Some DVDs I watched this week


The Squid And The Whale
This is going to be hard to beat. It's only 88 minutes long, but what a lot of life writer-and-first-time-director Noah Baumbach packs in: it's basically the divorce of his parents in 1986 Brooklyn, fictionalised. Jeff Daniels, with a beard you could keep books in, is the lugubrious, Dougal-like English teacher and past-his-peak author, Laura Linney is his wife whose writing career is about to take off (she's got a story published in the New Yorker!), which seems to be the catalyst for their long-time-coming split. Their two boys, Frank and Walt, take sides, the eldest going to live with his dad (he's the pseud who talks about The Metamorphosis as "Kafkaesque" even though he's never read it), the youngest staying with his mom while developing an unsavoury masturbation habit (he actually starts "marking" things with his seed - something I couldn't put in my Radio Times review). It's witty and smart, with bags of urban melancholy, even recalling Woody Allen. And the explanation of the title is incredibly moving. Highly recommended.


Shooting Dogs
If you've seen Hotel Rwanda, you sort of don't need to see this but do, as it takes the same subject - the 1994 genocide - and personalises it with a true story of courage and defiance. In this case, Don Cheadle's hotelier is replaced by John Hurt's Catholic missionary and the school where he and Hugh Dancy teach plays the part of the hotel. Both become sanctuaries for frightened Tutsis after the Hutu coup and are beseiged by machete-wielding militias. The same essential point is made - the UN are powerless to intervene as they are only there to monitor the fighting, and cannot fire a gun except in self-defence; hence, as white Europeans are escorted to safety, the Africans are left to sort it out for themselves. Result: 800,000 dead Tutsis. (Hmmm. UN sits on its hands while people kill each other? Thank God it couldn't happen again.) Michael Caton-Jones, the duality of whom as a director was encapsulated by his Basic Instinct 2 coming out on the same day as Shooting Dogs, does a fine job of recreating the situation, using authentic locations (although does that matter?) and many of those who survived the massacres as extras and technicians, each one of whom gets a caption in the end credits, perhaps the most moving sequence of the whole film. Again, it's Africa as seen through the eyes of the white man, but I guess in a film that's making a point about Western non-intervention, that's justified.


Pierrepoint
This isn't out on DVD until September, but it's well worth looking out for if you like your entertainment dour and grey. The adult life story of Britain's last hangman, played with the dignity and depth you expect from Timothy Spall, it gives an illuminating insight into the job itself and makes a very quiet plea against capital punishment without tub-thumping. Directed by Adrian Shergold, who won his spurs on the telly (Births, Marriages and Deaths, The Second Coming), it's told with economy and much period detail. Great to see Eddie Marsan as Tish, one of my favourite British character players who's always cropping up in Hollywood films (he's in Miami Vice, I notice) and is best remembered, of course, as the hitman Sunshine in little-seen BBC sitcom Grass.

England, half-English
An illuminating tale. I shall refrain from giving any details; needless to say, a tradesman was in our house doing some work this morning - and this is not a moan about tradesmen. The work he did for us was excellent: neat, professional and honest; he turned up on the day he said he would, at the time he specified, and the price he charged us was the price he'd quoted, give or take the cost of materials. I'd like to say I'd recommend him and use his services again myself. But there is a problem.

A chatty fellow, he arrived at 8.30, and as he brought his equipment in from the van, I made him a cup of tea (strong, white, no sugar). He then stood at the kitchen doorway for a natter before starting work. In the end, he nattered for the best part of an hour. Now, this is quite a long time to have to engage in conversation with a man you've just met, when you're kind of hoping he'll start the work. (As I say, once he did start the work, he was everything you could hope for, and he finished it well ahead of time, and he didn't put on a tinny transistor radio either, so in the event, this wasted hour had no great repercussions.) However, he seemed a nice chap, and if the bloke fancies a chat, I'm not rude enough to deny him the chance. He told us he was in the process of selling his house - he and his wife wanted to move to France. This is interesting. On the face of it, such a move suggests character and wordliness. (Friends of ours did the same thing two years ago, and I admire them for it.) However, the man's reasons for moving seemed to be based on the number of speed cameras in Britain.

This wasn't literally the only reason he was moving (although he and his wife only saw one when they went to France). He seemed to have a broader problem with this country. Problems with the government, and with regulation, and with the media, and with the amount of traffic lights. At one stage - I think we'd been moaning about Tony Blair, which gave him his way in - he said he was "conservative through and through", and reminded us that he was a "small businessman" to underline why. (This was his first leap to a conclusion that I wouldn't leap to. After all, I am a small businessman as well. It is possible to be self-employed and not get down on your knees and thank Mrs Thatcher for the opportunity. You can be in the market and not worship the market.) He also told us that he had come back from bankruptcy. I admired him for this, although by this time the prospect of learning more about his rise and fall and rise was less enticing than him starting work.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (an advantage you have that we didn't), the man turned out to have very strong views on England. He used the following dread words:

I'm not a racist, but ...

He was not a racist, because, guess what, he had two Asian friends and some "coloured" ones. He also liked Indian food and admitted, magnanimously, that Polish builders are very good at what they do, even though they're over here taking our jobs. My gut instinct is that anyone who feels the need to use the prefix "I'm not be a racist," is a racist. (I don't believe I have ever said to anyone, "I'm not a racist." You don't need to if you're not one, do you?) The man basically believed that England the way it is now is not the way it should be. He started to talk about the UK Independence Party, at which point my heart sank, as I thought he was going to give us a leaflet. Instead, he went to his van and brought in a poem that his mate had given him. He handed it to me to read. I kept it.

I find it fascinating that a man in our house to do a job of work might give us this poem to read first, so I will reproduce it in full for the record (the CAPITALS are the author's, as is the punctuation, but I have corrected the spellings, except one, which is significant):

Just Don't Say You're English
Goodbye my England, so long my dear friend,
Your days are numbered, being brought to an end.
To be Scottish, Welsh or Irish is fine.
But don't say you're ENGLISH, that's way out of line.

The French and the Germans may call themselves such,
As may Norwegians, the Swedes and the Dutch,
You can say you are Russian, Polish or Dane, BUT,
Don't say you're ENGLISH ever again.

At Broadcasting House that word is taboo,
In Brussels they've stopped it, in Parliament too.
Even schools are affected, staff do as they're told,
They must not teach children about the ENGLAND of old.

Writers like Shakespear [sic], Milton and Shaw, the kids do not learn
About them any more.
About Agincourt, Hastings, Arnhem and Mons, when ENGLAND
Lost thousands of her brave sons.

We are NOT Europeans, how CAN we be? ENGLAND
Is miles away over the sea.
We're ENGLISH from ENGLAND so let's be proud
Stand up and be counted, shout it out loud! Let's tell our
Government and Brussels too, we're proud of our heritage
And the red, white and blue.
Fly the flag of ST GEORGE or the UNION JACK,
Let the whole world know WE WANT ENGLAND BACK.

Deep breath.

OK, let's go through this verse by verse. (If you look up this quite rubbish, anonymously-written poem on the internet, you'll end up on various forums, and not necessarily far-right ones - I found one for the over-50s and another for bikers.) Its thrust is clear: that England is being taken away from the English. That to be English is somehow a crime. Well, first of all, I'm English. I would instincitively tell someone in, say, France, that I was Anglais. I'm also British, by geographical definition, and European, but I don't really need a map to define me, and I'm certainly not proud to have been born somewhere and not somewhere else. I speak English. English is the most commonly-spoken language around the world - about a third of the world's population speak it.Unlike, say, the Welsh language ("To be Welsh is fine"), it's anything but under attack. It is flourishing. It is dominant. England, on those terms, still rules the waves. On any other terms, however, it doesn't any more, no matter how nice we are to America. We're just a little country with a good economy and some US air bases. I have no great pride in the Empire. As far as I can see, when we ruled the waves, we used them to sail to other countries, plant our flag, ship the minerals home and fuck the place up. Now I sound like I'm ranting, but this poem has gripped me with its storming SELF-CONFIDENCE.

