dovegreyreader scribbles

Dear Blog...

So here we are, Christmas Day and Bookhound and I wanted to wish you all the best of days.

The Kayaker is staying for a few days and the Gamekeeper and his lovely fiancee are here for breakfast as usual and we will have a video chat with Offspringette, so we will have some good family time and raise our glasses to those absent friends.

We've rung a few changes and swapped our edible animals this year... beef instead of turkey, but the Christmas pudding will be aflame as usual which means eyebrows will disappear as usual because 'someone' always over does the brandy...

Lots of you will be surrounded by family and friends too, but I know that is not the case for everyone, and I know of others who are having a tough time and Christmas might be the very last thing they want to think about, so this is just to say we are here and thinking of you all, and thankful for the good wishes and friendship that always abide here.

Last night we all trooped out into the garden, taking advantage of rare clear skies to see the International Space Station pass across the Tamar Valley and wave at Major Tim.


...and then we watched the almost-full moon rise over the ever-vacant Branwolery, though we could hear the barn owls all around us...one day they'll see sense...


Magic all of it.

So here is wishing you peace and tranquillity and lots of books, news of the latter and other exciting gifts we all await in comments.

 

A Christmas Gallimaufry...

I think it's going to be a case of gallimaufry posts here for the foreseeable as I drift into Christmas, and thence to the Southern Hemisphere, and I am experiencing an odd mix of sadness and huge excitement as I do.

The bough is a-twinkling and I knew it would happen..

As I opened the box of decorations there was the card the Tinker had sent to us last Christmas with 'thank you for all you do for me' written inside. I think I'd had a funny feeling it might be his last, but alongside it was the joke card he bought me years ago which also comes out every year....Cliff Richard, and he sings 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' when you open it. Cliff's battery is going to run out one of these years, but it sits on the shelf and we all give it a little flick open every so often, and everyone groans and shouts 'NOT NOW CLIFF! ' 

It's tradition.

Nor had I realised how much time, thought and effort I had always put into choosing the Tinker's Christmas presents. He was very easy to buy for...the slippers, a new jumper, some socks would always give him great delight, whilst a boxed set of DVDs would help to see him through the January/February remembrances of the loss of my mum and my brother. 

It's a strange thing, the ambush of the dates, I'm sure many of you understand this too...

Elizabeth Bowen has something to say about gifts in that book of essays People, Places, Things in a piece entitled The Art of Giving.

'The gift starting its journey has more than a destination, it has a destiny - to enter a life and play its part.... the object of giving it to give pleasure. Much pleasure turns on memory - the fact of being remembered and, no less, those memories which the gift may evoke...'

We would buy the Tinker funny gifts too, he and Bookhound would regularly exchange floral ironing board covers, and I keep on seeing things that I know he would have loved. Last week it was one of those photo cushions with a gorgeous Border Collie staring out...he'd have called it Ben (after our first dog) and tucked it up on his sofa. So our annual toast to Absent Friends will hold special meaning this year, and I am thinking plenty of you will know all about this space that is left behind too.

But in amongst it all I am packing for The Trip (the sleeps will soon be into single figures) and am so excited to be seeing Offspringette.

I have done the most important thing apparently and that is removed all trace of one Shire from my walking boots, and disinfected them before I visit another Shire.

But then there's the cabin baggage.

Hours and hours spent deciding on a carry-on bag and, as a handbag is allowed as well, finding something capacious enough to decant the essentials, and in my head I run through it all.

Right...put that there, and keep that there...move that to there, have that ready for getting through security...

Which shoes will be easiest to get on and off...

Which will be the most comfortable in flight...

Which will I need for the scurry across Changi airport where I have barely two hours before hopping on the connecting flight to Christchurch.

Thank you so much for all your in-flight suggestions and thanks to people who have sent me things various, you are very kind and everything very helpful.

I now have the ear plugs, the eye-mask, the neck pillow, the footrest pillow (this takes a lot of puff to inflate I might have to hand it around) the light-weight blanket, the anti-bac wipes, the flight hose (properly measured ones)  the fluffy socks, the headphones, the Ipad, the Kindle, the power bank, the actual book, the toothbrush, the face wipes, the plastic bag filled with no more than 1 litre of liquid essentials ... moisturiser, mouthwash, toothpaste, the emergency meds (who'd be at 40,000 feet without Imodium Melts) the change of clothes for arrival (Rohan very summer)...

I'm sure I've forgotten something...

Passport, journal, pen...

There must be more...

Camera, spare batteries (have to go in hand luggage) and so it goes on...

Oh yes the QUILT...mustn't forget the quilt about to go into its vacuum storage bag in the hope it will take up less space in my hold luggage.

And currently I am practising eleventy-four ways to wear a pashmina on a plane whilst looking stylish and keeping warm. The pashmina, a beautiful shade of turquoise, sent by a dear friend in Canada, was a surprise gift for the journey and I love it. The colour is gorgeous...no matter how I may be feeling after 12,000 miles the colour flatters and enhances.

Whilst her prose might be considered slightly saccharine by some these days I do think Elizabeth Bowen's sentiments hold true...

'But, gifts. let us remember, gather grace on their journey, and receive grace from those to whom they go. Leaving our own hands they may seem imperfect: they are perfected by what comes out to meet them - the glad welcome, the answering memory. To its reception does every gift build up : each one awaits its fulfilling moment.'

How's the wrapping and the shopping and the cooking going your end...

We seem to have filled three freezers here, but at least it will keep Bookhound going through his Home Alone January. 

Christmas at Lanhydrock

We have been having a happy wander around our local National Trust houses in recent weeks. They all decorate for Christmas and open at least parts of the house for visitors, and it was to Lanhydrock near Bodmin one day last week.

'It is Christmas Eve 1896,' said the butler, in most Carson-like fashion as he greeted us at the front door of the house.

'Father Christmas has just been and the children are asleep in the nursery.'

Lanhydrock is a house which lends itself well to the Downton-esque Christmas idyll and we were up for a solid dose of nostalgia.

And so fortified by soup eaten in the stables (we had a horse stall to ourselves) we tip-toed around the house at lunchtime, but beautifully lit as if for evening...


Having been informed by the Kayaker that I absolutely had to have a new camera for my travels this was one of my first indoor excursions with my all-singing-all dancing Sony Cyber-Shot (for those unlike me to whom this means anything a WX350  HD 1080p, 18.2MP, 20x Optical Zoom, Wi-Fi, NFC, 3" LCD Screen.) As well as some clever new settings to master (Indoor without flash) the WiFi means I can transfer and store photos on my iPad while I am travelling ...anyway apologies for one or two experimental/blurred shots.

