I'm a massive movie fan, so I always watch out for the Academy Award nominations and awards. The nominations for this year have just been announced - see full list here.
Three films have received eight or nine nominations each and I've seen each of them:
The winners will be announced on 7 March.You may have missed it but this week - the first in February - is National Storytelling Week.
I'm a big fan of stories. On my web site, you'll find 44 short motivational stories here and 18 of my own short stories here. Enjoy!
I had never heard of this word until my son spent a year at the University of Amsterdam as part of his first degree over a decade ago. He did a course called "The Hermaneutics Of Gender".
I've seen the word rarely since - but I did come across it in an academic paper that a postgraduate friend of mine asked me to read recently. The context?: "The case of metaphor is only a particular case for a general theory of hermeneutics."
The word essentially means the study of a special set of texts, typically the Bible or some academic writings. More information here.
See if you can slip the word into your next conversation ...
I don't know how I missed this but it was only today that I learned that Albinoni's Adagio was not by Tomasi Albinoni. Apparently it was established in 1998 that the piece was an original composition by Remo Giazotto and not simply his arrangement of a piece from Albinoni.
Besides the fact that the music has been used in a number of films that I've seen - such as "Rollerball" and "Gallipoli" - the piece has a special resonance for me. The composition was first published in 1958 and therefore was still quite new when I was first married in 1972. My first wife had an uncle who was an organist and played the music for our wedding ceremony. At his suggestion, my wife entered the chapel to the Adagio.
The fact that the piece was so moving and the subsequent discovery that it was not composed by the man we thought may have been signs. We were divorced in 1982.
When I remarried, it was in a registry office with no music. We are still happy and together 28 years later.
In the "Guardian" today, there is a feature nominating what the newspaper's seven TV critics believe to be the top 50 television dramas.
Although (perhaps surprisingly) "Brideshead Revisited" came in at No 2, it's striking how many top-ranking British and American series are about crime in one form or another - a genre that generally doesn't appeal to me much. So we have "The Sopranos" (No 1), "The Wire" (No 14), "Prime Suspect" (No 19), "Cracker" (No 23), "Inspector Morse" (No 30). "The Shield" (No 37), "24" (No 39) ... But I suppose that crime does lend itself to drama.
Personally I think the best ever television series was "The West Wing" but this only comes in at No 11. Politics ought to be endlessly dramatic but doesn't feature much in the list: "Our Friends In The North" (No 3), "State Of Play" (No 9), "House Of Cards" (No 18).
Personally I love series about relationships. "This Life" is there (No 31), but not "Thirtysomething", "Friends", "Sex And The City", "Desperate Housewives", "Brothers & Sisters" or "Gavin & Stacey".
And then there's "Battlestar Galatica"(No 25) which is really genre-busting and has been strongly recommended to me.
So what do you think?
This word refers to the state of being the first born or eldest child of the same parents. In a legal context, it establishes the right of the eldest child, especially the eldest son, to inherit estate or rank from one or both parents.
As someone who believes in equality and meritocracy, I oppose the principle of promogeniture and doubly oppose its usual application to the male heir.
This year, I've read a lot of short stories and I've written quite a number.
In today's "Guardian", Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel contributes a short story on the Cinderella theme called "Cinderella In Autumn".
Actually one of my own recent short stories was a reworking of the Cinderella tale called "Cinderella Rebooted".
Compare and contrast the two stories ...
I love books and I thrill to see shelves lined with books whether in a home or a shop. So it's been very odd this week to visit several Books etc stores.
The chain is part of the Borders group of companies which is now bankrupt and in receivership. This means that the stores are selling all remaining books at up to 80% discount. The stores I visited have now sold almost all their outstanding stock and there is shelf after shelf after shelf absolutely empty.
I could not help feeling a sense of sadness.
It was only this evening that I got around to watching a recording of the BBC 4 drama-documentary on the life of British ballerina Margot Fonteyn that was broadcast on Monday. It starred Anne-Marie Duff as Fonteyn.
I always remember that I once saw Fonteyn perform but I couldn't recall the details so I looked them up in my diary. It was 27 October 1967 when I went to the Opera House in Manchester to see Fonteyn - then 48 but at the height of her fame - dance Odette/Odile in "Swan Lake". I still remember the intake of breath from the audience when she first appeared on the stage and, in my diary, I wrote: "I loved very second of it and the whole performance was indescribably wonderful".
It was the first time that I had been to a ballet - but I've been many times since.
I'm current writing a short story which involves a language or script with hundreds of symbols or letters.
This may seen very odd to English speakers since the English alphabet is only 26 letters. But, on a recent cab ride, my Tamil driver told me that his language has 247 characters.
Hard to believe? Check it out here.
When I was on holiday in Iran, I bought some local music and I've done a posting about the musician in question. I like to listen to music from around the world and am always open to recommendations.
A member of the British group visiting Iran told me about a singer called Souad Massi of whom I'd never heard. She's Algerian but now lives in France.
At home, I purchased some of her music: "The Best Of Souad Massi" and have just been listening to it.
I always like to purchase some local music when I visit a new country. During my holiday last week in Iran, we were in the town of Kashan where I bought two CDs of work by local musician and singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian. I'm listening to it now as I work on the computer - evocative stuff.
This is a word which only seems to be used in Britain.
It means a person who enjoys watching activity on the canals
More information here.
This weekend, I caught the Australian musician cum comedian Tim Minchin on "Friday Night With Jonathan Ross" on BBC television. He composed a special piece for the show which you can view here:
This is another terrific performance by Minchin:
Some of my friends use this word quite a lot, but I confess that I've never been sure what it meant. I looked it up on Answers.com here. As a result, I'm no clearer. Any offers?
As a massive movie fan, I was interested in this article which highlights the fall in Hollywood films - from just over 600 last year to fewer than 400 next year - at the same time as ticket revenues look likely to climb by 2% this year.
The key factor is probably the same one: the economic recession. The credit crunch makes it harder to fund films but the tough financial times make escapist entertainment very appealing.
I'm particularly looking forward to James Cameron's "Avatar" which opens on 18 December.
Don't know what it means? Never even heard of it?
Well, that was me at the start of the week. But we've had two young Canadians staying with us and they introduced me to the term.
It seems that, depending on the context, it can mean almost anything - see these suggestions.
This is a fun video to start your week:
When I'm working on the PC, I often like to listen to music - either Classic FM on the radio or one of my CDs on the computer. This afternoon, I've been listening to my CDs of an Uzbek singer called Sevara Nazarkhan.
I know - you've never heard of her. Neither had I until I visited Uzbekistan three years ago [my account here]. It's good stuff.
You can learn more about Sevara here.
Lena Corner struggled to choose a name for her second son. After six weeks, she eventually settled on Ralph (my brother's name) but, after six months, she changed it to Huxley. You can read her explanation here.
I'm fascinated by how parents name their children and I've written an account of naming practices around the world here.
Are you a parent? How did you select your child's name?
I've enjoyed watching the six-part BBC television series on the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which went under the title "Desperate Romantics". I'm sure that it took considerable licence with the facts but it told the story of this art movement with verve and colour and some naughtiness.
The BBC web site on the series provides details on six paintings from the Brotherhood which featured in the series.
Perhaps I've led a sheltered life but, until watching this series, I'd never heard of laudanum (my wife had) with which allegedly Elizabeth Siddal committed suicide.
While my wife has been away in the Czech Republic, I've been viewing a DVD box set loaned to me by my son. It's the first season of an American series that I'd not heard of before "The Unit". I've now watched all 13 episodes in the first season.
Based on show producer Eric Haney's book, "Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit", "The Unit" was created for television and executive produced by David Mamet and Shawn Ryan. It is unusual in combining in each episode a counter-terrorism operation in various parts of the world with narrative involving the wives back at the base.
The lead character Sergeant Major Jonas Blane is played by Dennis Haysbert whom I saw as the US President in the early seasons of "24".
I've rather enjoyed it "The Unit".
In the August issue of "Empire" magazines, it ventures to identify the 1001 greatest movie moments.
The top ten are:
What would be your best movie moment?
In this piece, Robert McCrum looks at the up-sides and down-sides of the electronic book. Personally I love the feel of books and like to own all the ones I read, so I won't be an early candidate for an e-reader.
But I can see the case for one, especially if one is going on a holiday and doesn't want to take lots of heavy books.
When I read non-fiction, I often come across a person or an event about which I'd like to know more, so I use my PC or iPhone to search the web. When I read fiction, I sometimes come across a word that is new to me, so I go along to my massive dictionary or search on-line. Or sometimes it would be good to picture the person or place in the text.
With electronic books, it would be possible to tag all these words, so that the reader simply has to tap on the term and be advised of the information or image required. I'm sure that the e-book will evolve into something very special.
What do these words have in common?
1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess
Are you peeking or have you already given up? Give it another try...
Look at each word carefully. You'll surprise yourself when you discover the answer.
Answer: No, it is not that they all have at least 2 double letters....
Give up??? Try again... I know you can get it. If not............Look below for answer.
You can read about my own visit to Southern Africa here.
I'm a massive movie fan so I'm always going to see new films, but I usually frequent the same cinemas - about 10 in north-west and central London. Last night, however, our young friends Rachael and James took us to a cinema we've never visited before and it was glorious.
It's called The Rex and it's in Berkhamstead. This art deco wonder was first opened in 1938. It had to close in 1988 but it was re-opened in 2004. In the circle, the seating has a conventional layout but the comfort and leg room are superb. On the lower floor - where we were - you sit in big red, swivel chairs at small, round, candlelit tables, with white tablecloths to the floor, and at the back is a long, well-stocked bar.
Check out the history and some photos and tell me if this isn't the loveliest cinema on the planet.
If you want to know how the restoration was achieved, you can view this video:
And the film we saw? The oxymoronic and enigmatically titled "Sleep Furiously" [my review here].
In colloquial English, there is the expression "barking mad" which means insane. If you are a native English speaker, you've probably heard of it.
Now some people who live in London occasionally use a local variant of "barking mad" which can take several forms: "one stop/two stops/three stops towards/short of/beyond Dagenham".
So what is going on here? Well, the District Line on the London Underground has a stop called Barking. If you continue along the line out of London, in three more stops you reach a stop called Dagenham Heathway (the fourth stop is called Dagenham East). So these various phrases relating to Dagenham are ways of suggesting that someone is mad. There is even a song called "Three Stops Short Of Dagenham".
I suppose the confusion in the various forms of the saying arises from the fact that most people have no idea how many stops there are between Barking and Dagenham and whether one is thought to be short of or beyond Barkling depends on whether one is travelling out of or into London.
