Hillier Gardens

Hillier Gardens, a set on Flickr.

Out to Romsey today to see Hillier Gardens' "Art in the Garden", their annual sculpture exhibition.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given Hillier's primary role in horticulture, the emphasis is firmly on the "garden" part, to the extent that we were hunting high and low for some of the sculptures. We got almost all of them in the end, and while we've seen much better sculpture exhibitions elsewhere, it was cool to see the gardens as well.

Overall, I think I prefer too see art in a nice place ahead of a nice place with some art in it.

The Infidel

Summary: under-written and over-long. A potentially good idea (Muslim family man finds out that he was born Jewish then adopted), is all but ruined in its execution. Good jokes are thin on the ground, and the film is far too long for the material. Its "surprise" conclusion is quite ridiculously contrived, and its attempts to engage with more weighty issues (racism, Israel) are just fatuously lame. Very disappointing, particularly so given the talented names involved.

Grade: C- (low -1 on the Leeper Scale)

Trans-cosmic journey

It wasn't that long since my last trip there, but it's time for another visit to (so-called) "classic" science fiction territory, on this occasion with Poul Anderson's epic 1970 novel, Tau Zero.

Beginning on Earth in a not-too-distant future when humanity has just begun to travel out to nearby stars, Tau Zero is the story of the crew of the Leonora Christine and their journey to a distant solar system. Fuelled by hydrogen from the near-vacuum of space, the ship's Bussard ramjet accelerates it towards light speed allowing it, through time dilation, to reach across the 30 light year journey in just a few years from the perspective of the crew. Chosen for their ability to both crew the ship and colonise the Earth-like planet discovered in the faraway system, the 25 women and 25 men aboard the Leonora Christine expect never to see the Earth again, but busy themselves with science and learning, and also with shipboard romances.

However, while the ship is still accelerating, it passes through a wandering nebula critically damaging its systems for deceleration. Initially shocked that the ship is still accelerating and that their original target is now completely unattainable, the crew rally around a plan to continue accelerating out of the Milky Way and to repair the damaged systems in intergalactic space, before decelerating into a new system. But on exiting the galaxy, the Leonora Christine finds the "empty" space still too rich in matter to safely switch off the ramjet, so the crew decide to press on, increasing the ship's speed and further dilating time. The setbacks continue, and before long the crew begin to fray as there appears to be no end in sight to their journey, and the passage of time exceeds the lifespan of Earth's solar system. Worse, the universe around the ship is changing, and the astronomers aboard belatedly realise that the Big Crunch is underway ...

This is one of those books that's better in theory than it is in practise. The set-up is great, and a really neat exercise in special relativity, but the execution is very patchy, and the novel is quite dull for long stretches. Largely, and perhaps unsurprisingly, because the characters don't quite work on the page. Much like the physics in the story, they appear something of an intellectual exercise, with personalities that serve primarily to just bump the plot along - not a good way to imbue a novel with human interest. To be fair, Anderson does well setting up a very existential dilemma for the crew (press on and simply hope for the best, or destroy the ship and end the journey with dignity and sanity), one that's interesting to ponder outside the novel, but one that's not nearly as satisfying within it.

All that said, it was still well worth reading. For all its flaws in characterisation, it never descended to the sexist farce of certain other "classic" novels. Sure, it wasn't really quite up to the giants of the era, but its good bits more than balanced out its more tedious sections. I particularly liked how, as the ship approaches light speed and "tau zero", the universe becomes akin to regularly-spaced speed bumps, as galaxy after galaxy are sped through in subjective seconds, and serve only to feed the maw of the ramjet. And while the physics at the end is now very much out of vogue, I still rather liked how Anderson concludes the journey of the Leonora Christine. In part, probably, because said eschatology still seems somewhat more satisfying than the more probable alternatives.

Overall, I won't be rushing out to raid Anderson's back catalogue, but I'm pleased to have finally knocked this "classic" off.

Random observation: riots and social media

A common thread in reporting of the UK's current riots is how they appear to be organised in quite a sophisticated fashion using social media services and portable devices. That is pretty interesting, but is in keeping with the recent student protests (or were they riots?; depends who's reporting I guess).

One related aspect that I've found interesting is how people I know (and people who know people I know) have reported their views of the riots on social media services like Facebook. A swift perusal of my news feed on Facebook reveals a nice selection of Daily Hate viewpoints being expressed by (essentially uninvolved) people on the subject of the riots. For instance, that rioters should be shot, jailed, lose their benefits, be sent to Afghanistan, et cetera. My brother even advocates bringing on martial law (though, to be fair, he is in the military so has something of a vested interest there).

