If your name’s on the list…

Kill List is the best horror film I’ve seen in ages. For plain old nastiness it was up there with The Descent, the film that reiterated why I’m not interested in caving. But more than that I cannot say, because this really is a film that is worth seeing without knowing anything very much about it.

The set-up is simple to the point of being mundane; like Mike Leigh but with more shouting. From the opening moments we’re plunged headlong into a domestic scenario. Jay is married to Shel. He’s an ex-serviceman, she’s feisty in her own way and they have a young son, Sam. Jay hasn’t worked for months, and despite having a nice home, they certainly seem to have money worries. Jay’s best friend and comrade (Gal) comes round for dinner with his new girlfriend Fiona. Dinner doesn’t go well. So far, so nothing like what follows.

Suffice also to say that Nigel Floyd, Mark Kermode and the Sound on Sight radio/podcast team (who all know a thing or two about horror/genre films) have all raved about Kill List. Be warned: it is nasty, it is filled with a creeping sense of dread and threat, it has more than a couple of moments of gruesome violence. This is not for everyone, but it blew me away. The trailer is here, but if you think you might watch the film, I’d genuinely avoid both reviews and the trailer.

From here on, there be many, many spoilers…

Eeven the bl**dy poster has a spoiler in it...

The opening sequence really does feel like a shouty TV sitcom. Jay is evidently traumatised from some previous job (in Kiev?!) and his lack of work is causing money worries, although they don’t seem like they’re on the breadline. Gal comes for dinner, and has a job offer for Jay. It seems Shel is already aware of this, and more arguments escalate. All this feels tremendously naturalistic and real, the relationships are very ‘lived-in’: the tensions in Jay & Shel’s marriage feel real, the banter between Jay and Gal is genuine, the chemistry between all three characters is terrific.

Gal & Jay (BFF?!)

Then we realise Jay and Gal have progressed from the military to private security work to contract killers. Behind the barbeque and piles of recycling in the garage, Jay has a stash of weapons. The job offer is a lucrative one, more killing. But of course, they’re good at that.

From here we leave Mike Leigh and progress into more familiar hit-man territory. Still the style is handheld, naturalistic. The relationships are well-drawn. Jay and Gal seem like professionals. It’s hard not to think of Pulp Fiction’s Jules and Vincent, but mainly in an ‘opposite’ way: the dialogue here is totally real, not mannered or stylised at all. These guys drive a family estate car, they stay in anonymous hotels. They have their list, and the first killing seems to go exactly to plan.

Except that the victim (The Priest) seems to smile at Jay just before he dies, and says “thankyou”. And suddenly we’re questioning everything that occurs. All the hints up to this point start to weigh even more heavily; Jay’s temper, his unexplained trauma in Kiev, what did Gal’s girlfriend do in the bathroom, what was that knife cut when they took the contract…?

You'll get a very different feeling about this after the end...

And then it goes downhill rather quickly. The Librarian sequence is as intense and unpleasant as anything I’ve seen on screen. Jay starts going properly off the rails. He sees a film which the audience does not, and this seems to flick a switch in him. He wants to kill people, this is more than just a name on a list. The professionalism of the first hit is forgotten as he uses a hammer to its full potential. The victim seems to know more about what’s going on than Jay does. Meanwhile, Gal has discovered that their victim has a file of photos and documents about them, even from the mythical Kiev assignment. What is going on?

The film’s final third takes an astonishing ‘left-turn’ into the occult. Almost like a much more malign version of The Wicker Man, Jay and Gal find themselves in a very, very bad place. The final scenes are as bleak and soul-crushing as any story I can think of. There’s no light, no glimmer of hope or redemption for Jay at the end. He has been duped into destroying everything and everyone that could have offered him a normal life, he has unravelled his self and revealed a very dark heart, but he almost seems to have accepted this willingly, and possibly even enjoyed it.

Kill List is by no means perfect. It deliberately leaves plot twists unexplained, there are MacGuffins galore, and I know that many people will find that infuriating. Jay’s downfall is complete, but what part did Gal or Shel play in it? What was that symbol Fiona scratched on the back of the mirror all about? What was that scene with the weird doctor?! The Director’s commentary on the DVD gives precious little away, as though Ben Wheatley wants to keep the different possibilities open for interpretation.

I don’t believe it’s sloppy film-making, quite the reverse. Kill List is an exercise in tone and mood. The oppressive dread and threat that builds from the early moments is inescapable. We witness the destruction of a man who seems almost complicit in this process by the end. We are afraid of what might happen next, as there seem to be no limits to the violence, nastiness and horrors the film is prepared to explore. The sound design and colour palette only add to the bleakness. The first half of the film is domestic and claustrophobic, mostly set in small rooms, with close shooting angles. The second half is very dark, often shot at night or in gloomy places, and the soundtrack is always unsettling.

My version of WTF happens in Kill List is as follows…

Fiona is doing ‘HR’ for the cult. She/they have observed Jay and Gal, and identified Jay as their ‘candidate’ to be a new leader. She uses Gal to recruit Jay for the Kill List job. She also encourages him to speak to Shel to get her on board first, making Jay more likely to accept.

Gal is NOT aware of the cult’s motivations, at least not at first. The Priest murder is very ‘straightforward’ and professional. They scope him out, prepare the scene, it’s a clinical killing. When the priest says Thank You to Jay, noone understands.

The second killing is slightly more dodgy, in that Gal definitely seems to send Jay in first, where he discovers the film that seems to send him (further) over the edge. While Jay is torturing The Librarian, Gal doesn’t rush back downstairs and intervene, when he could easily have done so.