First thing I see, and never fail to be impressed by, is Lanhydrock's William Morris wallpaper...

The dining room was poised ready...


and the nursery made me want to cry. All low light and peace, little shapes under the bedcovers and the remnants of the mince pie left out for Father Christmas...


Bless the little Edwardian children for being asleep...ours would have been wide awake had the general public been filing past on Christmas Eve.

And next door in Nanny's room, the presents all laid out for her too...



And the mirror shot I can never resist...look, no flash.

I have been dipping into People, Places Things, a book of essays by Elizabeth Bowen. It is one of those books that reveals something I don't remember reading before each time I open it, yet I have read it cover to cover so many times now. I do remember it being quite an expensive purchase but it is 466 pages-worth of value-for-money inspiration; a book that keeps on giving.

And in a piece entitled Mirrors are Magic this...

'If an ancient mirror could speak of its young days, if its memories could be photographed back to us - what stories! Is it haunted by what it reflected, a vanished world? Met within such a mirror, your face or mine takes on an air of transience, ghostliness almost - what is this face but one of countless many which glimmered here...

It wasn't difficult to hear the echoes of childrens' mayhem past up and down these corridors on Christmas morning...

So a visit laden with fairy tale and make-believe...the sort of Christmas we might live with in the imagination though rarely achieve. But no matter, it was a really happy and indulgent day and we came home full of the Spirit of Christmas past and present.

How about you...any seasonal visits, occasions or events to report...

Is the Spirit of the Season seeping through...

Are your halls decked...

Is your figgy pudding ready...

Turkey...goose...duck...beef...nut roast.. name your fare...

More Forsytery...

Some of you might recall I was reading John Galsworthy's A Man of Property back in the summer, before watching some of the original Forsyte Saga TV series; this following the happy discovery of the complete box set when I was sorting out the Tinker's store of DVDs, and it was all very lovely. I'm not quite sure where John Galsworthy's literary reputation rests these days but I thoroughly enjoyed the book, as much as I had back in the 1960s, if not more.

'Just off to the summerhouse,' I would say, where we had installed an old TV (mostly to watch summer sports) and I would settle myself into the comfy chair for another episode.


Summer  'hygge' now I think about it, and is it not a little reminiscent of Fleur and Jon's trysting place in the second series.

I instantly slipped back into that easy familiarity with the old characters...Eric Porter as Soames, Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Susan Hampshire as Fleur, and though I had ordered the newer 2002 version I couldn't see how it would possibly replace the original in my affections. I'm thinking it's all about time and place and resurrected memories too; 1967 Sunday nights and the whole family hunkered down to watch.

Anyway the new box set arrived and it sat there, until finally, a few weeks ago I decided to make a start and of course I loved it.

I now have a wonderful palimpsest of Forsytery in my imagination, Damian Lewis adding a new layer to the role of Soames, bringing something unique and ultimately deeply moving to the character. In an interview given at the time Damian Lewis has this to say about Soames...

He's fastidious, smug, and conceited. But he's also a person capable of love, though unfortunately unable to express it in a satisfactory way, especially to a young woman. He understands life in terms of contracts, property, and duty. And if any of those things is threatened, he falls apart. He can be cruel and small-minded, but that's often generated by this repressed passion that he's unable to express fully, or successfully, or healthily.

Inevitably I started to make comparisons with Henry VIII given Damian Lewis's recent Wolf Hall triumph, and it occurred to me that the same frustrations applied... the power and control, the property, the sense of duty, the building of new houses, the possession of a woman, the obsession with a male heir. Whilst Ann Boleyn most certainly knew her power over Henry, poor Irene was cowed and terrified. There was sufficient menace for Soames to feel dangerous and unpredictable, whilst allowing those chinks of weakness and vulnerability to be revealed. Though not quite chopping off her head, Soames Forsyte comes very close to destroying Irene, played brilliantly by Gina McKee.

Producer and Director Christopher Menaul says this about the casting of Irene...

'We were looking for someone with a real sense of mystique.Obviously we wanted someone beautiful and sexy, because it's Irene's physical attractiveness as much as anything that disrupts the Forsyte family, but she had to be mysterious as well. Part of the appeal of Irene is that you want to unwrap the enigma. Gina has a natural elegance, what I would call a period look -- the sort of style that you see in paintings from the turn of the century, somewhat aloof and untouchable. We saw many very good actresses who could have played the role, but Gina has this quality -- this hauteur -- that makes her right for Irene.'

Mission accomplished and if Gina McKee hasn't played the part of Virginia Woolf in anything yet then surely a trick has been missed. I was constantly reminded of her in the later episodes set after the Great War.

The settings were sumptuous, though the nadir for me has to be the house at Robin Hill. In the book designed by the young architect Philip Bosinney as a home for Soames and Irene, but of course also the architect of their demise and the floundering of the marriage. It's cutting edge for the time, an Arts and Crafts /Art Nouveau haven, a Liberty/style delight, the decoration and costumes superb. It was interesting to discover that this more recent series had been filmed in the north of England, Merseyside, Cheshire and Manchester using Keighley railway station for the train scenes, but what about Robin Hill I wondered.

I found the answers here in the very informative Masterpiece Theatre production notes...

...the home commissioned by Soames from Phil Bosinney clearly suggests that Bosinney is ahead of his time -- not Art Nouveau, certainly not classical, and beyond arts and crafts. 'There are only three real arts-and-crafts exteriors in the North of England, but even they didn't look strong enough, different enough, for Robin Hill," Fineren explains. "I showed photographs to Chris Menaul, and he said we'd just have to build half the set and digitize the rest."

Robin Hill it would seem is a composite of four different architects, 'American Frank Lloyd Wright, the Scottish Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the English Charles Voysey and Edward Godwin,' as the designer explains...

'I tried to some extent to be faithful to Galsworthy's descriptions of Robin Hill in the books, but actually they're not at all practical. There are too many columns crammed into the inner courtyard -- he talks about eight, and I've cut it down to four, otherwise it would have been too crowded. I've stuck to the key things -- there are no interior doors, for instance, which some of the characters find a bit shocking, and was something that Wright liked to do. He just put curtains across interior doorways. The main feature of the interior is the flowing space, which is something Galsworthy talks about... Robin Hill is all to do with freedom -- freedom from London, freedom from convention -- and that's expressed through the sense of light and space that you get nowhere else in the story."

