Really this belongs over here, but it was so good I felt compelled to cover it twice. I'd highly recommend a watch if you have time (I think it's only up a week from now) - I can't imagine anyone who comes here wouldn't love it. I'm not the biggest fan of Alan Yentob's style, but I'm all over his content. Really fascinating.
I'm off to buy the book right here right now.
Yes, Day 2. And my plan, in spite of the impressive momentum building over the course of the last day or so, has hit a wall of adversity.*
I had a nice, perfectly respectable post - pictures and everything - all planned, and then my phone broke. Just as I took delivery of my new work phone, the old one collapsed - possibly in protest. Along with my photos. So fascinating as updates like these undoubtedly are, I think it's best I wait until tomorrow.
(I can report, though, that it was another good day.)
*I wonder how long I can keep this up, frankly. I'm already feeling the pressure. Every day! That's real blogging. And look what happens. I end up writing stuff like this.
First day at glue today. It was nice. Lots of new faces. All of them very kind.
And it's good being back in North London. The Tea Building's lovely.
A little bit challenging, navigation wise.
But good. So Mark said today he'd missed the documenting I'd promised so far, so I thought I'd better get on the case. But this is all I've got time for tonight, after cooking up a bolognese storm in the kitchen (whoever said it was easy, being a modern muppet?), and obviously, having to fit Gavin and Stacey in. More soon.
Went to see this at the weekend at the ICA (who I've decided win the prize for snottiest staff ever.)
It was a truly shocking cinematic experience. Not so much because of the - many, gory - atrocities the ex marines talked about in the kind of truth amnesty that was organised. The most shocking thing was the men themselves - strikingly beautiful in their youth and openness - and their own shock. Each of them had this mixture of lucidity and terrible blockage, both in their memory and in the understanding of what they'd experienced.
Also interesting were the different agendas of the attendees. Some clearly wanted a forum for open confession. Others were frustrated that that wasn't purposive or constructive enough. Others again wanted to put the whole thing within a framework of racism.
I'm reading an autobiography from the 50s at the moment, and the other thing that struck me here for the first time, properly, was the effect of changing attitudes towards the sexes in the 60s and 70s. Of course we all know what happened, officially, but things we (some of us) take forgranted now, like it being alright for men to cry. It must have been strange and terrible and liberating and confusing for all kinds of natural behaviour to be condoned, comparatively suddenly.
I understand the veterans came under attack from certain predictable quarters for their appearance (without fail magnificently hirsute), and for the way some of them chose to express themselves. But one section in particular, which on the whole isn't representative of the otherwise very restrained, clear testimonies, made me think we've become way too dictatorial again about how we express ourselves, on the whole. In the hallway, away from the official podium, a discussion about racism had the kind of slightly mad stream of consciousness from which really interesting things come.
I can't explain it better than that, but you should see it if you can (although I think the run at the ICA is over).
This is partly up here because I'm trying to get at what Tom means by round and round moonwalking. But that discussion also reminded me how much I love this clip. Amanda's funny pursey lips! Piers' totally out of time clapping. Simon. Genius.
Little bit more Lykke for you. Because I liked it.
Image courtesy of the lovely Lauren.
I'm going to be one of the comperes at Interesting2008 this year. I'm very excited, but not having ever been a compere before, not quite sure what to do. Tom suggests I 'descend from the roof by sticking a sword into a long dramatic roll of fabric and abseil down. Then, when you land on the stage you laugh, cocking your head and whisking it backwards with a flourish and slapping your hands together. That could be the start.'
Anyone other thoughts?
Now I've written that title there's not much more to say really is there. They've just started doing them. And it's my new favourite thing.
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