Has anyone else noticed that "Boy Meets Girl" doesn't seem to be the plot-line of many modern film and TV dramas?
We have "The Killing" and all its imitators ("Broadchurch, Shetland, Spiral) on TV.
We have "This is 40", and "I Give it a Year" on film.
What happened to old-fashioned romance?
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Ask Your Mum - History
A further reason for my interest in Lotte Kramer and Judith Kerr is that they were born in the same year as my late mother. And my mother-in-law, in fact, and my late father-in-law. A generation that is fast fading from view, and will leave a big gap behind - namely first-hand recollections of what it was like to be a young person during the Second World War. Anyone lucky enough to still have the chance, I urge you to ask your relatives for their memories. Once gone, there will only be the TV to show a picture, and TV is inevitably biased.
.
.
Friday, 22 March 2013
Low Point
Do you ever read a book so bad that it makes you feel queasy? And I am NOT talking about any shades of grey here. I have not so much as taken an E L James from the shelf of a second-hand bookshop - yes, they are already making their appearance in charity shops, if anyone wants a cheap copy! No, I do know my own limits, and am not going there.
The book I have just finished (I'm a great "I've started so I'll finish" person), is a memoir by a lady who was a Jewish refugee from Hitler in 1933. My interest was caught because she happens to be the same age, gender and nationality as both Lotte Kramer (on whom I have posted below) and Judith Kerr, the author of the inimitable "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit". Both of those authors write movingly and with delicacy about their childhood experiences and the way these impacted on their development as young adults and beyond.
Anyway, back to the bad book. I won't reveal the author's name, as it might be considered offensive. The story was about her search for a long-lost ancestor, and could probably have been condensed into about three chapters. It was of minor interest, and there was nothing tearful in it, unlike the two authors referred to above. I am struggling to identify why it left such a bad impression, other than the fact that it was extremely repetitive. It left me craving a really classic work to put me back on my normal level of love-affair with books.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
The book I have just finished (I'm a great "I've started so I'll finish" person), is a memoir by a lady who was a Jewish refugee from Hitler in 1933. My interest was caught because she happens to be the same age, gender and nationality as both Lotte Kramer (on whom I have posted below) and Judith Kerr, the author of the inimitable "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit". Both of those authors write movingly and with delicacy about their childhood experiences and the way these impacted on their development as young adults and beyond.
Anyway, back to the bad book. I won't reveal the author's name, as it might be considered offensive. The story was about her search for a long-lost ancestor, and could probably have been condensed into about three chapters. It was of minor interest, and there was nothing tearful in it, unlike the two authors referred to above. I am struggling to identify why it left such a bad impression, other than the fact that it was extremely repetitive. It left me craving a really classic work to put me back on my normal level of love-affair with books.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
Friday, 15 March 2013
My First Library Book
Last weekend being Mother's Day, pause for reflection.
I thought of my own mother, who sadly died 25 years ago.
I promised to write of my first library book. Naturally, it was my mother who took me to the library, filled in the forms, and generally guided the experience.
How different libraries were in 1958, (I was five years old). It astonishes me that, more than 50 years later, the practice of date-stamping the required return date has ONLY JUST faded out. Now you have to put the books in a thing like an X-Ray scanner, and print out a slip of paper telling you the return date.
In those days, you were issued literally with a card, a small piece of cardboard. Now it is a plastic credit-card shape with a bar-code.
There was no cornucopia of colourful picture books then. Probably post-war paper shortages were still in force. I do remember that paper was expensive, and coloured printing even more so - magazines were in black and white, and advertising catelogues of glossy things were rare.
There were no squashy sofas and child-high book troughs to delve into. There seemed to be no children's section as such. Children's books probably WERE stacked in one section, but they looked just the same as all the other books, because they were all bound in ghastly faux leather house binding in dreary dark green or maroon.
As I could not reach these high shelves, nor tell one dark and uniformly bound book from another, my mother made the choice of my first library book. And it was just the one book. In those days you were limited to three, now you can take home twelve at a time.
My mother homed in straight away on a book she must have alreaady decided on, and took it down. Without consulting me, she marched me to the desk and we took the book home.
