January 12, 2025 – Hello Curns

Weeknotes #103: cultural start to the year

Week one: a week of culture and great food.

Week commencing Monday, 6 January 2025

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 6/7. (86%). Morning walks: 1/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 67,017

Life

I guess we are fully in 2025. Can I keep this going for another year? I’d like to think so.
The first day back at work was hard. Although I did get out for a walk beforehand – and afterwards – so the week started well.
Watching TV one evening, I wondered what is the point of saying they are ‘live’ when BBC One continuity announcers introduce themselves in the early evening? Do any viewers care (I understand TV people might)?
Tuesday, to Robin Hood, this year’s Palladium Pantomime. Julian Clary starred as the titular character, with Jane McDonald as Maid Marian, and a supporting cast of panto regulars. All in all, a spectacle of extravagant costumes, celebrity cameos, and a thin plot. Absolutely brilliant.
Saturday, first delayed train of the year to Birmingham, primarily to see the Ikon Gallery’s partnership with macLYON: Friends in Love and War; works by over twenty artists from the British Council Collection and macLYON that explore the theme of friendship. I’m trying to see more art because I don’t understand it. This was wonderful, but I am sure I didn’t appreciate it properly.
Later, the Cuban afternoon tea was great, but there’d been a mix-up and we’d been booked in when the main service finished. The Sri Lankan dinner was excellent, and we’re on the hunt for a local equivalent.
In between, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: CBSO Explores: Friends in Love and War, featuring the world premiere of Héloïse Werner’s siren suite for soprano and orchestra. Not the usual type of performance we’d see, but really interesting to experience.
Sunday, to see the National Trust’s Birmingham Back to Backs. It’s the last surviving court of back-to-back houses in the city. The houses, built back-to-back with shared courtyards, offer insights into the lives of ordinary people in the 19th and 20th centuries. A really well-done and recommended tour.

Media

More ‘talking shop’ about radio, as Dermot called it. Paul Gambaccini, broadcasting for 50 years, has a neat story about Sir Elton, also Scott Mills and Rev Kate Bottley. Lovely listening on BBC Sounds.
More “lovely listening”: The Shipping Forecast: A Beginner’s Guide, beautifully celebrating one hundred years of the Shipping Forecast on the BBC. It made me look for a map of sea areas.

The Plate That Outlasted Safeway

A cream ceramic plate with a fine, crackled glaze and scattered flecks of colour, resting on a dark speckled granite worktop lit by a blue glow on one side. — A well-worn plate’s crackled glaze catches the light.

This is just a plate. It’s an ordinary plate: off-white with some tiny flecks of colour in the glaze. The colour is not very noticeable. It’s one of a pair, and there is also a pair of matching bowls. I’m certain there were some matching side plates once upon a time.

They’re plain without being too plain. They seem just plain enough to be neither fashionable nor unfashionable—although, to be honest, I have no idea if trends in crockery really exist.

In September 1989, I bought the plates from a branch of Safeway in Shrewsbury. I was heading to university, and two plates, along with the bowls, side plates and a couple of knives and forks, were coming with me. They were used almost daily during the four years I studied.

I don’t know where the side plates went—maybe I imagined them—but I still have the dinner plates and bowls. They have remained in regular use ever since, packed away and moving whenever I moved house. If I had to guess, I’d say they were used weekly. There is a more recent set in daily use, but these were always handy and slightly bigger, capable of holding a full portion of fish and chips from my local chippy.

Today, PY discovered a crack in this plate. It’s unusable and about to break but, before it gives up, I thought I’d take a picture.

It has outlasted the Safeway supermarket brand in the UK, which is an odd fact but one I feel the need to note. More than 30 years seems pretty good going.

I wonder how long the other one will last?

Mouse Mat

There’s always a clear-out in January, isn’t there?

A faded advertisement page reading "www.ybw.com/directory — Europe's No1 Boating Contact Book", with three rounded orange text bars whose copy has faded to illegibility, and a white Apple Magic Mouse resting on top of the page. — An old boating directory advert, mouse included.

There’s always a clear-out in January, isn’t there?

I spent the day clearing out clothes I hadn’t worn and taking them to the local charity shop. There was assorted other junk to throw away too, including the mouse mat I had used since about 1998.

When I was working at IPC, these were promotional gifts from ybw.com. We handed them out at one of the boat shows. The mat carried contact details for ybw.com, but you could lift its clear plastic cover and place papers containing important notes underneath.

It had been very serviceable, but the plastic gradually became grubby and finally snapped. It was time for it to be replaced.

It lasted rather well, though.

Originally at Blipfoto

Garden State

Certainly not the best film ever but it was a promising work for Braff and I’ll be looking our for more.

I had heard and read almost nothing about Garden State until I saw it tonight. It’s written and stars Zach Braff who is, apparently, a big hit in Scrubs (but I don’t watch it) and was in one of my favorite movies, The Broken Hearts Club (but I’d forgotten him).

The background to the plot is that Andrew Largeman (Braff) is a twenty-something actor from New Jersey who now lives in Los Angeles (which supposedly mirrors Braff’s own life). Largeman returns home for his mother’s funeral after not having been back for a decade. He has almost no relationship with his father, a bunch of slacker friends and a lot of history.

So. it’s another middle class slacker movie but it’s quite well done. It’s got elements of humour (both in dialogue and the visuals) and is well shot. Despite the slow pace of some of the film, I found myself remarkably engaged. Usually I that find films where nothing happens are hard work regardless of the abilities of the actors and directors. It simply wasn’t the case here: the opening scences of Largeman motionless in an all white bedroom listening to his father’s messgae grabbed me and I was hooked.

There are two aspects of this film that I think stand out. The first is the soundtrack. I feel a good soundtrack is usually unobtrusive and you tend not to notice it. This is one film where you have an exception to that rule. I noticed how great the soundtrack was but it didn’t take anything away from the experiennce. The imdb entry for ths film notes, “When Braff sent the script to people, he would also send them a copy of the songs which would eventually be the soundtrack (which he handpicked). That is why on the actual soundtrack album, all of the songs are in the order that they appear in the movie” [source].

The other aspect I really liked about this film is the way the depths of the Largeman character are only revealled gradually as we go through the film. Obviosuly, it’s a very common trick of any story but – sometimes – movies reveal too much too soon in a bid to hook the audience. In Garden State, that’s not the case and it works beautifully.

Certainly not the best film ever but it was a promising work for Braff and I’ll be looking our for more, particularly, if he continues blogging about his work.

Entitlement Cards

The consultation period for comments on the introduction of ID cards in the UK is coming to an end

A lot of the blogs I read regularly have highlighted STAND and there seems to be a lot of negative feeling about the introduction of identity/entitlement cards in the UK. I am very undecided as I think they could make so many things easier.

It’s disappointing that there are not more privacy controls in place to make illegal use/access of the data a criminal offence. It’s also very worrying that there doesn’t seem to have been more debate about them and greater publicity surrounding the consultation period. I feel it’s important to add my voice but do I have time to sensibly consider my own thoughts on the matter? I just don’t know what to say. [consultation]