Our Revels Now Are Ended: Considerations on The Olympic Games

The Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics is still nine hours away, and I’m already starting to feel tearful. I have surprised myself by the wholehearted way I’ve embraced these Games. The TV has barely been away from the Olympic channels, and TLC and I have been glued to the BBC’s outstanding coverage. That is, when we haven’t been out watching events. What the hell’s happened to me? I don’t like sport. I’ve never liked sport. And yet, here I am, feeling emotional about the fact that it’s coming to a close.

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Happy Families: X&HT Saw Splice

Coincidence fascinates me. I mean, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. It’s clearly just my brain mapping meaning and pattern onto unrelated events. But it’s still fun when it happens.

As a serial procrastinator, it’s taken me the best part of six months to get engineers out to look at the stuttery HD playback on our plusbox. When I finally did so, it took less than five minutes to sort, and I was left with a more open schedule for my day than I’d planned. So, I had a bit of a browse on our newly sprightly V+ feed, and found a block of free movies, including one I’d missed on its limited UK release–Vincenzo Natali’s bio-sci-horror Splice.

The coincidence kicked in as the credits rolled and I realise that the film starred Sarah Polley, director of the most excellent Take This Waltz that I raved about earlier in the week. The two films could not be more different. Take This Waltz is a delicate, precise parody of chick flick clichés. Splice is… Well, it’s bugshit crazy, in a very good way indeed.

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This Is Not A Love Song: X&HT Saw Take This Waltz

In a lot of ways, romantic fiction is all about making excuses for infidelity. There are no end of stories out there that feature a main character trapped in a loveless marriage, only to be swept off her feet and out of the door by a dashing hero archetype. The spineless schlub of a husband shrugs, smiles and lets her go, content to let the caged bird fly. She's a free spirit and she deserves more than he can offer because… because she's the heroine, OK?

Sarah Polley's amazing new film Take This Waltz applies an overdue stress-test to the cliches, with a simplicity and honesty that's rare in the chick-flick world.

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A Golden Day: X&HT Went To The Olympic Time Trials

Sometimes, you just get lucky. Fate, which so often conspires against you, shifts the balance in your favour. Just for a little while. As long as you’re aware of it, then fate can give you a moment that you will treasure for a very long time.

Yesterday, fate put me close enough to the legendary Bradley Wiggins to feel the slipstream as he rocketed past. And that was just one part of an amazing, dizzying day.

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London Calling! X&HT Went To The Olympics

I’m not a sporty person. Far from it. I’m a clumsy goof who was always picked last for games at school, and most sporting events leave me not just cold but catatonic.

The Olympics is different. There’s something about it that stirs me. Maybe it’s the sheer sense of endeavour, the drama that comes from so many people spending years and years in the pursuit of a dream. Once every four years I buy into that dream, completely and wholeheartedly. And with the Olympics in London, well, let’s face it. TLC and I had to be there.

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DocoBanksy Gets A Screening

The DocoPhone starts ringing. I dive for it, my responses hard-wired after years of loyal, unquestioning service to a playful, capricious master. 

I lift the handset, and listen while it clicks and purrs–the line connects through a bewildering array of redirects, anonymisers and scramblers. The call could be coming from the other side of the world, or three doors down. There’s no way of knowing, and believe me, smarter people than me have tried. There’s one last ear-shredding blast of modem noise and then…

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All Rise: X&HT Saw The Dark Knight Rises

Right-wing radio host and all-round screw top Rush Limbaugh thinks that the new Batman film has an explicit anti-Republican message. His reasoning? The villain of the piece is called Bane, and Presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his fortune through a company called Bain Capital. It's just all so clear and simple.

We shouldn't laugh too loudly at Limbaugh, easy as it might be. In some ways he's on the money. The Dark Knight Rises has plenty to say about power, corruption and lies. But as with all of Christopher Nolan's films, things are never as straight-forward as they appear.

The spoilers after this point are numerous and mighty. Be warned.

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The Dog And Pony Show, or Three Things You Can Do To Help Out Untruths

The one thing I’ve noticed about the wacky world of self-publishing is the sense of engagement that rapidly develops between author and audience. This has to happen. The writer can’t afford to be aloof from his or her readership. The buffer zone that an agent and publisher puts in place just isn’t there. 

That’s part of the fun of the self-pub game, but it does mean that word-slingers like me have to extricate ourselves from our cocoon and get out and engage with people. As we tend to skew introvert, that’s kind of tricky, and if you’re a shy retiring flower like me, it’s difficult not to feel like some kind of huckster or hawker when all you’re trying to do is make people aware of the worth and value of your work. 

With that in mind, let’s get on with the sales pitch. 

 

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Stacked: X&HT Visited The Astley Book Farm

Sometimes, you just have to make the most of a collapsed plan. We were all set to visit the Festival of History at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire this weekend, until the weather did a dirty on us, and flooded the site the evening before it was due to open.

We found a silver lining to that rain-sodden cloud, tucked away in the lanes of rural Warwickshire. A bookshop that swallowed us whole and ejected us hours later, giddy and shine-eyed. 

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Code Of Silence

Westminster Council have a reputation for sucking the fun out of any party. The pubs in Soho are well known for the draconian restrictions placed on them in terms of drinking outside, and the fenced-off demarkation zones have to be strictly enforced on pain of a heavy fine.

But now they’ve gone to far. Although the blame has yet to be categorically laid at their door, Westminster Council are at least indirectly responsible for cutting off Bruce Springsteen.

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