The MP‘s murder is the one that makes me think Gal had at least received some kind of instruction. Why on earth would they camp out in the woods overnight? The house is isolated, but not so much so they couldn’t have approached it differently. Only because they were in the woods did they get to see the cult’s moonlit procession and human sacrifice. When they were in the tunnels, Gal screams at the blocked up wall “that wasn’t supposed to be there”, which made me think he’d been told about this route and that he could escape.

But I don’t think he’s part of the cult. He expected he could get away. His panic in the tunnel is real, and his ‘thanks’ to Jay is for the mercy killing. Nor do I think Shel is part of the cult. Fiona continues to woo her to keep her onside even as Jay loses his mind. Her smile at the end is a reaction to how ****ed up everything has got.

Bet you didn't see this coming from the start...

The cult’s mission is to have Jay sever ties with everything that means anything to him, so he has to kill Gal, Shel and Sam. I’d thought that ‘Kiev’ was a job-gone-wrong where Jay lost it and went on a frenzy. That’s why the cult identified him as a potential leader, but they needed him to ‘rediscover’ that frenzy. His expression at the end is a rictus, almost like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.

Is Kill List about the dehumanising effects of war, about trauma and PTSD, about the dark heart of a society that sends professionals to kill in the name of democracy? I’m not sure about that at all. I Reckon it’s a fantastically scary, often disturbing, completely dark and bleak horror film that has lived with me after the final scenes. I’m sure it would reward a second viewing.

I could turn you inside out…

I don’t get ill very often. Indeed, compared to many families we know, our children seem quite robust as well. We don’t seem plagued by constantly streaming noses or sore throats, and haven’t succumbed like a row of toppling dominos to the multifarious viruses that seem to thrive in classrooms.

Last week both proved an exception to this rule, but (thankfully) also demonstrated again our collective resilience.

I spent most of the-Sunday-before-last wrapped up under layers of clothes, coats, scarves and a hat, shivering. Even staggering doses of paracetamol and ibuprofen seemed barely to take the edge off how bad I felt. My stomach felt less-than-normal, so I didn’t eat a great deal either. By Monday evening the shivering had subsided (not the all-over aches and pounding head), but a nasty stomach bug had reared its head.

This all got quite unpleasant quite quickly, and I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I didn’t eat anything between Monday evening and Wednesday lunchtime, and even after that and several doses of Imodium it was clear things were still Not Quite Right. The ‘episodes’ themselves weren’t too horrible, but it was the in-between-times that got to me.

Now I realise this is hardly the material for rapier-like insights into the human condition. I was lucky to be ill in my own home, with effective medicines easily available, with comfort and support. I was lucky it was just a bug that appears to have pretty much run its course in only a few days. But it was all new for me and it wasn’t a whole load of fun.

Being ill and not eating is not a nice way to spend any time: in fact, it’s debilitating. I don’t experience it very often, so last week was an unwelcome novelty; the first time in almost 20 years of employment that I’ve had three consecutive days off sick. This bug had control over me, as I couldn’t venture very far from a bathroom,  but I was also afraid to eat or for most of Tuesday even drink. Anyone who knows me or has read some of my more foodie blogs will understand that I think about food a lot. But last week, as soon as anything reached my stomach, fierce gurgling and cramping set in. My insides felt like they had been vacuumed out: instead of being pleasantly full they were now shrivelled husks.

On Wednesday the medicines were kicking in and the cramps subsiding a bit, but what should I eat? A cracker? Toast? Probably best to avoid dairy (although I’m not sure why?) or anything too fatty. Perhaps a krisproll? I remembered an article by Ben Goldacre claiming that a water/sugar/salt drink (combined with proper handwashing) would do more to combat infant mortality in many countries than most expensive drugs. Those two things could prevent the spread of diarrhoea and help victims to recover more effectively: it’s 1 litre of water, 8tsp sugar and 1tsp salt, if you’re interested…

I was able to indulge my cinephile habit as well… indeed, last week I managed to watch Coraline, Rope, The Innocents, Inside Man, (most of) Amélie (a Valentine’s Day treat since our plans for a lovely dinner were trashed), Kill List, Black Narcissus and  Brick…

Lastly, my strenuous efforts of the last 14 months to get fit, eat healthy and lose weight have been well-documented here, and while I wouldn’t recommend this as Plan A, I lost 4lbs last week, and even now that everything seems back to normal, it’s stayed off. I’m now 26lbs lighter than I was at my heaviest, and slimmer and fitter than I can remember. Things that didn’t fit me for being too tight now don’t fit for being too big.

I’m not ill very often, but last week I was, properly and genuinely poorly. Which is why I can sign off with this…

I can see for miles…

Our bid to stride out around the countryside in 2012 continues…

A few weeks ago we were pressed for time, so took a slightly lazy approach to a wonderful viewpoint on the Cotswold Escarpment. Uley Bury is an iron-age hill fort that offers terrific views in virtually every direction.

It lies immediately above the village of Uley, which is beautifully nestled in a gorgeous valley, and also home to a fine local brewery. I Reckon the best and most satisfying walk starts in the village, climbs steeply up to the plateau before returning down through the woods for a well-earned pint. But we were stretched for time, so instead parked close to the top and walked around…

It was a stunningly clear winter’s day with great visibility down to the plain of the River Severn and beyond. Even the slightest breeze up there has a keen edge at this time of year, but wrapped up warm it was wonderful to breathe the fresh air and appreciate the undulating landscape all around.

