So little to say and nobody who will listen

The Boat that Floundered

2009-04-13T11:08:00.003+01:00

I was going to write as diplomatic a review as possible of The Boat That Rocked, but then I found Richard Herring's blog post about it and was relieved to see that he could say all the scathing things I didn't want to for sentimental reasons.
That's pretty much what I have to say about it.
I don't think it was all bad, but it was a lot bad.
Rhys Darby was endearing. But then, Rhys Darby is endearing.
The only thing I could add is that my mother was laughing a hell of a lot throughout, which is one of the worst reviews I could possibly offer.

But does he contain friendly bacteria?

2009-03-23T08:34:00.006Z

Last night someone told me I should update this more often.
This morning I discovered the perfect subject for a new post.
There are only three podcasts I listen to religiously:
Adam and Joe, Collings and Herrin and Mark Kermode's podcast taken from Simon Mayo's 5 Live show.
This morning I was playing catch-up with Kermode, and in the second part of a show that was recorded with an audience Simon Mayo read the following press release:

Management chronicles the chance meeting of Mike Cranshaw (Zahn) and Sue Claussen (Aniston) when she checks into the roadside motel owned by Mike's parents in Arizona. A bottle of wine 'compliments of management' jump starts the cross-country journey and unique courtship between two different kinds of people who are both ultimately looking for the same thing - a sense of happiness. Mike sees something special in button downed Sue that inspires him to take a chance and hit the road to go after her. But once he reaches Maryland, he finds that Sue has no place for an aimless dreamer in her carefully ordered life. Obsessed with making a difference in the world, Sue falls back in with her punk-turned-Yogurt mogul ex-boyfriend Jango (Harrelson), who promises her a chance to head his charity operations. But having finally found something worth fighting for, Mike puts his hopes against her practicality, and the two embark on a twisted, bumpy, ultimately freeing journey to discover that their place in the world just might be together.

'Punk-turned-Yogurt mogul'?
'Punk-turned-yogurt mogul'?

That may well be the best phrase I have EVER heard in my life, shame about all the other words.

Actually, up until, 'jump starts the cross-country journey and unique courtship' I was expecting it to be yet another Psycho rip off.

That would have been preferable, who wouldn't pay to see Jennifer Aniston terrorised by a small, irritating man?

Oh, wait.

'Yogurt mogul'? Really?

Review

2009-03-11T00:58:00.002Z

Oh, and, for want of a more extensive and academic review of Watchmen:

It shits all over The Dark Knight.

The art of Foley.

2009-03-10T21:08:00.003Z

This week's QI included a section (a demonstrative one no less) on Foley. For the film I'm currently working on, and my two dissertation pieces, I'm building a small bank of my own Foley.

So far my best friends have been two chicken breast fillets wrapped in cling film.
For the delicate flesh against flesh of a naked man running over the edge of a windy cliff I've been slapping the two together. I have yet to record it, but there's something very satisfying about the act, even if the sound isn't quite right in its raw state (no pun intended).
For a film I'm recording and designing about an inept hit man I've decided to record my own 'thtabbins' if I can, although some of the effects in the BBC sound library, a copy of which we have in the department, are quite exciting. Still, hacking at a bit of poultry with every knife in the kitchen and passing it off as 'research' is supremely therapeutic.

I've also tried hitting a radiator with a leek. Less of that later.

Go away, John Landis!

2009-02-07T23:48:00.002Z

Take your son with you while your at it.
You no longer have a purpose. Nobody wants you to turn an 18th Century comedy of manners into a film. Apart from Ealing Studios, obviously.

There's a reason Landis hasn't directed a feature since 1998.

The best reason to retire, and possibly kill yourself.

Deadwood

2009-01-27T16:42:00.002Z

I just spent £45 on Ian McShane.
LOVEJOY!

Deadwood actually.
Superb. On a par with The Sopranos, I might go as far as to say it's better.
I still haven't seen The Wire... it's at the top of my to do list.

I do love HBO.

The Bristol Sound(s)

2009-01-06T15:42:00.002Z

After this happened we were able to produce the following:

Separated at birth?

2008-12-29T22:14:00.003Z

It's uncanny.

Revisionist bullshit.

