Monthly Archives: Jun 2021

Blue is the Warmest Colour

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A few posts ago I mentioned that I had just watched Blue is the Warmest Colour and would review it in my next post. I held off doing so because I then decided to buy the graphic novel on which the film is based and wanted to review them together. 

Unfortunately, I am not enjoying the graphic novel very much and am only reading it a glacial pace. It’s not that the story is bad but the style of artwork and lettering are taking a lot of getting used to. I just need to push on: the illustrations have a slightly unfinished and loose feel to them, which I am sure I will get used to, or at least get over, if the story is good enough. As for the lettering – my complaint is against the cursive text employed for the captions containing one of the character’s diary entries. It doesn’t make the writing impossible to read but does demand concentration, which is more than I want to give in the evening – the only time of day when I have time to look at the book. With that said, I looked ahead when writing this post and saw that the diary entries will soon give way to regular capitalised speech bubbles so, I just need to be patient.

Patience is not always my strongest point, so here I am. I hope I will finish the graphic novel, In the meantime, as patience is not always my strongest point, here I am. I hope I will finish the graphic novel, but in case I don’t, here are my thoughts about the film.

In short, I enjoyed Blue is the Warmest Colour a lot. At three hours, it is much too long but as an exploration of the rise and fall and aftermath of a relationship it worked really well. Full credit go to the writers, director, Abdellatif Kechiche, and principle actresses, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux.

The film follows Adèle (Exarchopoulos) from her mid-teens to late twenties as she has a brief relationship with another student (male) at her school, before falling in love with a girl with blue hair who she saw one day in the street. That girl is a slightly older student called Emma (Seydoux). One night, they meet in a lesbian bar. They become friends, and then lovers. All goes well until Adèle and Emma are driven apart by the pressures of their work. Adèle sleeps with a fellow teacher. When Emma finds out she immediately throws Adèle out of the house. In the last act of the film, Adèle tries to win Emma back, but it is too late: Emma has moved on. The love that once existed between them has been extinguished. They can be friends but no more.

The film contains a number of graphic sex scenes. While some of them can certainly be justified tin terms of the narrative, I’m not sure the same can be said for all. The sex scenes also vary in length, with the longest being nigh on ten minutes long. The obvious chemistry between Exarchopoulos and Seydoux make nearly all them easy to watch but, of course, that is no justification for their presence.

I say ‘nearly’ all of them: the first sex scenes, which take place when Adèle is aged 15 felt very awkward to watch. Why? After all, 15 is the age of consent in France so while the scenes were right on the limit of acceptability, there is no question of the viewer being made to watch underage sex. Here in the UK, however, the age of consent is 16 so the scenes were underage for us, hence the awkwardness.

While watching the film Blue is the Warmest Colour I wondered how the French viewed it. For me, the fact that it was set abroad and, more to the point, was in French, made it something exotic. Okay, not as exotic as a fantasy film set in a faraway land but certainly different. The film is very down-to-earth, however; it is about a real life issue, and is set in equally real life places. Would a Frenchman (or woman) watching this see the film as akin to a kitchen-sink drama? It’s not really important, but I’d love to know.

As I mentioned above, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux had great chemistry together (both in and out of bed). Physically and in terms of their acting, they were both completely convincing in their roles. It was particularly interesting seeing Lèa Seydoux play a tomboy in this film as I previously only knew her as the far more feminine Madeleine Swann in Spectre. 

Inevitably, Emma invited comparisons for me with Mary Stuart Masterson’s Watts in Some Kind of Wonderful, and truth to tell, Emma is Watts but from a different angle. And that was fine. Complete originality in a story is both nigh on impossible and unnecessary. The important thing for a writer is to bring something new or different to the tale. How does Emma differ from Watts? She is older. Wiser, perhaps. She definitely has more of the cares of the world on her shoulders.

I haven’t seen many LGBTQ+ films but Blue is the Warmest Colour ranks highly among the ones I have watched. I would put it just behind Carol, my favourite in this genre. I would say that I appreciate the fact that it has – like Carol – a bisexual lead (in Adèle), though I bet if I looked up reviews of the film, they all – as with Carol – call her a lesbian. Anyway, though too long, a very good film, and well worth three hours of your time.

The Public Carriage Office

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Twenty years ago this month I started working for the Public Carriage Office (PCO). I hadn’t wanted the job: at the same time as my interview for the PCO, Robin Baird-Smith of the Continuum Publishing Group interviewed me for a position there. That was the job I really wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it.

I probably did badly at the interview, but to this day I associate the failure with one question that Baird-Smith asked me: did I like (the then) Cardinal Ratzinger? I did, and told him so. Afterwards, I reckoned that in terms of working for Continuum saying so was a mistake as Continuum was more in the liberal Catholic line. Why would they hire anyone of a more traditionalist bent? Like I say, I probably failed the interview for other reasons, but that has always stuck with me.

The funny thing is that because I didn’t want the Public Carriage Office job, I was very free with my answers there, as well. I was asked if I approved of positive discrimination. Absolutely not, I said, it’s just another form of discrimination. When I thought about that answer afterwards, I was very happy: they’ll never hire me, now, I thought, I just need Continuum to come through and everything will be perfect.

The good Lord had other plans, however, and in the middle of June 2001 (I think my start date was either the 13th or 18th, I can’t remember which), I started at the PCO.

