2015 — 4 January: Sunday
As a reward1 (chaps need little treats and rewards) I rounded off yesterday evening with that Claude Berri film I'd walked down to collect from Mr Postie's cave last Wednesday. While the French digital pixel elves were restoring the high-quality transfer in the French equivalent of the BFI someone clearly forgot to add the subtitles that would have been (as it were) the icing on the cake. Not a big deal, as I know the plot line well enough from my first viewing, and for many of the scenes language would have been entirely superfluous. Schoolboy French is quite tenacious.
From what I've been hearing...
... so far (on "Cerys on 6" — Revolutions and Resolutions) both Leo Tolstoy and Benjamin Franklin were incredibly better-organised (or, at least, told the world they were) than I will ever be. Now here's a puzzle: what's happened to my breakfast? It's already 10:32 after all.
Meanwhile...
... I see "Buckingham Palace" has issued a second "emphatic denial". I await the wording of the third. A simple "No" is not quite enough for the UK tabloids, it seems. Reverting to my French theme for a moment, whatever happened to droit du seigneur?
I'm puzzled by Adam Curtis. "The Power of Nightmares" struck me as unpleasantly paranoid viewing on many levels. (Link.)
Performative piety?
All these "web concepts" that "I need to understand in 2015". Crikey. The best bit was the correction noted right at the end:
Nor will I be trying this, thanks all the same:
(Earlier in the same article)
I fear...
... that what BBC Radio 4 seems happy to classify as comedic these days seems more or less orthogonal to what I find funny, or even mildly amusing.