Today is the day of testing the great experiment. One of the castors on my work chair snapped and the first reaction was to utter a mild expletive and investigate the cost of an inexpensive replacement, as I am at the desk for long periods almost every day and to have a wonky seat is an inconvenience which the expenditure of £50 or so could quickly resolve. Too often in the past I have accepted an unsatisfactory situation which could be remedied because of a lack of confidence, bouts of laziness or because I did not think clearly enough, quick enough. Then, but the was after two maybe three days, when I considered going in search of a replacement, I examined what had happened closer and remember the small nozzle heated glue gun I had acquired during last year for a purpose I can no longer remember except that it was successful. I decided to leave the repair for 24 hours before testing. It will be a symbolic achievement if successful. Alas the experiment failed although it may its execution and I will have another bash tomorrow.
I have also reached the point when I cannot understand how I managed in the kitchen without the laminated floor, it is warmer, brighter and that much easier to clean and to want to keep clean. It was only around 5 when I checked what was on the telly that I discovered that England were playing Switzerland in a friendly in the evening. I knew it was around this time as the squad was announced without David Beckham and then that Michael Owen would be benched. The new Italian winning manager appeared determined to make his mark by playing a 1-4- 4 formation with Rooney on his own up front and with a new man on one wing and also playing Jenas ex Newcastle where he failed to perform, and Tottenham where he has become a different inspirational player during the last two months of the present season, scoring goals and creating goals for others. It was evident he had used the time since his appointment wisely noting the players whop were presently in form, bringing them together for four training sessions with the simple message, you must strengthen the defence to be hard to beat ansd then move forward with determination and passion to excite your fans. This requires intense discipline, and self confident conviction which was decidedly lacking and which is where one felt the previous manager always failed as at the Boro. Some people have the personality to achieve what they want and to persuade others in the enterprise. Whereas Keegan has the personality it is questionable if he has the will, the strength to translate his ability into long term success. He had this as a player although was prepared to move from situation to situation to perform being a true creative and his leadership skill suffered when things did not according to intention when dependent on the work of others. The new man has been branded the headmaster and appears to have the presence of authority and determination which has taken him to winning trophy after trophy as an Italian player and then as manager coach. His response to after match questions on a mixture of a 2.1 win, with goals by Jenas and Wright Phillips who scored shortly after coming on with Peter Crouch, was to explain the first twenty minutes when they failed to hold the ball or move it about accurately and appeared nervous as if they never played together, was that they were still dominated by the failure to qualify for the European cup. The second half was very different and they played better than witnessed fro a long time, passing the ball from player to player with purpose so that the build up led to many scoring opportunities. The second goal was more English than continental passing movement with only three or four immediate passes. Players came on and immediately fitted into how they had been asked to play. When interviewed about the new manager the players were understandable cautions knowing the media would be on the look out for any indication of dissent or criticism. There was also loyalty towards the previous manager, rightly as it was the players who had failed and it has to be remembered that had the opposition goal not be scored in the last 15 minutes, and England qualified the manager would not have been changed. There was nearly a full house for a friendly of no consequence with the thought that many went to celebrate the 100th cap of David Beckham, I think not. The view of one BBC pundit was that he should have been trhere, brought on for the last ten minutes to qualify for his cap and then sidelined as there are two replacement both who did well, for his position. This would have been a mistake for several reasons. It would have taken away from the need of the new manager to take control of the situation and to make the point that there is no room for sentimentality if the objective is to win trophies and keep winning them, and it would have been a slap to the individual left out playing his socks off over recent weeks while Mr Beckham recovered from injury, yet again after playing in a indifferent team in an indifferent league of no standing or consequence. Well done the new manager and well done the players for showing signs of growing up. The Labour Party and a large number of back benchers please note.
I was tired and should have gone to bed to get up for another sporting event the enjoyable 20 20 competition which has launched the English visit to New Zealand, I think, I check to be sure although having missed the English innings I will watch the whole match at midday rather than the New Zealand response live. I became so involved in something else that I missed the noon showing and had to wait until 4,30. And the just at crucial time in the English innings I became tired and went to sleep and was quiet groggy for a while although I did witness the demolition of the New Zealand response for the second time, although I did not see the first.
I do not regret the late start this morning which made the early evening siesta the more surprising, because I stayed up to watch the full length version of The Horseman on the Roof, La Husard sur le Toit, which includes the brilliant Juliet Binoche of the English Patient and Chocolate This is a 1995 French film based on the 1951 book of the same name by Jean Giano.
It has taken time for me to work the time in France when the film is set as one reviewer suggest is was at the turn of the 1800 century before the Napoleonic wars. I believe it is possible to be more precise and suggest 1849 which was the year of the second Cholera Pandemic when 1000000 people died in France and an estimated 20000 in the city of Paris with a population said to be 650000. This was also the second year of the first Austrian Italian war ( there were three before Italy was united under the leadership of Piedmont) over a decade later.
