Chez Spud

Things that are sticking with me right now:

• The King’s Speech…not so much Colin Firth, who was a given, or Helena Bonham-Carter, who managed not to annoy me, but Geoffrey Rush. How was he SO overlooked in all the kerfuffle? Of course the Wet Shirty Man will always invoke hysteria, but Geoffrey Rush’s performance just ‘sung’ to me. He charmed, he stood firm, he stood by what he believed in…and he let his face do all the talking. Apart from the talking of course.  I really thought he gave an outstanding performance and it’s stayed with me since I saw the film.  First up for sticking with me: Geoffrey Rush.
• Delayed Gratification…a brilliant new publication, ‘the UK’s quarterly almanac’. Published in hard copy only, at an eye watering £12.00 a copy. It’s a new concept and, to my mind, a totally inspired one. It reviews the news, day by day, for the previous 3 months with a view of taking an objective look at the issues of the day with the benefit of hindsight.  I heard about it on Radio 4 and was completely intrigued. £12.00 later and I’m hooked. I really hope they can make a go of it, but £12.00 a copy is a hard sell although it’s BEAUTIFUL and it’s stunningly well put together.  Second up for sticking with me: Delayed Gratification.
• John Darwin, the bloke who faked his death 5 years ago and was then discovered living it up in Panama with his wife thanks to the power of the internet.  Too boring to go in to but I read a review of the case in Delayed Gratification. What’s interesting is that Google Images did for him, he allowed a photo of himself and his wife to be take in the offices of ‘Move to Panama’ and an amateur sleuth tracked him down. Seems idiotic of course, to fake your own death for the insurance money and then have a piccie taken. But when he disappeared Google Images didn’t exist.  Just a small reminder of how our privacy is slowly eroded, with our own permission, every..single…day.  No wonder there’s a growth industry in specialists who ‘erase’ your online presence after your death. Whether real or faked. How times change. You can’t even disappear anymore without the internet catching up with you. Third Sticky: the internet.
• Black Swan…crap film. Didn’t have anything to say as far as I could make out? I suppose there could be something of interest to say about mental health, but it was buried under a pile of bloodied feathers.  The dancing was wonderful and, to be fair, Natalie Portman was stunningly convincing as a ballerina. Costumes were striking blah blah but, beyond that, OH MY GOD it was just really black and scary. It’s stuck with me because it was gruesome. The bit where Natalie Portman sprouts feathers through her back, and where her toes fuse together…makes me feel queasy just writing that. Fourth sticky [with blood]: dodgy swans.
• Loving Frank…anyone read it? A historial novel about the life, and more to the point, loves of Frank Lloyd Wright. I knew nothing about him, beyond his architecture. Now I feel like I too much. He left his wife and six children for a client, who left her husband and three children for him. They brought the kind of shame and scandal to their families that doesn’t exist anymore, but was alive and kicking in the early part of the 20th century.  I could rant all evening but the whole sorry tale brought the rage on. They justified it because (a) he was a ‘higher’ being who didn’t feel the ordinary person’s rules applied to him and (b) she thought she could trot out the ‘happy mummy happy child’ argument’. Oh, and she was going to do something ‘big’ with her life, but basically just trotted around the world after Frank Lloyd Wright, dodging reporters and trying to find a role, missing her children and eaten up with guilt about the whole thing.  Worse, FLW didn’t pay his bills and thought he could justify not paying the ‘little people’ because of his ‘art’.  Seriously, I have the rage.  I stayed up late last night reading it and RAGING. And then she died, and her children died. Their manservant went crazy and set fire to the house, and killed her and her children with an axe. Hideous. Fifth [and raging] sticky is Frank Lloyd Wright and his stupid, misguided fancy woman.

And that is it. Those are the sticky things in my head right now.  Anything sticking in yours?

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