The right, as embodied by the tradesman in our kitchen, are so confident. (I would never walk into someone's house and give them a poem about my political beliefs. Couldn't he see the Guardian on the kitchen table?) Confident, and yet so defensive and wounded and self-pitying at the same time. This poem is one long whine, and most of its facts are baseless. True, my passport says European Union at the top, followed by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That's factually correct. It says I am a British Citizen, but it also specifies my place of birth, Northampton, which is far more specific than just England. Where is it "out of line" to say you're ENGLISH? This is simple paranoia. "Don't say you're ENGLISH ever again"? Calm down. The word "ENGLISH" is not taboo at Broadcasting House, I can vouch for that. We've just had a World Cup in which England were the only competing team from these islands. The media was saturated with the word ENGLAND, and the ENGLISH fans were never off the news - for keeping out of trouble as much as for getting in it, I might add. It was a PR victory for the ENGLISH. The flag flew, annoyingly, from every white van. You couldn't get away from the red cross of St George. To not be ENGLISH in this country for those weeks must have been highly irksome. The English were hardly cowed and pathetic.

Now, the devolution of Wales and Scotland and its effect on Parliament, where Welsh and Scottish MPs still vote on issues affecting England, is one worthy of debate. But the word ENGLAND is not taboo. And the ENGLAND "of old" is taught in schools. That'll be the ENGLAND that oppressed the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish. We learnt about that. How about the ENGLAND that went to war with France just to make some money by holding their noblemen to ransom? That'll cover Agincourt, where, apparently, "thousands" of our "brave sons" died. I'm not doubting the bravery of the outnumbered English soldiers in that clearing, but it's not as if France started the war. Henry V invaded to increase his approval ratings at home. It's an old trick.

As for Hastings. Yes, the French invaded us on this occasion, but it was over a disputed claim to the throne. Harold claimed it, William, who was Edward the Confessor's cousin after all, opposed his claim. All I'm saying is, there's some dispute. It's not cut and dried.

Arnhem - a battle fought in the Second World War, which is never off the current curriculum in schools, wounded ENGLISHMEN - was a British defeat. Not an English defeat. In fact, it was a British-Polish defeat. The Germans held British and Polish forces on the Arnhem bridge (the Bridge Too Far, in fact), and we withdrew, a great many of our men never actually making it to the bridge in the first place because they were parachuted in to the wrong spot. Hardly a glorious victory for our boys. They fought valiantly obviously, but here again, I'm uncomfortable using the theatre of war to glorify the country I was born in. By the way, the Canadians eventually secured Arnhem. And the British army included Welsh, Scots and Irish, not to mention soldiers for the Commonwealth. Why pick out the ENGLISH who died for special treatment. Were they braver thant the Scots or the Poles? (Ha! The Poles were over here stealing our work even then!)

As for Mons - which doesn't rhyme with "sons", I hate to break that to the Unknown Poet - it's in Belgium and was the setting for the first battle of the First World War. Another British defeat, I'm afraid. The Canadians took it eventually. Are these four battles listed to make us feel sorry for our boys? If so, fair enough. British soldiers (not just English) have died all over the world for their country. They are remembered every year on Remembrance Sunday, a massive public event, which the media always covers.

Shakespear [sic], Milton and Shaw are apparently not taught in our schools. First, it's Shakespeare. Second, he is rammed down the throat of every schoolchild that's ever passed through any school in this country, and will be forever more. Milton, I never learnt at school. But we did Dickens (English), Eliot (American-born but based in England after the First World War) and Chaucer (English), not to mention Arnold (English) and Tennyson (English). Too many English authors if you ask me. It's biased the other way. And, you'll be ahead of me here, but George Bernard Shaw was Irish.

By all means, be proud to be ENGLISH if you must. No need to "shout it out loud" though, that's just boorish and stupid. Imagine me shouting, "I'm from Northampton!" out loud. Or, "I'm a man!" Equally silly. And if you're so hung up on being English, why are you so keen to fly the "red, white and blue"? That's the flag of the United Kingdom, something the English nationalist must surely be against with its woolly acceptance of other nations in graphic form? It's got the Scottish and Irish flags in it! It's about being united, not divided - it's about the bigger picture, not the smaller one. I suppose the author of the poem and the man who came to our house must yearn, painfully yearn, for a time when the Union flag was flown by the ships of the British Empire (hence the "Jack" part, which relates to a ship's ensign), off to lord it over Johnny Foreigner with his spices and his gold. If you really care about this country, get worked up about the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables we import when we could easily grow our own.

Oh, and if the man in our kitchen, who kindly showed us the poem, loves England so much, why's he planning to move to France? (God help France.)

Give it away now
More goods shifted in a charitable direction. This time we phoned ahead, and the Children's Society (not the Children's Trust - I think I made that up) in Reigate made positive noises. Again, no place to park, so we had to use the magic hazard lights, but fuck it, slowing down the Bell St traffic on the one-way system is a small price to pay. We started taking in the boxes (this time, six of videos, two of books), and, God bless them, the staff in there started to look a little vexed by the third delivery, so we put them out of their misery and offered to stop after six boxes. They seemed relieved. Nipped next door to St Catherine's Hospice, told them we had one box of videos and one box of books and they took them off our hands. Result. Another empty car. Only about four boxes of books and four of videos to go.

Is this interesting? Funnily enough, Radio Times phoned through with next week's choices and The Birds came up as candidate for the Movie Moment feature, where I describe one scene in detail. I offered to do it, thinking I had the film on DVD. Turns out I had it on video. And now the Children's Society have it on video.

Give it away - wow!
Charity update. Still had a car full of stuff from yesterday's failed attempt (three huge boxes of books - including one or two copies of Where Did It All Go Right? and Still Suitable For Miners, two of videos, a cat carrier, some Trivial Pursuit games and questions, other bric-a-brac) when I set off to buy some wood. I passed through Banstead for some Waitrose bits and pieces, and while I was there, on Tim Bowling's recommendation, I wandered down the High St to enquire about donations in the charity shops. There are two Cancer Research shops, which is a bit greedy, and I won't give to them as they test on animals (you've got to have some ground rules). I have no idea if Scope test on animals, but it's certainly not the bread and butter of the good work they do, and it's Richard Herring's favourite charity, so I was delighted by the response. Are you taking donations? Yes! The man at the counter called the woman from the back room, who called the manager, Alex, who told me I could park "round the back". I felt privileged. He and another woman even helped me unload the boxes and put them into the storeroom. They took the lot! With pleasure! I love Scope in Banstead.

Still have a few more boxes of videos and books, but we've really shifted a lot now. Thanks for all your suggestions. We might well try a depot for the next batch.

Incidentally, I was also successful in my quest for wood. I have decided to box in the pipes in the downstairs loo. This is a big deal for me. We are having new bathroom furniture installed by a local plumber. We had originally asked a decorating firm who also do basic plumbing and other work, but they couldn't fit us in until the first week of September, so we let them go. I asked the plumber if he could box in and he said he'd have a go if I got the wood for him. Well, I got the wood, but not for him, for me. I'll save myself some money and have a crack myself. I had the plywood cut to size in B&Q, Sutton, and once again praised that company for going out of its way to employ older people, who know so much more about these things. I painted the woodwork in the loo this afternoon, thus saving some more money.

Bloody hot, isn't it? Anybody else noticed that?