2008-12-28T18:10:00.004Z

There's supposedly an average of ten hours of footage uploaded to YouTube every minute... which is a lot. I'm wondering what the volume of material uploaded to WhiteNationalistTube is... Yep, that's right. Although I never assumed racists didn't have internet access I'd not seen this before. One of my cousins posted a link on Farcebook requesting all her friends report this group. The group urges members to 'Fuck Israel and their Holocaust Bullshit.' Their main line of argument is this video, which I can't bring myself to embed, and is full of unremarkable holocaust denial that I've read and heard a hundred times before. The film is long, around seventy minutes, poor quality in terms of picture, worse in terms of editing, the stock footage is of a low resolution and obscured by ridiculous, garish, frame consuming captions. The film, although abhorrent to myself, and many others I hope, is almost laughable, largely due to the voice over. Much as I hate to buy into a stereotype of the racist American redneck the stilted, Southern drawl makes it difficult not to picture the narrator struggling with words that have more than two syllables as he slows and stalls over the 'big boy racist bullshit'.
Of course, the quality of the film is of no importance, merely an amusing afterthought to distract oneself from the content of the film itself. As I have said, the film is nothing new, it merely rehashes the arguments of the more erudite and notorious revisionists that it name-checks, in a cruder and less intellectual manner that does little to hide the racist agenda of the film. The literary heroes of the makers of this film (assuming they can read) were much more effective in the formation of their arguments as they veiled outright racism and the denial of established and accepted facts with literary skill and intellect, perhaps we are lucky that a large proportion of those who share their views are too inarticulate to have a similar influence. In any case, what struck me was not the film itself, as I have asserted it says nothing new, merely recycles old arguments in a dumbed down manner. Very dumbed and very down. It's the comments below the video that interest me. The bottom three refute the claims of the film, the two that were posted afterwards are just hideous racist blabbering:

>>OMG!!! POST YOUR BLATANT KIKE INFILTRATOR COMMENT HERE!!!

And the rather unpleasant:

NOBODY CAN TELL YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT!!

All Trolls will beg for their death when their time comes.

It's unanimous, everybody was just as crushed as you ladies obviously are when they found out 6 million of the lowest form of scum unworthy of existence hadn't actually died. It's hard to let go, wishful thinking can have that effect but facts are facts. And the only sincerity possessed of hollowfaux enforcers is the unrelenting necessity to cover the truth at all costs.

The world would be a better place, if only it were true. Nothing left to do but wait for one of those deliciously ironic self-fulfilling prophesy scenarios to unfold.

Followed by 40 swastikas which I would rather not have posted on this page.

Reading back over what I've written I can see what I felt. As I spewed my thoughts onto the page I got angrier and angrier and my own level of articulacy dropped. Sorry about that. I also resorted to making assumptions and personal attacks towards the people responsible for the film, which I have chosen to leave in the post. I am already regretting writing this, it's not big, it's not clever, but nor is the film. I'll make another assumption. Although I haven't watched the 'Related Videos' or any other post on the site, including the films that, based on titles and screen shots, seem to be about the scourge of black culture in the United States etc. I imagine I would find them just as sickening as the hour and ten minutes I just sat through from the page I linked. I don't recommend watching it, it's horrible. Really horrible. I just wanted to pose the question: If ten hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube alone every hour, how much racist, oppressive, prejudicial bullshit is being put on the internet right now?

I'm sick of the internet. I'm signing off now to go and watch Le Silence de la Mer.

There's a cloudy film over my eyes.

2008-11-27T08:40:00.002Z

On Tuesday I will be shooting a short film over a twelve hour period in Bristol. Our primary location will be The Croft where we will be interviewing some humans, after that we (myself and the other three members of the production team) will be running up and down Stokes Croft, Park Street and anywhere else we manage to fit into our schedule.

The film is effectively a response to this video that was posted on the Guardian website earlier this year. I, like a handful of other local music fans, was frustrated at the narrow interpretation of the scene in this fair city. Trip-hop is dead, not even the bands 'responsible' for the genre are making music like that any more. Furthermore, I would like to write an open letter to Roni Size telling him that there's more to Bristol than fucking bass. That would require effort though, and at the moment any energy I have is dedicated to worrying about whether or not there will be sufficient power outlets to plug in our lighting rig throughout the location.

