I've been on antibiotics for a week in an effort to kill off a kidney infection. The infection has left me feeling bruised inside and turned my wee an interesting colour. And it's still hanging on, so I've more tests and things next week. But it does explain why I've been feeling so run down these last weeks.
Here, for your entertainment and delight, is a review I did way back in February for Vector.
"Too Many Curses" by A Lee Martinez
Reviewed by Simon Guerrier
Nessy the Kobold is the servant in an evil wizard's castle. She feeds the monsters and chats to the ghosts and avoids the advances of Decapitated Dan. When the evil wizard accidentally gets killed, the castle thinks their curses will be lifted. But their troubles have only just begun.
It's a fun, fast-moving adventure packed full of daft characters and incident. The prose is straightforward and there are plenty of jokes. The chaotic plot, as more monsters and obstacles rain down on Nessy, is all nicely tied up in the end. It's a satisfying – and quick – read. Though there's plenty of icky things going on – belching and vomiting and being eaten alive – Martinez rarely lets us in on anyone's pain. For example, a character has the tip of their tail turned to ice and we don't get any sense of how that feels, how it chills the rest of the body. Nor is there much urgency about changing the tail back.
Perhaps this is part of Nessy's character – we're often told she's a practical soul, more worried about keeping the castle tidy than the various creatures that want to kill her. By the end she's changed her priorities and learnt to take charge of herself. But rather than her character developing all the book, this change comes rather suddenly in a final confrontation with... It would spoil it to say too much more.
I assume Too Many Curses is for the same sort of audience as devours Harry Potter. Which makes the swearing a surprise. Sir Tedeus calls people “wanker” several times and there's one occasion of bastard. (Ron Weasley can say “bloody hell” in the movies, but he can't swear in the books.)
There's the same recourse to books and the slow learning of magic as Potter, the same tests and dark wizards and dark humour. There's the same plucky, oppressed underling who must dare to challenge a legendary dark wizard to a duel. There's the same lessons of compassion overcoming evil, and of the hero's reliance on their friends.
But Too Many Curses lacks the emotional depth of JK Rowling. We don't feel for Nessy or her friends. The books ends open enough for there to be further adventures for Nessy, but there's no urgency for them.
Showing posts with label harry potter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harry potter. Show all posts
Friday, December 04, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Courage, mon bruv
Went to see Mother Courage and her Children at the National last night, which is not – as I'd hoped – a nursery rhyme with a happy ending. Instead, Fiona Shaw tries to run a racketeering business through a never-ending war and keep her three children alive.
It's a bombastic, lively version of Berthold Brecht's play, full of his trademark interventions to remind you that you're watching a play. The stage directions are read out, and a recording of Gore Vidal summarises scenes before you see them, so there's spoilers aplenty. Whopping great signs hang from the air pointing out the names of characters and what the set's meant to look like. Before each half the technicians held the stage, getting this ready and acting as if they were. I'm also not sure the house lights were down as much as usual, so you were aware of everyone else watching.
Despite all this clever estrangement stuff, I was pretty quickly caught up in the action. Shaw is enthralling and the rest of the cast do their best to keep up. It's a funny, rude and sweary play, defiant against the unyielding misery of war.
I think I might even have read it before, or at least studied the brilliant scene where Mother Courage must pretend not to recognise her dead son or be executed herself. It's a great bit of drama: compelling because there's no easy way out, no argument that will save things. It's telling that Courage, so full of fire most of the time, here has nothing to say.
The setting is the Thirty Years War in the first half of seventeenth century, but Brecht wrote it in response to the Nazi invasion of Poland. There are plenty of Irish accents in the cast of his version, and bits of army uniform from today's conflicts, to pepper the play with contemporary relevance. It's nicely judged: the struggle to survive and even profit from war, and its terrible cost, never feel like a we're being lectured.
Partly that's the way the thing bashes along, never pausing for breath. There's not even time to applaud the songs from Duke Special that punctuate the story. At 3 hours 10 minutes – with a 20 minute interval – it's still a long play, especially for a half-man, half-orang-utan who doesn't quite fit in the £10 seats.
Wondered if they'd noticed that too, and skipped over a couple of scenes later on just to get to the end. The Dr then told me that the first preview a couple of weeks back had not had a second half – as reported in the Guardian. A play where the director comes out and explains you're only getting part one? I think Brecht would have loved that.
(Incidentally, this is blog post #850.)
It's a bombastic, lively version of Berthold Brecht's play, full of his trademark interventions to remind you that you're watching a play. The stage directions are read out, and a recording of Gore Vidal summarises scenes before you see them, so there's spoilers aplenty. Whopping great signs hang from the air pointing out the names of characters and what the set's meant to look like. Before each half the technicians held the stage, getting this ready and acting as if they were. I'm also not sure the house lights were down as much as usual, so you were aware of everyone else watching.
