Films: The Glenarma Tapes & Transmission, Social, Films: It Follows & The Exorcist, & Walk: Fleet Street Femmes
(As continued from earlier on Saturday). So, when the time came, off we went to The Glenarma Tapes.
Ah Kee-rist, what a waste of time. Complete rip-off of The Blair Witch Project - students and lecturers go missing in the woods (which have a bad reputation). In this case though, we get more exposition of what actually happened - not necessarily a good thing. Stars Emily Lamey, whom I know from Fair City.
And so to Transmission - which I'm afraid was even worse. At least The Glenarma Tapes has a coherent plot - Transmission, on the other hand, is quite muddled. Oh, I get that it's about a dangerous transmission that seems to drive people mad - and that's all I really get out of this mess. What the people rating it on IMDB are thinking is beyond me. As someone in The Hideout said, the quality of Frighfest didn't seem great this year..
And so to bed - too late to blog, what with having to be up on Sunday, because I was meeting Ivan and James again, for our monthly get-together - this time, moving closer to where I'm now living, we were in the Dean Swift. Which proved itself once again with the friendliness and obliging nature of its staff, who did everything they could to accommodate any of our requests. They have a Sunday roasts menu that was in operation when we arrived - the regular menu came out later in the afternoon. And we had to move upstairs for 6pm, when all the downstairs tables were booked for a quiz. Lordy though, we had a great chat.
Finishing there, James took himself home, and Ivan and I took ourselves to the river - where we stayed until sun-up. It's been a long while since we pulled an all-nighter - and I have to say, it was freezing - but it was singularly special to see the sun rise over London. And as he said, had we been north of the river, we'd have been moved on. Ah, south of the river is still lawless, eh!
Naturally, after that, the last thing I was going to do was blog.
Yesterday, I was supposed to go to Clubhouse 5 with The Hideout - social, plus we were heading to a retrospective of It Follows, at Frightfest again. They were also heading to the extended cut of The Exorcist that evening, introduced by Mark Kermode - sadly, by the time I thought of going, it was sold out.. but I had seen that cut before anyway.
Didn't quite work out as planned - the organiser couldn't make it, cancelled the social, and offered me his ticket to The Exorcist! which was lovely of him, and I gratefully accepted. So I ended up just going to that on my own - and to It Follows, which was on earlier in the day. It was a shame not to have the social - but hey, after the night before, I could do with a lie-in! So I got myself out in time for It Follows. En route, I noticed the theatre-like decor of the TKTS stand in Leicester Square:
Gee, this brought back memories - and I'd forgotten about all the gratuitous underwear shots! For goodness' sake ,the first scene has a woman running away in a panic, in underwear and heels.. seriously, were the heels the first thing she could find to put on? Not a pair of trainers? Even if she didn't lace them up, they'd have been more practical! I guess they, eh, want to remind of us the sexual availability of these characters, in a film that's all about a sexually transmitted demon. Which can manifest as anybody, but does seem to have a yen for half-clothed, or naked, women. Or men, come to think of it. Well, let me clarify, this is still a good horror film, with some very nice touches, and nicely sustained suspense.
Afterwards, someone on the group's WhatApp page was asking whether anyone was around, so I made myself known, and we had a bit of a chat before I headed in for The Exorcist - he didn't have a ticket. Now, it was a bit of a climb to my seat - but it was a good view:
So I was there in time for Mark Kermode. One thing he did was to ask whether anyone in the room actually hadn't seen it yet - and in a packed room, one hand was raised, and everyone gasped - HOW had they managed to avoid it for so long?! Anyway, as he said, they were in for a treat - and he urged us to look at the slow bits, the pauses: because this is a beautiful film to look at. And, of course, he's perfectly right - also consider the terrific use of sound, which won the film its only Oscar. While I was watching it - well, it's not as though I didn't know at any stage what was going to happen, I've seen it so often - but I still appreciate the dramatic contrast between the relative calm of the rest of the house: and the absolute horror of what's going on in the possessed girl's room. It's the film's 50th anniversary this year, you know - and the director, who also died this year, pulled no punches, making both his actors and his audiences suffer, the scenes are so extreme.
