Posted in Going Out, tagged dating, he's just not that into you, nosebleeds, relationships on May 27, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I went on a date last week. Ok, ok, I wouldn’t normally blog about this but I’ve read a few pieces of relationship-commentary recently (why married men cheat, why cheating’s still not ok, why clever women fall for second-rate men) and it’s all very thought-provoking. In the spirit of Carrie Bradshaw I guess I could [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged batman, christopher nolan, heath ledger, michael caine, the dark knight, the joker on May 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A fortnight ago I moaned about Hollywood’s penchant for sequels. At the time I was feeling kind of frustrated with the phenomenon. That was until I saw the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s second Batman adaptation, The Dark Knight.
In the last five months the film has gained a grim significance, not in anticipation of Nolan’s ever-bleaker [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged mitchell and webb, peep show, peep show on itunes, peep show series 5 on May 19, 2008 | 3 Comments »
This is just a tip: the first episode of the new series of Peep Show is available FOR FREE on itunes. These things are usually for a limited time only so I’d download it asap (if you haven’t got itunes on your computer yet, you can install the latest version from here). Squirmily hilarious.
Posted in Going Out, tagged acorn house, orsman road, the waterhouse restaurant on May 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a-a-ages but got sidetracked. A new restaurant opened a few months ago on my side of town, called The Waterhouse. Under normal circumstances it would be the kind of place I could only afford to buy a starter at, but I was lucky enough to be [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged blindness, cannes, danny glover, fernando mereilles, gael garcia bernal, julianne moore, mark ruffalo, savage grace, trailer of the week on May 17, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Julianne Moore is one of my favourite actresses. She commits so entirely to her roles, isn’t afraid of acting ugly and seems to inhabit characters from the inside out, right from their beating hearts to the stretch of their skin. She has also starred in some unusually intelligent films. In Magnolia, The Hours and Far [...]
Posted in Listening, tagged charles hazlewood, fugees, radio 2, when charles met wyclef, wyclef jean on May 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I don’t normally listen to Radio 2 but by chance I heard an amazing programme called “When Charles met Wyclef” on Saturday. You can listen again and I’d say do it, just as soon as you’ve got a chance. The format’s simple: Charles Hazlewood, one of the UK’s most exciting conductors and a force for [...]
Posted in Thinking, Watching, tagged BFI, british film institute, david lean, dickens, great expectations, magwitch, pip on May 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I can remember resting on my elbows in front of the television in my grandparents’ drawing-room when I was still quite young, and feeling keenly the terror of the poor, timorous Pip in the first minutes of this film, who is jumped on by an escaped convict while he lays flowers on his parents’ grave. [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged christopher nolan, david yates, fox searchlight, gabriel byrne, harry potter, hollywood, les quatre cent coups, memento, ray lawrence, reservoir dogs, sequels, sex lies and videotape, steven soderbergh, the dark knight, truffaut, warner brothers, warner independent, withnail on May 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This summer Harrison Ford returns in slightly more wrinkled form as Indiana Jones (& the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). What does the film have in common with upcoming releases Hellboy II, The Dark Knight, and the long-delayed second X-Files film?
They’re all sequels.
2007 was even more of a bumper year, with, oh let’s see, Spiderman [...]
Posted in Listening, tagged alan johnston, city university, conflict reporting, stewart purvis on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I was lucky enough to hear this award-winning BBC journalist talk at City University last night. Soft-spoken and courteous, responding thoughtfully to the questions of City professor and ex-ITN chief Stewart Purvis, Johnston recounted the terrifying ordeal of his captivity in Gaza.
What became most apparent was Johnston’s abiding generosity of spirit, whether in answering students’ [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged bbc narnia, c.s. lewis, narnia, prince caspian on May 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It opens in the States in 11 days and counting, but weirdly, Prince Caspian won’t hit the UK until the 26th of June; just in time for those distributor-friendly summer holidays.
My questions are:
1) Why is Caspian putting on a French/Spanish accent?
2) What’s with his pantene-advert hair?
3) Can Ben Barnes be even vaguely as good as [...]
Posted in Reading, Thinking, tagged boris, compass, Jonathan Freedland, ken livingstone, kiran stacey, london, mayoral elections, new labour on May 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Boris has won. This is a dark day. My friend Kiran has a good pre-emptive piece on how we got here and what Gordon Brown needs to do next.
On Comment is Free, Jonathan Freedland tells it like it is, poetically:
“On a sunny Friday in May, by the glittering waters of the Thames, Tony Blair [...]
Posted in Watching, tagged clinton, good use of online video, obama, slate on May 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Anyone who knows me knows I like Slate. A lot. I’d gladly devote my life to creating a version in Britain if I was five years more experienced and wasn’t starting a job in September.
Anyway here they do their signature brainy witty thing. And we all get a bit smarter.
