Month: March 2003

If you’re wondering about the long-promised update to radio grayblog, I have been working on it, honest! I’ve got twelve new tracks ready to go, and another nine in progress. Of course, that leaves me to choose which 21 tracks get dropped from the playlist to make room for the new additions.
It’s going to take at least another couple of days to finish the update, so rush over and listen now if you want to catch the current playlist before I change it. Don’t forget that you need to log into live365.com before you can listen.

A leaflet has been dropped through my door and I’ve seen several posters in the city centre promoting a Stop The War march to be held on Saturday, from Northgate car park through the city (presumably to the Cross), starting at 11am. Might go along and spectate, although these things tend to be embarrassingly small in Chichester, and generally dominated by a few strange types and not the mainstream. But this might be different.

Following the Sri Lanka v South Africa match currently underway in the World Cup, and with rain falling, I thought cricket fans might find this explanation of the Duckworth/Lewis Method to be useful. Another (simpler?) explanation can be found here.

Happy birthday to Sarah, my bestest pal, who is [signal interrupted as we pass under a low bridge] years old today.

The AOL welcome page always features their "deals of the day" from their shopping service. Today’s featured items are:

• a bagless vacuum
• a Gossard bra set
• software

A packet of crisps and a firm handshake to the first person that comes up with a joke linking those three items.

Looks like being another madly hectic week. But fun, so no complaints.

urf. I’ve just eaten the biggest roast dinner in history. It was delicious, but now I can’t move. I’m pretty good in the kitchen, but sometimes I think it may be bad for my health! I was going to go down to w2 for the live music that’s on tonight, but I think I’ll skip it. Still, I can reach the pinot grigio without leaving my seat, so shouldn’t complain.
Anyway, I promised to say a bit more about the film. It was excellent. When you consider that it was made in 1957, the year that The Bridge On The River Kwai swept the board at the Oscars, and Peyton Place and Gunfight At The OK Corral were filling the cinemas, it can’t possibly have had a huge audience even then. Today, the New Park was about one-third full – maybe fifty people. All I can say is that a lot of people missed an opportunity to see a great piece of cinema on the big screen.
Woody Allen used Wild Strawberries as the basis for his film Another Woman, which I’ve not seen. Watching it, you can see Bergman’s influence on European and Hollywood cinema. This is a road movie, but not in the usual style. It’s more a journey of self discovery, as opposed to the American ideal of a journey into a great white future. The main protagonist, Isak Borg, confronts his past and discovers himself, rediscovering friends and family as he goes. The story relates a single day in his life, when, as an old man, he travels from Stockholm to Lund to collect an award. Along the way, he bonds with his daughter-in-law, befriends some young travellers, visits his mother and confronts his own demons through dreams and flashbacks.
The script, cinematography and acting are all brilliant. There is subtle mixture of cold hardness and heartwarming tenderness, moments of sadness and moments that are genuinely funny. The highlights for me were the performances by Victor Sjöström as Isak (Sjöström was an important director in his own right) and the phenomenally beautiful Ingrid Thulin as his daughter-in-law, Marianne. Both were good friends of Ingmar Bergman, and it is obvious that the three of them were able to communicate well in the making of the film – there is a natural rapport.
I suspect the print of Wild Strawberries I saw today is doing the rounds of art cinemas in the UK at the moment. If it comes to a cinema near you, go and see it.
(EDIT: Wild Strawberries received an Oscar nomination in 1959 for Best Screenplay.)

Had a brilliant walk by the canal down to Hunston and back, admiring the newly-cleared banks (all done with volunteer labour – respect due to the Canal Society) complete with scattered patches of yellow celandines and nodding daffodils. I spotted a pair of extremely brightly coloured kingfishers flying fast and low over the water, and a little grebe doing that funny submerging trick that they do when disturbed.

When will IDS listen? When you have figures that are as popular with the general public as Portillo, Clarke and now Chris Patten saying the sort of things they have been saying, combined with an extremely disaffected party chairman and a 1922 committee that is said to be "incandescent with rage", surely it is time to go, for the good of the party?
Honestly, I can’t see anyone voting for them at the moment, certainly not me. At present, Charles Kennedy has my vote. I can’t be the only person who thinks that way.

The film was excellent. More on that later. Only had a pint in The Nags, as I’d forgotten that they don’t run a lunch menu on Sundays (only the excellent carvery, and I didn’t want that when I have a full-on roast planned for later), so came home stopping at the pastie shoppe on the way. But it’s a lovely afternoon, so I’ll definitely take a walk.