Nobody Knows Anything

One cinema visit this week, marked with a *. The Bondathon continues.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Of the Roger Moore Bonds, this is my favourite and has been since I first saw it when I was 10. On a plot level it’s nothing more than a remake of You Only Live Twice (1967), but what elevates it above Moore’s first two entries in the series is the size of the production. This is a classic every penny of the budget is on the screen movie, from the building of the 007 Stage at Pinewood to accommodate “Int. Day. Supertanker Hold Plus Three Submarines”, to the exotic locations. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, but for once it holds true here. Also, the widescreen Panavision frame makes a welcome return, there’s a kick-ass title song, and it’s all very 1977 Silver Jubilee Britain is best. There is something about Roger Moore’s Bond that needs this amount of scope in a way that Connery’s Bond was better suited to the intimacy of From Russia with Love (1963) than the Spy Who Loved Me trial run of You Only Live Twice (1967).

Burn After Reading (2008) *

The Coen brothers hate repeating themselves, and the chances of them following up the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men (2007) with another critic-pleasing, highly suspenseful, Academy-raiding thriller were extremely small. And so it proves. Instead the film is a callback to one of the Coen’s favourite subjects: idiots and the idiotic things they do, all set in the guise of a sort of spy thriller full of sort of intrigue set in sort of Washington DC. Superbly cast with actors who are enjoying themselves but not in an indulgent way, Burn After Reading is to me more like Tropic Thunder (2008): proper film comedy assembled by filmmakers who know what they are doing. Even though the film has at least a dozen principal performers with complex relationships between them, you are never left confused because each one of these characters and their relationships are properly set up. Writing has been perhaps one of the areas where the Coens haven’t received as much credit as they should, and it is the quality of the film literacy on display here that means this isn’t one of those “minor” Coen films at all. In fact, I fail to be convinced by this lesser and greater Coen film argument entirely, as if because Barton Fink (1991) won the Palme d’Or that makes it a better film than Intolerable Cruelty (2003), a film I liked a lot more than other people seemed to. If you like a director (or as is now the acknowledged case with the Coens directors) you are going to have to take their entire careers on board when it comes to a consideration of their talents.

Moonraker (1979)

And so, inspired by the success of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), they decided to remake The Spy Who Loved Me in space. Although it can be argued that Bond has already been a bit science fictiony, this remains the only (thank God) full scale attempt to go out there. Even though Moonraker is a lot less fun than Spy, and has rather too much extremely poor comedy (double-taking pigeon, anyone?), it remains a terribly pleasurable watch. The French have a word for it and that word is jouissance, a pleasure that can be too much to bear and a concept that cannot successfully be translated into English. But as a way of coming to terms with a film that is both poor and great, often simultaneously, it’s the best that I can offer.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Characteristically, the Eon Production team know when they’ve gone too far in one direction, even though the previous film that’s caused all of the doubts has been wildly successful, as Moonraker was. And so For Your Eyes Only marks a welcome return to a more contained, Eurocentric Bond. A lot of the film is terrific, particularly the action scenes, but they and the film itself are weakened by Bill Conti’s terrible disco hangover score. Unusually, Bond doesn’t bed the young Lynn Holly Johnson (a rare instance in the series where the older man, younger woman thing became too creepy even for the filmmakers), but Carole Bouquet’s Melina is an entirely different proposition; in fact she may be the first proper post-feminist Bond heroine, who remains indifferent to Bond’s advances until the very end of the film after she has avenged the deaths of her parents, and who throughout the film uses a crossbow at key moments to save Bond’s life by dispatching some of his enemies. Melina is the first successful attempt to take on board a “stronger woman” role after two disappointing dry runs with Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) in Spy and Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) in Moonraker, who were both promoted as “modern” Bond women, but were in the end fatally compromised.

Next week: Bond in the 80’s.

One cinema visit, marked with a *. The Bondathon continues.

