Knowledge is not Dour
Bet Lynch in a brown wig on Bollyoaks? Well, at least she's getting work.
Now that I've got the obligatory tabloid press-style snarky comment on today's thriving, some might say diabolical, pop culture (I like it, otherwise I wouldn't be so good at remembering the subtitles to the Halloween sequels or actors who make cameo appearances on Eastenders - is that Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air that I see before me?!), I can get on to trivia matters.
You-hoo Lulu
I am making some progress with the quiz book I was going to compile and publish on Lulu.com. I always take time every day to pop in a dozen into the "This Quiz Book Will Save Your Life" file, and you know what they're not that boring. The question count is currently 250. So I should finish up by about March 2008. Put that date in your diary.
I only realised, having written 322 questions for the Liverpool GP, another 370 for the BH quizzes, work questions and some others somewhere else (in a pad? On freshly prepared vellum?) during the last week or so, that I really need to take a break from this writing lark. I am fatigued. Brain is going into shock of some sort. You realise that I am not some ceaseless question generator pumping out tens of thousands of questions every year. Oh wait.
What I mean is that I'm going to rest it until Paris and just read and read and read. The only problem with that is I tend to fall asleep. Which means I have to write questions to keep awake. So you see I am caught in a sado-masochistic cycle situated between the devil sitting on rock and a hard place situated somewhere in the middle of the deep blue sea. Reminds me of a Hot Shots: Part Deux gag, but enough of that.
Films
I was determined to get out of the house before sunset yesterday. I succeeded. Hurrah.
So I went to see a film: The History Boys. I don't tend to go to the theatre (saw The Producers and that's about it for the last two years) and seeing the movie adaptation didn't actually make me pine for a live production with the original actors and the unmissably outsized (in more ways than one), beetroot-coloured Richard Griffiths in it. (I'm worried about the guy: true, in Naked Gun 2 1/2 he wasn't exactly Peter Crouch thin and was using a motorised wheelchair to get around as the portly environmental scientist non pareil Dr Albert S Meinheimer, but now he seems to have turned into a scarily obese pink hillock crowned with snow).
This was because the film was more than enough. It was poignant and funny. In two more words: utterly brilliant. I'm thinking that the reviewers who gave it less than three stars had seen the original play and let their usually sterling critical faculties be fantastically warped by the strange situation of seeing a drama production translated onto screen with the same director and cast in double quick time.
The only stagey thing about it was the pupils' well-drilled dialogue, endlessly inventive, clever and sarcastic and spoken by each young actor in turn, as if it was some sort of relay race for fluent, erudite and highly-nuanced chatter. In real life, even the better class of A Level students speak in single syllable words, e.g: "Wah?" "Sir?" "Shaddup" "Read" "Muhehuhhh" "Twat! "Oi!" "Mrrrrrr" and so on. It was amusing nonetheless.
I was, however, extremely annoyed that so many dastardly critics had ruined the pure pleasure of Alan Bennett's lines by quoting the play so much. It is different when it is a popular stage play. A film reviewer can try to describe an amazing explosion or the amazing detail in some computer rendered (not Jar Jar ... not Jar Jar), but he will only be able to tell you how great he thought it was. But take the actual words from a character's mouth and slap it on the page and you already convey something their true essence even if it is slightly divorced from the context. Yes, maybe the point is not to read reviews, even if it is such an ingrained habit that it comes as naturally as breathing (I must have read an average of 30 arts reviews a day for the last 14 years ... which explains a lot).
Funny THB coming out and Starter for Ten being imminent too. My original thoughts on David Nicholls's utterly amazing Dostoevksian masterpiece of social mores are at the aforementioned link, and truth be told if the movie adaptation isn't a bag full of rotten cow guts perfumed with the Impulse-like spray of woe-mantic comedy, I shall buy all of David Nicholls's other books and his Cold Feet DVDs and NOT burn them in the hellfire they so richly deserve, but treat them with a kind of muted respect.
Both films have a lot in common. The education (yuh, obviously), the actor Dominic Cooper who is a reliably rounded presence in both films, Irwin going to Bristol/Starter for Ten being set in Bristol, the 80s setting for both - for starters and the main course. But while SFT is ostensibly about a quiz, it is really about some nerdlinger (who looks and sounds like James McAvoy and is therefore geeky in the same way as Zadie Smith might think she is, but plainly isn't) getting it on with hot actresses pretending to be ordinary students and finding lurve at the end of his puke-inducing rainbow of a denouement; not about using knowledge to make himself a better person, and knowledge's value in life. Which is what The History Boys is all about. The film/play is about passing on knowledge to others and making them believe in its intrinsic worth and its ability to expand your horizons and make you a better person (or act as source of consolation for the melancholic and highly educated losers, telling them they are not alone, as is admitted). It is not about getting your leg over with the college hottie and drinking Sodastream coke (or whatever 80s cliches that need to be aired to excite nostalgic sadsacks) and laughing like drains at the silliness and sweet pain of it all.
