Archive for the ‘lists’ Category
The Third Decade – book group books
Last month our book group celebrated 20 years together. The first book was Atonement by Ian McEwan.
Here are the latest books we have read (May 2020 – December 2021). This post links to a series of posts which go back through every title we have chosen over the years. The first link back is here.
Milkman by Anna Burns (May-June 2020)
The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (July-Sept 2020)
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (Oct-Nov 2020)
The Haunted Man by Charles Dickens (Nov-Dec 2020)
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (Dec-Jan 2021)
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Feb-Mar 2021)
Mr Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe (Mar-Apr 2021)
Fidelity by Marco Missiroli (April-May 2021)
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham (Jun-Jul 2021)
Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante (Jul-Sept 2021)
China Dream by Ma Jian (Sep-Oct 2021)
Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Nov-Dec 2021)
Best of 2020
Film:
Lovers Rock
Babyteeth
Nomadland
The White Tiger
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Another Round
Queen & Slim
Le Corbeau, Vertigo
Last year: Joker, Mid90s
Foreign-Language Film:
The White Tiger
Another Round
Les Miserables (2019)
Last year: Parasite
Documentary:
Crip Camp
Dick Johnson is Dead
Last year: Rolling Thunder Review
Male Lead:
Anthony Hopkins – The Father
Adarsh Gourav – The White Tiger
Tom Hanks – News of the World
Ralph Fiennes – The Dig
Mads Mikkelsen – Another Round
Last year: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
Female Lead:
Frances McDormand – Nomadland
Michelle Pfeiffer – French Exit
Eliza Scanlen – Babyteeth
Kate Winslet – Ammonite
Jodie Turner-Smith – Queen & Slim
Last year: Elizabeth Debicki (Virginia, Vita & Virginia)
Male Support:
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Mauritanian
Mark Rylance – The Trial of the Chicago 7
Sacha Baron Cohen – The Trial of the Chicago 7
Last year: Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin in Joker
Female Support:
Helena Zengel – News of the World
Glenn Close – Hillbilly Elegy
Saoirse Ronan – Ammonite
Olivia Coleman – The Father
Last year: Kaitlyn Dever as Amy in Booksmart
Director:
Steve McQueen – Lovers Rock
Shannon Murphy – Babyteeth
Thomas Vinterberg – Another Round
Ramin Bahrani – The White Tiger
Last year: Todd Phillips (Joker), Jonah Hill (Mid 90s)
Writer:
Ramin Bahrani – The White Tiger
News of the World – Paul Greengrass & Luke Davies
The Trial of the Chicago 7 – Aaron Sorkin (though I don’t generally like him as a writer, too many words)
Rita Kalnejais – Babyteeth
Last year: Jonah Hill (Mid 90s)
Editing:
?
Last year: ?