Do you know of any other clever phraseology for suggesting that someone has lost it?
I've lived for 25 years in a part of north-west London called Sudbury Hill which is at the foot of Harrow-on-the-Hill but I've never been aware that 'harrow' is an object - until today. I was out of London with a friend, we dropped into a local pub for a drink, and the name of the pub was "The Harrow".
The pub sign made it clear that a harrow was a farming implement. Did you know that? According to the definition on Answers.com, a harrow is "a farm implement consisting of a heavy frame with sharp teeth or upright disks, used to break up and even off plowed ground".
This week, I started to read a novel called "The Book Thief" by Australian author Markus Zusak.
After a couple of months, I've decided to pick up the challenge of my American cyber buddy Dana Huff, an English teacher, who blogged about a meme called "Diversity in reading" - see her posting here.
So to answer the questions about my recent reading:
1. Name the last book by a female author that you’ve read.
"The Believers" by Zoe Heller [my review here]
2. Name the last book by an African or African-American author that you’ve read.
"Dreams From My Father" [my review here] and "The Audacity Of Hope" [my review here] by Barack Obama
3. Name one from a Latino/a author.
"My Life" by Fidel Castro [my review here] and “Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel [my review here]
4. How about one from an Asian country or Asian-American?
"The Kite Runner" [my review here] and "A Thousand Splendid Suns" [my review here] by Khaled Hosseini
5. What about a GLBT writer?
Sorry - nothing here
6. Why not name an Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian writer, if you’re feeling lucky?
“The Almond” [my review here] by Nedjma (Moroccan) and ”A Woman In Jerusalem” [my review here] by A.B. Yehoshua (Israeli)
7. Any other “marginalized” authors you’ve read lately?
"The Reader" [my review here] by Bernhard Schlink (German), “Sophie’s World" [my review here] by Jostein Gaarder (Norwegian), “One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich” [my review here] by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Russian), “Life & Times Of Michael K” [my review here] by J.M. Coetzee (South African), "Slumdog Millionaire" [my review here] by Vikas Swarup (Indian), “The Sorrow Of War" [my review here] by Bao Ninh (Vietnamese)
So how about you? How diverse is your reading?
A placebo is an intervention that makes a person feel better even though nothing medical or scientific has actually been done - further information here.
A nocebo is an intervention that makes a person feel worse even though nothing medical or scientific has actually been done - further information here.
The placebo effect (and the nocebo effect) can be incredibly powerful.
Vee and I live at the foot of Harrow-on-the-Hill, a charming and historic corner of north-west London. This weekend, the area hosted an annual event known as Harrow Open Studios when the work of 30 or so local artists is displayed to the visiting public in a variety of locations.
One of our dear friends Rachael Williams was one of those who work was on view, so we made a point of calling into her workshop and looking at some of her creations as a talented ceramicist.
I really enjoyed the film "Slumdog Millionaire" [my review here] and later read the book on which the movie was based [my review here]. The music for the film was excellent and I was bought the CD by my wife. Especially joyous is the final song "Jai Ho".
Now, three and a half months ago, I blogged on the question "What does 'Jai Ho' mean?". I've been astonished at how many visits this posting has received and continues to receive after all this time (try Googling 'Jai Ho' and you'll see what I mean). I've been even more amazed by the number of comments submitted on the posting - almost 60 and still counting.
We established quickly that "Jai Ho" means something like "Victory to you" but this hasn't stopped people posting (increasingly silly) comments.
According to the Global Language Monitor on this day at this time the English vocabulary will acquire its one millionth word. It's nonsense of course - nobody knows how many words there are today in the English language and this particular organisation has forecast on several occasions that different dates will see the arrival of the one millionth word.
But the English vocabulary is huge and growing and English is now a truly global language, so it's fascinating to use this occasion to look at a few facts about English:
The same article tells us that, when Shakespeare was writing his famous plays, there were just two million English speakers and fewer than 100,000 words. Today there are estimated to be 1.53 billion English speakers and, as mentioned earlier, possibly as many as 1M words. So how did English become such a global language? The process is explained in this book and explored in this one.
According to the paper version of the "Daily Mirror" article (the information is not in the online version), the two most used words in the English language are 'the' and 'of'. Interestingly, in the nearest that I have to a second language (Czech), these words do not exist.
Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).
You can find a fuller explanation here.
The word also occurs in the title of a current film.
I confess that, since leaving school, I have read very little poetry because I find so much of it (especially modern work) so inaccessible.
However, sometimes it is easier to appreciate poetry when it is heard rather than read and I've been recommended to access The Poetry Archive which has a lot of poetry recordings.
What is? Well, the behaviour of many Members of Parliament in their expense claims for a start. But what is the origin of this strange expression?
Pale comes from the Latin 'palum' meaning 'stake'. In English, it came to mean a fence around a territory which was under a particular authority, such as a cathedral pale.
By extension, this came to apply to the limit of political jurisdiction. For example, there was an English pale around the part of Ireland under English rule in the 14th century and around Calais from 1347-1558.
Life within the pale was civilised: beyond it, barbaric. Nowadays the phrase is more generally applied to any behaviour or statement of which the speaker or writer disapproves.
I was recently having dinner with some friends including a woman from The Netherlands. I commented that it was strange that the English language contains so many words and phrases that make unkind reference to the Dutch. After all, the Dutch are known for being affable, tolerant, and English speakers. My Dutch friend was surprised to hear this and the British colleagues present appeared to doubt my assertion. So consider these terms - not all actively in use today - which are present in the English vocabulary:
Wolgang Amadeus Mozart composed his opera "Don Giovanni" while staying at the Bertramka residence in Prague and the piece was first performed in the Estates Theatre in Prague on 29 October 1787. During our Easter visit to the city, Vee and I visited Bertramka for the first time - it is now a small museum - and later attended an excellent performance of "Don Giovanni" at the beautiful Estates Theatre.
The final sequence of the opera appeared in the film "Amadeus" as you can see here:
I enjoy art - but I find much modern art difficult to appreciate. Last weekend, I spent some time sightseeing in Lisbon following a presentation which I made at a seminar. So I visited the city's Museum of Modern Art where I came across a special exhibition by an Austrian artist called Heimo Zobernig.
I have never seen work so pretentious in its composition and so opaque in its meaning. I have searched the web for some illumination and came across this explanation of his work which only confirms me in my view that I never want to see anything by him again.
Take your time and 'walk through' this Chinese painting which stretches across some length. At each of the three white boxes, turn on your sound system, click your mouse within the box, and you will be amazed at how the painting comes to life. Cursor to right to fast forward. Enjoy!
This is a very famous painting in China . People line up for hours at the Shanghai Museum just to view it. This painting was originally painted, circa 1085-1145, during the Northern Song Dynasty. It was repainted during the Qing Dynasty. It measures 528cm in width and 24.8cm in height.
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You may not have noticed it but today is World Book Day.
Now, all my life, I have loved books and on my web site you can find some 165 book reviews.
If you haven't read the novel "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink or seen the film starring Kate Winslet, my discussion of the moral core of the story may not interest you and, if you intend to read the book or see the film, you might not want to spoil things by reading what follows in this blog entry.
On the other hand, if you've read the novel and/or seen the film, you might be interested in the following discussion of what Schlink is trying to do.
A few weeks ago, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the feel-good movie "Slumdog Millionaire" [see my review here] and my wife surprised me on Valentine's Day by giving me the soundtrack CD of the movie.
The final song is called "Jai Ho" and is played during an exuberant dance sequence at the end of the film and in fact on Sunday it won the Academy Award for Best Song. You can listen to a sound clip of the song here and see the text of the lyrics here.
But what does "Jai Ho" mean (I've seen various suggestions) and what is the song all about? Can a Hindi-speaking reader of NightHawk illuminate us?
Actually, you are living through one - the global financial crisis that has stunned bankers and traders around the world. Actually you are one - in evolutionary terms, your chances of being here are "a chance occurrence of monstrous proportions".
The concept and the quote come from Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his bestselling book "The Black Swan: The Impact Of The Highly Improbable". You can read my review of the book here.
As you will see, I found the book to be over-hyped and badly written. If you want better books on new ways of thinking, try "Freakonomics" [my review here] or "Blink" [my review here] or "Predictably Irrational" [my review here].
Last night was a great evening for the British at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony - for full list of nominations and winners, see here.
"Slumdog Millionaire" won no less than eight Oscars including Best Film and Best Director [see my review here] and, after six nominations, Kate Winslet, won the Best Actress accolade for "The Reader" [see my review here].
Other films that I've seen which won awards were "The Dark Knight" [see my review here] and "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" [see my review here].
The last CD that I bought was "Rockferry" by the young Welsh singer Duffy - I especially love the track "Mercy". Her singing reminds me of the late, great Dusty Springfield.
So I'm delighted that, in this evening's Brit Awards, Duffy won three times: Best British Female, Best British Album and Best British Breakthrough Act. You can see the full results here and Duffy's reaction here.
I feel sorry for Coldplay though - "Viva la Vida" is a really good album.
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
I did a posting recently about the difficulty of reading 1,000 novels.
I've now found the answer.
In this posting, I explained how Vee and me had received for Christmas DVDs of series six and seven of "The West Wing". Then, in this posting, I reported that we had watched the 22 episodes of series six in just 12 days. We've just finished watching the 22 episodes of series seven which took us 15 days.
The number of times we viewed the election campaign of the fictional Matt Santos and thought of the parallels with the campaign of the real life Barack Obama seemed to be endless and I've found this site which has the most comprehensive list that I've seen of the similarities between "The West Wing" and Obama's "improbable journey". Is this art imitating life or life imitating art?
Either way, I've now seen all 154 episodes of the seven series of "The West Wing" twice and, after 308 viewings, I guess that I must now confine myself to the real thing.
In a blog posting last summer, I reported that the Phoenix cinema in north London first opened in 1910 as "The East Finchley Picturedrome", offering 'the world's finest picture plays', it has been open as a cinema ever since, and it claims to be the oldest purpose-built continuously serving cinema in the UK - it has never been a bingo hall, snooker hall or dark even during two World Wars.
Recently a reader of NighHawk has drawn attention to her local cinema and staked a claim to the title. The historic Curzon Community Cinema in Clevedon, North Somerset, in the west of England is claimed as the oldest purpose-built, continually operating cinema in the world. The original building opened in 1912 and films have been presented on this site ever since. The Curzon is now a community cinema, operated as a registered charity.
So - who is right? Or is there another claim?
