I have been giving myself a good and hard talking to at becoming self indulgent regarding my work and my existence in general. I devoted a great part of the weekend to researching, reflecting and learning about the TV series Lost at the expense of many others things, although I became fully engaged and produced thoughtful work and found my own approach to understanding what had had happened in the past with some indication of what mysteries are to be resolved, and questions answered, over the next three months. In part, learning which characters will have a role in the final series, and which characters, to-date, will not, could prove an important clue.
Having written the above late on Monday evening I embarked on two hours of activity which required physical exertion, a bonus. My first decision is to proceed with boxing completed work and making sure I know, what was where, from that already boxed. Now of course I do not mean taking up fisticuffs to my work but placing it in small reinforced cardboard boxes retained from the move, which amazes me is over five years ago.
I will allocate one to two hours a day for this from tomorrow, Tuesday February 9th, 2010 dividing the time between boxing completed work already on display, or laying loose on the floor, to make room for new work to be placed in the space then available, and sorting out what is where in the two kinds of boxes being used.
There are two kinds of boxes. The first are display boxes in Black for creative work, Blue for events and Red for confidential. The second are those used for the move and which will hold lever arch files containing six to ten sets of completed work covering a theme or area of interest. These are functional and can be stacked within storage areas and I have settled on the small attic room with fitted wardrobe to one side and floor to ceiling shelving on the other for this. Organising this room ked to the overdue task of sorting old clothing, keeping some as part of the project to reveal my changes in weight and past choices and giving the remainder to charities. About once a fortnight since arriving a charity has left a collection bag at every house on the hill, almost as frequently as a leaflet advertising a meal delivery service. I have kept a record and todate 54 different firms have circulated their latest offers and menu and several provide updates on a regular basis. I decide to keep a record of the charities requesting clothing. I also have a supply of blankets and bedding which will be reviewed.
There was an ulterior motive behind the sort of everything on floor of my downstairs work room as three items had gone stray. Two have been recovered. A wireless mouse which I use for the lap attached to the TV. My original intention was to spend the latter part of this evening watching any Portillo Great British railways series programmes from his fourth journey. Alas I discover that all but one is left and this of an earlier series already covered, so that ends that. Is there a DVD set in the offing me thinks?
The second item is a small memory card of 64 MB which can hold 12 mins of film or between 100 and 300 photographs depending and their quality. The third, and so far, still to be found item, is the other chargeable battery for the camera. I use the camera to photograph completed work as well as to record places and experiences, and as the recording of work is boring I tend to do in batches while watching TV, so having two batteries has been useful, but not the end of the world if I cannot find the latter, but it irritates me as the loss occurred in one room at home. Its whereabouts remains a puzzle.
My preliminary sort out covering all three floors of the house led to another decision to junk decided to junk a pile of catalogues, travel brochures and such like where I like to keep the latest. This proved not straightforward, because I need to retain a cover, and some of the contents to form part of the work project in the development sets. If I die tomorrow or when the work is completed sufficiently to put on exhibition, should I choose to do so during my lifetime, the catalogues will indicate interest aspects of my personality and experience at this period of my life and therefore to throw out the catalogues without listing them would removed the attempted completeness of what I am doing. I am so resolved by undertaking this activity albeit late into the evening that I confident it will be carried through the days and weeks until Spring and early summer. Now to the rest of the weekend review
I have had three long days in succession. Saturday 6th February commenced with a reasonable start although the night before had been interrupted. The morning and early afternoon was devoted to work on Lost and cleaning the bathroom and kitchen in preparation for a service visit for the central heating system and the cooker on Monday. The bathroom got a deep clean and I remain pleased with the effort and outcome. The kitchen less so but the floor got a wash and the work surfaces well cleaned.
