I mentioned watching the film a couple of months ago and now as promised a book review…
Lets start with the blurb…
In 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett’s garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifteen years.
This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise their roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett’s house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.
When I watched the film I was struggling to remember certain aspects of the book, I read it years ago and like the other work by Bennett I have read I thoroughly enjoyed it but intrinsically the nature of his writing does not lend itself to film, they tend to be monologues best suited to stage or television where one person addressing the audience/viewer seems more natural than on the big screen. The film uses a dual personality to reflect the diary voice of Bennett but I admit for this one as much as I enjoyed the film I prefer this written format. It feels more personal as if you are reading his actual diary at times.
One of the things I find most fascinating is they way we make assumptions, we think we know about people yet so often our actual knowledge is pitifully lacking as we see as Bennett discovers much of the past only after the events have taken place, we judge people without stopping to wonder how they came to the place they are in now.
I will say that many of Bennett’s monologues or Talking Heads series are better listened to, I love the audio books of them but this is one I do enjoy reading.
is for Degas, Edgar, though I confess it was a close thing between him and Dali, he was born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, {19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) and was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He was born in Paris though his family were of Creole descent from New Orleans.
He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his renditions of dancers, racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.
At the beginning of his career, he wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.
It would be very easy to write hundreds of words about his career and paintings but others can do that far more easily than me, I could talk about his bathing nudes or his series painted at the racetrack, I could discourse on his bar paintings which are similar to those of another French painter of the time, Manet but it is of course his most famous painting that I really fell in love with.
The dancers! I cannot paint it is just a skill I do not possess and could not master despite trying but this artist taught me that similar effects really could be achieved in different mediums, while this dancer painting is in oil he also created beautiful works of art depicting the same dancers in pastel, he captures the excitement of the performance with the grace of their movements and yet it was not his drawings or paintings that really captured my heart.
It was this young lady…
The figure of a ballerina aged 14 years, now let me state I have not seen the real thing, in this case it was a smaller bronze reproduction which I saw at the Rodin Museum in Paris, but it was the whole fact that this amazing creation could not be forced into a box, it was not simply a sculpture, it was a mixture of so many things, the use of hair and material from the time that you could imagine coming from a little girl he had based it on, the fact that this was not the classic elegant ballerina but a little girl with a glimmer of attitude in her face, so was the immortalisation of a real person trapped in a moment of time. This one girl has become an iconic image, one of those few artistic creations where even the someone who knows nothing of art would recognise her, she stands alongside the Mona Lisa, and a vase of sunflowers as a legacy for her maker. And as writers, and creatives she represents that to which we all aspire, the legacy that one day years from now a complete stranger will view our work and be moved by it.
I am behind on my A-Z due to being a little off colour this week but hope to be caught up very soon so I will apologise if for a the next few days you receive to posts rather than the normal one xxxx
(I have taken some of the facts and the images from Wikipedia for speed but the thoughts on the paintings and emotions and ideas provoked are entirely mine)
Does it matter who the artist is if you love a painting, surely it shouldn’t? I bought two paintings twenty years ago from a second hand market stall, I got them both for £25, bargain. But being the curious creature I am with the internet came the chance to research them and try to find the artist. The first had a dodgy signature, hard to make out but was done in a French impressionist/Monet-ish style, research uncovered it was the work of a group of artists working under a banner name to mass produce the paintings for mass market sale, I didn’t care I like it. The second was clearly marked Robert Cox, my initial attempts found nothing then I would find the odd painting on Ebay or listed as for sale with an auction house but still nothing. Then I came across a few posts like this one…
I found several paintings by this artist at a local thrift shop. I also found the biography below on several sites. I think this may be some sort of a scam or perhaps similar to the many “Burnett” paintings from Mexico. All of the paintings in the local shop bore the stamp of “Creative Interiors” and “Hecho en Mexico”. I could not find Robert Cox with the birth and death dates given below in either the Social Security Death Index or in the California Death Index. I could find no mention of a company called “Mayhew Peakes”. There is a Katherine Gibbs School, but it appears to be a 2 year college. The Art Workers Coalition was founded in New York City in 1969, seven years after Cox supposedly moved to California, and only existed until 1971. The only mention I can find for the Brown Hammerson Medal of Honour (or Honor) is in this biography.