At the beginning of the month, I did posting about how Vee and I had received DVD sets of series six and seven of "The West Wing" for Christmas.
We watched the 22 episodes of series six in just 12 days, concluding with the Latino Matt Santos winning the Democratic candidacy after a contested convention. We then decided to take a break from American politics in television while the real thing - the inauguration of Barack Obama - engaged our attention.
This evening, we returned to "The West Wing" and watched the first four episodes of series seven. This is television that is both brilliantly entertaining and highly informative. No British television series has ever treated politics so intelligently.
Over the last seven days, the "Guardian" newspaper has been publishing a series of guides which collectively recommend "1,000 novels everyone must read". Now this is a strong injunction. Not 100 novels, but 1,000. Not that some people must read, but everyone. Not that one is recommended to read, but that one must read.
But, most of all, I'm wondering how many people could or would read 1,000 novels.
I aim to read a book a month and I read at least twice as much non-fiction as fiction. This means that last year I read 13 books (totalling a bit over 4,000 pages) and only four of them were novels. At this rate, it would take me 250 years to cover 1,000 novels. Even if I read nothing but novels and if one assumed the typical novel was around 250 pages, at my average reading rate (around 4,500 pages a year), I reckon it would take me around 55 years.
The only person I know who might be able to claim one day to have read 1,000 novels is my American cyber friend Dana Huff - but she is a high school English teacher.
So, how are you doing?
This week, my wife and I visited the British Museum in central London to see the exhibition "Babylon: Myth And Reality". While not having the scale and grandeur of the "Byzantium" exhibition at the Royal Academy [see my comment here]. it is still an interesting and impressive exhibition as this review from the "Observer" newspaper makes clear.
However, if one wants to see the true glory of Babylon, one has to visit the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (which I have) where one can see a reconstruction of the magnificent Ishtar Gate. The actual remains of Babylon south of Baghdad are more disappointing than ever since American and Polish troops used the site as a base in the current occupation and did terrible harm to archeological site.
You might know that a palindrome is a word, a phase or a sentence that reads backwards exactly the same way as it reads forwards. For some examples, see here.
But have you ever heard of a semordnilap? This is a name coined for a word or phrase that spells a different word or phrase backwards. "Semordnilap" is itself "palindromes" spelled backwards.You'll find some examples here.
"The West Wing" was my all-time favourite television series and I guess that I was not alone in finding it both immensely entertaining and informative. After all, it won two Golden Globe Awards and 26 Emmy Awards, a tie with "Hill Street Blues" for the most Emmy Awards ever won by a television drama series.
Now I watched all 154 episodes of the seven series as they were first broadcast on British television. Later I rewatched series one through to five on DVD. For Christmas, our son and daughter-in-law gave us DVDs of series six and seven and we've just started enjoying them.
Series six opens with the president having to decide how to respond to a Hamas terrorist incident in the Gaza Strip. He is advised to hit a wide variety of targets hard with military attacks but chooses instead to hit limited targets and contrive a set of Middle East peace negotiations.
Trouble in Gaza? Sound familiar? A proportionate military response while seeking negotiations? Sound fanciful? Of course, it's only television ...
I sometimes think that I've led a rather sheltered life because from time to time I come across a word - usually a colloquialism - that I don't know but my wife does. On reflection, I have come to the view that my deficiency is the result of my up-bringing by a single parent who was Italian so that, if the word is more likely to be spoken than written, I may not know it.
I know - you want an example; and I'm going to give you one. We recently saw an episode of the television comedy "The IT Crowd" which used the word 'boss-eyed'. My wife knew what this meant, but I didn't. She explained that it means 'cross-eyed' but she couldn't explain to me the origin of this word.
I had to look it up in my copy of the much-used and ever-faithful "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable". It turns out that word originates from the field of archery. The straw to which the circular target is attached is called a 'boss' and, if one was a bad shot and hit the straw instead of the target, one was said to be 'boss-eyed'.
So now you know. But did you know beforehand?
Now check out a clip from "The IT Crowd" that uses the word - it's here.
We rewatched - this time on DVD - the entire first series of "Gavin And Stacey". Six half-hours of sheer fun. Brilliant.
A very happy New Year to all readers of NightHawk. Please keep visiting in 2009 - I'll be exploring lots of subjects and trying to spread a little enlightenment and happiness.
Footnote (4/1/09): This evening, we watched on DVD all seven episodes of series two of "Gavin And Stacey". Following the Christmas special and the recent announcement, we're looking forward now to the broadcasting of series three ...
We live at a time when the media seems to describe almost everything as iconic - from an old red telephone box to the footballer David Beckham. But, as I explained in my previous posting I have just been to an exhibition on Byzantium and here there were many real icons.
The word icon comes from the Greek word eikon which simply means 'a likeness, image or picture'. In various religions at different times, the creation and display of icons has been in or out of favour. The practice of displaying icons is called iconography and an iconostatis is a screen bearing icons. Someone who favours icons is called an iconophile, while somebody who opposes icons is described as an iconoclast and the destruction of icons is called inconoclasm..
I thought that you'd like to know ...
This week, I managed to visit the Royal Academy in central London see the exhibition on Byzantium 330-1453 which opened on 25 October 2008 and runs until 22 March 2009.
This is a fabulous exhibition which spans a period of over 1,000 years from 330, when the Emperor Constantine consecrated his new capital, to 1453, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks. The exhibition features some 340 objects from over 100 lending institutions, many never before seen in public, let alone in Britain.
I'm fascinated by the English language - partly because it's the only one I speak and partly because so many other people around the world speak it. Two books that I've enjoyed reading are "English As A Global Language" [my review here] and "Mother Tongue" [my review here].
According to "The Secret Life Of Words" by Henry Hitchings, "English has existed for only 1,500 years" and "A thousand years ago, there were about 50,00 English words: today, according to whose estimate you accept, there are 700,000, 1 million or even double that number".
Now I've been reading "The Economist" publication "The World In 2009" and this has a leader which refers to the claim of an organisation called the Global Language Monitor that the number of words in English will pass the one million mark on 29 April 2009.
Whichever way you look at it, the English language has a huge vocabulary - probably the largest of any language - and, even after 60 years, I continue to learn new words all the trime.
I don't watch the television series "The X Factor", but I know from the news that this year's competition was won by Alexandra Burke with a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
Now this is a song I love. Although first recorded in 1984, I first came across it only when it was used in an episode of my favourite television series "The West Wing". This version by Jeff Buckley occurs in the final episode of series three. Later I really enjoyed the version by K.D. Lang on her CD "Hymns Of The 49th Parallel".
For all my admiration of "Hallelujah", I'm not at all sure that I fully understand the lyrics. Clearly it is a tale of lost love but this piece calls it "a perfect secular hymn".
As recorded in my previous posting, I attended a classical concert this weekend. Now the programme notes for Bruckner's Symphony No 4 concluded with a sentence containing a word with which I was unfamiliar:
"The final coda is one of the most awesome of all symphonic perorations, crowned by the same majestic horn call that first opened the work, exultantly crying out over the orchestra's surgingly refulgent textures."The word that was new to me was 'refulgent'. According to the web site Answers.com, it means 'shining radiantly; resplendent'. So now we know. See if you can work the word into your conversation this week...
My wife Vee and I used to go quite regularly to classical concerts but, over the years, we've fallen out of the habit. This weekend, however, we were persuaded by our friends Bob and Diana to join them at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank. It was the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mariss Jansons.
The programme consisted of two symphonies with a connection to the Austrian town of Linz. The first was Mozart's Symphony No 38 which apparently he wrote in just five days while stopping off to give a concert in Linz. The second was Symphony No 4 by Bruckner who spent five years as a choirboy and organist at St Florian which is near Linz.
I confess that I was unfamiliar with either work but it was an excellent evening - the first work mellifluous and the second majestic.
For almost three years, I have worked part-time from 28-30 Grosvenor Gardens, near Victoria Station in central London, as a member of the Council of Postwatch, the watchdog for postal consumers. Last month, Postwatch closed down and was merged with two other consumer organisations to form Consumer Focus which is located in another building opposite the House of Fraser department store in Artillery Row.
Only now that I've left Grosvenor Gardens have I been told that the building was the main location for the shooting of the 1965 film "The Ipcress File". As a massive movie fan, I would have loved to have known this years ago and then I could have fantasized about being secret agent Harry Palmer as I went about my postal business.
Further information on the locations used here.
I'm off this evening to see the new James Bond film. But just what exactly is a "Quantum Of Solace"?
As a teenager in the 1960s when the Bond movies first appeared, I read all 14 of Ian Fleming's 007 books and still have copies on my shelves. Two of the books were in fact collections of short stories. One - "For Your Eyes Only" - titled the third of the five stories "Quantum Of Solace".
The whole story is an after dinner conversation between the Governor of the Bahamas and James Bond in which the former narrates the experience of a man betrayed by his wife.
The Governor opines:
""I've seen flagrant infidelities patched up. I've seen crimes and even murder forgiven by the other party, let alone bankruptcy and every other form of social crime. Incurable disease, blindness, disaster - all these can be overcome. But never the death of common humanity in one of the partners. I've thought about this and I've invented a rather high sounding title for this basic factor in human relations.I have called it the Law of the Quantum of Solace."Bond responds:
"Quantum of Solace - the amount of comfort. Yes, I suppose you could say that all love and friendship is based in the end on that. Human beings are very insecure. When the other person not only makes you feel insecure but actually seems to want to destroy you, it's obviously the end. The Quantum of Solace stands at zero."In fact, the story is based on an actual case and reflects Fleming's own marital difficulties at the time of his writing the story, as explained by Andrew Lycett here.
Footnote (2/11/08): I've now seen the film and reviewed it here.
I count myself as something of a film fan, but I confess that i hadn't heard of a particular cinematic term until it was used by my erudite Postwatch colleague Howard Webber in his speech to a conference this week. The term is "MacGuffin".
The word refers to "a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise". You can find some discussion and examples here.
It's reported that Will Smith has just become the first actor in the history of the cinema to star in eight consecutive movies that have each earned more than $100 million at the box office.
So, how many can you name and how many have you seen? I've only caught three.
I'm a massive movie fan and have almost 1900 titles in my card index system of films that I've seen. One of my all-time favourites is "Lawrence Of Arabia" (1963) directed by David Lean.
This afternoon, I saw it for the 10th time in 45 years. This was the restored version shown at London's National Film Theatre and I viewed it with my 32 son old son Richard who has never seen it before.
You can check out my review here.
