Monthly Archives: May 2020

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Posted on by
Reply

Sainsbury’s
Yesterday, I toddled off to Sainsbury’s and found virtually no queue to get in. Such a queue as there was wasted no time in moving forward and I was able to start shopping within five minutes of my first arrival.

What can we put this down to? Well, although lock down remains in effect, restrictions on movement continue to be eased so that may be one reason.

I suspect, however, that I just got lucky. When I left the store about twenty/twenty-five minutes later, the queue had grown again – although happily only to about the length it was when I joined it last week.

While I am on the topic of Sainsbury’s – the store where I shop has now put up clear plastic partitions between the self check-out machines. As someone behind me said, they made the self check-outs look a bit like voting booths. I don’t like the partitions – even though they are transparent, they feel very confining and vaguely sinister; I don’t know why.

***

Home Life
It has been a good-difficult week at home.

Good because everyone remains well; difficult because, especially as the week has gone on, I have found myself with little motivation to do anything creative. I have had ideas but when it comes to writing them down – no. All things considered it’s a little bit of a miracle that I am writing this. Perhaps I am more motivated than I realise.

***

A B&B in Dorset
As I was writing the above, I saw a business card sticking out of a book on my desk. I pulled it out and found that it belonged to this B&B cottage in Dorset. I can’t remember which year I stayed at the cottage but I do remember enjoying my stay there. I hope the couple who ran it (David and Jackie Charles) are still there. The cottage is a little way outside of Dorchester; I remember walking along the winding road to get there from the pub in the pitch dark: a bit of a thrill! Fortunately, the thrill never became a nightmare and no cars suddenly appeared from around the bend.

***

America
A few days ago a black man named George Floyd died in police custody in the city of Minneapolis. During his arrest, a police officer restrained him by placing his knee on the man’s throat. Floyd’s death is the latest to involve a black man being killed by (white) officers or white people. Rioting has followed his death. I predict that the violent protests will soon fade away. In a few weeks or months from now, another black man will die at a white person’s/police officer’s hands but whatever happens in the immediate aftermath, nothing will change then, either.

America, such an innovative country yet so utterly unable to find an answer to her ills.

Actually, that’s untrue. She knows perfectly well what the answers are but is unable or unwilling to apply them. I’m tempted to say that for as long as Donald Trump is president, she never will, but, here we are after eight years of President Obama. What was he doing? What could he do?

Once upon a time I respected America, looked up to her, even; yes, she had faults but she was a country that was always seemed to be striving forward. The Trump Presidency ended that perception. Under him, the country has chosen to look backwards.

Or has it? Trump lost the popular vote. He became president due to the Electoral College system. And I like to think that the people who voted for him – or most of them, anyway – probably didn’t vote for him because of his character but because politically speaking he offered them something that Hilary Clinton didn’t. This uncertainty means I can’t dislike the country but I’m sad that I can’t view her as once I did: with admiration. The West needs a great America: someone has to be able to stand up to the substantial threats posed by Russia and China. The E.U. should, but won’t. The world needs a great America because in being the best version of herself, she shows the world what it is capable of. I hope one day the U.S.A. finds a president, politicians, police officers who are able to meet that challenge. Make America great again, indeed.

Saving Mr Banks (8/10)
Disney film about how Walt Disney secured the rights to Mary Poppins from its author, P. L. Travers.

1961. P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) has run out of money. Her agent (played by Ronan Vibert) advises her to sell the rights to Mary Poppins to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). She refuses. Travers can’t bear to let her dearest creation go. Her situation is so bad, however, that in the end she does agree to go to Los Angeles to discuss Disney’s proposed script for a film. She goes, she criticises, she returns home. But even as Travers makes her way to the airport, Disney realises why Mary Poppins means so much to her. He follows her back to London. At Travers’ home, Disney not only tells Travers what he has discovered but reveals how she and he are both connected far more than they knew. This leads to Travers finally signing on the dotted line and the film being made.

I found all but the last half hour of this film difficult to watch. This was because Travers seems to have no redeeming features. She is all recalcitrance and general horridness. What kept me going were the flashbacks to her childhood. As a girl, Travers was a different person. Her life was not easy, and got worse, but it was for a time better, and so was she. The last half hour of the film is when the truth comes out. It is revelatory and freeing for her and me. The screenwriters did really well, there. I would recommend the picture just for the last section. That’s being a bit unfair! The whole film is good and well worth your time.