I had intended to leave earlier than I did for my evening out and decided not to visit the main supermarket for cooking oil and Wilkinson to see if they had restocked of Black display albums. Then on impulse I so put the oil back and went along Fredericke street which as street parking on one side and called in at an Asian store just before closing and purchased a small bottle of olive oil to use with the ready made up vegetable stir fry which I planned to use with some lamb chops for Sunday lunch. I then forgot some stir fry sauce so had to use a little ginger until calling in at the supermarket on Monday afternoon for postage stamps and salami. I used the rest of the stir fry to accompany pork chops for the evening meal on Monday with a packet of spicy oriental sauce to which I added some ginger. All this talk of food makes me hungry and I will have a bowl of Muesli cereal rather than salami slices in crackers. But then relented on opening the fridge for the milk!
As the area to the west of Fredericke Street and the river is being redeveloped with the former Plessey factory site cleared Fredericke is getting a face lift with some of the derelict shops being brought back to life although between a third and half the street is still to be brought back into use.
I arrived at the Heworth car park outside the metro and bus station around 5.15 pm, staying in the car to drink soup from a flask and salami rolls with mustard. I parked next to the ticket machine with required fee on the dashboard. I then saw not one, but two, ticket wardens coming over to check the windscreens of the few cars parked around me so I got out and was about to put the money in the machine when one of the two called out to say there was no charge if I was remaining sitting in the car. I explained I was having a meal before going to a theatre in Newcastle by the Metro. I completed the purchase of the ticket and placed on the dashboard. as it was not one those which you attach to the windscreen, and thought nothing more of it until return just before 10pm to be alerted by two of the taxi drivers in the nearby rank that I had been given a parking ticket. The £50 fine reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days was issued because a correct ticket was displayed. I had left the ticket upside down. I assume this was from a different warden as the fine notice was timed just before eight pm when the payment period ended. A complicated two stage appeal process is listed on one side of the ticket which I will follow.
The purpose of my visit to Newcastle was to see a relay of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, production of Simone Boccanegra with the internationally renowned tenor, Placido Domingo, in the title role, using his baritone registers, and with James Morris playing his Nemesis.
I must admit that I did not enjoy the evening. It was exceptionally hot in a packed auditorium so I quickly became tired and had to fight dozing off. The seats in Classics stall are not as comfortable as those in the Circle and do have full backs and head rests and have no space between seats or pairs of seats so one has to take care not to take the space of neighbours. None of this would have mattered if the work had been entertaining with memorable songs and a visual spectacle in support.
The sets and clothes are sumptuous, richly textured and designed in reds and browns, and the scenery used to create the palace reception room for the Doge and the courtiers, is amazing, because of its size, and the impressive decorated ceiling. The singing of the principals - two baritones, a tenor and a soprano, was brilliant and the emotional performance of Domingo extraordinary and exceptional. The music is powerful and there are moments of passion and tenderness but not one memorable tune. The performers all spoke of their enthusiasm for the Opera and I can see why it is the choice of singers and musicians and I can say I have attended a live performance of an opera with Placido Domingo, but it is not an opera I would wish to pay good money to see, although I will view a production on the Met Player at sometime, although there are others I wish to experience beforehand.
The plot is complicated. Boccanegra is a young upstart who has fathered a child with the daughter of the Doge, played by James Morris and who he wishes to marry but whose father has locked her away and regards Boccanegra with enmity.
The Doge has become unpopular with the courtiers and the people and two of the courtiers plot to remove him and place the popular hero Boccanegra in his place believing he will be able to become the power behind the throne, however over time Boccanegra becomes his own man.
Early on Boccanegra’s lover dies before they can marry and her father pleads to be able to bring up his grand daughter, Boccanegra refuses and the girl is brought up away from Boccanegra and hidden from her grandfather thus increasing his hatred for the usurper.
The first act is described as the prologue with an interval after thirty minutes of thirty minutes because of the need for the main characters to age by twenty five years and the major change of set required from outside to inside the Palace. The next act described as the first lasts for an hour with a short interval mid way, followed by the second long interval of 30 mins. I made my way up the stairs to the second floor for the gents and then to the third to the bar for a glass of Merlot while watching the scene change projected on the wall with the running down time clock, leaving when there were two minutes to go and getting into my seat with only 20 seconds to spare.
During the first interval Placido and Morris joked about the difficulty of pretending they were young men and this is achieved through a dark haired wig and make up. He and James Morris have been playing rivals and enemies for thirty five years!