Give it away now?
Today was the first day of giving stuff to charity. In a great purge this summer, we have halved our library of books (this has been a psychologically cleansing act - when you choose to keep a book, it means more), and they are boxed up, ready to go. We are also, as mentioned before, jettisoning our entire pre-recorded video collection, which includes, among many famous feature films, music videos and TV shows, a full set of Hitchcocks, a full set of Woody Allens, a full set of Morse, The World At War, complete I, Clavdivs, four complete series of ER and on and on. That's hundreds of books and hundreds of videos, all in good condition, plus various other pieces of extraneous household, which are also boxed up and unused in many cases. It's a bonanza, and we decided to try and spread it out over a number of charity shops in the area. Here's how we fared:

Oxfam, Reigate A great start. Easy parking outside, and they were delighted to take two boxes of books, two boxes of videos and one box of various. One carload cleared. Back to base to reload.
Cats Protection, Purley Easy parking outside (20p for 15 minutes on meter). They wouldn't take a single item. Full up. Also, it looked like mostly clothes on circular rails in there. Pity, as it's one of our favourite charities.
Help The Aged, Purley Easy parking outside. They wouldn't take a single item either.
Oxfam, Purley Next door. The woman was awfully sorry but they were about to undergo a ten-day refurbishment and she couldn't take anything until this was completed. She said she'd love to take some books, if we could wait.
Children's Trust, Reigate Couldn't park outside due to Reigate one-way system, so pulled in on yellow line and put the hazards on, risking the wrath of pre-rush hour drivers and I went in first to see if they wanted anything. Closes at 4.30.
St Catherine's Hospice Closes at 4.30.
British Heart Foundation, Reigate At least they were open! The woman behind the counter gave an enthusiastic yes, so we started bringing the boxes up from where the car was parked, but as we arrived at the shop with the first load, another woman, presumbaly the manager, said actually, no, they weren't taking anything. Back to the car.

A hugely dispiriting afternoon. Now, I understand that space is of a premium at these shops, and that they're run for the very best of intentions, and that they close early, but from a purely selfish point of view, it's depressing to be turned away, for whatever reason. We'll try the Children's Trust shop again tomorrow, as I've been in there before and asked if they'd be interested and they were very keen. But after that, how much more driving are we prepared to do to offload all this good stuff? I am loath to throw any of it away. When we lived in Streatham, charities regularly did door-to-door collections, but not round here for some reason, otherwise this stuff would already be off our hands and hopefully doing some good.

Home truths
I think I'll reprint this in full. It's one of the developers from last week's Property Ladder (the eco-special), Julie, who was moved to post a comment on here after my assessment of the programme, which I really appreciate, but this is the insight into the distorting process of editing a TV show she posted on the C4 Homes Forum after one or two people had mocked she and partner JP's efforts to develop a healthy, natural, eco-friendly house in Surbiton:

Hi,
As one of the eco-friendly couple, thought I'd just add in some extra info about the development ... it's nice, but nerve-wracking to see it being discussed! Obviously what we did, or our personalities, won't please everyone, but there were several errors/generalisations in the show which I'd like to settle because we genuinely want to promote a more eco AND health conscious approach to building.

We're not developers, and normally live very happily on a small houseboat, and consuming very little, but have seen so much waste and missed opportunity going on in renovations - such as entire kitchens ripped out and replaced to sell ... just to be redone by the next owners - so we wanted to help promote recycling, and also the importance of upgrading a property's energy efficiency ... CO2 levels simply won't be met without improving existing housing stock.

They did over 10 full days of filming, and obviously chopped out lots to fit the small slot - with that amount of footage, it's possible to present various takes on what we were doing. Our intention was to do both eco-friendly AND healthy interior ... as I recently discovered a big part of a decade's poor health is due to chemical sensitivity. God knows where they got the 'packing chips' line from on the programme - the living room lights were naturally-vacated silk cocoons!!!

We deliberately avoided introducing new synthetic materials - MDF/carpets/plastics - into the flat as many of these outgass a whole cocktail of volatile organic compounds. This was part of the rationale for using the old kitchen carcasses - saving waste/manufacturing and transport energies - plus they were old enough (but in excellent condition) to have long outgassed most of the formaldehyde. We redesigned the layout mostly using the old cupboards and fitted high-quality solid beech-frame doors. We chose natural stone (reclaimed/leftovers where possible) and wood (also reclaimed or local), and used non-toxic finishes throughout ... such as pure tung oil for the worktops. We spent months researching the least toxic and least eco-impact goods - but the programme seemed to choose to pitch ours as 'eco', and the other one as 'healthy' so they missed out all our explanations about indoor air quality ... maybe we were just too earnest about it, and they need to make an entertaining program, but if you've been made ill by modern chemicals, then you would be wary of them too. (The eco-aspirator did get constructed in the office, though the air quality is SO good here it's not really needed, and my health is finally improving now.)

We had three aims ...
1. to show 'eco' can be 'chic and desireable' ... ie. NOT just niche market
2. to show it can be done on a budget (by reclaiming materials we actually put about 23,000 pounds worth of long lasting, quality, healthy materials into the flat, including top of the range boiler and solar heating, on a budget far lower than the one quoted), and
3. to consider the health of the occupants by NOT introducing unecessary toxins.

Designing SPECIFICALLY for true chemical sensitivity is a whole different ballgame as different individuals are sensitive to different things ... even natural products such as pine could cause problems for some.

JP is a designer, with many years' experience of all things eco, design and architecture, and does know exactly what he's talking about (when allowed to!) so at least it was mostly me that Sarah had a go at on screen! I'm never going to live down the lilac curtains.

It was a shame, however, that the programme didn't have time to put more about the reasons why we'd done some things - they'd filmed lots of us insisting on upgrading efficiency and sourcing locally/re-using/limiting waste and recyling wherever possible - items left over WILL find good homes! (We had planned to make all the furniture but ran out of time so borrowed eco-designer items.) We totally blew the budget by replacing an old, horribly inefficient back boiler with a new condensing boiler. We topped up the insulation, even foil backed radiators, changed to a genuine eco electricity supplier, got thermostatic valves, DIDN'T fit a power shower, stuck an A-rated fridge-freezer on the coolest, north wall, went for solar hot water which is very efficient these days, and spent that bit extra to use eco-friendly non-toxic paints which generate less waste, and don't lay me out for days just from the fumes ...

And energy-efficient homes will increasingly attract a premium price, so although not the most profitable approach now, it will become so...there are talks of waiving stamp duty on eco homes for example - now that would make any property more interesting as well as cheaper to run.

Yes, the outside of the flat isn't terribly pretty, but it was all my borrowing capacity would stretch to, and we quite liked the challenge of giving an unremarkable interior character. Rumours of what we've done to the flat have boosted the value of unmodernised ones here. They are in a convenient (if not pretty) location, and 2 beds round here are expensive. Unfortunately the valuations were done when the flat was less than half finished - partly due to us running WAY over schedule due to illness and circumstances and partly due to Sarah going on maternity leave - this is why the second bedroom, rest of the full length shower, and half the kitchen were missing in the programme.

The day AFTER they were done, once it was at least dressed and tidy, it was revalued at up to 250k, which was amazing, since we were hoping initially for 225. We received an offer of close to £250 from someone who'd just come to get ideas, and have had others wanting to buy it. If we were after material gain, we could have got an easy 20k by painting the flat and fitting new carpets, which would have avoided months of bloody hard work (you would not believe how much time went into the bathroom and those elm worktops), not to mention the public scrutiny, but we wanted to create something original to show eco can be fashionable ... so were gutted the figures were not accurate. Using quality reclaimed materials and items - bath/towel rail/taps/sink/kitchen for example - can save thousands, not to mention decreasing the impact of a renovation on the environment.

The project will appear in the September issue of Property Ladder magazine, which will hopefully give a more detailed account, and if anyone wants further details of our approach please email ecoflat@hotmail.co.uk ... and we'll send out an information pack (may be slight delay). Hope that clears up some of the confusion!

Julie

The full discussion is here.

