Blackpool.

This Sunday t'other half and I made a trip to Blackpool to cheer on our running club mates in the Great North West Half Marathon.  We had lots to cheer about as our club had the highest turnout and took second and third place along with a massive amount of PBs.

The first few parts of Blackpool I saw were worse than I remembered.  The town is horrendously run down in parts.  It looks really bad in the back streets.  We drove North and parked near the Hilton to watch the race.  None of the hotels I saw convinced me it would be a good idea to spend the night.

After the race we went for lunch.  We found a nice little restaurant that was busy.  The food was fine, if the menu was stuck in the 1970's.  Not somewhere I'd return in a rush but not as bad as previous attempts at cuisine I've encountered in the town.

After lunch we just had enough time for the Tower.  I've never bothered before.  It's always fell under the stuff I sneer at.  Maybe it was time to loosen up and see if I could enjoy myself.  Well, the fact that it would close for maintenance the day after seemed like a sign we should go up.  So after being relieved of my £12.60 I found the badly signed lift.  Ascended to a floor which I assumed was the right one, lack of signage again.  Found the next stage which led us into the '4D' theatre.  After a bit of a wait...

in sexy 3D spec's, we went through to the theatre.  I won't spoil the film for you in case you're going to see it yourself.  I have to say though impressed wasn't an adjective that sprung to mind upon my exit.  Then another lift with a little spiel given about the Tower itself.  At the top you exit to either the inside observation deck or you can go up a short flight of stairs to an outside one.  As the weather was against us there wasn't a fabulous view, nor did it stretch very far.

The highlight of the observation decks is the Skywalk.  A glass floor for you to test your nerve walking across.  Now, I'd assumed this would be a very simple task.  However it made me feel very queasy.  My brain wouldn't override the safety warnings triggered by what my eyes could see.  Even though the view wasn't as scary as normal as there is work being done on the Tower and the scaffolding broke it a little.  It took a few tries before I could cross it and touch the glass on the other side.  This was most shameful as all logic told me not to be such a total wuss :-(

All in all, I won't be rushing back to Lancashire's most famous coastal town.  

The Iron lady

This was always going to be a hard film for me to judge.  Due to my dislike for the title character.

The film gives you a background to the character giving you the times she struggled due to her class and her gender.  It gives the impression of her as a feminist icon.  This I'd dispute, she fought for her rights and her career.  I can't think of an incidence of her improving conditions for her fellow women.

The period detail seems pretty good throughout the film as it progresses.  That's probably my favourite thing about the film.  Obviously I'm wrong, as everyone else loves it, but I didn't enjoy Streep's performance.  It was in the Michael Sheen, perfect mimic style.  I didn't get a sense of the woman or her feelings on anything, just that Meryl had her off to a T. The younger actress seemed to be doing more actual acting.

The film is as flimsy as it gets when it comes to a political stance.  Or even showing the consequences of her actions.  There are big events, some which would anger Sean Penn, but zero analysis.  This is a huge let down. I'd like to have seen it tackled in a similar way to McQueen's Hunger.  No sides taken but a proper look at its subject.

My biggest problem with the film was the fictional portrayal of a living woman and her 'hallucinations'.  It was a bad way to move the story along.  Put the facts on screen or tell a nice story about characters that don't exist.  Don't do half of each and portray an elderly, probably not very well, woman like this.  It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

All in all I liked this film a little more than I liked the woman herself.  I'd rather have watched a documentary.

1.5 pawprints out of 5

Takings Steps @ Oldham Coliseum Theatre

This was the final play on my current season ticket.  Also the first one to be housed in the theatre's temporary home of The Grange Arts Centre.

I wasn't sure this was going to be a play for me, the word farce had me a little worried.  Some farce tickles my laughter nerve, a lot more leaves me cold.

The temporary theatre has been set up in the round.  The stage isn't very big and had a lot of proppage on it.  I wondered exactly how it was all going to work.  It worked brilliantly.  The stage had 3 separate floors of a house on it.  Never once did you get the floors confused, evern when there were actors on all of them.  A brilliant use of lighting helped but the actions of the cast ascending/descending stairs finished fixing it in your mind.

