Sebastião Salgado - Genesis

Sebastião Salgado is embarking on the last of his great photographic projects, which will appear regularly in the Guardian's Weekend Magazine over the next eight years, as well as on the Guardian's website. He is seeking out places that are still as pristine as they were in primeval times, places that provide hope.

He remains for me the greatest photographer alive.

River

we should see this first...

Machines

Kiss kiss - Machines, in Reality vs. The Optimist.
Awesome. They deserve a new special place in my weird collection...

Double entendre

Courtesy of Ms Tots, here are 12 of the finest (unintentional) Double-entendres ever aired on British TV and radio.

1. Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator - "And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!"
2. New Zealand Rugby Commentator - "Andrew Mehrtens loves it when Daryl Gibson comes inside of him."
3. Ted Walsh - Horse Racing Commentator - "This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother."
4. Harry Carpenter at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977 - "Ah, isn't that nice. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the Cox of the Oxford crew."
5. US PGA Commentator - "One of the reasons Arnie (Arnold Palmer) is playing so well is that, before each tee shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them ..... Oh my god!! What have I just said??"
6. Carenza Lewis about finding food in the Middle Ages on 'Time Team Live' said: "You'd eat beaver if you could get it."
7. A female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked, "So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?" Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, because they were laughing so hard!
8. Steve Ryder covering the US Masters: "Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday."
9. Clair Frisby talking about a jumbo hot dog on Look North said: "There's nothing like a big hot sausage inside you on a cold night like this."
10. Mike Hallett discussing missed snooker shots on Sky Sports: "Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis's misses every chance he gets."
11. Michael Buerk on watching Phillipa Forrester cuddle up to a male astronomer for warmth during BBC1's UK eclipse coverage remarked: "They seem cold out there, they're rubbing each other and he's only come in his shorts."
12. Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open: "Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny, other weeks he prefers to do it by himself."

Cumberland Fudge

A.: So. Cumberland Lodge is a retreat owned by the Queen of England, where her ancestors came to shag their stable boys and occasional female mistress (stable girl). Occasionally sheep too.There are over 1,000 dears allegedly, frolicking amongst the trees, coresponding to the amount of local girls also frolicking amongst the trees.

This is where I have been condemned to spend the weekend with a buch of fellow travellers. The place oozes artisto-decadence, which should make me feel at home, but somehow it doesn't. On a brighter note, there are several fit boys from other courses (actually one) so I am happy.

The evening wa spent listening to a man who had 4 passports and no idea what he was talking about. Apparently he was supposed to enlighten us about multicuturalism. He only managed to irritated me and send about 80% of the public to sleep. Thankfully, the bar was well stocked with cheap Bulgarian wine so we managed to drown our pain.

J.: so, unlike alberto, i had only one major problem with the speaker which was that he didn't answer my question; kevin kept whispering his criticisms in my ear. it made me nervous to ask a question, but yet i asked the longest question that ever existed because that's how i roll. if i had my earphones on an was listening to REO speedwagon, it would have been perfect. as it is, REO speedwagon is playing a concert that costs like 40 pounds and those guys, honestly, suck. so - i had kevin on one side and alberto on the other - he was trying to fall asleep but was strangely compelled by out israeli/palestinian speaker. it was imperative that we hit the bar as soon as possible; which we did in fine style.

so it is that we find ourselves at 2am about to embark on a secret mission to some distant lake at the bottom of the moor, a few bottles deep in bulgarian wine that alberto refuses to drink. after my stellar snooker victory over emily, i feel very energized for the hike; it will involve jumping several fences and, potentially, swimming. i am working on what can only be described as a diabolical plan to encourage a swimming mission. i'll keep the rsest of the world, which is obviously interested, in the rest of our exploits to this end. catherine - your black nails have nothing on my irresitable argument FOR feminism.


E.: so.....i thought the lecture was fine because i was inspired by someone that would speak their mind about something that they love. An academic that is honest is a refreshing situation. Alberto is not very good at snooker, but he has been a pleasure to be around. Tomorrow: when I am more on it I will slate these boys x

We, the zoo

After seeing this, I felt the irresistible urge to scratch all over my body.

tic... toc... tic... toc...