This year's festival
I do love this job. Why else would I travel to Oxfordshire to attend Truck? I've paid my festival dues, and stopped going to Glastonbury in 1995, feeling ready for a life without Workers' Beer Company cups, vegetable tempura in a polystyrene tray and dry grass down Doctor Marten boots. But last year 6 Music sent me to Summer Sundae in Leicester and it was a terrific experience. Modest, local festival, good atmosphere, easy to wander offsite and get a train home. Likewise, Truck, which is even smaller, albeit slightly older than Summer Sundae at nine. Marc Riley did his show from the site on Saturday and, listening to it from the air-conditioned cool of 6 Music, I was struck by how little I fancied being there, as torrential rains came down while he was on air, and Julie Cullen was unable to do any of her backpack-assisted roving reportage. There was talk of wellies. While I appreciate the need for water during a drought and welcome it on my back garden and the parched Wray common, I wished for a dry day today. And we got it.



I drove up this morning, listening along the way to Regina Spektor's excellent new album (and Lily Allen's, which is entirely lovable). Up the A34 I passed signs for a village called Compton, which gave me a smile. The rolling Oxfordshire countryside couldn't be further from NWA's hood. All around is yellow cereal crop. Big wheels of wheat. It's rather lovely. Truck signs greeted me on the A3106 and I followed them, and the straggle of indie campers who'd ventured into Steventon for breakfast and supplies, to the site, which really is on a farm. I was a bit fancy with my ARTIST CAR PASS, watching barriers part as I approached them, but all it got me was a space next to a cow shed. Truck doesn't really do backstage. Indeed, the entire festival would fit into the backstage area at Glastonbury. There are stages everywhere. It's possible to stand in the middle and hear about three bands at once. The Didcot Rotary Club do the food. This is admirable, and gives the event a certain summer fete feel, but it also means that, as a festival, Truck is lacking the traditional "food village" of other similar events (no vegetarian curry? no tempura? no Cumberland sausages in a roll?) - it's a burger and a doughnut or nothing, really. Avoiding wheat here is as difficult as avoiding it in your eyeline as you drive up the A34. I ate a roll and a doughnut. It was that or starve.

The show went well from the sweatbox studio in a barn where Goldrush (festival organisers) record. I got gradually more shiny as the three hours went by. I met Henry and Kaps from Mystery Jets, who came in for a chat (like a good festival band, they are camping and have been here all weekend), also Regina Spektor, who was in a bad mood due to some trouble getting into the festival, refused to have her photo taken by Kris from the 6 Music website and bridled at my innocent (and true) description of her new album as more "accessible", but played a great song for us anyway, and The Race, a band from Reading, who brought everyone they knew into our tiny hot bunker for their song. I do like an outside broadcast - you tend to meet the same reliable hairy blokes who do this for the BBC for a living and can set up a working studio just about anywhere. So, I didn't get to see many bands outside of our own sessions (I think I saw the Dungeons in the Barn, which is a barn, but I can't be sure, and I caught The Race on the Truck Stage), but that's what happens when you leave the site the second your show's over.

If I'm going to attend a festival, I don't demand a car pass, but I do prefer the option to come and go as I please, and, ideally, to eat some wheat-free food. Oh, and I do demand that it is a nice place to spend some time. Truck fulfilled nearly all of those criteria, and I salute it.

Here's why we're all going to die
It's all to do with this house in Bow, East London. It is owned by a yoga teacher called Claire Harrigan. She appeared on Wednesday's Property Ladder, which had an eco theme. She wanted to develop a "healthy house" - a home free of modern toxins and filled with spirit-lifting ideas, such as "happy" coloured lighting and wiring carefully diverted from sleeping areas. This, you must admit, is admirable. However, and here's the rub, Claire seemed (and she may have been a victim of narrative-led editing) like an idiot. Instead of coming across as a visionary, committed human being, she seemed "batty" (Sarah Beeny's assessment), putting crystals beneath the floorboards, threatening to put in a circular bed, installing a "happy shower" (which sounds like a service offered by a prostitute) and working from a "plan" that was just words like "spirit" and "happiness" with starbursts drawn round them. She'd also been arsing around with her development for four years when the programme joined her, taking down supporting walls without rhyme or structural reason, and when she'd finished creating her vision, Sarah calculated that Claire could have made a profit if she'd done nothing and left it to the market. She actually spent 74 grand, and could have made 36 grand more profit if she'd left it and got on with her yoga.

Now, the important thing here is not that a silly woman in Bow failed to maximise profit from a development, but that she was chosen and presented by the programme as a nutcase. Eco-friendly in this case meant off her head. If Claire had been redesigning the house for herself, you couldn't have criticised, as it wouldn't have been about profit. But because she'd confused vision with business, she came out of it at a disillusioned loss. (Actually, she hadn't even sold it by the end, so the figures are academic.) My worry is that those who attempt to do something about the parlous state of the planet are still portayed as dimwits, or as comic relief. Poor old Claire seemed well-intentioned but ill-informed. She made some connection between the rise in the sale of organic food and a willingness for housebuyers to pay a premium for an eco-friendly house. The programme gave some practical advice about reclaiming wood and using energy-saving lightbulbs, but it's not its brief to save the world, it's about making money! Meanwhile, we're left with the impression that environmental types are simply mental. And a quick vox pop on Hungerford Bridge in London concluded that people are into the idea of an eco-friendly house, but wouldn't pay for it.

Meanwhile, over in conservative Surbiton, a lecturer and his astronomer girlfriend, JP and Julie, did an eco-friendly number on a 1970s flat. Much less silly than Claire, they actually said they wanted to prove that eco developing doesn’t have to be "woolly hats and sandals" - and good for them. But it was obvious they were in the wrong suburb, and their budget was miniscule. (Natural, non-chemical paints, for instance, cost a fortune - I can vouch for that.) At one point, when they almost seemed sensible, JP threatened to install an "eco aspirator", a vegetation system that's meant to improve the flat's air quality but cost two grand. Sarah talked him out of it. Cuh! Those nutty eco-warriors! (She was right, in the circumstances, but the narrative remained consistent.) They couldn't sell their finished flat either.

Message: don't bother.

This worries me as we are currently experiencing the hottest days on record. I know, I know, it was bloody hot in the summer of 1911, but the three warmest years on record, globally, have occurred since 1998, and 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. Meanwhile, bits of the Eiger broke off this week due to melting glaciers, there's almost no snow on the top of Kilimanjaro and polar bears are drowning in the Arctic. The Independent, ever-reliable in these matters, wrote an impassioned leader on Wednesday - the day Property Ladder made a monkey out of environmental builders - that ended with these words, which I quote in full:

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that most of the warming is caused by rising CO2 emissions directly attributable to human burning of nature's vast stores of coal, oil and natural gas. In the face of this, the silence on global warming from the leaders of the rich world gathered in St Petersburg was deafening. They were led in their foot-dragging by George Bush, who insists that the cost of mitigating global warming is too high to be justified in the light of what he calls the scientific uncertainty about the pace of climate change. The rest of the world sees no such uncertainty, and the heat of today will only underline that.

Which is why we're all going to die. And George Bush comes from Texas, where it's already hot and I expect even the horse stables are air-conditioned, so he's going to be the last to notice. (I've been to Houson and Dallas, and they were the hottest places I have ever visited. The restaurants advertise "refridgerated air". Now, if you grow up in that environment, a little bit of warming isn't going to strike you as odd, or worrying. But tell that to the Europeans dying in heat waves and forest fires, or the Inuits who can no longer rely on centuries-old food and weather patterns, or the next lot of poor people to lose everything in a hurricane or mudslide. Yo, Blair! Build some nuclear power stations - that'll fix this shit.) Open a window before you put on that air-conditioning. It might help.