The Q+A afterwards was also interesting, as Mark Kermode pointed out that no, the Catholic Church didn't object to the film at all - in fact, it led to a great publicity drive for them, as people were running out of cinemas, having seen this, and straight into the nearest church! Real priests were even cast in the film, and priests served as technical advisors on set. He also spoke about some of the technical difficulties with the extended version - such as having no audio for the final reel of film. Honestly, we could have continued all night, except for the closing film of the festival being on in the same screen after! As it was, it had to be delayed 15 minutes..
Me, I had enough of Frightfest after that, and took myself for food at Little Italy. Where the Little Italy chicken in white wine and mushroom sauce went down a treat, with gorgeous sauce, and delicious fries included. I was sat outside, but far from being cold, in fact, the outdoor heaters were on so strong that I was nearly too warm!
Today, I tried to book a place on a walk with Mandy and London Herstory Walks - this one was Fleet Street Femmes. But she's disabled the PayPal link on her Meetup page because Meetup takes a hefty chunk of it - instead, I booked through her own website. Where the walk turned out to be on sale anyway! Again, didn't have time to blog last night, with the walk starting at 1pm.
I pretty much made it in time - and it was another day that couldn't decide whether to be sunny. It did decide to be warm enough not to need a coat though, which meant I had to carry it all the way. And so we trekked in and around Fleet Street, starting with the park beside Temple Tube:
where we came across the statue of the chap who first suggested women's suffrage:
The always-glorious 2 Temple Place was our next stop:
We paused outside the church of St. Clement Danes - famous from the song "Oranges and Lemons":
Skirting unexpected roadworks, we came to the LSE:
We meandered our way to Lincoln's Inn - I hadn't known that this is the largest public square in London!
You know how women had these elaborate hairstyles, once upon a time? Well, with everything caught up in them, they had a problem with mice infiltrating the hair. The solution? Mousetraps! (silver, of course):
We stopped for a peek at the Old Bank of England pub:
which has an old bus around the back - and yes, you can drink on that too!
Boundary between the City and Westminster:
Did you know that this statue of Elizabeth I is the only one with its own income? Left for its upkeep, the fund is now sadly depleted:
This pub was the subject of a famous court case; they refused to serve women at the bar - but female lawyers and journalists objected, saying that was where gossip was to be picked up, which could be useful in their professions! They eventually won the case, but the bar, while agreeing to serve women at the counter in future, still wouldn't serve the women who took the case..
A highlight was St. Ethelreda's Church, with a fascinating crypt:
and the most glorious stained glass upstairs:
Interestingly, the name "Audrey", as applied outside, is a contraction of "Ethelreda"!
All in all, this was a very scenic walk:
Afterwards, Mandy and I repaired to Caffe Nero - where I see they've massively reduced the size of the luxury hot chocolate! And after I'd put in another job application - fingers crossed - I needed feeding. So I took myself to Penderel's Oak - a Wetherspoon's - where it was "Steak Tuesday". So I had steak, there being a promotion on it.
Tomorrow, heading to La Bamba - a musical at the Peacock. The matinee, since I have the choice - cheaper tickets that way. Just as well I checked though - I'd forgotten it was the matinee! Funnily enough, Mandy went this evening.
On Thursday, back on another of Barrie's walks with the 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners - this time, it's Mile End. Some more have booked now, yay..
On Friday, back with Laurence Summers and the 45+s, yet again - couldn't resist a walk around Glorious and Grimy Gray's Inn Road! Mind you, both these walks are subject to me cancelling, if I should happen to get an interview for this job - watch this space. Then I'm back to Ireland for the weekend again - where there are plenty of films I want to see, but none, it seems, on at a time when I can see them..
On Monday, I signed with London Socials again - I didn't count on me going, mind. They're off to listen to some music in the Archway Tavern. And sure enough, I came up with something better - during my long session with Ivan on Sunday night, he mentioned a fascination with Shakespeare's Globe, so I asked whether he'd like to go to a play there. And so it came about that we're now going to see Macbeth there, on Monday. I do hope he arrives in time to explore a bit!
On the 6th, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for Sara and Cariad's Weirdo's Book Club - a live version of the podcast by Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd - at 21 Soho. Tickets from Ticket Text.
And on the 7th, I was to be back for the first time in months to Watkin's Bookshop, for an author talk: this is Pagans by Ethan Doyle White. However turns out The Hideout has a new group - London Hot 100 Socials, Music & More. So I'm heading off with them for a game of mini golf! At Westfield, where I haven't been in almost 10 years.. Well, I like the group, so..
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