Favourite Films: One Hour Photo

Robin Williams playing a simple delusional lonely man. In many ways this film is too sad to watch. Excruciatingly embarassing but fascinating at the same time.
The main character is a nice man at heart, but so lonely he latches onto a family he absolutely no connection with, beyond that he develops their photos at the local mall. A relatively low skilled job he probably mastered in a few months.

What makes this film work so well is:
1) The insight it gives into how a basically good man, can become so delusional and lonely. Later under duress he is driven to a terrible mistake.
2) The film is beautifully shot, the sad character is always in stark light, which hardens the poverty of his existence. While the "ideal family" with a fantastic home and all things beautiful are shot in rich colours ...
3) A good sound track - atmospheric and perfectly fitting the mood of the film
4) There is a clever plot twist

Self-righteous Brits? Sweet, I totally agree...

One of my bug bears is the endemic self-righteous nature of our tabloid press.

There are many great things in British culture, but we are as a nation becoming increasingly aggressive and abusive. There are many other problems: poor diet, cheap booze, drugs ... This is all very sad and the tabloids seem to be in denial, adopting a classic chav "aggressive defensive" posture. Rather than talk about real issues, they focus on celebrity, sports, and banging on about British superiority plus beating the Germans over half a century ago?

I was lamenting this point about "endemic self-righteous of the Brits" on the way back home, when an attractive young women (late twenties), with an Eastern European accent passed and called out laughing "sweet, I totally agree!"

Pero theatre trip

A Saturday with my mother and two nieces (10 and 8 years old)

The lunch went down well, for the main course:

1) a base of couscous and soya (no tumeric: Sophia has a phobia of all things spicy) with some veg (grean beans) and prunes

2) fried turkey breasts adding cashew nuts at the end (so as to soak up some of the juices)

3) pour into baking dish the "base" (couscous, soya, veg, prunes) and then add on top the turkey and cashews

4) bake/grill for 5 - 10 minutes

serve with pesto and/or sweet chilly sauce. Possible variations:

1) add pumpkin or sunflower seeds at the baking stage?

2) add walnuts or brazil nuts stage

3) spinach <-- delicious but not so good for children who like blander flavour

4) tuna or salmon stakes instead of turkey

The theatre was great, a stylish puppet theatre with operatic themes. The younger couple (washing girl & baker) were attractive, dance in a puppet like movement and sung nicely. They were slightly coquetish: very theatrical displays of legs and playful taps :) The pretty washer girl with curly brown hair had very rouge, which looked grat on her pale complexion. The baker looked slim, athletic and neat altogether a simple but vaguely handsome young man.

The older couple (the sun and the moon) were the music and song which drove the theatre. She had a very powerful, saprano voice, I expect she was an ex-opera singer. They played a wide range of instruments: keyboard, percussion, sax, ...

The whole arrangement had a rather traditioning Victorian style, there is little in this show which would have looked obviuosly out of place 100 years ago? Not so clearly visible there were: amplifers, spot lights, synthizer

For supper (with Mum & Nadjib), I did a nice salad: bed of spinach leaves, cherry tomatos, roasted figs (it is the season), asparagus, olives, feta cheese (cows milk?), rapeseed oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dinner with friends: Dawits, Stephanie, Emmanuelle and Nadjib

Aperitif: Champagne cocktails (dry pinot noir plus a few drops of sweet creme cassis)
Starter: Red and Green salad (peppers, cumcumber, tomatos, olives, asparagus)
Main: Coucous and turkey baked (plus sweet potatos, sunflowers, greens, farmhouse vegs, rapeseed oil, cranberries ...)
Wine: Chilean Red (muy bueno Cabernet Sauvigon)
Desert: Desert wine (nice Sauterne/Montbazillac) and chocolates

Halloween - the battered boyfriend!

Nadjib and me went straight from work in Brighton to a Halloween fancy dress party in London, only minus the fancy dress.

Still a bit of make up and I could play the "battered boyfriend" ;-)

A cool party with Nadjib's old colleagues