Tales of the Decongested

I was pleasantly surprised when I went into Foyles on the last Friday in March. It was much less chaotic, altogether more roomy and tidy-looking than on my last visit. That was probably a few years ago, as I'd more or less given up trying to buy anything there what with the unhelpful assistants and cumbersome paying procedures. Besides, I've been using the library a lot.

I was there in the evening to listen to short story readings. These take place, apparently on the last Friday of every month at 7.00pm in The Gallery. When I tried to get to The Gallery on the second floor all was as I remembered from the old times. I turned left out of the lift, went as far as I could and when I reached an enquiry desk I was told to go to the opposite end of the building. There I saw four rows of chairs with bright red upholstery ranged in a a shallow arc in front of a platform.

The reading event is called 'Tales of the Decongested' and I'd encouraged one of my Goldsmiths class members to submit a short piece, having obtained the website address from my online writing group, www.writewords.com . He was really surprised to have his piece chosen but hadn't wanted to read it, so persuaded a friend to do so.

The event was well-attended by more than 100 people who filled up all the chairs. There was no wine because, said one of the young organisers, they were still negotiating the alcohol licence. Another sign that the old traditions have not changed too much. The standard of composition and reading was really high so I'll definitely go to the next one, on April 27th. My colleague said later he enjoyed the occasion and would submit again. It remains to be seen whether or not he'll read himself next time.

What I didn't like was that one thoughtless woman had two junior-aged children with her. Why? It wasn't billed as a childrens' event. Maybe the 'tales' of the title misled her - there are lots of library readings for children these days. The subject matter and language of the stories were very unsuitable and the organisers should have warned her.

I thought 'Tales of The Decongested' might be some kind of ironic reference to the traffic congestion charge, but more likely it's a reference to writers' block . I don't really know. The website address is http://www.decongested.com/ You can click to see stories in the archive. My colleague's story is titled 'Penalty Shoot-out', a really funny read.

Roy and I went to see 'L'Amigo de la Familia' (The Family Friend), directed by Paul Sorrentino, at the Renoir yesterday. We'd seen a previous film by this director, 'The Consequences of Love', which was an impressively told story of an ex mafia character stuck in a hotel waiting for a weekly consignment of money. He falls in love with a bar-maid. I liked the air of mystery with which the director surrounds his characters and the unexpected plot developments.

'A Family Friend' is ironically titled, a striking film with surreal tableaux-like images and an intriguing story line, although the title of the former film would suit it just as well. Mostly it was a character study of a grotesque, seventy year old miser,Geremia, who lives with his bedridden mother and preys on the local community as a loanshark whilst pretending to be helping them out of the goodness of his heart. His hobbies include shoplifting and beach combing with a metal detector although he also fishes with a Gino, a man in his forties who dresses in cowboy clothes and dreams of living in Tennessee. One of Geremia's more disgusting traits is his lust for young women - he watches female volleyball players from the window of his flat and then hires a prostitute to act out the game in his bedroom, using balls suspended from the ceiling. He is too mean to pay for an attractive woman, though.

All is well until he decides to take advantage of a local beauty queen whose parents are in his debt to pay for her wedding. She turns out to be more than a match for him. Shot mainly in a small seaside town in Southern Italy it also a night-time scene in Rome - one of the film's most striking shots with three middle-aged men in gladiator cotumes passing the coliseum. A major theme of the film is how dreams and obsessions rule peoples lives, whether it is a passion for bingo, or line-dancing or money. The acting, especially of the lead, was very convincing, a malevolent dwarf-like figure trotting round the neighbourhood with an overcoat draped around his shoulders and a plastic bag swinging like a huge flaccid phallus from an arm in plaster. In the tradition of humanist Italian directors such as De Sica (Bicyle Thieves) and Bertolucci ( The Last Emperor) Sorrentino has compassion for even the most repulsive of his creations.

I'm so annoyed to have lost the little cable that connects my camera to my computer. I took a great shot of City Hall on Wednesday, the first time I've had reason to visit, on a sunny day when so many were strolling and joggingor just hanging about along the river by Tower Bridge.