Another recent outing was from our front doorstep. We had been invited to lunch with friends who live in Avening, a village just a few miles from Tetbury, so had planned ahead. We dropped off a car at their house in advance, intending to walk across the fields to them, then drive home afterwards. The day itself was foggy and proper winter cold, but with no wind. Together with a friend and her three girls we set out, the children often running ahead, narrating their own stories and adventure scenarios as we went. Despite a brief navigational issue when we realised that dense fog and a fairly featureless landscape made navigating quite tricky, Google Maps on my phone proved we actually were where we thought we were, and we made it safe and sound. It was less picturesque than Uley Bury as visibility was no more than 100 yards across ploughed fields with only occasional hedgerows to break up the murk, but the shared experience was still fun.

I made this using mapmyrun.com

By the end the kids were getting tired and a bit cold, not to say hungry, but after 3.5 miles they deserved the excellent lunch.

Last weekend wasn’t a winter walk, but instead a fantastic hour or so of late-afternoon sledging at Batchwood Golf Course in St Albans. The snow was firmly packed and pretty icy, perfect for sledges, there were enough families there to make it fun but not dangerously crowded. The fairway slope was just long and steep enough for our kids to have a great time going down either with us or by themselves, and the grown-ups had a ball too. Given the weather forecasts, that may be our only sledging day this winter…

Is a picture really worth a thousand words…?

 It must be a trial to adapt a book for film or television. Without the budget and time to bring the nuances of every character arc and description to life, you must always feel like you’re on a hiding to nothing. The fans of the original text will reject every altered or omitted scene, every composite character. If you yourself admire or love the original, it must be like Sophie’s Choice in deciding how to approach the material.

I’ve Reckoned before about the brutal poetry of Cormac McCarthy’s prose, most especially in The Road, possibly my favourite book of all time, and how that was adapted into a film by Joe Penhall and directed by John Hillcoat. McCarthy’s prose is unlike almost everything else I’ve ever read: often lacking punctuation or indications of speech, it forces the reader to concentrate on every word, on the rhythms of the sentences, which adds astonishing depth and richness to the mere words.

In Blood Meridian he makes real the savagery of the Old West in constantly unflinching terms. Early in the novel, a group of riders are set upon by marauding Comanches, who appear to have arrived from some surreal version of Hell…

A legion of  horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil…

…and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like the vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

Sentences are extended and extended, until you feel your imagination cannot take the brutality, the rush of images and descriptions that assault every sense and every sensibility. The attack and slaughter goes on for a couple of pages, there is no escape.

…And now the horses of the dead came pounding out of the smoke and dust and circled with flapping leather and wild manes and eyes whited with fear like the eyes of the blind and some were feathered with arrows and some lanced through and stumbling and vomiting blood as they wheeled across the killing ground and clattered from sight again. Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair below their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodslaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming.

I’m not sure about you, but I think I need a lie-down after that. Apparently a film is in development. I can’t see it will get even close to that level of violence (and that’s just one scene…).

The BBC recently produced a two-part, just-shy-of-three-hours adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ novel Birdsong. Billed as a flagship drama, it condensed the shifting times of the plot into a simpler story of the WW1 trenches and one soldier’s memory of a doomed love affair before that war. The production was beautiful, with excellent period detail and impressive effects, and the trenches were recreated to terrible effect.

Nevertheless I Reckon that Abi Morgan, who adapted the work with Faulks himself, effectively conceded the limitations of the medium in doing so. Subtleties within the original storytelling, the order of revealing events and the emotional journey of the reader were lost. The structure of the TV version repeatedly intercut from the trenches to the pre-war affair and vice versa, when in the novel the protagonist only rarely had those ‘flashback’ moments of recall. The experience of the fighting was so intensely realised in prose that it was overwhelming, all-engulfing. TV adaptations have to accelerate the action, and inevitably miss out on the underlying meaning.

After the Big Attack during the Battle of The Somme, the survivors regroup and a roll-call is held, where the full extent of the tragedy becomes clear. This was well-handled in the TV version, as it panned across the men; exhausted, shattered, realising their comrades are all dead. But even that doesn’t get close to the amazing richness of Faulks’ original…

Names came pattering into the dusk, bodying out the places of their forbears, the villages and the towns where the telegram would be delivered, the houses where the blinds would be drawn, where low moans would come in the afternoon behind closed doors; and the places that had borne them, which would be like nunneries, like dead towns without their life or purpose, without the sounds of fathers and their children, without young men in the factories or in the fields, with no husbands for the women, no deep sound of voices in the inns, with the children who would have been born, who would have grown and worked or painted, even governed, left ungenerated in their fathers’ shattered flesh that lay in stinking shellholes in the beet-crop soil, leaving their homes instead to put up only granite slabs in place of living flesh, on whose inhuman surface the moss and lichen would cast their crawling green indifference.

Only in this beautiful, heartbreaking sentence do we get the full impact of WW1, of the loss of humanity in both physical and spiritual terms. Throughout the novel’s sections in the war, the characters reflect that nothing will ever be the same for mankind now that we have proved ourselves capable of inflicting that level of inhumanity and violence upon each other. This much greater meaning is lost in the TV adaptation, as it concentrated the drama into one soldier. But I Reckon that does Faulks a disservice. His novel, for all its personal intimacy and beauty, depicts the personal losses against the larger impact of the war, across communities, nations and generations.