Each 10 July, Liverpool celebrates Beatles Day. The event marks the anniversary of the Fab Four’s triumphant homecoming to Liverpool after they conquered America in 1964.
This year, various famous people have been asked for their favourite Beatles song and the leaders of our political parties have answered as follows:
What's your favourite?
Since I went on holiday to Cuba [my acccount here], I've been more than usually interested in all things Cuban. So I recently had a great night at a performance by the Buena Vista Social Club [my blog posting here].
Last night, together with my wife Vee and brother-in-law Derek, I attended a show of Cuban dance called "Havana Rakatan" at the Peacock Theatre in central London. The show involves a 15-strong troupe of dancers called Ballet Rakatan supported by an eight-strong Cuban son band called Turquino.
The show is a walk through the history of dance styles and influences on the island from colonial times to modern day and it is exciting, exhilerating and exuberant - concluding with dancing in the aisles. The "Indepedent" newspaper had an enthusiastic review.
I always knew that there were 14 James Bond novels authored by Ian Fleming because I read all of them as a teenager in the 1960s. I always knew that other authors had continued the franchise but, until this week's publication of "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks, I had no idea just how many Bond books there were.
If you exclude the works in the Young Bond and Miss Moneypenny series, then the grand total now is 43. You can see the full details here.
Sometimes I buy a CD without hearing a single track and without even knowing the performer because I have read a good review and want to try something new. This is why I listened for the first time this weekend to "The Beauty And The Sea" by Mor Karbasi.
She is a London-based Israeli singer whom the "Guardian" has described as "one of the great young divas of the global music scene". She is directly descended from both Moroccan and Persian Jews and she is an exponent of Ladino music and surviving songs of the late 15th century when Jewish and Muslim communities in Spain were expelled by the Christians.
"The Beauty And The Sea" features songs in Ladino, Hebrew and Spanish. It is melodic, moving, and magical.
Our recent visit to Cuba [my narrative here] has stimulated my interest in Cuban music. We bought a couple of CDs during the trip and, since we returned from the holiday, we've purchased and watched the 1999 film "Buena Vista Social Club" [my review here].
So we were excited at the opportunity to hear some Buena Vista Social Club stalwarts live in London and attend a concert last night at the Hammersmith Apollo. Vee and I were joined by her twin sister Mari and brother-in-law Derek plus two of our special friends from the Cuba trip, Juan-Jose and Joanne.
Now the Apollo is an unimpressive venue with poor facilities, but the concert was wonderful. It began with a group from Los Angeles called Very Be Careful. Then we had the Buena Vista Social Club for almost two hours (there was no formal interval all evening).
As well as an 11-piece band from Havana, we had the four stars: Cachaíto Lopez on double bass, Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal on trumpet, Jesús ‘Aguaje’ Ramos on trombone, and Manuel Galbán on guitar and organ [biographical summaries here].
What I love most about Cuban music is its sheer joy and exuberance. However, I also delight in the ensemble nature of the playing with each main instrumentalist and singer having a chance to take the lead and show his or her virtuoso talent.
It was a terrific evening and, for the last number, we were all dancing in the rows. If anything, that was all that was really missing to make the evening perfect. Cuban music and dancing are simply inextricable and, in Cuba itself, the best concerts feature professionals dancers and the restaurants and clubs positively invite customers to swing their hips.
I've just finished reading an excellent book called "Counterknowledge" [my review here]. The term is defined by the author Damian Thompson as follows "The essence of counterknowledge is that it purports to be knowledge but is not knowledge."
Thompson's targets include Creationism, pseudohistory and complementary medicine.
I identify completely with his trenchant analysis which is reflected in my own essay on "The Reason For Truth".
A year ago, I blogged about a possible explanation for the television series "Lost". We were promised that the current series - the fourth - would give us some answers - and I suppose that we are now obtaining some clearer hints.
I haven't watched the series since before I went to Cuba a month ago, but I've been recording each episode through Sky+ and this evening I took in three episodes in one go. It's beginning to look as if the explanation for it all is some version of the multiple universe theory.
I had some time to fill today between my afternoon meeting and my dinner engagement, so I went along to the West End Vue cinema in London's Leicester Square and saw the film "Vantage Point".
As I was leaving the cinema, I found that the British premiere of the new rom-com "Fool's Gold" was about to start and I hung around with the cheering crowds to get close up views of the film's good-looking stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson singing autographs as they slowly moved along a blue carpet.
Then I joined Vee and we had our first dinner with the new Mr & Mrs Darlington, our son Richard and his new bride Emily.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
We all know the words? But who wrote them?
I'm a massive film fan and four of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen are wu xia films. I viewed one of them again this weekend with enormous pleasure. The four films are:
I think that this site is a fun idea.
As a massive movie fan, I've had an enjoyable evening watching the BAFTA Film Awards on BBC television. It was good to see a British film "Atonement" [my review here] win the Best Film Award and I was even more impressed with the novel [my review here].
I love reading books (as I have explained here), but I have so much other reading to do as part of my work and I am a slow and conscientious reader. So I aim to read a book a month. I've managed to review almost 150 on my web site here.
Do you read books? How many?
I've used some of the quiet time over the Christmas/New Year period to reoganise the film reviews on my web site. There are now well over 500.
You can check them out here.
This evening, I watched the final programme of interviews by 72 year old Michael Parkinson - a compilation of clips from some of the many, many fascinating guests he has had over 36 years on both BBC and ITV.
He was the consummate interviewer who could persuade very public people to reveal very private aspects of their lives and do it in a respectful, caring and often humorous manner. There is simply nobody on British television now doing serious interviews and our media is the poorer for it. Thanks, Parky.
You can see clips of some of his interviews here.
Actually I would have rather liked to be an interviewer myself. i always enjoy encouraging people to talk about themselves and am constantly amazed at how open and revealing people are prepared to be to me. Everybody has a story and everyone can teach me something.
One of the things I like about this time of years is all the lists that come out about the year just ending. We've just had the information from National Statistics on the most popular baby names for 2007.
This has enabled me to up-date my very comprehensive web site essay on naming practices around the world which you can read here. The bit on new names in England & Wales is here.
What do the latest lists tell us?
First of all, it is striking how traditional most of the names are for both boys and girls, although for the boys it is interesting that the familiar form of names rather than the original version is often preferred - Jack instead of John (first for the 13th year running), Harry instead of Harold, Charlie instead of Charles.
In the case of boys, three of the top nine names begin with the letter 'J'. In the case of girls, five of the top ten names end with the sound 'ee' and 11 of the top 20 names contain one or more of the letter 'l'.
On the other hand, the name David - which is the second most common name in Britain - slipped out of the top 50 of names chosen for babies born in 2004 and has stayed out. Incidentally, a reflection of the changing ethnicity of the English population is that the 17th most popular name is Mohammed and the 38th is Muhammad.
A relative of a friend is thinking of setting up a proof-reading service for hotels, restaurants and suchlike in mainland Europe so they can be confident their menus and signage are free of terrible or offensive bloopers in the use of English.
I wonder if readers of NightHawk have encountered examples of poor use of English while on holiday abroad or know of web-sites which collect such things? This would be to provide my friend's relative with some material for the "what we can help you avoid" section of her website.
Over to you ....
I'm really interested in the origin of words and the use of language. A friend of mine who surfs the Net more than is normal (that's Nick again) has discovered the origin of the phrase "pie in the sky".
Perhaps appropriately for a Sunday blog posting by a former trade union official, the phrase turns out to come from a song written by a trade union organisation (the Industrial Workers of the World) in response to a religious movement (the Salvation Army).
Check it our here.
In an earlier posting, I pointed out that Spain translates in one year the number of books that have been translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years.
I was aware at the time that there is a project designed to address this and this week that project announced the first works that it will translate into Arabic. I very much welcome this project as helping international understanding and the dissemination of knowledge and culture.
The project is called Kalima ("word" in Arabic) and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage is financing the translation and publishing exercise The project unveiled the first six translations this week and it aims to publish 100 books from 16 languages in its first year and 500 titles a year by 2010. The first six translations include "A Briefer History Of Time " by Stephen Hawking [my review here]
You can find more details on the first books in the project here.
It's an amazing fact that:
"Although Arab culture, from Baghdad to Toledo, led the world in the art of translation in the 8th and 9th centuries, transmitting ancient Greek and Latin texts that helped fuel Europe's renaissance, the UN estimates that the entire number of books translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 years is the same as that now rendered into Spanish in a single year."
On the other hand:
"After the 1988 Nobel prize for literature was awarded to Naguib Mahfouz, the sole Arab recipient to date, Edward Said wrote that 'of all the major literatures and languages, Arabic is by far the least known and the most grudgingly regarded by Europeans and Americans'."
These are both quotes from an interesting article in today's "Guardian" newspaper.
Another way of better understanding the Arab world is to visit it and I've been fortunate enough to travel to Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.
Most people who know me will confirm that I love travelling and I'm a pretty friendly sort of guy. This combination causes a major dilemma which was taken up this week on the BBC's web site, namely this: when a man meets or leaves a woman, does he simply shake hands, give her one kiss, kiss both cheeks, give three kisses or even four?
Now, obviously it depends on the context of the meeting: is this a business or a social event? has one met the woman before or not? But, as the BBC makes clear in this report, there is also a strong cultural dimension because what is deemed right varies from country to country and even from city to city.
Here's a rough guide to the appropriate number of kisses:
None: Japan, China
Close friends and family only: Germany, Italy, Middle East (except between male friends)
One: Belgium
Two: Spain, Austria, Hungary, Greece, some parts of France
Three: Brittany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium (if other person 10 years older), Egypt, Russia
Four: Paris and Geneva
"Although fewer than 3 percent of modern English verbs are irregular, this number includes the 10 most common verbs: be, have, do, go, say, can, will, see, take, and get. Lieberman, Michel, and colleagues expect that some 15 of the 98 modern irregular verbs they studied -- although likely none of these top 10 -- will regularize in the next 500 years."One of the things my foreign friends find most difficult about the English language is the conjugation of irregular verbs. According to this report, things aren't going to get much easier in the next half millennium. But then most languages have irregular verbs - often the same verbs - and at least English does not have declension of nouns.
If you want to avoid both conjugation of verbs and declension of nouns, try leaning Mandarin. The trouble here is the pronunciation. Every character can be pronounced in one of four tones which give utterly different meanings to the same symbol. You can read my take on the 'Chinese' language here.
