12.40 18th June 2011. Aide Memoir. I dislike the tendency of sport’s blogists to commence their reporting on events by adding comments on top of the previous note so that in order to commence with a description of an event you have to go the end of the print out and work backwards. My bank introduced the same approach with statements about a year ago with the latest position at the top. There is logic about this in relation to financial statement events but not sporting.
Having said this at least there is a formality and consistency about the approach whereas for this writing it is all over the time span of recent days of experience. The main cause is the effort put into transporting heavy completed project Development sets from the first floor Display room to the second floor storage room .I will have completed the move by this evening and the transfer of partially completed work, all Event volumes from the First floor work room into the vacant shelves in the Display room. I also have several completed Event volumes to move to the top but this may take place towards the middle to end of next week after the championship cricket game between Durham and Yorkshire which commences on Saturday. I wrote this before studying the detailed weather forecast.
In the past I noted that when I concentrated on physical activity I placed the brain and its motivating will power in sleep mode and vice versa. Having failed to create a better balance over the past 72 year I am almost reconciled to accepting the situation. I have recently concentrated on mind control and emotional stability.
I break off to watch the last part of Bargain Hunt in which both teams lose whereas yesterday there were two good winners. I used to think the programme editors would encourage the experts to recommends bargains according to the extent to which contestants entered into the spirit of the programme, their personalities and if they indicated a knowledge or attempted to give the impression of being knowledgeable. As will be noted I remain a determinist rather than a supporter of chaos and random theories.
Much later than planned I commence the next writing. It was 17.22 on June 15th. The past couple of days have been a mixtures of good experiences, frustrations, near disasters and one of those events where you hope the situation will work out differently, but hope of this happening fades and by the morning will headed all together.
Have been motivated by watching the film Fragments and enjoyed the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I was present on a warm and part sunny evening at the Emirates Riverside when Durham had an excellent and important win against 20 20 leaders of the Northern Championship, Nottinghamshire, who they will played again in Nottingham on Thursday evening. There is another 20 20 games against Leicestershire on Friday and then Durham host Yorkshire over the weekend. A week later there is a 20 20 game at the Emirates on the Sunday afternoon after which I will motor on to Liverpool for the game which starts on the Monday. We are also playing Lancashire in the 20 20 on the Friday beforehand. So there is potentially 10 days of live cricket watching between now and the end of the month plus two radio commentaries, The European Under 21 Football Championship; the third Test against Sri Lanka at the Rosebowl and Rugby League. I have no interest in Ascot.
I came across a bottle of Mateus like Rose from Spain at half the price and went back and they had sold out. I then discovered a remaining bottle of another Spanish rose with fizz for £2.99. I am enjoying a couple of glasses after a roll with spread and a salad in which I combined defrosted prawns in shell with half the self selected Morrison salad. At lunch I had a mixture of scampi with prawns in bread combs with a sauce of baked beans and chopped tomatoes. Breakfast was a microven heat of mini sausages mini bacon pieces, a little scrambled egg, baked beans and chopped tomato.
I have been working hard during the day on reorganising and storing completed work files stacking Development sets in the second floor storeroom after recording the numbers and locations. I have so far freed five shelves with putting boxes in three tiers on the top two shelves on assembled metal units in the first floor storage display room and filling the three cleared shelves with sets in the making previously located on the floor of the first floor work room. After the initial effort on Monday and going for a sauna and swim on Tuesday I needed a go slow but today I had three sessions of going up and down stairs fully loaded. I grow tired after the meal and wine so will revert to the settee and hope to revive to write more lately this evening.
I have recovered sufficiently to attempt some more writing while keeping one eye on the 20 20 game between Derbyshire who beat Durham and then and the no result game on Sunday who are playing Worcester. This afternoon while recovering from lunch and the morning efforts I watched the 2009 film Fragments which is also known as Winged Creatures which is the name of he novel.
A man enters a diner and starts to shoot people and hen himself. The film deal with the families of victims and the survivors. Anne known as Annie is a teenage school age daughter at the diner with her father and her best friend Jimmy who communicate on a regular basis by email. When the gunman starts to shoot the two young people hide under the table while holding the hand the father. After the event the girl appears calm and refers to the courage of her father in a Christian context. She is able to speak at the funeral and after returning almost immediate to school she shares her faith with other pupils. Her mother can barely cope and is worried by the behaviour of her daughter who after a brief interest in religion had not shown any since. Her best friend on the other hand has become silent something which his father understands. The father and Annie discourage Jimmy from having contact with the Hospital trauma psychotherapist.
It is Jimmy who breaks first attempting to take his own life by planning to fall off a high level working and then gets hold of a gun from his father and goes to the Diner, but in both instances he contacts Annie and at the first she persuades him to get safe but in the second the reason for his silence comes to the fore as he demands that she speak the truth of what happened. Her father had not shown great courage but froze out of panic and then wet himself which the daughter had tried to disguise with her soft drink telling the boy to swear not to say a word about what happened. The killer had brought the gun below the table pointing at the boy’s head but had been distracted by another customer who had decided to have a go at the killer. The girl is able to tell the truth and find emotional release and join her mother in grief and in anger. She is also fascinated by birds and their freedom hence the title of the book and we also see her father’s pigeon made free which in the book she destroy their cages. Jimmy and his father are already affected by the death of his brother who the father blames on a psychologist and with his son is therefore hostile the hospital psychologist who tries to help the survivors and their families.