I have now spent 153 consecutive hours writing this piece 'o' crap. In what I fathom being a Frap/Lady V-inspired writing strategy, I squirted out some 7000 random words which had to be then reduced to 4000. At 5400 I lost my patience with hunting down innocent adjectives and hacked off the entire first chapter. Who cares what the Washington Consensus is anyway. I am now down to 4200 and still have to compile the entire bibliography. Deadline tomorrow. Clock is ticking. Eyelid is flapping. Lip is twitching.

The Lives of Others

I have just returned from seeing The Lives of Others with my dear friend Le Duc. What a beautiful, beautiful film. There's no other way to descibe it. Lyrical, profound, moving. Every image was shot with refined attention, evey detail masterfully taken care of. Ulrich Mühe's central performance as a Stasi agent, whose faith in the system begins to crumble beneath the weight of the regime's schemings, is absolutely flawless.


For the whole duration of the film, I was plunged in the suffocating greyness of East Germany, 1984. As the images unfolded, childhood memories about life on the other side of the Curtain kept coming back to me. I left the theatre with that sense of elacted sadness that follows an emotional experience. Don't miss it.

You remember my name

Life

From up there, it's just a small ball...
Why so much fuss?

If only we could keep this sense of perspective all the time... just a small, insignificant ball floating in an indifferent Universe...

V for...

This has long been a favourite subject of totty debate - what the V in Lady V might stand for - so it was only natural that, in the loneliness of my room, pondering about the meaning of life and the reason why I left Tuscany after all, I should rent V for Vendetta and devour together with a pizza and a beer.

Verdict?

It's watchable. Natalie Portman is as hot as a steaming geyser...


Stephen Fry's cameo, on the other hand, is frankly ridiculous. In sum, it tries to be too actual and misses the point of its genre: rather than resembling its original cartoon, it looks more like a History Channel documentary set in a bleak near future.

300 on the other hand...

'Tis a Pity She's a Whore...

Ravishing and beautiful Charlotte Rampling.
Breathtakingly handsome Fabio Testi and Olivier Tobias.
And two unknown but mesmerizing secondary actors for this glorious Renaissance romp set in a foggy Northern Italy that recalls Ferrara and its diamond-shaped noble palaces.

They just don't make them like this any more...

Back (sigh) in London

More red wine
More blossoming fields
More Turdette
More films
More G&Ts
More wood-cutting
More sausage
More lemons
More friends

Please...!

YES! YES! YES!

7.00 - Alarm clock goes off.
7.02 - Lady V is wooed out of bed with soft 'totty' whispers. She groans. I get into the shower.
7.17 - I slip out of the shower, fully cleansed and ready to conquer
7.23 - Lady V stumbles down the stairs, hangover and moaning about her life.
7.24 - Lady V gets a good talking to.
7.25 - Lady V and myself, fully reconciled, set off towards PDF & M's house.
7.38 - We arrive at PDF & M's house and discover M's been puking all night due - allegedly - to evil shrimp in her dinner. Slight panic at the idea of 2 crucial pairs of hands now unavailable, but we recover soon remembering we have the master of double-fisting with us, so surely he must be good at double-typing...
7.47 - Coffee. Mmmmmm...
8.01 - Lady V, PDF and I set off towards G's office.
8.15 - First wake-up call for Bogart, who is incapable of emitting any sound except for a sinister gurgle.
8.23 - We arrive at G's office.
8.37 - We are now fully positioned, 1 laptop and 1 phone each, ready to fight.
8.42 - We start checking the Glastonbury Festivals' website, which has already crashed. Slight panic, easily kept under control.
8.45 - Second wake-up call for Bogart, who is now able to curse back. Good sign.
8.55 - We are now in full-swing clicking mode, trying to get passed the www.seetickets.com frontpage, which won't even load. Phone in the other hand redialling the ticket office number.
9.10 - We are still quite chirpy, but no luck.
9.32 - Still quite chirpy, but still no luck. Beginning to hate the BT woman's voice telling us she won't charge us for the phone call.
9.46 - Bogart calls to inform that she's read blogs that say people have got hold of tickets. Slight panic, which does not however demoralise the troops, but actually makes them focus better on the task.
10.12 - Not much chirpyness left. In fact, panic is now spreading rapidly. I start checking random sites for possible clues about how to get passed the www.seetickets.com page, which still refuses to load. I get to the Glastonburyfestivals MySpace profile, and read some exchanges between people who have managed to buy the tickets. One of them reveals the crucial secure connection web-address, which allows us to move bypass the Seetickets frontpage and move onto the second tier.
10.28 - After relentlessly refreshing the webpage, I eventually crack it exactly at the same time as Bogart.
10.34 - 8 tickets + 1 car park pass have been purchased. A further one is snapped up by M, who has heroically dragged herself out of bed and to the sofa. By 10.44 all of us have tickets to Glastonbury.