This is a beautiful set and photographed film which captures the panic which swept through France with the second cholera pandemic at a time still when people thought the fatal disease was transmitted from person to person and was airborne. In the film there are two instances when people react angrily as the main character seeks water, rightly signally that it was through contaminated water supply that the diseased was spread. I had no knowledge of cholera until looking up the disease and which in turn explained the actions of the film's hero on several occasions throughout the film and which leads him to trying to save the life of Juliet Binoche as the film ends.
The disease is intensely virulent, which I thought was a fever and which brought back memories of what happened to me after Christmas when one moment I had just a bad cold and then undiagnosed urinary tract infection and next an intense fever with water pouring off and struggling for breath. It lasted only three hours or so, and disappeared as quickly as it had come after I followed the advice from a nurse on the NHS hot line, drank lots of water and took a brand powder in hot water. What I did not understand is why in the film the hero immediately appeared to undress the lower body and tear at their linen and cover the patient with water, something which he does to the naked, near death Juliet. The explanation is that the patient suffers an intense diarrhoea and severe dehydration and goes into what can be, and was then usually, a fatal state of shock. Clean water and electrolyte replacement are the essential treatments and prompt rehydration therapy is highly effective. This explains the behaviour of the hero.
The story is of a young Piedmont army Colonel fighting for the independence of his country from Austria and the unification of Italy, who flees with friends to southern France, but who has to take to road as the Cholera spreads from the south and because his whereabouts have been betrayed by a friend to the Austrian authorities. Because France and the other nations beset by the pandemic did not understand its cause, the approach was to use the army to restrict movement and to hold travellers in quarantine. I did not note how much time had elapsed before the hero reaches the town where Juliet Binoche as the wife of a landed aristocrat invites him into the house where she staying among the bodies of the family who have already succumbed to the disease, but an hour of the two hours and twenty minutes may have passed by. Although the two are attracted to each other there is almost no contact between them, because she is married, to a man twice her age, and he is driven by his cause, and with the conduct of a gentleman. The magnificence of this film, apart from the scenery and the portrayal of individual and collective reactions to the pandemic, is the controlled passion of the two who know what duty and commitment means. Time and time again the hero potentially sacrifices his own life in an attempt to save a comrade, a stranger and the woman he admires, respects and comes to love, but throughout he is restrained with an eye on the proprieties and the lady's honour. This is why the film, and presumably the book, are one of the great love stories of literature and deserve worldwide recognition. I will not spoil the ending other than to add that it can be found in the character of the husband and that the Italian struggles to be free of Austria and all the other European interests who plundered and exploited the differences and rivalries within the peninsular which lasted from 1848 until the mid 1860's when my maternal great grandfather left Calne to join the army, making his way to Gibraltar to marry a Spanish girl from Andalusia, Benalauria, regarded as one of the most beautiful of villages in the Serrania de Ronda 30km from the Town of Ronda and with a present day population fo only 500.
At this point I decided to look up Benalauria on the internet and discovered a comprehensive village site, with 105 photographs, which is amazing given it size and resident population, although is evident that tourism has become important especially the annual fiesta which in this part of Spain the cultures which were part of the region over many centuries. There are several questions about my maternal great grandmother which remain unanswered. The most interesting is did she really live in a cave like dwelling in her later life when he mental health was said by my aunt who had to use a donkey to approach where she was living. What kind of a riding stable was her father involved with and was this in Gibraltar or Spain? Where did they marry? Where is she married? Where did they live when their second daughter was born in the village? Is it correct that there are no records because they were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War? There is one property for sale in the village at the present time with three bedrooms a town house for £171000, and at Ronda there is a mini estate for £1,million. If I had the means I would spend time again in the countries of the Mediterranean, Southern France, Italy, Spain, and Greece, perhaps with Gibraltar as my base for part of the year, but there would have to be compelling reasons for me to leave Tyneside altogether.
This evening while working I paid half attention to a Kung Fu movie set in a post earthquake California where gangs were allowed to roam the streets at night while a curfew restricted the movement of everyone else, but more enjoyable was Trouble in the Glen in which a blacked up Orson Wells had become the laid of the manor who had been a sort of feudal lord in a south American country, with Margaret Lockwood as his daughter, and he alienates the tenants and villages by close a road provoked by tinkers who make their home on the estate for part of the year. Fortunately another American arrives back in the village to see his 11 year old daughter brought up by his wife sisters and her husband after his dies when the child was only ten days of age. He was a bomber pilot during the war and his daughter who is recovery from polio is deprived of the traffic and individuals who used the closed toad which passed under a window from which she could see them. This mid 1950's film has been surprising contemporary themes and tried hard to avoid too much stereotyping although is full of sentiment and has a happy ending. Orson Wells seems out of place in every sense and I kept thinking of Iago in Othello but it was enjoyable light relief around lunchtime I worked hard during the rest of the day as the piles of files on the floor in this room and the artman cards drying in the room next door indicate, Tomorrow I ill finish this work and go back to the spring clean and house repair work after the weekend in good order awaiting finishing work. There was an important programme on Televisionin the evening followed by Question Time and weekly political review.