It was by Mrs Molesworth, and was called "The Cuckoo Clock". I am certain that I could not have read it myself, she must have read it to me. It is quite a substantial, dense tome, about the length for example, of "The Secret Garden". I don't remember a thing about it except the title and the author, and the external binding, stencilled with the title in gold lettering.
I now own a second-hand copy of this book, and still haven't re-read it. It just doesn't grip me. However, what does interest me is that it was first published in 1877!
This must have been a book my mother had read in her childhood. She was born in 1924, so most likely a grandparent or person of that generation had introduced it to her. Her adoptive father was born in about 1870 (according to family research my brother brought here at Christmas for me to look at) so it may even have been he who sat her down and possibly read it aloud. Someone certainly gave her a love of reading and a passion for the use of the library.
I still love libraries, although they are such different places now. And children's books are so colourful and varied, and often so very funny. Troops of school children are brought by their teachers to experience the library, and a Mothers and Toddlers singing group takes place regularly. (In my childhood, you were scowled at if you so much as whispered a conversation in the hallowed place!)
All these are certainly changes for the better. Long live the library!
I thought of my own mother, who sadly died 25 years ago.
I promised to write of my first library book. Naturally, it was my mother who took me to the library, filled in the forms, and generally guided the experience.
How different libraries were in 1958, (I was five years old). It astonishes me that, more than 50 years later, the practice of date-stamping the required return date has ONLY JUST faded out. Now you have to put the books in a thing like an X-Ray scanner, and print out a slip of paper telling you the return date.
In those days, you were issued literally with a card, a small piece of cardboard. Now it is a plastic credit-card shape with a bar-code.
There was no cornucopia of colourful picture books then. Probably post-war paper shortages were still in force. I do remember that paper was expensive, and coloured printing even more so - magazines were in black and white, and advertising catelogues of glossy things were rare.
There were no squashy sofas and child-high book troughs to delve into. There seemed to be no children's section as such. Children's books probably WERE stacked in one section, but they looked just the same as all the other books, because they were all bound in ghastly faux leather house binding in dreary dark green or maroon.
As I could not reach these high shelves, nor tell one dark and uniformly bound book from another, my mother made the choice of my first library book. And it was just the one book. In those days you were limited to three, now you can take home twelve at a time.
My mother homed in straight away on a book she must have alreaady decided on, and took it down. Without consulting me, she marched me to the desk and we took the book home.
It was by Mrs Molesworth, and was called "The Cuckoo Clock". I am certain that I could not have read it myself, she must have read it to me. It is quite a substantial, dense tome, about the length for example, of "The Secret Garden". I don't remember a thing about it except the title and the author, and the external binding, stencilled with the title in gold lettering.
I now own a second-hand copy of this book, and still haven't re-read it. It just doesn't grip me. However, what does interest me is that it was first published in 1877!
This must have been a book my mother had read in her childhood. She was born in 1924, so most likely a grandparent or person of that generation had introduced it to her. Her adoptive father was born in about 1870 (according to family research my brother brought here at Christmas for me to look at) so it may even have been he who sat her down and possibly read it aloud. Someone certainly gave her a love of reading and a passion for the use of the library.
I still love libraries, although they are such different places now. And children's books are so colourful and varied, and often so very funny. Troops of school children are brought by their teachers to experience the library, and a Mothers and Toddlers singing group takes place regularly. (In my childhood, you were scowled at if you so much as whispered a conversation in the hallowed place!)
All these are certainly changes for the better. Long live the library!
Friday, 8 March 2013
Days
Yesterday was World Book Day. Not a mention anywhere in my newspaper or normal radio news programmes. I had to go to an actual bookshop before I could establish that it was actually yesterday, and even Waterstones only had a small corner allocated.
Today is International Womens' Day. Again, no coverage except, (this may strike you as unbelievable), in a magazine about accountants, and in a seminar organised by an accountancy firm on the networking site "Linked-In". Two marks for accountants, a traditionally male-dominated profession.
Instead, the media are obsessed with Red Nose Day (last night, BBC 3 had SIX hours allocated to Comic Relief).
Commerce is obsessed with Mothers' Day. Every shop, every supermarket, huge advertising hoardings - all advertising Mothers' Day merchandise.