I should have known it was a waste of time anyway. I'd gone to see a Chinese documentary film that I'd received notice of by email. I must have got the dates mixed up, because the people at the front desk didn't know anything about it, and neither did the assistant downstairs. I asked could I check with the Internet but despite its hi-tech appearance the building is bereft of a computer for public use.

It must be dizzying to work in a circular building where the architects were set on emphasising its roundness - it was hard enough for me to to have to negotiate spiral ramps or come out from the lift to see a yellow wall veering to left and right in a continual curve and not know how long I'd walk before knew I'd chosen the wrong direction. There's something comforting, as I now realise, about a corner you can see ahead, no matter how distant.

Another maddening place where you can never be sure the people on the front desk know what's going on behind them is the School of Oriental and African Studies. After my Chinese class in Soho yesterday I went with Canadian Barbara to confirm there's to be a Beijing Opera show there next Tuesday. It did seem unlikely but someone had sent her an email.

Barbara was surprised when I said I'd go with her but I had made a mistake about the day to meet another sinophile chum, for lunch in Chinatown - at least I'd forgotten to confirm, so now it's to be next week instead. This happens to me a lot lately.

It was another sunny afternoon, with a crowd of international students milling about between the two buildings at the corner of Russell Square and we could hear chatter in a dozen or more languages as we walked up the steps, of first the Brunei Gallery and then the main building. No joy to be had in either - Beijing Opera was not on the schedule. 'Next Tuesday?' asked the counter assistant, hinting that it was an awfully distant date for her to know anything about, and, 'Is it an outside organisation?' as if SOAS has a resident Chinese opera troupe that had escaped her notice.

This morning Barbara tracedthe source of the email and confirmed there is indeed a Beijing Opera performance at SOAS next Tuesday. What's more, it's free. My favourite price,and definitely Barbara's.

I've checked all the other bits of download cable that are about, but I won't go straight out and buy another before I've waited a couple of days. Like most things in my possession for more than about half an hour it has been mislaid and will turn up.

Long Gap between Entries

Can it really be more than a month since I wrote something in this blog? I've been quite active on the writing front with small projects, mainly writing flash fiction and film reviews, and revising short stories. One of these I read out in my new creative writing class, Wednesday nights at Goldsmiths. I felt awkward joining in January, two thirds of the way through the course, and of course most people are much younger than me, but the standard seems high and the teacher's exercises generate at least one idea for a short story each week.

On my bigger projects, the China book and revising novel I have made almost no progress but I've manage half a day's research in the BL most weeks for a story to be set in China, about one of the last Emperor's sisters.

I suppose I've been tied up quite a lot with my language studies - Chinese in particular, but I've made a more determined effort recently. It's a challenge now I'm at a level where half the class are Chinese speakers, but since Canadian Barbara arrived to join us I'm more than ever aware of my shortcomings. It's no good me saying to myself she has two or three hours a day to devote and two other small classes to attend. In fact, my listening and speaking skills are better than hers as she is tone dead, but she definitely has better reading ability because of all the literary translations she does.

I had lunch with former classmate Pam in Chinatown on Thursday after the Frith Street class and she tells me she'll come to daytime classes next year because she'll retire in September. Well, she'll reduce her duties as doctor's receptionist to two days a week so she can come to classes twice a week. We meet near the tiny pagoda-topped pedestal that looks like a miniature bandstand and joke about being mistaken for one of the Chinese prostitutes who loiter there by the shops. They are not glamorous at all, but wear anoraks and trainers.

Carmen the Spanish teacher sets lots of homework, too, which I can see the necessity for with the GCSE exam looming in May - it seems quite soon, especially as we'll get a whole month of holiday before the exam. In fact, it's half term this week - excuse for an extra sheet or two of homework and a chance to celebrate son David's birthday as I'll have an evening free when the rest of the family are available too.