Unfortunately I've been put in a position where I am the only person on the production team who knows anything about live music in Bristol. This means that I have had to take on the roles of both producer and director, even for a three minute doc it's bloody hard work. Part of the reason I'm producing is that I'm the only person who knows any musicians suitable for interviewing. This has, admittedly, bred laziness, and our five interviewees are all people from my own social circle, which will make the film very 'Chokecentric'. The only benefit of this would be that I'd be able to ask lots of in-depth questions about the insular little niche of the music scene that the Choke community revolves around. Unfortunately that's not the initial treatment I wrote and I have to stick with the treatment. As a result all the questions are incredibly superficial and simplistic. Thankfully I'm not interviewing morons and they'll be able to spin something interesting out of it. We live in hope.
After about a month of pre-production a concept I was once quite passionate about is now making me want to throw myself into a river. Ah well, it'll all be over by Chistmas.

When it comes to the editing process I'm generally wondering if I could get away with being credited as Alan Smithee on the titles.

Long time no see.

2008-11-03T08:31:00.002Z

I haven't posted in a while, this is because of my course being ridiculous. I've gone from three years of 6 hours contact time a week (4 in the final year) to almost a full week and no will to live.

AND I was forced to watch Atonement! Sick and wrong!

My life is currently consumed by an overwhelming sense of terror inspired by this man:

And my inability to work my new mac.
Over Christmas anyone who actually does read this thing can expect a massive amount of updates that will inevitably precede 8 months of nothing until my dissertation is done.

Super happy traumatic fun time

2008-09-01T13:27:00.001+01:00

Werc Werk Works to fund Happiness sequel.

This is a good thing, more on this when I have done my ferrety research.

Taylor Kitsch? Not my Remy!

2008-08-31T21:15:00.002+01:00

For years I have bemoaned the absence of my favourite Marvel character in the live action X-Men franchise, but now his inclusion in the upcoming Wolverine film is tainted. Horribly, horribly tainted by ridiculous casting. The enigmatic thief with glowing eyes, the only real love interest that anyone should ever put on screen for Rogue, Remy LeBeau.
Yes, Gambit is my favourite Marvel character, possibly one of my favourite characters in the history of literature. Is that sad? Maybe. I don't care though. Sadder still is the admission that Gambit was one of my earliest crushes. This is why I am so unimpressed with my discovery that he is being played by Taylor Kitsch. Who? Well exactly. Taylor 'Snakes on a Plane' Kitsch.

Yes yes yes!

No no no!

Get this guy instead!

Rise of the geeks

2008-08-10T15:06:00.006+01:00

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is released in less than a fortnight. I'm rather looking forward to it. There's a fairly hefty load of comic book movies being released this year and in the next two to be fair. So far this year we've had Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight among others. Coming up we've got the next Hellboy (I love you Guillermo del Toro, I love you too Mike Mignola).

There are two X-Men Origins films to look forward to, Wolverine's back story and David S. Goyer's Magneto film, in 2009. David S. Goyer is also involved in The Flash and Super Max, both due for release in 2010. Watchemen will be with us soon. Hurrah! Rose McGowan, who will be playing Susan Cabot (who was Roger Corman's wasp woman) in Black Oasis, the story of her rather interesting life, will also be taking on the title role in Red Sonja, to be produced by Robert Rodriguez who is currently working on the next two installments of the Sin City series. Oh there is so much to look forward to.

Oh, and, on the subject of Rodriguez projects, for fans of Grindhouse, just in case you didn't know, although if you consider yourself a fan you are probably well aware, a year ago Rodriguez announced that he's taking the Machete screenplay which was written in the early nineties but condensed into a trailer for the original Grindhouse double bill and making the feature film we all wanted to see. Yeah yeah, old news but still upcoming fun and worth a mention.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-24T17:42:00.004+01:00

