I'm So Excited

On the long long journey back from Scotland last night I turned to Twitter while it was Marion's turn to drive to see if I could catch up on what's been going on in Framlingham while we were away. A tweet from the excellent @aboutfram girls Sarah and Kathy caught my eye - something about a cinema in Framlingham. A cinema? In Framlingham? If you know me and Marion you'll know how much we love going to the pictures and how we travel regularly to Aldeburgh, Woodbridge and Ipswich to get our fix of the big screen. 

A cinema in Framlingham would be a dream come true. "What about film@fram?" I hear you ask. Well, I know that our local film society has been going for a long time and shows some fairly decent films but let's face it, Framlingham Conservative Club is hardly a theatre of dreams or electric picture palace. It has the atmosphere of ..........well, a Conservative club. We tried it once, great film, shame about the place.

A bit of further investigation led us here , a site proclaiming "Soho Arthouse Cinema Comes To Framlingham". Okay so there may perhaps be a bit of poetic license in that but anyone trying to show decent films in Framlingham has our backing to the hilt. We logged onto the site and checked out the films that they are planning to screen. We've seen most of them but that doesn't mean that we won't be supporting the venture and we've already booked our tickets for Cinema Paradiso on 19 July - it's a brilliant film but we haven't seen this director's cut which runs for almost three hours. For the very reasonable price of admission the organisers are including a glass of fizz AND a simple Italian meal. That's a bargain. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this venture will be supported by the people of Framlingham and that Cinema Paradiso is the first of many films screened in this, yet to be announced, secret barn location. 

It was almost 1.30 a.m when we arrived home from the drive (thanks to roadworks shutting the A14 and giving us a twenty minute diversion) and we didn't wake up until 9.40 this morning. But we've managed to catch up and I found time to collect our seagull sculpture from near Woodbridge. The Art For Cure event was a huge success and raised £101,300 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer - we're delighted to have made a small contribution to that success and are very pleased with the sculpture.

Mugs

You've got to laugh at all the hoo hah about Jeremy Clarkson and his now infamous comments on The One Show. OK so Clarkson made a joke that was not very funny but from all the ridiculous posturing on Twitter and the BBC's complaints line, you would think that some people really thought that he was advocating the execution of the public sector strikers. Some people (like Clarkson) get a kick out of winding people up and like nothing better than seeing their wind ups take root. It used to happen at work. Someone would find a chink in a colleague's armour and then work away at it until, to their great amusement, their victim reached boiling point. It might be a football team or a difference of opinion on politics but with the right comments and the right colleague the wind up merchant would go home happy.  


It was easy to avoid the wind up by simply ignoring the comments and if everyone had ignored Jeremy Clarkson last night he would not have achieved the notoriety that he enjoys. If you read his weekly column in the Sunday Times you would hardly be surprised at him spouting this sort of stuff. Every week his (very readable, I'm afraid to say) quarter page contains some outrageous comment or other that is clearly intended to shock but equally clearly written with tongue firmly in cheek. When the poor bloke who tweeted that he was going to blow up Robin Hood airport if they didn't clear the snow ended up being arrested everyone (except the police) knew it was a joke. So it is surprising that today, those very same people (the sort of people he LOVES to upset) fell for it hook line and sinker.   

Here's a tweet from popular comic Jimmy Carr. As someone from near Liverpool should I be complaining about this outrageous stereotyping? Ah no. It's a joke. Like Clarkson's it's not one of the funniest but I know he's not being serious. Or is he? Anybody want to write to the Liverpool Empire and get his show cancelled in April 2013?


And talking of jokes, the internet has been going bananas in the last seven days over Benton or Fenton the deer chasing dog in Richmond Park. It's a good little viral video and, like all good things there are all sorts of spin offs on YouTube. This one is better than the original. But if you are one of the two people on the planet who haven't seen the original watch it at the bottom before clicking on this or it won't mean a thing.


.

Recession? What Recession?

