A Romantic Moment
Jul 13th, 2008 by Eats Wombats
I woke up with firm intentions to stop procrastinating and get into the library and do an honest day’s work on my cretinously late dissertation proposal.
I can’t help with the shopping
I told the number 1 shopper, who likes my company but who has noticed that we spend more when I “help”.
First, I’ll just read a few pages of Ghost by Robert Harris I thought, while I have some coffee. I should have known better.
I ended up reading it in one sitting. It’s not Harris’s best book and has had some slightly sour reviews (e.g., in the Times), but I enjoyed it. It’s a roman à clef about Tony Blair motivated by the author’s antipathy and his friendship with twice-sacked cabinet minister, now EU commissioner, Peter Mandelson, but it’s good entertainment.
With the afternoon mostly shot we went for a stroll in Regent’s Park and then went to see the film version of Mamma Mia, the London West End musical that’s been running for the last 9 years or so. I’d read some mixed reviews of the film, including one that suggested the audience laughed at but enjoyed some of the singing of Pierce Brosnan, especially, and Meryl Streep.
I went expecting that it would be corny and I wasn’t disappointed. Nevertheless, it was great fun and an uplifting nostalgic experience.
It was also, in the form of Christine Baranski, whom I’d never seen or heard of before, a delightfully louche celebration of the charms of an older woman. The plot is thin and if you don’t know it already (it’s on the Wikipedia page) I recommend you skip it. I think I enjoyed it more not knowing it. Yes, it’s just a vehicle for some ABBA songs. However, it works well enough.
One song, Slipping Through My Fingers, made a few eyes well up a little among the parents in the audience. I know, I was one.
On one level the whole thing is completely ridiculous pop culture, a monumental cliché, but on another it’s profound and heartwarming.
There didn’t seem at the time to be any connection between the the expansion of the EU in the 70s and the popularity of a Swedish group singing in English, but ABBA reflected a new and changing Europe. I enjoyed the film as a bit of European exuberance, with its Greek scenery, Swedish music and actors from Britain, Ireland, Sweden and other European countries.
We stayed, as a few did, to the very end, to enjoy the music accompanying the credits. As we left an old man with a stick patiently held the door open open for his almost equally frail wife and pecked her on the cheek. as she passed. They were in high spirits. You need to know she declared, that
the depiction of smoking was for artistic purposes only and not to promote smoking!
and they laughed. Everybody else who jumped up and rushed out as the credits rolled missed a touching moment. Where and when had they met? I wondered as we passed.
I really enjoyed that!
said the lady I met on an island long ago as we ambled home in the sunshine thinking of Greek islands.
Long ago I read an interview with Judy Craymer, whose idea the original stage production was, and something of the improbable rags to riches story remained in the back of my mind and predisposed me to go. Happily, it seems that Hollywood was kept largely at bay.
I hope your dissertation advisor doesn’t frequent your blog.
Does the romantic moment allude to the cinema exit or to the many island visits after finding the captivating ornithophilist?
Ah, the opening prepared the reader for a discourse on putting procrastination to the foil but you were merciful and read your book. Without your insight to help dominate my own foible I may resort to reading that book.
Cheers,
Both of course, he said hurriedly.