Despite all this clever estrangement stuff, I was pretty quickly caught up in the action. Shaw is enthralling and the rest of the cast do their best to keep up. It's a funny, rude and sweary play, defiant against the unyielding misery of war.
I think I might even have read it before, or at least studied the brilliant scene where Mother Courage must pretend not to recognise her dead son or be executed herself. It's a great bit of drama: compelling because there's no easy way out, no argument that will save things. It's telling that Courage, so full of fire most of the time, here has nothing to say.
The setting is the Thirty Years War in the first half of seventeenth century, but Brecht wrote it in response to the Nazi invasion of Poland. There are plenty of Irish accents in the cast of his version, and bits of army uniform from today's conflicts, to pepper the play with contemporary relevance. It's nicely judged: the struggle to survive and even profit from war, and its terrible cost, never feel like a we're being lectured.
Partly that's the way the thing bashes along, never pausing for breath. There's not even time to applaud the songs from Duke Special that punctuate the story. At 3 hours 10 minutes – with a 20 minute interval – it's still a long play, especially for a half-man, half-orang-utan who doesn't quite fit in the £10 seats.
Wondered if they'd noticed that too, and skipped over a couple of scenes later on just to get to the end. The Dr then told me that the first preview a couple of weeks back had not had a second half – as reported in the Guardian. A play where the director comes out and explains you're only getting part one? I think Brecht would have loved that.
(Incidentally, this is blog post #850.)
Monday, August 03, 2009
No cheese cauldron
The Dr took me to see Harry Potter VI last night - the second time she'd seen it. What a lifetime it's been since I read the book. The film boils the plot down to the bare necessities, dumping all the stuff set in the Ministry and focusing in on the teen snogging. While the last film, I thought, was better than the book, this one is good but not as good.
Jonny's right about the over-grading. Changing the colour and tone of each frame also makes the film grainy. As Cathode Blue Ray and Mos-Def television give way to ever more pin-sharp home cinema, I wonder how the evolved beings of tomorrow will look back on the murky gravel of our age.
I also think they got the tone wrong. Those memories of freak-boy Young Voldemort are all in graded blue-grey to suggest coldness and evil. But the whole blimmin' point is that no one saw he was a wrong 'un until it was too late. In the book, Dumbledore - and so we - sympathise with the bullied kid who magics things from his tormentors, just as Harry did with Dudley Dursley in book one. Dumbledore chides Tom Riddle for stealing but still takes him under his wing.
Likewise, Riddle charms Professor Slughorn, showing interest in his lessons and buying his favourite sweets. Before he went Obviously Bad, Tom Riddle was liked, the teachers almost indulging his breaking of rules and small magic revenges on those bullies who deserved it.
Young Riddle is all too like young Harry Potter. As Harry grows up, and the 'parental' adults around him take a step back, his future is down to the choices he makes.
Harry could still yet do terrible things. So could any of us.
Jonny's right about the over-grading. Changing the colour and tone of each frame also makes the film grainy. As Cathode Blue Ray and Mos-Def television give way to ever more pin-sharp home cinema, I wonder how the evolved beings of tomorrow will look back on the murky gravel of our age.
I also think they got the tone wrong. Those memories of freak-boy Young Voldemort are all in graded blue-grey to suggest coldness and evil. But the whole blimmin' point is that no one saw he was a wrong 'un until it was too late. In the book, Dumbledore - and so we - sympathise with the bullied kid who magics things from his tormentors, just as Harry did with Dudley Dursley in book one. Dumbledore chides Tom Riddle for stealing but still takes him under his wing.
Likewise, Riddle charms Professor Slughorn, showing interest in his lessons and buying his favourite sweets. Before he went Obviously Bad, Tom Riddle was liked, the teachers almost indulging his breaking of rules and small magic revenges on those bullies who deserved it.
Young Riddle is all too like young Harry Potter. As Harry grows up, and the 'parental' adults around him take a step back, his future is down to the choices he makes.
Harry could still yet do terrible things. So could any of us.
Monday, July 23, 2007
All was well
Stayed up until half two this morning to see off Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which the Doctor read all of on Saturday (due to the rising tides making it impossible to get to Mr Cornell’s 40th birthday party). Some spoilertastic thoughts follow, so come back when you’ve got to the end.
The
spoiler space
for
this
post
is split
seven ways...
For the first time, it’s not about another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With Harry now 17 and, as a grown-up, suddenly no longer protected by the safe-making magic of love, a whole world of baddies is out to get him – and anyone in the way.
It’s a gripping read, full of violence and excitement right from the beginning. In fact, two major characters are killed in the first action sequence and another is seriously wounded – a shocking, horrific start that sets up that no one is safe. I remember (but can’t attribute) a bit of writing advice that an audience will let you get away with killing all the people in a burning people so long as their pets escape… And the deaths and maimings keep coming.