Charlie Archenault is in the Diner having got a lucky ticket with gives him a free breakfast, but he is far from feeling lucky as clutching booklets about coping with cancer as if he has just had his worst fears confirmed. Having escaped with only a grazed neck he quickly goes out of the hospital and cashing whatever money he has books himself into a top notch hotel and sets about gambling at a Casino where at first his luck continues winning $100000 but then it changes and loses much of what he has won and going to the bathroom he passes blood. Meanwhile back home his single parent daughter, (I understand his wife in the book) tells people to whom he owes money that she does not know where he is. In the film the daughter learns of the cancer condition and he returns home to that fate.
A surgeon married to a woman who suffers from migraines leaves the diner before the killing commences. In the book it is 20 mins beforehand while in the film he holds the door open for the killer. Without knowing what then happens until told he is needed to operate on casualties from the incident and he accidentally cuts into the victim’s heart that then dies as he was most likely to have done in any event. The man is tormented by this and starts to experiment in the treatment of his wife’s condition in such a way that she becomes very ill but he then cures her although on the last occasion she recovers, only just.
The serving girl at the counter who although was not shot is traumatised and rejects her son turns to alcohol and men and fantasises about a relationship with the Doctor. It is my understanding that the book suggests that the event brings out issues which were always there such as the waitress resentful of being left with a demanding child, was rejecting of the infant beforehand, while Jimmy was as much affected by his aggressive father who was physically violent towards his mother as the incident itself. The waitress is played by Kate Beckinsale and Charlie’s daughter by Jennifer Hudson. The individual performances were convincing and formed a whole which I found thoughtful and moving.
Friday 17th June 13.55. It is the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition week, the most influential singing competition in the world for those who wish to perform at the great Opera Houses of the World. I saw the preliminary programme on Saturday and then forgot that the four semi finals, each with 5 competitors commenced on Tuesday. I am catching up with programmes to day and the first singer a Soprano from New Zealand, 30 year old Anna Leese with a powerful deep voice and whose figure already suggest she is on her way joining those who fill out through their singing development. Her performance included Mimi’s farewell song from La Boheme. I liked her voice and first two compositions. The final piece was for a coloratura which I have never appreciated. I give her 8 plus. The programme critics put her about 7 plus plus to 8.
I break off to create a lunch platter of one salmon fish cake, some scampi, some prawns in bread crumbs and some Indian starters to fill the space. I enjoyed a bacon roll around 10.30 and at 9 a cereal bowl.
The second contestant is a young base singer from Armenia who felt it is a privilege just to participate. The full base voice is a rarity and he will have long professional career but I agreed with the programme critics that lacked a commanding presence and give him 7 plus plus to 8. We them experience a young Russian, with the surname Olesya Petrova, a Mezzo Soprano the best of the female voices for me and her is amazingly powerful and she the ability to put herself into whatever mood and part projecting herself directly to everyone individually. I gave her 9 plus without hesitation and the audience responded in similar fashion as did the critics. The fourth performer was also a Soprano from Bulgaria, an attractive young woman and a mother. I thought she was the weakest of the four to date in terms of voice and choice of programme. The final singer was a baritone from Romania whose voice I also enjoyed but not his programme choice. There was one outstanding competitor on the night and the judges agreed
Earlier today tired from the morning exercise and first project work I watch a great fun piece after seeing that the cast included the great Bill Nighy and called Wild Target. As wicked black comedies go this is the wickedest and blackest.
The film brings together four great characters and I begin with Emily Blunt as a self confident amoral young woman kleptomaniac who persuades a restorer at the national gallery to create a copy of a Rembrandt which is being sold abroad because the Gallery has been unable to raise the fund to keep the picture in the UK. She then arranges to sell copy to a Billionaire collector on the basis he gets the original and the overseas buyer the copy. In order to achieve the deal she takes both in a double sided picture carrying case and allows the original to be inspected and authenticated by a an expert. She then raises the asking price giving the opportunity to pretend to take the picture with her as the opportunity to reverse sides and take out the fake. It is not until she has left the hotel suite that the switch is recognised that the Billionaire hires the best known hit man to kill the girl in revenge.
They man he hires has been trained from birth by his father and mother to become the most respected assassin. He follows on from his father and grandfather having been given a gun for his first birthday present and had a mobile above his cot of toy guns. He visits his mother, played by the excellent Eileen Atkins in a home because of her increasing frailty who gives for his forthcoming birthday a bound volume of press cuttings about his most famous hits. She chides him over the fact that he has remained unmarried and mentions it was at his same age his father married her. Perhaps it with this thought in mind that he is not as clinical as previously when stalking Emily and preparing an education, following her to a hotel where she makes passionate love which he observes and found a vacant position in the building opposite. He decides not to kill her when the opportunity next arises. His mother is incandescent with rage when she learns what happened fearing the family reputation has been sullied for ever! She advises that he must immediately redeem himself by killing the girl and giving the fee back in recompense. He follows her to a multi-storey car park and is about to execute when he sees another attempting to do so, so he kills him and then enters into a gun fight with a second assassin. Just when Bill and he girl are about to be killed by the second man, a young man who has been using the car park as a home from home, grabs the gun of the other first killer and shoot the other man wounding him. The three beat a quick retreat in the mini car. Nighy claims to be a detective on a stake out in the car park and agrees to protect the girl for a fee of £30000 a week. The young man is played by Rupert Grint the friend of Harry Potter is the series.