I have literally just left Finchley Road's O2 Centre and am posting this from an internet cafe on a computer with a horrible keyboard. I'm a little worked up, a little hyper, a little disappointed and, at the same time, desperate to run back into the cinema and watch The Dark Knight again. There is a lot wrong with it, big steaming piles of wrong that come at you thick and fast throughout the over-extended 152 minutes of trite dialogue, slow burning scenes that amount to very little and superfluous chunks of film that have no relevance or bearing on the film. There are also some hideous continuity errors and some truly shameful attempts at American accents from many of the British actors. And there are a very many British actors. I do have a great deal to say about its flaws which are massive and numerous, and yet, despite the fact that I was often bored, frustrated and sometimes enraged by the film it consistently saved itself with moments of genius.
First off, although some of the casting was questionable the ones that mattered were bang on. Gary Oldman was great first time around and it's nice to see him continuing to do the role justice. I am much less irked by the chucking of the fat, Irish Jim Gordon of yesteryear in favour of Oldman than I am by Michael Caine as Alfred, but that's a personal whinge for another time. I cannot express in words how pleased I am that Maggie Gyllenhaal has replaced the insipid, mewling heap of bones that is Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, and Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent is also quite special. It's no secret that the genesis of Two-Face is part of this film, if I'm perfectly honest that part had me pouting with my arms crossed and my brow deeply furrowed, but I forgave it when I saw the results. If the make-up bods on this one don't get every accolade possible then something's very wrong. It truly shits all over the Two-Face of Tommy Lee Jones (see above).
My issue with Christian Bale, which is minimal and generally cancelled out by otherwise unfaltering love and devotion, is the excessive breathyness he affects once the mask is on. It makes him lisp and it's the only aspect of the film which makes it seem caricaturish, Nolan leaves behind the campness and hammed up comedy the earlier films in the franchise, but I just can't keep a straight face when the bat starts yapping.
Moving on, when Dr. Jonathan Crane appeared my first thought was, 'How did he get out of Arkham?' followed by, 'When did Cillian Murphy get so chunky?' and then very quickly followed by, 'What was the point of that?' No, really, no purpose? AT ALL!
And the one everyone cares about? Heath Ledger? Well, if I'm honest he was stupendous, 80% of the time. Many peaks with a few troughs. Just a few where I feel he let the performance slide, generally amazing but as for all this talk of a posthumous Academy Award, I'm not entirely sure it's deserved, and it pains me to say that. He would definitely be worth a nomination if he hadn't kicked the bucket, is that a double standard?

When things blow up it's great, things blow up often. When Aaron Eckhart is on screen it's great, Harvey Dent is central. However, it's such a long film that although there's about an hour and a half of Eckhart and explosions there's another hour of bits in between that make you tap your feet, cock your head and long for something to go 'boom'.

It's a shame the film was so over-hyped, maybe if it hadn't been I wouldn't feel so let down.

The Worst Revival of My Life...

2008-07-16T20:29:00.003+01:00

Who commissioned The Armstrong and Miller Show? I was hoping it would be on a par with Armstrong and Miller, it really isn't. Not the 90's TV show and nowhere near the radio show.

Seriously, this is depressing. I'm going to hide in my room and watch Thieves Like Us. Altman cometh.