Fifty years ago today, the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius died. I first came across his music 40 years ago when I was 19. At the time, I lived in Manchester and started to go to concerts given by the Halle Orchestra at the Free Trade Hall. The orchestra's conductor was the great John Barbirolli and he was a strong supporter of the music of Sibelius and ensured that it featured frequently in the repertoire. The Second and Fifth Symphonies are particular favourites of mine.
Kate "KT" Tunstall is a young Scottish singer and songwriter with a distinctive raspy voice. You can check out her official web site here.
I enjoyed her first CD "Eye To The Telescope" and this week I've been playing her second CD "Drastic Fantastic". You can sample her CDs here - I especially like the track "Hold On" on the new one.
Over the years, I have read some wonderful books and seen some marvellous films - but I cannot recall when I last enjoyed so much both a novel and the movie version of the written work.
I refer to "Atonement". Read my review of Ian McEwan's book here. Read my review of Joe Wright's film here.
Read the novel. See the movie. Be enthralled.
As regular visitors to NightHawk will know, I love travelling to other countries and experiencing other cultures. Every time I visit a new country, I like to hear some of that nation's music, either traditional or contemporary.
Last year, I visited Uzbekistan [my account here] and discovered the music of a young Uzbek singer called Sevara Nazarkhan. I immediately bought her first CD released in the West called "Yol Bolsin".
Sevara has just released a second CD called "Sen" (it means "You" in Uzbek). I've already bought it to double my Sevara collection. It's pleasant listening and surprisingly relaxing to hear lyrics in a language one doesn't understand.
One of the wonderful features of living in London is the access to so many art galleries, museums and exhibitions. Currently one of the very best exhibitions is called "Spirit & Life".
This is located at the Ismaili Centre at South Kensington. There are 167 superb artifacts from the future Aga Khan Museum which is planned to open in Toronto, Canada in 2010. Many of the pieces are breathtaking.
The exhibition displays textiles, exquisite miniatures, rare manuscripts, ceramics, precious pages from the Qur’an, scientific medical texts, books of fables, and tiles and musical instruments alongside some of the finest portraits of Ottoman sultans and Qajar shahs of the 19th century.
The good news is that access to the exhibition is free. The bad news is that the event - which opened on 14 July - closes on 31 August.
I'm looking forward now to the exhibition of the Terracotta Army at the British Museum.
The last time I counted my books it came to almost 2,000. Inevitably therefore there are books I've always intended to read but never quite got round to doing so.
Such a work is the Alexander Solzhenitsyn novel "One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich". According to my inscription on the inside front cover, I bought the book on 6 October 1973 - but I just never read it.
What prompted me to do so now was reading a blog posting on the work by my American cyber-buddy Dana Huff who is an English teacher. You can read my review here.
I've watched all 23 episodes of the American television series "Heroes" on the Sc-Fi Channel and really enjoyed them. Today the series starts broadcasting on BB2 with an opening double-bill starting at 9 pm.
Try it - it's entertaining. The plot is cleverly constructed, the characters are engaging, and there are some good-looking guys and girls.
This month marks the centenary of the birth of the remarkable Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.
I first learned about Kahlo through the excellent film "Frida" [my review here] but, since then, I've seen several exhibitions of her striking - and often disturbing - work, notably an international exhibition in 2005 in London which brought together 87 works [my review here].
The 100th birthday of Frida Kahlo is being honoured with the largest-ever exhibit of her paintings at the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico. Works are on loan from Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Nayoga, Japan.The exhibit includes one-third of her artistic production, as well as manuscripts and letters that have not been previously displayed.
I wish that I could have visited the exhibition, but I've never been to Mexico.
If you love reading books, you might find this site fun.
Talking of libraries, as a schoolboy I used to borrow all the books I read and, as a student, I used to spend most of my time in the places. Since I finished at university, I've never been to a library.
I like to own all the books I read (or intend to read), partly so I can mark them up, partly so I can refer to them when I want, and partly because books just look so good.
What am I reading at the moment? "A Spot Of Bother", a novel by Mark Haddon.
The English language - which is, of course, now the global language - is relatively easy to learn and exceptionally hard to master. One of the major problems with English is the inconsistent spelling and pronunciation. This has led some to argue for a simplified system of spelling.
There is a fascinating debate on this question on BBC on-line today - you'll find it here.
No sooner had Vee and I held our celebratory event for our 25th wedding anniversary than she went off to France for 10 days with her twin sister and two other female relatives. So I've been home alone this weekend.
One of things I've been doing is catching up with the music of Norah Jones. I already had her first two CDs: "Come Away With Me" (2002) and "Feels Like Home" (2004). This weekend, I've bought and listened to her new CD: "Not Too Late"
Very mellow and relaxing.
As a massive movie fan, I'm interested in the publication by the American Film Institute of its latest list of the top 100 films of all time.
Yet again, "Citizen Kane" comes top. I admire the technical achievement of Orson Welles' work but I don't find myself particularly engaged by this movie. For me, "Lawrence Of Arabia" - seventh in this list - is still my all-time favourite film [my review here].
If you want to know more of my personal favourites, check out these reviews.
Next year, I'll be 60 - but, in a sense, I've always thought of myself as a thirty something. When I was in my 20s, I felt older than my peers. Throughout my 40s and 50s, I've felt much younger in attitude than my chronological age and really enjoy the company of people in their 30s.
Perhaps this is why I used to delight so much in the American television series "Thirtysomething" which was co-created by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz and broadcast between 1987 and 1991. Later, I liked the British series "Cold Feet", written by Mike Bullen and broadcast between 1997 and 2000, which similarly portrayed the real-life challenges of being thirty something.
Now a new British series is addressing a similar age group. It's called "Talk To Me" and is written by Danny Brocklehurst. He has explained in this article why he suggested the series and why he thinks this subject matter makes such good television. I share his analysis that ordinary lives can make really good drama.
This is a brilliant clip from YouTube (all that's missing is "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by Vermeer):
A friend has forwarded this sentence to me as an example of a pangram. A pangram is a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.
You can find a fuller explanation, lots of examples in English, and some examples in other languages here.
This week, my son Richard (31 on Monday) and I commemorated something of a family tradition of almost three decades by visiting a special "Star Wars" exhibition at County Hall in central London.
I've always been a huge film fan and I really enjoy science fiction movies. So I was thrilled when the first "Star Wars" film was released in 1977 and keen to share my enthusiasm with my very young son. Richard was only two and a half when he made his first visit to the cinema to see "Star Wars" on Boxing Day 1978. From then on, we've had a tradition - followed with all of the next five films - that father and son would go to see each new episode at the cinema together.
Which brings us to "Star Wars: The Exhibition" which features an array of items specially selected from the Lucasfilm archives in Northern California. The exhibition opened in Portugal, it is now in London, and it will then move around the world.
The exhibition is outrageously expensive at £16.50 and I found the supporting text hard to read, but it's lots of fun with everything from a life-sized Naboo N-1 starfighter to Darth Vader's outfit. Most of the 12 rooms focus on a specific world in the "Star Wars" universe from Endor, where Luke Skywalker was born, to Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Empire. There are some 240 exhibits in all and some interactive activities such as a Jedi training facility.
Both Richard and I have the same initials RD and Vee used to dub us as R1D1 and R2D2. On my visit to the exhibition, I learned why the name R2D2 was used for the little white droid. It is a reference to film language and 'translates' to reel two, dialogue two. In fact, my favourite character has always been Yoda.
Since these days most special effects and even objects and costumes are created by digital technology, this kind of exhibition featuring models and clothing from a series of films may be a real rarity. See it now before the Death Star explodes it.
From time to time - such as this week - I receive e-mails from young Americans thanking me for an informative and helpful web site but criticising my poor spelling.They simply have no idea that the spelling of American English and British English is different. It comes as a revelation when I politely point this out. It was our language first, guys.
No, neither had I - until someone called me this evening and suggested that I look at this poem. My caller must me playing with me - she knows that I find modern poetry inaccessible and this one is an exceptionally hard one to understand (although Frieda Hughes is on hand to help).
If you really want to know about the axolotl rather than the poem, check it out here.
My cyber buddy Dana Huff - an American teacher of English - has tagged me with a book meme which I guess means that I have to offer my selections of:
three characters…
1. … you wish were real so you could meet them:
* Vianne Rocher from "Chocolat" by Joanne Harris [my review here].
* Antonio Corelli from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" by Louis de Bernières [my review here]
* Alfred Polly from "The History Of Mr Polly" by H G Wells
2. … you would like to be:
* Will from "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman [my review here]
* Alberto Knox from "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder [my review here]
* Frank Poole from "3001: The Final Odyssey" by Arthur C Clarke [my review here]
3. … who scare you:
* Nathan Price from "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver [my review here]
* Clarissa Dalloway in "Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf [my review here]
* Anna from "Loving Roger" by Tim Parks [my review here]
This exhibition - which opens in London today - is simply unmissable. I will, of course, blog about it when I've been.
Meanwhile which "Star wars" character are you most like? Find out here. Apparently I'm like R2D2.
Today's Weekend magazine supplement with the "Guardian" newpaper has a clever little feature in which authors are invited to tell a story in a handful of words.
I like this story of life by Blake Morrison: "Womb. Bloom. Groom. Gloom. Rheum. Tomb."
If you're British and you have Virgin Media, you've just lost "Lost" - and I'm sorry for you. If you're British and you have Sky, then - like me - you'll still be hooked. In the last but one episode, they discovered a character called Roger. Can you believe the coincidence? But he's long dead.
So, what on earth is going on? The actor who plays Jack Shephard's father, John Terry, has an idea:
"I have a theory about the whole island. It is the Superstring Theory. The only thing that makes sense to me is that this is parallel reality. In the Superstring Theory, I think there are 11 separate realities that can co-exist at the same time. This island represents a co-created reality of all the characters that are on it. The little kid Walt is reading a book with a polar bear in it, and then you get to the island and there is a polar bear. And the only logical way for 48 people to fall out of the sky at 45,000 feet and have them all survive is that they didn’t. They survived only in another reality so they are actually dead in our reality. They are just alive in a co-created reality."
Earlier this week, I was watching "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" when he interviewed Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter. When commenting on the failure of the current US President, Brzezinski accused George Bush of "Manichean paranoia". I'm convinced that nobody in the audience - and even possibly Jon Stewart himself - had any idea what he was talking about.
In fact, , Brzezinski was refering to Manichaeism which Answer.com defines as "A dualistic philosophy dividing the world between good and evil principles or regarding matter as intrinsically evil and mind as intrinsically good." Clearly Brzezinski had in mind Bush's foreign policy approach based on the view that the US faces "an axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran and North Korea).