Bill takes them to a West End Hotel where he and the girl are in constant disagreement about everything. They do not realise that the Billionaire is in a suite nearby, cursing the fact that he has lost one bodyguard and that the other is injured. He has resorted to hiring the next best hitman in the world who is something of a sadist. He has an equally obnoxious assistant but they have in common admiration for the Master who they have never met.
Still at loggerheads Nighy and Blunt are at breakfast in the hotel dining room while Rupert is enjoying bath. Blunt has left her boots out to be cleaned and these are spotted by the bumbling bodyguard who enters the suite and bathroom but shoots the ear off the man somehow and then rushes out with their belonging collection the duo who are the reception desk settling the bill. There is then the usual car chase through London before the billionaire and assistant crash and end up in traction in hospital. The new hitman and assistant visit and vow to carry out the commission.
Nighy takes the girl and the adopted young man who he has offered to train to the family home in the midst of the countryside. The house is spotless with everything covered in plastic which leads to one quip that he will have no problem using a condom! Eventually the girl succumbs to Bill’s understated charm when he tenderly massages her feet among his many skills. Just when it looks as if all is going well for the trio, Eileen Atkins arrives to express her opposition to developments. Then Emily discovers the truth about Bill which she imparts to Rupert before departing as quickly as she can,
Meanwhile to two new hired assassins have been go through a list of possible forgers which leads them to the actual forger and to Emily on her return to London. They make their way with the girl back to the hideout where Bill is teaching Rupert to shoot, He suddenly appears to get three bulls eyes which he denies as they have been achieved by one of the gunmen with Emily in two. Out of admiration for the Master, the young turk offers to let Rupert live if Bill kills Emily and allows the young man to kill him. Bill’s mother has returned home and from the first floor shoots the assistant about to kill the three. The young turk then seizes the original gun given to Bill by his father and attempts to shoot him only for the gun go explode and the man killed by the recoil. They then bury the two in the garden. The film ends three years later when a young boy appears to have buried something in the grounds while Bill and Emil are eating out proudly watching. Young Rupert arrives to say he is missing the household cat which evidently has been killed and buried by the offspring obviously following in the family tradition. The film is great fun.
6 pm Listening to Yorkshire playing in a near full house against Lancashire, the only one of tonight’s 8 games in play although there were five overs in the Durham game before the rain came again. I have completed the move of Development files to the top but am yet to complete the registration of the locations I have also watched the second episode of the Cardiff singers of the world competition where none of the five lived up to the standard of the first night. I was impressed by the only individual representing England born in Birmingham of Indian parents, Meeta Raval. she has a great stage presence and communicates her enjoyment of singing and life in general. She was the Judges winner for the evening. Someone else who impressed was a mezzo soprano now living in Switzerland and who came in for the original individuals elected who missed out through illness. An attractive girl from Chile lacked technical ability for selected programme and another soprano from Canada also had problems. The only male on the evening came from China and while still a young man with promise he also had limitations which were exposed through the selected programme.
20.00 18th June Email from Olympics promising ticket information before 24th and also info on how to apply for remaining tickets. Had good and bad news from Energy Company with raising one monthly and lowering the other so overall a small gain to me. Durham game another no result and forecast tomorrow is torrential rain throughout the day throughout North East. OK tonight for Kings of Leon at Sunderland that the Hoppings on Town Moor Newcastle with 300 attractions and stalls. It always pours with rain. Newcastle is at Sunderland in second match of the season mid August as fixtures announced this morning.
I enjoyed Blue Bloods this week. A young couple spend a break in New York with the wife insisting that they visit a restaurant where she has been with a female friend in the past. He tops the waitress and she advises where he can go outside to smoke a cigar, he is shot and dies in hospital. The good citizens of the home state, the family and the Mayor are all horrified at the blow to tourism and there is early suggestion that a hooded black man seen running along the street about the time of the killing is the culprit. The Police Commissioners is cautious and resists joining the band wagon with apologies and giving the killing more attention than any of the others occurring in the city over the previous few days. The first lead is the waitress who is found with the boyfriend high on drugs but is eliminated when the boyfriend is found to have a good alibi. The next lead is the hooded runner who alleges he was out jogging. A former ex policeman who criticised corruption within the force in his home country he came to USA for a new start, It is Danny for once who has doubts which his sister the prosecuting DS thinks it is an open and shut case although she is wanting to get a good conviction quickly having messed a case when led to the culprit walking free and although he has recently been shot by an off licence owner, he had shot dead another customer beforehand.
Danny and his assistant start to check out the murdered man’s wife and the family friend who comes to New York to take the body back to the home state. They find that the pair have been spending weekends together and that the husband and in effect made a dummy rum to New York to rehearse the killing of the husband. When he is in custody he confirms that the instigator of the crime was the wife. Everyone is required to eat humble pie except Danny. The young hooded black man was a coincidental jogger.