Birdsong and Blood Meridian are both masterpieces, but their ambition and achievements in realising the horrors and beauty of humanity cannot easily or satisfactorily be translated onto screen.

Who’s winning…?

It still doesn’t seem that long since last summer when I exalted in England becoming the No.1 ranked Test Cricket nation in the world. We had just demolished a bedraggled Indian team – the previous No.1 – in a series of tests held in England. India have subsequently been humbled again in Australia, while the England team seemed to take an extended holiday, well-deserved after their amazing progress in the last few years. By the end of the summer of 2011, England had several of the top-ranked batsmen and bowlers in the world and the team was on an irrepressible run of form. They had won 16 out their last 25 tests, losing just 3.

It’s a well-worn cliché among test cricket aficionados that those less familiar with the intricacies of this 5-day spectacle often ask…

Who’s winning?

to which there is no easy answer. It just doesn’t work like that. It really is more complicated than that.

…until the recent series between England and Pakistan, held in the United Arab Emirates. Pakistan came into this having suffered an extended pounding over the atrocious match-fixing scandals, several years of controversy over captains, disputes in the dressing-room, and poor (or at least inconsistent) results – most notably in England in 2010, when they lost 3 test matches heavily and were bowled out for under 100 on three occasions.

On 17th January 2012, England won the toss and decided to bat on what seemed a good pitch. By lunch they were 52-5, and by the end of Day 3 they had lost by 10 wickets. A week later and England seemed to bounce back. They were largely in control of the 2nd test, and just before the end of Day 3 needed 145 to win. By the end of that day they had struggled to 39-4, and capitulated to 72 all out. Another week later, and the bowlers again performed, skittling Pakistan for just 99, but again Pakistan were victorious for a 3-0 series whitewash.

Who’s winning? Well, whenever England were bowling, we looked pretty good, except for one day in the final match when Azhar Ali and Younis Khan played with exemplary skill and patience to blunt our attack and sap our will. When England were batting, there was only ever one side in it. The Pakistani spinners made us look very ordinary, and especially the middle order of Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan.

Apparently a good player doesn’t become a bad player overnight. These three batsmen have made a case to be acclaimed as exceptions to the rule in recent weeks.

• In the 2010/2011 Ashes series, Pietersen and Bell scored 689 runs in 5 tests at an average of 63
• In 2011 against Sri Lanka, Pietersen, Bell & Morgan scored 661 runs in 3 tests, averaging 83
• In 2011 against India, the threesome scored 1,231 runs in 4 tests, averaging 77 (Bell & Pietersen both hit a double-hundred; Morgan also scored a century)
• In this last series against Pakistan, they combined for just 200 runs in 18 innings during the 3 tests at an average of just 11. Their highest score was 32, they only managed double figures 8 times in those 18 ‘efforts’, they only achieved one partnership of more than 15 runs in the series. They were outscored by bowlers Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad, who scored 210 runs in 12 innings and also managed to take 26 wickets during the series.

By almost any reckoning this is a pretty catastrophic performance and more than reflects the difference between the teams. Effectively only one of the three turned up for these matches. Compared to recent series, England might as well have played with only 9 batsmen. They seemed clueless against the spin of Ajmal and Rehman. Bell has subsequently been ‘rested/dropped’ for the upcoming One-Day Internationals, while KP has been given a chance to regain his mojo by opening the batting. Morgan must be going through his contacts looking for spinners he can get some practice against.

They’ve not become bad players, but they’ll never be thought of as great players if they can’t (re)learn how to bat against all bowlers on all surfaces.

But worst of all, you’ve let yourself down…

Occasionally I get exercised to write about stuff I don’t like. These posts are rarely about things I didn’t like beforehand, but almost always where I’ve been disappointed, most signficantly by someone or something whom I had previously respected, trusted or admired.

Marketing is often a mission to manage expectations. Does the product match up against the claims of your concept or advertising? Apparently  Terence Malick’s 2011 film The Tree of Life attracted significant audiences last year among people who saw Brad Pitt feature strongly in the trailer, but then who left after barely 20 minutes, aghast by Malick’s beautiful but arthouse meditations on the creation of life and the nature of what is divine (and the relative lack of Brad Pitt).

Lego is surely one of the greatest brands of all time. For over 60 years these plastic bricks have entertained and inspired children of all ages all over the world. Iconic in the extreme, it has succeeded in also reinventing itself and moving with the times. Having introduced Space Lego in the 1970s shortly after the Star Wars movie phenomenon and before the real-life Space Shuttle, there are now themed Lego sets for virtually every major film franchise; in fact, it would be almost unthinkable for a studio to ignore Lego merchandising. As a company, Lego is flying. Its last full year report (2010) declared revenue and profits up over 30% vs 2009, and the first half of 2011 continued that sort of growth.

Lego is universal, simple and timeless. It has no language barriers, or even issues of sex, class or development. All it requires is imagination to create, build, rebuild and tell stories. I loved it as a child, and my daughters love it now. As I type this they are creating their own narratives using Harry Potter Lego characters and buildings. Hannah has built a new flying ship out of Hagrid’s hut, and there’s a lot of head-switching between the Death Eaters and the Weasley family.

This Lego ad from a generation ago sums it up perfectly. Anyone can build anything, and it can represent whatever they want it to. Hannah loves both her Lego technic kits which she can now almost rebuild without the instructions to create helicopters and bulldozers and her Harry Potter sets, which are endlessly demolished and restyled to suit today’s ideas.