So most days before I even start writing I have an hour or two of language study and fifteen minutes of computer Bridge bidding practice to fit in. In a way I envy these single-minded writers who stay home all day and get on with it. I'd become too bored.

*The picture was added later, recording a heavy snowfall late in the month, when the greyness of my road was transformed.

Re-arranging my work-room took longer than I thought. It's also the spare bedroom and I somehow thought I could swing a six-foot-six bed through 90 degrees to fit a seven foot space. The bed used to fit where the desk is now, lengthways in a long narrow room. I'd moved out the bookscases and contents from the opposite wall. I couldn't turn the bed, of course, and had to dismantle and re-assemble. What you can't see on this picture is another bed, a sort of metal shelf on wheels, with another mattress, that slides underneath. That had to be removed and upended, too. No wonder I couldn't move my right arm above elbow level for about four days! After looking on the Internet I became convinced I had something called 'frozen shoulder' , which is really nasty and can take a year to recover from, but it was just a muscle strain.

I was delighted to find that removing a top shelf and balancing it between the filing cabinet and a chest of drawers made a surface of just the right height for writing. I was steeling myself for a trip to Ikea to buy a desk. The radio/disk player is for the music - usually Mozart -that I put on and then hardly notice except to realise it has come to an end. Anything dramatic or any music with words is too distracting, as is silence.

It's surprising the difference it makes in the sense of space, without having increased the available floor area. A long thin space definitely felt cramped, whereas a square space feels twice the size.

It makes me smile, too, to remember that when I used to play golf, at which I was never much good, I always felt my game would go better after a purchase at the 'pro' shop, even if it were only a new set of tees. That's how I feel about the new room arrangement - my writing is bound to improve in the new environment.

New Year Resolution Number 1 : Find a publisher for my book about my year in China, called 'Sikworms and Snow'.

Links to other sites

I don't know if this will work, but I am trying to build in some links. The URL below should take you to some reviews I've posted to a newly-established website called My Cultural Life. Members can publish reviews of London events.


http://www.myculturallife.co.uk/authors/126/Sheila-Cornelius

Wow! Success! It has taken me lots of sessions of puzzling over the instructions to be able to do this, and yet it isn't really difficult. I hope I can remember what I did so I can do it again.

Here's a link to the BBC Collective Site where I have posted other reviews:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/MA1654280?type=4

and here's a link to my photojournal website:

http://www.greatestcities.com/users/ecpsheila/

I think I need to be able to put links in the side bar. I seem to recall it took me ages to work out how to put in photos.

I'm feeling quite dazed by the number of films I went to see last week, partly because I saw some press screenings courtesy of the London Film Festival, so I didn't have time to write them up, and partly because there were two extra films I saw anyway. One filmed on location in Tibet, was called Kekqitili: Mountain Patrol and one set in Los Angeles was called Qinceaneros (UK title Echo Park, LA) . The first was a fantastically engaging film about a group of tough characters guarding antelopes from the threat of extinction, and the second an entertaining, funny and moving slice-of-life portrait of a Mexican immigrant commmunity.

September is my favourite month and not just because of my birthday. It seems to be the start of 'real' life again - new courses as well as continuing ones, the weather turning chillier and the air more bracing; it feels cosier to be holed up with a computer instead of moving to try to find cooler spots in the flat. In the old days, of course, I'd be having the anxiety dreams about starting to teach again. The most frequent was the one where I couldn't find the classroom.

The holiday season is past and I'm glad it's over. All that driving up and down motorways,was very tedious, although listening to audio tapes of the Goon Show helped. It rained all the way back from Southport on Saturday, so we were slowed by surface spray- quite romantic, in it's own way. I was in some discomfort having bruised my rear on the Pleasure Beach Logflume ride. 'You should just accept you are getting too old for funfairs' said Roy. I could just about manage to do my share of the driving by half standing over the wheel to relieve the pressure.