And that sense of freedom is most certainly evident. How unlikely-a home it would have been for Irene and Soames given his wish to imprison and isolate her in rural oblivion, but how perfect it is for the two Jolyons, old and young and family when differences are reconciled, and ultimately for Irene when those planets finally align.

The final scene, when an aged Soames Forsyte delivers the Degas painting ('worthless' says Soames...if he only knew) to Irene, now living alone at Robin Hill was amongst the most moving I have seen since...well since Ann Boleyn's execution in Wolf Hall now I come to think of it. I wanted to weep for Soames and for Irene, and for the lasting damage wrought on the next generation by their blighted love, and the pair of them knew it only too well.

So finally at last eventually I have caught up with the new Forsyte Saga, only thirteen years later, and a not far off fifty years since we all watched that first series, but what a wonderful reading and watching project this has been. I can highly recommend.

If you have seen this second series I would love to know your thoughts...

And perhaps you have read all the books...

Maybe I will read on...

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

The Forsyte Saga

The Fox and the Star ~ Coralie Bickford-Smith

Do you ever hear news of a book and think 'I must get a copy of that,' and life goes on and you half- forget about it.

Then you see it in a shop (Falmouth Bookseller) and for some reason you still don't buy it.

And then you hear a bit more and suddenly you have to have a copy yesterday.

So it was with The Fox and the Star by Coralie Bickford-Smith (published by Particular Books part of Penguin Random House) and with available copies diminishing rapidly around the bookshops of the South West I am grateful to Ron Johns (Mr SW Bookshop) and the St Ives Bookseller for reserving, taking payment over the phone and posting a copy to me tout de suite.


The premise of the book is deceptively simple but that doesn't make the writing of its brief narrative any easier...every word must count. In many ways these are the most difficult books to get right.

Fox, alone in the woods, is guided by the light of a star which becomes his companion. Foraging and munching his way through his day Fox is happy...

  All of Fox's
happiness was
  bound to the
    flickering
  light of Star.

   And so it
had always been.

When Star disappears Fox takes to his den and sinks into a slough of monochrome despond.

Finally rallying and setting off in search of Star of course Fox eventually finds a sky full of them and is safe in the knowledge that amongst them is his very own friend.

Now that is probably more words than Coralie Bickford-Smith uses in the entire book of sixty-four pages, but, as you might expect from the designer of the Penguin Clothbound Series, those words have been embedded in some truly beautiful illustrations. Citing William Blake and William Morris as her inspiration, and with high production values including typesetting by Coralie in Agfa Wile 12pt/15pt, and printing on Munken Pure Rough paper, the book is a treasure.

If the feel of a book matters then The Fox and the Star has Feel Factor x 10. The light roughness of the clothbound cover that denotes quality; the beautiful endpapers, the crisp pages making it abundantly clear ...this book is one of those that has to be held and stroked. A lot of which I have done since The Fox and the Star arrived, and Bookhound too now that he is deeply into his bookbinding life and endpapers are his new most favourite thing. You know how sometimes we all have to sneak books/wool/fabric in the door unnoticed, well it's happening with his endpapers at the moment.  

The foremost allegories of loss, bereavement along with acceptance and resilience in The Fox and the Star are not subsumed by the design but rather enhanced by it, as the five Pantones shift from bright to dark monotones, with the gradual return of the colours as fox finds himself in a bright new future.

And for the inner child in all of us there is plenty to keep the attention. 

Beetles and rabbits to be found and counted as they scurry unconfined by borders into and around spacious margins: Blakeian beams of light leading the eye with Fox through the Morris-like tendrils and curlicues from one page to the next...

In my previous most recent health visitor incarnation before 'retirement', four years working as a Parent Supporter specialising in loss and bereavement, miscarriage and stillbirth and cancer and serious illness for Netmums.com, I had a lot on my plate, and was always on the lookout for useful books for children on the subjects various. Each day I would log on to the forums and have no idea what might await a reply, but there would invariably be sad parents desperate to know what to say to sad children following a loss of some description. I only had words to work with, and sometimes thirty or more replies to do, so I was always grateful for the words and images of others and had my go-to book lists to recommend...

Badger's Parting Gifts by Susan Varley, Waterbugs and Dragonflies by Doris Stickney, The Lonely Tree by Nicholas Halliday ( and plenty more suggested by the incredibly useful Little Parachutes if you are in need of help for any reason) and I would have happily added The Fox and the Star to my list. But invariably I would suggest that the books worked a sort of magic for grown-ups too, and Coralie's book is no exception. This year has been a case of 'bereavement specialist heal thyself' and we have paid proper time and attention to mourning the loss of the Tinker that's for sure, and books like this have had their place.

But that apart, it's the beauty and feel of the book that I keep returning to. It sits on the table and I keep on picking it up and wandering through, and with it comes an unexpectedly warm and fuzzy feeling about foxes... always a difficult state of mind to achieve with a gamekeeper in the family. 

And I think I was right about our playful fox cub moment. This was certainly their last rough and tumble together before scattering, not a sign of them since that magical morning in late October...

 

So there I was sitting at my sewing table 'doing' my hexagons for the quilt that will be finished one day, when it occurred to me that I must include some florets that represent good books. Fabric designs can be made to tell wonderful stories too, so The Fox and the Stars is the first to be immortalised...

Fox and his stars will be snoozing in the quilt somewhere and will always remind of this book...and this year.


'He knew that
  somewhere
out there was
  a star that 
once was his.'

 

 

Godspeed Major Tim...

I can't quite believe that we finally, at last, after all this time, have an astronaut of our own here in the UK, but we do and, as you all know by now, Bookhound and I get quite animated about things like this.


Launch day tomorrow (11.03am GMT ) for British astronaut Major Tim Peake as he heads towards the International Space Station for a six month orbit of duty. We still get the email updates from NASA telling us when the ISS will be passing over us here and, cloud permitting, we dash out into the garden and watch it and marvel...



And to think that tiny hub of activity, a home to six people, is looking down on us here in the South West and the Tamar Valley and seeing this view of Plymouth...



We have followed returning astronaut Chris Hadfield's every move (and that will include Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday December 20th) and this time last year we had driven to Bath and back in a day to hear him speak... and more here too.


He talked us through the launch in great detail...

And we loved it.

In fact Chris's Astronautical Nugget of Wisdom..

'There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse..'

