Happy new TWoIF Year!

Satantango

A book and a film. In Give Us A Clue terms. A novel described as so unrelentingly bleak it’s laugh out loud funny in places, and a film so far from mainstream cinema it’s in a different universe.

The film’s by Hungarian director Bela Tarr. It took seven years to make, and is seven hours long. Shot in black and white, in a series of incredibly long uninterrupted scenes, it’s compelling, unfolding at a stately, measured (i.e. slow) pace.

Apart from the obvious reasons (their timid, cotton wool wrapped absolute safety-first adherence to the middle of the road), there’s no wonder it didn’t appear at the local multiplex. When most of their punters can’t get through the latest Disney, routine rom-com, formulaic chic-flic, or Hugh Grant vehicle, all ninety minutes of it, without a bucket of popcorn, a vat of cola, and twenty movements (purpose unknown) to other parts of the building. The Health and Safety nerds and evangelists are never going to permit the sale and carrying about of popcorn and Coke in the quantities required to sustain seven hours’ attendance. They’d wear out the carpet with the to-and-froing, as well.

Half Japanese

Talking about away from the mainstream, how about the Heaven Sent album. Nine songs, the longest clocking in at a minute and thirty two seconds, then the title track, at over an hour. While Gove and his henchmen (and no doubt his for fun and profit private rightwing thinktank) are seeking to disrupt the school curriculum as far as possible (how long before creationism appears, while the sciences, technology and mathematics are all wrapped up together in an hour a week of “Techie Studies”) they should consider offering lessons in avoiding the humdrum blandness of the radio playlists, and the NHS should offer medication against Walsh-Cowell syndrome (an inexplicable desire to watch and listen to amateur hour garbage when there’s enough real good stuff out there for several lifetimes).

Nigel! Take a bow son!

A great day at the cricket yesterday. The sun was shining. The cricket was good, Worcs eventually beating Sussex in a low-scoring game. The last few overs were something of a non-event, as Sussex were too far behind, with too few wickets left, for the tail to wag hard enough to get back into contention.

What the football-haters like Thatcher and her Eaton-educated bum-lickers never understand is that you would hear as many funny one-liners on the terraces as at an evening’s stand-up. That’s not unique to football. Rugby, cricket, the crowds are capable of amusing themselves, even when the game enters the doldrums.

Nigel (random bloke) went to get a beer. His mates started off (randomly): Ni-gel! Ni-gel! Ni-gel! Nigel looked, frankly, bemused. As he walked along the bottom of the stand, other groups took it up:

We love you Nigel, we do

We love you Nigel, we do

We love you Nigel, we do

Oh! Nigel we love you

And:

Nigel, Nigel, give us a wave

He waved.

Shortly he came back with his pint, and the chants got more inventive, and Nigel grew into the role, waving, blowing kisses, and throwing some improvised moves.

Then a bloke in his early twenties, with glasses went past:

One Harry Potter,

There’s only one Harry Potter

And:

Where’s your Voldemort, where’s your Voldemort

Then a slightly older bloke with glasses:

Harry Potter’s Dad, Harry Potter’s Dad

And:

Two Harry Potters,

There’s only two Harry Potters

There was loads more. There was some great punditry from behind us: “watch this: sh*t bowling action, sh*t delivery, sh*t shot”. Short, wide ball, bowled off the wrong foot, dragged onto the stumps by a batter desperate for quick runs. 100% right prediction. He must be an in-play gambling millionaire.

Albert Camus said this:

“After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport and learned it in the RUA.”

In context, Camus was questioning the complex and convoluted codes politicians and religion use to conceal their own agendas, and suggesting that a simplified approach would better serve people.

I really pity people who don’t get sport, including those who are desperately trying to (whether because they desperately want to get it, or whether they’re desperately and cynically pretending to get it for their own reasons). I pity them, distrust almost all of them, and dislike the vast majority of them.