I don't write much on holiday, except to keep up my diary, but usually manage a half-hour stint of writing Chinese characters and perhaps a bit of Bridge bidding. We didn't manage to play in Southport although Roy seems to think I've improved enough to partner him on holiday. What an honour. Now that I'm back I shall revert to my gentleman partner on Monday night and a female friend on Wednesdays. Geoff, my Monday partner is very courteous and an experienced player. He doesn't raise his eyebrows at my inexpert bidding, but takes me aside later and explains what went wrong. My Wednesday afternoon partner is also a good player, but too polite in mmy opinion. I have a bad reputation for standing up for myself. My next novel, a murder mystery in a country house setting, will include some Bridge players, as they are so devious. Bridge brings out the worst in people - or perhaps it attracts bad characters. Of course people are for the most part kind and helpful.

The very first thing I did on my return was to apply for accreditation to the London Film Festival. Last year I only managed to get daily accreditation, that is permission to see films and use the press room in the NFT for some Chinese films, because I applied so late but this year I'm on their list so they sent me an application form. I am really looking forward to it as the Film Festival atmosphere is exciting, plus the films are (usually) exceptional . I hope, after the rigours of the Film Journalism course, with all those killing deadlines, that I'll be able to write some good reviews. I'm got my invitation to the Press Launch on September 14th, when they'll announce the programme, so then I'll decide what to see and start some background research.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a derelict property near to our rented country cottage had been owned by a novelist. I had heard the name, but it wasn't until I reurned that I was able to find out more about the writer Sheila Kaye-Smith. She wrote a number of 'well-received' novels set in her native 'Kentish Weald' setting, an area which crosses the borders of Kent and East Sussex. I don't like country novels, which I blame on having to read the whole of Hardy for my degree, but it's partly all that in-fighting over the vicar that puts me off, that and the Agas. As they out of print I probably won't come across one, except in a charity shop.

I saw 'Run for your Life' , my sister's theatre treat, just before we left for Northiam, a farce set in a village in war-time, with a spinster spitting venom at the vicar's wife, an ex-actress. I still shudder when I think of the three years I lived in Lincolnshire with the children small, marooned amongst the cabbages.

It is a pleasant landscape of green-hedged fields and copse-like woodland dotted with white-cowled oast houses .The old house, in whose overgrown gardens we rambled, peering through windows at rusty chandeliers and faded carpets, reminded me of a French chateau on account of the rounded turrets at the back. However, it had been made from extending a pair of conjoined oast-houses. The photo above doesn't show both of them but gives a good general sense of the atmoshere of faded grandeur, including the swimming pool, which added a decadent touch. I found out from the web that the house and grounds were for sale at a £1 million.

'It's so nice to go travelling...'

Now I have two weeks before my sister comes and we go off on holiday again. Time off in a different place, for me is really more about reading than writing, but also about researching locations. I'm always on the look-out for possible settings, like this sinister Cornish wood where the trees blot out the light, and the deep two-mile lane which led to the nearest pub. It was lined with ferns, foxgloves and a red flower I used to know as ragged robin.

Here's a link to some of the places I've been to :

http://www.greatestcities.com/users/ecpsheila/

When I opened the post I was disappointed to see the heavy brown self-addressed envelope I'd sent with my three competition entries to Senior Moments. There was a letter to say I shouldn't be disappointed that none of my stories had been short-listed because there had been over 200 entries. It's not many, I know, for a writing competition, but that's the main reason I'd chosen it - entrants had to be over 50.

Another reason was the rules said anyone who sent an SAE would receive an evaluation, and that part is really useful. Although it's only a check-list of categories with five levels of satisfactoriness to tick against 'Title' 'Plot', 'Dialogue', etc. , it does allow some insight into where the weaknesses might be in particular stories, so is potentially extremely useful for redrafting . There were accompanying comments which I will also note - none of them, at any rate, was bad.

There was a copy of the Morley newsletter with my tribute to Ann Gold, my ex Chinese Literature teacher who died recently, so that was good to see, and a copy of 'The Author' with a notification of a future discussion ' How to get the best out of agents and publishers'.

As well as the redrafting one of the the stories for another competition, I will make an effort this week to interest a publisher in my China book and forge ahead with it and the novel.