...saw us through some tough decision-making with the Tinker very soon afterwards when we needed to balance hefty orthopaedic surgical intervention with quality of remaining life. Without question it stopped every doctor in their tracks as they thought about it before agreeing with us, and you could see them adding it to their own Nuggets of Wisdom for future reference.

I was so grateful we had been to that talk.

We have been following Tim Peake's progress too (he's been in quarantine for ten days) and will be looking forward to his twitter updates from space.

The countdown to tomorrow's launch (Doctor Who and Professor Brian Cox are involved apparently, which is reassuring) and the launch itself will be televised live in the morning, and then a live broadcast again in the evening as the space craft reaches and docks with the ISS. The station orbits once every ninety minutes at about 200 miles above earth, travelling at 17,500 miles an hour...that's some journey in a single day considering how long it's going to take me to reach New Zealand (only twenty or so more sleeps before lift off)...

Actually I'm thinking about going into quarantine too.

My current and recurring flight nightmare is a bout of flu, or a stinking cold that leaves you with the Awfully Irritating Cough.

But how exciting must all this be for Tim Peake's family, especially his two young sons.

Go Tim, and may the force be with you, we'll be watching.

Do any of you get enthused about this sort of thing too...

Pleasings...

It's been a funny old end to the gardening season and I seem to have missed the boat on a general tidy up and the putting it all to bed for the winter.

That strange spell of hot weather we had in October was spent sitting in chair on the veranda reading and topping up the vitamin D, and in any case, everything came back to life and had a final fling and it seemed a shame to uproot and clear. Now of course the rains have come and we have a mud bath. 

And early one morning some bullocks jumped the fence and invaded. It was like watching harrier jump jets... from a standing start they were up and over and frolicking. The air was worse than blue and I cut quite a dash in my wellies and dressing gown while Bookhound nearly had apoplexy trying to persuade them to jump back.

Poached I think is the agricultural term for what we now have in place of a manicured lawn but that's the countryside for you.

So I think we have decided just to heap a load of mulch on top of everything and leave it until the spring.

But two garden pleasings...

I did manage to get out and clean up my tools which will be ready and waiting for me in the spring.



My second garden pleasing was the Penstemons...

Now I am new to the world of Penstemons, never much of a devotee until Carol gave me some plants and I realised that they grew well here with minimal interest from slugs and flowered their socks off, creating lovely splashes of trouble-free colour amongst everything else. Then I started noticing them at plant sales and bought a few more, and then I thought I'd try some cuttings back in September.

Nothing more horticultural than cutting bits off and sticking them in pots.

Two months on and to my complete surprise they have all thrived..
.
...and when I moved them into the greenhouse this week there were the roots shooting out from the base of the pots.

Clever plants. I hardly want to shout success from the rooftops yet because they still have to survive the winter, but if they do I will be delighted and have lots of Sour Grapes, Russian Rivers and Tsars to plant out or give to friends.

A sewing pleasing...

Apologies, you will be getting sick of these hexagons but thankfully I am not..

I found a couple of lovely fabrics to add in this week and, when the woman in the shop asked me what they were for, and I told her she grimaced...

'Awful English piecing, rather you than me, hate it.'

I was a bit taken aback to be honest. Not what you expect in a patchwork shop (it wasn't our local one) 

Anyway I am stitching on and have started some joining. The temptation is to try and plan it, whereas I think it has to be completely random and the eye will just wander around it so I will just keep adding.

And a Christmas Pleasing...

We are into the realms of 'this time last year' at the moment, and on one of those poignant days last week I was in town and dropped into the Parish Church to wander around the Christmas Tree Festival.

The scent of spruce as I queued (yes queued, it is hugely popular) was overwhelming and to see the church dressed overall in twinkly lights was something quite extraordinary. It is a huge place with lots of dark corners, but every single one was illuminated and filled with trees decorated by organisations various around the town...


 and the stained glass was loving it...


Carols were being played and this year the church is piping the sound out into the churchyard so the atmosphere was very festive and I chatted my way around bumping into friends various along the way.

The perfect way to jump-start into some festive cheer.

Is it happening over your way...

Any other Pleasings to report...

 

The Gap of Time ~ Jeanette Winterson - Hogarth Shakespeare

'However far we have been separated whatever is lost shall be found.'

This assertion, which felt like a promise, on the end paper of The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a retelling of The Winter's Tale for the Hogarth Shakespeare project, came as a welcome reminder that not all Shakespeare's plays end in tragedy. Some of the later plays 'depend on forgiveness' too suggests Jeanette Winterson in her afterword...

'Forgiveness. There are only three possible endings to a story - if you put aside And They All Lived Happily Ever After, which isn't an ending, but a coda.
    The three possible endings are:
    Revenge. Tragedy. Forgiveness.
    Shakespeare knew all about revenge and tragedy.
    Towards the end of his working life he became interested in forgiveness - or rather he became interested again in forgiveness...'

I had wondered how this reading process might work..

Would an absence of knowledge about the plot of The Winter's Tale somehow be detrimental to my reading of the book...

Should I brush up on the play before I started the book...

Hence the lengthy search for the Complete Works of Shakespeare...and then when I found it, well it was all too daunting.

Had I opened The Gap of Time first I would have immediately seen the very helpful resume of the original play...

The setting the fantasy island of Sicilia...

The love triangle that is King Leontes and his pregnant wife Hermione, and the King of Bohemia, Polixenes.

The suspicions and jealousies that abound as Leontes, convinced that the newborn baby Perdita is not his, orders her to be taken across the seas to Bohemia and abandoned there where she is found by a shepherd and his clown son and raised as their own.

Sixteen years later Prince Florizel, son of Polixenes unwittingly meets and falls in love with Perdita and along comes lovable rogue Autolycus to the wedding stealing everyone's money, whilst Others Various make their presence known and the truth will out.

There's some fleeing back to Sicilia where more truths will out, feuding factions will be reconciled and some big dollops of forgiveness will be dished out.

My apologies, that is quite likely to be the most terrible resume of a Shakespeare play that you will ever read, but hopefully it at least sets you up to half-understand the opening chapter of A Gap in Time wherein bar pianist Shep (get it) walking through the American city of New Bohemia late one night, finds an abandoned baby in the local hospital's BabyHatch....

'There's a history to the BabyHatches. Isn't there always a history to the story? You think you're living in the present but the past is right behind you like a shadow.'

Think Foundling Hospital and the babies left with a scrap of fabric, except this one is left with diamonds, a case full of money and scrap of a song entitled Perdita. It transpires that hedge fund manager Leo (watch the names) has orchestrated the abandonment of the baby Perdita as revenge for his wife MiMi's supposed infidelity with Xeno, a designer of computer games.