What I guess I find interesting is that these rather authoritarian views are expressed completely publicly, non-anonymously and rather stridently. Within limits, I can, of course, understand the views themselves - as the riots appear to be decoupled from the original public anger, it's difficult to empathise with the rioters. But it still seems fairly novel to me that people should record such views in so transparent (and checkable-by-employers) a forum. Then again, having occasionally seen racist and homophobic views bandied about on Facebook (thankfully friends-of-friends at closest approach), perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Beginners

A quick, easy report this one. What a great little film!

Centred around Oliver, a graphic artist catering to musicians in need of album art, Beginners at first appears to be focused instead on his father, Hal. After the death of his wife of 40 years, retired art historian Hal stuns Oliver with the successive revelations that he is 1. gay; 2. keen to pursue new sexual relationships; and 3. suffering with terminal cancer. The film picks up after Hal's death, but jumps back and forth over the immediately preceding years, and back to Oliver's childhood and relationship with his mother, Georgia. In the "present" (2003, according to Oliver's insistent narration), as well as tying up the loose ends of Hal's life, including adopting his dog, Arthur, Oliver begins a relationship with a French actress, Anna. His previous relationships, documented in his art, have all disintegrated because of his creeping disengagement, and as his romance with Anna blossoms, he begins to fear repetition. But Anna also has inhibitions that stretch back to her relationship with her parents, and, together, they hesitantly piece together a plausible future for themselves.

There's just so much to like about this relatively low-key film. It's played great (though Ewan McGregor still struggles with a US accent); it's not afraid to trust the viewer to follow its novel-like narrative (your hand is not held); it has some great moments of humour in it (e.g. psychoanalysis at a party; consciousness-expanding graffiti vandalism); it has a star-turn from a talking dog (you'll see); it's quietly didactic on the progress that's been made in gay rights (and artfully done too); and it is, ultimately, a crowd-pleasing, feel-good film that is still far from the predictable mainstream. Some might find that elements of the film's cuteness, for instance the talking dog (who's not really talking, just so we're clear), are a little too much, but it suited me just fine and, anyway, it totally earned any excess cuteness. Some might argue that it flatters liberal values too much, but, well, those are fine, progressive things to stand up and be proud of (even while there's still a long way to go). Anyway, to conclude this gush-fest: highly recommended.

Grade: A- (high +2 on the Leeper Scale)

West Dean Gardens

West Dean Gardens, a set on Flickr.

Out to this year's chilli festival courtesy of Alex. As usual, lots of chilli-themed culinary experiences to be had, including some quite strange ones - chilli fudge anyone?

Anyway, as on previous occasions, the best bit was the chance to wander around West Dean's walled garden. As evidenced by the (inevitable) plethora of photographs.

FGTH stitch-up

For reasons exclusively related to the regular passage of time, this year's a big year for me and my cohort. As such, I had a bit of thinking to do for a present for my old friend DJLB. Fortunately, inspiration came from the baby samplers that C's been making for the various babies that her nieces keep popping out. Having tried knitting before, how hard could cross stitching be?

And, what with it being DJLB, what better subject than a blast from our collective pasts: Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Drawing on their elaborate mythology (i.e. drawing from the elaborate publicity machine that promoted them), an obvious source on which to base a cross stitch design was their "equation" ...


To wit:
[ lust + war + love + faith] x FGTH
The colours for the various elements I borrowed from the appearance of the equation in the (surprisingly excellent) computer game that was released in 1985 around the peak of FGTH's UK fame. Anyway, what with it being pretty simple and all, it stitched up pretty well ...


In no small part, of course, due to the (patient) help of cross stitching pro C, who tidied up quite a few of my early missteps. Although, that said, by the end I was more or less able to stitch on my own, even starting threads up and finishing them off all by myself (though having only a five colour design does make things pretty easy on this count). The final step was to turn the whole thing into something classy (and DJLB does do class) by taking it to the framers in Bedford Place ...


Who did, I think one would agree, a pretty grand job turning it into something classy. At the same time they did manage to vastly increase the total cost of the project but, as a special present, I was happy to push the boat out. The word on the street is that it now adorns DJLB's den, so I can't have gone too far off the mark. Anyway, last and least, a picture of the framed cross stitch together with me to provide an indication of scale ...