It's so good to be home again. I got up early and spent a couple of hours on emails this morning. We walked over to Greenwich and I bought a writing book at Ottakars called 'Write Away' by Elizabeth George as well as finding a better title for one of my stories in a book of quotations. I wasn't tempted to buy because it cost £35 and the cheque for the £225 writing course starting in September had been presented.

I've given Roy a severe warning about not interrupting me for the next couple of weeks when I'm in my writing room. We've even worked out a system in case it gets too hot and I have to work in the living room - some kind of object placed on the table that signals 'Don't talk to me!'. There was an article in 'The Author' about writing places, and a picture of GB Shaw's revolving hut, which looks like a small garden shed such as you could buy in kit form at B&Q. Strange, because they wouldn't have had B&Qs then...

Jane Austen on Film

For my last assignment of the BFI Film Journalism course I chose to write about Jane Austen on film. I'd read there was to be an ITV series of newly-commissioned works in the Autumn. They'll be adaptations of the the lesser-known novels: Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion. The picture alongside shows fanciable Ciaran Hinds as Captain Wentworth, hero of the last mentioned. I wouldn't fancy being at sea in one of those eighteenth century galleons, though - Anne Elliot's choice when she marries him.

As usual I enjoyed the research and did a ridiculous amount, much more than a 600 word piece required. The best bit was watching just about the only version available of 'Northanger Abbey', made in 1957, in a private viewing room in the BFI. I paid £8.50 for the privilege and thought only afterwards that maybe I could have watched it at Goldsmiths for free. They have a good collection of tapes and DVDs and it's just the sort of thing they would have on their shelves. Never mind. After all, it all helps to swell the coffers of a very worthwhile institution.

It was funny, too, to read the letters in the Radio Times, one complaining about the ladies being shown entering the spa pool at Bath, albeit fully clothed, and another from an elderly woman saying that the screening time, 10.30pm, was past her bedtime. What a boon the video recorder turned out to be.

I'm so relieved the courses are over. I learned a lot in a short time but never again do I want to face with all those deadlines . The Film Journalism had the most content and I certainly learned about feature writing as distinct from the review writing I'd done before, but I enjoyed the Goldsmiths classes. The main thing I learned there was that journalists are extremely badly paid in a very insecure profession. One student told me the excitements of meeting celebrities and the sheer variety made up for it.

Now I'm free to get back to writing what I like and I've made a start on revising some short stories with the idea of entering them in competitions and sending them to magazines. Oh dear, yesterday' s impulse buy of The Lady was a disappointment. I was attracted by a front cover which said 'Short Story Competition: £1,000 Prize.' The judges looked promising, one Alexander McCall Smith who writes the funny detective stories set in Botswana and the other Adele Geras whom I don't know but she read languages at Oxford and has written some prize-winning stuff herself. There was only one story in the magazine, and what a letdown that was. It was a tale about a widow who turns down an invitation to spend Christmas in Portugal with a lively old school friend because her pregnant daughter goes into early labour and her grandson gets chicken pox. I'm hardly a model mother myself, but really!

Roy and I are off to my home town in the north tomorrow and then on to Scotland on a coach trip with my sister and her husband. By coincidence we are going to be staying at what was once a leading spa resort, called Strathpeffer.

Books

I called in at West- minster Library on Charing Cross Road to reserve a copy of the new John Osborne biography and the librarian cautioned me, 'That will cost you £1.50.!' I told her it was still cheaper than buying the book and she had to agree; she could see from the compute screen that it costs £25.

I don't usually reserve books here. In fact they have a very good selection of new books, inlcuding lots of thrillers, my favourite genre. I almost daren't go in there when I have a big pile of unread books and newspapers beside the bed.

As it was, I came away with a book called 'The Unfinished Novel and other stories' by Valerie Martin. Well, I couldn't resist the title and the blurb promised a collection of soul-searching stories about artists. The first of the collection was a first-person-narrator story about a about a painter with a very good twist at the end. I read it, fittingly, in the National Gallery after I'd left my Chinese class and found the timing was all wrong for films at the Haymarket Cineworld.