It’s a brutal book with a high body count, and many of those killings are sudden and abrupt. Suddenly people we’ve come to know well over the last 10 years / seven books are just not there any more – but that’s true of the characters that survive, too. The ending is also rather abrupt, and bar the handful of classmates mentioned in the epilogue, we learn very little of what happens to people after the final battle. Presumably Hermione recalls her parents from Australia. Can we also assume that at some point in the 19 years Harry catches up with the Dursleys again?
This blunt despatch also means that you’re not always sure who you’ve just said goodbye to for good. When Hagrid is dragged off by spiders on page 520, I did think that was him done for – and hoist by his own hairy-legged petard.
In fact, a lot of the book is reported rather than seen, and even when there are big action sequences like Harry escaping Privet Drive or the Battle forHelms Deep Hogwarts, we follow Harry doing something else then later catch up on who didn’t survive. This means that while everybody else is fighting for their lives, we’re following Harry as he goes camping and looks for lucky charms. It’s not that these sequences don’t work, but it perhaps limits the book by having almost all of it told from Harry’s perspective, so that major events are given in reported speech as he catches up with friends.
It may also have to be like this is Harry’s not going to fight. The key thing about the book is that he doesn’t go to war while everyone else does, and it’s the fact that he won’t kill – that his trademark spell is to disarm not wound, that ultimately everything hinges on. It’s telling that he learns a lesson that, at his age, Dumbledore did not – that magical might is not right. After seven years at magical school, the most important thing Harry has learned is when not to use his powers.
Being the last one (and its ending makes that pretty definitive, too), Deathly Hallows revisits many of the characters and settings of previous books in one last farewell tour. We also visit for the first time the house where Harry’s parents were killed, and learn a great deal about the early lives of Dumbledore and Snape. The Dr was especially blubby about chapter 33, but then it was her favourite character being all noble and misunderstood. Which is all suitably goth.
Some of the things we’d predicted were right: about Snape, his real motivations, and Harry Potter’s mum; that R.A.B. was Sirius’s brother; that we’d see Ollivander again. Other things I was completely out on: I had the Hogwarts-hidden Horcrux as either Godric’s ruby-encrusted sword or the Mirror of Erised (artefacts set up in the first couple of books). I assumed either Ron or Hermione (or both) would die, while the Dr had Harry not making it to the last chapter. There were also wrong-feet as I read it: assuming Mad-Eye would return as a reanimated corpse, for example, and assuming we’d find out what that gateway from the end of Order of the Phoenix was all about.
There are some very good surprises – shock reveals of baddies and some major revelations about Harry and his world. It’s a while since I read anything that demanded I keep reading, especially at the end of chapters. There’s also some good closure to character and story arcs all the way along: Ron worrying about the plight of goblins; Mrs Weasley going to war; Neville being the hero.
Also key to the book as a whole is Harry now being an adult and standing on his own. By the end of the series, all the adults Harry once held in awe – his parents, his teachers, his enemies – are seen to be just as flawed and capable of great mistakes as he is.
I’m curious what kids will make of such a brutal and complex book, so lacking in the mad antics and laughs of Harry’s previous adventures.
And by my reckoning (though I’m sure many others have got there first), Harry’s from the class of ‘98, and the last chapter takes place in 2016.
The
spoiler space
for
this
post
is split
seven ways...
For the first time, it’s not about another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With Harry now 17 and, as a grown-up, suddenly no longer protected by the safe-making magic of love, a whole world of baddies is out to get him – and anyone in the way.
It’s a gripping read, full of violence and excitement right from the beginning. In fact, two major characters are killed in the first action sequence and another is seriously wounded – a shocking, horrific start that sets up that no one is safe. I remember (but can’t attribute) a bit of writing advice that an audience will let you get away with killing all the people in a burning people so long as their pets escape… And the deaths and maimings keep coming.
It’s a brutal book with a high body count, and many of those killings are sudden and abrupt. Suddenly people we’ve come to know well over the last 10 years / seven books are just not there any more – but that’s true of the characters that survive, too. The ending is also rather abrupt, and bar the handful of classmates mentioned in the epilogue, we learn very little of what happens to people after the final battle. Presumably Hermione recalls her parents from Australia. Can we also assume that at some point in the 19 years Harry catches up with the Dursleys again?
This blunt despatch also means that you’re not always sure who you’ve just said goodbye to for good. When Hagrid is dragged off by spiders on page 520, I did think that was him done for – and hoist by his own hairy-legged petard.
In fact, a lot of the book is reported rather than seen, and even when there are big action sequences like Harry escaping Privet Drive or the Battle for
It may also have to be like this is Harry’s not going to fight. The key thing about the book is that he doesn’t go to war while everyone else does, and it’s the fact that he won’t kill – that his trademark spell is to disarm not wound, that ultimately everything hinges on. It’s telling that he learns a lesson that, at his age, Dumbledore did not – that magical might is not right. After seven years at magical school, the most important thing Harry has learned is when not to use his powers.