The cast were all excellent.  This seemed to be very good casting of very good actors in the roles.  Each one was perfectly believable and never dropped a note.  Though not one of them was playing what I'd call a sympathetic role or one which you could respect!  Each character had hilarious moments.  How the cast kept a straight face is beyond me.  Certainly the audience was doubled up.

This is one of the funniest plays I've seen.  In the middle of a hectic, stressful week it was a fabulous distraction.  I'm not one to laugh out loud in a cinema or theatre much.  This had me guffawing with the rest of the people watching.  It took me a little while to get into it.  The first scene had me wondering where it was going but it definitely went to a great place.  From the moment Roland appears I was pretty much chortling until the interval.  The second act I would have described as very, funny.  Very much worth seeing. My favourite parts though were definitely in the second half of the first act.  Some of the laughs you could see coming but, as in all the best farces, this didn't detract at all.

I thoroughly recommend a trip to see this if you're nearby.  Tickets can be bought here - https://oldhamcoliseum.ticketsolve.com/shows/126517066/events  It is showing until March 10th.

4.5 out of 5 pawprints 

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, Gone Fishing by Wolf e Boy

Short Story.

Last year, I read From Bangkok to BC, Chasing Sunsets.  The blog post can be found here. 

Since then I have followed Wolf E Boy's blog with interest.  He writes about his life in a nice style.  There's descriptions of what he experiences and his thoughts about things that crop up.  The blog can be found here.  

He alerted his twitter followers to a story he'd written a while ago.  This story is Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, Gone Fishing.  He told me it was a true story.  I have no idea if he's one of the characters, or if he knows the characters well. 

It's a very honest, quite blunt style of writing.  You know exactly what the characters whose story is being told are thinking.  There are good descriptions of the thought processes as the story unfolds.  I think a lot of readers could find the subject matter a little shocking.  There's the rub though.  It is quite shocking but it's far more common than those who may be shocked probably realise.

I found myself thinking after I had read this story.  I couldn't help coming to, and changing, and changing again, judgements about the characters throughout the tale.  They were all characters I recognised.  I could put at least two faces of people I know to each of them.

The story had me gripped until I had finished it.  It is definitely one of the most bizarre reads I have come across.  Bizarre to see it on the page, yet not so unfamiliar in life.

I think on the whole the politics of the main characters are pretty similar to my own on the issues explored in this.  I would lay the blame less at the door of the Police though and more at pathetic, hysteria influenced governments.

One question I would ask is how reliable is the main character's account?  Have we the whole story or have things been missed/misread due to his state of mind.  My mind/memory plays tricks on me under much less strain.

The ending of the tale is the most bizarre part of the whole thing.  I wish we could find an explanation for the way things ended.  Or maybe the mystery adds to the whole thing.

I enjoyed this story.  The tension was kept up, I sympathised and I laughed too.

Tome Time - Le Dossier, How to Survive the English by Sarah Long

Started December 19th, finished January 3rd.  276 pages

This is described as a guide for French ladies who, against all their better judgement, have to live in England.

My first quibbles would be that this isn't for 'French ladies' but Parisiennes.  Nor is it about living in England so much as London.

I feel I'm lacking in a sense of humour for large parts of this book.  Maybe it's the sneering tone I found in it's author?  There were moments of  'Wow, yes, she's hit the nail with that one.'  It also made you think about how our little island does things.  I quite like the way we do some of the things she scorns.  Others hurt a little more because she was right.

I would like to see her version on the faults of Paris as a home city.  I can't see it though.  In her eyes Paris is civilised, London lags a long way behind.

This is not a book I can find much to recommend in.  It's interesting but irritated me too much to be enjoyed.