I've been revising a couple of my own stories to enter in the Senior Moments competition, closing date 15th June, so it's good to be reminded of successful examples. I try not to get too discouraged by comparisons. I was astonished to read that Annie Proulx revised Brokeback Mountain 60 times!

I actually bought a book at Ottakars at the weekend -Creative Writing, in the Teach Yourself series. I'm enjoying it as its is very readable and practically inclined, and I was sure that the author's name must be a made-up one, as it's Diana Doubtfire. However, in the acknowledgements she refers to a husband and on with the same surname, so it must be real.

I am pleased because I think I've found a suitable writers' circle which meets fairly near to where I live. I found it on the Internet and contacted a woman who gave me quite vague directions to a cafe at Crofton Park. There's a park and a railway station of that name but no road that I can see. Still, there can't be all that many cafes. I've asked for more precise directions.

I'd been to the BFI Library earlier today to research for my Jane-Austen-on-film feature, but hadbeen destracted by a book called 'From Screenplay to Film: Brokeback Mountain' with essays by Annie Proulx, and the scriptwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana - fascinating and very useful for the redraft of my Ang Lee piece.

Brokeback Mountain is one in a collection of short stories set in Wyoming and is in of my bedside pile . Never mind - less than two weeks now before I get a chance to catch up.

I'm almost sad to think that soon I'll pass no more through this doorway on a Saturday morning. Deptford Town Hall, built in 1904 in 'Edwarian Gothic' style, is round the corner from Godsmiths College and is used as an annexe for teaching purposes. These two characters are called Tritons, some kind of mythological sea-gods.

It also houses the PACE offices - I think that stands for professional and community education. It's where I've been doing my Practical Journalism course since September and where I at last delivered my portfolio on Saturday. Apart from a get-together for a class party, that will be it, and I can't say I'm sorry, because although I've enjoyed the course and learned a lot I really want to get back to fiction writing.

One thing I have learned is that Journalism pays badly and is a very insecure form of employment. Whilst I've been attending the classes the tutor, Carole Woddis, lost the Glasgow Herald theatre-critic post she's had for fifteen years. I'm glad to say she's been successful in having a couple of articles posted on a theatre-related website called 'Rogues and Vagabonds' but she says the pay is diabolical.

It's a small class, only half a dozen of us left. Two people were already working as journalists; Carol, a forty-something freelance is currently writing minutes for the council on a two-month contract after being unemployed for a month. Another is an aspiring fashion writer, suitably pretty, who makes ends meet by living in a basement flat in her parents home and works with her boyfriend, who is a photographer. She's currently on a short-term contract with 'Eve' magazine and says her desk is right next t the fashion editor's, so she is pleased.

Apparently the best way to break into journalism is to work in however lowly a capacity in a magazine or newspaper office. One young woman works in the Goldsmiths press office and edited the 2006 prospectus, so at least she can count on a regular salary. There's a young man temping for an office agency who wants to write freelance articles for music magazines. When we did restaurant reviews he wrote a very funny piece about his local kebab shop.

A lot of the time in class was spent reading and critiquing one another's work, which was interesting, and I'm looking forward to the same in the Advanced Fiction class which starts in September. That's if I'm successful in signing on for it.

The view from the living room window is particularly pleasant at this time of year, when the Horse Chestnut is in bloom.

I've completed my portfolio of work for the Goldsmiths Journalism course, althugh there are still a couple of Saturday morning sessions to go before the end of term. I cheated a bit on the last feature because I used my piece on Ang Lee, which I wrote for the Film Journalism course. Now I just have to concentrate on the last unit of the BFI Film Journalism, which is about pitching and then writing a feature. Today was the deadline for the pitching - emails to three different target publications related to a topic of our choice that has to be relevant to some current or future release. I have chosen to write about Jane Austen on film after I read an article in The Stage. It said Channel 4 is about to do remakes of the Jane Austen novels. A few months back I did some research on the topic as I was intending to teach a combined text and film course with my daughter but it never got off the ground. There was some mix-up over the proposal deadline. Anyway, I've still got the notes as a starting point. The deadline isn't until the 27th so there's plenty of time.