Lego is cool without having to try to be cool. It’s been used in street art, features in countless spoof Youtube clips, including this beautifully observed version of Summer Nights, and of course, that Eddie Izzard routine. Perhaps most famously(?), the award-wining director Michel Gondry used Lego to transform The White Stripes…

All of which makes my groan of disappointment more heartfelt when I see stories like this one. Not content with their brand being timeless and sexless and perfect in almost every way, the maestros at Lego have evidently done some (too much?!) research that says girls don’t like Lego enough, because they also play with Polly Pocket and Barbie and Bratz.

So, no doubt targeting some unpleasant measure like “share of playroom occasions”, the Lego people have launched Lego Friends, a depressing copycat against all those other brands that try to tap into girls’ modes of play in which relationships and sharing are all important (as opposed to boys who build things and blow them up). Do they not realise that Lego does this already? With film characters and generic scenarios (farms, cities, homes), Lego already fulfils everything a child’s imagination needs to run riot. It lets my daughters plan wedding parties for Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, as well as fight battles against dragons and Death Eaters.

You don't need to to this. I don't care what the research says. It's wrong.

Apparently not… now girls can have their ‘own’ Lego ‘Friends’, who ignore the timeless, genderless qualities of the brand, who ignore the brand’s differentiation through simplicity, instead opting for stereotypical clichés that already exist from floor to ceiling in practically every aisle of most toy stores. Instead of appealing to the imagination inside every boy and girl, these new ranges appeal to constricting cultural ‘norms’ in which young girls are assumed to want to be teenagers, in which their toys leap from being babies (dolls) to teens with breasts and makeup and low self-esteem, and in which the world-view horizons are crushingly mundane. Can they go no further than the Shopping Mall or pet shop? Is this Lego’s failure to inspire us, or a sad indictment of our own failure to inspire our children?

And in amongst all this Lego has created a rod for its own back. By making these Friends so stultifyingly contemporary, they will be forced to update them with every shift in technology and fashion. “Your Lego ‘Emma’ has only got a 1st Generation iPad… LOSER”.

Lego has disappointed me, in many different ways.

• This campaign is reactionary, defensive and weak, and seems to betray a lack of confidence in its own magnificence.
• It’s unnecessary, utterly avoidable: their products and brands are fabulous and always have been
• They’ve reduced themselves to a lowest common denominator. Other brands go for the fashion route because they have to, because they don’t have what Lego has. This will be short-term and forgettable. Lego will endure and thrive.

Last summer we had a family trip for my daughter’s birthday to Legoland at Windsor. I was at least partly dreading it, because I get nauseous when companies try to sell me a bottle of water for £3.50 or photos from a ride for £12. It was busy, but it was terrific. The Lego landscapes are fantastic and there are brilliant adaptations of the Lego philosophy into real experiences: you can drive a Lego Fire Engine and control a Digger. There are Lego castles and trains. Even the Lego shops are brilliantly stocked with hard-to-find sets. It is a terrific day out.

Hannah's 9th Birthday: the helicopter with a millionairess pilot. She thought of that idea by herself. Who needs Lego Friends?

I love Lego. I have a Lego Indiana Jones figure keyring, which should say pretty much everything about my relationship with the brand. But this, Lego Friends, is depressing, demeaning and so, so disappointing. In true parenting style I shall try to ignore such bad behaviour, and reward their otherwise fantastic behaviour with all the other sets my daughters love to play with, every day, every week.

Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time…

I’m lucky to live in Tetbury, a bustling (sometimes) market town in the heart of the Cotswolds. Within a few minutes of leaving my front door I can be chatting with our excellent butcher, enjoying a pint at one of several different pubs, taking my daughters to the library or school for new discoveries, or striding across open fields. And of course despite being blessed with a richness of opportunity on our doorstep, we realised at the end of last year that we didn’t seem to ‘get out enough’. We visited friends all round the country, went camping and so on, but we didn’t seem to ‘get our boots on and just go for a walk’.

So that has become our unofficial family resolution for 2012: or, at least Rachel and I are making a conscious effort, and the girls so far have been eager to join us (perhaps the relatively mild weather and promise of hot chocolate and cake when we return has something to do with that!).

As is often the way with New Year Resolutions, we got off to a good start. We were staying with friends in Harpenden, and on New Year’s Day set out along a footpath that follows an old railway line. Perhaps because it’s Harpenden, this path was properly tarmac-ed, a perfect route for our younger daughter to try out her Christmas Scooter and practise balancing on two wheels.

The very next day we really shrugged off our Christmas routines by actually leaving the house before noon. In fact, we were striding towards the edge of the Cotswold Escarpment before 11am as we left the carpark at Dyrham Park, a stunning National Trust property between Tetbury and Bath.

We followed paths very familiar to us from previous visits down to the house, but then walked back up the hill through the trees and the deer park. We didn’t see any deer up close, but it was a really lovely walk with marvellous views across to the River Severn. The weather was closing in, which kept us focused as we climbed the hill back to the car.

This route is part of a whole series of National Trust ‘one-mile-walks’. I think this is a pretty ‘long’ mile…

Image taken from www.nationaltrust.org.uk/walks

The National Trust has long been championing the natural beauty of the UK and the benefits of getting outdoors more. I reckon they’re bang on the money, and their website and social media feeds are well worth a look.

And then this weekend, after a marathon but rewarding session of decluttering virtually every room in the house, and re-felting the roof of our garden shed (!?), we went out closer to home, down what we know as The Old Rope Walk in Tetbury, out into Preston Park. Again the girls had their scooters, but the path was a bit muddy for generating any real speed… On the way back we were able to scavenge in the woods and come home with a massive sack full of twigs and fallen branches for firewood kindling.

