Michel Roux Jr is a god and his word is law. Because of this doctrine (I also really fancy him), these musings about Food & Drink may be biased. Just a teeny bit.
Food & Drink is a long running British classic, first broadcast in 1982. This rerun means the show is now in its 24TH SERIES and has apparently been successful throughout. The idea is to show some recipes for dishes, chat to food writers and to match lots of food with wine/other drinks. The first episode I saw was quite awkward, but this recent one on comfort food (I should have a degree in it) was less so. It featured Monica Galetti, La Gavroche's Sous Chef and a regular on Masterchef as a judge. I think I like Monica, and since I've got over my insane jealousy at her proximity to Michel, she's really started to grow on me. It was like having the Masterchef team back again - except Greg Wallace was replaced by a sightly annoying blonde woman who knew too much about wine to be healthy.
The show featured food writer William Sitwell. He made a very convincing case for the world going nostalgia mad - at worst the foods we crave didn't exist back in the day, and at best, it's still a bit crap. It was pretty much a segment of him just complaining, but it was funny and very British. Our national sport, according to him, was ruining vegetables. Journalist Matthew Fort then took us to the Great British puddings, and made it seem okay to want to eat a pudding made of just butter and brown sugar.
The programme is a little bit confused - I'm not really sure what the point of it is, but I personally don't think that matters. Here comes the bias! They all sit at the table and discuss the food and drink, and I feel like I'm sitting with them having a chat (potentially as a result of my overactive imagination). The food looks delicious and the drink choices make me want to go out and buy a faaabulous Cairanne Côtes. And there's definitely nothing wrong with watching Michel look down the camera with cheeky smile and tell you that yes, you can make meringues.
I was recently filling out an application for the Sheffield Doc/Fest, which reminded me of a film I saw quite a while ago that was shown there last year. It is a film that records the human loss and the personal stories from those who were affected by the bombings in London on the 7th July 2005. 52 people were killed and over 700 were injured. I can't remember where I first saw this film, it might have been on the BBC, but I decided to watch it again (if only to procrastinate for a bit).
First off, with a subject matter so mournful and tragic, the film doesn't open in the way you'd expect. The first clips of testimony are about London: the Olympics, their dreams of London, their lives in London. These are both positive and negative, and represent the busy and individual lives that they all led. Each person has a story to tell about why they were on those trains that day. Martine describes how she'd been up celebrating the win of the bid the night before, and had five extra minutes in bed. Kathy went to work half an hour earlier because of a big deadline at work.
The film is comprised of very careful and thoughtful interviews, and edited so it takes the individual stories and produces a common experience amongst strangers. There was no melodrama, there wasn't a fussy style that served to draw your attention away and there was no recon. It was really all about the words.
There were interviews with people who had survived, and there were interviews with the families of those who died. Those of the families were situated in their homes, and served to draw attention to the fact that there was a person missing. One stood out for me. A very polite and well-spoken mother sent Mr Blair numerous letters, determined to hear back an acknowledgment of culpability for the death of her daughter. In some of the later letters, she enclosed a stamped envelope and a pen, because she "thought he might need them". She seemed exhausted and her polite hate for the Prime Minister only served to show how much she was grieving for her daughter.
The film also examines the emergency services' role on the day, and quite strongly notes the time it took for them to get into the tunnels. The injured were waiting 40 minutes for help. It becomes clear that the tube workers had no clue what happened just before 9am, suggesting a possible power surge or something similar, portrayed by the recordings of the calls made on the network. It was only when the walking wounded began emerging from the tunnels that it became clear the severity of the situation - but still, no mention of a terrorist attack.
The focus shifts from the tube to the number 30 bus. One father was on the phone to his daughter, trying to get her to work on time as the tubes had ground to a halt. He told her to get on to the bus a stop early. 10 minutes later, while still on the phone, he heard an explosion and the phone went dead. He clearly blames himself, which is heartbreaking.
The most haunting phrase comes from a tube worker who went into the tunnels to help the wounded. He found a man in a hole in the ground, still alive, and went to pull him out. He realised that his torso had been clean separated from his lower half. On the man's death a few minutes later, he "closed his eyelids for him, just because it felt... incongruous to me to still be looking at a world he was no longer part off". Tissues please.