This reminds me of my teen years, when I was so captivated by the movies I would literally watch anything that was on in order to bump up my numbers. There's a day from 1981, when I was 16, that always sticks in my mind because that entire day's diary entry is taken up with three film reviews. It was a Sunday, so I'm assuming I was catching up on stuff I'd recorded on video in the week (1981 was the Year We Got A Video). I think the list proves that I really would watch anything, as long as it was a film: Raid On Entebbe (1976 - I always put the year afterwards!), The Four Feathers (1978) and The Class Of Miss MacMichael (1978). I would republish my teenage reviews but they're mainly cast lists ("Peter Finch is a good actor. Charles Bronson is so rugged etc.", "Rob Powell, Jane Seymour, Simon Ward (of course!), Harry Andrews grunting etc.","Is Oliver Reed in every Glenda Jackson film?"), and each has a sweet little caricature to accompany. Yes, quite the little film critic. The reason I mention all this is that today, due to it being too hot to work, and due to me being in the house on my own from dawn till dusk, I decided to watch some films. Hey, why the hell not? I also took the broken lawnmower to a place in Epsom where they fix lawnmowers and re-nosed a radio script I have to record tomorrow, although why I feel the need to defend myself for goofing off and doing "research and development" I don't know ...


Cabin Fever (2004) Inspired, obviously, by seeing Eli Roth's Hostel two days ago. I just had to check out his debut, and it was reduced to 6.99 in HMV. First things first: it's only a 15 certificate, so the claims that it's "terrifying" on the box are somewhat diluted. It is pretty creepy though, and, like Hostel, influenced by 1970s horror, with a big dose of Evil Dead thrown in. Five friends, including two nubile girls, head out to some unspecified bit of rural America to stay in a cabin; in panicky self-defence, they kill a man infected with a flesh-eating virus, and catch it themselves, one by one. There are plenty of gross-out scenes, including one involving the most nubile girl shaving her legs, and one that takes places during some foreplay, that will make you feel slightly ill. Beyond that, it turns into a fight against the local hillbillies. It's funnier than Hostel - it even ends on a gag - but whether it's saying anything about the ostracisation of the diseased, I don't rightly know. It's not a bad little film - Roth does a lot with $1.5 million, and the build-up, once again, is handled like someone who's seen a lot of horror movies.


V For Vendetta (2006) This is out on DVD next week I think, and I'm reviewing it for RT. Based on the Alan Moore graphic novel, although the old grump's had his name taken off it, and quite faithful to artist David Lloyd's drawings, this was originally a dystopian future based by Moore on a kind of Thatcher's Britain gone even more wrong, with a big debt to 1984, as per all dystopian futures. It's been smartly updated - by the Wachowski Brothers - to present a Britain run on the fear of terrorism (hey, that could never happen), with Natalie Portman kidnapped by V, the masked Guy Fawkes freedom fighter who intends to blow up Parliament. As John Hurt's Big Brother-type crypto-fascist leader appears all big on screens, and his suited stormtroopers go about their clean-up business, it's down to Stephen Rea's detective-with-a-conscience to uncover what really happened when that bio-attack killed 100,000 people and swept John Hurt to power. Hmmmmm. I wonder. It's sixth-form stuff in this reduced form, and yet taken far too seriously. There's little sense of camp here, even with V swooshing around in mask and cape and cooking fried eggs in his gloves. It's a little too earnest for my tastes. I've seen too many doors being kicked down by jackbooted futurepoliceman and innocent citizens being rubbed out for subversive acts. Brazil owns the patent on that. And Stephen Fry's Benny Hill-esque chat show host/comedian didn't work at all. Not his fault; badly-sketched character. (I'm pretty sure he wasn't a celebrity in the novel.) Considering how much talking there is in it, it's all spelled out in huge letters. Another problem, it's frustrating when a major character is in an unmoving, solid mask throughout; it's as if his voice is dubbed on and this creates a real disconnect for the audience.


Weekend (1967) "What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people." I was inspired to plug this gap in my collection by a conversation with Robin Ince. It's one of those films I've just never got round to seeing, and I certainly feel richer for having finally experienced it. Jean Luc Godard was really cooking in the 60s, just taking film apart and slinging it back together again, all the while making revolutionary polemical points about borgeois society as he saw it. In this, a frightful middle-class couple drive to the French countryside to muscle their way into her dying father's will (I think - they spend an awful lot of time at the beginning of the film talking about a detailed sexual fantasy while he smokes Gitanes). Along the way, if that's not too conventional a concept, they end up in a multiple car pile-up (one of many glimpsed througout the film) and wander, lost, until they are captured by armed revolutionaries, who also turn out to be cannibals. It's all honking horns, pulling people out of cars, firing off guns and the uncouth brutality and selfishness of modern folk. Deeply allegorical, it's also very funny and very disturbing. You spend all this time trying to work out if Eli Roth is saying something about society, when in fact, it's all Godard is doing. I have no idea what he's saying most of the time, but it's bracing nonetheless. I love his brash intertitles, and the way the music just cuts in and out. And I love the metatextual gags - at one point, one of the revolutionaries is on a radio and the call-signs he uses are "The Searchers" and "Battleship Potemkin". He's a funny guy. And the famous ten-minute tracking shot along an endless traffic jam on a country lane is inspired. Yes, Godard fucks about, but he's like Les Dawson, he knows how to do it properly too. He's earned the right.

Incidentally, I saw a total of 121 films in 1981. I was rather pleased with that at the time. I managed 144 in 1982.

Hostile
Not my usual cup of tea, but I've read so much about wunderkind Eli Roth, 34, I thought I'd better get behind the sofa and experience Hostel, which is out on DVD in a couple of weeks. I've not seen Cabin Fever, his flesh-eating-virus calling-card, which cost $1.5 million and made around $30 million, but it sounds pretty nasty. Hostel, I've read an awful lot about. Kim Newman wrote a fine think-piece in Sight & Sound about the phenomenon of torture movies, in particular the political ramifications of Americans being tortured. The film is about two American backpackers (plus an older Icelandic companion they've hooked up with), hiking across Yurp in search of kicks rather than museums and art galleries. In Amsterdam - where one of them at least notes the preponderence of American backpackers - they meet an East European who suggests they travel to Slovakia, where the girls are hot and there are no men "because of the war." Because of the war? Now either this is clever satire, or Roth actually doesn't know that the Yugoslav war affected Slovenia, not Slovakia. I'll accept it may be the former, which makes Hostel a clever satire about the geographical idiocy of Americans. It's all foreign to them. It's all "the rest of the world". Naturally, this tip-off proves their undoing, and they are sucked into a gruesome torture ring, about which I'll say no more, even though other reviewers seem happy to go into great detail about the whys and wherefores. It's better if you don't know exactly what's going on until the revelatory third act. That is, if you're interested in the story. If you just want to see some horrible sadism involving tools, such fripperies won't trouble you.

I came away from Hostel slightly troubled. It's not a badly-made film. The tension builds nicely. Sex and death are, as is traditional, interlinked, and as soon as our two idiot heroes get laid, you know they're for the high jump, but at least most of the violence is meted out on males and not squealing females. This is, in itself, refreshing. But if Roth is making any points at all, about xenophobia, or anti-Americanism in Europe, or the need for snuff-style gratification in an increasingly pornographic culture, the very act of making a film that glorifies physical torture completely undermines it. At the end of the day, when the blood's been sluiced down the drain and the butcher's aprons hung up, Hostel is a gorefest for audiences who like that type of thing. It titilates, sexually and viscerally, and parades yet another technically impressive show of prosthetic and latex makeup effects, its mission mostly to top the last gorefest. It's enjoyable on these terms, if enjoyable is the right word. I was certainly gripped, and repelled, and nauseated. (And the craftsmanship of the makeup artists is given a worthy platform in the making-of featurettes on the DVD.)

I would say that it's not as profound as it thinks it is, but then again, it's possible that it doesn't think it's profound at all, and Eli Roth really doesn't know the difference between Slovakia and Slovenia.

Is anybody else deeply embarrassed by the off-duty conversation caught on mic in St Petersburg between President Bush and Tony Blair? I am. That said, I also find it fascinating, as we so very rarely catch any kind of meaningful glimpse of their fabled relationship beyond stage-managed bonhomie at Crawford Ranch and formal joint press conferences, during which they exchange smiles like teenage lovers, but what does it actually tell us about these two men and the way they regard one another?

