I relocated it from the artwork studio of Hall Advertising in Drumsheugh Gardens, Edinburgh.
At one time an artworker skilfully used it, or one of its bedfellows, to cut my tie in half after it descended upon a piece of flat artwork he was tending to.
Everybody laughed.
Even me.
(It was a life lesson in getting out of the way when you’re not needed. It might even have been a lesson in micro-management.)
It sits in a cup full of Sharpies on my office desk at home and it gets used quite a lot.
Not to incise cadavers, remove stitches, perform open heart surgery, mind you. The aim of Swann Morton, its manufacturers (and possibly designers).
No, I use it to open parcels, shape paper for CD covers inserts, scrape plaque(tartare) from my teeth, slice sellotape, render blue, brown and green/yellow wires ready for electrical plug management. Little things that would be less satisfying with scissors.
I use it most frequently in the lead up to Christmas.
I have on occasion sliced small packages of skin from my fingers. But I forgive it.
Tickets were selling in Edinburgh at an unprecedented £175 face value. This is frankly ridiculous.
Indira Varma does a good Lady MacBeth.
But Ralph Fiennes is too old, too decrepit to be a believable ambition driven monarch. He looks more like a nice wee spot in a care home would suit him quite nicely. (My pal said he was like Leonard Rossiter in Rising Damp and I have to agree.)
As we enter the theatre (makeshift and terribly short legroom) we pass through a modern war zone (could be Syria, could be Gaza) it makes us think we are in for a modern reinterpretation of the greatest ever play.
We are, but in costume only, as it transpires.
What follows is a competent (but no more than that ) retelling of the story of Scotland’s greatest King(s).
We await greatness but it seems it will only come tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.
I thought it was a bit of a mess really with its Star Trek whooshing doors and its slightly distempered stage.
The witches are boring, Fiennes is boring. Thank God for Indira.
Fine, but pedestrian.
If you are in Washington and hoping for the greatest English Shakespearian production of your life…save your money. Go watch Rising Damp on YouTube. Save yourself a few bucks.
It takes time to become a veteran in this business (advertising). So, it takes a while (39 years in my case) to be asked to look back on the olden days of what I do.
I was honoured to be asked by Barry Hearn to join him for a 60 minute chat with The Lane’s Creative Director, Ian ‘Fletch’ Fletcher about advertising, then and now.
So here’s Barry’s Marketing Society / Lane podcast called leading Conversations #21.
First off, I have to state that I adore Yorgos Lanthimos. I adore Emma Stone. I adore Mark Ruffalo and I adore Willem Dafoe.
That’s it then. Slam dunk. Movie of the year. (Or is it?)
I also have to say that I am a great admirer of Alasdair Gray who wrote the source novel in 1992 and won the Whitbread Prize for his efforts.
The novel is described as a post modern take on Frankenstein in which Dr Godwin Baxter (there’s a pun in the name) creates a very different and lovable monster that he essentially adopts – Bella Baxter – a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant.
Bella is played with outrageous abandon by Stone and as the (long) movie unfolds, she evolves from a ‘beautiful retard’ that can barely speak and has dysfunctional locomotion (plus is keen on a terrible twos tantrum on a regular basis), to a fully fledged young genius and palatable member of Victorian(?) society.
But the journey she takes is eventful, colourful and stunning as she visits reimagined Paris, London, Lisbon and Alexandria in houses (and brothels) that merge Willie Wonka with Wes Anderson and a bit of Jules Vernes thrown in for good measure.
Three suitors attempt to unravel Bella’s being with varying degrees of success but the stand out is Mark Ruffalo’s outrageously posh gigolo Duncan Wedderburn. Rufallo’s sublime English accent more than makes up for Dafoe’s in and out Scots Frankenstein and he steals the show repeatedly as he seduces Bella before falling on hard times.
Stone is remarkable, but I was troubled by the sexual politics at play here. In a book written by a man and a movie directed by a man the male gaze is on Stone throughout and her route to success is through prostitution. I’d be interested to know what my female friends think of this strand of the movie. Is it objectification or is it liberalised feminism boldly and proudly on show? I found it hard to decide at the time, although surely the latter is Lanthimos’s objective.
It’s a tough movie to capture the essence of. The story is actually a little thin and quite unremarkable, but the styling and much of the script is extraordinary, truly extraordinary. If, for nothing else, the succession of mutant hybrid farm animals – a duck with a full sized pig’s head for example. And all of the central performances are notable (especially Ruffalo).
But, I think it’s a movie to admire, not to love. But, as a piece of art, it’s sublime.
This won the Booker Prize a few months ago and in quality terms sits alongside Colson Whitehead’s deadly duo of The Underground Railroad and Nickel Boys that won him the Pulitzer back to back. None of the three of them are what you would call easy reading, but each shares a love of humanity that shines through human anguish and strife like glorious beacons. In Lynch’s book, set in Ireland, a totalitarian government has rapidly insinuated the culture of the nation, turning its citizens into either patriots or rebels. Eilish, our central protagonist is a middle class mother of four married to the leader of the Irish teacher’s Union. The book opens with the Gardai at her door seeking the whereabouts of her spouse. Only a few pages later he is incarcerated, we know not where for, presumably, crimes against the state. And so begins a nightmare that threatens the whole substance and meaning of her life. Eilish, certainly not a patriot, finds herself shunned by her community. Slowly but surely the book ramps up Ireland’s descent into mayhem and the implications it has on all of Eilish’s family, including her newborn Ben who reaches toddler stage by the time of its heartbreaking denouement. The story is really about familial love in the midst of war torn chaos. It is directly inspired by the Syrian conflict that was the catalyst for the English Channel’s boat crossings but this is only one conflict in a constant global shifting sands of outrageous political, and religious, fervour. How a state as solid and secure as Ireland can implode quite is rapidly as it does is not really the point, but it’s shocking. The point is that poisonous aspects of nationhood and tribalism can spring up anywhere, any time. There are echos of the Wehrmacht that fully kicked off on Kristallnacht; it’s subtly portrayed in a horrifying passage half way through where it’s car windscreens, rather than Jewish shop windows, that take a battering. But the analogy is clear. Lynch’s prose is beautifully poetic and this conflict’s place in time is regularly referenced when he spells out that although we are reading a story set in Eilish’s present, it is rooted in both the past and will well-up again in the future, such is the certainty of the human condition. Lynch uses no para-breaks (see what I am doing here) nor quotation marks which renders the story breathless, echoing the turmoil and lack of headspace Eilish finds herself in, unable to make clear decisions because events constantly pile on top of each other. What’s more, her father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and is crumbling. Like many older people he is doggedly independent and in denial of his condition. And living on the other side of Dublin, across various frontlines, visiting him is a treacherous, verging on suicidal, undertaking. There is absolutely no let off in the accelerating heartbreak and injury that befalls Eilish and her brood as she seeks safety in some form or other. But ultimately that safety comes at a great price. It’s heart wrenching redolent of The Road but with less time for contemplation or consideration. It deserves to join the highest echelon of Irish novels, indeed any novels. I was broken-hearted that it had to end.
gibberish 