The story develops that Boccanegra’s daughter brought up separately had in fact been brought up by the former Doge under his assumed name of Grimaldi away from Genoa, but this fact is unknown to both father and grandfather. Moreover the former Doge, the daughters fiancée and Paulo Albiani a goldsmith and the courtier who had brought Boccanegra to power are all involved in a complicated plot to bring him down with Gabriele Adorno, the finance, one of two assassins. The complication is that having been reunited with her father, Paolo suggests to Gabriele that she had been abducted and seduced by the Doge.
There is then a period which unfortunately from my viewpoint Gabriele reveals himself to be a chauvinistic pig as well as an assassin. He demands to know if the Doge has taken his fiancée by force or seduction, proclaiming that if this is so, he will having nothing more to do with her. This should have wrung alarm bells with the young woman and abandoned the rat. Instead she reveals herself as cunning and manipulative attempting to achieve the best of best worlds by finding a way to maintain both relationships and bring the two men together. The problem is that Paulo has poisoned the drink of the Doge which produces a long painful death with stretches almost throughout the last act. Paolo gets his just deserts and Adorno and Boccanegra are reconciled to the extent that the couple are able to marry with his blessing and Boccanegra insists that Adorno is appointed the next Doge at his death. Moreover the former Doge Jacopo Fiasco who has reappeared in Genoa is also brought to a new understanding and is entrusted in ensuring that Boccanegra wishes for his son in law are respected and brought to fruition. The brilliance of Placido Domingo is that he able to make the story, and his role, believable.
The highlight of the weekend was however Super bowl XLIV in which the New Orleans Saints, attending the contest for the first time and as champions of the National Football League, defeated the American Football League Champions, the Indianapolis Colts by 31 points to 17, having come from a 10.0 lead at the end of the first quarter. I had not intended to watch the event live which meant staying up until 3am but I shared the view of the majority of people in the USA, outside of Indie fans who wanted New Orleans to win for three very different reasons. The foremost is that the city, the state of Louisiana and the south east oft he UDA is still recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The second reason is that the Saints have only recently become a good team had never been to a superbowl and were regarded as the underdogs and now a great team and the third that the owner of the Colts transported them overnight from Baltimore to the new prestige Lucas oil stadium which is to hold the Superbowl in 2012 with the 2013 event to be held in New Orleans at the very stadium which was use to house hurricane refugees. The background of the two teams was the difference with one professionals with a great offensive team led by what many consider to be one of the great quarterbacks of all time while New Orleans was also a team of professional, but with a mission beyond furthering their individual careers or team, but aware that the morale of a city, a state and a region was at stake.
I first came to enjoy American football in the 1980’s when whole games were shown live on TV. I made two visits to Wembley stadium in London to see pre season warm up games and visited Gateshead who, and may still have a team in the British league version which existed for a time and may still do. I supported the Chicago Bears in part because of a defensive player called the Fridge and also the San Francisco 49ers after being given one of their shirts as a Christmas present. I learnt more about the sport after getting a computer game played and fro a time it rivalled my interest in football. Over the past five years I having been preoccupied in my work and competing programmes to watch many live games during the season and then the playoffs involving the two separate leagues
Because of the national interest the games was watched by an audience of over 100 million in the US alone, the largest TV audience in the history of that country and also shown in some 30 other countries including China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Russia and the UK as well as Canada and Mexico Brazil and Chile,
For the third year in succession the national anthem was sung by a winner of American Idol- Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks and Jennifer Hudson. Queen Latifah sang an odd version of America is Beautiful and The Who provided the half time entertainment. Jerry Rice and Emmett Smith two of the 2010 Hall of Fame new entrants participate in the pre game coin toss. $100 million dollars of merchandise was pre-sold to indicate the extent to which the event is the biggest sporting event in the US Calendar, greater than Baseball and Basketball.