An irony of the use of the term Manichaeism in the context of Iran is that this dualistic religion was found by a man called Mani in the 3rd century AD in Persia (present day Iran).
A couple of weeks ago, I did a blog posting about Britain's favourite books. This week, we have the results of a survey of books which Britons buy but do not manage to finish reading.
In fact, it's a very rare experience for me not to finish a book - it's partly that I usually know a fair bit about any book I obtain and partly because I'm a pretty committed reader. So I found that the lists in this new survey contained books that I have started and finished although, in some cases, I can understood why faint-hearted readers might have given up (mainly length, but sometimes complexity of structure or style).
In the top five fiction books not finished, there were two that I've read: "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" [my review here] and "Cloud Atlas" [my review here]. In the top five non-fiction books not finished, again there were two that I've read: "Eats, Shoots And Leaves" [my review here] and "Wild Swans" [my review here].
The English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) has a passionate following, but her life is notable for its lack of events. She did not marry, although she had several suitors, one of whom she accepted one evening, only to withdraw her acceptance the following morning. While she was writing her novels, the Napoleonic Wars were in progress, but you would never know it from her classic work.
I've never read a word of Jane Austen''s novels (not many men have) but, as a film fan, I've seen "Emma" [my review here], "Pride And Prejudice" [my review here] and "Sense And Sensibility" [my review here] and this weekend I saw the new bio-pic "Becoming Jane" [my review here] .
BBC on-line has a short essay examining Austen's undoubted enduring appeal.
Today is the 10th annual World Book Day. Although mainly aimed at kids, to celebrate the 10th anniversary, there's been a special feature this year for adults who have been invited to nominate the 10 books that they could not do without. The full results are published today with a top 100 list analysed by age and region.
The number 1 spot goes to "Pride And Prejudice" by Jane Austen which I've nver read. In fact, I've only read 21 of the top 100. What about you?
One of the three works in the top 10 that I have read is the wonderful "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman which is actually a trilogy totalling 1,300 pages. You can read my reviews of "Northern Lights", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass".
To all my Chinese visitors - and most especially our Chinese 'son' and 'daughter' Zhihao and Hua - a very happy Chinese New Year. I hope that the Year of the Pig will be auspicious for you.
There is so much tradition and supersition surrounding this festival and you'll find a good explanation here.
It's all Nick's fault. Nick - who is one of the cleverest and most frequent visitors to my blog - sent me a fun photograph of a misuse of the apostrophe. I used this on the page of my site entitled "How To Use Punctuation". He in turn posted a comment on the web site of The Apostrophe Protection Society linking to his photo and my advice.
On dear! Some of the guys who habitate the discussions on the TAPS site then starting to crawl over everything in my advice pointing out tiny errors and omissions. If you really want, you can read the dialogue here.
I recently visited London's Royal Academy where I viewed a special exhibition called "Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India". Each afternoon, a member of staff gives a short talk on one of the exhibits and, on my visit, I heard an explanation of the statue of Ganesha.
He is one of the many Hindu representations of God and especially memorable for his elephant features. As the speaker explained, every detail of a statue of Ganesha is deeply symbolic, each part of his body and the content of each of his four hands meaning something important. You can find all the explanations here.
Every time, Vee and I see our dear young Chinese freinds Hua and Zhihao - as we did yesterday evening - we learn something new and fascinating about Chinese life and culture. This time, it was how to count to ten using the figures of just one hand. You can see this illustrated here.
My wife is half Czech and I've visited the Czech Republic 20 times, so I notice little cultural differences between the Czechs and the British. For instance, the Czechs do not cross their fingers for luck; they hold their thumbs in a closed fist. You can check out some other cultural differences here.
I'm making my first visit to Israel at Easter, so I'm learning Hebrew. The first part of that sentence is true; the last part is of course a joke. But I am always learning from my Jewish friends and something I discovered this week is that written Hebrew - as well as being constructed from right to left and as well as differing somewhat from printed Hebrew - does not use vowels. You can learn more about this very distinctive language here.
The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library has always been great fun for us movie lovers. There are now 31 pastiches of famous films and the latest is "Borat". To come ... the James Bond movies.
I spent the day in central London with my sister Silvia who was down from Leicester and, as always, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Some of our time was passed at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Here we started by viewing the Islamic Gallery which houses over 400 objects, including ceramics, textiles, carpets, metalwork, glass and woodwork, including the Ardabil carpet of 1539-40.
Then we visited "Kylie - The Exhibition" which focuses on the evolving image of Kylie Minogue and features performance costumes (including those gold hotpants), accessories, album covers and photographs, set against a backdrop of music and video.
Both exhibitions are wonderful, but what a cultural contrast ...
Earlier this week, I was chatting to a couple of good friends who regularly visit my web site/weblog. One of them suggested that, in raising different subjects and pointing out other interesting sites on the web, I was acting as a maven. Now I've always thought that my English vocabulary was pretty good, but I'd never heard of this word. Not only did the friend then explain it,but he subsequently sent me this link on the term. I learn something every day ....
I've already blogged a couple of times about the new BBC2 television drama series featuring the life of political researchers at Westminster: "Party Animals". Today the "Guardian" has a feature on the series asking eight insiders whether the programme is true to life. Check out the feature here and see if one of the surnames looks familiar.
"The West Wing" it ain't, but BBC2' s series "Party Animals", looks authentic and entertaining enough to keep a political junkie like me tuning in each Wednesday night. This evening saw the screening of episode 1 which was good enough to wet my appetite.
The series is all about the activities of House of Commons political researchers in their 20s, something with which I can really identify since I worked as a researcher to a member of the Labour Party's Opposition Front Bench from 1972-1974. The only aspect of the show that I found really wrong was the Junior Home Office Minister having a new Government policy worked up by her Commons researcher.
After working in Parliament, I did spells as a Special Adviser in the Northern Ireland Office (1974-76) and the Home Office (1976-78) and I can tell you that a party researcher would not be able to develop a Government policy or draft a Ministerial speech. That would be a matter for the Department's civil servants possibly assisted by the Secretary of State's Special Advisers.
A week or so ago, I posted an item entitled "What do critics know?" This commented on the wildly different ratings given by various film critics to the new movie "Babel". I promised that, when I'd seen it, I'd review it for you and now you can read my assessment here.
My mother was Italian and had trouble understanding why English spelling and pronunciation was so inconsistent compared to a straightforward language like Italian. For instance, she would pronounce the phrase "good food" with "food" rhyming with "good" (logical enough).
In part, the explanation for the inconsistent pronunciation probably lies in the Great Vowel Shift which occurred around the 15th century. But why did this shift occur? We don't know - but it might have been a consequence of the Black Death.
This week, I watched "The Bourne Supremacy" [my review here]. This led me to thinking: why do so many fictional heroes have the initials JB? As well as Jason Bourne, we have James Bond from the 007 franchise and Jack Bauer from the television series "24".
The British are fond of disparaging American television, but we have nothing quite like "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" which is shown here on E4. This evening's show in Britain (yesterday's in the US) featured a savage dissection of Dick Cheney's puny effort to defend the Bush administration following this week's State of the Union address. The programme's mix of hilarious humour with sharp political critique is wonderful stuff.
... you should check out an excellent new radio station, which opened less than a month ago, called The Jazz.
I know that this may seem strange but I've just had an e-mail from someone in the USA asking my view on the serial comma. This arises from my web page "How To Use Punctuation".
So, what is the serial comma? The serial comma is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction (nearly always 'and' or 'or') that precedes the last item in a list of three or more items. For example: 'one, two, and three'.
It doesn't feature in my advice on punctuation because I don't support it's use on the grounds that it is redundant. It's not up there with my views on whether there is a God, but I thought that you'd like to know ....
Once a week, the "Guardian" nwspaper carries a review of reviews of various current cultural events. This week, among the films considered, is the new release "Babel" starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
The "Guardian" gives the movie 3/10, while its sister newspaper the "Observer" rates it 8/10. The "Times" thinks the film merits 10/10, but its sister paper the "Sunday Times" only allocates it 1/10. The "Telegraph" rates the movie as 7/10, while its sister paper the "Sunday Telegraph" believes that it is worthy of only 4/10. Finally, the "Independent" gives the work 7/10, but the sister paper the "Independent on Sunday" goes for 4/10.
So the ratings vary from the minimum possible of 1/10 to the maximum possible of 10/10. The arithmetical average of the eight ratings is 6/10. but no critic actually allocates that particular scoring.
What does this tell us? First, that critics are only human and often make very different judgements on the same film, so you should only treat their views as a guide and ultimately make your own judgment. Second, when there is no consensus on a film's worth, this is a particularly good occasion for you to make up your own mind. Third, when a film is a bit different, the critics can be all over the place and "Babel" is different.
For decades, I have taken a monthly movie magazine called "Film Review". In the current issue, five critics give ratings to "Babel". Two give it 3/5 and three give it 4/5 which is a much more consistent ranking than the eight newspaper critics mentioned earlier.
I hope to see "Babel" in the next week or two and will let you know my own view then.
He is an actor who has appeared in around 180 films. Britain's "Sunday Times" has described him as "Tom Cruise, Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood rolled into one.” In 1999, he was named the Greatest Star of the Millennium by a BBC Online poll. He was a Member of Parliament for three years, he is a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and he is immortalised in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
But you have never heard of him.
Who is he?
A new BBC2 television drama series called "Party Animals" - a satire on young political researchers and advisers in Westminster and Whitehall - is due to be shown soon, but this morning my son Richard was on the BBC radio "Today" programme talking about it.
When a baby is born in China, using the old traditional method of counting one's age, the child is already one. Then a year is added each Chinese New Year. So, on this basis, everyone in China is a year or two older than their chronological age.
i've blogged about his before. But now - thanks to my Chinese friend Zhihao - I've found a web site that enables you to calculate your age in Chinese terms. You can check it out here.
The downside of this approach is that it makes you older than you are or probably want to be. The upside is that the Chinese vernerate the elderly!
This weekend, we spent time with our very good Chinese friends Hua and Zhihao and, as always, we had interesting discussions comparing and contrasting British and Chinese culture and lifestyle. Once again, the issue of the Chinese language came up, initially in the context of the Chinatown restaurant sign for the toilets.
I was interested to have explained that the Chinese pictogram for 'man' is a combination of two symbols, meaning a worker (lower part of symbol) and a field (upper part). You can view the pictogram here.
In checking this out on the Internet, I asked myself: how can one say that one knows Chinese?