2 out of 5 pawprints

Next - The pale Criminal by Philip Kerr

Book 1 of 2012, Page Total 276

New Podcasts I've Discovered

I am, like most people I expect, often trying to cut down my subscription list of podcasts.  Podcasts age, they lose their way, they stop producing.  Every now and then a cull clears up your time for what suits your listening taste best.

I'm always happy when a new podcast comes along that I enjoy though.  I like a little shake up of my feed.  This week I've added two new subscriptions.

Firstly Shonky Lab who can be found here http://www.shonkylab.co.uk/  Elton and Pete discussing what they like to listen to, watch, read, etc.  Up to now there are two episodes on the feed.  An introductory show and an episode discussing cartoons of their childhood.  A very entertaining episode, even if they seem to have a totally different taste in animation to me!  Go give them a listen, they're a witty duo.

Next came the Fantastic Stories Podcast which can be found here http://fantasticstoriespodcast.wordpress.com/ This has a solo presenter, Jacob.  The subject is Classic Audio Drama.  So far there has been one episode containing one UK and one US Radio Drama.  These seem to be straight out of the classic era of melodramatic radio plays.  They ooze nostalgia.  The good thing is they're also a good, fun listen.  If you're a fan of the Hypnogoria Podcast and/or The TimeVault Podcast I strongly recommend you pop over for a listen.

I'm looking forward to hearing more from both of these podcasts.  Thanks for the work you put in guys :-)

Tome Time - Cybill Disobedience by Cybill Shepherd

Started November 15th, finished December 29th.  421 pages.

This was an impulse free purchase.  I discovered it whilst hunting around for free/very cheap Kindle books.  I was very surprised to find it for free.  I've always quite liked Cybill Shepherd and thought her autobiography would be popular.  Especially due to the Elvis bits.  Then I began to wonder if she'd missed out all the juicy bits and that's why it was free....

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong really.  This seems to be a no holds barred account of the way she sees her life.  Unless she's led a much more exciting time and she's only given us the tip of the iceberg.  I find this unlikely though as she doesn't look haggard enough.

She starts at the very beginning and we learn of her childhood.  Which doesn't seem altogether the happiest.  there are some dark parts to it.  She's taught early on the value of her looks.  Which she seems to view as a help but also a hindrance at times throughout her career.

I really expected to like Cybill and thoroughly enjoy this book.  She's always come across as beautiful, bright and fun with what seems like a wicked sense of humour.  The tales of her tomboy behaviour at the start of the book further confirmed this.  However as the book went on I found myself not taking to her quite as much.  It seems wrong to state that the author of an autobiography seems self-centred, that's what they're here for.  It just seemed that she saw things from her perspective and nowhere else.

Early on in the book a relationship falls apart, which may have done anyway but she hastened it on.  That's never going to warm the reader up.  But I put this aside as she was honest about her involvement and she was pretty young at the time.  She always seems to come across as though she's a little hard done to throughout the book.  Maybe she was?  The problem was I don't know anything about anyone else mentioned so I can't compare.

The chapters of her life including Orson Welles were interesting.  Hell, she shared a house with Citizen Kane :-)  The parts about Elvis were creepy rather than anything else.  She did well getting out of there.

I hate it when I read an autobiography and I like the writer less afterwards.  I don't hate the woman.  I still have her to thank for episodes of Cybill when I was grounded on Friday nights.  I would love to know the views of those that she was less than complimentary of.  The ones she thinks stabbed her in the back.  You've got to give her credit, she did well in a male dominated world.  She was successful and I'm guessing she did have to stand her ground a lot.  Maybe I'm doing her a huge disservice.

The problem with reading a Kindle book is that you don't get to read the cover and dedications etc, as easily as a real book.  There is a ghost writer here, Aimee Lee Ball.  I forget these things when I read on a  Kindle though.  I have no idea what her input was.  The book read well enough though.

I certainly couldn't complain that there wasn't enough juice in there.  This book is raw and a gossip's dream. Not one I'll ever read again though.

2.5 out of 5 pawprints

Next - Le Dossier by Sarah Long