I subscribe to Jon Snow's daily email newsletter Snowmail. It's very good and tends to sum up most of what is going to feature on the Channel 4 News each evening. But (and sorry for banging on about this yet again) the negative spin on news stories affecting the economy is driving me mad. Tonight Jon headlines more dire news with a report that someone high up in the IMF has given the UK a one in six chance of slipping back into recession. Now I don't know about you but I reckon that's a 16% chance. So that implies that there is an almost 84% chance of us not doing so and in view of all the negative talk of late I would have expected it to be at least a 50/50 chance. Which would have looked better on the news to you? "The IMF says that there's an 84% chance that the UK won't return to recession" or the doom and gloom that we got.

Whilst on the subject of recession, with the nights drawing in we settled down on Sunday night in front of the telly for a few hours. Starting with Josephine's Holding Out For A Hero (another great show this week) we stayed with ITV1HD for the X Factor and Downton Abbey. During the X Factor there were a few ads for luxury goods with hefty price tags. None more so than the Omega Ladymaker watch advertised by mega film star Nicole Kidman. I'm sure that Nicole's time doesn't come cheap and neither does a thirty second slot in X Factor which led me to wonder how much the watch costs and how many need to be sold to pay for the advertising. It was hard to pin down the price but I think I found the one she wears advertised on the internet at $33,000. I appreciate that Omega have less expensive watches in their range and it's all about getting brand awareness but if Omega is confident of selling these there must be plenty of people with a hell of a lot of spare cash.

People like Kweku Adobli perhaps. As soon as I heard about Kweku's allegedly fraudulent loss of over $1 billion for his bank I thought that, on the basis that when you lose your bet somebody else wins, another bank somewhere must have made the same sum. So in reality, the banking system as a whole is no better or worse off than it was before the fraud. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the "winner" put its hands up and said "hey we made nearly $2 billion from trading with Adoboli. Let's give some of it back". But it's banks were talking about and I reckon there's less than a one in six chance of that happening.

Enjoyed Downton Abbey on Sunday. It's even better watching it with Twitter running in the background with the views of some of the best (mostly female) columnists like Grace Dent, Caitlin Moran, Kath Flett and India Knight popping up with brilliant comments including a fabulous debate on whether the love struck couple would find time for a quickie in a cloud of steam before the train pulled out of the station. It's great television but it really is cliched and at times you know exactly what is going to happen, squaddie gets bullet through helmet, cook feeds crepe suzette to the dogs and the sanctimonious Mr (surely that should be Master) Bates falls on his sword yet again. But I wouldn't miss it and it's on series link both here and in the caravan.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which we saw on Saturday morning is as good as expected. So many great performances, so evocative of its time, beautifully filmed and thought provoking it's definitely one of the films of 2011.


I haven't had much time for blogging this week as Marion's mum isn't in the best of ways at the moment and we've been doing a lot of running around to help her. It certainly makes us very aware of the effects of growing old and concentrates the mind on living life to the full while we are both fit and healthy. We've managed to find some carers to help her out while we are away in Asolo and Torcello next week but I think we'll be busy for some time sorting out the most appropriate care for her when we get back.

Goodbye eBay, Goodbye Liverpool, Goodbye Betfair, Goodbye Forbrydelsen

All good things come to an end and the time has come for me to pull the plug on my dabbling on eBay. When I started out full of optimism in 1999 with the ludicrously optimistic user name LFCChampions (forged from the misguided belief that the Mighty Reds were once more on the verge of greatness), I had great fun trawling local antique fairs, auctions and even the odd car boot sale in search of bargains to resell on the exciting new auction site. As well as being fun it was a rare hobby that actually made money rather than being the usual drain on resources and, at its height, even after bank charges, tax and accountants' fees I was making several hundred pounds a week which I used to fund my collection of antique pottery. Those heady days are now in the past as this week I sold nine excellent antique ceramic pieces and made a princely profit of under £80. Pieces that would once have sold for £60 fetched nearer £20 and, but for one item that I bought very cheaply, the nine sales could easily have brought a loss. With the financial year ending soon it won't be worth preparing the accounts for the accountant as, if he charges me for checking them, I will end up with a hefty loss.


