Sometime, doesn’t it just seem that the world is striving simply to put you in your place?
I have, with total justification, been railing against the obstreperous jollifications of our neighbours with their drinking and smoking on the balcony and talking through their shameless activities at the top of their voices. Their unpardonable sin of having vocal children and yapping rat-dogs and allowing them to display their anti social inclinations has been intolerable.
Their loathsome progeny are old enough to drive and they have parked their car in the space that I use to back into to get out of the garage. The space filled, it is an infinitely more complex manoeuvre to get out of the bloody place. And believe you me parking spaces under Spanish flats make sardine tins look positively spacious.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that were my mother to have lived in such a flat she would have sold her car within a couple of days! We are talking of a woman who, having made a wrong turning in the centre of Cardiff once drove to Penarth before she felt that she had enough room and confidence to turn around and come home to Rumney!
I have composed impromptu ditties (sung with gusto in the shower) about the neighbours' rat-dogs catching all the more popular diseases which would have meant their instant death, and I have thought longingly about that much misunderstood humanitarian Herod.
It was therefore with more than usual delight that I noticed that the noisy neighbours had taken in the seat covers off the balcony chairs. This is an invariable sign that they are quitting the place and returning to their normal habitation. In celebration of their departure I went out to hire a DVD and get some taramasalata.
I get my taramasalata from an Indian run Greek restaurant which serves Turkish food and each time I have bought it my request has created turmoil as they try and understand what it is I want. I have learned to ask for ‘red sauce of the fish’ (in Spanish of course) which works. My first request for ‘taramasalata’ resulted in total chaos!
I returned form my visit to the local shops with the latest Batman movie (of which more anon) my taramasalata and a warm feeling of anticipation of a quiet night with a good film and a bottle of wine. Rioja of course, and part of my Christmas present.
Imagine then my chagrin when returning to the flat after a foray for bread I found two pot plants lurking outside the door. My next door neighbours who were in the process of departing wished me a Happy New Year and the lady (who by this time was at the bottom of the stairs and virtually into the garage) informed me that she had left the two plants there and they did not like direct sunlight!
Through a clenched smile I wished her a Happy New Year and engaged in light chatter about the value of the pound these days.
How bad to do think I felt accepting these gracious gifts after all the bad thoughts that had accompanied their stay?
The answer to that question depends on how well you know me. Few people, with even a passing knowledge of my character, would assume that there would be a heavy weight of guilt. Those who know me better will merely wait to hear the reasons why not every a feather of blame should attach to my ignoble thoughts.
The poinsettia is a Christmas flower and not one associated with the New Year. The two flower pots were decorated with Christmas bows. The woman’s children had been staying with her. From those clues I deduce that she had been given the plants as a guilt offering from her children and she had palmed them off on me because she did not want to take them back to town with her. I was, therefore, nothing more than a convenient dust bin. I might also point out that today is a Sunday and the local florist is not open. Also, the pots are suspiciously light as if they had not been watered since they had been given as a gift and they are also surrounded by gold wrapping paper which has been gathered at the base of the plant stems which makes watering difficult.
A pretty convincing case I feel. And little enough reparation for the damage to my nerves as the communal chatter went on long into the night!
Alternatively I might be entirely wrong and I am theorising about a thoroughly generous, kind thought.
Anyway turning to the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight (2008) directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan. Yes, it is too long and yes, there are a few possible endings before the final one and yes, it is self indulgent – but what a superb film!
Let me get my itches of irritation out of the way first. It is impossible to watch the perfectly creditable performance of Sir Michael Caine as Alfred without thinking that all of his lines could have been delivered with more finesse and deeper meaning and style by Michael Gough. The second point was the crassness of the script which had Rachel say wistfully at the departing Harvey Dent something like, “We make our own luck.” This nullified the gentle audience knowledge that Harvey’s coin was double headed, we didn’t need it reinforced.
The most damming flaw in the story line is on the ferries. By now most people who are going to see the film have seen it so my spoiler here is going to have minimal effect. Does anyone seriously believe that having the opportunity to make the final choice between one boat full of decent citizens being saved and the boat full of criminals being saved that the people in both boats wouldn’t have been fighting over the right to blow the other up? Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing and other game shows have encouraged the population to vote for destruction, we are programmed to push the button!
However, forget all that. This is a wonderful film. Heath Ledger is compulsively watchable;
Gary Oldman steals every scene he is in by his sheer professionalism; Christian Bale is content to take second place to the dictates of the narrative and all are bound together by a genuinely stimulating script. The bangs and flashes and gadgets are all as good as one would expect and are subordinated to the necessities of the story line.
There are moments of real emotion, or at least an emotional response from a man whose mother used to cry at Andrex toilet roll commercials!
An evening with a decent bottle of wine, Cune, Rioja, 2004, Crianza; a decent film and the departure of noisy neighbours.
