Friday August 21st. Breezy, cooler, blue & white sky. Brief heavy shower early this morning.
Every time I quick-march out of the exit from the Tube platform at Euston there they are. A group of young men, in their D&G underpants, lifesize, staring at me with diffident, imploring gaze:
Look at my pants
Please look at the lovely front of my pants!
Please look at my pants!
The fact that they seem to be gathered beside a swimming pool, about to swim in their knickers?, gives them a sad, nervous, underprivileged look. Can't they afford swimwear; or was it a spur-of-the moment idea and now they're scared the attendants might shout at them? Of course I look, but I never pause, I just zoom by on my swift, honed and minimised path to the escalators (the up ones work); thinking to myself, what fun if I came by here one morning and found them anti-pub spray-paint daubed with the message THIS DEGRADES MEN!
Nah. Not going to happen.
Nobody's going to anti-pub with those trigger-happy Mets of ours around. Which reminds me, I'm so glad that our police (chastened by the inquiry into G20) will in future adopt a "no surprises" policing policy for demonstrations. If they're going to be brutal, they'll announce it in advance, so anyone with any sense will stay at home.
The tomatoes? (Click through for anything you ever wanted to know). Oh yes, it's tomato time. Tomato soup, fresh tomato soup with herbs and cream. The scent, when you poke your head into our tiny vine-filled greenhouse; warm tomato off the vine, dripping juice. Best year since the legendary 1976, and at last we did something right. Also, been watching movies:
Battle of Algiers. Excellent, thoughtful, seminal & a piece of modern history that has been fantastically influential, shall we say, on the real world too. Terrific score. The ending more bitterly ironic than Pontecorvo could have guessed, because every old woman who remembers how she fought so savagely long ago for the liberty of her country, for the dignity of Islam. . . must now be
kicking herself. And plenty of men too.
Day of the Jackal Also about Algeria & OAS, mass market treatment. Stands up to the associaton.
Mesrine Doesn't! It's probably a bit unfair that I watched this soon after those two, but really! Little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously. I have no interest in this brutal self-pitying idiot. Go away and get some irony.
Sin Nombre Loved it. Can't believe its his first feature. Okay, Fukunaga clearly a little seduced by his gangster pals, but this is the tragedy of youth without hope in pure moving pictures, without the stylish speeches of a novel or a theatrical drama: Flores and Paulina Gaitan both excellent, understated performances, a beautiful, tragic thing.
Laura recorded from daytime tv. Load of tosh. Classic
Noir often is not what it's cracked up to be.