I don't want to restart on my other projects, the China book and the novel until next month, after I come back from the coach trip to Scotland on June 7th. In the meantime I think I can usefully practise writing film reviews. I've just posted a review of 16 Blocks to the WriteWords site, and I went to see Mission Impossible III with Roy yesterday. I really enjoy all the gadgets in the film, so I'll make that the focus of my review, I think.

I've also found a couple of short story competitions I can enter, one of them run by a new magazine called Senior Moments. That sounds promising. You have to be aged over 50 to enter, so that should cut down on the competition.

I've also been looking at the Goldsmiths Prospectus for next year and am tempted by an 'Advanced Fiction' course. It will be good to get back to writing fiction after all this journalistic stuff, although I think I've learned a lot. I've enjoyed the writing about film more than the news stories and other features, 'though, so that's where I'll continue. I'm thinking of embarking on a Woody Allen retrospective to tie in with the release of his next London-located film, or the one after.

The BFI Library

I have been spending quite a lot of time at the BFI Film library lately, researching for a piece on Ang Lee. It's a quiet place to work in the morning (although it gets a bit busy later on) and I can plug in my laptop so type notes directly. There's a back room with windows overlooking Stephen Street, just off the bottom of Tottenham Court Road. The best thing about it is they have a vast archives of film magazines.
When I was putting my bag in one of the lockers I encountered a famous film actor whose name I couldn't remember - it wasn't anyone obvious, like Tony Curtis, whom I once met when I was stewarding a Film Societies' event at the NFT. I looked him up and name is John Lithgow. He's tall with white hair and had to move because the space between the two banks of lockers is so small. I'm always surprised by how tall some actors are when you see them in the flesh. I once saw that chap in Men Behaving Badly once - not the once called Neil, but the one who played the doctor in Cornwall on Sunday nights - Martin Clunes. It was on Waterloo Station and he seemed to tower above the crowd, which must be a great disadvantage when you probably don't want to be recognised.

It's a wonder I get into the reading room, really. They always have some DVD showing on a small screen in the foyer, opposite a bank of seating. One day earlier in the week I got there before the reading room was open and watched part of a film called 'Journey to Italy' starring Ingrid Bergman, with George Raft as her husband. They seemed to be staying in Sorrento but weren't getting on very well, in fact she was reading a note on the hotel balcony which said he'd gone over to join some freinds in Capri. It was a beautiful black and white print.

Today I noticed they had a tinted Jacques Tati film called 'Jour de Fete' but as well as colour it had dialogue which made it less funny than I remember. The French are keen on mime, which just goes to show their language is not as good as English for comedy.

The only thing wrong with the library as far as I'm concerned is its location. It's OK to get there on the bus from Charing Cross but as the buses only go one way up Tottenham Court Road I had to go on a bus to Victoria, which took an age to crawl down Oxford Street and then I had to wait 40 minutes for a train to Lewisham. Next time I'll just grit my teeth and take the tube, which I find very depressing.

Last Day in Salamanca

This place certainly makes a change from chilly London. I will miss the sunshine when I go back, but a week of wandering around looking at churches and facades is enough for me.

I´ve managed to do quite a bit of reading, I´m glad to say, and we joined a local video club as our house exchanger had only two DVDs on the premises. I meant to do more work for my Film Journalism course but forgot to bring the right papers. Never mind, it will all add to the excitement if I have to make a deadline of 5pm on Monday and don´t get back to London until late on Saturday.