Now, I am a mother, and I consider motherhood to be the greatest challenge and the greatest joy of my life.
But, this year I would MUCH RATHER , instead of a gift, receive news that the International Community was going to achieve, without escalation of violence, some peace and comfort for the mothers and children in Syria.
My newspaper did run, two days ago, a full page advertisement from Unicef, laying out in detail, in very small black and white writing, the suffering of the Syrian children. I wonder how many people of influence read it.
The same day, William Hague was trying to restrain a colleague from calling for full-scale military intervention in Syria , and the US was rumbling along the same lines.
Today the news is that North Korea is threatening nuclear reprisals .Why oh why is the male response to nearly every crisis, the use of force?
If more men read things, they might feel a stirring of empathy, an imaginative identification with victims - "What if that was me, my family?"
Or am I just being silly?
Today is International Womens' Day. Again, no coverage except, (this may strike you as unbelievable), in a magazine about accountants, and in a seminar organised by an accountancy firm on the networking site "Linked-In". Two marks for accountants, a traditionally male-dominated profession.
Instead, the media are obsessed with Red Nose Day (last night, BBC 3 had SIX hours allocated to Comic Relief).
Commerce is obsessed with Mothers' Day. Every shop, every supermarket, huge advertising hoardings - all advertising Mothers' Day merchandise.
Now, I am a mother, and I consider motherhood to be the greatest challenge and the greatest joy of my life.
But, this year I would MUCH RATHER , instead of a gift, receive news that the International Community was going to achieve, without escalation of violence, some peace and comfort for the mothers and children in Syria.
My newspaper did run, two days ago, a full page advertisement from Unicef, laying out in detail, in very small black and white writing, the suffering of the Syrian children. I wonder how many people of influence read it.
The same day, William Hague was trying to restrain a colleague from calling for full-scale military intervention in Syria , and the US was rumbling along the same lines.
Today the news is that North Korea is threatening nuclear reprisals .Why oh why is the male response to nearly every crisis, the use of force?
If more men read things, they might feel a stirring of empathy, an imaginative identification with victims - "What if that was me, my family?"
Or am I just being silly?
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
George Orwell
Here's the thing. On Sunday, I was out walking with my dear friend of 27 years - we met at Mothers and Toddlers when we each had just the one baby under one year old. We've shared a huge number of experiences since - the second baby, the passing of our parents, the trials of living with middle-aged husbands, and now we are both contemplating retirement and what activities we will take up.
DF told me that her husband (already retired) has started running a chess club at the primary school which all of our children attended.
I was interested in this, and asked to hear more. His most recent session focussed round bringing in a game he had actually played himself at the age of 16, for the primary school kids to look at and follow. Apparently, they were mesmerised, and all asked him to photocopy the sheet of paper on which he had noted down the moves, and then autograph it for each of them!
This of course reflected very well on all parties - the good manners and enthusiasm of the children, the energy and imagination of the leader of the club.
We both laughed, uproariously and irreverently, however, at the fact that her husband had kept this relic for nearly 50 years. It is entirely in character, as "extraordinarily retentive" would be a polite description of him.
I said, confident that I was remembering correctly, "I don't have a single thing in my possession that I owned when I was 16, not an item of clothing, a memento, an old toy - nothing!"
It turns out that I was wrong, and what would the item be but a book, of course!
Recently Radio 4 ran a series of programmes called "The Real George Orwell."
It was an excellent mini-series, comprising some dramatic renderings of actual stories by Orwell, such as "1984" which to my surprise had never been put on radio before. Then there was an adaptation of "Homage to Catalonia", this being an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, with commentary as to how this shaped his cynical views of Communism which later emerged in "Animal Farm" and "1984".
A further strand was a short reading of an essay each morning, and then there was an imagined re-construction of his relationship with his first wife. All in all, meaty nuggets and plenty to choose from.
I missed all the essays, as the morning "Book of the Week" slot is at a time when I am always busy, either working in the house or out of it.
Yesterday, I was searching in one of my "very-seldom used" bookcases (I have several categories of book-case scattered around the house) for a copy of the first book I ever borrowed from a library (this, I hope, will be the subject of a later post). The book has been in my actual possession a few years: I got it from a charity shop and the price inside the cover is marked "5p".