Being the last one (and its ending makes that pretty definitive, too), Deathly Hallows revisits many of the characters and settings of previous books in one last farewell tour. We also visit for the first time the house where Harry’s parents were killed, and learn a great deal about the early lives of Dumbledore and Snape. The Dr was especially blubby about chapter 33, but then it was her favourite character being all noble and misunderstood. Which is all suitably goth.
Some of the things we’d predicted were right: about Snape, his real motivations, and Harry Potter’s mum; that R.A.B. was Sirius’s brother; that we’d see Ollivander again. Other things I was completely out on: I had the Hogwarts-hidden Horcrux as either Godric’s ruby-encrusted sword or the Mirror of Erised (artefacts set up in the first couple of books). I assumed either Ron or Hermione (or both) would die, while the Dr had Harry not making it to the last chapter. There were also wrong-feet as I read it: assuming Mad-Eye would return as a reanimated corpse, for example, and assuming we’d find out what that gateway from the end of Order of the Phoenix was all about.
There are some very good surprises – shock reveals of baddies and some major revelations about Harry and his world. It’s a while since I read anything that demanded I keep reading, especially at the end of chapters. There’s also some good closure to character and story arcs all the way along: Ron worrying about the plight of goblins; Mrs Weasley going to war; Neville being the hero.
Also key to the book as a whole is Harry now being an adult and standing on his own. By the end of the series, all the adults Harry once held in awe – his parents, his teachers, his enemies – are seen to be just as flawed and capable of great mistakes as he is.
I’m curious what kids will make of such a brutal and complex book, so lacking in the mad antics and laughs of Harry’s previous adventures.
And by my reckoning (though I’m sure many others have got there first), Harry’s from the class of ‘98, and the last chapter takes place in 2016.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Blood, toil, sweat and tears
Some folks have asked eagerly – and not a little disturbingly – for details of the blood-dashed events of Wednesday. And I am reminded of Eric Blair thinking it interesting to be shot. But it’s also all a bit ICKY, even for me to recall, so other folks may prefer to look away.
The tooth, though, has needed some work ever since. It's been filled and looked at and stitched and root canalled. I’ve also enjoyed the draining of a sub-tooth abscess (that is, a great volcano of pus swelling inside the gum. Nice). This ongoing trouble threatened to weaken the whole jaw (so the dentists said) and was also a bit rank and icky.
So anyway, the tooth was a liability, and it’s not such a great surprise that I split it top-to-bottom amid deadline panic. It’s continued to splinter since my last report, and then there was something funny tasting in my mouth, so I trooped off to my appointment rather early. With all the calm and solemnity of Beaker from the Muppets.
The lovely dentist (weirdly, I hate going to the dentist with a terror like race memory, but I’ve always got on well with the dentists themselves) discussed what was going to be done, and also her theories about the forthcoming last Harry Potter. “You’ll feel pressure but not sharpness,” she said very pleasantly. “And I think ‘R.A.B.’ must be [SPOILER].”
Yes I felt the pressure. No, I felt no sharpness. But what pressure. She alternated between two sets of pliers and needed to hold on to my lower jaw as she heaved and waggled and wrenched. There’s something monstrously disturbing about the cracking of your own teeth and I could feel an apeish need to escape up the nearest tree. And then, pok! she’d yanked the thing out.
“We’ll just rinse out that taste,” she says, prodding a tube of lovely cool water into my numb and frothing mouth. I’m thinking that wasn’t so bad. Then she’s dabbing at my face where splashes of blood must have got me. But no. “There was an abscess behind the tooth,” she says. “And it sort of went everywhere.” Ick.
There’s then some more good news. Only the top part of the tooth came out. It’s crumbling, so she needs another go. You know I said I don’t like going to the dentist? Well, she’s swapping different terrifying tools and trying to staunch the bleeding because it makes it hard to see the remaining bits. And each drilling, poking, heaving, wrenching brings out just a tiny scrap more.
I’m watching these tiny splinters being added to the bloody, drooly mess on the tray to my side, thinking it makes for an impossible 3D puzzle, of the sort naughty children get for Christmas. I’m trying to remember how to breathe, aware that my legs and belly and, well all of me, is shaking like a Jibber Jabber. But eventually, a very long hour later, the deed is done and I quiver from my chair with a temporary denture in place. My instructions are not to spit, not to smoke, not to eat or drink nowt hot, and not to booze (waaah! on that last one). I also have to leave the strange acrylic tooth in place over night so my mouth will bruise around it.
Back home, I tried to watch some of the Ealing comedies received for my birthday (Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets), but brain wasn’t really functioning. The anaesthetic was not much replaced by Anadin, and the cat showed his sympathies with a great log of a fur ball. The Dr made me omelette and we Pottered a bit (film three and two chapters of book six). I think she’s quite delighted that I suddenly so old.
Nor did she grumble at my paltry efforts to sleep. I dreamt of Matthew and Davy being at the extraction waving their recording wossnames around. And Matthew asking if we could pull out another one to make sure he got it taped.