The highlight of the game came in the fourth quarter when just as the commentators were remaking about the overall lack of mistakes and turnovers Tracy Porter intercepted a pass from manning at the 26th yard to run the 76 yards to gain a touch down and force the Saints to get two touchdowns and conversions to go into extra time. For a few minutes it looked as if this might be on as the Saints drove all the way to within three yards. However there was then disaster because with pass interference they were pushed back to 10 yards and their last effort went through the hands of the receiver incomplete. At that point there was nothing more to do than to let the lock run down the remaining time and accept defeat. Then the celebrations commenced and the people of New Orleans were out on the street starting the Mardi Gras over a week early.
Having got up early the gas man did not come until midday but stayed longer than anyone giving the cooker the boiler a thorough clean and arranging for an electrician come and check the downstairs switch which had become temperamental, due to a loose wire. The visits were a bonus in two ways because I learnt that it was wise to keep the light on as in severe weather the boiler is designed to switch itself on to avoid freezing. The visit also provided an opportunity to get the ceiling light fixed in the day room although discovered that it looks as if the tube was a dud after replacing the starter. I will leave the tube until Wednesday when I get a 10% every little helps discount.
This brings me to a Richard Widmark film whose title I noted somewhere and hope to find. ( Pickup on South Street 1953). He plays a pick pocket just out of jail for the third time and facing life if he is caught. He makes the mistake of then take the purse of a woman whose dominating male partner has got her to pass micro film of a valuable formula to the enemy and who was under a surveillance, hoping to find out who the main culprits were. The girl takes a shine to Widmark and tries to help him keep to the straight and narrow as well as break free from her boyfriend, Widmark is a kind villain who does not carry a gun compared to the boyfriend who is a nasty villain and who does but both are recidivist criminals. The dividing question is Widmark also a traitor to his country in other ways. It can be argued that being a criminal is being a traitor to one’s country although not as damaging as selling or giving secrets away. This is typical of USA film making at the time and an obsession to this day that it is better to be dead than red and that anything which is true Christian or is social motivated is quasi communist and must be defeated.
Almost to the last moment the character still finds it difficult to give up making a small fortune from having got hold of the microfilm. What tips the balance is when the girl is beaten up and nearly killed and that she held out to protect him. Finally he gets he message and puts himself in arms way to help the Feds capture the next villain up in the spy chain. He wins the girl but the city cops reckon it won’t be long before he offends again and gets life inside. Great fun but a good performance from Widmark.
Having written the above late on Monday evening I embarked on two hours of activity which required physical exertion, a bonus. My first decision is to proceed with boxing completed work and making sure I know, what was where, from that already boxed. Now of course I do not mean taking up fisticuffs to my work but placing it in small reinforced cardboard boxes retained from the move, which amazes me is over five years ago.
I will allocate one to two hours a day for this from tomorrow, Tuesday February 9th, 2010 dividing the time between boxing completed work already on display, or laying loose on the floor, to make room for new work to be placed in the space then available, and sorting out what is where in the two kinds of boxes being used.
There are two kinds of boxes. The first are display boxes in Black for creative work, Blue for events and Red for confidential. The second are those used for the move and which will hold lever arch files containing six to ten sets of completed work covering a theme or area of interest. These are functional and can be stacked within storage areas and I have settled on the small attic room with fitted wardrobe to one side and floor to ceiling shelving on the other for this. Organising this room ked to the overdue task of sorting old clothing, keeping some as part of the project to reveal my changes in weight and past choices and giving the remainder to charities. About once a fortnight since arriving a charity has left a collection bag at every house on the hill, almost as frequently as a leaflet advertising a meal delivery service. I have kept a record and todate 54 different firms have circulated their latest offers and menu and several provide updates on a regular basis. I decide to keep a record of the charities requesting clothing. I also have a supply of blankets and bedding which will be reviewed.
There was an ulterior motive behind the sort of everything on floor of my downstairs work room as three items had gone stray. Two have been recovered. A wireless mouse which I use for the lap attached to the TV. My original intention was to spend the latter part of this evening watching any Portillo Great British railways series programmes from his fourth journey. Alas I discover that all but one is left and this of an earlier series already covered, so that ends that. Is there a DVD set in the offing me thinks?
