Beans and woodwork...

Playlist
Billy Cobham – Shabazz
Alice Cooper - Best of (Jukebox Playlist)
David Bowie - Best of (Jukebox Playlist)
Brian Eno - Best of (Jukebox Playlist)
King Crimson - Best of (Jukebox Playlist)
Yes - Best of (Jukebox Playlist)

A day off from musicking again as I short-circuited yesterday with far too much CBQ…

In the evening we had an entertaining night out with nephew Ollie as we went along to see “Mr Bean’s Holiday”. I couldn’t believe how well behaved the wee man was and he was so excited when we took him home, wanting to tell his mum and dad about every scene in the film…

I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would – one scene in particular, where he was trying to stop himself from falling asleep while driving along the motorway at night, reminded me of how I’ve been many times coming home from Glasgow or Dumfries after a particularly long and tiring day – though I’ve never actually resorted to using matchsticks to keep my eyes open…

Of course, “Blackadder” is light years ahead of Mr Bean, which, itself, is a pretty poor relation to Jacques Tati’s “Monsieur Hulot”, which Rowan Atkinson has acknowledged as an influence on Bean…

My favourite Hulot film is “Playtime”, which took three years to make and, eventually, bankrupted Tati. Despite being a major critical success, his insistence on it only being shown at theatres equipped with 70mm facilities excluded much of the market, leading the film to fail to recoup its costs at the box office…



Back at ours, it was the last episode of “Life on Mars” and a good twist to the ending, which I understood to mean that it was 1973 which was the “reality” rather than 2006/7 – though how the “time-travelling” character knew so much about the history of 1973-2006/7 is not explained by this…

All in all, the ending seemed to suggest to me that, despite all its flaws and faults, life in 1973 was better than it is now…

Then I found myself watching a documentary about The Carpenters…

They had a lot of good hit singles early in their career with what have now become classic songs but, for me, by the end of 1973 (that year again) (notwithstanding the classic 1977 cover of Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”) they were a spent force…

Despite their artistic nadir, the circumstances surrounding Karen Carpenter’s untimely demise at just 32, were tragic to say the least. However, her death did lead indirectly to the wider recognition of both anorexia nervosa and bulimia in the mainstream…

My mum likes The Carpenters….

Highlight of the Day : A trip to the cinema with our nephew…