No.Okedoke. I’ve had problem with this ‘ere former tooth since a heroic/damn stoopid (delete as applicable) altercation in a Northern public house. A hairy-palmed, ring-wearing local was bothered that I didn’t angle vowels the same as my comrades. At least, he singled me out of a group of students, rather than skelping in general. As we made to find somewhere else less shouting, he started waving his arms around. And with a lucky slap popped one of my back teeth. Blood spattered everywhere and, drooling gore, I watched one comrade in particular respond in kind. That was quite exciting.
Really.
It.
Is.
Horrid.
The tooth, though, has needed some work ever since. It's been filled and looked at and stitched and root canalled. I’ve also enjoyed the draining of a sub-tooth abscess (that is, a great volcano of pus swelling inside the gum. Nice). This ongoing trouble threatened to weaken the whole jaw (so the dentists said) and was also a bit rank and icky.
So anyway, the tooth was a liability, and it’s not such a great surprise that I split it top-to-bottom amid deadline panic. It’s continued to splinter since my last report, and then there was something funny tasting in my mouth, so I trooped off to my appointment rather early. With all the calm and solemnity of Beaker from the Muppets.
The lovely dentist (weirdly, I hate going to the dentist with a terror like race memory, but I’ve always got on well with the dentists themselves) discussed what was going to be done, and also her theories about the forthcoming last Harry Potter. “You’ll feel pressure but not sharpness,” she said very pleasantly. “And I think ‘R.A.B.’ must be [SPOILER].”
Yes I felt the pressure. No, I felt no sharpness. But what pressure. She alternated between two sets of pliers and needed to hold on to my lower jaw as she heaved and waggled and wrenched. There’s something monstrously disturbing about the cracking of your own teeth and I could feel an apeish need to escape up the nearest tree. And then, pok! she’d yanked the thing out.
“We’ll just rinse out that taste,” she says, prodding a tube of lovely cool water into my numb and frothing mouth. I’m thinking that wasn’t so bad. Then she’s dabbing at my face where splashes of blood must have got me. But no. “There was an abscess behind the tooth,” she says. “And it sort of went everywhere.” Ick.There’s then some more good news. Only the top part of the tooth came out. It’s crumbling, so she needs another go. You know I said I don’t like going to the dentist? Well, she’s swapping different terrifying tools and trying to staunch the bleeding because it makes it hard to see the remaining bits. And each drilling, poking, heaving, wrenching brings out just a tiny scrap more.
I’m watching these tiny splinters being added to the bloody, drooly mess on the tray to my side, thinking it makes for an impossible 3D puzzle, of the sort naughty children get for Christmas. I’m trying to remember how to breathe, aware that my legs and belly and, well all of me, is shaking like a Jibber Jabber. But eventually, a very long hour later, the deed is done and I quiver from my chair with a temporary denture in place. My instructions are not to spit, not to smoke, not to eat or drink nowt hot, and not to booze (waaah! on that last one). I also have to leave the strange acrylic tooth in place over night so my mouth will bruise around it.Back home, I tried to watch some of the Ealing comedies received for my birthday (Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets), but brain wasn’t really functioning. The anaesthetic was not much replaced by Anadin, and the cat showed his sympathies with a great log of a fur ball. The Dr made me omelette and we Pottered a bit (film three and two chapters of book six). I think she’s quite delighted that I suddenly so old.
Nor did she grumble at my paltry efforts to sleep. I dreamt of Matthew and Davy being at the extraction waving their recording wossnames around. And Matthew asking if we could pull out another one to make sure he got it taped.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Ooh look, rocks!
Have been away this weekend in Athens – which meant some last-minute frantickery to get Things Done, and sterling effort from some people I work with.
The Dr used to make pilgrimage to Greece every year, but it all got too expensive in the run up to the Olympics, so this was our first trip together since 2003. (She and the second wife did manage a trip to Lesbos in May 2005; they went to a bar guarded by a dog that barked at men, and to a petrified forest like on Skaro.)
It’s all a lot smarter and more organised, as a result of the Olympic developments, while still being a bit shambolic in places and with building works going on just everywhere. The new and improved underground network is exemplary – the Dr’s extensive tour included a stop off at Syntagma Square station, where the mezzanine down to the platforms includes exhibits of old stuff found on the site.
Having dumped bags at the nice and central hotel (just up the street from Monastriki), we ventured out into the sun and the ruins. Was a bit pleased to find I knew my way about, though I missed the intended lunch stop-off by 100 yards.
Took it easy to begin with and explored the Agora – the remains of the Athenian market place. Here Socrates and the other citizenry would discuss politics and philosophy and shagging – as detailed with quite some accuracy in Mr Handcock’s “The Oracle of Delphi”.
Wished I’d known when I was editing that about the House of Simon of the site. Simon was, the Dr informed me, a cobbler, a citizen and talker, and gets a mention in Xenophon. Was obliged to pose for photos.
We siesta’d then went out for a few early evening beers, and collapsed into an early night.