The overwhelming sense I got from watching this film was, weirdly, a sense of normality. I sensed an individual normality destroyed in one moment, and replaced with a common tragedy. It is a fitting tribute to those whose lives were changed on that day, and to those who lost them.
If you haven't caught the first series of Black Mirror, then you really should, it's a dark, satirical and a thought-provoking look at the place technology has in contemporary life. While the first series was depressing and disgusting in parts (but brilliant), this episode has a different feel to it.
The episode begins with a couple, Ash and Martha (played by Domhnall Gleeson - Bill Weasley (!) and Hayley Atwell) and in the process of moving in to a new house in the countryside. Immediately it is clear that this is set in some sort of technological parallel universe (or just the future) with crazy touch technology in the van they are driving, and on their phones. There's also a weird singing pregnancy test and a cool technological easel type thing (it's probably obvious technology isn't my strong point). From the start, a point is made that Ash is addicted to his phone, highlighting the current obsession with social networks and technology, and crucially that it is accepted as the norm. To cut a short story shorter, Ash is killed in a car accident when returning the van.
This is where series two has a slightly different feel. It's moving, and human, despite the futuristic technology. Having said that, the technology doesn't feel that far off. The idea of a digital footprint, all our online activity being stored somewhere cataloging our life, is a very current one. As Martha is grieving for Ash, her friend suggests a software program than can create a fake Ash by assimilating all of his online activity to form Ash's personality (or a veneer of it).
She is clearly struggling to move on, made even worse when she discovers that she is pregnant with Ash's child. She becomes isolated, talking to 'Ash' via messages on her phone and computer. Then she updates the software and recreates his voice. She drops her phone one day, smashing the screen and goes into full on panic mode, thinking that she'd 'broken him'. One thing leads to another (via some technology-y stuff that is pretty futuristic, but still seems potentially viable in my uninformed opinion) and things get out of hand. Before long she's got a reincarnated, half Ash-like, real synthetic man.
It really struck a chord with me - if someone I loved passed away and I had the chance to chat to them and pretend they're still here, I can't say that I would be strong enough to ignore it. There was a strange scene where she succumbs to her desire to have sex with the weird fake Ash, and he is completely blank as his online life doesn't contain a 'sexual response'.
It becomes apparent that the resurrected Ash is really only Ash has he represented himself online. Fake Ash notes that the pictures we upload on the internet are always the better version of ourselves, hence his smoother skin. It made me wonder what the online version of me would look and sound like... not so sure it would be a better version...
All in all, a really interesting look at the effect of technology in the most human of relationships: love. Charlie Brooker's script is fab - the episode is pretty much just carried by both Martha and Ash and this, along with the isolated country setting and simple style, really portrays Martha's loneliness.
This episode seems to have connected to me personally, more so than those of the last series. I think this is because, although a parody to normal life, the first three episodes were quite detached, and I couldn't help feeling that the Prime Minister having sex with a pig would never happen. This episode feels more real, and is more thought-provoking as a result. Some critics have linked this with Charlie Brooker's recent entry into fatherhood, and the softy in me would like to think that's true.
You'd have to be living under a stone not to have heard about/watched My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and it has been a favourite of mine ever since it fired aired in 2010. It's Channel 4's eighth highest rated programme ever with the second episode pulling in 8.7 million (thankyou Wikipedia).
Danielle
This episode follows two teen brides as they prepare to marry - Ina is 16 and Danielle is 15, and Danielle has to wait until her 16th birthday because being married at 15 is against the law! Once married, they girls would move away from the family home to live among their husband's family, and would be expected to maintain a traditional wifely role.
I had always found the aspect of love interesting in gypsy and traveler culture. The idea of love is so important to them, and girls dream of their perfect husbands from a really young age. I can't believe how young they are when they decide on their lifetime partner - girls are expected to marry their first loves, as to have more than one boyfriend was frowned upon. Having said that, there were some girls who commented that marrying young was a bad idea... "he could be an eejit" - a valid point! Fabulous dresses as per usual (WHERE WAS THELMA... not the same without her) and I particularly liked the dress made out of wallpaper (why why why).