Bush Yo, Blair. How are you doing?
Yo, Blair? Is this a form of address our Prime Minister approves of? Does it not give him flashbacks to public school? Maybe he likes it. Maybe it speaks to him of informality, when actually it sounds to me like Bush is saying, "Here, boy!" Let us vow never to forget this greeting. This is the crux of their relationship, and thus, a key to everything that's precarious about global politics.
Blair I'm just ...
Bush You're leaving?
Yes, Mr President, he's fucking leaving. Just off, like that, mid-G8. Bye!
Blair No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy ... [inaudible]
I know Blair's big thing is to downplay, act like "one of us", with his shirtsleeves and his glottal stops, but sometimes, just sometimes, to describe something as a "thingy" kind of, I don't know, belittles it somehow. Maybe, in his defence, this is the only language the President of the United States of America understands.
Bush Yeah, I told that to the man.
The man? Is that the best he can do? Which man? The nice man with the moustache? The fat man with the bald head? The funny lookin' man with the mane of grey hair? Specify.
Blair Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush If you want me to.
Wait! Blair's not Bush's poodle after all! Bush is asking permission from Blair to say a thing to a man!
Blair Well, it's just that if the discussion arises ...
Bush I just want some movement.
Blair Yeah.
Bush Yesterday we didn't see much movement.
Blair No, no, it may be that it's not, it may be that it's impossible.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Bush I am prepared to say it.
You are prepared to say a vague thing to an unidentified man? Who said these summits are toothless talking shops?
Blair But it's just I think what we need to be an opposition...
Bush Who is introducing the trade?
Blair Angela [Merkel, the German chancellor].
Bush Tell her to call 'em.
Yeah, Blair, tell the lady to call them. Let's have some action here.
Blair Yes.
Surely, "Yo, Bush!"
Bush Tell her to put him on, them on the spot. Thanks for [inaudible] it's awfully thoughtful of you.
This refers to a jumper Blair gave Bush as a present. Something woolly. How appropriate.
Blair It's a pleasure.
Bush I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair Oh, absolutely, in fact [inaudible].
Apparently Blair jokes, "I knitted it." What fun they have.
Bush What about Kofi? [inaudible] His attitude to ceasefire and everything else ... happens.
It's hard to see why the situation in the Lebanon appears so intractable when great minds like this are discussing it in such a forthright manner.
Blair Yeah, no I think the [inaudible] is really difficult. We can't stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
Bush Yeah.
Blair I don't know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain seems to be offering to nip over to Israel to see what the lie of the land is. Flat, I think you'll find.
Bush I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.
She gets a nickname based on her first name. No "Yo, Rice!" for the ladies. Respect due.
Blair But that's, that's, that's all that matters. But if you ... you see it will take some time to get that together.
Bush Yeah, yeah.
Glad you understand, Mr Bush.
Blair But at least it gives people ...
Bush It's a process, I agree. I told her your offer to ...
Blair Well ... it's only if I mean ... you know. If she's got a ... or if she needs the ground prepared as it were ... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Talk like that and you'll have the crisis solved in a jiffy.
Bush You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hizbullah to stop doing this shit and it's over.
Why Syria don't just do this simple thing, I don't know. It's almost as if ... it's more complicated than that.
Blair Syria.
Bush Why?
What do you mean, "Why?" You said Syria first.
Blair Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
Bush Yeah.
Blair What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way ...
Who is "he"? We don't know for certain. Possibly Bashar al-Assad of Syria, as he gets a namecheck in a moment: "Yo, Assad!"
Bush Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.
Sweet as!
Blair He is honey. And that's what the whole thing is about. It's the same with Iraq.
Wait a minute. Did Blair just describe another world leader as "honey"? Is he trying to get in with Bush by talking downhome shit? Or should there be a comma, as in, "He is, Honey"?
Bush I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair Yeah.
Yeah!
Bush We are not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair Is this ... ? [at this point Blair taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.]

Boo! We were just geting into that! I could honestly listen to these two all day.

Better than the Secret Machines?
Another album of the year has arrived: Return To Cookie Mountain. I've been aware of Brooklyn's TV On The Radio (not, we must assume, named in honour of Tommy Vance), but I've never sat down and listened to a whole album of theirs - I know, their first one was really a big EP. This, their second or third, depending on whether you count the first one, has turned my head. I can't stop listening to it. It reminds me of early Peter Gabriel, Psychedelic Furs and the Afghan Whigs, a rum list which may already have piqued your interest. It's so rhythmically interesting, and Tunde Adebimpe's vocals are soulful and oblique at the same time. This is dark, funky rock music that really pulsates and intrigues (and I had no idea of the band's racial makeup when I first heard them - four black, one white - which takes away any preconceptions). It reminds me of Ten Silver Drops by Secret Machines only in that it has captivated me in the same way and proves that big rock music does not have to be vague, woolly, ploddy and soulless, like Keane and Snow Patrol and latter Coldplay. God is in the sonic details, the droning sample on I Was A Lover, for instance. David Bowie is a fan of TVOTR and appears, vocally, on Province, but it is testament to the band's innate Bowieness that it sounds like him singing on Playhouses too. It's currently at number one in the 6 Music Chart, which means it has not troubled the Official UK Top 40 - another similarity with the Secret Machines album - and thus remains one of those "rock's best-kept secret" phenomenons.

Here is the news ...
The Radio Times has published a list of 25 movies every aspiring film buff should see. Alongside undisputed classics such as La Dolce Vita and Casablanca, editor Andrew Collins has included some rather more contentious "must-sees", most prominently Armageddon, the blockbuster starring Bruce Willis as the hero protecting planet Earth from a meteorite collision. "Snobbery does not belong to the film buff," commented Collins. "To understand the 1980s/1990s blockbuster, you must accept producer Jerry Bruckheimer into your life. Armageddon is the pinnacle of Bruckheimer excess."

That's from today's Guardian. (I'm not the editor of Radio Times, by the way, but it's only a journal of record.) This breaking news story was also in the Mirror:

THE 25 MOVIE CLASSICS THAT EVERY FILM BUFF MUST SEE
BEST EPICS, FLOPS AND ODDITIES
By Nicola Methven, TV Editor
THERE are 25 iconic movies every wannabe movie buff must see, experts claim. The diverse list includes timeless classics such as Casablanca, La Dolce Vita and High Noon. But it also has blockbusters such as Jerry Bruckheimer's disaster flick Armageddon, ridiculed by critics but a worldwide hit. Radio Times' Andrew Collins, who drew up the table, said: "Snobbery doesn't belong to the film buff blah blah blah ..." The compilation, with entries in no particular order, also has well-known films such as sci-fi epic Blade Runner and Hitchcock's Rear Window. But there are some you might have missed at your local Odeon - Salvador Dali's surrealist piece Un Chien Andalou and 1919 German horror The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, for example. There is even room for Hollywood's biggest flop Heaven's Gate, which cost 22million but made back less than 2million. Andrew added: "It's possible to enjoy it despite knowledge of the budget and chaos behind the camera."

It also helped filled space in the Mail and probably others too. That's how journalism works. Radio Times puts out a press release each week running through what's in the magazine, and unless there's a war on (hang on ...), it will help fill the newspapers. This week, it just happens to be a bare-bones precis of How To Be A Film Buff, my 25 must-see-films feature in this week's mag, the subtleties of which are of course lost in translation. On the Mail website, where comments are invited after each story, they have fallen into my trap and started banging on about the films I have stupidly "missed off", as if perhaps I did actually miss them off. There are reasonable calls for the likes of Kes and The Godfather, but one chap thinks these superior titles should replace "irrelevent trash" like Blackboards, a fine allegorical piece from the flourishing cinema of Iran. Idiot. Hey, that's why we did the piece, to encourage debate. Oh, and to fill some of the Radio Times during the slow summer months!