Saturday was baking, and we did the Byzantine and Cycladic museums in the morning – which were full of impressive artefacts and interpretation. The Dr bought a few heavy books, which I had the foresight to lug back to the hotel before venturing any further.
Re-met the Dr and Mum at the Temple of the Winds (having spent a good while trying to locate the way in), and we began the long trek up to the Acropolis. It’s a steep, hot, winding path up there, and a detour round to the Dionysus theatre proved much further and more up-and-down than expected. But we marvelled at the theatre in which so many classics were first played and told ourselves it was worth it.
With grumbling knees we reached the rock’s summit. Parents were suitably wowed - Dad, who’d never been to Greece before, had studied these buildings carefully when modelling our wedding cake.
The Acropolis itself was much improved site since we’d last been, though there’s still a lot of work ongoing. Odd to see the temple to Apollo Nike in bits. They’ve been repairing the stuff, putting in new marble to piece the Parthenon back together – so it’s all in a better state and more complete than ever. All the new stuff is clearly discernable by being a slightly different colour.
It’s controversial work, but the place was falling apart anyway, so it seems it’s either this or letting it collapse. And the small temple to Poseidon (whose Caryatids can be seen copied in the church at St Pancras) is now, you know, a temple now, and not just the crude impression of one.
We admired the views and took plenty of pictures. The Dr guided us through, explaining the pre-Classical stuff in the museum. This is stuff excavated from the site – long after us Brits had been stopped nicking things that were not always lying around. (I may be misremembering, but the site is much tidier, with none of the strewn stones and rocks that tourists were tempted to pick up; the constant whistling from the staff telling off such thievery is gone, too.)
Stomped on weary legs back down into the town, stopping for more pictures on the way. We don’t have a bath at home, so baths in hotels are luxuries; this one was especially bliss.
In the evening, our guidebook took us to a café favoured by and named after Melina Mercouri. We ate and drank extremely well, looked down on by great portraits of Mel with Dali, with politicians and leading men, such as James Mason. I resisted the primal urge to do impressions.
Easier day Sunday with a trip out to the island of Aegina, where the Dr and I once spent a few cheap nights when a passenger ship’s sinking meant we couldn’t island-hop anywhere else. We were poorer then, and spent our nights on the balcony, eating pistachios and reading aloud Harry Potter. (We started to get what the fuss was about in book 3, when the Dr would get up in the middle of the night to hunt for the book I had hidden…)
Saw the columns and pottered about. I bought two shirts but declined to paddle. Drank a fair bit and just soaked up the sunshine. Ferry home again, and then out to the place round the corner for proper Greek grub – moussaka and souvlaki. Yum.
Monday, we went to the National Archaeological Museum to gaze upon the face of Agamemnon. But despite the promise in the guidebook it was not open, so instead we went to the Benaki museum, which gives a patriotic history of the whole of Athens (and not just the classico-hellenistic bits).
Cooed again at Edward Lear’s drawings, the prep for watercolours that I find less interesting. His drawings include notes and doodles and scribblings out, and so make everything seem more alive and immediate.
Mum liked the various iterations of traditional Greek costume, and the wooden-panelled rooms look cosy and snug, and reminded me of an early date going round Leighton House. One day we will have a house big enough to recreate something similar. Though I will only spoil the Arabian effect by leaving out my sci-fi magazines and hardbacks…
After an expensive coffee on the top floor amid rich Athenian women, we took a stroll through the gardens to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The last time the Dr was here you could walk right up to the monument, but it’s now strictly roped off.
Lots more good photographs, and I asked if they might ever resurrect the one tumbled-over column. But it’s a Roman temple, so probably doesn’t merit the same attention.
Found a fantastic, traditional little eatery on our way back to the hotel. Ate and ate for less than 10 euros each, then picked up our bags and headed for the plane. Even the airport has a museum of the finds made during development. Dad was particularly taken with how a whole old church got moved.
Arrived tired and grouchy at Heathrow, and had to wait for our cab home to fight through the traffic. Ride home not helped by the M4 being closed, but I got excited when I realised we’d pass the TARDIS at Earl’s Court. No, I’ve not yet seen Saturday’s episode – though am even more keen after Nick Walters’s spoiler-free text…
And so home to much junk mail and waiting works. Going to be a busy couple of months now, with lots of stuff that just needs doing. So blogging nonsense may suffer for a bit. Sure you’ll all be relieved.
I like this, though, which awaited me in the office:
The Dr used to make pilgrimage to Greece every year, but it all got too expensive in the run up to the Olympics, so this was our first trip together since 2003. (She and the second wife did manage a trip to Lesbos in May 2005; they went to a bar guarded by a dog that barked at men, and to a petrified forest like on Skaro.)
It’s all a lot smarter and more organised, as a result of the Olympic developments, while still being a bit shambolic in places and with building works going on just everywhere. The new and improved underground network is exemplary – the Dr’s extensive tour included a stop off at Syntagma Square station, where the mezzanine down to the platforms includes exhibits of old stuff found on the site.