The computer game in particular, 'The Gap of Time', will eventually offer (I now realise) a clever 21st century means of resolving some of the plays original ambiguities...I think the Bard would have loved the possibilities of sleight of screen.

If it all sounds a little far-fetched, well surely it is no more so than the original might have seemed to the Elizabethans, and to Jeanette Winterson's credit that she pulls it all off with such brilliance. The Gap of Time really worked for me, I was entranced, suspended disbelief when required and was as deeply involved as if I had been watching the play on stage... it's hard to convey what a delight this was to read, or how wonderful and deeply moving the final scene.

There is poetic, there is bawdy, there is frolicking and humour, complexity and confusion, surprises, puns and poignancy; the novel format allowing for the expansion of all those directions in a modern setting, and Jeanette Winterson wastes none of them. 

Can you think of a better occupation for the latter-day Autolycus than that of a dodgy used-car dealer running a business called Autos Like Us, and what better car to be trying to sell, in a novel that traverses time, than a Back to the Future DeLorean. 

Yes it sounds corny, but I groaned as willingly and as enjoyably as any Elizabethan audience.

Leo is obsessive, possessive and controlling and yet the moment when he senses the infidelity holds all the drama and poignancy of the action on the stage...

'The fall was when the leaves are shed and Leo felt like he was losing his cover. He felt bare and naked. He felt the wind blowing through him.'

Or the Interval, that time when the audience reflects with each other (and goes to get an ice cream) and which Jeanette Winterson uses to reflect for the reader, to direct thoughts both to what has gone before and what is to follow...

'So many stories of lost and found....

We didn't know that stars are like fossils, imprints of the past, sending light like messages, like a dying wish...'

The message about time, and the Gap of Time, made me wonder about those original audiences for the play too, busy investing their own early 1600's experiences, fears and anxieties into the action as they watched to give them relevance in their own lives. And how this series of novels has the potential to bridge that gap of time, bringing the action into the present and allowing 21st century readers to add their own interpretations.

I was also acutely aware, as I read, of what depths lay beneath.

The Winter's Tale, this play of which I knew so little but which surely Jeanette Winterson would have followed very closely. The re-tellings of Macbeth and Hamlet when they come, plays I know reasonably well, will be a very different reading experience to this one but all equally exciting. I now can't wait to look at the original play and indulge in a reading and identifying of the likenesses in reverse, nor can I think of many situations where I am so actively looking forward to reading a novel again so soon.

In her afterword Jeanette Winterson reflects on the redemption and forgiveness embraced in the original play and in her re-telling of it. How the play first performed in 1611, some 300 years before psychoanalysis..

'began to understand how the past mortgages the future, or that the past can be redeemed ..how the past lies in wait as an ambush'

and clearly still has plenty to say today.

I have been light on the details about the plot of The Gap of Time, trust me there is much more to it than I have revealed...

'And the story fell out stone by stone, shining and held, the way time is held in a diamond. the way light is held in each stone.'

Weren't Shakespeare's original plays often able to safely explore the issues of the day by embedding them in stories from centuries earlier?

And if so what a wonderful opportunity the Hogarth Shakespeare project will offer for the chosen authors to do likewise.

Clever old Shakespeare, and in my book congratulations to Jeanette Winterson. It can't have been easy to be the first writer off the press but I sense she has launched this project into a stellar orbit, I'm definitely on board for the journey.

 

 

 

Calling Cumbria...

Oh dear, how are you in Cumbria??

Please do let us know if you are able to.

For those abroad and unaware... Storm Desmond hit Cumbria hard with unprecedented amounts of rainfall over the weekend, (several month's worth in 36 hours I think ) leading to terrifying flood conditions across great swathes of the northern counties and a mass evacuation of homes....and just before Christmas too.

And extraordinary that the limestone at Malham Tarn, location of many-a geography field trip, sprouted a waterfall for the first time in hundreds of years.

The news from people's homes was heartbreaking to watch so I just wanted to let you know we are thinking of you...

 

Hogarth Shakespeare

It's been a funny old reading year for me, but 2016 beckons and with it new enthusiasms, and every once in a while a reading project comes along that immediately captures my imagination. Now that I have read The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, the first in the series, I have a feeling Hogarth Shakespeare might be my next Big Reading Thing.

The Hogarth Press was originally founded by Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1917 with a mission to publish the best new writing of the age and the premise of the Hogarth Shakespeare project is this...

For generations, Shakespeare’s works have been performed, read and loved throughout the world. His plays have been reinterpreted for every new generation: as teen movies (10 Things I Hate About You/Taming of the Shrew), musicals (West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet), science-fiction films (Forbidden Planet/The Tempest), Japanese warrior tales (Throne of Blood/Macbeth) and novels (A Thousand Acres/King Lear), to name a few. The time is ripe for a dedicated series of stand-alone retellings that will form a covetable library as well as a celebration of Shakespeare for years to come. The Hogarth Shakespeare will be a unique series to delight existing Shakespeare lovers and bring the world’s favourite writer to a new readership, young and old.

Now, the fact that it took me several days to locate my Complete Works of Shakespeare will tell you that I might not have picked it up a great deal since completing that year of study (last century now) as part of my OU degree, and having cause to get the file of essays out this week I was slightly terrified at what I was obviously capable of back last fin de siecle but don't feel in the least bit capable of now.

But that's fine. That year of studying undid all the damage that school study of the Bard had embedded so deeply.

Did your heart used to sink too when the teacher walked in at the beginning of term and handed out the dusty old copies. You'd write your name underneath the countless others who had used this copy on that slip of paper in the front, and you knew it would be week after week of reading the thing in class...

And understandably all the best people (not me) would be chosen to read parts while the rest of us gazed out of the window..

And learning soliloquies on the bus before a test that morning...

And making up nonsensical words from first letters so that I managed to get the line breaks in the right place.

And yes, I am grateful that I can still recite 'Friends. Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears,' (FITTSHIAHFSC) or 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,' (TCTATLTATS) but it killed the love before it had even had a chance to flower...very sad.

The OU restored my faith but those accumulated shelves of commentary and essays went to the charity shop last year, leaving me with The Complete Works and some happy memories of that year of seeing Simon Russell-Beale in Hamlet in Plymouth, King Lear and Cymbeline at The Globe, and The Tempest in a marquee on the sea front at Dawlish thanks to the RSC travelling company.