Delicacy (8/10)
Audrey Tautou plays Nathalie Kerr, a happily married young woman whose husband dies suddenly. For three years, she mourns him. Then, one day, probably while thinking of her husband, she kisses the office nobody. He is overwhelmed and all of a sudden in love. He bravely asks Nathalie out. She accepts and this being a romantic comedy, love blossoms against the odds.

Delicacy is a funny, sweet, and very French film. For proof of this, see the final scene: the hide and seek game in the garden. I won’t spoil it here but suffice to say it involves philosophy. So French.


Faith Seeking Understanding

Posted on by
Reply

Correction: In my previous post, I said that Sunday 24th May would be the first anniversary of my arrival home from Santiago. Actually, it was Saturday 23rd. Either way, I didn’t get round to writing my One Year On blog post. I haven’t forgotten it, though, and I hope to write it very soon.

***

I live in London, U.K. and the weather here has been very pleasant indeed for the last week or two. I have even had to sleep on top of my duvet (though under a blanket) on a couple of occasions. British weather being what it is, we enjoy the good times while we can as it is very possible that the sun will decide that’s your lot and the rest of the summer will be grey and wet.

***

Lock down continues… kind of. Restrictions are being relaxed now and some people are returning to work. The streets, however, still remain pretty quiet. I can tell that there have been changes, though: the queue to get into Sainsbury’s is now shorter.

***

After lock down started, the government designated churches as ‘non-essential’ places; as a result, they won’t re-open until July, at the earliest. I read a while ago that the government did not originally intend to close churches: it was happy for them to remain open for private prayer. The bishops, however, petitioned for them to close them completely.

Why would they do this? Well, you might say, because of the infectious nature of the coronavirus, of course. But in respect of private prayer, with appropriate social distancing, face masks, and hand wipes this should not be a problem

In regards Catholic bishops, I suspect that our churches are closed because the majority of bishops – or perhaps just those at the top – do not think as fathers – even though that is what they are supposed to be, both to us and their priests; rather, they think as managers. Their priority is not to let anything happen that could damage the Church in the eyes of the world. Again, I suspect that they petitioned the government to close the churches because they were scared that if a priest or member of the faithful was proven to have contracted the coronavirus on Church property this would be a scandal to the world.

I ought to be really angry about this. I’m not. Firstly, it would be a scandal. Secondly, I have no proof that my suspicion is correct. Thirdly, given how many scandals have hit the Church over the past few years, I can understand their caution. I hope I’m wrong but it’s a nagging feeling that I can’t get rid of.

***

The Interpreter (7.8/10)

Be warned – I spoil the ending of the film below.

I watched this film straight after The American. First George Clooney, then Nicole Kidman – when it came to visions of beauty, my cup overflowed last week.

The eponymous character is Silvia Broome (Kidman) who works at the United Nations in New York. One night, she overhears what appears to be an assassination plot against Edmond Zuwanie, the controversial leader of a fictional African country named Matobo, who is about to visit the UN to give a speech. She reports what she heard but isn’t trusted by secret service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn).

It soon appears that Keller has good reason not to trust Silvia, for although she professes her belief in diplomacy, it turns out that that she wasn’t always so peace loving. Throughout the film, Silvia lies, fudges and dissembles in order to hide the truth from Keller. In the end, however, events force her to come clean. This coincides with Zuwanie’s arrival at the UN for his speech. Zuwanie is very nearly killed but not in the way you’d expect.

Ending Spoiler Alert!

In the denouement, Silvia herself tries to assassinate Zuwanie. She isn’t the ‘real’ assassin – she simply takes advantage of the situation after the real one is apprehended. Although Silvia has good reason to kill Zuwanie – he is responsible for the deaths of her family – I didn’t believe in her as an assassin. This is because the film cloaks her tragic background and subsequent hatred for him up until the moment of their confrontation. As a result, her character felt too lightweight for the role of killer. It was almost as if a character from a light drama had suddenly been dropped into a heavyweight thriller.

Out of This World

Posted on by
Reply

Hey, here’s me checking in. How are you?

As I write these words, the clock reads 6:46am so I have beaten my previous early post record by a clean twelve minutes. In these days of lock down we get our pleasures where we can.