Its hard to talk about this series without facing the criticism against it. While it's great for entertainment and is clearly very popular, it does make me wonder how accurate this representation is of Gypsies. Is it trying to be sensationalist? Are the families on screen really a representation of the culture as a whole? A major issue leveled against the show is of racism, particularly the advertisement for the second series... "BIGGER, FATTER, GYPSIER". What strikes me is that the series (at least the first one) clearly highlighted the inequality that many experience on a daily basis. That can only be a good thing, right? But adverts like that seem to side with that inequality.
Its a shame that a programme designed to shed light on a different world, and to better educate people on traveler and gypsy culture, has fallen into what seems to me as a pressure for ratings. As a history student, I would definitely like to see some historical and political context of both Romani Gypsies and Irish travelers, but I guess those aren't the issues of importance - it's about big dresses and crazy weddings. I find it hard to equate my personal entertainment with such a clear problem in the representation of the gypsies and travelers, and it leaves me feeling uneasy. I will always take the programme with a pinch of salt, but if you're a traveler or gypsy, I expect that's hard to do.
I'm aware this wasn't on my list of things to watch from Monday but I discovered this on twitter a couple of nights ago - the story was completely unbelievable.
The film follows the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, whose remains were found in a bedsit in 2006, three years after she died, surrounded by wrapped Christmas presents with the TV still on. Nobody had noticed, nobody checked up on her and nobody missed her. When the newspapers reported the story, there was a noticeable lack of information about Joyce - no photograph and seemingly no previous life. How could someone, in the age of communication, slip through the cracks? This thought prompted Carol Morley to make a film, which coincidently refused to let Joyce be forgotten.
From a structural point of view, it's an interesting mix between a drama and a documentary. There are headshot interviews with people who knew her, or were involved in the case, and (mostly silent) dramatised reconstruction, with Zawe Ashton (Vod in Fresh Meat) as Joyce. This combines to form an extremely powerful, imaginative film, forcing you to think of Joyce as a very real person, not just a skeleton found on a sofa.
Carol Morley gathered the people who used to be Joyce's friends and revealed aspects about the circumstances of her death and other bits of information to them on screen. Many of the interview shots at the beginning of the film had a feeling of disbelief, as those who were once close to Joyce began to understand how her life changed in order for her to die alone. There were loads of little quirky bits like that - all of which made it a film I couldn't stop watching.
One aspect I liked was the image of Joyce's timeline. It had many of the landmark events, from close to 2003 (the year she died) and much further back. It was recurring, and zoomed in to show specific events, but was written in such a chaotic and disorderly way, it personified the story it was trying to tell. It painted an extremely tragic picture. Yet, she was not a drug addict, or an alcoholic. As a viewer, you can't help but wonder - would anyone miss you?
It was touching to listen to people talk about her. Morley had managed to track down a couple of Joyce's boyfriends, and one, named Martin, made me full-on sob. At the beginning of the film, he spoke fondly of her and shared some memories, but towards the end he was increasingly distressed, finally breaking down in the last few scenes. He couldn't understand why Joyce hadn't got in touch.
Through the dramatisation, and Zawe Ashton's brilliant performance, it is difficult to forget a person so vividly described and portrayed is no longer here. There are photos in the beginning of the film of Joyce, but they disappear as Zawe comes into the film, almost like Joyce is being resuscitated. Having spent an hour and a half watching a portrayal of Joyce, the moving footage of her at the end brings home the issue in such clarity. She looked full of life, surrounded by people and importantly, she looked happy.
This film is the product of amazing research - Morley spent years tracking down people linked to Joyce and the authorities that might have come into contact with her. She never offers a definitive version of Joyce's life and honours the idea that we can never really know what goes on in another person's life. The one problem was the very noticeable absence of testimony from Joyce's sisters, and we can only guess why they refused to comment. The film isn't suggesting that her lonely death is because of anyone in particular, and the blame never settles, but it does seem to touch on the opinion that she had withdrawn from her life for some reason, and consequently became difficult to find.
Many people argue that the unanswered questions that this film throws up about Joyce and her life makes it more frustrating than intriguing. I disagree. The obvious fact is that there is no right answer - there is no way of telling how Joyce actually died (skeletons aren't useful for that), nor can we read her mind posthumously. Clearly one of the points of the film is to provoke thought about how little we know one another, which would be difficult to achieve if we knew everything about Joyce. It also commemorates her, with the upmost sensitivity.
Overall, it's the best film I've seen in a very long time and I sincerely recommend you watch it. It's on 4od at the moment and it's also available on DVD.