“Born on July 14th, 1934 in Mt Holly, New Jersey, he studied at the Katharine Gibbs School of Art from 1953 until 1956 before joining Mayhew Peakes Inc. as a graphic designer. Dissatisfied with his progress he resigned in 1962 and moved to California where he married Marjorie in 1966. The new Californian environment gave him unrestricted floral subjects for his painting and he painted furiously to make up for the lost time he felt he had spent in Philadelphia. It was important to him that art was available to the general public. He appreciated that most people could not afford thousands of Dollars for original works and, often to his own financial detriment, he strived to keep his sale prices low.
Although generally shy and unassuming, he was a founder member of the Art Workers Coalition and very active in promoting the rights of artists. He was awarded the Brown Hammerson Medal of Honour for services to art in 1986.
One of the most prolific painters of the 1970s and 1980s, Robert Cox established a huge reputation in the United States for his almost neo-Victorian style and his early adoption of the pallet knife in creating stylised flowers. His work is represented in many American museums, galleries and private collections as well as having been frequently exported to Europe and Australia and has been auctioned at Christies, Bonhams and Cheffins.
Robert Cox died on June 18th, 2001 in Escondido, California after a long illness. His wife, Marjorie, and his daughters, Kate and Ginny, survived him.”
I found this summary on Robert Cox’s bio here, and I have to say I pretty much agree with his assessment. The question is does it matter?
So this first painting I found on Ebay just for comparison purposes ‘Pink Roses in a Brown Vase’ the paintings are all floral arrangements and one could take that as evidence of the ‘scam’ in itself, after all surely a painter would paint other things not just sit day after day painting the same things, secondly the sheer volume of paintings out there suggests one man could not be responsible for them all.
I found around fifty just on the UK Ebay site ranging in price from £45 to £300 buy it now, the frames range from plain brown to highly ornate gold frames, personally I think mine had been in a more ornate frame and that the frame was taken to be used for something else and it was re-framed in a plain one just because the framing is not done very well and is not as well centred as many others seem to be. This is my painting…
Blue flowers Oil on Canvas by Robert Cox
The fact is it does not matter if a painting or a book is created for mass enjoyment rather than for a small group of academics to enjoy, what matter is that the individual finds pleasure in it, when I saw it along with the other painting at the second hand market I was not thinking I wonder what this would be worth, I saw it and thought I want that, I love it. Of course I worry a group of what could be incredibly talented painters are locked in a room somewhere being forced to paint vases of flowers from morning till night but is it any different to those who work in ceramic factories hand painting designs over and over again, maybe doing this during the day covers the bills so they can paint stunning sunsets for their own pleasure or under their own name.
The going rate for both the paintings I bought for £25 for the pair is £200 based on the size and subject/colour would I ever sell them nope not if you offered me double that amount, they were bought for the pleasure looking at them gives me and an authors name does not change that.
Sometimes you catch a tiny bit of a programme and get frustrated you had not seen it advertised if you are in the UK and it is a BBC programme I-player can be a life saver. Sadly however I could not get any clips but this is the Radio Times link and UK viewers can get the programme links from their for a limited time span. http://www.radiotimes.com/programme/dzxyhp/the-prosecutors-real-crime-and-punishment
I loved this programme because it showed the behind the scenes process in a way you do not often get to see, there are many times when we hear about people getting away with terrible crimes and it is hard to understand why, therefore to see the other side of making those decisions the way they have to try to be impartial as they decide on charges and cases was fascinating.
In one a woman was assaulted by the boyfriend and the case is being dropped until she appeals, it turns out the reason was that witnesses did not want to get involved yet q few interviews later and things have changed and you cannot help wondering why the system failed. You can see a combination of factors in cases, witnesses, physical evidence, police reports, and see how these all go together to create the whole picture. Like in writing there is always a back story for every decision made, while we might not need to share them all sometimes it can be interesting to investigate a few.