I have been trying hard to remember the Chicago Code episode which now comes back to me. There are two stories. The first is the practice of black gangs to sue a family member or friend to rent a house in a new district. They move out and the gang moves in organising a drug extortion terror racket. When they have exhausted the local situation or the police start to move in they move out, starting elsewhere again. In this instance the Superintendent’s supporting Detective and his university FBI promised assistant (he found out the background by breaking into the personal records) have to hand over the case because of being ordered to deal with a situation of greater political significance, His former enemy and still rival slips up when one of the hand pulls a gun and nearly kills the rookie niece cop and her senior partner. She takes responsibility for the failure to do a proper body check but later it emerges that she was covering for the boss so to have a hold of him in the future.
The education and wealthy son of a leading figure is in a drug induced coma. Later his girl friend is found drowned in side his car which is brought out of the river. The investigation takes the pair to an upmarket night club where dugs and sex are organised by the female manager/owner. The duo spot the house share friend of the dead girl who first refuses to cooperate, then volunteers but with a story which is an obvious attempt to present a cover version of he truth. It emerges that the obnoxious bully father of the young man in a coma had a sexual relationship with the girl before she met his son and the two became serious about each other with the father trying to warn the girl off and then advising the son. The mayor as usual takes the side of the wealthy and influential and orders the Superintendent to call off her dogs. She is a trying to get the Mayor to honour a commitment to replace the limited battery time radio‘s with the latest models. She does a trade while at the same time her man ignores the hands off warning and gets a friendly magistrate/judge to authorise a search warrant. This is successful on in helping to resolve the immediate situation and providing a treasure of records about the involvement of the rich and powerful which can be used in the future. The underlying theme is about trust between partners and also realistic loyalty which can work both ways.
I have also watched The Sorcerers Apprentice which has Nicolas Cage as one of Merlin’s three apprentices attempting to find the one person who defeat the evil Morgana le Fay who wants to destroy the whole of human kind by raising the undead. She has been imprisoned for over one thousand years (since AD 704) together with the love of his life and fellow apprentice Veronica. Veronica has embraced Morgana as the means of enabling Cage (Balthazar) to contain the creature in a kind of Russian doll, which grows in size as other nasty individuals have also been imprisoned as overlays over the decades by Balthazar, including Alfred Molina as Maxim Horvath.
In present day America (AD2000) a 10 year old geeky boy is attracted to a female pupil who reciprocates interest by responding to a note he gives her. However before he can read the note it is taken by the wind, a cycle, a dog and eventually into the doorway of a home filled with things ancient and extraordinary, the latest home of Balthazar who has grown weary of his quest to find Merlin’s heir.
Balthazar senses the boy has not entered his domain by accident and gives him the ring entrusted by Merlin to find a successor. The ring will come alive when the right person is found as it does with Dave. Having been told not to touch anything Dave full of curiosity releases Horvath from the container, the Grimhold, and the two Sorcerers do battle but fortunately they become imprisoned in another Hold for ten years but the container ejects water on to Dave giving the impression that he has wet himself from being lost until found by the school group and great amusement and his humiliation especially as they ridicule his account of the events unfolding within the building.
Ten years later Dave is a college student and a creative genius working on a conductive electro sound project which sets up a triangular interaction of electric flash currents and musical sounds, Unbeknown to him the hold has opened releasing Balthazar and Horvath who makes track for Dave to find out the location of the Grimhold. What happened is that as Dave left the building the Grimhold slipped from his grasp and been found by a Chinese woman and has been in China Town for the previous decade, its secret unknown.
Hovarth creates a pack of hounds to locate and capture Dave but Balthazar retaliates with a steel eagle with become alive. Balthazar attempts to explain to Dave that he is a great Sorcerer in the making and to teach him how to develop and make use of his powers. The complication is that he had encountered the former pupil, now also a university student who does a stint at a small radio station. Balthazar warns that any relationship before he has reached maturity will be a great risk to both of them. The Grimhold found the two Sorcerers do battle for its control, releasing some of the baddies who have been overlaid before Morgana and Veronica are reached. Hovarth enlists the assistance of a well known illusionist with actual supernatural powers.
Eventually both Sorcerers have periods in control of Grimhold and do battle with creatures released until the amalgam of the two former apprentices is released and Morgana gains her independence and sets about creating the end of human kind by creating a mechanism to release the undead. Dave and his girl friend each come to the rescue with the girlfriend preventing the conclusion of the undead rising from occurring and Dave finding a way to destroy Morgana with the Hovarth return to eternal imprisonment. Dave also finds a way of saving Balthazar who was willing to give up his life to save Veronica after she sacrificed herself to save him. The couples are to live happy ever after? Hmm. I see a sequel!
After a disappointing second semi final in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition won by the British singer with an Indian background Meeta Raval there were two outstanding contributions in the third concert competition. The BBC critics went for the beautiful, slim 24 year old Valentina Nafomita from Moldovia who has great power despite her frame and has high notes of great beauty and perfection. The evening went however to another young attractive looking Baritone Andrei Bondarenko from the Ukraine. He has also won a special prize from the judges, but my money is still on Valentina. Last night the evening went to another slim young woman from South Korea Jung Lee who gave an extraordinary performance as the wife of Chairman Mao in the contemporary Opera Nixon in China. The part requires the singer to communicate a powerful and authoritarian woman which she did in such a convincing way that she was transformed which reminded to the recent performance of Carmen in the 3D production for Royal Opera House. I am looking forward to the final on Sunday early evening which I may watch live unless there is a reasonable chance of some good cricket.