Knowledge is knowledge. It may have many hues: the trivial, the intellectual heavyweight, the Heat magazine, but it is still knowledge. I often forget that some people's idea of general knowledge (dahn the pub: Monopoly properties ... that kind of abject crap) is far removed from my own perception of what it really means (getting my head round game theory and Wittgenstein and trying to finally read all those Elias Canetti autobiographies I bought at the LA Oxfam last year ... and failing miserably). I err on the intellectual and academic: look upon my BH quizzes and despair. In THB I could see something of my own self since I used to learn snatches of Hamlet, Robert Burns and all of The Soldier by Rupert Brooke just for the sake of knowing it back in my teens (not anymore ... no room up there ... very sad I know). It makes me sad to think I can't recite poems like To a Mouse in their entirety because to know something off by heart is to remember the precious words of someone, who is gone but will never be forgotten. Their genius lives on.
Only I tend to think I am the cynical adapter of books and facts and other ammunitions dumps for competitive means that is so subtly condemned in THB. Using it to a certain ends. Ends with trophies and ranking points and high placings. I can't deny that, but I love reading for its own sake, and using the other side of my brain (why do you think I set questions on The Adventures of Augie March and Bill Buford's latest that never get asked by anyone else?). I probably use the same side of my brain when dealing with quiz and getting my hooks into fancy literature, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
And while Starter for Ten is the world of the chick lit, bloke lit, no brain lit brandished by Mr and Miss Tube Commuter; The History Boys embraces and should find itself snuggling deep within the realm of classic and enriching literature, the kind that stretches you and makes you think, before too long. If you love the idea of knowledge, and the idea of consuming it and learning it, you will love the Mr Bennett's little play/movie.
Anyway, do not fret. There's no way I am not going to let Starter for Ten slide right under my radar, like a slippery, slithery stealth turd. I'm going to review SFT (which has already suggested several scatalogical acronyms in my head as I type these words), not once, but TWICE. Stay tuned to see how exactly I do it. (Do fret: I can only disappoint you)
NB
I do realise the parantheses are getting out of hand, as well as the post-modern smart-arse deconstructionist touches. I promise, for one week that I will write in a straight line, as it were, with no asides, no tangents, no references and no brackets. Actually. Can I do that? It may be unpossible. (You see I couldn't resist quoting Ralph Wiggum)
Now that I've got the obligatory tabloid press-style snarky comment on today's thriving, some might say diabolical, pop culture (I like it, otherwise I wouldn't be so good at remembering the subtitles to the Halloween sequels or actors who make cameo appearances on Eastenders - is that Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air that I see before me?!), I can get on to trivia matters.
You-hoo Lulu
I am making some progress with the quiz book I was going to compile and publish on Lulu.com. I always take time every day to pop in a dozen into the "This Quiz Book Will Save Your Life" file, and you know what they're not that boring. The question count is currently 250. So I should finish up by about March 2008. Put that date in your diary.
I only realised, having written 322 questions for the Liverpool GP, another 370 for the BH quizzes, work questions and some others somewhere else (in a pad? On freshly prepared vellum?) during the last week or so, that I really need to take a break from this writing lark. I am fatigued. Brain is going into shock of some sort. You realise that I am not some ceaseless question generator pumping out tens of thousands of questions every year. Oh wait.
What I mean is that I'm going to rest it until Paris and just read and read and read. The only problem with that is I tend to fall asleep. Which means I have to write questions to keep awake. So you see I am caught in a sado-masochistic cycle situated between the devil sitting on rock and a hard place situated somewhere in the middle of the deep blue sea. Reminds me of a Hot Shots: Part Deux gag, but enough of that.
Films
I was determined to get out of the house before sunset yesterday. I succeeded. Hurrah.
So I went to see a film: The History Boys. I don't tend to go to the theatre (saw The Producers and that's about it for the last two years) and seeing the movie adaptation didn't actually make me pine for a live production with the original actors and the unmissably outsized (in more ways than one), beetroot-coloured Richard Griffiths in it. (I'm worried about the guy: true, in Naked Gun 2 1/2 he wasn't exactly Peter Crouch thin and was using a motorised wheelchair to get around as the portly environmental scientist non pareil Dr Albert S Meinheimer, but now he seems to have turned into a scarily obese pink hillock crowned with snow).
This was because the film was more than enough. It was poignant and funny. In two more words: utterly brilliant. I'm thinking that the reviewers who gave it less than three stars had seen the original play and let their usually sterling critical faculties be fantastically warped by the strange situation of seeing a drama production translated onto screen with the same director and cast in double quick time.