Christopher Lee

2008-07-11T01:14:00.003+01:00

My house mate was trying to explain to me that she had seen a Christopher Lee film, impressive since he's made so few (sarcasm on the internet, have I sunk so low?). Anyway, in her inability to remember the title of the film she has disappeared into her room to 'IMDB' Christopher Lee and read the name of every film he has appeared in with the intention of recognising the title and reporting back to the living room. Apparently it is a film in which he plays Dracula, which narrows it down. I reckon she'll be on this little mission for a couple of hours if the wine coursing through her hasn't already made her forget, so I decided to use the time to write a little something about one of the films I was babbling about to her before she buggered off.
The discussion of Christopher Lee rose from my sudden urge to watch a Peter Cushing film, any Peter Cushing film at all, and of course the Hammer love started oozing from my every pore. So, with that in mind, I would like to explain, in my own pissed up, rambling way, why I think Dr. Terror's House of Horrors is a slightly underrated masterpiece. I say 'slightly' as it is well appreciated, but I seem to be the only person who will fight to the death in the argument that Amicus were far superior to Hammer, and that this was one of their finest along with their EC horror comic adaptations of Tales From The Crypt and The Vault of Horror less famous due to the lack of franchising.
The first thing I'm going to gush about is the cast. Obviously Peter Cushing as Dr. Schreck, a glorious nod to Max Schreck and the aetiology of the film's title, is superb, but it's Peter Cushing so no-one's surprised. Christopher Lee takes a rather glorious turn as Franklyn Marsh. At a time in his career when he was playing fanged Counts, Satanic priests and devious doctors his supernaturally skeptical art critic is a pleasant departure. A year later he would play the , potential vampire Philippe Darvas in the twist-tastic, supernatural light Theatre of Death with Julian Glover (but that's for another evening). Pleasantly the vampiric storyline in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, which includes the kind of twist M. Night Shyamalan has probably wrecked many pairs of boxers over, is given to Donald Sutherland (another personal favourite who shall be gushed over soon when I finish my essay on why I want to be Robert Altman). There's something about Sutherland's smile, eyes and carefree laugh that, as far as I'm concerned, make him one of Canada's greatest exports.
Original Juke Box Jury panel member Alan Freeman enjoys a Day of The Triffids/Little Shop of Horrors storyline that looks, to use a technical term, frickin' sweet, whilst curses and lycanthropy are gloriously presented in Neil McCallum's diegesis. I haven't presented the cast in the chronological order of their storylines because I was saving the most exciting member of the cast for last. If you've seen the film I hope you'll agree with me, if you don't know what name is coming next I hope you'll agree with me too, because Roy Castle beset by a voodoo curse is pure gold. Utter awesomeosity, the superbly characterised cheeky chappy makes me cry a little when I think of what became of Roy Castle. Resurrect him to star in a zombie film, as a cheeky chappy zombie! Someone, anyone? Maybe not.
The film itself is a joy to watch, five short horror films that span the genre, strung together by five strangers chancing upon a sinister old man with a tarot deck in their train carriage. Each vignette is a perfectly presented, condensed version of the classic vampire films, werewolf movies, anthropomorphic plant life tales, narratives of vengeful disembodied limbs and that sixties classic, the massively racist caricature of voodoo that were popular at the time. All of these sub-genres were flooding the screens in the mid-sixties, and Freddie Francis brings them together with a glorious cohesion thanks to Peter Cushing's homodiegetic representation of 'the dark arts'. The narration itself maintains a superb storyline, seemingly independent of Dr. Schreck's predictions, and the dialogue between the passengers is sharp, and in the case of Franklyn Marsh, supremely acerbic.
Visually masterful, from the train carriage where the fates of the five protagonists are narrated to the mansions, galleries and jazz clubs in which they transpire, it's difficult to get bored of what you see on the screen. Combined with the effects, which for 1965 are a triumph, Alan Hume's cinematography is a wet dream for film buffs and a canonical source for would be cinematographers. Hume, bless him (yes that was patronising, and rightly so, read on), stopped working just ten years ago, with involvement in HBO's mid-nineties reinvention of Tales From The Crypt to his name he should be proud, if it weren't for the thwunking great load of Carry On... projects to his name.
The film is a taster menu of sixties horror, arguably a genus in itself, and packs everything that's great about the genre into 98 minutes.

Next week will hopefully see the start of Headboard Theatre, I've been watching a lot of films in bed and cooing over my old favourites. I'm currently working my way through the Altman box set, as mentioned above there will soon be a blather about why he wins at being awesome, hopefully that one will be more coherent than what I've written this morning.

I refuse to be happy for wankers.

2008-06-29T21:00:00.005+01:00

This is the face (and ludicrous cleavage) of pure evil:

It is called Patti Stanger, but it calls itself The Millionaire Matchmaker. This loathesome creature demands obscene amounts of money from men, many as unpleasant as herself, who have vast amounts of cash but no idea how to relate to other human beings. For some reason there are women who will happily sit in the presence of this harridan and be told how to dress, why curly hair is repellent and that they will never get married unless they shell out for hair extensions so that they can be set up with the grotesque men. Despite having watched as many episodes of The Jerry Springer Show as I have she is easily the most unpleasant pimp I have ever seen. I stumbled upon this show by chance just in time to watch Stanger barking down the phone at the answer machine of a man who was apparently at the bedside of his ailing mother. She then proceeded to berate a member of her own staff because it was her fault that a rich man with a dying mother hadn't put a cheque in the post yet. Charming.

Ironically it was whilst I was watching this horrific piece of programming that I received a round robin text from an old school friend announcing her engagement. I responded with my congratulations and immediately felt the bile rising. Jealous? No. Not at all. Disappointed. She will be 22 in just under a week and is engaged, it's daft, yet unsurprising. Last time I saw her she expressed her disapproval of women who succeed in the industry she currently works in (TV production, although only in a secretarial/runner/receptionist role), saying that all the women in influential positions in 'the business' are over forty and unmarried, or at least childless. To her this is an abhoration. Seeing as I just received notification that I have been accepted onto the Masters in Film and TV Production I'm sure she'll be pitying me when she hears as much as I pity her on hearing that she's engaged. For her, it seems, a job after her degree was more a way of spending her time before her boyfriend proposed than it was a way of carving out a career that she actually wants to develop and excel within. That's not really what bothers me though, how she prioritises her life is none of my business, nor is who she chooses to be with. She can marry who she wants, and I don't have to like him, and I don't. I really, really, really don't. This is the source of my discontent. I care very much for my friend, and (like my last good friend who got married ridiculously young) I think she has terrible taste in men. He's horrible. Horrible and boring. Boring and boring and boring and boring and not good enough for her.