First, there is no such thing as the Chinese language in the oral sense. As the Wikipedia page puts it:
"Regional variation between different variants/dialects is comparable to the Romance language family: many variants of spoken Chinese are different enough to be mutually incomprehensible. There are between six and twelve main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most populous by far is Mandarin (c. 800 million), followed by Wu (c. 90 million), and Cantonese (c. 80 million). The identification of the varieties of Chinese as "languages" or "dialects" is a controversial issue. If Chinese is classified as a single language rather than a group of languages, it is the most widely spoken language in the world. However to do so would equate to classifying the languages of Southern Europe as a single language."
Second, if there are many oral versions of what is commonly - but wrongly - described as Chinese, there is only one written version that has not changed that much in a millennium. Whereas English speakers only have to learn 26 letters of the alphabet and many children can identify these at an early age, the written Chinese language consists of pictograms that are considerable in number. There is a theoretical total of almost 50,000 written Chinese characters. However, fortunately, 'only' about 5,000 of these are frequently used. Among these 5,000, if one learns about 200 key words that are most often repeated in daily use, then one can say on knows Chinese. Simple really!
Vee and I spent most of Saturday in central London with our dear Chinese friends Hua and Zhihao. We started with a dim sum meal in a restaurant in Chinatown called "New China" where we had lots of courses and took our time.
Then we went to the British Museum to see an interesting exhibition entitled "The Past From Above". This consists of 100 aerial photographs taken by the Swiss photographer Georg Gerster and drawn from a collection of some 8,000 pictures shot by him over almost half a century. His subjects are important historical and archaelogical sites on each of the five continents.
In spite of all my travels, I have visited very few of the places featured in the photographs, but one that I have been to quite recently is Volubilis in Morocco [my notes here]
In many cases, the date of construction of the sites is uncertain and the purpose of the location is unknown. What was particularly striking was how many of these sites are in the Middle East - a region which today we associate so much with murder and mayhem. Five are in Iraq, five in Iran and six in Syria plus two in Palestine.
As well as books, my main Christmas presents were music CDs - and it was an eclectic set of work:
Actually, I'm both. That is, I 'm a fan of both the televison series "Lost" - which is six episodes into series 3 but is off the air until February - and "Desperate Housewives" - which started series 3 this evening with the first two episodes. Both American shows have attractive actors and actresses, clever scripts and multiple storylines and are more original than any drama series currently coming from a British company.
Throughout Britain - and maybe the (especially English-speaking) world - tonight people will be singing (or trying to sing) the Scottish song "Auld Lang Syne". Most of us though - including me- won't remember the words or be sure what it all means. So, as an aid, check out the lyrics here.
As regular visitors to this site will know, I'm a big movie fan. I've seen some good films in 2006 - which I've reviewed here - and there are plenty more coming in 2007. Among the movies that I'm particularly looking forward to viewing next year are the following:
Our son Richard and his fiancee Emily joined us today to celebrate Christmas and we spent much of the evening watching a special programme on the 100 most inspiring films as selected by the members of the American Film Institute.
Since I'm a massive movie fan, I've seen many of these films - but certainly not all. I was pleased to see my all-time favourite film "Lawrence Of Arabia" [my review here] in the list, but surprised that "Gladiator" [my review here] was not there.
No 1 on the list was the wonderful "It's A Wonderful Life" [my review here]. What was striking was how many movies starring Sydney Poitier came up in the list.
It wasn't planned like this, but yesterday I managed to see two media productions set in education institutions in the 1980s. The first was a film located in Bristol University and focused around the "University Challenge" television show: "Starter For Ten" [my review here]. The second was a play situated in a school in the north of England: "The History Boys" written by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner.
It was our good friends Georgeanne and Andy who obtained tickets for us all at Wyndham's Theatre and, by an amazing coincidence, we found ourselves sitting right next to other friends: Ellis and Jo with their daughter Katherine (who is is studying Ancient History at Bristol University).
The play was first produced in May 2004 and has now been made into a film, so we've come to it rather late and following many rave reviews. Essentially it is about teaching, especially of history. Now I always loved history at school and, to this day, remember my history teacher: a short, strict man called Mr Mallon who was rumoured to have a black belt in karate. However, I had to give up history at age 15. Nevertheless I continue to read history books [my reviews here] and to blog about history [recent postings here], so "The History Boys" was personally fascinating on many levels.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid!
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
The readers of the "Guardian" newspaper have compiled a list of 50 great works of art which you should see before you die (when else would you see them?). You can check out the list here.
I reckon that i've seen 19 of them - but I'm not dead yet.
Most of the people who visit this web site have English as their first language; apparently some 354 million people worldwide speak English as their first language. However, not all my visitors are native English speakers; around 1.5 billion globally speak English as a second language.
I confess that this web site makes no concession to non-native English speakers in the language it uses on the site, although it very deliberately contains a fair amount of material pitched to an international audience, whether it be politics or travel or how names are chosen in other cultures or how to say "Good morning" or "I love you" in other languages.
However, when I'm actually speaking to people for whom English is not their first language - something I do often because I enjoy talking with people from other countries and travel quite a lot - I do modify significantly how I speak. I slow down my delivery; I shorten my sentences; I simplify my vocabulary; and I avoid the use of idioms and proverbs.
It seems that, without knowing it, I am in effect speaking a version of something which has been dubbed Globish (pronounced 'globe-ish'). According to this fascinating article, the term was coined by the Frenchman Jean-Paul Nerriere. The article suggests that: "Globish is not 'pidgin' or 'broken' English but it is highly simplified and unidiomatic." Nerriere states that: "Globish is 'decaffeinated English, or English-lite'."
Nerriere - the author of the book "Parlez Globish" and the web site Le Globish - promotes Globish not as a rival to other languages but as a means of communicating clearly and easily with others around the world. He comments: "Globish does not want to be French or German. If you want to read Shakespeare or Harry Potter, learn English. If you want to do business, learn Globish. There is no competition. Each is a distinct concept."
The Oxford English Dictionary lists a huge vocabulary - larger than most other common languages - of 615,000 words, while Globish has a vocabulary of only 1,500 words. So, on the face of it, Globish should be an attractive proposition - but will it happen?
I don't think so. English has too much going for it: 2,500 years of history, a vast treasure trove of books and films and songs, and use by the global power of the day as well as all international institutions. Instead I see a trend - led by American English and the speech used by young people on the Net and in text messaging - to simplify both the spelling and the grammar of English. while the richness of the English vocabulary and idoms will remain for use in serious journalism and literature.
Am I rite or wot?
I do it all the time and it seems that increasing numbers are visiting museums and galleries in the UK because of the Labour Government's policy of making admission free. In a "Guardian" article marking the fifth anniversary of the policy, it is reported that admissions have risen by an average of 83% over the period.
In London where I live, the Victoria & Albert Museum has experienced a 122% rise, the Natural History Museum has seen a 112% increase, and the Science Museum an 81% rise. Whenever I go abroad, I vist local museums and galleries and often - as on my recent visits to Paris - the cost can be really high.
My favourite museum in London is the Victoria & Albert Museum and my favourite museum in the world is the National Air & Space Museum in Washington. My favourite art gallery in London is the National Gallery and my favourite gallery in the world is the Maurithuis in The Hague.
The "Times" reports that, on its opening weekend, the latest James Bond film "Casino Royale" [my review here] took a record £13M. It is the most successful opening weekend of any Bond film with takings 40% ahead of "Die Another Day" [my review here] .
I read every Bond book as a teenager and I've seen every 007 film as it has been released. I loved "Casino Royale" - but my all-time favourite remains "From Russia With Love" [my review here] .
If - like me - you've watched the first two series of "Lost" on Channel Four, you'll be keen to view the next two series on Sky - starting with a doule bill at 10 pm tonight. And if - like me - you find it hard to remember (let alone understand) all the twists and turns, you'll find this handy revision guide in last week's "Observer" newspaper a useful aid.
There are two themes that particularly appeal to me.
First, there is the intellectual one about the nature of society: "'The entire show,' says Lindelof, 'is really about the dichotomy that exists in any scenario that would unfold like this. Mankind needs to split into two factions. We felt that people would either evolve towards faith - "OK, we crashed on this island and we're all here for a purpose" - or towards reason - "There was a mechanical difficulty, the plane crashed and here we are. We're fucked and we have to make the best of it".'"
Second, there is the emotional one about who gets to get off with whom: "'Sayid snogged Shannon, who everybody knows snogged Boone who was her stepbrother but he's dead now and Jack wanted to snog Kate but couldn't because he's too nice and Sawyer did too but Kate wouldn't and Charlie has been gagging to snog Claire and now he has. Kate and Charlie are snogging in real life. And Walt's lost his beloved dog.'"
Not to mention the numbers,the hatches, the Dharma Initiative, the Hanso Foundation, the Others, and that polar bear ....
It's taken me a long time, but I've just finished watching the television mini series "Sleeper Cell" by viewing the last four of the 10 episodes in one sitting. I found it very well plotted and acted with a more nuanced approach to terrorists and a better understanding of Islam than any other fictional work that I've seen. I thought the series was a one-off but, having just done a search on the Net, I find that there is now going to be a second series, although apparently this one will only be 8 episodes.
There's a report today about a new book titled "They Never Said That" which collates many cases of famous sayings that were never actually said by the people to which they are attributed. For instance, the television series "Star Trek" never used the lines "Beam me up Scotty" or "It's life Jim, but not as we know it."
My favourite example of things they never said comes from the film "Casablanca" (my review here). This must be one of the most quoted movies in the history of cinema and the best-known line is "Play it again, Sam". But in fact this line was never said. For the actual lines of dialogue, keep reading.
For my Chinese friends, today is the celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival when they eat moon cakes.This custom of worshipping the moon (called xi yue in Chinese) can be traced back as far as the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 B.C.-1066 B.C.).
The Stechschritt, commonly known in English speaking countries as the "Goose-Step", is a special form of the equal step, which is usually demonstrated in solemn military parades and passes in review of closed units. More information here.
So, the Stechschritt is an historical phenomenon largely associated with the Prussians and the Nazis? Apparently, not so.
One of my all-time favourite rock groups was Queen and the jewel in the crown of this group was unquestionably Freddie Mercury who was born in Zanzibar as Farrokh Bulsara. He was an outstanding performer who died of AIDS at the age of 45. This evening, I watched a recorded television profile of this marvellous entertainer produced to mark what would have been his 60th birthday had he lived. Musically his legacy lives on, but it is sad that, during his life, he played down his ethnicity and never acknowledged publicly his homosexuality.
