There are things to be said for long flights…
It’s perhaps the only chance I get in the year to catch up with movies, TV series and books that I should have seen or read bu didn’t, so as long as the seats aren’t too feral, it can be quite pleasant. The score for the last 26 hours or so?
- Finished Their FInest Hour and a Half
- Made an almighty hole (there is a pun there somewhere) in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods
- Started and worked through three chapters of James Shapiro’s 1599, which I’m really enjoying.
- Revisited This is Spinal Tap and was left dumbfounded by the lyrics. The only explanation I can offer is that we were asked to do the enneagram (again) and I was bored with being a ‘5’ (run of the mill obsessive compulsive intellectual control freak with assertive sexuality as a secondary characteristic, which I’m glad is not something widely advertised , but which the web site hosting the test then offered to post on five kinds of social media and insert in my blog, thanks very much). I felt strongly that the enneagram needs a Type 11, just because and in memory of Spinal Tap, so I watched the film again. If this means nothing to you, you either need to do the enneagram or watch Spinal Tap. I know which I would pick.
- Gored by my way through Hacksaw Ridge. Mel hasn’t lost his touch for evisceration, craniotomies and blood loss; but the subtext for the movie was something like, “Hey, Spielberg, arsehole [insert antisemitic adjective], I can do better than Saving Private Ryan. Your English Teacher Ranger was a pussy: I can kill hundreds and save hundreds using only a conscioutious objector.” Mel is mellowing: the hero was a Seventh Day Adventist, not even a Catholic.
- Wafted my way through The Invisible Woman wondering how Ralph Fiennes succeeded in hiding behind a beard and enunciating like the English Patient, and how dumb Ellen Ternan’s husband must have been. Beautiful looking period drama, but you needed to know the novels and have an opinion about both endings of Great Expectorations.
Onwards to Newcastle!
