autumn days and cosy nights

sunday was a cinema marathon at CHAPTER. first up i was ushering the "listening event" JEFF WAYNE'S WAR OF THE WORLDS. this is an experiment for us, we had the enhanced cd playing on 5 channels so it was surround sound in the gorgeous cinema 2 with all the lights out apart from the starry night house pinprick lights. i introduced it and we sat in the twilight listening to the dramatic score. i'd forgotten how much i enjoyed it. rob the projectionist who i was working with is an old punk and thinks its a load of codswallop but he was great and really helpful as always and answered any techie questions people had. the audience seemed to love it and a lot of them filled out feedback forms with ideas they had for albums or audiobooks if we were to do it again. i really hope so because it had a really enthusiastic and positive response. the lovely spencer and kirsten were there, grinning away, a couple of fathers and sons (doing a rights-of-passage thing) and i had a good chat with noel afterwards who echoed what a few people of said about how it put them back to feeling like teenagers again. in these modern times of downloading a track from itunes and listening to bits and bobs few people seemed to sit there and listen to a record. noel said it was like making a date with yourself to sit there and concentrate on the music and really enjoy it and that it had been a valuable experience.

after that i had a short break and then in for the surreal RUMBA. this film was more like a silent comedy, a jacques tati film than a romantic comedy. a gangly, odd looking couple spend their very happy lives teaching english and p.e. respectively, in a school in france whilst attending latin dance competitions. on the way back from a win at one of these they have a car crash and it sends them into a spiral of losing things: legs, memories, jobs and eventually each other before a new life is found. this is all played marvellously for slapstick laughs by fiona gordon and dominique abel. it was a strange little film that i think wrongfooted a few people who had come wanting to see a more traditional romantic comedy but i really enjoyed it, i thought it was joyous with its riotious primary colours. everyone in the film seemed to be having a wonderful time.

next up was SIN NOMBRE. a few of the cinema department have been wearing the brilliant t-shirts around for a few months with the big gothic gangster tattoo lettering and i was intriuged about what the movie would actually be like, whether it was all gangster hype and violence. i was pleased to discover that it was a lot more meaningful and thought provoking than that. the fuller story that involves people from south america travelling up the continent to try and make it to the US. its part tragic love story, part road movie (with beautiful and terrifying scenes atop a freight train travelling up from honduras to texas) and part gangster thriller. the two main leads were both fleeing from their home towns for different reasons but you felt that wherever they went it was not going to escape where they had come from. sayra looked out at honduras and her uncle told her how there was "nothing for you here" but what better life would there be in new jersey? casper fled his barrio but was told that the gang he had rebelled against had chapters in the US so it was likely he would never get out. the poverty trap, indeed: it felt that there was no real escape for the poor of the world and especially with the current financial climate it made you feel like there was nothing worth escaping to.

the rest of the week has been relatively quiet, no gigs to go to and i'd seen most of the films in that one day i'd wanted to see! it was quite lucky for i am very broke till payday next week so taking temptation away is always good. monday we had our veg box from the lovely tom frost at BLAENCAMEL FARM so it gave us the chance to do some good meals. the best of these was the stir fry i did with kale, spinach, shredded carrot, soya, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts, one of CHRIS FOWLER's chillis and peppers and some lovely noodles from HUNGRY PLANET. tasty!

i took tuesday off work because will had an extra day and i wanted to spend some time with him. we went to ST FAGANS to see the POP PETH exhibition. it was a lovely day for st fagans, actually quite sunny and warm and not too many children running around. after being lazy in the morning we didn't leave till quite late but i assumed will had been a million times like me, unfortunately he hadn't been for years so we didn't have time to go around everything like we should've done really. i showed him my favourite house (with the bed in the cupboard) and we bought some old fashioned sweets from the sweetie shop and got around just about everywhere apart from the future house because it was closed for an education day (is it still called the future house? its been open for years now). most importantly we had a good old root around the pop peth exhibition. we watched a video interview with the lovely nick and ashli todd from spillers talking about what the shop means to them and afterwards there was some videos of welsh bands from the 80s and 90s. the exhibition was great, there was a section where some fanzine writers had recreated their university bedroom complete with posters and flyers and a big SPILLERS section with badges and photos of the gang. it was great!

it was a week for watching movies on the sofa wrapped in a duvet. we watched THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY on tuesday night. i'd seen it in the cinema and hated it (having been a big fan of the tv series when i was a kid) but seeing sam rockwell in MOON and zooey deschanel in various romantic comedies recently made me want to re-watch it. it wasn't as bad as i'd remembered but then again a little confusing and disappointing. i'd read the book and seen the tv series and listened to the original radio version when it was re-broadcast on radio 4 a couple of years ago you could say i was well versed in what it was all about and had expectations of what the characters should look like, what scenes should be included. i was bound to be disappointed so tried to just enjoy it. it was lovely to look at but i found it a little confusing. some of the performances were great, i especially enjoyed mos def as ford prefect and bill nighy as slartibartfast. the effects were great in that home made, organic way (brilliant jim henson and that ace scene where the improbability drive turns them into knitting) but it just didn't hang together well enough for me. we watched the "making of" afterwards and i think i enjoyed that more. i felt guilty because everyone involved was so passionate and happy making it but for me it just didn't work and i found the hollywood romanticising of it with the love story almost offensive. it made me wish that they'd just had the guts to do a big new tv version where they could play around a little more leisurely and still have tonnes of fun.