Having said this at least there is a formality and consistency about the approach whereas for this writing it is all over the time span of recent days of experience. The main cause is the effort put into transporting heavy completed project Development sets from the first floor Display room to the second floor storage room .I will have completed the move by this evening and the transfer of partially completed work, all Event volumes from the First floor work room into the vacant shelves in the Display room. I also have several completed Event volumes to move to the top but this may take place towards the middle to end of next week after the championship cricket game between Durham and Yorkshire which commences on Saturday. I wrote this before studying the detailed weather forecast.
In the past I noted that when I concentrated on physical activity I placed the brain and its motivating will power in sleep mode and vice versa. Having failed to create a better balance over the past 72 year I am almost reconciled to accepting the situation. I have recently concentrated on mind control and emotional stability.
I break off to watch the last part of Bargain Hunt in which both teams lose whereas yesterday there were two good winners. I used to think the programme editors would encourage the experts to recommends bargains according to the extent to which contestants entered into the spirit of the programme, their personalities and if they indicated a knowledge or attempted to give the impression of being knowledgeable. As will be noted I remain a determinist rather than a supporter of chaos and random theories.
Much later than planned I commence the next writing. It was 17.22 on June 15th. The past couple of days have been a mixtures of good experiences, frustrations, near disasters and one of those events where you hope the situation will work out differently, but hope of this happening fades and by the morning will headed all together.
Have been motivated by watching the film Fragments and enjoyed the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I was present on a warm and part sunny evening at the Emirates Riverside when Durham had an excellent and important win against 20 20 leaders of the Northern Championship, Nottinghamshire, who they will played again in Nottingham on Thursday evening. There is another 20 20 games against Leicestershire on Friday and then Durham host Yorkshire over the weekend. A week later there is a 20 20 game at the Emirates on the Sunday afternoon after which I will motor on to Liverpool for the game which starts on the Monday. We are also playing Lancashire in the 20 20 on the Friday beforehand. So there is potentially 10 days of live cricket watching between now and the end of the month plus two radio commentaries, The European Under 21 Football Championship; the third Test against Sri Lanka at the Rosebowl and Rugby League. I have no interest in Ascot.
I came across a bottle of Mateus like Rose from Spain at half the price and went back and they had sold out. I then discovered a remaining bottle of another Spanish rose with fizz for £2.99. I am enjoying a couple of glasses after a roll with spread and a salad in which I combined defrosted prawns in shell with half the self selected Morrison salad. At lunch I had a mixture of scampi with prawns in bread combs with a sauce of baked beans and chopped tomatoes. Breakfast was a microven heat of mini sausages mini bacon pieces, a little scrambled egg, baked beans and chopped tomato.
I have been working hard during the day on reorganising and storing completed work files stacking Development sets in the second floor storeroom after recording the numbers and locations. I have so far freed five shelves with putting boxes in three tiers on the top two shelves on assembled metal units in the first floor storage display room and filling the three cleared shelves with sets in the making previously located on the floor of the first floor work room. After the initial effort on Monday and going for a sauna and swim on Tuesday I needed a go slow but today I had three sessions of going up and down stairs fully loaded. I grow tired after the meal and wine so will revert to the settee and hope to revive to write more lately this evening.
I have recovered sufficiently to attempt some more writing while keeping one eye on the 20 20 game between Derbyshire who beat Durham and then and the no result game on Sunday who are playing Worcester. This afternoon while recovering from lunch and the morning efforts I watched the 2009 film Fragments which is also known as Winged Creatures which is the name of he novel.
A man enters a diner and starts to shoot people and hen himself. The film deal with the families of victims and the survivors. Anne known as Annie is a teenage school age daughter at the diner with her father and her best friend Jimmy who communicate on a regular basis by email. When the gunman starts to shoot the two young people hide under the table while holding the hand the father. After the event the girl appears calm and refers to the courage of her father in a Christian context. She is able to speak at the funeral and after returning almost immediate to school she shares her faith with other pupils. Her mother can barely cope and is worried by the behaviour of her daughter who after a brief interest in religion had not shown any since. Her best friend on the other hand has become silent something which his father understands. The father and Annie discourage Jimmy from having contact with the Hospital trauma psychotherapist.
It is Jimmy who breaks first attempting to take his own life by planning to fall off a high level working and then gets hold of a gun from his father and goes to the Diner, but in both instances he contacts Annie and at the first she persuades him to get safe but in the second the reason for his silence comes to the fore as he demands that she speak the truth of what happened. Her father had not shown great courage but froze out of panic and then wet himself which the daughter had tried to disguise with her soft drink telling the boy to swear not to say a word about what happened. The killer had brought the gun below the table pointing at the boy’s head but had been distracted by another customer who had decided to have a go at the killer. The girl is able to tell the truth and find emotional release and join her mother in grief and in anger. She is also fascinated by birds and their freedom hence the title of the book and we also see her father’s pigeon made free which in the book she destroy their cages. Jimmy and his father are already affected by the death of his brother who the father blames on a psychologist and with his son is therefore hostile the hospital psychologist who tries to help the survivors and their families.
