Monthly Archives: January 2012

Control

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I watched Control last night. Given the rave reviews it’s received, especially on Rotten Tomatoes (which usually I find to be very reliable) I was disappointed. The film is beautifully shot in black and white, but it’s very slow moving and even boring at times. I may have found it so because I’m already very familiar with the story, in no small part due to watching The New Order Story documentary on TV.

I recorded that documentary back in the nineties and I watched it over and over again. It showed the real Rob Gretton, the real Tony Wilson and real band members. To be completely frank, the real people were far more likeable and entertaining in the NO Story than the actors in Control. The anecdote about Ian having a fit in the car on the way to the gig for instance was brought to life far better in the documentary than the film.

One of my favourite films – 24 Hour Party People – tells the same story but intertwined with with everything else that was happening and again, it is far more absorbing. I suppose it is a bit unfair to compare the two as Control is a biopic of Ian Curtis who was never that much of a cheerful soul and 24 hour is a portrait of the Madchester scene.

Anyway, to return to Control, I’m not sure whether it was deliberate but the women in Curtis’ life are annoying to the extreme. Why does Debbie put up with so much? She has such an awful, pathetic voice. Why does Annik accept being the bit on the side when she wanted more? Annik’s voice is even worse, not only pathetic but she talks in half whispers so you can barely hear her. I found myself shouting at the TV ‘Speak up!’

The two redeeming features were the music (I can’t think of any other band I’ve heard who is quite as haunting and hypnotic and yet still punky) and Sam Riley’s utterly captivating performances as Ian Curtis on stage. I could barely believe that he wasn’t the real deal. So I’ll leave you with a sample of that awesomeness:

Moroccan style lamb and beef jerky

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I had a half shoulder of lamb languishing in the freezer and wanted to do something different rather than the usual garlic and rosemary. I found a Moroccan recipe online. I adapted it slightly, mainly by using fresh ginger and garlic, both chopped in the crust:


The kitchen smelled of wonderful spices all afternoon while it was cooking. The result was superb:


We didn’t have any couscous so I served it with rice cooked with onion fried in some of the rendered fat, chick peas, paprika and lemon:


I was quite pleased with it. The rice turned out a bit greasy so should have used less fat on the onions or could have missed out the fried onion entirely. Also it would have been good to put something under the lamb to make use of that strongly flavoured fat- maybe the onion should have gone there instead?

Meanwhile, Mr W made smoked beef jerky using his new smoker:




The jerky tasted fantastic but was extremely hot! Perhaps a tad less chilli next time…

Thank You For The Days

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Just finished reading this. A friend had told me it was good and so when I later saw a pristine copy in a charity shop for £1.25 I felt that there was not much to lose by trying it out. Unfortunately I took it with me into the pub with me one night to read while I had a nightcap and didn’t notice that the back cover and last six pages became soaked in beer when I left it on the bar. But, given MR’s affection for ale, I feel he would be proud if he knew.

So, the book. I could hear Mark Radcliffe’s voice as I read and that itself brought back many memories of when I was an avid listener of the Mark n Lard shows on Radio 1 (I don’t listen to his current Radio 2 show with Stuart Maconie, although I really should.) The Shireshorses, to me at the time, were the pinnacle of radio comedy. I would cry with laughter every time they unveiled one of their spoof ditties. And I have fond memories of sniggering at Bird Or Bloke and the other silly quizzes. He was covering familiar ground there. But there was new (to me) ground too, for example I hadn’t realised he loved walking so much. I enjoyed the chapter about his coast to coast walk from St Bees Head to Robin Hood Bay. I was a bit disappointed at his view on food though. In one of the earlier chapters he talks about having a horrible meal at Sharrow Bay in Ullswater, he gently berates the small portions in nouvelle cuisine and concludes ‘I’d finally learned the lesson Doris inadvertently taught me all those years ago. If you don’t want to try it, then don’t. Have what you know you will like and you will not be disappointed.’ If John Peel, one of his biggest heroes, had applied this attitude to music then where would be now, hmm?

But that’s a minor and subjective criticism really. The rest of the book is filled with great anecdotes about meeting famous pop stars or simply growing up. The funniest bit is when he talks about games at school, in particular the ‘horse’ which had to be vaulted over. That had me belly laughing. But the entire book is written with an endearing warmth and honesty, pretty much like his radio persona. It’s difficult not to like.

(1st in 2012)

Ballets

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After seeing The Nutcracker at the Hippodrome and watching Black Swan I decided to watch some ballets. Yesterday afternoon, on the hitherto untouched Sky Arts channel, I watched Swan Lake. It was beautiful and incredibly romantic. I’d never seen any version of it before. This one was Anthony Dowell’s production at the Royal Opera House.

I also watched Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella on BBC’s iPlayer which I enjoyed but it lacked the drama and romance of Swan Lake. It had more humour than drama, which was enjoyable enough. I didn’t like Prokoviev’s score which seemed discordant in comparison to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Overall, Cinderella was entertaining but Swan Lake was breathtaking.

Stuff, excess of

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I found this essay about stuff by Paul Graham last year. It struck a chord at the time because we were packing to move from a bigger home to a smaller one. We gave away a lot of stuff but still brought a fair amount of it to the new place. There is now a room full of still packed stuff because it can’t be unpacked until the loft has been insulated and prepared as a storage space. So I have to wonder, if we haven’t touched all that stuff for 13 months, do we really need it? Do I even remember what it all is?

I dislike clutter. Whether PG’s theory about parsing is right or wrong I don’t know but I do know that, in my own home at least, I’m far more relaxed in a clean, tidy room than a dirty, cluttered one. So I’ve gone paper free with as many of my bills as possible and I’ve gone digital as far as possible. I download books to and use the Kindle app to read them on the iphone. I haven’t bought any CDs for quite a while, instead preferring to use Spotify. I realise that you can’t find everything on there but I find about 90% of what I want to listen to and that’s a good enough trade off for me. For films I use Sky Movies. In the rare case that I find a film that I’ll want to watch over and over again I will consider buying the disc but it’s more likely that I’ll just watch it again on Sky.

Christmas and birthdays are the worst times for accumulating things I don’t need. Specifically for these occasions I have a wish list on Amazon but sadly Kindle editions of books aren’t available as gifts yet. (Mind you, I do like ‘real’ books. I don’t class them as useless stuff, after all, they are useful when I need to save the iphone’s battery and, unlike digital editions, I can lend them to people. Anyway some books, such as cookery books, have to have a decent physical form to be of any use.) I don’t mind if people go ‘off list’ to buy me a gift provided that it’s something they’ve thought about. I have one dear friend who likes to introduce me to new books and it’s rather lovely. But on the whole I’d rather not have presents because I have everything I need and want.

Films watched over the festive period

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Harry Brown
Gritty and shocking. Michael Caine is fantastic.

The King’s Speech
Good but didn’t live up to the hype for me. Some wonderful settings though and a glorious ending.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
I’ve enjoyed the special effects in all the Harry Potter films. This one didn’t disappoint and they go to some spectacular parts of Britain too (I’ll be looking them up later). It’s also the darkest so far.

The Town
Good story, plenty of violence, some suspense and awesome action sequences.