Gomorra (2008) *

Uncompromising and complex, an explanation of how a crime syndicate can obtain dominance in an area and keep it, and build on it, and become influential in legitimate business, but all told in a detached, handheld manner very much along the lines of Salvatore Guiliano (1962), and all unglamourous, unHollywood, very real. The film starts with the exchange and counting of money, very little is explained, no less than five stories start up and run simultaneously, but connections are left up to the viewer. An anti-Scarface that lets the old guys in bad tracksuits turn the tables on the young guns rather than the other way around. The Camorra, the Neopolitan Mafia that this film is about, would rather that this film had not been made, and the book from which it has been adapted not been written, and the man who wrote this book was dead, instead of under hiding with a police escort which is where he is now. Clandestine organisations don’t like publicity, and isn’t it interesting that the current President of Italy is more interested in evading prosecution himself than seeking to prosectute the Mafia gangs which permeate and damage and corrupt Italian society at every level?

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

The Bond series is marked by a curious obsession with doubles, but doubles that mostly go unremarked by anyone, especially Bond himself, that comes across one of them. Charles Gray had turned up as Henderson in You Only Live Twice (1967) but here returns on the other side as Blofeld, and no one notices. Maud Adams graduated from her death as Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) to her resurrection as the eponymous heroine of Octopussy (1983). Martine Beswick moves from her Gypsy Girl cameo in From Russia with Love (1963) to a more serious our agent in foreign climes part as Paula Caplan in Thunderball (1965). To say nothing of the team of American actors living in Britain (Ed Bishop, Shane Rimmer, etc) who keep turning up in successive Bonds in small different roles. And this is when the films themselves aren’t obsessed with doubles, from the fake Sean Connery dispatched by Robert Shaw at the start of From Russia with Love (1963) to the wax dummy of Roger Moore that turns out to be crucial to the denouement of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore’s first two Bonds of the 1970s are banal, flat and uninteresting. The chase scenes in both which ought to be highlights are instead deflated by horrible attempts at comedy, mostly involving one of the worst character actor performances of any films of the 1970s from the appalling Clifton James as Sheriff JW Pepper. Having inspired a thousand or more imitators in the 1960s, when it came to the 1970s Bond initially followed trends started elsewhere. This means that Live and Let Die is the blaxploitation Bond, and not in a good way. All of the supposedly black stuff in the film is cringeworthy from the black cab driver with the jive talk and the excessive sideburns, the soul food restaurants Fillet of Soul, the voodoo shop, the rather camp Baron Samedi, to the best, most authentic, bullshit voodoo ceremony that Pinewood Studios and extras casting can manage.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The other trend that Bond picked up on is the martial arts/kung fu craze that followed in the wake of Bruce Lee’s success. Fortunately or not, Roger Moore is rescued from a kung fu school by two high-kicking 14 year old girls. This humiliation is just one of many in this pointless farrago. Scaramanga’s darkened funhouse is plain embarrassing and it is painfully obvious that all of the nonsense about solar power has been added to the script so Derek Meddings has a big model set to blow up at the finale. On a different note, I’m reasonably convinced that this is the first Bond film I saw in the cinema at the age of 7, taken to it by my father. I guess you have to start at the bottom sometimes. The Bond series has also been obsessed with rebooting itself, but the Moore years are unusual in that the reboots happen within Moore’s tenure rather than at the end. The first redo leads to the brilliance (and brilliant redundancy) of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the second to the old school Bond pleasures of For Your Eyes Only (1981), and the third to the awful comedy of Octopussy (1983) and its successor, which returns Roger Moore to the dead end of non-achievement with which he commenced his 12 years as Bond in 1973.

Appallingly I’ve slacked off for a month and not written a post. In that time I’ve been on holiday for a week in Greece (see earlier post), during which I saw no movies, and received the James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set for my birthday, and there’s a new James Bond film coming out October 31st, so what am I going to spend the intervening time doing? That’s right.