Next to it was a Penguin paperback copy of "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell. "Oh, good," I thought, "I'll take that downstairs and add it to my meal-time reading pile". I thought it would be good to refresh my memories of the really outstanding standard of Orwell's essay-writing .
I opened the (now fragile, browning) pages and looked to see if I had bought this book as new, or from a second-hand shop. In the flyleaf was my maiden name, in childish handwriting, black fountain pen ink, and the date, "2nd Feb 1970". I was in the sixth form, studying A-Level English, at the time, and must have bought this as background reading, for the set text "1984".
At that date, I was 16 years old. Wow! Wrong, then, but wrong in a good way. And the writing, (I've slotted it straight to the top of the meal-time reading pile), is just as strong, refreshing, clear and original as it seemed 43 years ago.
DF told me that her husband (already retired) has started running a chess club at the primary school which all of our children attended.
I was interested in this, and asked to hear more. His most recent session focussed round bringing in a game he had actually played himself at the age of 16, for the primary school kids to look at and follow. Apparently, they were mesmerised, and all asked him to photocopy the sheet of paper on which he had noted down the moves, and then autograph it for each of them!
This of course reflected very well on all parties - the good manners and enthusiasm of the children, the energy and imagination of the leader of the club.
We both laughed, uproariously and irreverently, however, at the fact that her husband had kept this relic for nearly 50 years. It is entirely in character, as "extraordinarily retentive" would be a polite description of him.
I said, confident that I was remembering correctly, "I don't have a single thing in my possession that I owned when I was 16, not an item of clothing, a memento, an old toy - nothing!"
It turns out that I was wrong, and what would the item be but a book, of course!
Recently Radio 4 ran a series of programmes called "The Real George Orwell."
It was an excellent mini-series, comprising some dramatic renderings of actual stories by Orwell, such as "1984" which to my surprise had never been put on radio before. Then there was an adaptation of "Homage to Catalonia", this being an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, with commentary as to how this shaped his cynical views of Communism which later emerged in "Animal Farm" and "1984".
A further strand was a short reading of an essay each morning, and then there was an imagined re-construction of his relationship with his first wife. All in all, meaty nuggets and plenty to choose from.
I missed all the essays, as the morning "Book of the Week" slot is at a time when I am always busy, either working in the house or out of it.
Yesterday, I was searching in one of my "very-seldom used" bookcases (I have several categories of book-case scattered around the house) for a copy of the first book I ever borrowed from a library (this, I hope, will be the subject of a later post). The book has been in my actual possession a few years: I got it from a charity shop and the price inside the cover is marked "5p".
Next to it was a Penguin paperback copy of "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell. "Oh, good," I thought, "I'll take that downstairs and add it to my meal-time reading pile". I thought it would be good to refresh my memories of the really outstanding standard of Orwell's essay-writing .
I opened the (now fragile, browning) pages and looked to see if I had bought this book as new, or from a second-hand shop. In the flyleaf was my maiden name, in childish handwriting, black fountain pen ink, and the date, "2nd Feb 1970". I was in the sixth form, studying A-Level English, at the time, and must have bought this as background reading, for the set text "1984".
At that date, I was 16 years old. Wow! Wrong, then, but wrong in a good way. And the writing, (I've slotted it straight to the top of the meal-time reading pile), is just as strong, refreshing, clear and original as it seemed 43 years ago.
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Arthur Miller
Now, I have a love-hate relationship with Arthur Miller. First, "Death of a Salesman" - it said just about everything there was to say about growing up in the world as a post-war baby boomer. I first saw the play as a teenager, a very impressionable age. This work is a master-class in dramatic form, and never loses its power to move me to tears.
Then, as the years go by, realising that he was a misogynistic and arrogant man, a bundle of self-obsession and entitlement. Realising that he married Marilyn Monroe because he could, because he wanted to own that beautiful dream, come home to it every night (in his own words), until he found out he had got a wounded bird on his hands, a fragile thing which he couldn't handle at all. Utterly unable to offer the support an insatiably needy creature demanded.
Then going back to the genius Arthur Miller again, who simply expressed, apparently with effortless clarity, a lifetime of being an American. (Although it was, of course, hard and dedicated workmanship that lay behind the flow of words).