Cinematography:
Andrew Commis – Babyteeth
Paolo Carnera – The White Tiger
Dariusz Wolski – News of the World
Hoyte van Hoytema – Tenet
Last year: Roger Deakins – 1917
Film Music:
Lovers Rock
Last year: Rolling Thunder Review
Single/Song:
Long Tailed Winter Bird – Paul McCartney
Reborn a Queen – Naughty Alice
Kunta Kinte Dub – The Revolutionaries
Last year: Lately – Celeste
Album:
McCartney III – Paul McCartney
Letter to You – Bruce Springsteen
Last year: Ghosteen – Nick Cave
Gig:
Sarah Jane Morris – Ronnie Scott’s
ROE – The Waiting Room
A Bowie Celebration – Empire, Shepherd’s Bush
Last year: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets (Roundhouse)
Play:
0
Last year: A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios)
Art Exhibition:
London Calling (Museum of London) – the only one I got to this year 😦
A Surge of Power by Marc Quinn going up on the base of the deposed Colston statue, Bristol
Boy & Bear – Brandon Hill, Bristol (thanks to Dylan on my birthday)
Last year: Van Gogh in Britain (Tate B)
Book:
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free – Andrew Miller
The Plague – Albert Camus
Summer – Ali Smith
Last year: A Woman of No Importance – Sonia Purnell; The Quiet American
TV:
Lovers Rock (BBC)
The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
The Crown – S4 (Amazon)
The Romantics and Us (BBC2)
The Bridge S1
Last year: After Life (Netflix)
Podcast:
Heavyweight
Adam Buxton
The Happiness Lab
Last Year: 13 Minutes to the Moon
Sport:
Spurs 2 – Arsenal 1 (11.7.20)
Dance:
Mam (Sadlers Wells)
Last Year: The Red Shoes (Sadlers Wells)
Event:
Statue of Edward Colston being chucked in Bristol harbour
The Winter Solstice at Newgrange, Ireland
Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties
Dearly departed:
- Andy Taylor (with whom I worked at Little Dot and Channel 4)
- Albert Uderzo
- Jimmy Cobb
- Alan Parker
- Terry Jones
- Carl Reiner
- Kirk Douglas
- Sean Connery
- John Hume
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg
- Terence Conran
- JJ Williams
- Nobby Stiles
- Nicholas Parsons
- Tim Brooke Taylor
Best of 2019 and links to earlier Bests Of
Projects
Moving the office archive recently I crossed paths again with numerous projects I’ve commissioned and worked on which are fading in my memory so I’ve decided to build a list here for posterity…
- My Healthchecker
- My Mindchecker
- My Molechecker
- Bedtime Live (2012)
- Healthfreaks (2013)
- Every Object Tells a Story (2004)
- ORIGINATION (10/04)
- Origination: Insite (Culture Online) (Q1 2005)
- Lost Generation
- My Movie Mashup
- Germ (viral videos incl. ICA exhibition)
- The Human Footprint – a life in numbers (interactive module)
- PIXnMIX (Nov 2004) The Candy Jar
- TexTips 4Lovers, 4Karma, 4Mates, Islamic Inspiration, 4Change etc.
- Lust4Life / Ten Years Younger
- (Chancers) (urban talent search, Ras Kwame 12/04)
- Ideasfactory
- Omagh
- Digital Africa
- Time Team Big Dig
- (Big Roman Dig) (2005)
- (Jamie’s School Dinners)
- Jamie’s Dreamschool
- (New Shoots)
- Famelab
- Rolling Stock
- My Shakespeare (RADA)
- X (Q1 2005)
- Breaking the News
- Make Tracks
- Webit (Ideasfactory website competition for 13-19s 12/04)
- Interactive Christmas card (tangerine)
- The Unteachables
- 121 (2006)
- The Play’s The Thing
- Drugs SFV pilot (which came first)
- Sexperience
- The Sexperience 1000
- The Showbiz Baby Name Generator (10/04)
- Parents Screw You Up
- Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets (6/11)
- Poll Vault pilot
- Bollywood Star (9/04)
- Big Art Project
- [Creative Archive Licence]
- Britain’s Big Share (pilot)
In the Wake of Waking Up
I’m writing this after having just finished an online session about the Sirens chapter of Ulysses with the Charles Peake Seminar group – it’s the chapter centred on music. I switched straight from that which finished at 8pm to a live online gig from the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin by Iarla O Leonaird (singer in Gaelic) & Steve Cooney (guitar player) which started at 8pm. Music is a Big Thing for Joyce – this morning I got to The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly at the end of the second chapter of Finnegans Wake, marking the culmination of the rumours about HCE’s shameful act, fixing that moment for the long term in folksong. It actually opens with musical staves and notes, underlining the collagey, encyclopedic and scrapbooky nature of the Wake.
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And he curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
At the butt of the Magazine Wall,
The Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he’s kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he’ll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
To the jail of Mountjoy!
Jail him and joy.
