First single I bought was All the Young Dudes, first LP Ziggy Stardust. Loads of Ziggy haircuts at school. Then we all went soul with Young Americans until the Feelgoods and punk woke us up. Bowie, Roxy and QPR best things about the early 70s for some of us old gits
It’s Shakespeare time, yay! Or perhaps not in this case. Measure for Measure is a weird and quite nasty play at the best of times, but when all the stuff which is meant to make it a comedy is cut out you are left with a nauseating tale of powerful men exploiting women, which in this case has been weaponised as a Me Too story by the director. Fair enough, but it’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, even started with video featuring Clinton, Trump, Weinstein, Prince Andrew and other sleaze balls. The Thelma and Louise moment at the end did not, of course, feature in Shakespeare’s text. Couple of good performances, but also a lot of screaming and shouting, which was painful as the amplification (unneeded in a properly designed theatre like this one) was inconsistent and sometimes too much. Not an enjoyable experience, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be. Reviews for this have been pretty universally 4 and 5 stars so I’m clearly in a minority.
Finally got round to finishing off Irvine Welshs' latest novel, Men in Love. Based in the immediate aftermath of Renton running off with the drug money at the end of Trainspotting, it sees the regular crew spread around. Renton has gone to ground in Amsterdam, but has secretly sent some of the money to Spud, who is back skulking about Leith, stealing and taking drugs, and living with one of Sick Boys cast-offs, Alison (she was in the drug den with them all when the baby died in Trainspotting). Begbie is also back in Edinburgh, although mostly in Saughton jail for various acts of violence. Meanwhile, Sick Boy has remained in London and is working in a sex-shop and making porn movies. There's a bit of humour, with Sick Boy anonomously sending gay porn to Begbie in jail, or Spud on his various misadventures, but sadly it's quite a boring read. There's a lot (a boatload) of depraved sex scenes, which get quite monotonous. The only real storyline relates to Sick Boy picking up a posh girl at a rehab meeting and worming his way in to her life, proposing to her so he can get access to the family wealth (Daddy owns a house on the river in Richmond, works at the Home Office and has an OBE) and the lead up to the wedding. It's not one of Welshs' best books, quite a slow read, and nothing of any great import happens until the last 50 pages, with the wedding and chaos that ensues when having a psycho like Begbie as your best man It's a hard read...I'm a fairly quick reader, but it's taken me a couple of weeks to struggle through this. A lot of it is in Edinburgh/Leith talk, so you may be ok @sb_73 with your time spend with the Hibbees, but may be difficult for some people to understand. Would really only recommend this for anyone who is a big Irvine Welsh fan - I've read most of his atuff, this isn't in his top five by a long way.
I liked, if that’s the word, the original film but have never read any of his books, kind of thought they weren’t meant for me. It took me a couple of books to feel the same about Roddy Doyle. No problems with them, but they are very specific.
Not a new review but I watched Joker again last night. A great film and a superb performance by Joaquin Phoenix. The sequel sounds like it was a bit rubbish, though. Anyone seen it?