Film
I haven’t really watched any films as such this week, I have annoyed myself my misplacing the Game Of Thrones boxset of series 1-3 and the search for that could have made an epic movie by itself, and nope I have not found them so I know they are in a really safe place. I did intend to watch the new Bond film Spectre but that is still sat on my desk where the others should have been so hopefully by the time the A-Z challenge is over I will have watched that.
Youtube
They played this as sort of an intro at the Kylie concert I attended I totally forgot about it until it showed up in the side bar as I searched for something else, I am classing this as the Youtube video rather than the song simply because it was part of a bigger experience than just the song, as you watch it I want you to imagine the DJ who was the warm up act has disappeared down into the stage, the lights are down. Then on two screens one at either side of the stage this appears and the concert begins…
Song
After watching Boy George’s team on The Voice on Saturday night I ended up on Youtube watching lots of 80’s videos so I thought this week I would show a classic, I will also confess that in my naivety I the first time I ever saw Boy George on TV I was convinced he was far too beautiful to be a guy
I am also sharing and extra today and that is a friends new WordPress site where she will be doing book reviews, she will offer services fr both reviews and proofreading so please give her a follow, share and spread the love https://accidentalbookreviews.wordpress.com
This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. The subject of the book will greatly appeal to grown-ups.
Now let’s be honest this book took about 15 minutes to read. It would have been quicker but I had to keep stopping because I was laughing so much. This series was designed to mimic the books we grew up reading as children but with adult themes. They are a little bit of frivolous fun, not really something you can review for it’s literary merits, however I am going to give this a rating based solely on the nostalgia value.
I can only give this book one score for making me smile so much and giving me a giggle, a five out of five for a book that reminds you how much better learning to read was when Ladybird rules the world.
First let me say what a wonderful time I had , and highly recommend if you get the chance to attend one of the Hourglass events you should. In fact next October they are going to be in Peterborough, The Darker Side of Fiction event is looking for authors and bloggers to attend so you should certainly consider it, I hope to be there as an author but if not shall be there as a guest so we can meet for a coffee or something a little stronger in real life.Check out the Facebook page here
Now back to the weekend just gone, I have filmed the before and a clip of the ballroom but not much on the night, I was too busy enjoying myself but I shall intersperse a few pictures in this post. So let’s start with a selfie…
The camera on my phone is not brilliant for photos in low light as the flash is on the rear facing camera only but I do like the rather gothic feel it gives this photo.
First thing to discuss is the stress of getting ready in a limited time frame, rather like leaving your novel until a week before a deadline it means you have to cut corners and are not quite as prepared as you would like. Okay the shortcuts taken in getting ready may be seen quicker but they are at least fleeting, whereas the cracks in your work can pervade your whole writing career.
The first thing I realised after leaving the house was I felt incredibly overdressed, another reason the arrive the day before and stay at the hotel next year but stepping out of your comfort zone is a good things sometimes and I definitely went with the old maxim of if you do not feel confident fake it, and so upon arriving at the hotel we entered the foyer and moved towards other masked and gowned people.
No the one slight negative I would say is that most of the getting to know each other seemed to have been done during the day at the actual signing, the evening event is more social and although I still chatted to a few people and met some amazing authors and readers, you feel a outsider, like you have been invited to a party but you do not really know anyone and they all know each other, it also does not help that no one looks like their author profile picture in the evening, I certainly don’t look like mine…
And no the cleavage is not that impressive in real life it was just the camera angle and the dress. The thing is unless you are really confident in yourself these events can be daunting, there were women of every age and shape there but you cannot help but to compare yourself and your dress choice to others, I still felt fine until we had official photos taken, one of which I shall be posting on the kitchen door to keep me out of it for the next year lol but seriously by the next one I attend I intend to have the most glamorous before and after shots ever.
This is the one and I know you are all going to tell me how good I look because you are all far to lovely to be realistic but seriously there is far too much junk in that trunk.
