7 posts tagged “london”

Alison Steadman crossing the road near Whitestone Pond as I walked into Hampstead today.

Oh, that's what that was?

I thought I'd had a funny turn or something.

1. Graham Linehan, comedy genius, has a blog.
2. The Ally Pally bonfire night celebration is possibly the best one ever, since not only is it lovely in itself, but its position on Mill Hill means that all of London is spread out below you, and hence you get to see hundreds of firework displays for the price of one.
3. Practical jokery can actually be amusing when it approaches performance art rather than singling out an individual of whom to make unsuspecting fun.
4. Superman has been a dick since his inception.
5. A glossary of words from 18th century English provincial dialects. I found this while researching the word "shrammed" (meaning really cold, as in "my feet are shrammed"), because my sister's boyfriend had never heard it before and refused to believe it existed. My grandfather used it all the time. Turns out it's specifically Wiltshire vocabulary.
   

Sex 'n' death in London as Sharon Stone reprises the role of Catherine Tramell.

I'd have been happy to give this one a miss except that Mark Kermode - a critic whose opinions I always find worth listening to, even if he does hate Pirates of the Caribbean - gave it a positive review. Reasoning that it definitely had an edge over the first film, as far as I was concerned, simply by not having Michael Douglas (who I find creepy and horrible even in relatively fluffy fare like Romancing the Stone) in it and that frankly, any film that kills off Stan Collymore in its opening scene couldn't be all bad, I added it to my rental queue.

Well, it turns out that I would much rather look at David Morrissey and his nicely defined stomach muscles than Michael Douglas, so it was certainly not a difficult film in that respect. Sharon Stone clearly has a whale of a time playing Tramell as she slinks about fellating cigarettes and being all ambiguous and icily clever. I do think she's an interesting character; she comes close to veering into the misogynistic archetype of the seductive, manipulative, evil woman, but ultimately escapes it because her ambiguity means the film never judges her. We never find out whether it's her committing the murders and she doesn't receive any sort of "comeuppance". Well, there's a bit where she's nearly drowned in her jacuzzi, and she gets called some vile names, but basically she comes out of that none the worse for wear.

London looks gorgeous in this film, constructed entirely out of metal, sheets of glass and cool, classic stone, it's all sleek office buildings and elegant squares and even the seedy, neon-lit urban decay of the Soho backstreets seems chic in its grubbiness.

Basically this is the sort of film you expect to catch on BBC1 on a Saturday at some ungodly hour of the night, except with a really glossy finish, and Charlotte Rampling being classy. Ultimately silly but pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

Verdict: * * * * *

So I'm waiting at a bus stop in Notting Hill Gate and two women come up and start asking me something in broken English. I think they may have been Spanish; there were a lot of "th" and "hch" sounds. Anyway, the only words I can make out are "Notting Hill" and "door" and "film".

Well, I tend to panic when english-speaking strangers talk to me let alone ones who are struggling to make themselves understood, thus my brain isn't inclined to work too well in such situations, so the only thing I can think is that they're trying to find the local cinema. I say I'm sorry but I don't know, and they thank me and go on their way.

It's not until I'm getting on a bus a few minutes later that I realise they were trying to find Hugh Grant's front door from the film Notting Hill (not that I knew where that was anyway).

God I'm slow sometimes.

For future reference, it seems the main Notting Hill locations were along Westbourne Park Road, near where it crosses Portobello Road. Although, apparently, the actual front door that appears in the film is no longer there. So, sorry possibly-spanish tourist women! I hope you found it in the end and are not still wandering around the back streets of west london, hopelessly lost in the rain.

John Hannah in Notting Hill Gate, just as I got off the bus. 

I saw Clive Owen today, picking his daughters up from school (I was on a moving bus at the time and had just long enough to do a double take and verify that, yes, it was who I thought it was). This means Clive Owen lives near me.

Ah, how I love living in North London.