Sandy Powell:

willow wrote about Edith Head. I agree with her post. For a modern clothing designer watch this English woman's career:
The Young Victoria (2009)
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
The Departed (2006)
Mrs Henderson Presents (2005)
The Aviator (2004)
Sylvia (2003)
Far from Heaven (2002)
Gangs of New York (2002)
The End of the Affair (1999)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
The Wings of the Dove (1997)
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
The Crying Game (1992)
Orlando (1992

First the bad news. We wont be having a fantastic spread like this one for last year's twin birthday parties for my wife and younger brother. In a tent in August in the garden in Sussex. Now the good news. We will, almost certainly, go instead to my niece's wedding in a village south of Paris and visit one of my oldest friends in Marseilles. A completely French holiday for a change and in June two months ahead of our usual vacation.

The Quelccaya Ice Cap in the heart of the Peruvian Andres,
is the largest tropical body of ice in the world.
The ice cap is at an average altitude of 5,470 meters (18,600 ft)
and spans an area of 44 square kilometers (17 miles).
As the ice cap is retreating,
it is exposing almost perfectly preserved plant specimens
dating back 5,200 years,
indicating that it has been more than 50 centuries
since the ice cap was smaller than it is today.

The films of the 2000's: This is what film enthusiasts do for fun. Look at the film and look at the comments to figure out what films are in the compilation. Some of the more violent ones I avoided, but they sure did make some good films in the last ten years. I wish someone would do a compilation of the mainly independent gentle films of these years. Gosh, I love films!

Click here

Do you know the song by Damian Rice "The Flute Blower's Daughter", or was it "The Flute Maker's Daughter"? Anyway here she is, captured in Google's photo of the minute. I often seize these pictures as I reckon the chance of others seeing them is small and that I shall never see them again otherwise. I am at home for the fourth day in a row, with my foot elevated by necessity, rather than choice, which is a bore. I never thought that I could be so annoyed by inactivity.

This is for Lynette on facebook. 32 years. I could not find anything on digital pictures of both of us in the same shot. Cathy does not like the picture I took of her, but I like the one she took of me. We were in Shoreham, Sussex. I think it was the summer before last.

Google, Facebook, or both?

Picture of the minute, in case you missed it

When my oldest was born, I held him before his mother did. He was serenely calm until a nurse jabbed his head for some doubtfully useful inoculative purpose. I've written this here before, but I held him in my hands and showered him in my tears of joy. That was twenty five years ago. I would probably not tell him, but now he still fills me with the same love and happiness as he did then. Yesterday I saw a film about a man whose daughter dies and I cried at the thought of what I would feel if any of my precious progeny died before I do. Also, a subtext of the film is about how we feel about having children, or about not having children. I was forty before I met a woman who wanted to have my children and I had given up hope of having them. Not having them did not make me unhappy. In fact, at about that time I wrote that it was better to be un-married wishing I was than married wishing I wasn't. Well, now I am married and very glad I am. I would love my wife to see this on Valentine's day, but she won't. I will have to find some other way to express it to her.

Continuing with my latest project to see one film in a cinema every week, I just saw Edge Of Darkness. It wasn't half bad. A meditation on death and a good thriller. Very well staged action sequences, but, above all, a moving film about grief and vengeance. Some very good actors and crisp dialogue. Quite a complicated story line, which nevertheless becomes clear at the end and mercifully not before. So far, I have found no "holes" in the plot. I don't think that Mel Gibson is a particularly pleasant person, but he is a very good actor, absolutely convincing and, at times, very moving. Danny Huston has attracted my attention since"Birth", and there are two young women in the film who seem completely real and therefor attractive as whole characters. I thought I was just in for a thriller. I found that and much more as well.

I've just noticed the pun in the fact that when I go from my desktop to my blogger account I have to click on "My Account". So, anyway, this is my account of how my teeth hurt. If the pictures herewith were of me it would not be surprising, (except in the case of the first one. He's not feeling anything), but my teeth are healthy. It's just that my new dentist has mended the right side of my mouth, which had too many teeth missing at the back to chew on for the last twenty years or so and I can't get used to the strain on that side of my mouth. My jaw aches every afternoon and evening. I think I'll have to get her to take that little bridging work out again and go back to chewing all my food on the left only. Isn't this passionately interesting?

I just really like this picture. I can't tell why

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Golly! What a place. Patagonia, I think

Sleep is fine now.

Like the poor woman who did about a year ago, I almost slipped on the slush at the foot of the steps at Long Branch station. I was just saying to the nice English nurse here at work that in Switzerland such floor surfaces are often covered with a toothed steel grating, which absorbs snow and ice, drains away the slush, and stops rubber soled boots from slipping. In ski resorts steps are sometimes made of this material too. Do people sue the GO system here when they fall on GO property?
I have a cold, but perhaps because I now take Cold FX every day it is not as bothersome as my regular colds used to be.
As often happens, when I am in a stressful situation, it is often because I am committed to perform and thus I do it and cannot be too ill while the demands continue. When they are over is when I break. Thus I have not been sleeping well. The play is over and I should have every reason to be more relaxed than usual, but it is now that I can afford to let the stress get to me. Some people who get headaches get them, I gather, on the weekend.

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These three are from the gigapxl project (here), which has been collecting wonderful high resolution pictures from across America.

Matthew has been using our car to get to work. He could not get there by transit on time. Since he owes us, he picks Cathy up from work at 4.30 and came to get me at the theatre after every performance and most rehearsals. Now he also picks me up at Long Branch station, so that I have been taking the train again a few times of late. I want to go to the cinema at Yonge and Dundas every week and it is easy to drop down to Union station and betrain out to our suburb. About the car: it is now paid off and each time we spend a bomb on the repairs I say, "well we just got a good second hand car for 1600 dollars", or 1800, or 800. The car itself was originally modelled for Lancia, not used by them and sold to Chrysler. I love its sleek, organic styling. Its large enough for five, four of whom are over six feet and it rides very comfortably on the highway. As I am more and more conservative, I realise that I never want to have any other car.

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Now that the not entirely unsuccessful revival of my thespian activities is over, I was looking forward to a return to the land of Marc Aurel's blog, What more suitable picture would I find as wikipedia's POD than this of the town, which is local to our yearly summer retreat in England. Over the years I have been to Brighton countless times by train, bus, car and once on a bicycle, although that time I did not get all the way there before I came back with my tail and my bike between my legs on the train. In summer, the heat in the village we go to can be oppressive and in London the car fumes can make you quite sick, but the air in Brighton is always fresh and bracing, No wonder it was so popular with George the third and since then with practically everyone fortunate enough to go there.