The joy is immense. The expectation overwhelming.

GLASTONBURY 2007!!!! WE'RE COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Arcade Fire

In absolute awe. Just can't stop listening to the melodies of their last feat, Neon Bible. The relentless crescendos of vocals, the incredible reinvention of the organ, the choirs, the drums, the beautiful voices of Win and Régine. The best album I have heard since Thom Yorke's The Eraser, although the two are not really comparable.

Some tracks here. Others here. But you should simply go buy the album and play it ad nauseam...


Anyway, since I mentioned Thom, and in a Le Ducesque twist, Radiohead's blog shows several pictures of them carving out their new album. And Thom is growing a beard... and is getting every day closer to my idea of a God-on-Earth:


Sigh...

And then there were 299...

300 opened last night in London to packed cinemas, and we were there, on the front row of the Islington Vue for enhanced visual stimulation, enjoying every rippling bit of it. To call it a gloriously camp video game is an understatement. It's as close as you can get to gay porn, without getting an R18 certification.


The film oozes homosexual double-entendres all over the place, from a Xerxes modelled on RuPaul trying to get every muscular man to kneel before him, to a Rick Wolfmeier-lookalike Leonidas, leading an army of semi-naked muscle-marys. There are also some of the campest lines in the history of cinema:

Captain: On these shields, boys!

Persian Officer: SPARTANS! Lay down your weapons!
Leonidas: Persians...COME AND GET THEM!

Leonidas: We're in for one wild night!

Xerxes: Cruel Leonidas demanded that you stand. I require only that you kneel...

Leonidas: You have a good thrust!


Oh, and did I mention those rippling abs? We estimated that over 1m must crunches have gone into each actor's 'character' preparation. And not one of them was wasted...!

As for the whole Iran-US political controversy, it's simply far-fetched. The film is just brilliantly ridiculous, and if anything it's the Persians - with their multicultural army and grottesquely-complicated (and ineffective) war machines - that resemble the US, not the Spartans.

Another movie to... er... go down in history as a queer classic pretending to be a straight macho epic. Brilliant!

Random vibrations

Creating a Community

So just in case you were wondering, someone out there is seeting the rules of the Community. They are:

1. Create something worth building a community around.
2. Identify and recruit your thunderlizards—immediately!
3. Assign one person the task of building a community.
4. Give people something concrete to chew on.
5. Create an open system.
6. Welcome criticism.
7. Foster discourse.
8. Publicize the existence of the community.

I think we're pretty much there...

(pic courtesy of kimgilmour @ London Photos)

Apocalypto

Le Duc recently posted possibly the best review of Apocalypto I have read, so I won't indulge here. Suffice to say, I share most of his take, including the South Park quote. It is - literally - an amazing film, in the sense that your eyes will remain glued to the screen for the duration of the movie. There is, indeed, little psychological introspection, but then who cares? No one ever thought this was what the movie was about.

The unknown cast is extraordinary, and proof once again that all that money spent on acting schools is mostly wasted. If the director knows what he's doing, 70% of the job is done. The remaining 30% is in the hands of the producer (I am told).

The Good German

There are some films that just make you wonder: what were they thinking!?!? The Good German is one of them. The plot twists and turns in the most improbably-complex manner, leaving everyone - including the characters - frankly bored, until it comes crashing down in one of the most memorable anti-climaxes I have ever seen.

The undoubtedly beautiful photography fails to distract from some of the poorest performances Cate Blanchett and George Clooney have ever given, not so much because they acted badly, but because you could see that they couldn't care less for the fate of their characters. And indeed, nor could we after 105 minutes of pain and boredom.

What were you thinking, Steven?

He said. She said.

He said . . . I don’t know why you wear a bra; you’ve got nothing to put in it. She said . . . You wear pants don’t you?

