When Ewan told me he was planning to sail from St Petersburg to Venice I was mightily impressed. Even when I learned this was Florida not Europe I was still impressed. The voyage is over now and thanks to tracking technology a landlubber like me was able to enjoy the trip.
Thanks to the Covid restrictions I've not been out of Edinburgh, barely out of the house in fact let alone on the high seas but the time will come.
An early excursion when we are released will not take me very far but I must see what has been described as "the most important Japanese garden in the western world" which happens to nestle at the foot of the Ochils. Who'd have believed it?
The Japan Foundation tours a selection of films around the UK roundabout now. I managed to see only one last year and somewhat to my surprise, because it was an animation telling a to me totally uninteresting story about a school dedicated to gambling, quite enjoyed it.
This year the films are all available online. I booked six and have so far seen five. I'm not ecstatic about any of them but I enjoyed the family drama One NIght well enough and I found Labyrinth of Cinema unusual and engaging though it was too long and a better knowledge of Japanese history than mine would have helped. Miyamoto and Soirée I didn't enjoy much. A lot of screaming and fighting. Farewell, billed as a madcap comedy failed to raise so much as a titter and I couldn't bear to sit through it all. There are thoughtful, well informed and extensive reviews of those films on the internet that find a lot to praise in them so hunt them out rather than take my brusque, ill informed and partial view.
After Shrapnel came Roulette. This figment of Claire's imagination was a mating game, played on Zoom but this time in the form of a webinar which allowed participants to control the order of events and pick a winning couple. My participation was limited to prompting at some rehearsals being too far over the hill to have been considered when it was being cast. When the senior citizen remake comes up though!
I enjoyed a TV series - The Serpent. Based on real events it was about a French criminal who went off to Bangkok and got into the business of robbing young backpackers in Thailand and other parts of Asia. He murdered most of them. Although l say I enjoyed it I found it quite disturbing and I was very glad to learn from the credits at the end that he's been in prison in Kathmandu for some years and is likely to stay there.
Prompted by hearing Sophia Loren on Desert Island Discs I watched a couple of her films which were available to stream through my subscription to the British Film Institute. One film was Two Women, a serious film about a woman and her daughter caught up in the miseries of the final days of World War Two. She got an Oscar for that. The other (Marriage Italian Style) is a delightful comedy in which she plays opposite Marcello Mastroianni, an actor I admire a lot. He plays something of a rogue but she gets the better of him in the end.
The Thursday night theatre crowd gathered for Roulette and has also watched The Poltergeist, a very well performed hard hitting tale of a young man's disappointment at how his life has turned out and the resentment he feels towards his family. It's a painful tale brilliantly told.
Good Grief was a double-hander and a much more convential story of love and loss. Well enough performed but not that exciting. The most exciting double-hander of love and loss playing recently however has been the Sturgeon and Salmond story. I found the committee hearings riveting. Will heads roll? Will the goverment fall?
