to a comedy routine. You felt you were listening to a funny bloke just talking to you off the top of his head, in part about what being on tour is like. Of course, such spontaneity as this is generally well rehearsed, but then again he does spend so much of the time bouncing things off the audience that much of it must be off the cuff. But it all comes out so naturally.

He almost started by saying he wouldn't necessarily pick on everyone at the front. "I won't pick on you for example young fella. How old are you?"
 "13"
"Ah, you see, if I ask him what he's done" gesturing to his dad "there will be a wealth of experience of life to draw upon. You, you've got nothing. Oh yes, you might have done an essay once, and copied out a picture of a rocket and stuck stars around it, but other than that, nothing. Its alright sir, I'll stop bullying your son now."
And that sort of repartee filled a lot of the routine, or if not that, at least him telling us what members of other audiences had said.

I particularly liked his vitriol reserved for psychics, him being a man with a serious science education, and appearing with Brian Cox on serious astronomy programmes. Apparently, Dara having spent a popular science programme ridiculing astrology, Brian Cox then said to the audience. "However, this being the BBC, I have to give the programme some balance, so here it is. Astrology is rubbish." This apparently brought swathes of formal complaints to the BBC demanding that an astrologer should indeed have the right of reply for balance. Which were rejected because as Dara put it, "You see, you don't get your say because your uniform is a cape. On which you have sewn shiny stars." He also left us with a lovely way of remembering the difference between astrology and astronomy. "Remember astrology has the word "log" in it. A unit of poo."

This was one act where I would be interested to see the DVD, to see how different another night would be to the one I have seen. For example, when calling on ideas of what  to shout to get rid of a burglar in the night, I doubt he will get another inspired call better than "I've got airborne syphilis!"

If you didn't find any of the above funny, just rememeber it all has to be said in an Irish accent. You see? Now it works. Great night.

Kew in Autumn

My first visit to Kew in autumn, so what to show? Autumnal colours I suppose.

Not a lot in the way of flowers in October of course, so it allows one to concentrate on some semi-abstract shots rather than flower portraits, like these....

That's not to say there were no flowers to see. There are always the water-lilies

And the orchids

 Not enough for you? Well there is always the wildlife

Or the statuary

 

Or the architecture (even ignoring Kew Palace)

Temple of Ballonia



Marianne North Gallery (Exterior)



Marianne North Gallery (Interior)

The Temperate House



The Ruined Arch, built as a ruin, although now a bit more dilapidated than when new




Queen Charlotte's Cottage, built as a royal picnic house (well if you are royalty you don't want your picnic spoilt by British Summer weather, so the answer is obvious, build a cottage)




And here is where you have your picnic





Temperate House from the air (well the treetop walk)




The No1 Museum (an exhibition space)



Temple of Arethusa



Decimus Burton's famous Palm House. There may now be bigger greenhouses, but you would be hard pressed to find a more attractive one)



Burton's museum through a grubby glass pane on the walkway at the top of the Palm House




The Princess of Wales Conservatory, a more modern, functional but far less attractive glass house

 

The Davies Alpine House, a very striking building

The Nash conservatory



Temple of Aeolus



The Pagoda

Then if you don't mind  a few steps, you can take the tree-top walk. I must admit not as exciting as doing this in a rain-forest, but better constructed than the tropical versions I have been up.

On top (or underneath) all that lot, there is currently an exhibition  of the works of David Nash. Not sure I would really classify him as a sculptor, and my old woodwork teacher wouldn't have been much impressed with his output. Some pieces are carved (a bit) - well more like tidied-up and arranged, some are "charred", but mostly I would describe it as wood that has been interfered with to some degree. In some cases I feel the boundary line between fine art and barbecue fuel is hard to distinguish, other than maybe on grounds of size. See what you think.

This is supposed to represent a lightning strike and was originally made out of an ash tree struck by lightning (neat, huh?). But that rotted away so its been recreated in steel



One of my favourites, both in terms of the sculpture and the setting



This apparently "complements the architecture and scale" of the 19th century Nash Conservatory (no relation) in which it is exhibited. To the untutored mind, I think that just means its big and goes in a big empty place.

And to finish with a tree. A sweet chestnut actually. But its claim to fame is that it is thought to be the oldest tree in the gardens.

 A question. How many trees are there in Britain? (Its ok, I will take an approximate number)

Answer, apparently 89 million. Quite comforting that they outnumber us.

Well, a nice way to spend an autumn day, but that was only the daylight part. Read on for the evening.