Coronation Street - Vera's death

Now I have not watched the soap for years, but I was sad to see that Vera, one of the last Northern lasses has shouted her last insult. With the Likes of Hilda "woman Stanley.....woman" Ogden, Ena Sharples and the magnificent Elsie Tanner, Vera was a throw back to the days of "pots in the sink" and "brown ale in straight tumblers"
End of an era

Ruthin

Spent the afternoon in the small but perfectly formed market town of Ruthin. Then went for lunch at Avonwen, a sort of nothing nice afternoon discussing new kitchens and dining tables and the like.
Took the dogs up the Marian in the rain (see pic below) and did what I have been meaning to for ages, I asked the owner of the top cottage if I could buy their old chicken coop which has been lurking in their garden for ages. I didn't get a yes and didn't get a no, but I was happy with the maybe.

Night of the Sunflowers

Noche de los girasoles, La (2006) English title -Night of the Sunflowers is a wonderful first film by Spanish writer/director Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo and will be in my top ten favourite films of this year. The plot is complicated yet very downbeat; the lives of two cops (one bent the other old fashioned and honest) a rural recluse,three city folk,and a serial rapist and murderer become embroiled in arbitrary accidents of fate around a deserted Spanish village.

The narrative is separated into six chapters that overlap each of the others in time and space making rather deep and serious comments on how crime often begets crime and how a simple small decision can affect ones life forever. The whole thing feels like a chess game and is incredibly tense and atmospheric.A cracking film

Trelawnyd Flower Show Disaster!!!!!!!!!

so says the village paper headline (if we had a newspaper that is)

Work on the only venue that can house the village show seems to be at a standstill as more serious structural problems have been uncovered by the recent renovations. Therefore work will not be finished by August and the flower show may have to be cancelled.

The flower show committee are having an emergency meeting next Wednesday, to see if a way around this disaster can be organised , but to be honest things are looking a bit glum.

The village school is rather too small (right pic) but it could be a possibility, and there is always the village hall at nearby Llanasa, but I am not sure if either possibility would be acceptable to the other members of the committee.

Whose line is it anyway?

Watching the early 1990 quiz show Whose line is it anyway? (re runs on Sky Dave Channel) With benefit of hindsight has been an interesting experience. My favourite improvisation comedian on the show was always the doe-eyed Tony Slattery. The former Cambridge Footlights performer seemed to be the most daring, the most anarchic and ever so “dangerous” contestant in the show. He always seemed to be slightly surprised that sometimes dirty, always witty but certainly razor sharp ideas and phrases shot from his mouth time and time again during the show.
Knowing what we do now about his nervous breakdown in 1996, when he descended into bipolar psychosis after binging on alcohol and cocaine, it is easy to recognise the dangerous undercurrent in his erratic television performances. The hilarious flight of ideas, pressure of speech and bizarre thinking made the audience love him, and it was that audience that wanted and expected that level of lunacy every time he appeared.
In 2003 when interviewed by Miranda Sawyer, Slattery said of his breakdown:-

“'I have,' he says, 'very strong recollections of behavioural disinhibition, ungovernable, compulsive, socially unacceptable behaviour, irrationality... but then that would suddenly flip and negative symptoms would replace, like utter social withdrawal, isolationism, mutinous... my symptoms were florid and uncontrollable and profoundly disordered"

I have always loved Slattery's bizarre and near-the-knuckle genius. Watching re runs of him at the peak of his career make me wish him well.

A kick up the arse

Bloody, bloody bloody!!!!! hell! The rain has been torrential and It's DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!

I tried to get out into the allotment this morning to commence digging the new potato patch, but the earth is far too heavy for any effective work to be done. Took the dogs, Janet and Ruby to the beach in the downpour and I had to laugh at Ruby's "bad behaviour". Janet is desperate for the lercher to do as she is told, so keeps a doggy bad full to treats in her pocket to get her to come when called. As you can see from the photo the terriers have all realised that food could be had by following Janet like shadows, only Ruby is galloping around like a mad Alec.

Sold more eggs this afternoon to villagers and a few passing walkers, so I ambled up to the market garden to buy all of my seed potatoes, in between showers I checked the electric fencing and was quite proud of myself as I found the fence repair kit and fixed it myself. I had almost finished my work, when Mildred tottered over and climbed up on my lap to see if I had a titbit or two on me when suddenly Duncan came clucking over and promptly kicked me several times up the arse!!! as if to say "get off my bitch!!!" .He stalked off muttering to himself when I chased him off leaving me with the seat of my pants all muddy.

ps

an old colleague sent me this memory of Marinko by E-mail........

It made me smile

"I also recall that when he was first admitted he spoke no English, but spoke a little German (he'd dated a German prior to his injury), and I remember this was used during his early days on the unit. I rotated 'with' him when he moved to South 4 (?) for rehab, and he also taught me a little Croatian, a phrase that I can still recall: "dobar jutro moj pijetao", which (literally) meant something like "good morning my cock", perhaps (in retrospect) a rather funny and ironic piece of word-play that was lost on me at the time. Hope you're OK,"

Control

Melancholy Music never really featured in my teenage years. I was moody at times for sure, but had non of the deep teenage angst that afflicts most young people. In fact the saying "There is less to him that meets the eye", could have been written about me!, as when my peers were aggressively enjoying the likes of The Sex pistols and and Buzzcocks, I was dreaming of the luxury Liner the S.S.Poseidon, and enjoying Mario Puzo's Godfather II!
Friend Hazel on the other hand, spent hours lying in darkened rooms listening to Joy Division, so she was so excited at the biog film Control (2007) which had a special showing at Llandudno tonight. The film is a sombre and rather thin profile of Ian Curtis, the "enigmatic" singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to commit suicide at the age of 23. Now the director Anton Corbijn, must have been a big fan of the group, as you could almost taste his recreation of 1978, but as for exploring the singer's real personality and motivations, the film lacked any real depth of characterization. Mind you, Sam Riley was fairly impressive as the immature and complicated Curtis and Samantha Morton as his mousy wife, is always worth the price of a cinema ticket.
Shot impressively in black and white by Martin Ruhe, the whole thing was depressingly quite beautiful.