The Public Carriage Office was founded in 1850s to oversee the regulation and licensing of the taxi (black cab) trade in London. It used to be part of the Metropolitan Police. When Transport for London (TfL) was founded in 2000 it took over control of the PCO*.

Two years earlier, the Labour government had passed the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act, which allowed for the licensing of minicabs (or private hire vehicles, to give them their ‘proper’ name), minicab drivers and operators. As a result, the minicab, or Private Hire, side of the PCO was rapidly expanding – hence my interview. Specifically, I was applying to join the Private Hire Operator licensing team.

In 2001, the PCO was based at 15 Penton Street near the Angel, Islington. As it was being refurbished, the PHV teams spent most of the summer working in a former courthouse in Clerkenwell.

The summer of 2001 was a happy time. I joined a team full of characters with an easy going manager in charge and a lot of commitment to the cause. I did well at the PCO with my managers. My first one, D., was a very relaxed guy. I didn’t really have much in common with him but that didn’t matter when he was such an open hearted person. My second manager, P., was a more serious minded man but was always open to conversation and discussion. The PHV (business) licensing team was split in two and the overall manager was KR. She was completely dedicated to her work and her staff. I would have taken a bullet for her. Never before or since have I known a leader as kind or selfless as she. When P. moved on in c.2007, I successfully applied for his job. He and D. were great models to have as I became a manager in their stead. I’m sure I did not do as well as they, but that is not for me to say. The final judgement there, lies with the two or three people who I had underneath me at any given time.

Here is the courthouse we worked in:

It has been converted into a youth hostel now. As you can see from the photograph (for which, thank you Google Maps), guests enter it through the main door. We had to use the side door on Great Percy Street (to the left).

Despite all the teams being in their own offices, we regularly walked through the building on one mission or another and so were able to say hello and have a chat to others. Staff meetings were held in the actual courtroom. I can remember at least one occasion when the head of the PHV teams sat in the judge’s chair! Although I don’t specifically recall it, I’m sure people also sat in the dock. What about the cells? We used those as well – to store files.

As I mentioned above, my team licensed the private hire businesses. There were two forms that they – the minicab owners – had to fill out: a general application form called the PHV/101 and a personal declaration form called the PHV/103. They were very simple documents and easy to process. I say ‘simple’ – yes, for us; many people in the private hire trade, however, were not from Britain and so their command of English was not perfect. For them, the forms were more challenging. Ringing them to query information that they had provided (or not, as the case may be) was a regular part of the job.

The most ‘difficult’ part of the job was the computer system we used to record the information on the forms. It was called TAPITS. I’ve long since forgotten what that stands for. We called it Crapits. It was simple but very user unfriendly. We longed for it to be replaced. Years later, it was – by an even worse system, the name of which I have happily banished from my memory.

In 2001, minicab owners had a limited amount of time in which to send their applications in and get licensed. As a result, we had, for the first and only time during my first stint at the PCO, to process a certain number of applications every day. As they were straight forward, this wasn’t hard. In consequence, I look back at the summer of 2001 and can dwell on the fun things that happened. For example, the fact that my phone number was so similar to the radio station Heart FM that people kept ringing me up to make song requests. For a while, I simply told them they had rung the wrong number. Then, I got bored, and spent five minutes trying to persuade a rock and roll fan to ask for a piece of music by Beethoven instead. Then there was the night we went to the pub to watcWh England play Germany. Incredibly, we won 5-1.

One day in 2001, the world changed. On 11th September, somewhere after three in the afternoon, S., a member of the tech support team, came in to our office and told us that an aeroplane had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. I thought he was making a joke, and laughed incredulously. But no, it had really happened. By the time I got home, two aeroplanes had crashed into the WTC. I watched with millions of others as the twin towers crashed to the ground. Another aeroplane struck the Pentagon and one crashed into a field when the passengers heroically fought back against the terrorists. In the days after, aeroplanes all over the world were grounded. It was surreal looking up in the sky and not seeing any aircraft there.

*Around 2009, the PCO changed its name to Taxi Private Hire. I’ll keep calling it the PCO until I come to that period.

tbc

The Cinderella Sacrament

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Recently, I spoke on the phone to a very dear friend who lives in Scotland. She attends the Extraordinary Form of Mass at her church, and told me that not only is this Mass very well attended but that, when it is said, many of the congregants go to confession, as well.

In fact, the numbers are so high that the priest is obliged to hear two confessions at once.

I was amazed when I heard this. Two confessions at once: my only experience of that has been in paintings, such as the one below.

Now, maybe in other parts of the world, the two-at-once scenario happens often, but not here in the U.K. Here, confession has for long been the Cinderella sacrament, the one that is there doing all the work of taking sins away but which Catholics ignore with abandon.

What is happening in Scotland? I attribute the popularity of confession at this church with the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. It is a Mass of great solemnity and dignity and in this is surely drawing people to the confessional. I shall continue to believe this until and unless I hear of confession being equally popular in a Novus Ordo church.

Before I finish, I must add one thing: I love the Novus Ordo Mass. It is the one I go to every week, and am very grateful for it. I also hold the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in high regard. I do not lift it up in order to put the Novus Ordo down. If anyone was able to show me a church where the Novus Ordo was bringing people back to confession, I would be delighted and would thank God for giving us two distinct forms of the Mass, both of which are brining people to that wonderful encounter with Him in confession.