wendy house

Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance, by Paul Strathern

Recommended for people who love reading history books or are fascinated by the Medici family.

  one smile. Ratings explained

On the good side the journey through the family’s history we meet Michelangello, Botticeli, Galileo, lots of Popes and all sorts of kings and queens of France and Spain. Murders, double dealing, cunning plans galore. Lots of fascinating goings-on. 

My brother started reading this book and gave up one third of the way through. Mumzie read it and loved it. I was determiend to get to the end, hoping it would get a bit more gripping and less like a History course text book.  Though other reviewers cite it’s strength as being the non-academic writting. Academic writing must be deadly tedious. This book was a bit too dry given how fabulous the story actually is. I started reading this 400 page tome in December 2008 and finally finished in August 2010. Way too long.

I have not seen the PBS TV production, I suspect it is probably a much more rewarding experience to watch this series than read the book.

Lots of singing and dancing in the isles at the Bristol Hippodrome production of The Niel Sedaka story “Laughter in the rain“.   Mumzie was jigging and clapping during the substantial encore pastiche of Sedaka songs.  Other than being familiar with the songs I knew nothing about Niel Sedakas life and I fully enjoyed the production.  

3  smiles: Ratings explained

Audience.   Given that the  production could be enjoyed with little knowledge of Niel Sedaka  it was sad to find the Hippodrome less than a quarter full on a Friday night.   Mumsie and I happily moved from our cheap seats to closer seats with a more expensive view.  Judging by the silver hair, short people with warped backs the audience were mainly over 60 years. At 46 I was probably the youngest audience member.

Venue. 1912 building with tiers,  boxes and a huge dome all  decorated in Rococo style gold plasterwork providing a lavish music hall feel. During the production I decided to pick-up a copy of Carol King’s ‘Tapestry’ and some Niel Sedaka music.   Sadly, the Hippodrome didn’t provide the opportunity for the audience to purchase this kind of related merchandise.

Production. Niel’s story moved from song to song, highlighting the personal significance of each song ‘Oh Carol’, ‘breaking up is hard to do’, and  ‘last song together’.   Some songs were cast  with a slightly new significance to move the story forward.   For example, according to album notes ‘the immigrant’ was originally written as a comment of John Lennon’s application for US citizenship being rejected.   In  this production it is sung when Niel leaves the US to come to the UK where he feels  he will be given more creative freedom to develop as an aritst than the US allowed him.   Some of the significant life events were fascinating, for example,  10cc  encouraging Niel to record any song he wanted in anyway, resulting in Solitaire then ay its inception Elton John  asking Niel to be one of Rocket Record’s artists.

The photographs of story-contenporary, buildings, people, places, and record covers projected on the backdrop as Niel’s story unfolded were fascinating social-cultural history.

Brochure

by  Magnus  Mills

Highly recommended for people who  love watching the social dynamics of the British workforce.   This book was  a Birthday pressie!  

4 smiles: Ratings explained

What is the book about?  

A story of gradual social change within a nationalised industry featuring,  tea, cakes, chat, meetings  and canteens.   We watch the gradual decline of a national treasure – the scheme for full employment – through the eyes of an unnamed  employee.   Reminiscent of the decline of the national mining  industry,   national car industry,   and the NHS.  

The reader gradually learns how the scheme works through the daily experiences of  one employees.   We meet his colleagues, supervisers, and learn about what employees should do and what they acutally do.    The manner of storytelling reminded me of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’, as the protagonist appears to accept and observe all that goes on around him.    The short sentences, descriptive focus, economy with works,  make the book  very easy to read.   I wish I could write that beautifully.

Unlike the majority of modern novels this one focuses solely on work contexts.     The action, and sometimes  inaction, all  happens on work time, in work venues.   There is only one female character named and present in this workplace.   The scheme is currently, predominantly,  a boys world of work.

Is the book boring?

Unlike Kafka, the story is full of  situational humour that Mills gradually reveals like clues in a detective novel.   Other reviewers describe the humour as ‘Deadpan humour’.    For me the funniest part is what the scheme for full employment does,   how it delivers value above and beyond full employment.   Many of the reviews I read actually gave this away rather than allowing the reader to discover it within the book.   I am glad that I didn’t read any reviews before reading the book.