Having dumped bags at the nice and central hotel (just up the street from Monastriki), we ventured out into the sun and the ruins. Was a bit pleased to find I knew my way about, though I missed the intended lunch stop-off by 100 yards.
Took it easy to begin with and explored the Agora – the remains of the Athenian market place. Here Socrates and the other citizenry would discuss politics and philosophy and shagging – as detailed with quite some accuracy in Mr Handcock’s “The Oracle of Delphi”.
Wished I’d known when I was editing that about the House of Simon of the site. Simon was, the Dr informed me, a cobbler, a citizen and talker, and gets a mention in Xenophon. Was obliged to pose for photos.We siesta’d then went out for a few early evening beers, and collapsed into an early night.
Saturday was baking, and we did the Byzantine and Cycladic museums in the morning – which were full of impressive artefacts and interpretation. The Dr bought a few heavy books, which I had the foresight to lug back to the hotel before venturing any further.
Re-met the Dr and Mum at the Temple of the Winds (having spent a good while trying to locate the way in), and we began the long trek up to the Acropolis. It’s a steep, hot, winding path up there, and a detour round to the Dionysus theatre proved much further and more up-and-down than expected. But we marvelled at the theatre in which so many classics were first played and told ourselves it was worth it.
With grumbling knees we reached the rock’s summit. Parents were suitably wowed - Dad, who’d never been to Greece before, had studied these buildings carefully when modelling our wedding cake.The Acropolis itself was much improved site since we’d last been, though there’s still a lot of work ongoing. Odd to see the temple to Apollo Nike in bits. They’ve been repairing the stuff, putting in new marble to piece the Parthenon back together – so it’s all in a better state and more complete than ever. All the new stuff is clearly discernable by being a slightly different colour.
It’s controversial work, but the place was falling apart anyway, so it seems it’s either this or letting it collapse. And the small temple to Poseidon (whose Caryatids can be seen copied in the church at St Pancras) is now, you know, a temple now, and not just the crude impression of one.
We admired the views and took plenty of pictures. The Dr guided us through, explaining the pre-Classical stuff in the museum. This is stuff excavated from the site – long after us Brits had been stopped nicking things that were not always lying around. (I may be misremembering, but the site is much tidier, with none of the strewn stones and rocks that tourists were tempted to pick up; the constant whistling from the staff telling off such thievery is gone, too.)
Stomped on weary legs back down into the town, stopping for more pictures on the way. We don’t have a bath at home, so baths in hotels are luxuries; this one was especially bliss.
In the evening, our guidebook took us to a café favoured by and named after Melina Mercouri. We ate and drank extremely well, looked down on by great portraits of Mel with Dali, with politicians and leading men, such as James Mason. I resisted the primal urge to do impressions.
Easier day Sunday with a trip out to the island of Aegina, where the Dr and I once spent a few cheap nights when a passenger ship’s sinking meant we couldn’t island-hop anywhere else. We were poorer then, and spent our nights on the balcony, eating pistachios and reading aloud Harry Potter. (We started to get what the fuss was about in book 3, when the Dr would get up in the middle of the night to hunt for the book I had hidden…)
Saw the columns and pottered about. I bought two shirts but declined to paddle. Drank a fair bit and just soaked up the sunshine. Ferry home again, and then out to the place round the corner for proper Greek grub – moussaka and souvlaki. Yum.
Monday, we went to the National Archaeological Museum to gaze upon the face of Agamemnon. But despite the promise in the guidebook it was not open, so instead we went to the Benaki museum, which gives a patriotic history of the whole of Athens (and not just the classico-hellenistic bits).
Cooed again at Edward Lear’s drawings, the prep for watercolours that I find less interesting. His drawings include notes and doodles and scribblings out, and so make everything seem more alive and immediate.
Mum liked the various iterations of traditional Greek costume, and the wooden-panelled rooms look cosy and snug, and reminded me of an early date going round Leighton House. One day we will have a house big enough to recreate something similar. Though I will only spoil the Arabian effect by leaving out my sci-fi magazines and hardbacks…
After an expensive coffee on the top floor amid rich Athenian women, we took a stroll through the gardens to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The last time the Dr was here you could walk right up to the monument, but it’s now strictly roped off.
Lots more good photographs, and I asked if they might ever resurrect the one tumbled-over column. But it’s a Roman temple, so probably doesn’t merit the same attention.
Found a fantastic, traditional little eatery on our way back to the hotel. Ate and ate for less than 10 euros each, then picked up our bags and headed for the plane. Even the airport has a museum of the finds made during development. Dad was particularly taken with how a whole old church got moved.
Arrived tired and grouchy at Heathrow, and had to wait for our cab home to fight through the traffic. Ride home not helped by the M4 being closed, but I got excited when I realised we’d pass the TARDIS at Earl’s Court. No, I’ve not yet seen Saturday’s episode – though am even more keen after Nick Walters’s spoiler-free text…
And so home to much junk mail and waiting works. Going to be a busy couple of months now, with lots of stuff that just needs doing. So blogging nonsense may suffer for a bit. Sure you’ll all be relieved.
