Saturday 3 November 2012

2384 Artman 101 day 2nd Nov 2012, Jonathan and Charlotte and two films separated by 60 years

I had to decide whether to write as I am doing or finish the processing of another thirty completed Artman 102 sets tonight. It was 22.25 on November 2nd 2012 when I commenced to write. The day had passed well although I had thought I would be visiting Newcastle in the afternoon and perhaps evening as the first part of a weekend of programmes organised by the BBC Radio three channel at the Sage Concert halls, Gateshead in a weekend with the title Free Thinking. The programmes are mainly broadcast at 10 pm so the majority are to be recorded, edited and then broadcast over the next three weeks. I discovered that the two performances today were intended for young adults. The performances are free but unreserved with seating or standing depending on the time of arrival. I therefore missed the opportunity to queue for the appearance of Mary Robinson, former President of Eire and whose programme was going out later in the evening.

While I wrote these notes I listened to Smooth Classics on Classic FM as background. I considered baking a baguette for lunch today as well as undertaking the washing up. In the event I did the washing up and put off the baguette bake.

The Artman work has involved cards received for Christmas, birthdays and other events received over the past forty years and kept. There are more for recent years which I have put somewhere and need to find before this part of the project can be completed.

I am a few days away from a visit to the Consultant re Sleep Apnoea and although I reached a 30 day average of 7.5 hours it has remained over 7 at 7.3 which I need to keep up for the visit and 1.5 hours more a night than the last visit four months ago. I also completed the 10 day of Wii activity whereas I thought this had been reached yesterday. The outcome is that I am averaging over 30 mins a day and continue to look forward to session to the extent that I will attempt to undertake before going out tomorrow morning.

I watched a documentary at 9pm about Jonathan and Charlotte the sixteen and seventeen years olds who came second in the Britain’s Got Talent competition last year won by the performing Dog! Jonathan is a trained classical tenor with the potential to become a major opera star if he goes into serious and prolonged training. The programme featured him being assessed by the man who worked with Pavarotti on a visit to Italy and also the singer behind from Pop Star to Opera Singer who is now based in Paris as well as making an appearance in a show at Monte Carlo.

The reality is while the novelty of them appearing on the show and having great audience exposure, being young and ill matched pair in terms of appearances they need to plan for separate lives together the young woman as a performer in musicals and Jonathan as a major opera talent. He suffered from bullying and nerves at school was a depressed young man which accounts for over eating and his size. Charlotte is normal as part of a household with a brother and two young sisters whose parents appear to have their feat firmly on the ground. I cannot see the duo lasting beyond this album perhaps another., Their first only reach the top five in the classical list and while a meeting with their management talked in terms of a major tour of sixteen dates what I have seen so far indicates only half a dozen concerts spread over ten days and none north of Birmingham which is a great disappointment. I subsequent learned that Mr Cowell has organised a launch of their record in the USA and Canada which could significantly change what I have aid especially he extends further to the Southern Continent and these promotions involves media tours and concerts,

I watched two films on TV. The first Haywire required close attention to grasp the plot as it intermeshed the present time with the past. A young martial arts assassin works for the government as part of an independent group and participates in what is alleged to be the freeing of a hostage held by a group in Barcelona. The task appears to go well and she returns to her home for R and R only to be immediately contacted and asked to play the wife for a couple days in Dublin assisting an MI6 agent. Although the task appears to go well she senses something is wrong and discovers that her partner has made it look as if she has killed the man he has come to eliminate leaving evidence of her alleged crime. In the hotel the partner attempts to kill her but she reverses the tables as kills him. When she answers his phone it is her boss (played by Ewan McGregor) asking if the task has been completed She goes on the run, contacts her father in the United States who used to something in the service/or government saying she is coming to see him and is in trouble.

Back in the United States she agrees to a meeting with her boss only to find he has sent another of the party in Barcelona to bring her back by force or kill her. They fight and she manages to get away with the help of a nineteen year old in the diner and his new car. On the way out of the state she decides to explain to the young man who is she and what has happened so that he can report this to the police authorities regardless of whether she is able to make it to where she going and get other help to protect herself

They are captured after a deer crashes into their vehicle in chase through a snow covered woodland track. She attempts to persuade the law men not to attend the meeting or contact the government agency that contracted her team or get reinforcements. They ignore her advice and are killed but before she and her companion are also killed in their separate vehicles she escapes shooting some of the attackers before getting away in one of the police vehicles and freeing the young man. Later she arranges for him to be reimbursed with a new car.

She makes contact with Michael Douglas the government agent who contracted her boss and does a deal using herself as bait at the home of her father. She survives the attack but her boss also gets away. She tracks him and leaves him to drown trapped in a rock on the foreshore after he ahs admitted that he betrayed her for money and that in Barcelona they were in fact getting hold of the kidnapped man to be handed over to someone else played by Antonio Banderas who had then organised the Dublin venture intended to get rid of her as the witness and culprit for their double dealings. She then traces Banderas on holiday with his wife in Majorca. The film ends when he sees the girl and says shit, appreciating that his scheme failed and he too must die. She has been offered a salaried job with the USA Government black opps team led by Douglas.

The second film Apache is unusual Western for the time period (1954) because it viewed the experience of the indigenous American from their perspective. In this instance the remaining Apache Warrior Massai played by Burt Lancaster who refuses to accept reservation living after the defeat of Geromino goes on a walkabout returning in the hope of marrying the new chief’s daughter Nalinle (Jean Peters) who has agreed to be transported with his people to Florida. He has brought corn seed by which the tribe he visited are able to sustain a living and which he sees as an alternative to leaving their lands. When the new chief betrays Massai he thinks the daughter is also implicated but her father has trussed her up so she cannot warn the warrior.

He escapes and takes his vengeance in a one person successful war, cutting communications, blowing things up and generally making life difficult for the acquiescent local army chief who gives in to the government men. A young Charles Bronson is in the film although I did not recognise him at the time of watching

Eventually he captures the daughter and treats her badly pushing her to the limits as a means of getting back at her father and testing the forces against him. She eventually persuades him of her sincerity and they become man and wife, “a woman’s role is to cook sew and bear children” she says. And when pregnant he elects to settle down, especially after she raids the local store for corn and clothing. This alerts the government men who ring out the army and for a moment it looks as if Massai is to have the fate he has given himself of choosing the time and place to die the warrior. Just when he is injured and about to be captured he is hears the cry of his first born and leaves the safety of the cornfield (Maize) and it is agreed that the war is over and it appears is will be allowed to stay and become a farmer.

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