The imaginarium of Dr Parnassus    is a wonderful modern faerie tale.   It  mixes classic structures and characters (Old Nick) with modern settings, language, and characters.  

review ratings explained

Plot:    Very good.   A classic style of storytelling,   a new story.   A bet with the devil.   Souls to be won or lost.   The classic framework provides the structure that makes the plot easy to follow.   Easy to follow but not overly  predictable.    Cunning plans and twists.   There is  uncertainty about the virtue and honesty of some characters.   Who is working with, for,  Nick?   The film holds  a cheeky mirror to modern values as it portrays our dreams.      

Gilliam does not write his  female characterisations  in as much depth as his male characters.  There is only one noteable  female character in the film.    Her contribution is central to the plot while the role is  hardly touched and seems superficial.    Lets call her a token women.   A pretty girl that needs rescuing.  Sigh.  A blot on an otherwise wonderful film.  

A related disappointment was the pedestrian ending to the main storyline.    The final scenes  felt a bit anemic.    The scenes  tied-up the damsel’s storyline quickly and neatly.   This felt forced and out-of-keeping with the plucky playing in the other, mainly male,  storylines.   There are many wonderful ways that Terry could have ended the film.   I suspect Gilliam’s creative freedom was somehow compromised.  

Cast: Excellent.    Performances that had the kind of depth that comes from allowing talented actors to develop, improvise and extend their characters.   Apparently Heath Ledger’s last line  before he died was  ‘Don’t shoot the Messenger’ and Jonny Depp improvised the same line when playing Ledger’s character in the imaginarium.  

Sets. Excellent.   Physical locations included some of my favourite places,  such as  Ledenhall market in London and the Public Library in Vancouver BC.   The contrast between the architecture in these two locations was used well as a visual clue to different tones, temperaments, stages  of the plot.

The animated sets were breath taking.   Apparantly breathtaking animated sets are the norm for widely distributed films by famous directors with excellent casts.   Jolly good.  Thoroughly enjoyable.   Lots of ooOOOooooze and aaAAARRRRSSSssse.

Within the imaginarium these fantasy sets had the beauty, unpredictability and the  ominousness of real dreams.    

Audience:   one thing that  interferred with my  total immersion in this fabulous film  was the audience.   Specifically,   the lady sat next to me.    She insisted on sniffing loudly at 1spm (1 sniff per minute).   Every  few minutes there was a cough, sneeze, or other substantial air movement in her facial regions.   She did have some props for this activity, tissues, but  the noise and potential infection kept drawing me out of  the film into an unpleasant reality.   Ick.  

I will be watching this film again.

An International Symposium on Peer Reviewing is looking for solutions to the perceived problem that current peer reviewing process is  an inadequate way of assessing research quality.   Conference organisers assert that peer review is statistically proven to be no better than random selection.

How are submissions to the symposium selected?

…by peer review.

Ever wondered what Wendy review ratings really mean?   You need wonder no more.    Rating system explained:

Don’t touch this,   lest it be contagious or induce severe fits followed by sudden brain death

No.   It’s just wrong,   so wrong.   Turn around an walk away before anything valuable  like sanity or toothbrush gets broken

Thow the phone down.     Icky, icky, icky,   could prompt a minor tantrum involving  some small hand-held household item hitting the floor with a little more speed then naturally supplied by gravity    

Wince making.   What were they thinking?   Walk away now  

Why?   Even lashings of tea and biscuits couldn’t make this work  

Mining required.   Get your spade out,   if you are  prepared to put the effort into  digging for it you’ll find some virtue buried somewhere in this  

Darn good.   Like a pint of well kept real Ale  from a cask in good company,   or a Sunday morning reading a broadsheet in bed with the  fluff-balls snoring nearby    

Lovelly.   Simply world class talent.   Easily recommended and probably even remembered,   which given my scattiness is a major achievement      

Gorgeous.   Oh!   that was good for me.    Expect this review to include a bit of gushing because  the work has  genius potential      

Hero Worship.     Realised genius, lets do it again,   and again,   and again.   There’s a stong risk that Wendy’s planning a proposal.