I like this, though, which awaited me in the office:
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Harry Potter’s magic wand
Went to see Equus last night at the Gielgud, made famous by Daniel Radcliffe flapping his old chap about at the end.
We had “stage seats” – a bold new venture for me. There’s no legroom in the high horseshoe looking down on the performance, and if you even look like you might have food on your person, a stern-looking bloke comes over. So no popcorn.
It’s an odd place to sit, because you can scrutinise the audience as much as the play. Spotted Howard Jacobson in the posher seats, and possibly Julian Fellowes, too. They didn’t wave.
Richard Griffiths, leading and narrating, was good enough to glance over his shoulder from time to time, to include us in events. His was an engaging, gentle performance, playing against the frustrated, ranty man as written.
Griffiths is Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist, whose latest patient is 17 year-old Alan Strang (Radcliffe), who just blinded some horses with a hoof pick. Dysart’s patience and ploys unravel the reasons behind such an abhorrent act. But the more Dysart “cures” the nightmares plaguing the boy, the more he’s envious of his passion, too, and the more he starts to question “normalcy”.
Radcliffe was excellent, and a world from Harry Potter. The girls were pleased to see he’d been working out, too. Well, if you are going to lark about in the all together for the entertainment of a full house of punters, you want to be looking your best.
All the performances were good, and it was expertly staged. Kudos to the chaps playing horses, cantering about in precarious high heels.
Yet the writing is heavy and overly worthy, and very much of its time. Alan’s parents are by turns a self-taught socialist and blinkeredly religious, and it’s difficult to believe they’d stay together. I found the stuff about telly as the opiate of the plebs very dated, too. The women are very underwritten; able and capable and all very lovely, but objects for the men to respond to. Jenny Agutter was all very good, but really had nothing to do.
I think my real beef was that it reminded me of too many other things, most notably Robert Lindner’s excellent The Fifty-Minute Hour (and ooh! Alan C Elms’ brilliant New York Review of Science Fiction article, Behind the Jet-Propelled Couch: Cordwainer Smith & Kirk Allen is now online).
M’colleague B., sat next to me, was more bothered by the idea of psychiatry as only an intellectual process, the cure coming from deductive reasoning alone. And one lady outside the theatre was very annoyed that, “Just because we know why he did it, doesn’t make it okay.”
I spent a little over two hours waiting to be examined myself, today, having finally got around to registering with a doctor. I am a stone overweight, not diabetic and should cut down a bit on my drinking.
We had “stage seats” – a bold new venture for me. There’s no legroom in the high horseshoe looking down on the performance, and if you even look like you might have food on your person, a stern-looking bloke comes over. So no popcorn.
It’s an odd place to sit, because you can scrutinise the audience as much as the play. Spotted Howard Jacobson in the posher seats, and possibly Julian Fellowes, too. They didn’t wave.
Richard Griffiths, leading and narrating, was good enough to glance over his shoulder from time to time, to include us in events. His was an engaging, gentle performance, playing against the frustrated, ranty man as written.
Griffiths is Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist, whose latest patient is 17 year-old Alan Strang (Radcliffe), who just blinded some horses with a hoof pick. Dysart’s patience and ploys unravel the reasons behind such an abhorrent act. But the more Dysart “cures” the nightmares plaguing the boy, the more he’s envious of his passion, too, and the more he starts to question “normalcy”.
Radcliffe was excellent, and a world from Harry Potter. The girls were pleased to see he’d been working out, too. Well, if you are going to lark about in the all together for the entertainment of a full house of punters, you want to be looking your best.
All the performances were good, and it was expertly staged. Kudos to the chaps playing horses, cantering about in precarious high heels.
Yet the writing is heavy and overly worthy, and very much of its time. Alan’s parents are by turns a self-taught socialist and blinkeredly religious, and it’s difficult to believe they’d stay together. I found the stuff about telly as the opiate of the plebs very dated, too. The women are very underwritten; able and capable and all very lovely, but objects for the men to respond to. Jenny Agutter was all very good, but really had nothing to do.
I think my real beef was that it reminded me of too many other things, most notably Robert Lindner’s excellent The Fifty-Minute Hour (and ooh! Alan C Elms’ brilliant New York Review of Science Fiction article, Behind the Jet-Propelled Couch: Cordwainer Smith & Kirk Allen is now online).
M’colleague B., sat next to me, was more bothered by the idea of psychiatry as only an intellectual process, the cure coming from deductive reasoning alone. And one lady outside the theatre was very annoyed that, “Just because we know why he did it, doesn’t make it okay.”
I spent a little over two hours waiting to be examined myself, today, having finally got around to registering with a doctor. I am a stone overweight, not diabetic and should cut down a bit on my drinking.
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