Far from the madding crowd

I live in one of the most densely populated parts of Europe and yet I only have to travel a few miles to completely escape from the rest of the human race. Today I took my son to Alfriston, where we followed the River Cuckmere down to the sea and during the whole walk we saw fewer than ten people. Here's the evidence:


Why aren't other people enjoying this beautiful landscape? I find it completely baffling, but I'm not complaining because the absence of humans means that you get to see more creatures. Today's highlight was a heron, slowly flapping its wings and gliding like a pterodactyl, oblivious to our presence. I'm not particularly interested in birds and Bill Oddie's Naturewatch bores the arse off me, but there's nothing like seeing something for yourself.


And it's not just about seeing but also hearing: grasshoppers, dragonflies, skylarks and the wonderful woosh of the wind in the reeds. God I sound like a boring old fart. I might as well start sewing on the leather elbow patches. However today was a reminder that for me at least, that elusive thing called happiness needn't cost a penny.

We finished where we began, in Alfriston. It is one of those picture postcard villages that seems perfect to the point of being slightly sinister. As we walked through the churchyard we saw children playing cricket on the village green, whilst in the distance an old man was pruning the roses around his cottage. I suspect that these people are actually Eastern Europeans, paid to put on a show for the coachloads of elderly tourists who want to be assured that ye olde England still exists. In the evening they probably catch the bus back to their sink estates and crack dens. On the other hand, maybe Alfriston is as good as it seems:


The only downside is the traffic that thunders through it most of the time. Admittedly there aren't many cars in this photo, but that is because I would have been run over if there were. If you visit Alfriston, make sure you visit the award-winning independent bookshop Much Ado Books. They opened relatively recently and show that there's still room for new independent booksellers if they are imaginative and passionate about what they do (I also suspect that they weren't short of a few quid). You can visit their website here.

Ingmar Bergman is dead

It is a quarter of a century since Bergman released his last proper film, Fanny and Alexander, so his death at the age of 89 won't have deprived us of any new works. However, I just liked the fact that he was still alive, brooding on a remote Swedish island. He was a genius.

I vividly remember watching Wild Strawberries for the first time. I was at university and didn't have anything to do between the bar closing at 11.00pm and going to sleep at around 3.00am, so I ended up watching an old black and white film I'd never heard of. Perhaps I wouldn't have bothered, but the film was introduced by a film critic was baldly stated that the film was a masterpiece.


I recently wrote that I only owned a few DVDs and hadn't watched any more than twice, but I have seen this film at least five times and love it more each time I see it.

Yours to own...

Yesterday I received an email from Amazon which rather threateningly said that Evil has been dispatched. After ten years of loyal custom this seemed poor recompense, then I remembered that my Amazon DVD rental list includes a film called Evil. I can't recall why I ordered it, but I expect there was an If you like...you'll love... recommendation.

Ten years ago I walked past the window of someone's house and saw a bookcase that had no books, but lots of videos. The video library. Like a thief I sneaked closer to take a peak at the titles that they had on their shelf. If it had been Bergman and Tarkovsky I would have assumed that their books must have been somewhere else, but the selection I saw convinced me that the owner's cultural experiences were probably limited to Hollywood blockbusters. I wondered how many times anyone would want to watch Terminator 2, enjoyable as it was. I could never understand the Yours to own adverts, which tried to entice buyers with special features. In the case of Star Trek VIII: First Contact, the special feature was an interview with Alice Krige who plays the Borg queen. Sorry. Alice who?

There are very few films that I'd want to own and I've probably only watched the few that I have once or twice at the most. On the other hand, there are hundreds of movies that I want to watch, so Amazon's DVD rental service is a Godsend. During the last couple of years I've been able to catch up with all of the cheesy blockbusters I've never seen, like Airport, explore the burgeoning world of Korean cinema, see some of the best of contemporary European cinema, veg out in front of trashy horror flicks like The Devil's Rejects and revisit classics like the wonderful The Killing of Sister George.

Just to give you an example, here are ten films I really enjoyed but wouldn't have bought:

The Czech Dream
My Summer of Love
Lantana
Soylent Green
Crash
The Edukators
Old Boy
Dirty Harry
Capturing the Friedmans

and one of the most remarkable movies I've ever seen...

I've read that it's the only film in the Inuit language and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. When you watch Atanarjuat you realise that at its best, cinema is as valid an art form as literature, painting or music. It's sad how so few films even vaguely realise the potential of the medium.

Less isn't always more

A couple of months ago, Orion launched their Compact Classics range of great novels which have been stripped of all the boring bits to make them more accessible to the busy commuting, multi-tasking modern reader. You can now read Moby Dick without the endless digressions about the whaling industry, or Les Miserables without the tedious preambles. The result: more people reading the classics. Possibly.

Personally I love Moby Dick and even the lengthy dissertations on sailing and whaling have a mesmerising poetry about them. As for Victor Hugo, he does go on a bit, but I wouldn't have missed a single word. However I didn't get hot under the collar about the Compact Classics until I saw an abridged edition of Vanity Fair.

Vanity Fair!

There are no boring bits in Vanity Fair. It is one of the funniest, wittiest and most enjoyable books in the English language and to remove any text from the original would be like pouring half of a bottle of champagne down the sink. It is bad enough that many editions do not include Thackeray's original illustrations.


The drawings are not a superfluous addition to the text but are an integral part of the novel, often augmenting the narrative. For example when we read that a so-and-so was hard at work, it is essential that this line is accompanied by an illustration showing a man lounging in a chair with his feet up on the table.

Compact Classics are the fast forward button of literature. I don't think that they are the answer to getting more people reading classics. Surely the trick lies in persuading people that once they read the first few chapters, they will become so engrossed in the plot that they'll stop being aware of the florid prose style.

So far we haven't sold any of our Compact Classics and with any luck, they'll die a death. In the meantime I shall be displaying the full version of the wonderful Vanity Fair at the front of the shop.