I have also reached the point when I cannot understand how I managed in the kitchen without the laminated floor, it is warmer, brighter and that much easier to clean and to want to keep clean. It was only around 5 when I checked what was on the telly that I discovered that England were playing Switzerland in a friendly in the evening. I knew it was around this time as the squad was announced without David Beckham and then that Michael Owen would be benched. The new Italian winning manager appeared determined to make his mark by playing a 1-4- 4 formation with Rooney on his own up front and with a new man on one wing and also playing Jenas ex Newcastle where he failed to perform, and Tottenham where he has become a different inspirational player during the last two months of the present season, scoring goals and creating goals for others. It was evident he had used the time since his appointment wisely noting the players whop were presently in form, bringing them together for four training sessions with the simple message, you must strengthen the defence to be hard to beat ansd then move forward with determination and passion to excite your fans. This requires intense discipline, and self confident conviction which was decidedly lacking and which is where one felt the previous manager always failed as at the Boro. Some people have the personality to achieve what they want and to persuade others in the enterprise. Whereas Keegan has the personality it is questionable if he has the will, the strength to translate his ability into long term success. He had this as a player although was prepared to move from situation to situation to perform being a true creative and his leadership skill suffered when things did not according to intention when dependent on the work of others. The new man has been branded the headmaster and appears to have the presence of authority and determination which has taken him to winning trophy after trophy as an Italian player and then as manager coach. His response to after match questions on a mixture of a 2.1 win, with goals by Jenas and Wright Phillips who scored shortly after coming on with Peter Crouch, was to explain the first twenty minutes when they failed to hold the ball or move it about accurately and appeared nervous as if they never played together, was that they were still dominated by the failure to qualify for the European cup. The second half was very different and they played better than witnessed fro a long time, passing the ball from player to player with purpose so that the build up led to many scoring opportunities. The second goal was more English than continental passing movement with only three or four immediate passes. Players came on and immediately fitted into how they had been asked to play. When interviewed about the new manager the players were understandable cautions knowing the media would be on the look out for any indication of dissent or criticism. There was also loyalty towards the previous manager, rightly as it was the players who had failed and it has to be remembered that had the opposition goal not be scored in the last 15 minutes, and England qualified the manager would not have been changed. There was nearly a full house for a friendly of no consequence with the thought that many went to celebrate the 100th cap of David Beckham, I think not. The view of one BBC pundit was that he should have been trhere, brought on for the last ten minutes to qualify for his cap and then sidelined as there are two replacement both who did well, for his position. This would have been a mistake for several reasons. It would have taken away from the need of the new manager to take control of the situation and to make the point that there is no room for sentimentality if the objective is to win trophies and keep winning them, and it would have been a slap to the individual left out playing his socks off over recent weeks while Mr Beckham recovered from injury, yet again after playing in a indifferent team in an indifferent league of no standing or consequence. Well done the new manager and well done the players for showing signs of growing up. The Labour Party and a large number of back benchers please note.
I was tired and should have gone to bed to get up for another sporting event the enjoyable 20 20 competition which has launched the English visit to New Zealand, I think, I check to be sure although having missed the English innings I will watch the whole match at midday rather than the New Zealand response live. I became so involved in something else that I missed the noon showing and had to wait until 4,30. And the just at crucial time in the English innings I became tired and went to sleep and was quiet groggy for a while although I did witness the demolition of the New Zealand response for the second time, although I did not see the first.
I do not regret the late start this morning which made the early evening siesta the more surprising, because I stayed up to watch the full length version of The Horseman on the Roof, La Husard sur le Toit, which includes the brilliant Juliet Binoche of the English Patient and Chocolate This is a 1995 French film based on the 1951 book of the same name by Jean Giano.
It has taken time for me to work the time in France when the film is set as one reviewer suggest is was at the turn of the 1800 century before the Napoleonic wars. I believe it is possible to be more precise and suggest 1849 which was the year of the second Cholera Pandemic when 1000000 people died in France and an estimated 20000 in the city of Paris with a population said to be 650000. This was also the second year of the first Austrian Italian war ( there were three before Italy was united under the leadership of Piedmont) over a decade later.
This is a beautiful set and photographed film which captures the panic which swept through France with the second cholera pandemic at a time still when people thought the fatal disease was transmitted from person to person and was airborne. In the film there are two instances when people react angrily as the main character seeks water, rightly signally that it was through contaminated water supply that the diseased was spread. I had no knowledge of cholera until looking up the disease and which in turn explained the actions of the film's hero on several occasions throughout the film and which leads him to trying to save the life of Juliet Binoche as the film ends.
