celticman's blog

70 UP, STV iPlayer, ITV iPlayer, Directed by Asif Kapadia. https://www.stv.tv/entertainment/series/70-up/ (stv.tv in Bing) ITVX (ITV Hub) — 70 Up https://www.itv.com/watch/70-up/2a1234 (itv.com in Bing) I watched the penultimate episode of 70 UP. I’ve watched every other episode apart from 63 UP as I couldn’t access it. So it was great to catch up. The Jesuits borrowed the idea: ‘Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.’ 7...

I’m smart enough to know I don’t know anything much worth knowing about poetry in particular. In ‘Introduction to Poetry’ in Amnest Gwilym’s latest collection, she offers some sage advice that had me thinking back to all those creative writing tutors inviting you—ever so nicely—to interrogate your work: ‘But all you want to do is place my poem in a birdcage, force it to sing its song, You start by starving it to find out what it means.’ I’m...

Douglas Sturt understands how fragile memories and language are and how they can be torn away from a sense of self. There’s no place for his Booker Prize winning debut novel, Shuggie Bain or his international bestseller, Young Murdo on library shelves for books in places like Texas that ban and burn books. His protagonists are always working-class boys going to be fucked over or just fucked for being different, for being gay. If not by others,...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002w9wy/the-iron-claw I chanced on this film. Supposedly based on the Von Erich brothers. Wrestlers handed a poisoned chalice by the domineering dad Fritz on their Texas ranch. Fritz’s signature move while wrestling was The Iron Claw. Hence the movie’s title. But Fritz never got to be the heavy-weight world champion. His boys would be and he wasn’t going to let them forget it. Their lives were to be shaped...

Vermiglio (2024), BBCiplayer, screenwriter and director Maura Delpero. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002xkf7/vermiglio Vermiglio is a place and time. Towards the end of the Second World War, 1944-45, two deserters came to hide in the remote Alpine village. One is a local boy. The other Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a Sicilian deserter. They are hid among the chickens. At the centre of village life is the Graziadei family — Cesare (...

Pierre Lemaitre is a winner of The Prix Concourt Award. I’ve no idea what that is, but I’m suitably impressed and he’s also an international bestseller. The Silence and the Rage is part of a trilogy that follows The Pelletier family. I’ve not read the other two books but have read (and reviewed) one of his other novels ((2018) Three Days and a Life ). Like Emile Zola, he can pull the reader into historical events and have you rooting for his...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002zljp/monster ‘What is truth?’ Pontius Pilot is alleged to have asked this kind of question before passing judgement. It may have seemed to him a sensible thing to do. For Judeans that was passing the bronze prutah. An institutional washing of the hands that predated Moses. Monster has a tripartite structure. It looks through the lens of the story from different points of view. Saori Mugino (Sakura Andō...

Most career criminals live in grey areas and not the eternal sunshine of the superwealthy. Some of us may know them. Paul Tait for example came out as The Bad Guru and offers redemption. I knew he indirectly bought and ran with his brother many legitimate businesses in Clydebank, such as The Horse and Barge. A Celtic pub. What interested me more from an authorial perspective were his links with the IRA and his ability to flit from country to...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0030qjb/tuesday Tuesday is a stupid film. I don’t mind stupid. Sometimes I welcome it. It makes me feel smarter. I didn’t really get it at first. Some kind of scene in which a grime-covered, size-shifting macaw who listens to hip-hop, lifts its wing and people are at peace? It took me a while to realise this was Death. The plot is identical to (I re-read it to make sure) to Duncan Williamson’s short story,...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0030fhy/monkey-man There was a time in Holywood when men were men. They had to smoke like a steam engine leaving the station. Drink like there was no tomorrow and break enough hearts to keep the tabloids busy inventing new kinds of innuendo. Some of them were singers, crooners or dancers. They had to shoot straight and have the innate ability to gallop away on any old horse when needed. Which brings me to...