With all the antique shows on TV and attendances at antiques fairs up as a result I would have expected to see prices rise in reflection of all this interest. But on all the TV shows the emphasis is on driving a hard bargain and I will have to accept that interest in my specialist area (c18 and c19 English ceramics) is not what it was or there are simply too many people on the eBay bandwagon. In addition, the site used to bring high prices and charge low commissions but today it is exactly the reverse with high commissions and low prices. I've got about thirty items left that cost me around £1,000 so I've decided to take them to a local auction and see what happens. I imagine that after fees I will end up with maybe half that but £500 in the hand is better for me than a load of pots on a shelf. So farewell eBay. It was good while it lasted.

Another thing that's going the same way as eBay for me is my season ticket on the Kop. I've held season tickets at Anfield for most of the years from around 1970 to today (apart from when the kids were young and I couldn't afford it) but since the megabucks of the Premier League started to filter into the game,boy has it suffered. Today it's a big deal if a club breaks into the "big four" whereas I can remember seeing Swansea City top the First Division and on opening day at least 75% of teams' supporters thought that they had a chance of winning the league. I now feel the same for footballers and the money men in football as I do for the likes of Bob Diamond and Rich Ricci of Barclays who think that £14m is a justifiable wage packet (mind you, that's hardly surprising as it is the Barclays Premier League) Of course there are exceptions. Not all footballers are greedy bastards and some still feel passionately about their clubs but for every one who does there are half a dozen who couldn't give a toss. Few supporters today think that their team has any chance of winning anything and, whilst I wholeheartedly agree that winning isn't everything we are not far away from the situation in Scotland where one of the same two teams has won the league for as long as anyone can remember. In fact I just had a quick look at the statistics and only four teams have won the English Premier League since its inception and one of two has won it for the past six years.


It isn't going to change. We used to know that we had a match on Saturday at 3pm and maybe the odd midweek game. Now Sky and ESPN expect us to turn up on Monday nights, Saturday evenings at 5.30pm - sometimes at noon - and Sundays when they feel like it. I might as well watch the games from the comfort of home and save myself the hassle of the travel as it's no pleasure to be at the match where the main aim of those running the sport appears to be to milk the mugs who go of as much of their hard earned cash as possible and give them as little as they can in return. Would you pay a quid for a KitKat? The people running Anfield clearly think it a fair price. Forty four years or more of supporting the Reds will be hard to give up but I honestly don't think that I will miss it for a moment.


I'll be putting the £700 I save on the season ticket towards a new metal detector as the old one, although still working, has seen better days and is getting a bit heavy for an old bloke like me. They've got lightweight detectors on the market now that use wireless technology and make detecting for people with hip replacements more manageable. I haven't found anything like the cost of the detector in "treasure" over the eleven years that I have owned my current machine but fortunately I'm not in the hobby for money (although I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to have a valuable find) and anybody who takes it up in the hope of riches is likely to be very disappointed. I'll also give up my weekly flutter on Betfair to contribute to the detector. No criticism of Betfair - a great gambling site and one that I will return to as soon as I've paid for the new machine.

Saturday saw us on the edge of our seats for the final episode of BBC4's Danish import "The Killing" or "Forbrydelsen" as we afficionados have come to know it. I know that there are still plenty who haven't viewed the denouement and don't know whodunit yet so I won't give it away here. It was a masterpiece of storytelling with great acting, great filming, great lighting and the best woolies ever to appear on TV. It appears that almost everyone on Twitter has been following the show and it was on Twitter that @Glinner  (Graham Linehan) sent his followers this fun link.

Eeyore, Piglet And Pooh - Our Very Own Elgin Marbles

A tweet from the excellent Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) this morning linked to a blog about Christopher Robin's original toys. You can read the excellent "Scouting New York" blog  here. I found to my horror that the original toys that inspired AA Milne to create his wonderful stories can be found in the main branch of the New York Public Library. My reaction was probably akin to those of an Athenian on first discovering that the Elgin Marbles are stuck in a museum in London - "This can't be right".

A most important part of our heritage has been uprooted and stands forlornly in a distant land.