There's a report of the strange behaviour of a German art student in China who pretended to be a member of the world-famous terracotta army. Some years ago, I was able to view the terracotta army while on a holiday in China and it is a magnificent sight. I think that Pablo Wendel saw his action as some kind of performance art but, if he'd tried that in the age of the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, they would have turned him into a permanent exhibit.
The photographs on a new web site called Working Life bear testimony to the millions of workers who laboured in Britain’s factories, mines and shipyards, on its railways, fishing boats and farms and to the men, women and children who created the wealth of the country and have never received the just recognition, or reward, for their labours. The world of manual work has virtually disappeared in Britain, most of it transported to the sweatshops of the Third World. This site is a celebration of fortitude, skill, courage and resilience.
The user generating content site YouTube is changing the lives of many young Internet users. A young friend of mine in Vietnam has drawn my attention to this clip which shows an innovative way to teach young Japanese girls a few phrases in English that are clearly regarded as both very difficult and very useful.
Now that "The West Wing" is over, I'm looking forward to next year's series from BBC2 called "Party Animals". As someone who has worked at both Westminister and Whitehall as a political adviser, I'm sure I'll find it fun.
Two summers ago, I read all three books - a total of 1,300 pages - in the trilogy "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman: "Northern Lights" (my review here), "The Subtle Knife" (my review here) and "The Amber Spyglass" (my review here). I enjoyed the works enormously and subsequently saw the two-part stage production at London's National Theatre.
So I'm delighted that the project to film the books is finally off the ground and that shooting starts today on the first segment "The Golden Compass". The central role of Lyra Belacqua will be played by an unknown 12 year old British schoolgirl called Dakota Blue Richards. The James Bond actor Daniel Craig will be Lord Asriel (another James Bond, Timothy Dalton, played this role in the theatre production) and Nicole Kidman - who, as we know from the film "The Hours", can do an excellent English accent -will be Mrs Coulter
The movie is written and directed by Chris Weitz and is due to be released in December 2008.
I have long been fascinated by Islamic art and architecture and seen some wonderful work in southern Spain and northern Africa (Morocco and Eygpt). Soon I will be visiting Uzbekistan to see more magnificent examples of this style.
This week I went to see for the first time the newly-opened Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. It has taken three years of renovation and redesign but the result is a triumph: wonderful displays of some 400 objects included beautiful tiles and craftwork
The centre piece of the gallery is the Ardabil carpet. This carpet was commissioned by the Shah Tahmasp and created in 1540 . This is 36 feet long and 16 feet wide and was last seen laid out on a floor in 1892. It involves 26M hand-tied knots, some 300 per square inch. On the hour and half hour, the carpet is illuminated for 10 minutes, while the rest of the time there is no lighting to preserve it.
An important part of the gallery is devoted to Persian art - a reminder that this part of the world was the centre of cultural creativity and not the rogue Iranianstate that it is characterised today. Also one can see evidence of the fertile interchange between Muslim and Christian cultures, something which is arguably much less today.
My friends are amused at my enthusiasm for the new movie "Snakes On A Plane. However, as I explained in a recent posting, I'm convinced that it's going to become a cult classic.
I'm the only person I know who stays in the cinema for the end-of-film credits but, in this case of this movie, you get to see a good pop video of the title song by Cobra Starship. Of course, you don't have to see the film to hear the song - just go to YouTube.
Great to see two of my favourite televison shows winning acting awards at this year's Emmys. Kiefer Sutherland won Best Actor in a drama series for "24" and at last the series took a Best Drama Emmy (see my comments on the show here). Alan Alda took Best Supporting Actor in a drama series for the "The West Wing" which has now garnered a record 26 Emmys in its seven years (see my comments on the show here). Two of my other favourite shows - "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" - came away with nothing this time.
During his six and half weeks living with us in London, my 24 year old Czech mate and medical student Vojta - on a traineeship at the Great Ormond Street Hospital - accompanied me to a numberof films, but he was frankly incredulous when I declared that the last one we would see together before he flew back to Prague should be "Snakes On A Plane". I was convinced though that this would become a cult classic and I wanted to see it as soon as possible.
"SOAP" was such fun - so bad that it's really rather good. You can check out my review. Many other reviews have been suprisingly favourable and it's hard to disagree with Gregory Weinkauf when at the end of his review he opines that: "Truly, this is the greatest movie about snakes on a plane ever made so far!"
I am sure that I'm correct in my sociological assessment that this movie will become a cult. There will be many plays on, and use of, the brilliant title. Already the movie's monika has become a colloquial term along the lines of "Whatever" or even something ruder.
When you have a 24 year old Czech medical student staying with you for six weeks and he has little interest in the cultural delights of London, there's not a lot of choice. So I know that I said, in an earlier posting, that - having watched series 3 of "24" on DVD - I was going to take a rest from the programme.
But that was before I knew that my wife had secretly purchased the DVD set of series 4 and my Czech mate was in on the plot.
So we've been ploughing through this series over this wet and cold weekend. We watched four episodes on Friday, another four on Saturday, and an amazing six on Sunday - to finish the series. Jack Bauer has now 'gone dark' - and I feel like doing the same ...
I've recently been playing "Piece By Piece" by Katie Melua and I'm just blown away by it. Katie - born in Georgia and raised in Belfast and south-east London - has a wonderful voice and I love her music. Only 22, she has already had great success in Europe and she is currently in the States trying to break the American market. US readers please note and support.
Both the Ofcom Consumer Panel and the Postwatch Council - the statutory consumer bodies on which I sit - do not have meetings in August, so this is going to be quite a quiet month for me. Today therefore I was able to visit the Royal Academy in central London to see the exhibition "Modigliani And His Models".
Overwhemingly Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) painted portraits and most of them were of women. Although he is most famous for his nudes - and several of those are on display - most were of various clothed muses, notably Beatrice Hastings, Hanka Zborowska, Lunia Czechowska and Jeanne Hébuterne. His style is very notable: elongated faces, necks and bodies and blank eyes like masks. It represents a strange, serene beauty.
In the courtyard of the Royal Acedemy is a giant sculpture by Damien Hurst: the stunning work called "The Virgin Mother".
We've now finished watching on DVD all 24 episodes of series 3 of the television programme "24". By now, it's become somewhat formulaic, but it's still gripping stuff, and so many characters were killed in this series that the next - which for us will have to wait some months - must have still different plot lines.
Meanwhile "24" has received a record 12 nominations for the 2006 Emmy awards including Best Drama Series.
This evening, BBC2 television broadcast the last programme of "Tops Of The Pops" after 42 years of the feature.
It started on 1 January 1964 when I was 15 years old and the Beatles were at No 1 with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and it was made in a converted church in south Manchester minutes from where I lived.
Can you imagine what it was like to be a teenager when the Beatles were at their height and to watch all the top acts on TV each week? I used to make a tape recording of the programmes and play them back constantly. These days, I have my iPod Nano like any self-respecting cool guy.
But, as I've explained on my web site, the pop music of the 1960s was one of the many reasons why it's fun to be in one's 50s in today's Britain..
Last night, on channel More4, I watched the penultimate episode and the last episode of the seventh and last series of "The West Wing".
I am a massive "West Wing" fan and have watched all 22 episodes of all seven series as they have been broadcast and I've even watched all of the first five series again on DVD. As far as I'm concerned, it has been the best thing on television: great sets, fine actors, and incisive scripts. No other series has treated politics as a serious and honourable business and been so informative and entertaining about it.
Once the creator Aaron Sorkin left, the scripts became less and less about the process of governing and more and more about the process of campaigning and we saw less and less of Martin Sheen as President Bartlett and more and more of Jimmy Smit as Democratic presidential candidate as Matt Santos. This was fun but gave rather less attention to political issues.
Now that it's all over, in a sense, I'm in mourning. There is nothing to replace "The West Wing". On the other hand, I do have "Commander-in-Chief". This is "The West Wing"-lite: less politics and more family matters. But "Commander-in-Chief" would never have happened without "The West Wing" and owes a lot to it. Also it has one strength over "The West Wing" - it shows some of the complexity of the relationship between the President and Congress.
So farewell to the Chief and hail to Mrs President.
I'm a fan of the American television series "24". I never watch it as it is broadcast weekly on television, but instead watch it on DVD when I can miss the adverts and watch several episodes at a time. This weekend, I started watching season three. In fact, I managed to watch a total of seven episodes (it was too hot to do much else).
If you share my enthusiasm, you'll be interested to know that a film of "24" is being planned. The script will be written by Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow who are the creators of the hit television series. The plan is to start writing tha script in late summer as production begins on the sixth season. If the ratings for season six are good, then the movie will get the go ahead in early 2007 and shooting will take place in spring and summer 2007 between seasons six and seven.
The intention is to abandon the real-time aspect of the television series which will open up more narrative possibilities. Sounds good to me ...
This week, together with a very good Slovak friend, I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in central London to see the exhibition "Modernism: Designing A New World 1914-1939". It is an excellent exhibition and it has an informative website.
What is modernism? The exhibition describes it as "not a style but a loose collection of ideas" sharing certain underlying principles: "a rejection of history and applied ornament; a preference for abstraction; and a belief that design and technology could transform society".
Germany and Russia were power houses for Modernism but my Slovak friend was happy to note that Czechoslovakia - as it then was - made significant contributions and indeed the most memorable exhibit at the V&A is a 1936 Tatra car in pristine condition.
No sooner did I post a call for memorable movie moments than my blog crashed, so probably few people saw the posting and responded to it. Therefore I'm repeating it again today ....
As will be apparent from my web site, I’m a massive movie fan. A friend of mine in the United States, Professor Art Shostak - who has already had 31 books published - had this great idea for another book: he would collect recollections of scenes in films that made a real impact on the viewer in terms of how they see their lives.
My contribution concerned my all-time favourite movie “Lawrence Of Arabia” - see my review here which includes reference to the scene I contributed to Art’s exercise.
Now, if you’re willing to contribute to Art’s book - and I hope that you will - here’s the questions he has posed and his contact details:
1) Has a scene in a movie helped you change your life for the better?
Or, somehow bruised your life? If so, HOW? (Please explain in detail)
2) How old were you at the time?
3) Who were the stars in the film?
If you have more than one such scene to report on, please do so.
If you can ask others to cooperate, please do so.
Please send your answers to Professor Art Shostak at shostaka@drexel.edu
If you would like a copy of findings of this research project, please indicate as such.
No names will be used, and your anonymity is guaranteed.
MANY thanks for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Prof. Art Shostak
If you want some more examples of scenes chosen by viewers, continue reading ...
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, or purple.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
If you're interested in the English language, I recommend this book.