For the record, these are the original 30 films (reduced to 25 to fit over five pages), in no particular order, each one with an alternative choice, making 60. Discuss:

1 CASABLANCA (1942)
If wet: Citizen Kane (1941)

2 THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI (1920)
If wet: Nosferatu (1921)

3 BLADE RUNNER (1982)
If wet: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969)

4 A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946)
If wet: The Red Shoes (1948)

5 OUT OF THE PAST (1947)
If wet: The Big Sleep (1946)

6 LA DOLCE VITA (1960)
If wet: The Bicycle Thieves (1948)

7 HIGH NOON (1952)
If wet: The Searchers (1956)

8 REAR WINDOW (1954)
If wet: Psycho (1960)

9 THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (1958)
If wet: Rashomon (1950)

10 BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
If wet: Easy Rider (1969)

11 BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
If wet: His Girl Friday (1940)

12 THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)
If wet: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

13 UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1928)
If wet: L'Age D'Or (1946)

14 ARMAGEDDON (1998)
If wet: Con Air (1998)

15 HEAVEN'S GATE (1980)
If wet: Dances With Wolves (1990)

16 ANNIE HALL (1977)
If wet: Manhattan (1979)

17 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
If wet: An American In Paris (1951)

18 A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS (1985)
If wet: Drowning By Numbers (1988)

19 PATHS OF GLORY (1957)
If wet: A Few Good Men (1988)

20 PERFORMANCE (1970)
If wet: Blow-Up (1969)

21 BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)
If wet: Dracula (1931)

22 BLACKBOARDS (2000)
If wet: The Apple (1998)

23 THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)
If wet: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

24 PULP FICTION (1994)
If wet: Reservoir Dogs (1991)

25 HERO (2002)
If wet: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)

26 SHOAH (1985)
If wet: Night And Fog (1955)

27 WINTER LIGHT (1962)
If wet: The Silence (1963)

28 THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974)
If wet: Three Days Of The Condor (1975)

29 GIMME SHELTER (1970)
If wet: The Last Waltz (1978)

30 WITHNAIL AND I (1986)
If wet: This Is Spinal Tap (1982)

... oh, and Phil Urr was a made-up contributor's name we used to use at Q. Geddit?!

Of course you have!
Watched the final segment of BBC1's Big Cat Week from last night. It was the most irksome of the run, with Jonathan Scott tear-arsing around the scrubland trying to find Toto, the baby cheetah, as if his life - and not just a run of five natural history programmes - depended on it. He didn't find him in the end, despite some dramatic editing, and a false alarm with a different baby cheetah, that almost finished him off, but that's nature, Jonathan, as you know better than any of us, having lived in Africa for 30 years! The "chase" to find him was utterly artificial (by which I mean, they were actually chasing, but the "deadline" was because it was Friday). So what if a man and a camera crew didn't find a cheetah and her cub? Africa's a big place. If a cheetah sits down in the bush and a TV crew doesn't record it, has she really sat down at all? Yes.

I thank the BBC for filming all this cat action, but it's been frustrating as hell watching it. All those cutaways to Saba grinning like a fool when she found Bella the leopard, when we could have been watching - hey! - Bella the leopard. It's all wrong. Good luck, Toto and Notch and Chui, may you survive another year in the scary old natural world, and may you roam far enough that the "spotters" don't spot you in time for next year's Big Cat Week.

Simon King, get back to Naturewatch. You other pair, watch some David Attenborough.

Friday night: Rob Newman's new show, No Planet B, at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London. If you caught his exemplary History Of Oil on More4 (why haven't they repeated it on C4 yet?), you'll be au fait with his current style (illustrated political seminar meets music hall). No Planet B is his History of the World Backwards, an insanely over-ambitious conceit that sprawls over two hours, with interval, taking in slides, impressions and songs. Lots of songs. Here's how it opens:

The history of the world backwards. What does it look like? From a distance we may see the mighty sweeps of population. We gaze in horror upon American Indians as in 1900 they begin a process of ethnic cleansing, so relentless and ruthless that by 1492 there is not one single European living on the North American landmass.

Approach a little closer and we observe how a man's life changes his character. In the southern cone of Africa, Nelson Mandela enters prison a sweet-natured Spice Girl fan but emerges from long incarceration an embittered terrorist bent on the armed overthrow of the state.

Closer still and we see... ourselves! Look! Look ... look ...!

This mix of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow with 1066 And All That fake history is, of course, shot through with satirical barbs at the way we live now, as oil is undiscovered and technology is uninvented, without which, it would not be a Rob Newman show. Whether you like him or not, whether you agree with his extreme liberal, anti-coporate views or not (and I think you know where I stand), you have to respect his total reinvention, from early 90s comedy heartthrob to cut-me-do-I-not-bleed-Seattle anti-globalisation activist. I witnessed the first wave of metamorphosis with his awkward but admirable Resistance Is Fertile show at Edinburgh in 2000, where traces of the old Rob held back the new Rob, but in the intervening years, not least through his rather beautiful and difficult novel, The Fountain At The Centre Of The World, he has achieved a kind of peace. Which is to say, he's fucking angry, and prepared to walk as well as talk for the causes he cares deeply about, but his comedy - or at least his performance (as some of this is not funny, and not intended to be) - has found its own niche as a result. I wish I'd seen him tour with Mark Thomas. That sounds like a good match, albeit they attack similar monsters with different tools.

I have to declare an interest. I know Rob of old. I met him when he first made inroads as a circuit impressionist (doing Ronnie Corbett and Jonathan Ross, oh and the Ayatollah Khomeini) into radio. I interviewed him so often for NME and Vox we started to see each other socially. It was a happy time, but tinged with problems, as I was still a journalist at the end of the night, Rob had his own insecurities, and our friendship fractured after a review I wrote of the sub-standard Mary Whitehouse Experience book (its chief crimes: bad sub-editing and a clash of egos among the four contributors, by which entries in the mock encyclopaedia were initialled to indicate who had written them, which went against the collaborative grain, I felt). So we necessarily drifted apart. He retreated from the limelight. But it's been pleasant to see him again, and I'm delighted that his career has found new rails. Smaller shows, smaller audiences (appreciative ones, judging by the Tricycle run), but bigger gestures.

No Planet B is worth catching when it tours, as it must. Rob has a lovely singing voice, and the accompanied music, very much in the style of Tom Waits (ukelele, accordian, acoustic guitar, junkyard percussion), is haunting. But there's a lot of it, so be prepared, and the narrative, weighed down by the high concept and a running love story thread, does occasionally buckle. But you don't get this much information and invention in the average stand-up show, so value for money is not an issue. He's a likeable tour guide, looks dashing in a stovepipe hat, and his Edwyn Collins impression is a show-stopper.

I hope to God comedy audiences aren't as dumb as they make out ...

Good and bad. Good: the BBC Natural History Unit at Bristol have been on holiday to the African bush again, to bring us unique pictures of lions, leopards and cheetahs, spread across a whole week of programmes. Bad: three people keep getting in the way in their Land Rovers. I believe they are called presenters.



Simon King, Jonathan Scott and Saba Douglas-Hamilton are admirable people. They love the natural world, they adore and respect big cats, and they are filled with an enthusiasm for their subject that goes beyond professional detachment and into rhapsody. However, their brief on this series seems to be to translate ie. tell us stupid members of the viewing public what we are seeing. If Notch, the male lion in the Marsh tribe, roars, they tell us he's roaring, while he's roaring. Yes, they do that whisper that wildlife presenters in close proximity to their subject do, but they're still talking over the top of the action. Worse, all three tear around in their jeeps after the lions, leopards and cheetahs as if to make the "chase" more exciting. Even though they are only there to record footage, there's an element of safari about it that I don't like. When they are parked, these presenters are literally between us and the big cats. At one point last night, the female cheetah actually hopped up on the roof of one of the camera vehicles and stretched out there. It was lovely to see her shot close-up from underneath, through the sun roof, but it tells you all you need to know about the intrusive nature of the filming. And when they're not just obscuring the view, they're treating the audience like children, in a programme that airs at 7pm and in a TV age when even children aren't treated like children.