The second item is a small memory card of 64 MB which can hold 12 mins of film or between 100 and 300 photographs depending and their quality. The third, and so far, still to be found item, is the other chargeable battery for the camera. I use the camera to photograph completed work as well as to record places and experiences, and as the recording of work is boring I tend to do in batches while watching TV, so having two batteries has been useful, but not the end of the world if I cannot find the latter, but it irritates me as the loss occurred in one room at home. Its whereabouts remains a puzzle.
My preliminary sort out covering all three floors of the house led to another decision to junk decided to junk a pile of catalogues, travel brochures and such like where I like to keep the latest. This proved not straightforward, because I need to retain a cover, and some of the contents to form part of the work project in the development sets. If I die tomorrow or when the work is completed sufficiently to put on exhibition, should I choose to do so during my lifetime, the catalogues will indicate interest aspects of my personality and experience at this period of my life and therefore to throw out the catalogues without listing them would removed the attempted completeness of what I am doing. I am so resolved by undertaking this activity albeit late into the evening that I confident it will be carried through the days and weeks until Spring and early summer. Now to the rest of the weekend review
I have had three long days in succession. Saturday 6th February commenced with a reasonable start although the night before had been interrupted. The morning and early afternoon was devoted to work on Lost and cleaning the bathroom and kitchen in preparation for a service visit for the central heating system and the cooker on Monday. The bathroom got a deep clean and I remain pleased with the effort and outcome. The kitchen less so but the floor got a wash and the work surfaces well cleaned.
I had intended to leave earlier than I did for my evening out and decided not to visit the main supermarket for cooking oil and Wilkinson to see if they had restocked of Black display albums. Then on impulse I so put the oil back and went along Fredericke street which as street parking on one side and called in at an Asian store just before closing and purchased a small bottle of olive oil to use with the ready made up vegetable stir fry which I planned to use with some lamb chops for Sunday lunch. I then forgot some stir fry sauce so had to use a little ginger until calling in at the supermarket on Monday afternoon for postage stamps and salami. I used the rest of the stir fry to accompany pork chops for the evening meal on Monday with a packet of spicy oriental sauce to which I added some ginger. All this talk of food makes me hungry and I will have a bowl of Muesli cereal rather than salami slices in crackers. But then relented on opening the fridge for the milk!
As the area to the west of Fredericke Street and the river is being redeveloped with the former Plessey factory site cleared Fredericke is getting a face lift with some of the derelict shops being brought back to life although between a third and half the street is still to be brought back into use.
I arrived at the Heworth car park outside the metro and bus station around 5.15 pm, staying in the car to drink soup from a flask and salami rolls with mustard. I parked next to the ticket machine with required fee on the dashboard. I then saw not one, but two, ticket wardens coming over to check the windscreens of the few cars parked around me so I got out and was about to put the money in the machine when one of the two called out to say there was no charge if I was remaining sitting in the car. I explained I was having a meal before going to a theatre in Newcastle by the Metro. I completed the purchase of the ticket and placed on the dashboard. as it was not one those which you attach to the windscreen, and thought nothing more of it until return just before 10pm to be alerted by two of the taxi drivers in the nearby rank that I had been given a parking ticket. The £50 fine reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days was issued because a correct ticket was displayed. I had left the ticket upside down. I assume this was from a different warden as the fine notice was timed just before eight pm when the payment period ended. A complicated two stage appeal process is listed on one side of the ticket which I will follow.
The purpose of my visit to Newcastle was to see a relay of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, production of Simone Boccanegra with the internationally renowned tenor, Placido Domingo, in the title role, using his baritone registers, and with James Morris playing his Nemesis.
I must admit that I did not enjoy the evening. It was exceptionally hot in a packed auditorium so I quickly became tired and had to fight dozing off. The seats in Classics stall are not as comfortable as those in the Circle and do have full backs and head rests and have no space between seats or pairs of seats so one has to take care not to take the space of neighbours. None of this would have mattered if the work had been entertaining with memorable songs and a visual spectacle in support.