And who could know when I might bump into the Bard again...but might it be now?

For a start the line up of authors for the Hogarth Shakespeare looks incredibly exciting..

The Winter's Tale retold by Jeanette Winterson

Othello retold by Tracy Chevalier

King Lear retold by Edward St Aubyn

The Taming of the Shrew retold by Anne Tyler

The Merchant of Venice retold by Howard Jacobson

Hamlet retold by Gillian Flynn

The Tempest retold by Margaret Atwood

Macbeth retold by Jo Nesbo

And so The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson arrived (published in October) and I have taken my time getting to it because The Winter's Tale is not a play I know beyond one useless fact...

The right answer to the question 'Exit Stage Left pursued by which animal ?' Answer 'a bear', helped Judith Keppel (she phoned a friend who knew the answer instantly) on her way to becoming the first £million winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I can't believe the ridiculous things I can remember whilst never remembering where I have parked the car.

My thoughts on The Gap of Time to come very soon but suffice to say I was gripped, impressed and involved and it has left me completely enthused about embarking on the Hogarth Shakespeare project and ready for more. It has been the most interesting and unusual reading experience for many-a long while; reading whilst sensing a palimpsest unknown to me; layers there to be peeled back to reveal Shakespeare's original play jostling for attention beneath.

I am however going to abandon my Norton Complete Works of Shakespeare (weighing in on the 50th centile for a newborn baby) with its bible-thin paper and countless annotations and underlinings (mine) and will be dipping into the individual plays in the Oxford World Classics editions....and no commentaries, or essays, or treating it like a degree...nope, just some good old-fashioned enjoyment of the books and the plays.

As far as I can tell the next book in the series will be Shylock is My Name. Howard Jacobson's retelling of The Merchant of Venice to be published in February 2016 which I already have in proof copy, followed by Anne Tyler's retelling of The Taming of the Shrew in June, and Margaret Atwood's version of The Tempest in October, leaving plenty of time to read, digest and explore in between each one

A fascinating interview with Howard Jacobson here reveals this...

“The idea of going near Shakespeare… you have got to be mad to think of going near it, let along trying to write a rival version,” he said.

“I think it’s an enormously risky thing to do. Vainglorious, even. If a friend of mine told me they were doing it, I’d say ‘who the bloody hell do you think you are?’”

Despite his modest misgivings, the 71-year-old author added he was “thrilled to get a challenge like this” at his “time of life”, and promised to view the project as a “director”, re-interpreting the original material for the modern ear.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “And it’s a very particular challenge for a Jewish author....

It is light years since I wrote about Kalooki Nights on here but I loved it.

Oh I can hardly wait, no pressure Howard, I'm saving Shylock is My Name for February and my return from New Zealand.

Meanwhile hands up ...love or loath ...take or leave the Bard...

Were your school experiences of studying Shakespeare fair or foul...

Can you still spout a soliloquy or three...

And does this series appeal to you or not..

And what thinkest thou of the line up of authors...

Sorry this is probably all distracting you from writing your Christmas cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Eternal Mess Deck welcomes another bootneck...

We heard the sad news that one of the Tinker's oldest Royal Marine friends had died last week.

Harold 'Podge' Overbury had joined up as boy bugler along with the Tinker back in 1939. My dad left the Corps in the early 1950s but Podge went on to become one of the most feared Commando School Sergeant Majors known to mankind apparently. Of course by the time the Tinker and Podge had rekindled their friendship in their 70s all we could see was a lovely cuddly man who had a good line in stories, and we came to know him well. But grown men are known to still quake in their boots at mention of the name Podge Overbury, and the Tinker always joked that he needed to go along and be Podge's food tester at all these posh dinners ...just in case any of them were seeking revenge.

Both widowed, the pair of them would set off on all manner of excursions, adventures, cruises and holidays together, thinking nothing of nipping across to the Isle of Man or Jamaica, or driving (driving!) into central London,  and we would hold our breath because there would invariably be trouble...one or other of them would end up in an ambulance. It was like watching Last of the Summer Wine for real. The memorable occasion after a Burn's Night Dinner, when walking through an unlit car park they both fell down a cattle grid comes to mind...they laughed, I went berserk at the organisers the next day. That's how it usually went.

It was the sight of this picture that caused Susan Hill to give the Tinker that nickname when she was publishing his book, it suited and it stayed.

It was a struggle for him but, with the help of friends, Podge came to the Tinker's funeral earlier this year. By this time his final illness was taking its toll, but Podge certainly knew me and we sat and had a wonderful conversation afterwards, and he gave the buglers 'Full Marks,' about which I was very relieved (and I expect they were too.)

Incidentally, if you were wondering about the term 'bootneck' it is one I heard frequently and here it is explained...

Royal Marine (British Special Forces). Known to each other as "Royal" but the rest of the British Forces know them as bootnecks. This nickname is derived from them cutting the top from a leather boot and wearing it like a modern neckbrace to stop sailors cutting their throat while they guarded officers on board British sailing ships in the days of old.

And Royal Marines know and acknowledge one another too. I was amazed whilst sitting in a hospital waiting room with my dad, to be approached by a very polite young man who greeted the Tinker as 'a fellow bootneck.' The jumper had given it away, but they were soon chatting like old friends...that ongoing recognition and the easy conversations that followed, were aspects of the Corps that my dad and Podge both really enjoyed.

And so in memory of Harold Overbury, 'Hodge' who became Podge, and the Tinker, here is one of my favourite stories from the Tinker's little memoir Bugle Boy, in which Podge's mother asserts her invisible authority....

Podge’s Mum

To illustrate the remark I made that Wren Overbury was not to be trifled with, I will relate the tale of the complaint. It must have been sometime in 1942 when it happened as I had just returned to barracks after two years on my first ship and the new mess hall had been built.

We had liver and onions for breakfast, ‘baby’s head and guardrails’ as it was known in the vernacular. The liver was like the soles of our boots and the onions looked like bootlaces, most unappetizing. In comes the Officer of the day, as was his duty at every meal, being concerned about our wellbeing.

‘Any complaints?’ he asks, holding his nose twixt finger and thumb.

‘Yes’, says Hodge.

Well you may have seen a cartoon where the Officer is aghast and the Corporal swells with indignation; this is where it originated.

‘Taste this liver and onions sir, we can’t eat it and we are told we must have a good breakfast before going on parade.

‘Don’t talk to the Officer like that, son’, says the Corporal.

Mind you, the Officer had to agree that it was pretty gruesome and he was due for his own breakfast shortly.