You are also treated to a rare photo of the daughter which she will probably demand I remove so enjoy it while it lasts, though as she does not read the blog she might not notice if no one tells her.
But anyway back to lessons learnt, and the fact is I learnt more about myself than anything else, about which of my insecurities are holding me back and make me self concious, that I really want to be parter of this type of creative community and that I need to really focus and stop procrastinating to make it happen.
I am my own worst enemy!
There was of course entertainment and I did do a little video of them so you will see that on Friday, we failed to win anything in the raffle and left before the disco was really in full swing (I had been at work that day) but here is a little food porn to excite the taste buds, I did not take a picture of the starter because basically I was starving at that point but I did take photos of the main and dessert…
I realised that when the last book launch did not go off how I wanted it to that I have become disillusioned and allowed it to effect my belief in myself, how can I expect anyone else to believe in me if I do not have it in myself. So next month I shall do the A – Z challenge again, at the same time I shall be reworking a couple of parts of Disintegration and Voices then I shall be back at the start of May ready to push both while working on The Dragon’s Mark, if I want to make this my career and earn an actual living from writing I need to push myself and find the faith in myself that I had at the start of the year.
At the end of the day yes, luck and fate play a part in success but we cannot complain if we fail to push ourselves and do everything we are capable of to achieve our dreams. Part of that means sacrifice, in my case spending less time chatting online to friends or wasting time playing games on FB when I could be writing, the morning after may not look pretty,
But it will be worth it to reach your goals and get the life you want, so I shall leave you with a final picture, until the next event, and know how incredibly lucky I am to know you all have my back and are always willing to gove me a shove forward when I feel myself falling back, I know I am already ahead of the game in that respect xxxx
I have discovered my new hob top kettle takes longer to boil than the old electric one but there is something exciting about hearing that whistle that signals coffee time has arrived.
This mornings brew is once more a double choca-mocha, one of my favourites but has been set aside for just a little while as I consumed my porridge. I am trying very hard at the minute to actually eat breakfast when I get up not an hour later, this is something I struggle with, I am not a morning person.
Breakfast eaten I put the empty pot to one side and begin reading blogs, mug in hand, I read, smile, hit the like button and begin the task of deciding which posts I shall share this week, I search through my inbox for the couple I spotted during the week that grabbed my attention and I marked with a star so I could find them again.
So let us begin with this weeks choices…
I love photo blogs, they say a picture says a thousand words but it can also show a thousand worlds, places I will never travel to, moments that can never be reproduced. I will never go on a camel ride through the desert, that it not self pity or a complaint that finances will not allow but a reality that with my dodgy back, even if I won the lottery tomorrow (reminds me I must check last nights tickets lol) I could possibly manage to get on one and sit for a few minutes but never travel great distances, my back simply would not take it. I have ridden horses in my life time and would love to do that again but from people I know that have ridden on a camel the ride is a little bumpier and harder on the body, but there will always be a part of me that would like to imagine that journey across the desert, though of course the fell provisioned tourist experience not the starving explorer version. You can see some great photos here https://exxtracts.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/camel-ride/
I want to wish the lovely Cara a happy blogiversary! Those of you who have followed me for a while know I do have a little bit of a naughty side, and though I could never write erotica I do read it occasionally and I love the way Cara writes, I only wish I could wave a magic wand and give her the confidence in her own work that the rest of us have in it, then maybe she would post the rest of the Hunter story I was loving that she suddenly stopped hint hint you can wish her a happy blogiversary here and explore her blog a little more if you enjoy writing that gets the blood pumping in more ways than one lol https://closed2.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/happy-blog-iversary/
Next up is a blog post with a video embedded, if your coffee is running low you might want to go refill before you start on this post. Sandra’s enthusiasm is contagious, I have no idea how she manages to juggle so many things at the same time but this post focuses on one of aspect of her life and interests, asexuality. Until Sandra started talking about it I really did not get what they meant by asexuality and I will be honest I can not really comprehend not having those feelings (just consider my previous share) but as she says everyone in individual and I think part of that is accepting that we do not have to fully understand everyone else but we should respect their differences https://quirkybooks.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/new-asexualise-com-website-coming-soon-update-and-news/