He said . . ….. Shall we try swapping positions tonight?
She said . That’s a good idea - you stand by the ironing board while I sit on the sofa and fart!

He said . … What have you been doing with all the grocery money I gave you?
She said . .Turn sideways and look in the mirror!

He said . . ….. Why don’t you tell me when you have an orgasm?
She said . . .. I would but you’re never there.

He said . ….. Why don’t women blink during foreplay?
She said . . They don’t have time

He said . . How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper?
She said . We don’t know; it has never happened.

He said . . Why is it difficult to find men who are sensitive, caring and good- looking?
She said . . . They already have boyfriends.

She said…What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is every night?
He said . . . A widow.

He said . .. . Why are married women heavier than single women?
She said . . . Single women come home, see what’s in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what’s in bed and go to the fridge.

Quadruple Bill

Four in a row, to get over the fact that the Eurostar was stranded and the continent isolated, so I couldn't go and celebrate with Little Pea the start of a New Europe.

First: Sleeping Dogs (aka Sleeping Dogs Lie in the US, aka Stay). Quirky, funny and starring an incredibly handsome Bryce Johnson, it's one of those hugely enjoyable movies, which - like a good pizza eaten with friends - I will have forgotten in the sea of pizzas with friends I have consumed over my lifetime:


Second: The Family Friend (L'Amico di Famiglia). The new tour de force by Paolo Sorrentino, the acclaimed director of The Consequences of Love. Giacomo Rizzo is breathtakingly good as Geremia de Geremei, a grotesque moneylender in small-town Lazio still living with his even more grotesque mother. The film is bold. Not a single character is likeable. The plot buzzes is circles like an annoying mosquito in a hot summer night, and eventually stings you, leaving an itchy sense of frustration. I left the cinema slightly depressed about the pockets of decay - real and imaginary - that my country increasingly harbours:


Third: East is East, that classic British comedy set on the border between Manchester and Pakistan, starring an impeccable Om Puri and an equally impeccable Linda Bassett of Calendar Girls memory:


Fourth: and finally, late at night, with yet anoter bottle of wine by my side, and my companions crushed by the cinematic marathon, ¡Átame! (Time me up, tie me down!), by il maestro Almodovar. Fabulously-sensual Victoria Abril, electrifying Antonio Banderas (who's in pre-production for the Memoirs of Hadrian, one of 2 top novels, alongside Charlie Hunnam... yum!), plus Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma and María Barranco. We love them all.

And another term is over

Maybe I try too hard
The long drawn hours
of relentless fatigue

Maybe that's it
I should just give me a break
Give me a break
from this relentless fatigue

Maybe it's worth it
after all, the hours
and the sweat and the sore back
sore from all this toil
of relentless fatigue

Maybe, just maybe

Maybe I try too hard



(Photo courtesy: Exploding Dog)

300

Now now...

The White Countess

Probably the worst movie I have ever seen. Ever.
It included these hideous characters:


And these:

Plus of course these two


I don't really know what was worse. Realising that the Merchant-Ivory duo should be separated for good and confined to 2 very remote tropical islands, far enough for them not to cause further damage; or that the director of photography, the great Christopher "In the Mood for Love" Doyle, no longer knows his mouth from his...

Luckily we had such 'art' to entertain us:

Becoming Jane

Go and see this movie NOW!!!!! It's AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The weekend in pictures

It all started with Lady V and a squash... bound to happen, uh?

The angels of Exmouth Mkt

My new favourite Thai cook! Amp!!!


One for the boys...

Manu preparing 'saltimbocca', which turned out better than expected, actually...!

Tolgonai preparing her amazing Central Asian bread...

Tom looking thoughtful...

PDF looking... well... like PDF

And the next day... premiere! Here's Heidi preparing Lady V for the paparazzi. It took hours...

... but the results were great!

... and so were the furs (fake, of course) we wore for the occasion!

Final note: disgusted that London Lite didn't publish the images of Lady V, Mr G and me walking down the red carpet in Leicester Square. We looked far cooler than those tarted-up actors and actresses who made it on the central spread...!!! Damn...!

The tears of Bamako

What a strange, beautiful and sad film Bamako is, part documentary, part proper movie.
It made me - once more - want to return to Africa...
Maybe once this damn' MSc is over...