Stoned

I’d wanted to see this since it came out and finally did so tonight. I was very very impressed. This is an excellent film and is an instant classic of British filmaking. In an informative documentary about the making of the film included on the DVD, Stephen Woolley talks about ‘Performance’(without a doubt, my favourite film of all time) being the main influence on his style as well as Joseph Losey’s ‘the Servant’, ‘Accident’ and ‘the Prowler’ and Polanski's 'Repulsion'. I could see this influence and they are good ones to draw on. This film is not in any way a copy of anyone else’s and has a unique identity. If you like to see great film, see this one.

Emil Brynge

On my random wanderings in myspace I came upon some new music recently that I feel compelled to write a few words about. Emil Brynge is a young Swedish singer songwriter who has left a big impression on me. He channels the spirit of the late 60s and early 70s English folk scene with an uncanny recognition.There’s shades of John Martyn, ISB, Nick Drake and others, but he has his own unique voice. Hear him.

Three novels

The three books I read while in Cornwall were ‘the Cloven Knight’ by Italo Calvino, ‘the
Necropolis Railway’ by Andrew Martin and the ‘Portrait' by Ian Pears. All three are excellent novels evoking different periods of history with power and poetry. My favourite was ‘the Potrait’ , which is a mindblowingly brilliant piece of writing.

Allan Springfield

Recently we had a holiday near St Ives. I hastily gathered cds and cdrs to take and ended up with about 40 to choose from. Every night I went back to only one album. The album is ‘the Last Ritual’. This is a dense and fascinating work that I haven’t deciphered yet. I can find very little about Allan Springfield on the web and anybody who can tell me more, please let me know. I know about Chelsea Beige, which is an album I like a lot but it doesn’t have the mad artistic passion of the Last Ritual.

Songs that were salvaged from my mp3 player - 4

Da da da – the Nits
Daddy died on Saturday – The Outsiders
Daisy and Violet – Marrisa Nadler
Dance the night away – Cream
Dark eyed woman – Spirit
Dark on you now – Peanut butter conspiracy
Darkness darkness – The Youngbloods
Darling I need you – John Cale
Day and the night – The Nits
Do it – Jesse Winchester
Don’t let my marigolds die – Bill Fay
Don’t play games – The Youngbloods
Dynamite Daze – Kevin Coyne