The next one is from my dear friend Rhonda, now she is lots of things, a great friend, hilariously funny at times but she has a way with words that can also evoke such deep feelings from within, I grew up thousands of miles away from the place she is describing but that nostalgia and feeling of being connected to a place resonates with me every time I take a trip back to the village I grew up in where my parents still live, if I had to pick a negative about Rhonda it would be that bloody woman just does not write enough and needs a kick up the butt to make her post more often lol http://50-shades-of-gray-hair.com/2016/02/23/home-is-where-you-learn-to-walk/
Final one for today and if you have not already refilled your cup you will want to for this one, it is a flash fiction which leads you down a path but lets you chose which fork in the road you want to take at the end, I won’t say here which I took but if you want to come back in comments and tell me what you thought we can discuss it there https://janerisdon.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/the-letter-flash-fiction-by-jane-risdon-c-2013/
So my cup is empty and I need to wash it up before playing fetch with the dog in the garden for a while, I won’t let him bring his favourite ball in the house, it is a grubby leather football he has punctured a dozen times over but it is his favourite so I resist the urge to bin it for now. The I shall do a load of washing, tiddy the house a little before heading back here to the desk to write tomorrows blog post and do a little creating.
Enjoy your Sunday and please let me know if you enjoy these blogs I have shared with you xxx
I have been very hit and miss blogging so far this year, not the sort of habits I want to get into so this week I am making an active effort to get back into the swing or scheduling and posting regularly, so what have I been watching…
Television & Youtube
I am totally obsessed with watching this, to the point where I subscribe to the Youtube channel and watch the clips as well as recording both the US and UK versions on my TiVo box
I decided to count it for both as I do watch it both ways, who ever came up with this idea is brilliant after all we have all pranced around at some point singing into a hairbrush or other object pretending to be someone famous, now we get to watch celebs do it as well, there have been so many clips that I could have chosen but I decided to just share a couple of my favourites.
Song
I have not watched any films this week so instead I am going to leave you with my top three tracks from the Oasis greatest hits album that I have been listening to this week, peobebly not the ones you might be expecting…
When I picked this up and began reading I did not realise it was the second book, coming after House of Silk however it works as a stand alone story and reviews I have read since all state that reading the first has no relevance on the ability to enjoy this one.
The Goodreads blurb says…
A delightfully fiendish crime thriller from the bestselling author of The House of Silk.
Sherlock Holmes is dead.
Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.
Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.
I have to say I had a little trepidation at reading this, I love Sherlock Holmes and have read all the original stories, I knew that there would be an element of authenticity to these given they were commissioned by the involvement and sanctioning by the Conan Doyle Estate by never the less I began with an expectation of being disappointed.
I have to say though I did thoroughly enjoy this book, there is a huge twist and although I suspected it two thirds of the way through I was not sure until the reveal. I think the fact that this is not a story told by Watson helps the reader associate it with the Sherlock legacy without making direct comparisons with the originals and I will certainly look forward to exploring more in the series. The only let down for me was the ending, though it did tie up most loose ends it felt like a little bit of an anti-climax and although I am not sure how I would have preferred it to end I know I would have liked a little more drama on the final pages.
It is hard to do a review without giving away too many spoilers and the more I think about my issues with the ending the harder it gets as they are directly tied up with a plot point and the character of the main protagonist in the story, obviously my reviews are not in-depth academic style explorations of linguistic choices and devices used, they are my feelings and opinions as a reader not a writer so I do not want to ruin an otherwise good book for someone over an issue that may not be an issue for them as a reader. I am someone who has been put off reading a book by reading a review so I am very careful about not doing that unless a book is really bad and then I generally just don’t do a review, so I would recommend this book still if you like Victorian crime fiction and the Sherlock Holmes style genre, don’t expect copy cat Conan Doyle and if you do read it I would be interested to hear your opinion on the ending. I considered this score for a while before deciding on 4 out of 5 stars in the end.
Paula Acton 