We’ve already got our eye on a tramp around Woodchester Park for next weekend. In the meantime, I’m enjoying parking a bit further from the office each morning. I get to walk down the hill into Bath along part of The Cotswold Way and across Victoria Park; not too shabby at all…

Expect further updates during 2012: I reckon this is a resolution that will be pretty easy to keep.

I told you we should have got him a hat…

I think I watched just over 70 films in 2011. Some of these I watched more than once (usually the ones my kids liked on DVD). Some were ‘re-viewings’ of things I’d first seen years earlier, but most (more than 60) were new to me. Only a handful (Tangled, The King’s Speech, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Arrietty, The Adventures of Tintin) were on the Big Screen. As such, most   of my favourites were not originally released in 2011, and indeed I saw none of the list below in the cinema.

I’ve also revelled in Mark Cousins’ astonishing (if more than occasionally infuriating) The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Shown over almost 4 months on Channel 4, it covers an amazing amount of ground, with often breathtaking side-by-side shots and comparisons between modern films and their influences, captivating interviews from around the globe and a perspective on world cinema like I have never seen before. Sadly, it’s not available for viewing from 4OD, but I recommend it to any budding cinephile if only for its historical perspectives (but beware of Mark Cousins’ very distinctive style of narration…!).

Anyway, my favourite films I saw last year, in rough chronological order.

Red Riding (2009)
Already this is a bit of a cheat, as it’s actually a trilogy of films made for television. Grim, dark, bleak, violent, they are terrific character studies set around a fictionalised version of the 1970s / 80s in Northern England. Everyone smokes, swears, drinks and are corrupt, especially the policemen. Based on novels by David Peace, these are tough stories.

Un Prophète (2009)
Marked by the tremendous performance by Tahar Rahim, and several scenes of heart-pounding tension, this is an epic tale of survival and ambition within a brutal French prison.

I saw another great ‘prison’ film last year; The Escapist stars Brian Cox and is well worth your time…

Bloody Sunday (2002)
Perhaps the most harrowing film I’ve watched since ‘Grave of The Fireflies‘. The opening act is filled with dread, as we already know the brutal outcome, it’s an exercise in claustrophobic film-making. Expert hand-held camerawork and extreme close-ups combine to make the viewer feel intensely close to the action. You can feel the soldiers’ breath, smell their uniforms. You can feel the bleakness on the barricades and in the sparse concrete. As stones rain down upon the troops’ vehicles, the noise is deafening and the tension palpable. When the tension breaks and the shooting starts, it’s terrifying, a massacre made all the more vivid by having the HQ Commanders realise too late what might be happening, the tragedy of unarmed civilians (or at worst stone-throwing kids) being shot in the back. James Nesbitt is terrific as Ivan Cooper. His idealism turns quickly to shock, horror, disbelief and righteous anger as he sees his friends murdered by The State. This was a massively important film before The Savile Enquiry finally verified its storytelling is much closer to the truth than anything The British Army had tried to peddle before. It’s still an extremely important and visceral retelling of a pretty shameful day.

Network (1976)
How I got to be a 42 year-old so-called cinephile without seeing this film sooner is a mystery: it should be required viewing. Peter Finch barnstorms his way through the film as a TV newsreader on the verge/in the fullest throes of a breakdown. William Holden is terrific as the old-school boss, and Faye Dunaway is terrifying as ‘television incarnate’. There are so many brilliant scenes and lines it’s hard to single some out, but I laughed out loud at “It’s The Network News Hour – with Sybil The Soothsayer”, and at the contract negotiations between the Network Production Execs and the Revolutionary Communist Terrorist group… Prophetic, chilling, funny, brilliant.

Off the back of this and prompted by various tributes on the death of the director Sidney Lumet, I also watched Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict and Serpico,  all of them brilliant, important films.

Monsters (2010)
This is a terrific achievement of real independent, low-budget creativity. Gareth Edwards developed the concept, directed, operated the cameras, did all the special effects at home, and probably booked the taxis too. It’s an almost-completely improvised drama with a similar feel and tone to District 9. The creation of a world filled with extra-terrestrials is brilliantly done, and the emotional and physical journey of the two lead characters through this landscape is really well told. There’s unease and tension aplenty, as the threats seem to come both from the rarely-seen monsters and the human military. The final scenes are wonderful, and are moving on all sorts of different levels. A tremendous piece of work. I can’t wait to see what Edwards does next.

Submarine (2011)
I loved this gem of a film. It’s funny and occasionally moving. It’s surreal and sometimes jarring. The writing and direction from Richard Ayoade is remarkably assured for a first feature, with stylish flourishes that (IMHO) never intrude on the film, but enhance it. The unreliable narrator, Oliver Tate, is a fabulous creation, full of teenage angst, self-centred to a fault (the scenes where he imagines his own funeral are breathtakingly honest and hilarious), but also painfully self-conscious. The coming-of-age elements are handled sensitively, and indeed by the end we’re not sure if he really has come of age or just learned a couple of lessons about dealing with stuff. The supporting cast are terrific, with Paddy Considine stealing scenes and Sally Hawkins looking like a shop mannequin. Noah Taylor is heartbreaking / infuriating as Oliver’s father, Yasmin Paige is great as the capricious Jordana, and Darren Evans makes the most of his comic lines… Sort of like Juno but better, like Son of Rambow but with more panache, this is a treat.