Charlie Archenault is in the Diner having got a lucky ticket with gives him a free breakfast, but he is far from feeling lucky as clutching booklets about coping with cancer as if he has just had his worst fears confirmed. Having escaped with only a grazed neck he quickly goes out of the hospital and cashing whatever money he has books himself into a top notch hotel and sets about gambling at a Casino where at first his luck continues winning $100000 but then it changes and loses much of what he has won and going to the bathroom he passes blood. Meanwhile back home his single parent daughter, (I understand his wife in the book) tells people to whom he owes money that she does not know where he is. In the film the daughter learns of the cancer condition and he returns home to that fate.
A surgeon married to a woman who suffers from migraines leaves the diner before the killing commences. In the book it is 20 mins beforehand while in the film he holds the door open for the killer. Without knowing what then happens until told he is needed to operate on casualties from the incident and he accidentally cuts into the victim’s heart that then dies as he was most likely to have done in any event. The man is tormented by this and starts to experiment in the treatment of his wife’s condition in such a way that she becomes very ill but he then cures her although on the last occasion she recovers, only just.
The serving girl at the counter who although was not shot is traumatised and rejects her son turns to alcohol and men and fantasises about a relationship with the Doctor. It is my understanding that the book suggests that the event brings out issues which were always there such as the waitress resentful of being left with a demanding child, was rejecting of the infant beforehand, while Jimmy was as much affected by his aggressive father who was physically violent towards his mother as the incident itself. The waitress is played by Kate Beckinsale and Charlie’s daughter by Jennifer Hudson. The individual performances were convincing and formed a whole which I found thoughtful and moving.
Friday 17th June 13.55. It is the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition week, the most influential singing competition in the world for those who wish to perform at the great Opera Houses of the World. I saw the preliminary programme on Saturday and then forgot that the four semi finals, each with 5 competitors commenced on Tuesday. I am catching up with programmes to day and the first singer a Soprano from New Zealand, 30 year old Anna Leese with a powerful deep voice and whose figure already suggest she is on her way joining those who fill out through their singing development. Her performance included Mimi’s farewell song from La Boheme. I liked her voice and first two compositions. The final piece was for a coloratura which I have never appreciated. I give her 8 plus. The programme critics put her about 7 plus plus to 8.
I break off to create a lunch platter of one salmon fish cake, some scampi, some prawns in bread crumbs and some Indian starters to fill the space. I enjoyed a bacon roll around 10.30 and at 9 a cereal bowl.
The second contestant is a young base singer from Armenia who felt it is a privilege just to participate. The full base voice is a rarity and he will have long professional career but I agreed with the programme critics that lacked a commanding presence and give him 7 plus plus to 8. We them experience a young Russian, with the surname Olesya Petrova, a Mezzo Soprano the best of the female voices for me and her is amazingly powerful and she the ability to put herself into whatever mood and part projecting herself directly to everyone individually. I gave her 9 plus without hesitation and the audience responded in similar fashion as did the critics. The fourth performer was also a Soprano from Bulgaria, an attractive young woman and a mother. I thought she was the weakest of the four to date in terms of voice and choice of programme. The final singer was a baritone from Romania whose voice I also enjoyed but not his programme choice. There was one outstanding competitor on the night and the judges agreed
Earlier today tired from the morning exercise and first project work I watch a great fun piece after seeing that the cast included the great Bill Nighy and called Wild Target. As wicked black comedies go this is the wickedest and blackest.
The film brings together four great characters and I begin with Emily Blunt as a self confident amoral young woman kleptomaniac who persuades a restorer at the national gallery to create a copy of a Rembrandt which is being sold abroad because the Gallery has been unable to raise the fund to keep the picture in the UK. She then arranges to sell copy to a Billionaire collector on the basis he gets the original and the overseas buyer the copy. In order to achieve the deal she takes both in a double sided picture carrying case and allows the original to be inspected and authenticated by a an expert. She then raises the asking price giving the opportunity to pretend to take the picture with her as the opportunity to reverse sides and take out the fake. It is not until she has left the hotel suite that the switch is recognised that the Billionaire hires the best known hit man to kill the girl in revenge.
They man he hires has been trained from birth by his father and mother to become the most respected assassin. He follows on from his father and grandfather having been given a gun for his first birthday present and had a mobile above his cot of toy guns. He visits his mother, played by the excellent Eileen Atkins in a home because of her increasing frailty who gives for his forthcoming birthday a bound volume of press cuttings about his most famous hits. She chides him over the fact that he has remained unmarried and mentions it was at his same age his father married her. Perhaps it with this thought in mind that he is not as clinical as previously when stalking Emily and preparing an education, following her to a hotel where she makes passionate love which he observes and found a vacant position in the building opposite. He decides not to kill her when the opportunity next arises. His mother is incandescent with rage when she learns what happened fearing the family reputation has been sullied for ever! She advises that he must immediately redeem himself by killing the girl and giving the fee back in recompense. He follows her to a multi-storey car park and is about to execute when he sees another attempting to do so, so he kills him and then enters into a gun fight with a second assassin. Just when Bill and he girl are about to be killed by the second man, a young man who has been using the car park as a home from home, grabs the gun of the other first killer and shoot the other man wounding him. The three beat a quick retreat in the mini car. Nighy claims to be a detective on a stake out in the car park and agrees to protect the girl for a fee of £30000 a week. The young man is played by Rupert Grint the friend of Harry Potter is the series.