Who am I kidding – I would have mentioned this anyway; it’s an easy way to get into the post, after all (blogging-wise, there’s nothing worse than knowing that you want to write something but don’t know how to start).

***

So, how are things here? Well, my parents and I remain well, for which I give thanks. Overnight, one of my fillings fell out. I wasn’t surprised – the same filling has come out several times before. The shape and, I think, shallowness, of the filling has made it an impossible one to stay in. My tooth doesn’t hurt so I might just leave it be until my next scheduled dentist’s appointment.

***

Last Sunday was the first anniversary of my arrival at Santiago cathedral at the end of my first Camino. As soon as I am able, I will write a post about this. I know part of what I want to say so just have to work out the rest before I put finger to keyboard. Next Sunday is the first anniversary of my return home so I shall try to do it by then. If you want to know how I felt last Sunday, though, well, I teared up when I listened to ‘Santiago de Compostela’ on The Way soundtrack. This music covers the arrival of Martin Sheen et al at the cathedral and the swinging of the Botafumeiro, which always moves me deeply when I watch the film. Here is the music:

I feel so much for people who intended to walk the Camino this year but whose plans were scuppered by the coronavirus. I hope all of them are able to reschedule to next year or the year after.

***

Yesterday, 19th May was the 85th anniversary of T. E. Lawrence’s death following a road accident: he was riding his motorbike home down a country road when he turned a corner and was forced to swerve to avoid two boys on bicycles. Lawrence was launched from his bike and suffered head injuries that would prove to be fatal.

Unsurprisingly, there is a conspiracy theory regarding his death as a car was seen driving away from the scene of the accident, but I don’t think it has gained any traction among Lawrence scholars. At least, not among the few that I have read. A new film about Lawrence is due out soon – Lawrence After Arabia; judging by its IMDB synopsis, it will take a deep dive into the conspiracy theory:

Retiring to his cottage in Dorset Lawrence hopes to forget his past fighting in Arabia but soon he is drawn into political intrigue and his many enemies begin to plot against him. Was a motorcycle crash an accident or attempt at assassination by the British Secret Service? 

IMDB

According to IMDB, Lawrence After Arabia is due out on 16th October this year so going to see it might just make a nice early birthday present for me.

***

Apollo 13 (9/10)
I have wanted to watch this film for ages but couldn’t find it streaming anywhere. While I was looking through our DVD shelf the other day, I found that we owned a copy of it. A very nice surprise! The film is as good as its reputation. Tom Hanks leads the way as Jim Lovell, captain of the ill fated Apollo 13 mission to the moon. The acting, script, special effects, music… everything about this film is pretty much spot on.

The American (8/10)
Okay, the facts:
Stars: George Clooney and the Italian countryside.
Directed by Anton Corbijn.

The American is about an assassin named Jack who is ambushed by unknown assassins outside his Arctic hideaway. He manages to kill them but is forced to kill his lover: she didn’t know his profession and there can be no loose ends.

Jack heads south to Rome where his handler tells him to go a small Italian town and await further orders. Not long later, Jack is given another job: to make a rifle for another assassin. He does so, but realises that it is to be used on him. In the denouement of the film we see what he does to get out of this very unpromising situation.

Anton Corbijn is a photographer so The American looks very good. I mean, George Clooney is in it. It is set in Italy so of course it was going to look good but under Corbijn’s directorship it looks even better. The story is told very tightly. Music is used only sparingly. This means we really focus on Jack – despite knowing so little about him – and become much more unsettled than we would if we were watching a Bond or Jason Bourne film.

I found the denouement of the film quite confusing. One or two parts of it still are. On the whole, though, I enjoyed the picture. It was very different to standard Hollywood fare, and while I like that, too, I appreciated this.

***

Finally, Monday just one (18th May) was the one hundredth anniversary of Karol Józef Wojtyła, more well known as Pope St. John Paul II. Fifteen years on from his death (15 years already!) I still miss him. He was pope when I became a Catholic so will always be special to me – even though nowadays I am not as right on in my Catholic views as I used to be. I think in the end it will be people like him (rather than many living clerics – and laymen for that matter) who keep me in the Church. Pope John Paul: Ora Pro Nobis!