While Douglas-Hamilton, by far the most irritating of the trio, whips herself up into a state of grace about the movements of her leopard ("Bella's making her way up the bank"), King and Scott indulge in the most discredited kind of anthropomorphism, imagining what the delectable baby cheetah, Toto, is saying to her mum, or what Notch is saying to his lady lions. Now, as cat lovers, we are guilty of trying to second guess what Pepper is saying when she miaows at us, but I wouldn't stake my zoological reputation on it. This lot talk with such authority. And yet, when Toto's mum went off to catch an antelope for supper, leaving little Toto back at the mound, unprotected and squeaking like a baby bird, Jonathan Scott, with his comedy moustache, seemed genuinely concerned that she wouldn't find him again. Of course she'd find him! She's a wild animal that lives in the wild!

Give me stunning pictures of big cats. Edit them together by all means. Play African music in the background and drop in dramatic shots of Land Rovers rattling along between catty bits. But don't treat me like a fool, and don't talk over the lions.

The pleasure and the privilege is mine
It was way back in November 2005 that the University of Northampton (formerly Nene College when I went there to do my one-year Foundation art course in 1983-84) contacted me with these formal words: "The Governing Council and Senate are minded to confer on you an Honorary Fellowship at a Graduation Ceremony taking place in July 2006." And today, it all finally came together at Park Campus in Northampton, held under glorious blue skies, and with due pomp and circumstance, amid the actual graduation of about 200 degree students from the School of the Arts. It was on this site, in 1981, that I saw my first rock gig - U2 on their Boy tour, supported by Altered Images - in the refectory. An historic day then, an historic day today.

With Mum, Dad and Julie as my guests, we arrived at the University's Sunley Management Centre at midday, there to be greeted by Melva Duley, Senior Administrative Officer, who introduced us to the Chairman of the Governing Council, John Castle, the Vice Chancellor, Ann Tate, and Dean of the School of the Arts, Dave Keskeys (whom I have already met and had lunch with). The Mayor and Mayoress of Wellingborough were also there (I mention this not because I am impressed by chains of office, quite the reverse, but because I once drew a caricature of the Mayoress, when she was just an ordinary dance teacher and friend of my Mum's, and so I met her on equal terms). There is, of course, an air of formality about the occasion, but at the same time, the people involved - university types, after all - are very nice and normal, and the lunch was peppered with lively conversation about subjects as diverse as Craig Charles, 24-hour news and the complaints procedure at the BBC and the University, with head-of-the-table Professor Peter Bush, the Pro Vice Chancellor (as opposed, one assumes, to the Amateur Vice Chancellor). Pretty good buffet too, and they had peppermint tea!

Then I was whisked away for robing. I was dressed in the electric pale blue and fluorescent sea green cape pictured, and fitted with a blue cap that was half mortar board, half Shakespearian actor. Official photographs were duly taken, holding what I took to be a fake scroll in a blue crested tube, such as those often employed at graduations for photographic purposes. I left the tube on the table, kept my raiments on, and went to be interviewed by the education correspondent of the Chronicle & Echo. Then it was procession time! While the guests were minibused to the marquee, I was called upon to march there as part of a formal, robed parade through the university grounds, led by men with sceptres.

This is us arriving at the podium:



(The man in front of me is Nick, whose entire job it was to tell me when to sit and stand, and when to remove and replace my silly hat. I liked him.) The marquee was packed with mums and dads, and art students self-conscious but secretly rather proud of themselves in gowns. It was hot in there, with much wafting of programmes to keep cool. You should try wearing a suit and a cloak and an Elizabethan hat! The Vice Chancellor made her address first, very serious, very formal, but important, as she basically bigged up the University and the studes. It was their day too, not just mine. But before they could troop up, have their name read out and shake the Vice Chancellor's hand, they had to sit through Dave Keskeys' citation ie. him talking about me for quite a long time, by way of explanation to those who haven't seen The 100 Greatest Pop Videos as to why I was being made an Honorary Anything. As guided by Nick, I had to get up, put my hat on and stand about three feet away from the lecturn and look formal while Dave read out my life story. it was like drowning and your whole life flashing before you.

Then it was my turn at the mic. With an audience of art students and a sea of parents either side, I opted for a sincere but lighthearted speech, planned in my head rather than on notes, with a few disparaging remarks about art students and a heartfelt vote of thanks for the Fellowship, which I got out of the way early, for fear of leaving it out in the heat of rushing to the end of my alloted five minutes. I read three entries from my 1977 diary from the time when I attended Saturday morning art classes at Nene College, to capture the wonder of a 12-year-old boy entering the art school's hallowed halls.

Saturday, September 24
This morning I went to a special art class at Nene College. Angus went and so did 60 others. There will be a test to see who is good enough to pass. We had to sketch a load of old junk today. Mine was good. We will do painting next week.

Saturday, November 5
As I've passed the admission test I now go to Nene College art classes. Simon Brown also goes. Today we did pencil sketches about tone and shade.

Saturday, November 12
Went to Nene College as usual.

(How quickly the magic fades!)

Saturday, November 19
Got the new double ELO LP. It is fab. In it there is a brill poster of ELO.

I also told the James Bolam story that will form the prologue of my book, so I'm not telling it here. It was an exclusive for the graduates of the School of the Arts, and anyone else I tell it to in the meantime. Either way, it allowed me to use the word "bollocks", triumphantly, at the climax, which actually got a round of applause. I told them they were pathetic for clapping a swear word, but was secretly very pleased. Then I shook the hand of the Chairman, pictured below, and sat back down, my shirt stuck to me beneath the robes.



After all 200 or so students had filed onto the stage and back to their seats, each one duly applauded (this is only one of nine ceremonies this week, processing over 2,000 graduates), we stood for the National Anthem - luckily we weren't expected to sing this irrelevent dirge - and filed out. One quick procession later and we were back at the Management Centre for disrobing, at which point I was given back my blue tube, which turned out not to be a prop, but a container with my Fellowship in it.

It was a grand day out. I remain flattered and honoured to have had this rolled-up piece of paper conferred upon me by the college I will always know as Nene. (It's pronounced "Nenn", out-of-towners, not "Neen.") It was good fun to say one swear word in front of hundreds of people, and I know Mum and Dad were proud (of the Fellowship, not the swear word). There was an article in the Guardian last week asking, "What's the point of honorary degrees?", having a cheap dig at the likes of Billy Connolly for accepting so many, and for Hull University, for giving one to Pierluigi Collina, the famous Nosferatu-faced ref. Firstly, what's the harm in it? Secondly, what's Billy Connolly going to do? Turn them down? How rude would that be? And anyway, mine's not an honorary degree. I've already got a degree (not that anyone's ever asked to see it in my 19 year career). It's a Fellowship. And since I'm not famous enough to bring the University much publicity (outside of the Chronicle & Echo), I believe their reasons for giving me it are genuine. As are mine for accepting it.

Oh, by the way, the following other people have received, or are receiving, honorary Doctorates and Fellowships this week: Ben De Lisi (a fashion designer), Sir Malcolm Arnold (composer), Jonathan Ollivier (ballet dancer), Elizabeth Cracknell (something to do with occupational therapy), Chelly Halsey (sociologist), Sir Patrick Walker (MI5) and Lord Bernard Donohue (Downing Street Policy Unit). I expect their families are also proud.

I must mention the Griffin Inn restaurant at Pitsford, where Mum and Dad took us for dinner. A lovely old-fashioned pub setting, tremendous food and friendly service. They also served peppermint tea. Today, as Ice Cube once observed, was a good day.

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