Infernal Affairs III (2003)

Reviewing Hong Kong police thrillers. This is my second time watching the third film in the trilogy, and I remain divided on the question of whether or not making the film so difficult to comprehend is down to filmmaker incompetence or my own failed perceptions and inability to follow the plot. Or maybe this disorientation is meant to mirror the disorientation of Lau Kin Ming (Andy Lau) as it becomes clear as the film draws to a close that some directorial slight of hand has been at work. Still, at least my reading of the plot (concerning who’s a cop and who’s a criminal) coincides with online plot summaries that have been difficult to track down, so I might be ready at some stage to declare the trilogy a work of genius. If only Andrew Lau and Alan Mak had done a Coppola with Part III and made a film that clearly wasn’t as good as the two that had preceded it, instead of making a film where it’s kind of hard to tell.

Escape from New York (1981)

I don’t like Escape as much as the two films that surround it in Carpenter’s filmography, The Fog (1980) and The Thing (1982), but it definitely has its moments, and it is, of course, rather more fun when watched with John Carpenter and Kurt Russell’s excellent commentary track selected.

Tropic Thunder (2008) *

Every bit as good as I hoped it would be. It does to stupid Hollywood actors what Zoolander (2001) did to stupid supermodels and the trashy tabloid celebrity-obsessed non-culture in which we all now find ourselves. And it has Tom Cruise in a hairy fat suit but may be a little too pleased with itself for having realised this. At a rough estimate it may be even funnier on later inspection than it seemed at the cinema since it actually has some fairly deep comedic ideas running alongside the endless and mostly good gags. And it probably means that when you read stories about Ben Stiller being a pedantic diva on set on the internet that someone somewhere is just making that shit up. It’s also an object lesson in how to make a proper comedy, and screeners should be sent to the makers of those wretched (fill in the blank) Movie movies forthwith.

Dr. No (1962)

Note presence of full stop after the Doctor. Well, well, just what the internet needs, another blogger wibbling on about the Bond movies and filling their posts with all sorts of anoraky details only interesting to fellow Bond anoraks, who love Bond and all those who’ve ever sailed within her, or in her, or Onatopp of her. Fuck that. Not interesting. I promise: no crappy Onatopp style puns (about from that one); no poor innunendo that makes you grimace like somebody’s just kneecapped you (apart from the title of the posts); the vague possibility that I might have something interesting to say about these films (pretty vague); a firm commitment that I am actually watching every minute of these films, even the weaker Roger Moore efforts that I don’t much like and am somewhat embarrassed to admit I now own.

To begin: although obviously intended for high definition presentation around the time of the next Bond movie (Bond Blu-rays have already been announced for later this year), the scrupulous scanning and correction efforts of Lowry Digital Images bear more remarkable fruit on the first few films in the series than on the later ones which have already been transferred pretty decently to the aftermarket. My memories of early Bond movies in ITV screenings is that they looked like absolute shit; they were quite clearly ancient telecines that had been rerun and rerun until the tapes had started to wear through. DVD resolution only really brings us an exceptional video image though, with, as Lowry Digital staff relate on the excellent featurette on Disc 2 of the Dr. No Ultimate Set, more onscreen detail and texture than has ever been visible on film, even back in 1962. The Blu-rays will presumably up the quality on this even further and deliver some proper film grain as well. It is really startling to see Dr. No with quite so much clarity as this. Does it make the film better? Yes it does.

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

This film leans enormously on the sequenced music of Wang Chung, which dates it precisely but in a good way. It’s the kind of high octane, pedal to the metal cop movie (even though it’s about the Secret Service) that died at the box office in 1985 but has outlasted much else that was released that year. Quality has staying power, and if you make a good film, sooner or later people are going to see it and allow your film a shelf life. In about 2001 I signed an online petition to have this movie released by MGM with a commentary track, a documentary, a sound upgrade and a decent transfer, and in 2003 this actually happened. Pretty cool. But not in the UK, where apparently MGM thought (and still thinks) we don’t like extras on MGM discs. Pretty not cool.