And the MacCarthy witchhunts, which inspired that awfully depressing play "The Crucible" which I had to study at GCE O-level. Again crafted to a particular and predictable conclusion, Thomas Hardy -esque in the inevitability of the hammer blows of fate which mount up to a tragedy.
Last week, after hearing a dramatisation of the relationship between AM and his director Elia Kazan, on Radio 4's afternoon play slot, I took out of the library the playscript of "After the Fall". This, written by AM and first directed by EK, "takes place entirely in the mind of Quentin" - it is thus the voice of the author. All three of his wives appear in the play, as does his relationship with Elia Kazan.
You first think - the ego! To write a play all about himself and taking place all inside his mind! But then you have to respect his ability to read into the minds of women. Particularly his first wife, who has left no lasting memory in the minds of the public, and therefore might appear as a nobody, unlike his second, Marilyn Monroe, and his third, who outlived him and bore two children, one of whom is married to Daniel Day-Lewis.
As a first wife myself, (albeit still in situ, after more than thirty years), I could identify with a lot of what this first wife character complained about. Her complaints seemed entirely reasonable to me.
And here is how the errant and rebellious husband reacted to her complaints - his aide-memoire of things he could do better on:
"Know all, admit nothing, shave closely, remember birthdays, open car doors, pursue her not with truth but with attention."
He's got it all there, and I have had issues with my husband on every one of those points.
Of course, being a genius, he felt no need to take his own advice, but went out there and did exactly what he wanted (owned the blonde of the century).
Of course, being ordinary mortals, we ourselves at BB house could add to the list : "accept that your wife knows best on everything to do with the household, particularly kitchen management" - but that's too mundane for AM (although the whereabouts of the household phone list did appear as a dialogue several lines long).
Probably AM speaks for most of the husbands of the Western world. That's genius.
Then, as the years go by, realising that he was a misogynistic and arrogant man, a bundle of self-obsession and entitlement. Realising that he married Marilyn Monroe because he could, because he wanted to own that beautiful dream, come home to it every night (in his own words), until he found out he had got a wounded bird on his hands, a fragile thing which he couldn't handle at all. Utterly unable to offer the support an insatiably needy creature demanded.
Then going back to the genius Arthur Miller again, who simply expressed, apparently with effortless clarity, a lifetime of being an American. (Although it was, of course, hard and dedicated workmanship that lay behind the flow of words).
And the MacCarthy witchhunts, which inspired that awfully depressing play "The Crucible" which I had to study at GCE O-level. Again crafted to a particular and predictable conclusion, Thomas Hardy -esque in the inevitability of the hammer blows of fate which mount up to a tragedy.
Last week, after hearing a dramatisation of the relationship between AM and his director Elia Kazan, on Radio 4's afternoon play slot, I took out of the library the playscript of "After the Fall". This, written by AM and first directed by EK, "takes place entirely in the mind of Quentin" - it is thus the voice of the author. All three of his wives appear in the play, as does his relationship with Elia Kazan.
You first think - the ego! To write a play all about himself and taking place all inside his mind! But then you have to respect his ability to read into the minds of women. Particularly his first wife, who has left no lasting memory in the minds of the public, and therefore might appear as a nobody, unlike his second, Marilyn Monroe, and his third, who outlived him and bore two children, one of whom is married to Daniel Day-Lewis.
As a first wife myself, (albeit still in situ, after more than thirty years), I could identify with a lot of what this first wife character complained about. Her complaints seemed entirely reasonable to me.
And here is how the errant and rebellious husband reacted to her complaints - his aide-memoire of things he could do better on:
"Know all, admit nothing, shave closely, remember birthdays, open car doors, pursue her not with truth but with attention."
He's got it all there, and I have had issues with my husband on every one of those points.
Of course, being a genius, he felt no need to take his own advice, but went out there and did exactly what he wanted (owned the blonde of the century).
Of course, being ordinary mortals, we ourselves at BB house could add to the list : "accept that your wife knows best on everything to do with the household, particularly kitchen management" - but that's too mundane for AM (although the whereabouts of the household phone list did appear as a dialogue several lines long).
Probably AM speaks for most of the husbands of the Western world. That's genius.
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