 

Panique au Village / A Town Called Panic (2009)
This was a complete surprise and all the more joyous for that. Old-school children’s toy figurines are animated, creating a world unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The nearest I can get is something like Terry Gilliam’s most bizarre work.
The main protagonists / housemates are Horse, Cowboy & Indian. When the latter pair unwittingly destroy the house after trying to buy a last-minute birthday present for their friend, all sorts of panic ensues. Meanwhile, Horse is pursuing a fledgling relationship with the local music teacher (also a horse). There are also thieving creatures from the local pond, a journey to the centre of the earth, a mechanical penguin that hurls giant snowballs and a fight at a disco. Surreal, hilarious, and often magical.
“I told you we should have got him a hat”.

 

Attack The Block (2011)
I came to this as a massive fan of Joe Cornish, and hoped against hope it wouldn’t disappoint. It’s inspired by and builds on genres from sci-fi to horror, comedy to social satire, and is wonderfully constructed, shot and performed.
The gang of teens are beautifully portrayed, and we’re given just enough clues about their backgrounds to understand where they come from, where the good is within them, and why they’re trying to break out for themselves. Scene follows scene with dynamic shots, gripping action, and a lot of genuine threat. Cornish does terrifically to make us dislike the kids for their initial crimes but also to root for them throughout. And he doesn’t get sentimental about killing people off – there’s plenty of bloodshed.
This is a fabulous directorial debut, proper cinema. Why can’t all films be this good and this much fun?

 

True Grit (2011)
I haven’t seen the John Wayne original, but this is The Coen Brothers at the top of their game: a very simple story told with such depth, richness and a wonderful cast of characters that it connects and resonates way beyond the basic plotline. Hailee Steinfeld is fantastic as Mattie Ross; tough yet vulnerable, wise-cracking but deadly serious, more than a match for virtually every adult she comes across. Jeff Bridges chews up scenery beautifully, while Matt Damon is great as Texas Ranger “LeBeef”. As with every Coens’ film, the supporting cast are universally watchable, in even the smallest roles. The cinematography and writing are also exemplary, with evocative 19th century dialogue and speech patterns alongside suitably gritty and dirty frontier towns. Every shot contributes to the mood and development of the story. Perhaps my favourite Coen Brothers film after Fargo.

 

Dancer In The Dark (2000)
Perhaps my favourite Lars von Trier film, a mix of his usual hand-held camerawork and grim storytelling with Hollywood Musical interludes that are bizarre to say the least. Björk is the director’s lead female ‘victim’ (taking a similar role to Nicole Kidman in Dogville and Emily Watson in Breaking The Waves), and her performance is astonishing, perhaps the best of all three of those.

 

Other notable mentions could include two (more) revenge films: the stark Romanian/Hungarian Katalin Varga and Paddy Considine’s tour-de-force in Shane Meadows’ excellent Dead Man’s Shoes. Jennifer Lawrence was outstanding in the beautifully bleak Winter’s Bone, and Mike Leigh was on fabulously understated form with Another Year, and I really enjoyed George Clooney in Up In The Air.

2012 is already shaping up well, as I was given a wonderful Michael Powell/Emrich Pressburger DVD Box Set for Christmas, so expect some gushing reviews of timeless classics in the coming months on these pages…!

I would love to receive recommendations for things I’ve missed, or things I certainly should not miss: I’m really going to try and see Hugo with Hannah… Given I only make it to the cinema a few times each year, what should I book a babysitter for now?

Eat less. Move more. Er, that’s it…

At the start of 2011 I made a rash declaration, that I would lose 25lbs by Easter. I failed.

Although I did lose 15lbs in the first few months of the year, it was as though I then plateaued, with no means or will to reach the summit. I felt healthier and happier, my clothes fitted better, what was the problem?

Then I had a health check at our local surgery, where they genuinely seemed quite impressed. My stats were much improved from the start of the year – more lean muscle mass, less fat, lower blood pressure, better aerobic capacity, and so on. But my cholesterol remained stubbornly high. If anything, it was higher than a couple of years ago. Apparently it’s not enough to put me into any kind of risk category, but it still concerned me. My Dad and indeed Rachel’s Dad both have a history of heart disease, and this figure of 7.1 was the slowly-increasing blot on an otherwise clean bill of health.

And all the while in recent times I’ve been feeling my age. First my Achilles and then this year my 42-year-old hip told me that any lingering ambitions towards running should be seriously reined in. My hamstrings and hips frequently ache, usually not much more than a dull background stiffness, but sometimes quite a bit more. Every time I see cosmetic ads about the visible signs of aging, I can only think that the invisible signs are the ones we need to worry about…

A couple of months ago, Rachel and a couple of friends decided they wanted to take collective charge of their own fitness and health. Rather than pouring money into clubs like Weight Watchers or Slimming World, they started using a free fitness/diet website. Multiple studies have indicated that the simple act of keeping an honest and comprehensive (admittedly two very crucial descriptors) food diary significantly improves weight loss over and above any other initiatives. This website and its very usable mobile version has kept them focused.

Record all your food (calories in) and your exercise/activity (calories out). And if you consistently eat fewer calories than your body burns off by just doing stuff, you will lose weight. Rachel and her friends meet every week for a chat and put a couple of pounds into their communal jar. They each know the others’ goals (weight loss, fitness etc) and as such can ‘reward’ themselves when they achieve their goals.