As You Write It

Posted on by
Reply

I am writing this post at 6:58am. I usually try to do a little creative work early in the morning but thought I would turn to the blog today as I need to catch-up again.

Well, a few things have happened since my last post on 3rd May.

Last week, one of my aunts died. She had been suffering from dementia and latterly had moved to a care home. I don’t know the cause of her death although in the current context one might hazard a guess. I wasn’t close to her – I hadn’t met her since the 90s – but one of her sons is an occasional visitor to our house and I keep up with his and some of his family’s life on Facebook so I feel for them.

A few days ago, my brother’s mother-in-law died – I believe of natural causes; she had been very ill for sometime. I never met her at all but I am sad for my brother’s wife.

A couple of days ago, I was just about to start my daily exercise when an e-mail notification flashed up on my screen: my parish had started livestreaming a Mass. Very unusual as it was 2:22pm. Afternoon Masses are not usually until much later, and then at the top of the hour.

I read the text accompanying the notificaiton: RIP Derek Vitali. This cut me to the quick. Derek and his wife were regular attendees to the 8am Sunday Mass – the one at which I altar serve. Derek himself was a reader. He had an amazing voice – deep, clear, and authoritative. It was always a pleasure listening to him. We often spoke ‘back stage’ before or after the Mass as well. He was a very kind and happy person; full of good humour. As with my aunt, I don’t know the circumstances of his death but I will miss him very much.

Requiescant in Pace.

My parents and I remain well. I continue my social media work, exercise, reading and preparation for creative writing.

Howards End (9/10)
After watching The Martian, I turned to this Merchant Ivory classic. Leonard Bast’s death remains incredibly sad and frustrating. If only the Wilcox family had had an ounce of compassion it need never have happened. It’s worse because I can identify with Bast – I am not as poor as he is but without the help of others I probably would be. I appreciate his love of literature and nature, his day dreaminess as well. I try not to think about how it is not just the Wilcox’s but society itself that brings him down because then I might have to ask questions about my own society – not so much or only in connection with me but in regards all of us.

K-19: The Widowmaker (8/10)
My second Russian submarine disaster film. This one is set in the early 60s. The K-19 is the USSR’s latest super-sub. It has also been badly constructed. It should remain in port but the Soviet Navy chiefs want it at sea to conduct missile tests so off it goes. Predictably, disaster follows: Piping in the nuclear reactor breaks. Water coolant can no longer get through to the reactor itself. As a result, its temperature rises to catastrophic levels. The crew undertake a race against time to repair the piping before the high temperatures cause a nuclear explosion that could in turn lead to nuclear war – rather unhelpfully, the sub’ is close by an American spy station.

K-19 is a solid action-drama. Harrison Ford acts against type as Captain Alexei Vostrikov who seems to care more about the Party than his crew. Liam Neeson’s Mikhail Polenin is the noble submarine commander who does his best to defend his crew’s interests against the captain.

In the end, Vostrikov comes good: he puts the men first. If I have one criticism of the film it is that it didn’t develop Vostrikov’s character enough. We know that despite his party loyalty he has a suspect background but in the film he goes from being cruel to kind in fairly short order.

John Wick 3: Parabellum (8.5/10)
I finished watching this yesterday. John Wick 3 is very stylish, and violent. It has a very interesting internal mythology that raises the film above being just about the violence though I don’t know by how much. I think I need to watch the first two films in the series.

Happy Birthday Formula 1!
Formula 1 turned seventy years old, yesterday (13th May). The first ever F1 Grand Prix took place at Silverstone in the presence of King George VI. There was big news to go with the birthday, of course, with the announcement from Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel that he would be leaving the team at the end of the year. Let’s hope we can go racing and he can get a win (after Hamilton has won his seventh title, preferably) before the year’s end.

Part One of The Darling Blogs of May

Posted on by
1

I have fallen behind again so here is another catch-up.

Do you notice anything different about this blog? No adverts! I finally had the money to upgrade the blog. There’s more besides – welcome to sehnsuchtandwine.com. My own domain name <3.

All remains well in the family house. From one day to the next we just go about our daily business. For me, that means work and exercise, Duolingo, reading and creative work (I am still inching forward with that). Some days are more productive than others. It’s hard to write about it here as I have done so before and I would only be repeating myself.

Thankfully, I have not been scammed again.