Sam Mendes Profile

The next assignment on my Film Journalism course is to write profile of director Sam Mendes, director of Jarhead, which I saw fairly recently, about some recruits who go out to fight in the gulf - all men's stuff, really violent but quite picturesque with shots of oil wells on fire in the desert. I have an interview on disc for the main material, but want to watch as much of his other films as I can. I also saw American Beauty when it came out, but couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Roy said we'd seen Road to Perdition but it must have been one he saw on his own. Luckily, it was among the DVDs we brought back from China so I had the pleasure of watching it with Chinese subtitles. It was about set in 1931, mainly in Chicago, about a gangster on the run with his son. Again, a film with lots of moody shots with some stars in it - Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Craig Doulglas and no women except toen wife Jennifer Jason Leigh who gets bumed off quite soon on. The rest is all peripatetic motoring punctuated by shoot-outs and sentimental bonding scenes. Oh, Paul Newman was the head gangster.

Fortunately the director hasn't made many films - just the ones I mentioned plus one called Loser about an American college boy.

Sam Mendes went from public school and Oxford into theatre directing. Like his wife Kate Winslett he was born in Reading. She has an Independent School background. Loads of loot on both sides.

I was pleased I figured out how to download a photo from the Internet.

BFI Seminar

The seminar for the Film Journalism course was held over Thursday and Friday this week in Stephen Street at the BFI. It was a bit nerve-wracking as all the other students - there were 40 of us - were aged around 25-30. I was surprised to learn some people had come from the US and Canada just to attend the seminar, which is a compulsory part of the five month distance-learning course. On Thursday we had talks from the Sight & Sound editor Nick James and some of the people who write for the magazine who described how they got into fim journalism. The only woman on the panel of four writers said he had spent three years working for nothing in the offices of places like Time Out, and the others all said not to expect to earn much.

On Friday we assembled for a screening, of which we'd had advance warning about writing a synopsis, review and commentary. We had to take notes in pitch darkness and despite bearing in mind what one speaker advised about using my thumb as a guide I still had to decipher some writing which had overlapped.

Anyway, I made a start when I got home and did some more yesterday, so I've finished the synopsis and made a good start on the review. I am glad to say I have decided on the 'argument' I will take. It was quite a difficult film but after 24 hours of mulling it over I realised what the main theme was and from there it has fallen into place. It's not due in until Wednesday but I hope to finish before then.

Hold-ups


Although I have at least learned how to upload a photo from my own files, I can't understand why it has duplicated itself ,so it needs sorting out at some time. Perhaps I'll learn to upload other pictures from the web and even build in some links - who knows.

This week I'm likely to be held up as far as progress with my book is concerned. I have a two day seminar for my BFI Film Journalism course on Thurs/Fri and I have to prepare for that. We are going to view a film called 'Time to Leave' directed by Francois Ozon and write a 700 word review, 300 word synopsis and 300 word commentary with a deadline of March 22nd. I can make a start on the synopsis and commentary in advance of the screening and I've already done some research and hired a DVD called 'Under the Sand' (2001) It starred Charlotte Rampling as a Parisian in denial when her husband goes missing, almost certainly drowned, from a beach in Les Landes. I recognised the Atlantic breakers from when we used to take the children camping there in the early seventies. I liked the film very much, and what a change from all these 'state of the nation' films I've been seeing lately, but Roy said it was depressing.

In fact, he insisted on watching an episode of Rowan Atkinson in 'The Thin Blue Line' before we went to bed, and we were late up next day. I really had to hustle him to get him out on Sunday in time to arrive at David's place in Wimbledon and go out to lunch. David drove us to a pub in Cobham which had low ceilings and beams, called The Running Mare. I ate scallops, which were very good.

I've only seen one of this director's films before, something called '8 Women'(2003) which had these eight ageing French stars holed up in a big country house. I couldn't see the point, really. I think I have time to see another of his films before Thursday. I'm going to play bridge as usual at Blackheath tonight, then drive over to pick up Roy from a game in Beckenham which starts much later. Tomorrow I will go to my Chinese class in town and then swim in the afternoon, so I can watch the DVD in the evening. On Wednesday I have agreed to go to play bridge with Yvonne at Blackheath and in the evening I will be attending a talk about China at the British Library.