Bill takes them to a West End Hotel where he and the girl are in constant disagreement about everything. They do not realise that the Billionaire is in a suite nearby, cursing the fact that he has lost one bodyguard and that the other is injured. He has resorted to hiring the next best hitman in the world who is something of a sadist. He has an equally obnoxious assistant but they have in common admiration for the Master who they have never met.
Still at loggerheads Nighy and Blunt are at breakfast in the hotel dining room while Rupert is enjoying bath. Blunt has left her boots out to be cleaned and these are spotted by the bumbling bodyguard who enters the suite and bathroom but shoots the ear off the man somehow and then rushes out with their belonging collection the duo who are the reception desk settling the bill. There is then the usual car chase through London before the billionaire and assistant crash and end up in traction in hospital. The new hitman and assistant visit and vow to carry out the commission.
Nighy takes the girl and the adopted young man who he has offered to train to the family home in the midst of the countryside. The house is spotless with everything covered in plastic which leads to one quip that he will have no problem using a condom! Eventually the girl succumbs to Bill’s understated charm when he tenderly massages her feet among his many skills. Just when it looks as if all is going well for the trio, Eileen Atkins arrives to express her opposition to developments. Then Emily discovers the truth about Bill which she imparts to Rupert before departing as quickly as she can,
Meanwhile to two new hired assassins have been go through a list of possible forgers which leads them to the actual forger and to Emily on her return to London. They make their way with the girl back to the hideout where Bill is teaching Rupert to shoot, He suddenly appears to get three bulls eyes which he denies as they have been achieved by one of the gunmen with Emily in two. Out of admiration for the Master, the young turk offers to let Rupert live if Bill kills Emily and allows the young man to kill him. Bill’s mother has returned home and from the first floor shoots the assistant about to kill the three. The young turk then seizes the original gun given to Bill by his father and attempts to shoot him only for the gun go explode and the man killed by the recoil. They then bury the two in the garden. The film ends three years later when a young boy appears to have buried something in the grounds while Bill and Emil are eating out proudly watching. Young Rupert arrives to say he is missing the household cat which evidently has been killed and buried by the offspring obviously following in the family tradition. The film is great fun.
6 pm Listening to Yorkshire playing in a near full house against Lancashire, the only one of tonight’s 8 games in play although there were five overs in the Durham game before the rain came again. I have completed the move of Development files to the top but am yet to complete the registration of the locations I have also watched the second episode of the Cardiff singers of the world competition where none of the five lived up to the standard of the first night. I was impressed by the only individual representing England born in Birmingham of Indian parents, Meeta Raval. she has a great stage presence and communicates her enjoyment of singing and life in general. She was the Judges winner for the evening. Someone else who impressed was a mezzo soprano now living in Switzerland and who came in for the original individuals elected who missed out through illness. An attractive girl from Chile lacked technical ability for selected programme and another soprano from Canada also had problems. The only male on the evening came from China and while still a young man with promise he also had limitations which were exposed through the selected programme.
20.00 18th June Email from Olympics promising ticket information before 24th and also info on how to apply for remaining tickets. Had good and bad news from Energy Company with raising one monthly and lowering the other so overall a small gain to me. Durham game another no result and forecast tomorrow is torrential rain throughout the day throughout North East. OK tonight for Kings of Leon at Sunderland that the Hoppings on Town Moor Newcastle with 300 attractions and stalls. It always pours with rain. Newcastle is at Sunderland in second match of the season mid August as fixtures announced this morning.
I enjoyed Blue Bloods this week. A young couple spend a break in New York with the wife insisting that they visit a restaurant where she has been with a female friend in the past. He tops the waitress and she advises where he can go outside to smoke a cigar, he is shot and dies in hospital. The good citizens of the home state, the family and the Mayor are all horrified at the blow to tourism and there is early suggestion that a hooded black man seen running along the street about the time of the killing is the culprit. The Police Commissioners is cautious and resists joining the band wagon with apologies and giving the killing more attention than any of the others occurring in the city over the previous few days. The first lead is the waitress who is found with the boyfriend high on drugs but is eliminated when the boyfriend is found to have a good alibi. The next lead is the hooded runner who alleges he was out jogging. A former ex policeman who criticised corruption within the force in his home country he came to USA for a new start, It is Danny for once who has doubts which his sister the prosecuting DS thinks it is an open and shut case although she is wanting to get a good conviction quickly having messed a case when led to the culprit walking free and although he has recently been shot by an off licence owner, he had shot dead another customer beforehand.
Danny and his assistant start to check out the murdered man’s wife and the family friend who comes to New York to take the body back to the home state. They find that the pair have been spending weekends together and that the husband and in effect made a dummy rum to New York to rehearse the killing of the husband. When he is in custody he confirms that the instigator of the crime was the wife. Everyone is required to eat humble pie except Danny. The young hooded black man was a coincidental jogger.
