English people in cold weather

Dramatic weather this week.

English people in cold weather

Dramatic weather this week.

A Cock and Bull Story

Sunday: out to Richmond to do the usual walk across the park to Kingston with Richard and Dave#1. But! we decide to break from tradition and trundle off to Roehampton gate instead, still taking in the famous view, the parrots and the lake. Get a bus back from Roehampton, high on space raiders and chewits that Dave has bought for the journey and stop for a quick half in the Park Tavern, sitting outside in the sun because inside even going to the bar make y’feel like you’ve smoken 20 fags. It’s amazing to be warm. Crossing through Richmond town, I had to take off coats, hoodies, scarves, gloves, hats and I would have removed my jumper as well if my poor sherpa had not looked so overburdened. I’ve spent the last four days trying to get warm in restaurants, friends’ houses, bus-stops, train stations, work (where death-defying people insist on having the window open), the City Lit (ditto) and even at home, so just to be outside being warmed by the sun is fabulous. The vitamin soaks into all the skin it can reach, shooting optimism bursts straight to my heart, lungs, kidneys.

Anyway, then we go, minus Richard, to the Odious cinema (£7.50! Cheap Tuesdays at Wood Green have spoiled me) to see the new Michael Winnterbottom vs Steve Coogan effort which is very funny and very clever and even rather subtle. Rob Brydon, whose Marion and Jeff show made me yawn, even manages to out-brilliant Coogan. It reminded me a little of Adaptation, although it went further than that by having a film within a film within a film: the final scene was the first showing of the movie; the film’s production staff now playing themselves. My only gripe is that it seemed to have one comedian from each British comic series, one from the Fast Show, one from Little Britain, one from Black Books, one from Fry and Laurie etc. I kept expecting Simon Pegg or Catherine Tate to pop up as a key grip or a comedy midwife, and the part of Rob Brydon’s/Uncle Toby’s servant, Trim, looked like it had been written for MacKenzie Crook.

Mostly, the film seemed to be about the boring arduous process of making a film. Coogan had no time for himself, his partner or his baby; he was just rushed around from shooting to interviews to screenings of the day’s filming, to bickering with Brydon, to costume and then to make-up - ordering a hundred vodkatonics and never finishing any of them; a strange world where his food and drink and hotel were bought and brought for him, nothing to pay for, no independence, the sort of world that ends up feeling less real than a cheap matinee cowboy flick.

A Cock and Bull Story

Sunday: out to Richmond to do the usual walk across the park to Kingston with Richard and Dave#1. But! we decide to break from tradition and trundle off to Roehampton gate instead, still taking in the famous view, the parrots and the lake. Get a bus back from Roehampton, high on space raiders and chewits that Dave has bought for the journey and stop for a quick half in the Park Tavern, sitting outside in the sun because inside even going to the bar make y’feel like you’ve smoken 20 fags. It’s amazing to be warm. Crossing through Richmond town, I had to take off coats, hoodies, scarves, gloves, hats and I would have removed my jumper as well if my poor sherpa had not looked so overburdened. I’ve spent the last four days trying to get warm in restaurants, friends’ houses, bus-stops, train stations, work (where death-defying people insist on having the window open), the City Lit (ditto) and even at home, so just to be outside being warmed by the sun is fabulous. The vitamin soaks into all the skin it can reach, shooting optimism bursts straight to my heart, lungs, kidneys.

Anyway, then we go, minus Richard, to the Odious cinema (£7.50! Cheap Tuesdays at Wood Green have spoiled me) to see the new Michael Winnterbottom vs Steve Coogan effort which is very funny and very clever and even rather subtle. Rob Brydon, whose Marion and Jeff show made me yawn, even manages to out-brilliant Coogan. It reminded me a little of Adaptation, although it went further than that by having a film within a film within a film: the final scene was the first showing of the movie; the film’s production staff now playing themselves. My only gripe is that it seemed to have one comedian from each British comic series, one from the Fast Show, one from Little Britain, one from Black Books, one from Fry and Laurie etc. I kept expecting Simon Pegg or Catherine Tate to pop up as a key grip or a comedy midwife, and the part of Rob Brydon’s/Uncle Toby’s servant, Trim, looked like it had been written for MacKenzie Crook.

Mostly, the film seemed to be about the boring arduous process of making a film. Coogan had no time for himself, his partner or his baby; he was just rushed around from shooting to interviews to screenings of the day’s filming, to bickering with Brydon, to costume and then to make-up - ordering a hundred vodkatonics and never finishing any of them; a strange world where his food and drink and hotel were bought and brought for him, nothing to pay for, no independence, the sort of world that ends up feeling less real than a cheap matinee cowboy flick.