I noticed this morning after finishing this section and the couple of pages before it that when I went to read another (conventional) novel it took a good few minutes to go back to conventional reading – you get into a different mode of reading and thinking when immersed in the Wake. It was a really interesting reading experience. The way you read the Wake is more engaged, playful and energetic than normal reading.
I want to finish off this second post by starting a couple of lists. The central character, HCE, has his initials explained in a number of ways in the book and I want to start capturing them:
- Harold or Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (p30) – see last post
- Howth Castle and Environs (3) = 1st line of the novel, a key location in both the Wake and Ulysses
- Haveth Childers Everywhere (a section published in 1930 as part of Work in Progress) = Adam, father of mankind
- humile, commune and ensectuous (29)
- Here Comes Everybody (32) = Everyman
- habituels conspicuously emergent (33)
- He’ll Cheat E’erawan (46) = a sinful fella
Another list I want to begin here is one of all the different ways Joyce refers to the city at the heart of the novel (as with Ulysses) – Dublin:
- Dabblin (p16)
- (Brian) d’ of Linn (17)
- dun blink (17)
- durblin (19)
- Devlin (24)
- Dumbaling (34)
- Poolblack (35) = Dub/black Lin/Pool : dubh linn (Gaelic) black pool
(I’ll keep building these lists as I read through.)
4 reasons to love Albert Finney
A friend of mine (whose artwork sits below where I am writing) is a close relative of Albert Finney so it was with a bit of a jolt that the news of the actor’s death caught me yesterday. I had last watched him on the obscure Channel 81 on Freeview (which is my favourite, random old movies from the 50s and 60s) in the somewhat bizarre (but very interesting) Gumshoe a few weeks ago.
Last night Erin Brockovich felt like the right celebration for a Friday night of a distinctive and charming actor. I’d forgotten that the movie was one of Steven Soderbergh’s, adding to the alignment as the sad news came in on the same day as posting this new article which brackets Soderbergh’s latest movie with my commission Missed Call and Sean Baker’s Tangerine.
1. Tom Jones (1963) as Tom Jones
From the year of my birth, derived from one of my favourite books, characterised by a youthful cheekiness.
2. Under The Volcano (1984) as Geoffrey Firmin
From my university days, watched at the Arts Cinema Cambridge (also sadly missed), I remember it as a deeply disturbing performance and movie.
3. Erin Brockovich (2000) as Ed Masry
Avuncular, great chemistry with his shining co-star Julia Roberts, still that cheekiness.
4. Skyfall (2012) as Kincade
Shot by my first boss (Roger Deakins), with the immortal line:
Welcome to Scotland!
as he shotguns two of Bond’s assailants. Cheeky and irresistible to the end.
4 of the Greatest Drummers
I’ve been enjoying the 3-part series Guitar, Drum & Bass on BBC4 commissioned by my old friend & colleague Jan Younghusband. Some of the presenters are better than others (Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads a real natural on Bass; Stuart Copeland gives it a good try on Drums, enthusiastic but not the full monty).
Of course it gets you reflecting on the greats so here are who I consider 4 of the drumming greats:
1) Michael Shreeve – Santana
[comes in at 0:38] He blew everyone away at Woodstock as a fresh 20-year-old.
2) John Bonham – Led Zeppelin
A driving force of great technical accomplishment – heavy as it gets.
3) Budgie – Siouxsie & the Banshees
[kicks in at 0:36] A perfect off-beat sound
4) Clyde Stubblefield – James Brown
[solo at 0:30] Funky as fuck
Bubbling under:
- Elvin Jones – John Coltrane
- Gene Krupa – Benny Goodman
- Itamar Doari – Avishai Cohen
Itamar Doari with Avishai Cohen
Also of note:
- Gregory Coleman – The Winstons (creator of the Amen Break)
- Stockton Helbing – Maynard Fergusson
[6 famous seconds at 1:26] The Amen Break
For the record
A relative in Ireland recently sent me one of those chain postings in Facebook – I don’t go for passing those on but since I did the thinking – about what my favourite records are – I’ll plop them in here for posterity.