‘Fetch this man another breakfast.’

Up comes a plate with egg, bacon and fried bread.

‘Do you withdraw your complaint?’

‘Yes sir’, says Hodge.

On the way to the washing-up space, in a corridor, he is suddenly grabbed by a huge Sergeant in cook’s whitesand literally lifted off the floor by his neck.

‘Are you the little …… who just made the complaint?’

‘Yes Sergeant’, squeaks Hodge.

‘Do you realize that it was my breakfast that you have just eaten?’

‘No,’ says Hodge, ‘and if you don’t put me down I shall report you.’

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ says Sergeant.

‘I’m Po/x3834 Boy Bugler Harold Overbury.’

At this the Sergeant turns a paler shade of pale.

‘Is Mrs Overbury your mum?’ he asks in a squeaky voice.

‘Yes’, says Hodge.

‘God, you won’t tell her will you?’ he says, and gently lowers Hodge to the ground, straightening his tunic and dusting him down.

As far as I can remember, Hodge never had reason to complain henceforth – that was the kind of fear Hodge’s mum could instil. Bombs, bullets, even a draft to a ship were not equal to the wrath of Mrs Overbury protecting her young.

 

 

Stitching gallimaufry...

Having eschewed any machine-piecing for my hands and stitching the hexagons over papers, I do a lot of listening while I sew these days and the florets are accumulating slowly...


Mostly done sitting at the table in my sewing room...

But, having now organised myself a lap board, I decided these were skills that could now be transferred safely to the sofa, maybe I could watch + listen + stitch + look-up-quickly + listen + stitch and somehow not miss to much whilst catching up on some viewing at the same time.

I have to digress for a moment and explain the lap board...


A thin, lightweight piece of wood covered in wadding and then a fleece cover with some extra padding in the corner for pins and needles etc. I happened to have the plum-coloured fleece and stitched it into a snug pillow case affair which has proved to be the most ideal colour for a working background, and of course in the time-honoured tradition of all things Fuzzy Felt everything sticks to it beautifully.

My biggest nightmare has always been that of The Lost Needle on the sofa and the lap board sorts this one a treat. It's so easy to absent-mindedly stick a needle anywhere, it was always happening to my mum and up we'd all get up and on would go the big lights to do the search. A sense of trepidation until it had been found because someone always knows someone, who knows someone, who has sat/knelt/trod on a needle, and Bookhound happens to know all three someones, so caution is the byword. I can recline on the sofa with this propped across my knees and frankly I am in sewing heaven.

I'll own up that I've made a half-sized one for the car because it transpires I can stitch over papers as we bowl along, and let's be honest, the only way this wholly hand-stitched quilt might ever reach completion is if I make the most of every available sewing moment.

The little sewing organiser bag by the way is my Next Brilliant Discovery of the Year.

Ordered direct from Yazzii.com in Australia, even with postage it was a fraction of the price they are being sold for here (if you can even find one) and finally, after years and years of tins, baskets and boxes that descend into tangled chaos before falling on the floor I am now sorted, compartmentalised and best of all, portable.



At approx 5" x 7" x 3" this zips up and fits snugly into a bag and holds everything I need for mobile hexagon-ing.

Sorted.

Any more good lap-sewing ideas...

How's the stitching over your way...

Or the knitting...

And if anyone would like to do a little fabric swap please do email me...it would be wonderful to include some pieces from some of you in this (Erika, yours are in there) Unless fussy cutting (terribly wasteful) I only need approximately a fat eighth of cotton fabric for each floret and a small contrast piece for the centre and will happily send the same in return. Hopefully you can get the gist of the colour palette from the picture.

 

 

A few good books...

Now that it is December, and the Advent bough is up in the kitchen, and we are adding things each day, and Bookhound is pleading 'Not too much,' because he will have to take it all down on Twelfth Night without me... well now we can say the Christmas word and start thinking Good Books.

I have been accumulating a pile of Books to Read When I come Home from New Zealand, today some non-fiction, and I think I'd be delighted to find any of these under the tree if I didn't already have them (all info taken from endflaps)

Weatherland - Writers and Artists Under English Skies ~ Alexandra Harris (Thames & Hudson)

I am a massive fan of Alexandra Harris's books. Romantic Moderns was one of those inspirational books that opened up countless reading trails for me, and I loved her biography of Virginia Woolf which, with its beautiful dusky Bloomsbury pink cover, added not only a new slant on a life but also some beauty to an already crowded shelf.

'The story of English culture over a thousand years can be told as the story of changing ideas about the weather. Writers and artists across the centuries, looking up at the same skies and walking in the same brisk air, have felt very different things. In a sweeping panorama, Weatherland allows us to witness cultural climates on the move. The Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest lived in a wintry world, writing about the coldness of exile or the shelters they must defend against enemies outdoors. The Middle Ages brought the warmth of spring; the new lyrics were sung in praise of blossom and cuckoos. It is hard to find a description of a rainy night before 1700, but by the end of the eighteenth century the Romantics will take a squall as fit subject for their most probing thoughts. There have been times when the numbers on a rain gauge count for more than a pantheon of aerial gods. There have been times for meteoric marvels and times for gentle breeze.

The weather is vast and yet we experience it intimately, which is why Alexandra Harris builds her remarkable story from small evocative details. There is the drawing of a twelfth-century man in February, warming bare toes by the fire. There is the tiny glass left behind from the Frost Fair of 1684, and the 'Sunspan' house in Angmering that embodies the bright ambitions of the 1930s. Harris catches the distinct voices of compelling individuals. 'Bloody cold', says Jonathan Swift in the 'slobbery' January of 1713. Percy Shelley wants to become a cloud and John Ruskin wants to bottle one.

Weatherland is a celebration of English air and a life-story of those who have lived in it. As we enter what may be the last decades of English weather as we know it, this is a history for our times.'

Earning itself a quote from Robert Macfarlane... well what more could a book need...

'A dazzling journey through the weather-worlds of English Culture and history.'

The book itself is beautifully produced with grey scale and colour pictures on matte pages interspersed with the text, so none of the glossy chunks in the middle that have me to-ing and fro-ing.

 

Renishaw Hall - The Story of the Sitwells by Desmond Seward (Elliott & Thompson)

I know so little about the Sitwells beyond the name Sacheverell, which I can neither pronounce nor spell, that I can't help but be attracted by the thought of new discoveries. 

Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire has been the seat of the Sitwell family since 1625. Its remarkable story is only matched by that of the family who have dwelled there, and with whose fortunes it has risen and fallen, only to rise again.