on wednesday we were meant to be going to my friend rosie's birthday do but i started to feel really ill. to perk me up we made cupcakes watched the mike leigh film NAKED. when i was a teenager this was one of my favourite films but i haven't been able to bring myself to see it for years. its been one of those films that i pick up the video for, remember that its hard going and put it down again for something else. steen really wanted to see it though and rented it from the library so after ignoring it for a week i agreed. it was as difficult and depressing as i remembered, it felt like i'd been pummelled with a rock afterwards but it is a fascinating study of class in post-thatcher britain. johnny, a highly intelligent but troubled young man flees manchester in the first scene after having raped a girl in the street, he heads for london to hook up with an ex girlfriend and gets involved in her life and wonders around trying to find meaning in the streets of london talking to people who no-one else would think of talking to. by the end of the movie we feel slightly more sympathetically for johnny, knowing that he is capable of so much but spends his life bitterly contemplating humanity and waiting for the end of the world. he seems to find and spread misery wherever he goes and leigh paints a very bleak picture of life in the early 90s. i found out a few years ago that apparently this was his first film after splitting up with his wife alison steadman and he was very depressed at the time of making it. i think it is fitting that i enjoyed it as an angry teen.

thursday night was POP QUIZ time! it came around very quickly and i must admit that i was not really in the mood to go. after spending most of the week confined to the house with autumn chills forcing me into my big jumpers i was feeling very cosy. steen convinced us to go though and we were hoping the patti ladies would accompany us as team members. in the end anwen went on noel's team (he had asked last month, fair enough) and the patti ladies couldn't make it so we ended up on a team on our own. it was actually amazing fun. we got a bit drunk and tottered on our bar stools and did impressions of tina turner to each other. we didn't hope to come anywhere near the top like we did last month but we surprised ourselves by coming 3rd! it wasn't bad going seeing as we beat most people in teams of 5 or 6 so it was as good as winning for us. we had a lovely time talking to leah, iain, rylett and grace then went to dempseys for afters with noel, ed and anwen. what a great night!

friday i booked the night off work so we could go to see MARGARET ATWOOD do a reading at llandaff cathedral. we found out about it through the hay festival web post and were intrigued not only as she was coming to cardiff but that they said it was due to have choristers. wow, how odd! this week we heard her being interviewed by mark lawson on the radio 4 review show and it all became clear. her new novel THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD is set in a world already sketched out in the apocalyptic ORYX AND CRAKE, where alternative characters in the years preceding this have devised a religion, "god's gardeners" are vegetarian and hope to cultivate the land to get it back to eden. in the novel are some of the hymns she has devised for her fake religion. i've heard atwood speak before and her voice dripped with its usual sarcasm as she talked about what she thought about these characters and their religion. i was excited to see what all this would add up to when we went to llandaff cathedral. we had a really nice walk up through llandaff fields and it was pretty full by the time we got there. it was a very strange experience, being in llandaff cathedral. i felt like i had this in-built reverence that i think was there in part due to the overwhelming middle class middle aged audience. i don't know why i felt so censored, i've been to hay lots of times and nowt posher than hay festival but here in a church i felt stifled and immature. a tongue in cheek sensibility was brought back to proceedings by margaret atwood and her performers (including the amazing actress diana quick) as they walked single file up the aisle carrying hippie-looking placards with pictures of bees and flowers. she gave a quick explanation that her book tour was unusual due to her trying to keep the carbon footprint down and all proceeds were going to local charities (in this case the RSPB). despite the seemingly mocking attitude to religion you could tell that atwood had respect for the situation we were finding ourselves in with the destruction of the planet and her understanding for the hope that religion, any religion brings. the readings themselves, some performed or rather introduced by atwood were moving and punctuated by hymns that had been arranged by a musician friend of hers. we took out the pamphlet given to us on arrival and it felt like a sunday service. the woman next to me even sang along with gusto along to the reprise at the end. the excerpts felt like the novel was a mix of both oryx and crake with the character toby looking out of the bubble she has protected herself within and occasionally THE HANDMAIDS TALE where the character wren described the life inside the sex workers' section of the city. it was intriuging and certainly made me want to rush out and buy the novel. unfortunately, funds being what they are i couldn't afford it. it would have been nice to have a copy signed by margaret atwood but it is not hugely important to me. instead we made a donation to the charity and got a canvas bag, i was excited enough about the bag but will certainly buy it in future, as i have all her other novels. leaving llandaff cathedral i felt very privaleged that i had managed to attend the event, one that will stay with me for years to come. margaret atwood is my favourite living author, every time i read a new book by her its like having a luxurious hearty meal and its wonderful that i have had two chances to see her speak now, i feel very lucky indeed.