I have been trying hard to remember the Chicago Code episode which now comes back to me. There are two stories. The first is the practice of black gangs to sue a family member or friend to rent a house in a new district. They move out and the gang moves in organising a drug extortion terror racket. When they have exhausted the local situation or the police start to move in they move out, starting elsewhere again. In this instance the Superintendent’s supporting Detective and his university FBI promised assistant (he found out the background by breaking into the personal records) have to hand over the case because of being ordered to deal with a situation of greater political significance, His former enemy and still rival slips up when one of the hand pulls a gun and nearly kills the rookie niece cop and her senior partner. She takes responsibility for the failure to do a proper body check but later it emerges that she was covering for the boss so to have a hold of him in the future.
The education and wealthy son of a leading figure is in a drug induced coma. Later his girl friend is found drowned in side his car which is brought out of the river. The investigation takes the pair to an upmarket night club where dugs and sex are organised by the female manager/owner. The duo spot the house share friend of the dead girl who first refuses to cooperate, then volunteers but with a story which is an obvious attempt to present a cover version of he truth. It emerges that the obnoxious bully father of the young man in a coma had a sexual relationship with the girl before she met his son and the two became serious about each other with the father trying to warn the girl off and then advising the son. The mayor as usual takes the side of the wealthy and influential and orders the Superintendent to call off her dogs. She is a trying to get the Mayor to honour a commitment to replace the limited battery time radio‘s with the latest models. She does a trade while at the same time her man ignores the hands off warning and gets a friendly magistrate/judge to authorise a search warrant. This is successful on in helping to resolve the immediate situation and providing a treasure of records about the involvement of the rich and powerful which can be used in the future. The underlying theme is about trust between partners and also realistic loyalty which can work both ways.
I have also watched The Sorcerers Apprentice which has Nicolas Cage as one of Merlin’s three apprentices attempting to find the one person who defeat the evil Morgana le Fay who wants to destroy the whole of human kind by raising the undead. She has been imprisoned for over one thousand years (since AD 704) together with the love of his life and fellow apprentice Veronica. Veronica has embraced Morgana as the means of enabling Cage (Balthazar) to contain the creature in a kind of Russian doll, which grows in size as other nasty individuals have also been imprisoned as overlays over the decades by Balthazar, including Alfred Molina as Maxim Horvath.
In present day America (AD2000) a 10 year old geeky boy is attracted to a female pupil who reciprocates interest by responding to a note he gives her. However before he can read the note it is taken by the wind, a cycle, a dog and eventually into the doorway of a home filled with things ancient and extraordinary, the latest home of Balthazar who has grown weary of his quest to find Merlin’s heir.
Balthazar senses the boy has not entered his domain by accident and gives him the ring entrusted by Merlin to find a successor. The ring will come alive when the right person is found as it does with Dave. Having been told not to touch anything Dave full of curiosity releases Horvath from the container, the Grimhold, and the two Sorcerers do battle but fortunately they become imprisoned in another Hold for ten years but the container ejects water on to Dave giving the impression that he has wet himself from being lost until found by the school group and great amusement and his humiliation especially as they ridicule his account of the events unfolding within the building.
Ten years later Dave is a college student and a creative genius working on a conductive electro sound project which sets up a triangular interaction of electric flash currents and musical sounds, Unbeknown to him the hold has opened releasing Balthazar and Horvath who makes track for Dave to find out the location of the Grimhold. What happened is that as Dave left the building the Grimhold slipped from his grasp and been found by a Chinese woman and has been in China Town for the previous decade, its secret unknown.
Hovarth creates a pack of hounds to locate and capture Dave but Balthazar retaliates with a steel eagle with become alive. Balthazar attempts to explain to Dave that he is a great Sorcerer in the making and to teach him how to develop and make use of his powers. The complication is that he had encountered the former pupil, now also a university student who does a stint at a small radio station. Balthazar warns that any relationship before he has reached maturity will be a great risk to both of them. The Grimhold found the two Sorcerers do battle for its control, releasing some of the baddies who have been overlaid before Morgana and Veronica are reached. Hovarth enlists the assistance of a well known illusionist with actual supernatural powers.
Eventually both Sorcerers have periods in control of Grimhold and do battle with creatures released until the amalgam of the two former apprentices is released and Morgana gains her independence and sets about creating the end of human kind by creating a mechanism to release the undead. Dave and his girl friend each come to the rescue with the girlfriend preventing the conclusion of the undead rising from occurring and Dave finding a way to destroy Morgana with the Hovarth return to eternal imprisonment. Dave also finds a way of saving Balthazar who was willing to give up his life to save Veronica after she sacrificed herself to save him. The couples are to live happy ever after? Hmm. I see a sequel!
After a disappointing second semi final in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition won by the British singer with an Indian background Meeta Raval there were two outstanding contributions in the third concert competition. The BBC critics went for the beautiful, slim 24 year old Valentina Nafomita from Moldovia who has great power despite her frame and has high notes of great beauty and perfection. The evening went however to another young attractive looking Baritone Andrei Bondarenko from the Ukraine. He has also won a special prize from the judges, but my money is still on Valentina. Last night the evening went to another slim young woman from South Korea Jung Lee who gave an extraordinary performance as the wife of Chairman Mao in the contemporary Opera Nixon in China. The part requires the singer to communicate a powerful and authoritarian woman which she did in such a convincing way that she was transformed which reminded to the recent performance of Carmen in the 3D production for Royal Opera House. I am looking forward to the final on Sunday early evening which I may watch live unless there is a reasonable chance of some good cricket.
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