Or...we could just hit him repeatedly with these big spiky maces!

[alexsarll]

Did anybody see The History Boys on stage *and* film? Because I saw the latter last night, and having already read the director's commentary, I'm interested as to whether there are any differences between the two beyond the obvious. Certainly it felt as though many of the lines and performances would have been quite powerful on stage where they were a little unsubtle for the screen; the ending might even have been moving rather than mawkish. The only scene which felt even vaguely *filmic* was the montage of Oxbridge scenes set brilliantly, counterintuitively to The Cure's 'A Forest', reminding us that our protagonists are but innocents abroad. Beyond that, it's passably entertaining - but even as a play, I can't see how it would have been great rather than good. Its argument is confused - by which I don't mean any failure to take sides, rather, unlike Stoppard it fails even to throw light on the terms of the conflict. Why does neither side of the Holocaust argument scene have any decent points to make? Why would a headmaster who talks about creating "Renaissance men" object to Hector's classes which seem to do just that? What the blazes does the PE teacher have to do with *anything*? And at the risk of coming across a bit Tatchell, I'm uncomfortable with the implication that any good teacher is necessarily "a homosexual and a sad fvck". In terms of plays with heavy Housman references, this is maybe fit to kiss the shoes of The Invention of Love. Maybe.
And Richard Griffiths...I feel a bit sad for Richard Griffiths sometimes, and I do mean him not his characters. I picture him longing to lose a little weight, but mournfully shovelling those pies down his gullet, always aware that if he ever stops looking like a hippopotamus with a splinter in its foot, his career will be over.

Jon Savage's England's Dreaming is one of the music books I see most frequently on my friends' shelves, and yet if any of them knew his follow-up proper was imminent, they've not mentioned it to me. For the record: Teenage: the Creation of Youth Culture is out next month, but there's a wider question to be asked, about why with a few exceptions (mostly boy wizard-shaped), people are generally so unaware of imminent book launches, even when they're exactly the sort of people who know which albums of interest are hitting over the next few months.

The Disability Rights Commission objects to the continued use of Routemasters on *two* central London routes, even though both routes also have accessible buses running. What selfish, joyless pricks they must be.
Meanwhile, McDonalds is campaigning against the dictionary definition of 'McJob', apparently failing to grasp, as these campaigns always do, that dictionaries record WHAT THE BLOODY WORDS MEAN and cannot be amended at any monomaniac's whim, unless said monomaniac somehow convinces the language to do its bidding first.
In summary: a pox on all special interest groups.

Comments

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I suppose books in general are less immediate in many ways. Another example would be that my CDs and records are scrupulously alphabetical, mainly so that I know where everything is - because if I want to listen to a given song I want it NOW. Whereas the books are on a looser, more intuitive system - because if I want to read a given book, I want to read it sometime vaguely soonish.