Bliss!
I have, with total justification, been railing against the obstreperous jollifications of our neighbours with their drinking and smoking on the balcony and talking through their shameless activities at the top of their voices. Their unpardonable sin of having vocal children and yapping rat-dogs and allowing them to display their anti social inclinations has been intolerable.
Their loathsome progeny are old enough to drive and they have parked their car in the space that I use to back into to get out of the garage. The space filled, it is an infinitely more complex manoeuvre to get out of the bloody place. And believe you me parking spaces under Spanish flats make sardine tins look positively spacious.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that were my mother to have lived in such a flat she would have sold her car within a couple of days! We are talking of a woman who, having made a wrong turning in the centre of Cardiff once drove to Penarth before she felt that she had enough room and confidence to turn around and come home to Rumney!
I have composed impromptu ditties (sung with gusto in the shower) about the neighbours' rat-dogs catching all the more popular diseases which would have meant their instant death, and I have thought longingly about that much misunderstood humanitarian Herod.
It was therefore with more than usual delight that I noticed that the noisy neighbours had taken in the seat covers off the balcony chairs. This is an invariable sign that they are quitting the place and returning to their normal habitation. In celebration of their departure I went out to hire a DVD and get some taramasalata.
I get my taramasalata from an Indian run Greek restaurant which serves Turkish food and each time I have bought it my request has created turmoil as they try and understand what it is I want. I have learned to ask for ‘red sauce of the fish’ (in Spanish of course) which works. My first request for ‘taramasalata’ resulted in total chaos!
I returned form my visit to the local shops with the latest Batman movie (of which more anon) my taramasalata and a warm feeling of anticipation of a quiet night with a good film and a bottle of wine. Rioja of course, and part of my Christmas present.
Imagine then my chagrin when returning to the flat after a foray for bread I found two pot plants lurking outside the door. My next door neighbours who were in the process of departing wished me a Happy New Year and the lady (who by this time was at the bottom of the stairs and virtually into the garage) informed me that she had left the two plants there and they did not like direct sunlight!
Through a clenched smile I wished her a Happy New Year and engaged in light chatter about the value of the pound these days.
How bad to do think I felt accepting these gracious gifts after all the bad thoughts that had accompanied their stay?
The answer to that question depends on how well you know me. Few people, with even a passing knowledge of my character, would assume that there would be a heavy weight of guilt. Those who know me better will merely wait to hear the reasons why not every a feather of blame should attach to my ignoble thoughts.
The poinsettia is a Christmas flower and not one associated with the New Year. The two flower pots were decorated with Christmas bows. The woman’s children had been staying with her. From those clues I deduce that she had been given the plants as a guilt offering from her children and she had palmed them off on me because she did not want to take them back to town with her. I was, therefore, nothing more than a convenient dust bin. I might also point out that today is a Sunday and the local florist is not open. Also, the pots are suspiciously light as if they had not been watered since they had been given as a gift and they are also surrounded by gold wrapping paper which has been gathered at the base of the plant stems which makes watering difficult.
A pretty convincing case I feel. And little enough reparation for the damage to my nerves as the communal chatter went on long into the night!
Alternatively I might be entirely wrong and I am theorising about a thoroughly generous, kind thought.
Anyway turning to the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight (2008) directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan. Yes, it is too long and yes, there are a few possible endings before the final one and yes, it is self indulgent – but what a superb film!
Let me get my itches of irritation out of the way first. It is impossible to watch the perfectly creditable performance of Sir Michael Caine as Alfred without thinking that all of his lines could have been delivered with more finesse and deeper meaning and style by Michael Gough. The second point was the crassness of the script which had Rachel say wistfully at the departing Harvey Dent something like, “We make our own luck.” This nullified the gentle audience knowledge that Harvey’s coin was double headed, we didn’t need it reinforced.
The most damming flaw in the story line is on the ferries. By now most people who are going to see the film have seen it so my spoiler here is going to have minimal effect. Does anyone seriously believe that having the opportunity to make the final choice between one boat full of decent citizens being saved and the boat full of criminals being saved that the people in both boats wouldn’t have been fighting over the right to blow the other up? Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing and other game shows have encouraged the population to vote for destruction, we are programmed to push the button!
However, forget all that. This is a wonderful film. Heath Ledger is compulsively watchable;
Gary Oldman steals every scene he is in by his sheer professionalism; Christian Bale is content to take second place to the dictates of the narrative and all are bound together by a genuinely stimulating script. The bangs and flashes and gadgets are all as good as one would expect and are subordinated to the necessities of the story line.There are moments of real emotion, or at least an emotional response from a man whose mother used to cry at Andrex toilet roll commercials!
An evening with a decent bottle of wine, Cune, Rioja, 2004, Crianza; a decent film and the departure of noisy neighbours.
Bliss!
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