Modern Renishaw's real creator was the under-estimated Sir George Sitwell, a pioneer of the Baroque revival and a gardener of genius, but caricatured as a buffoon by his son Osbert. Better known are his children, the Trio - Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell - who were the Bloomsbury Group's rivals in the 1920s and leading literary figures in the 1950s and 60s.

In telling the tale of the Sitwells through the centuries, Desmond Seward also takes us on a tour through English history, to the house's restoration at the end of the twentieth century, and the return to its former glory as a jewel of British heritage, winning the coveted Historic Houses' Association Award for Garden of the Year in 2015.

My foray into the life and loves of Ettie Desborough last year (mother of Julian Grenfell) proved that these families make rich fodder for us readers today and I while I am on the subject, my radar has locked onto this one too though I don't have a copy yet...

The Mistresses of Cliveden - Three Centuries of Scandal Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home ~ Natalie Livingstone (Hutchinson)

It sounds equally fascinating...

'From its dawn in the 1660s to its twilight in the 1960s, Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue. Conceived by the Duke of Buckingham as a retreat for his scandalous affair with Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the house later served as the backdrop for the Profumo Affair, which would bring down a government and change the course of British history.

In the three hundred years between the Countess and Christine Keeler, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women: Elizabeth Villiers, an intellectual who brokered the rise and fall of governments; Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, a minor German royal who almost became queen of England; Harriet Duchess of Sutherland, the glittering society hostess turned political campaigner; and Nancy Astor, the consummate controversialist who became the first woman to take a seat in parliament. Under the direction of these women, Cliveden provided a stage for political plots and artistic premieres, hosted grieving monarchs and republican radicals, was idealised as a family home, and maligned as a threat to national security.

The Mistresses of Cliveden is by turns a historical epic, a political thriller, a family drama, and an intimate history of the relationships between people and place. Above all, it is a story about sex and power, and the ways in which exceptional women have evaded, exploited, and confronted the expectations of their times.'

But just in case I become a little too comfortable and 'English' I have added a bit of dramatic action to the book pile...

The Witches Salem, 1692 - A History ~ Stacy Schiff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

We put on (though I say so myself) a stunning performance of Act Three of The Crucible when I was at school. It was for the school drama festival and 5C stormed it. There was the spine-chilling moment of the scream which made them all sit up and take notice and of course we triumphed on the day. I wasn't a thespian and in fact almost missed the day because of appendicitis, but it was memorable and we still talk about it amongst our little Class of 72 on Facebook.

Truth is I don't know much more than Act Three of The Crucible revealed so I am intrigued by this one...

'It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter started to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before nineteen men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbours accused neighbours, parents accused children, husbands accused wives, children accused their parents, and siblings each other.

Vividly capturing the dark, unsettled atmosphere of seventeenth-century America, Stacy Schiff's magisterial history draws us into this anxious time. She shows us how a band of adolescent girls brought the nascent colony to its knees, and how quickly the epidemic of accusations, trials, and executions span out of control. Above all, Schiff's astonishing research reveals details and complexity that few other historians have seen. Every detail of colonial life just decades after the first landing - family, farming, praying, housekeeping, dangers of life at wilderness's edge, estrangement from England, the pressures of a life dominated by Biblical thought - is rendered with a clarity that makes almost inconceivable events comprehensible.

As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, as magnificently written as it is deeply researched, The Witches breathes new life into one of history's most enduring mysteries.'

 

Each of these promises to take me to new reading territory so I would love to know your thoughts...

Have you read any of them...

If so what is the verdict...

Do any take your fancy...

American friends...do I want to know more about the witches of Salem...

What is your take on all that...

And any more non-fiction titles sitting expectantly on your Christmas lists...

 

In which we go to the cinema to see Bridge of Spies...

It's a bit of a rare occurrence to be honest.

We are the world's greatest exponents of the 'We'll buy it in DVD' method rather than trek into Plymouth to watch a film, but we had the chance to see Bridge of Spies recently and, having seen the trailer on TV, we had instantly earmarked it as a film we would both enjoy.



Whilst I doubt I will persuade Bookhound to go and see Brooklyn, though may have better luck with The Lady in the Van, the tense thriller-drama combination is right up our shared street.

We stocked up on Maltesers and Revels at the garage along the way, because when else do you eat them but in the cinema, and who's going to pay cinema prices, and then of course we had the rustling packet dilemma. Thankfully enough loudish moments in the film to mask.

It is 1957 and Bridge of Spies is based on the fascinating true story of US lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who is called in to defend the captured Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). It's about justice being seen to be done rather than a fair trial, but James Donovan, at great risk to himself and his family, will do it properly and honourably or not at all.

Meanwhile US pilots are being recruited to the CIA to fly spy planes over Russian territory...

There will be a mission to Berlin for James Donovan to negotiate a prisoner exchange and I won't tell you any more.

Tom Hanks is growing into the role of the wise senior with ease...last time I saw him wasn't he jumping around on a life-sized floor piano...or telling Houston we had a problem. He brought a winning combination of humour and probity to the role of James Donovan, who by all accounts was a principled and very genuine man. James Donovan went on to even greater things when President Kennedy asked him to negotiate the release of prisoners after the Bay of Pigs. And Mark Rylance is superb as Rudolf Abel. He brought every ounce of that restrained Cromwellian gaze to create a humble and enigmatic figure, cool, calm and reflective....it's the eyes.

'You seem very calm,' says James Donovan, 'aren't you worried,' he asks the prisoner.

'Would it do any good,' replies Rudolf Abel.

But the Eastern bloc locations also made us realise how easy it is to forget the horrors of the Cold War years and the Berlin Wall. Watching it being built was more horrific than I could have imagined, people trapped on the wrong side, the barricades being thrown up by miles and miles of soldiers, and all around the rubble and devastation of war. Suspicion and terror everywhere, it was The Wasteland writ large and all brilliantly directed by Steven Spielberg. Apparently the film was touted around many studios before it was finally accepted and then Spielberg asked for it be pitched to him.

Most definitely a story worth telling and if there's a book it would well worth reading.

And the fear and the tensions, doesn't every generation have to cope with them and aren't we coping with plenty now.

Right, so I have The Lady in the Van in my sights for our next excursion...


Meanwhile any more good films we have undoubtedly missed...

Especially of the drama-thriller variety...

What about the new James Bond Spectre, should we bother...

Martian, is that worth the forty mile round trip.