The sets and clothes are sumptuous, richly textured and designed in reds and browns, and the scenery used to create the palace reception room for the Doge and the courtiers, is amazing, because of its size, and the impressive decorated ceiling. The singing of the principals - two baritones, a tenor and a soprano, was brilliant and the emotional performance of Domingo extraordinary and exceptional. The music is powerful and there are moments of passion and tenderness but not one memorable tune. The performers all spoke of their enthusiasm for the Opera and I can see why it is the choice of singers and musicians and I can say I have attended a live performance of an opera with Placido Domingo, but it is not an opera I would wish to pay good money to see, although I will view a production on the Met Player at sometime, although there are others I wish to experience beforehand.
The plot is complicated. Boccanegra is a young upstart who has fathered a child with the daughter of the Doge, played by James Morris and who he wishes to marry but whose father has locked her away and regards Boccanegra with enmity.
The Doge has become unpopular with the courtiers and the people and two of the courtiers plot to remove him and place the popular hero Boccanegra in his place believing he will be able to become the power behind the throne, however over time Boccanegra becomes his own man.
Early on Boccanegra’s lover dies before they can marry and her father pleads to be able to bring up his grand daughter, Boccanegra refuses and the girl is brought up away from Boccanegra and hidden from her grandfather thus increasing his hatred for the usurper.
The first act is described as the prologue with an interval after thirty minutes of thirty minutes because of the need for the main characters to age by twenty five years and the major change of set required from outside to inside the Palace. The next act described as the first lasts for an hour with a short interval mid way, followed by the second long interval of 30 mins. I made my way up the stairs to the second floor for the gents and then to the third to the bar for a glass of Merlot while watching the scene change projected on the wall with the running down time clock, leaving when there were two minutes to go and getting into my seat with only 20 seconds to spare.
During the first interval Placido and Morris joked about the difficulty of pretending they were young men and this is achieved through a dark haired wig and make up. He and James Morris have been playing rivals and enemies for thirty five years!
The story develops that Boccanegra’s daughter brought up separately had in fact been brought up by the former Doge under his assumed name of Grimaldi away from Genoa, but this fact is unknown to both father and grandfather. Moreover the former Doge, the daughters fiancée and Paulo Albiani a goldsmith and the courtier who had brought Boccanegra to power are all involved in a complicated plot to bring him down with Gabriele Adorno, the finance, one of two assassins. The complication is that having been reunited with her father, Paolo suggests to Gabriele that she had been abducted and seduced by the Doge.
There is then a period which unfortunately from my viewpoint Gabriele reveals himself to be a chauvinistic pig as well as an assassin. He demands to know if the Doge has taken his fiancée by force or seduction, proclaiming that if this is so, he will having nothing more to do with her. This should have wrung alarm bells with the young woman and abandoned the rat. Instead she reveals herself as cunning and manipulative attempting to achieve the best of best worlds by finding a way to maintain both relationships and bring the two men together. The problem is that Paulo has poisoned the drink of the Doge which produces a long painful death with stretches almost throughout the last act. Paolo gets his just deserts and Adorno and Boccanegra are reconciled to the extent that the couple are able to marry with his blessing and Boccanegra insists that Adorno is appointed the next Doge at his death. Moreover the former Doge Jacopo Fiasco who has reappeared in Genoa is also brought to a new understanding and is entrusted in ensuring that Boccanegra wishes for his son in law are respected and brought to fruition. The brilliance of Placido Domingo is that he able to make the story, and his role, believable.
The highlight of the weekend was however Super bowl XLIV in which the New Orleans Saints, attending the contest for the first time and as champions of the National Football League, defeated the American Football League Champions, the Indianapolis Colts by 31 points to 17, having come from a 10.0 lead at the end of the first quarter. I had not intended to watch the event live which meant staying up until 3am but I shared the view of the majority of people in the USA, outside of Indie fans who wanted New Orleans to win for three very different reasons. The foremost is that the city, the state of Louisiana and the south east oft he UDA is still recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The second reason is that the Saints have only recently become a good team had never been to a superbowl and were regarded as the underdogs and now a great team and the third that the owner of the Colts transported them overnight from Baltimore to the new prestige Lucas oil stadium which is to hold the Superbowl in 2012 with the 2013 event to be held in New Orleans at the very stadium which was use to house hurricane refugees. The background of the two teams was the difference with one professionals with a great offensive team led by what many consider to be one of the great quarterbacks of all time while New Orleans was also a team of professional, but with a mission beyond furthering their individual careers or team, but aware that the morale of a city, a state and a region was at stake.
