A Christmas Carol

[Varley]

Recorded the remake. Watched back to back tonight.

When WILL they make one with a happy ending (Bah humbug).

[Engine Serang]

Very mixed reviews.
Looking forward to your considered and well crafted opinion.

[BobClay]

That was recommended to me in the pub !!! (Thought I knew the story …)

I've downloaded it and yet to watch. (Got to fit it in with all the other downloaded stuff while I was away. All I've watched so far is Rogue One !!! … talk about unhappy endings … )

[Varley]

If taken as a stand-alone moral tale with only a Hollywood affiliation with the original then it is watchworthy.

It has all the disappointments of the original, logical and successful businessman is driven to throw away sound accounting principles to become profligate celebrator of pagan festivals. This one has a bit of bare female flesh and more than a hint of boarding school buggery (but neither of those drove me from the path of fiscal probity).

[BobClay]

After much table thumping in the pub I came home and also watched it back to back.

Have to say was quite impressed on the take … still the Dickensian format, but curiously illuminated by prism like beams shining back from the current age.

Not sure what Dickens himself would have made of it, (while I'm dead sure what the Daily Mail would make of it ) but I enjoyed it.

I'd say definitely not for the very young though.

[Engine Serang]

I'm not a Charles Dickens fan. The study of David Copperfield for "O" Level English Literature killed any love I had for him. Misery and unhappiness all around except for Wilkins Micawber. What a bloody bore but I passed thanks to the Tempest, Under the Greenwood Tree and The School for Scandal.
Looking back I have to say that education in Norn Irn in the 1960's was bloody good.

[BobClay]

My GCE lit had 'Tale of Two Cities' which is a bit more exciting, but the Shakespeare play was 'Twelfth Night.' No medieval battles, no car chases … put me off Shakespeare in the same way until I came across the 'Wars of the Roses' yarns.

Must however offer up thanks to George Orwell and 'Animal Farm.' I often wonder if he didn't cause the 'Cold War' with that.

[Varley]

Reading 'n riting OK (although there are clever ways of teaching the boy this too) but using literature and drama for anything else but pleasure may ruin the adults' enjoyment. My cleverest English master inveigled us into reading well without us knowing it and did not engage in the nasty habit of others to force the by-heart learning of poetry. Fortunately it was only the clever boys who got to do the 3 r's in 'expanded' mode (Language/Literature, Pure/Applied etc) and so it was only stuff that rhymed that I wouldn't look at again until I was in my thirties (bastards! I say again bastards). The Theatre and the concert hall were for enjoyment rather than the force feeding of 'Culture' and continue to be so. Macbeth, Don Giovanni, Rigoletto (and of course the 1812) remain favourites.

Now I remember it Animal Farm was required reading (perhaps even 1984). Wouldn't go there again (bastards! …...etc.)

[YM-Mundrabilla]

The 'Grapes of Wrath' was one book I 'studied' (haha) at High School. What bit of it that I read a few days before the exams terrified me - it still does.

I may well have got the wrong or a partial understanding but I am not game to go back now to find out.

[Engine Serang]

Grapes of Wrath is heavy going but Cannery Row is a delight.

[Tmac1720]

I had my entire library of books stolen, I was really pissed off because I hadn't finished colouring them in.

We studied Tolstoy's War and Peace at school, I would have had more enjoyment reading the telephone directory

[Tmac1720]

Originally Posted by Engine Serang

Grapes of Wrath is heavy going but Cannery Row is a delight.

Didn't enjoy the Grapes of Wrath especially when the barman hit me with the wine bottle serves me right I suppose for asking for wine in a Belfast boozer

[Varley]

Has anyone seen the Chief's book that he has had stolen? (Are you sure it has not been pushed to the back by that winebox? Not Rougemont Castle I trust? the grapes in that really are the grapes of wrath. Bought a box for a 'guest on the lawn' sort of thing. Wondered why it was not being drunk. Until I tried a glass).

[Engine Serang]

A box of wine for guests? A bit baffled. Were they the Under Staff?
Why not cut out the middle man and offer them methylated spirits. And there's nothing like a good lawn to soak up drool, jizz and boke.
Sounds like a bit of a hoot, invite me this year; please.

[Varley]

Consider yourself on the guest list, I don't know why mine as I bet you'll choose to play for the Irish Lady's team. But you are wrong about the lawn.

I offered the pile to the family of a 90 year old friend for her funeral breakfast. Although not a heavy drinker herself she liked to have the favourite tipples of all her friends to hand which she bought in industrial quantities such that the stock outlasted most of the friends for which it had been intended. Amongst the contents of her wardrobe 'cellar' were, as examples, several bottles of 'Grande Empereur' which Pa took as good brandy (which it isn't), Lambs Gravy (for me) and cases of champagne.

It was a lovely day and her guests wandered the garden. A week or so later I noticed quite a lot of comma shaped streaks of dead lawn. I remembered that one bottle of fizz had been discovered off and so the barperson was instructed to check each before serving and simply open another bottle. The dead lawn was a result of guests, being too polite to complain, slinging the fine French vinegar before going for a refill.

(Having discovered a bottle of Gordon's orange gin in the hoard, which was delicious, I tried to buy a supply for myself. No one had heard of it. Looking at the label again I noted the Royal Warrant. "By appointment to His Late Majesty King George V". A vintage bottle indeed).