The only stagey thing about it was the pupils' well-drilled dialogue, endlessly inventive, clever and sarcastic and spoken by each young actor in turn, as if it was some sort of relay race for fluent, erudite and highly-nuanced chatter. In real life, even the better class of A Level students speak in single syllable words, e.g: "Wah?" "Sir?" "Shaddup" "Read" "Muhehuhhh" "Twat! "Oi!" "Mrrrrrr" and so on. It was amusing nonetheless.
I was, however, extremely annoyed that so many dastardly critics had ruined the pure pleasure of Alan Bennett's lines by quoting the play so much. It is different when it is a popular stage play. A film reviewer can try to describe an amazing explosion or the amazing detail in some computer rendered (not Jar Jar ... not Jar Jar), but he will only be able to tell you how great he thought it was. But take the actual words from a character's mouth and slap it on the page and you already convey something their true essence even if it is slightly divorced from the context. Yes, maybe the point is not to read reviews, even if it is such an ingrained habit that it comes as naturally as breathing (I must have read an average of 30 arts reviews a day for the last 14 years ... which explains a lot).
Funny THB coming out and Starter for Ten being imminent too. My original thoughts on David Nicholls's utterly amazing Dostoevksian masterpiece of social mores are at the aforementioned link, and truth be told if the movie adaptation isn't a bag full of rotten cow guts perfumed with the Impulse-like spray of woe-mantic comedy, I shall buy all of David Nicholls's other books and his Cold Feet DVDs and NOT burn them in the hellfire they so richly deserve, but treat them with a kind of muted respect.
Both films have a lot in common. The education (yuh, obviously), the actor Dominic Cooper who is a reliably rounded presence in both films, Irwin going to Bristol/Starter for Ten being set in Bristol, the 80s setting for both - for starters and the main course. But while SFT is ostensibly about a quiz, it is really about some nerdlinger (who looks and sounds like James McAvoy and is therefore geeky in the same way as Zadie Smith might think she is, but plainly isn't) getting it on with hot actresses pretending to be ordinary students and finding lurve at the end of his puke-inducing rainbow of a denouement; not about using knowledge to make himself a better person, and knowledge's value in life. Which is what The History Boys is all about. The film/play is about passing on knowledge to others and making them believe in its intrinsic worth and its ability to expand your horizons and make you a better person (or act as source of consolation for the melancholic and highly educated losers, telling them they are not alone, as is admitted). It is not about getting your leg over with the college hottie and drinking Sodastream coke (or whatever 80s cliches that need to be aired to excite nostalgic sadsacks) and laughing like drains at the silliness and sweet pain of it all.
Knowledge is knowledge. It may have many hues: the trivial, the intellectual heavyweight, the Heat magazine, but it is still knowledge. I often forget that some people's idea of general knowledge (dahn the pub: Monopoly properties ... that kind of abject crap) is far removed from my own perception of what it really means (getting my head round game theory and Wittgenstein and trying to finally read all those Elias Canetti autobiographies I bought at the LA Oxfam last year ... and failing miserably). I err on the intellectual and academic: look upon my BH quizzes and despair. In THB I could see something of my own self since I used to learn snatches of Hamlet, Robert Burns and all of The Soldier by Rupert Brooke just for the sake of knowing it back in my teens (not anymore ... no room up there ... very sad I know). It makes me sad to think I can't recite poems like To a Mouse in their entirety because to know something off by heart is to remember the precious words of someone, who is gone but will never be forgotten. Their genius lives on.
Only I tend to think I am the cynical adapter of books and facts and other ammunitions dumps for competitive means that is so subtly condemned in THB. Using it to a certain ends. Ends with trophies and ranking points and high placings. I can't deny that, but I love reading for its own sake, and using the other side of my brain (why do you think I set questions on The Adventures of Augie March and Bill Buford's latest that never get asked by anyone else?). I probably use the same side of my brain when dealing with quiz and getting my hooks into fancy literature, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
And while Starter for Ten is the world of the chick lit, bloke lit, no brain lit brandished by Mr and Miss Tube Commuter; The History Boys embraces and should find itself snuggling deep within the realm of classic and enriching literature, the kind that stretches you and makes you think, before too long. If you love the idea of knowledge, and the idea of consuming it and learning it, you will love the Mr Bennett's little play/movie.
Anyway, do not fret. There's no way I am not going to let Starter for Ten slide right under my radar, like a slippery, slithery stealth turd. I'm going to review SFT (which has already suggested several scatalogical acronyms in my head as I type these words), not once, but TWICE. Stay tuned to see how exactly I do it. (Do fret: I can only disappoint you)
NB
I do realise the parantheses are getting out of hand, as well as the post-modern smart-arse deconstructionist touches. I promise, for one week that I will write in a straight line, as it were, with no asides, no tangents, no references and no brackets. Actually. Can I do that? It may be unpossible. (You see I couldn't resist quoting Ralph Wiggum)
posted by That Quiz Guy at 12:38 PM
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