Nice girls who want horrible husbands. From Living TV straight to my life.

Women, know your limits.

2008-03-28T09:50:00.003Z

My dissertation, in a very odd way, lends itself to feminism, sort of, no... really.
Something I noticed very soon after I started at university was the ratio of women to men on my course. Classical Studies, it seems, is much more appealing to girls, Ancient History, as well as being incredibly boring, seems to be studied by more men than women. Another thing I noticed is the number of women who teach in my faculty. The fact that they outnumber the men is one thing, but what really struck me is that they are all feminists. Not just feminists but academic feminists. All of them.
They all specialise in something else too;

'Professor Clark’s research field is the relationship of inherited classical culture and late antique Christianity. She works especially on Augustine and on the late Platonist philosophers Porphyry and Iamblichus, and also has a longstanding interest in women’s history and the history of gender.'

'She [Dr Liveley] is currently working on two ongoing research projects: one on postfeminism and the classical tradition, and another on time and narrative in Roman elegy. Her other publications include articles and essays on the classical tradition, cyborgs, and chaos theory.'

Yes, my dissertation supervisor writes about feminism and cyborgs.

'Dr Zajko has wide-ranging research interests in the reception of classical literature, particularly in the 20th century, and in mythology, psychoanalytic theory and feminist thought.'

Am I doomed to a life of feminism with these women as my mentors? I don't want to be a feminist. I don't want to spend my life thinking about feminist theory in 500BC.

Roman Legal

2008-03-11T08:37:00.004Z

In ancient Rome a female rape victim had the right to choose the fate of her attacker. She could either sentence him to death or marry him. This is why HBO's next legal drama should clearly be set in 5th century Rome.

Apples

2007-11-18T21:49:00.000Z

All the apples have fallen off the tree in the garden.
This saddens me.

I do not know why.

Grandpa

2007-09-19T23:57:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I'm going back to London for my grandfather's 85th birthday celebrations. I've been asked to speak and to help me along with writing something my mother has transcribed a letter that my grandfather wrote when he was 18. It's addressed to 'Chaps' so God only knows who it was for, but it was written shortly after he was released from four months internment on the Isle Of Mann. I'm fairly certain that the 'chaps' the letter is addressed to were friends he made when he was interned. The letter is an amazing piece of evidence that really does illustrate his general character well. Very generous and appreciative of the good he sees in others, always quick to acknowledge other people's strengths, but also critical of their faults, in this case of rudeness.
I thought I would copy it into a blog entry, if only so that I know I can always find it.

"Dear Chaps

As I am writing this letter, I can hear the drone of German planes overhead and the crash of anti-aircraft guns. We have just had a bomb quite near us and the whole house seemed to collapse. The girls here are awfully frightened as they were bombed out of their house already once. The raids last night were supposed to have been fairly lively but I was so dead tired after a very long journey, that even a direct hit would have not woken me up. Our train from Liverpool arrived in Euston at 1.30 in the morning and landed me in the middle of an air-raid and with the last train to Edgware already gone, I had to take shelter in the tube.

The tragic sights which I saw there really astonished me. Hundreds of people, many of them bombed out of their houses were lying there, cramped like sardines.......but the spirit of people here, especially those who have suffered most is really excellent and worthy of the highest praise. It is marvelous how they all carry on and keep smiling in spite of such difficulties..... We get so many warnings here now during the day that I get quite confused, whether it is a warning or an all clear.

I phoned most of your people that morning...... Tell Walter that his girlfriend has got a charming voice. ....I phoned Frank's people four times but each time a woman answered and when I asked whether Mr or Mrs Lewenbeck were there, she just hung up. You might tell her that that is not the way to answer a phone!"

That letter is dated 21st October 1940, from what I see of him in this I can say that he hasn't changed in the last 67 years. Now I just have to find a way to articulate that on Sunday.

2007-08-09T17:43:00.000+01:00

Their children will take over the world and turn it into this. I hope so anyway.