The disease is intensely virulent, which I thought was a fever and which brought back memories of what happened to me after Christmas when one moment I had just a bad cold and then undiagnosed urinary tract infection and next an intense fever with water pouring off and struggling for breath. It lasted only three hours or so, and disappeared as quickly as it had come after I followed the advice from a nurse on the NHS hot line, drank lots of water and took a brand powder in hot water. What I did not understand is why in the film the hero immediately appeared to undress the lower body and tear at their linen and cover the patient with water, something which he does to the naked, near death Juliet. The explanation is that the patient suffers an intense diarrhoea and severe dehydration and goes into what can be, and was then usually, a fatal state of shock. Clean water and electrolyte replacement are the essential treatments and prompt rehydration therapy is highly effective. This explains the behaviour of the hero.
The story is of a young Piedmont army Colonel fighting for the independence of his country from Austria and the unification of Italy, who flees with friends to southern France, but who has to take to road as the Cholera spreads from the south and because his whereabouts have been betrayed by a friend to the Austrian authorities. Because France and the other nations beset by the pandemic did not understand its cause, the approach was to use the army to restrict movement and to hold travellers in quarantine. I did not note how much time had elapsed before the hero reaches the town where Juliet Binoche as the wife of a landed aristocrat invites him into the house where she staying among the bodies of the family who have already succumbed to the disease, but an hour of the two hours and twenty minutes may have passed by. Although the two are attracted to each other there is almost no contact between them, because she is married, to a man twice her age, and he is driven by his cause, and with the conduct of a gentleman. The magnificence of this film, apart from the scenery and the portrayal of individual and collective reactions to the pandemic, is the controlled passion of the two who know what duty and commitment means. Time and time again the hero potentially sacrifices his own life in an attempt to save a comrade, a stranger and the woman he admires, respects and comes to love, but throughout he is restrained with an eye on the proprieties and the lady's honour. This is why the film, and presumably the book, are one of the great love stories of literature and deserve worldwide recognition. I will not spoil the ending other than to add that it can be found in the character of the husband and that the Italian struggles to be free of Austria and all the other European interests who plundered and exploited the differences and rivalries within the peninsular which lasted from 1848 until the mid 1860's when my maternal great grandfather left Calne to join the army, making his way to Gibraltar to marry a Spanish girl from Andalusia, Benalauria, regarded as one of the most beautiful of villages in the Serrania de Ronda 30km from the Town of Ronda and with a present day population fo only 500.
At this point I decided to look up Benalauria on the internet and discovered a comprehensive village site, with 105 photographs, which is amazing given it size and resident population, although is evident that tourism has become important especially the annual fiesta which in this part of Spain the cultures which were part of the region over many centuries. There are several questions about my maternal great grandmother which remain unanswered. The most interesting is did she really live in a cave like dwelling in her later life when he mental health was said by my aunt who had to use a donkey to approach where she was living. What kind of a riding stable was her father involved with and was this in Gibraltar or Spain? Where did they marry? Where is she married? Where did they live when their second daughter was born in the village? Is it correct that there are no records because they were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War? There is one property for sale in the village at the present time with three bedrooms a town house for £171000, and at Ronda there is a mini estate for £1,million. If I had the means I would spend time again in the countries of the Mediterranean, Southern France, Italy, Spain, and Greece, perhaps with Gibraltar as my base for part of the year, but there would have to be compelling reasons for me to leave Tyneside altogether.
This evening while working I paid half attention to a Kung Fu movie set in a post earthquake California where gangs were allowed to roam the streets at night while a curfew restricted the movement of everyone else, but more enjoyable was Trouble in the Glen in which a blacked up Orson Wells had become the laid of the manor who had been a sort of feudal lord in a south American country, with Margaret Lockwood as his daughter, and he alienates the tenants and villages by close a road provoked by tinkers who make their home on the estate for part of the year. Fortunately another American arrives back in the village to see his 11 year old daughter brought up by his wife sisters and her husband after his dies when the child was only ten days of age. He was a bomber pilot during the war and his daughter who is recovery from polio is deprived of the traffic and individuals who used the closed toad which passed under a window from which she could see them. This mid 1950's film has been surprising contemporary themes and tried hard to avoid too much stereotyping although is full of sentiment and has a happy ending. Orson Wells seems out of place in every sense and I kept thinking of Iago in Othello but it was enjoyable light relief around lunchtime I worked hard during the rest of the day as the piles of files on the floor in this room and the artman cards drying in the room next door indicate, Tomorrow I ill finish this work and go back to the spring clean and house repair work after the weekend in good order awaiting finishing work. There was an important programme on Televisionin the evening followed by Question Time and weekly political review.
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