I’ve become a sort-of unofficial member of this club, and since October I’ve lost a further 10lbs. Portions have got smaller. I consciously park further from my office, so that I have a steep hill to climb when I go back to my car at the end of the day, and go to the gym two or three times each week. There’s no complicated diet plans involved, just eating less and moving more, most days. As 2o11 comes to an end, I have lost 25lbs, and it feels terrific. People have commented. I fasten my belts two notches tighter, shirts that hung loose are now tucked in, trousers that were uncomfortable now feel loose. I need some new clothes.

A visual history...

I’ll be honest, in the last week or so the inevitable Christmas period of gourmet family gatherings have taken their toll. I like cheese and spiced ham and bread sauce and cheese and roast potatoes and cheese, sometimes on the same plate with a large glass of three of wine. At the same time as this gluttony, I’ve been pretty inactive: the most challenging activity has been carrying piles of plates and food from the kitchen to the table.

But I’ve started this weight gain from a far lower base. I still weigh 2olbs lighter than 12 months ago, and I feel confident I can lose this additional Christmas weight. Importantly, I’ve put on weight through ‘abnormal’ behaviour, rather than the other way around. In 2011 my ‘normal’ lifestyle has evolved into something that includes regular exercise and smaller portions at mealtimes. Our everyday diet still includes cheese, eggs, meat and fish. It doesn’t feel like I’m depriving myself. I still enjoy a good blow-out dinner party, or a takeaway, or a few pints. I know that I have to make an effort to be healthy, because I’m worth it.

The visible signs of aging that matter aren’t wrinkles around the eyes. I can make some difference to them with a good diet, plenty of water, exercise and sleep. More important was my bulging waistline, the silent creep into larger sizes, a long-term acceptance that I can’t move like I used to.

Forgive me for shoe-horning the wonderful Matilda! musical into everything, but there are lines that make so much sense…

…just because you find that life’s not fair it doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it,
If you always take it on the chin and wear it nothing will change…

Don’t make a rubbish resolution next weekend that won’t make a difference. Last year I tried to be bold, and only partially succeeded. But because my resolution was about things that really matter, my health, well-being and self-esteem, I didn’t shrug off the failure.

 

…until who knows where the trembling stops…

I’ve often reflected on the small things, the coincidences that may not seem important at the time, but can unutterably alter the future course of a life. Obviously this reflection tends to happen when I’m not quite as busy as I have been in recent weeks, as I’ve barely been able to keep up with this blog. I have themes and ideas backed up, if only I could work out when or how to commit time and energy to the writing.

When I was 13, my parents returned from a routine meeting with my teachers, with the suggestion from my music teacher that I might like to take up an instrument, for example, the French Horn. That conversation changed everything. I did take up the Horn, it did become a major part of my university social life, I do still play today, and I met Rachel in the university orchestra.

When I was 18 I failed to get into Oxford University. At a loss to know what to do next (I hadn’t failed very often up to that point) I ended up on an exchange scheme, on which I went to High School in Princeton in the US for a semester. There I truly blossomed, coming out of my intellectual, angst-ridden, insecure teenage self into a new environment where noone knew me except for who I was right there and then, with no baggage. This huge boost in confidence shaped me for my life at university and beyond.

Before I left for the US at the start of January, I was awaiting offers from other universities. My 2nd choice after Oxford was Durham, who wrote to say that they wanted to interview me (despite already having achieved 3 Grade ‘A’s). My 3rd choice was Exeter, who offered me a place without any interview. Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to schlep 450 miles round-trip to Durham, just days before leaving for America for 8 months. Almost on a petulant whim, I declined their ‘offer’ of an interview and accepted Exeter: job done.

In the first months of my final year at Exeter, I was feeling bad. I’d enjoyed and then suffered a very brief, fairly intense relationship (my first for 2 years), I was putting a good deal of pressure on myself in my studies, while Britain was entering a recession in which the job prospects for graduates were pretty bleak. And then my father’s mother died. She had been very ill following a stroke for a long time, but it still hit me a lot harder than I cared to admit. My housemates were all due to travel up to Oxford for a party with friends who had graduated the previous year, but because of the timing of the funeral, I didn’t go with them. I was in Exeter alone, and fed up. So I hosted a dinner party (my first) for friends from the orchestra. We ate and drank and went onto The Lemon Grove, semi-legendary and mostly tacky student night club on campus.

And it was there, on Saturday 23rd November 1991, 20 years ago last month, that I first met Rachel; on a night out that by all normal expectations would not have happened, but for the seemingly random event of my grandmother’s death. We talked and I walked her back to her rooms – she was a 1st Year. We drank coffee and laughed a long time about Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It wasn’t all completely plain sailing after that, but my life since that weekend has been different, in a very, very good way.

The title of this post was taken from the writings of Frederick Buechner, an American theologian.

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

Every Christmas Rachel and I like to watch the Frank Capra / Jimmy Stewart classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Not because of the carol-singing at the end, not because Clarence gets his wings, but because of its wonderful life-affirming message. Good people who treat other people kindly matter. They do make a difference. The film goes through a lot of darkness before emerging into the light: don’t forget George Bailey tries to kill himself in the opening moments. There’s frustration and disappointment aplenty before the bell finally rings.

Some things, events, decisions in our lives barely register at the time but can have amazing consequences. Other things feel like the whole world has exploded or been ripped from under you (like almost everything when you’re 17), but in the end don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, it all matters, but often in ways we cannot predict.

I try not to spend too much time reflecting on the what-might-have-beens, as I can’t change them now, and I’m glad of that. But I often remind myself to be grateful for the coincidences and chances that brought me here.