In the twelve days since my last blog post I have watched some more films during my exercise:

The Sting 9/10
In my post of 18th April (here) I mentioned that I was watching this Robert Redford – Paul Newman classic but then forgot to review and rate it in my post of the 21st (here). I first saw The Sting back in the 90s and remembered it very fondly. Sometimes, films that we saw years ago don’t live up to our memory of them when we watch them again but I would say that The Sting more or less did. I say ‘more or less’ because while the film overall is extremely well written and acted, the actual sting at the heart of the picture is over far too quickly. After two hours of build up, it’s over and done with in ten minutes. Nowadays, the sting itself would take up half an hour of screen time, if not more. Perhaps that is my problem – I am not looking at that scene in terms of how it fits into the picture as is but as a contemporary film lover.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows 8/10
After watching Sherlock Holmes, I moved straight on to its sequel. Game of Shadows is very much more of the same but the film never gets boring thanks to a witty script, Robert Downey Jr, and a strong support cast, most notably Jude Law as Watson and Jared Harris as Professor Moriarty.

Sense and Sensibility 9/10
We have been blessed by some great Jane Austen adaptations over the years – the BBC Pride & Prejudice, the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma and this version of Sense & Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee and starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. It is almost the perfect film. Seriously, I can’t think of anything greatly wrong about it: the script, the casting, the performances, the music… it all just slips into place perfectly.

The Martian 9/10
Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a botanist and astronaut who is part of a manned mission to Mars. The expedition is prematurely ended, however, when a violent storm threatens to destroy the astronauts’ martian lander. The other astronauts are able to get into the lander but Watney is left behind after being seemingly killed by a boulder. Unbeknownst to anyone, though, he survives. Making his way back to the ‘hab’ – the astronauts’ habitation unit – Watney uses his botanical skills to make enough food to survive on. At first, he has nothing to survive for as no one knows he is alive. Thanks to satellites, however, NASA eventually realises the truth and tries to launch a rescue mission. It fails. Thanks to China and a soupçon of mutiny among Watney’s fellow astronauts, a new plan is hatched. The Martian is a terrific action film. A great script, characters, and actors. You are really there with them. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I finished Clare Lydon‘s Nothing to Lose this week. It is not by any means her best book but still a good read. 7.5/10
Nothing to Lose is about a woman named Scarlet who is made homeless after a flood destroys her home. She goes to live with Joy, town mayor, while her flat is cleaned up and the two fall in love. Nothing to Lose is at its strongest in the portrayal of Scarlet and Joy’s budding love for one another. It is at its weakest when Lydon has her characters use popular LGBTQ slogans and ideas. This moves them from being ‘real’ people to no more than fronts for ideas that Lydon wants to insert into her story. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a character who believes that ‘love is love’ or that ‘love wins’ but having them use or refer to real life slogans/ideas should definitely be avoided unless absolutely necessary. I also didn’t like how Scarlet pushes Joy to be out but that is a personal thing; if I was her editor, I wouldn’t have suggested she remove that element of the story.

I have started using Zoom. Welcome to the world, MJM! I had a work Zoom meeting last week, which went well; I zoomed with the family the other day and before both those occasions had a wonderful evening doing a dramatic reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with friends and friends-of-friends, all over Zoom. Thank you, Liz!

So, it’s now May. I feel okay. My left ear is blocked. I am hoping olive oil drops will soften the ear wax so that I can get it out. If I can’t, I wonder if I will be able to go to my surgery. I may have to wait until it reopens properly (at the moment, doctor’s appointments are by phone only).

Today, Sunday, has been a lazy day so far. I have to admit, even though I encourage myself to be lazy on Sundays – because I am busy the rest of the week – I feel a bit unsettled by it. I don’t like the idea of deriving my happiness by the number of things I have done, though, so I shall have to think about that.

This week, I have started watching Fr. Ninian Doohan’s Masses on You Tube. I love his homilies as he speaks about history as well as spirituality. Last week, I learnt a few things about St. Catherine of Siena (she was not actually an enclosed nun) and heard Father took about St. Alcuin.

It was the 26th anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s untimely death on Friday – always a very sad time; all the more so since it was not only the great Senna who died that weekend at Imola but new F1 driver, Roland Ratzenberger as well. Requiescant in Pace.

And here I will stop. Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope you are staying safe and feeling well. God bless you and yours.