I first came to enjoy American football in the 1980’s when whole games were shown live on TV. I made two visits to Wembley stadium in London to see pre season warm up games and visited Gateshead who, and may still have a team in the British league version which existed for a time and may still do. I supported the Chicago Bears in part because of a defensive player called the Fridge and also the San Francisco 49ers after being given one of their shirts as a Christmas present. I learnt more about the sport after getting a computer game played and fro a time it rivalled my interest in football. Over the past five years I having been preoccupied in my work and competing programmes to watch many live games during the season and then the playoffs involving the two separate leagues
Because of the national interest the games was watched by an audience of over 100 million in the US alone, the largest TV audience in the history of that country and also shown in some 30 other countries including China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Russia and the UK as well as Canada and Mexico Brazil and Chile,
For the third year in succession the national anthem was sung by a winner of American Idol- Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks and Jennifer Hudson. Queen Latifah sang an odd version of America is Beautiful and The Who provided the half time entertainment. Jerry Rice and Emmett Smith two of the 2010 Hall of Fame new entrants participate in the pre game coin toss. $100 million dollars of merchandise was pre-sold to indicate the extent to which the event is the biggest sporting event in the US Calendar, greater than Baseball and Basketball.
The highlight of the game came in the fourth quarter when just as the commentators were remaking about the overall lack of mistakes and turnovers Tracy Porter intercepted a pass from manning at the 26th yard to run the 76 yards to gain a touch down and force the Saints to get two touchdowns and conversions to go into extra time. For a few minutes it looked as if this might be on as the Saints drove all the way to within three yards. However there was then disaster because with pass interference they were pushed back to 10 yards and their last effort went through the hands of the receiver incomplete. At that point there was nothing more to do than to let the lock run down the remaining time and accept defeat. Then the celebrations commenced and the people of New Orleans were out on the street starting the Mardi Gras over a week early.
Having got up early the gas man did not come until midday but stayed longer than anyone giving the cooker the boiler a thorough clean and arranging for an electrician come and check the downstairs switch which had become temperamental, due to a loose wire. The visits were a bonus in two ways because I learnt that it was wise to keep the light on as in severe weather the boiler is designed to switch itself on to avoid freezing. The visit also provided an opportunity to get the ceiling light fixed in the day room although discovered that it looks as if the tube was a dud after replacing the starter. I will leave the tube until Wednesday when I get a 10% every little helps discount.
This brings me to a Richard Widmark film whose title I noted somewhere and hope to find. ( Pickup on South Street 1953). He plays a pick pocket just out of jail for the third time and facing life if he is caught. He makes the mistake of then take the purse of a woman whose dominating male partner has got her to pass micro film of a valuable formula to the enemy and who was under a surveillance, hoping to find out who the main culprits were. The girl takes a shine to Widmark and tries to help him keep to the straight and narrow as well as break free from her boyfriend, Widmark is a kind villain who does not carry a gun compared to the boyfriend who is a nasty villain and who does but both are recidivist criminals. The dividing question is Widmark also a traitor to his country in other ways. It can be argued that being a criminal is being a traitor to one’s country although not as damaging as selling or giving secrets away. This is typical of USA film making at the time and an obsession to this day that it is better to be dead than red and that anything which is true Christian or is social motivated is quasi communist and must be defeated.
Almost to the last moment the character still finds it difficult to give up making a small fortune from having got hold of the microfilm. What tips the balance is when the girl is beaten up and nearly killed and that she held out to protect him. Finally he gets he message and puts himself in arms way to help the Feds capture the next villain up in the spy chain. He wins the girl but the city cops reckon it won’t be long before he offends again and gets life inside. Great fun but a good performance from Widmark.
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