When our kids were young, we lived close to the Sussex border in Kent and would sometimes travel to the Ashdown Forest and emulate Christopher Robin and Winnie The Pooh with a game of Pooh Sticks on the famous little bridge over the tiny stream. There is a sort of quintessential Englishness about the area, the books and the characters themselves that makes the vintage toys' sojourn in a bullet proof glass case in a New York Library just plain wrong. If you've seen what Disney did to Winnie The Pooh in giving him an American accent and bright yellow body you would know that we need to repatriate them to their rightful place in rural Sussex quickly before they come to any harm and further loss of identity.

Unfortunately our claim on the toys is not as strong as the Greeks' claim for their marbles as, far from being looted from their rightful place, it seems that they were given by none other than Milne himself to his New York  publisher in gratitude for his support and were subsequently donated to the library. However, now that they are back in the public domain, it is time that a movement was started to bring them home. We need someone very English and very forceful to lead such a movement and I suggest Joanna Lumley, who, after her resounding success with the Gurkahs, fits the bill perfectly. So Joanna, how about it? Lets get the toys back home.

If you used to read my Instanta blog you might recall that I spent an enjoyable week at Townley Hall Burnley last year as a stand in contestant for the BBC's Antiques Master show. I didn't get to compete as all of the contestants turned up safe and sound and I was not required. I got to know quite a bit about the show and decided that it was probably a good thing that I missed out as the winners certainly knew their stuff and I am just a keen amateur. So when I saw the BBC advertising for contestants for a new series I decided not to apply. And then I got a phone call asking if I would be interested and, being one of those people who doesn't like to say no to people, one thing led to another and somehow on Monday I'm off for an audition in Manchester. It was nice of them to remember me.

And a very big positive is perhaps another opportunity to meet the lovely Sandi Toksvig

Not Another Review Of The Year

It seems that the done thing at this time of year is for every editor of every publication to get his or her team together and ask them all to fill every available space with reviews of the year's "insert journalist's specialist subject here". Failing a review, a quiz will suffice and failing those there's always forecasting what's going to be hot next year. We bloggers are tempted to fall into the same trap and blog on the good, the bad and the ugly that has befallen us during 2010 but let's face it, is anybody really interested to know that we went to see twenty films and that L'Illusionist was perhaps our favourite or that Twitter was the best thing we got involved in during the past twelve months.


So I'm going to avoid that. No quiz, no review. So what the hell am I going to write about now?

Well I could start with the world's best snowman brought to my attention by someone on Twitter. Sorry I've forgotten who it was but, as you can see, this is a snowman to beat all snowmen and should go down in the annals of snowman history for the masterpiece that it is.

But instead, I'm going to devote today's musings to my wonderful wife Marion who has been with me since she was the slip of the girl in the photo at the top of the blog and has managed to put up with me for over forty years. Without her I couldn't have survived the past three week's experience of a hip replacement and the subsequent recuperation. She has had to manage on her own in the worst winter weather in decades and has single handedly coped with huge snow drifts and ice rink roads in order to bring some semblance of order to the Christmas festivities.

Here is an extract from her trusty notebook that goes everywhere with her and enables her to prepare everything with military precision. She's got things organised right through to next week and I love her for it. Let's hope that when I can walk unaided again, I can make it up to her for all her efforts.


I'm getting quite excited about Christmas now. We've got Marion's mum and our next door neighbour coming round for a bite to eat on Christmas day but the real festivities will follow when Paul and his wife Josephine and her mum Jenny arrive on Boxing Day and then on Wednesday when we go to St Andrews to visit our daughter Sarah and her partner Duncan.


I'll close by thanking and wishing a Happy Christmas to everyone who has checked in on this blog. I know it's all vanity and self indulgence but the statistics show that I have a small but growing band of readers and, whilst I have not yet returned to the halcyon days that came from our chance meeting with Britain's Got Talent's Greg Pritchard and ended up getting fan mail from the USA , I'm sufficiently encouraged to carry on. 


I've spent ages trying to find a version of this that didn't have embedding disabled. Watch it now as it will probably be taken down by Channel 4 soon.