From Russia with Love (1963)

In Basic Instinct (1992), Catherine Tramell delivers an important speech about suspension of disbelief while on her first journey to the police station where she intends to disconcert a roomful of sweaty males with her cunning no underwear strategy. The Bond films have always been about suspension of disbelief, so much so that Roger Moore found himself unable to believe in the character because everybody Bond ever meets around the world from megalomanical supervillains to humble hotel bar staff knows that Bond likes his martini shaken not stirred. Which isn’t going to do you much good if your job description is secret agent. The Bond movies, even this one, are all absurd, they all take place in a different universe to ours even when it may look like they’re trying to represent our own universe, they are all subject to the same easily-levelled criticisms that they don’t make sense on even a very basic level (sample dialogue from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997): Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers. Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him? Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death), they recycle the same formula again and again (if you’ve seen You Only Live Twice (1967) you don’t really need to see The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) or Moonraker (1979) since they are essentially the same film), they’re sexist, racist, out of touch, out of date, old-fashioned, we’ve seen it all before, there’s nothing new here, please move along, nothing to see here (this is perhaps why critical response to them can vary so enormously).

And yet I was watching the ski chase from OHMSS (1969) (see below) just last night, and the sheer kinetic energy with which this sequence has been photographed, scored, brought to the screen, and cleaned up by Lowry Digital, was absolutely exhilarating. In short, critical objections to Bond miss the point: despite all of the shortcomings which most Bond fans, including myself, recognise the films have, we are all willing to suspend our disbelief and enjoy visiting this improbable fantasy world because what the Bond films offer is cinema of an almost Bressonian purity: a beautiful man, a beautiful woman, more beautiful women, an evil villain, assorted bad guys, explosions, chases, fucking big sets, and more explosions. It’s formulaic but we don’t care. And there are a lot of us, and we’re growing by the day. And Quantum of Solace (2008) is only going to spread the word of Bond even more.

Goldfinger (1964)

Stephen King in Danse Macabre (1980), his book length answer to all those questions journalists kept asking him about why he wrote this horror stuff, talks about the Set of Reality in serial television. What he means is the difference between scenes that have clearly been filmed on location, and scenes that have clearly been filmed in a studio but are meant to look like a location except they do not, and he mentions the Ponderosa ranch in Bonanza as an example, though he could have referenced that place allegedly outside the house where everybody had breakfast in Dallas. Or the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami at the start of this film. Even in 1964 with Eon Productions having come off two straight successes, they still only had a limited amount of time at the location and ended up rebuilding a Fontainebleau set in Pinewood to finish off the sequence. Poor old Margaret Nolan as Dink, she didn’t even get to fly to Miami, because she delivers her one line on the reverse of Felix Leiter (who as the scene develops goes from standing in front of the real hotel to standing in front of a back projection of it) and this is a studio set and you can tell because the lighting is high key and it doesn’t match the Miami sunshine. This is how it was done because this is how films were made at that time because of a number of factors including the quality of the film stock, the size of the cameras, the size of the lights, how long they had the location for, and so on. Yet now it can look like an amateurish assembly of everything that’s wrong with studio filmmaking. And yet we should remember that since all films were made this way then, no one cared about it at the time and we in 2008 have to suspend our disbelief just to watch the first ten minutes of Goldfinger made in 1964. Tough ask.

Thunderball (1965)

A lot of what makes Thunderball watchable (about from that guy who gets fed to the sharks obviously) are the underwater sequences. I’ve been trying to think whether or not any film made since this one has ever ended up with the extraordinary underwater melee in which what looks like 50 divers are going at each other with knives and spear guns, all on screen, all at once, no CGI, no special effects. And I can’t come up with one. There are some pretty neat shots in The Abyss (1989) that have a lot of blokes underwater on a submersible, but is that it? Is Thunderball the high watermark (low watermark would be a pun: no puns, remember) of underwater action movies? Maybe so.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Snagging John Barry to work on the music for a lot of the Bond films was definitely one of the smarter decisions that the producers made. For me, the music to this film, in which Bond becomes Japanese by putting on a wig, there’s a giant interior volcano set and a white cat stroking villain, is so good it hides nearly all of the film’s shortcomings. Barry brings a soul to the potential soullessness, a romanticism to the possible routine of Bond’s dalliances with a never ending succession of women, and a driving force to the action sequences. Barry set the bar high, and only David Arnold has stepped up to the mark to meet him there. The most important contribution of Monty Norman, of course, is that bass guitar riff of the Bond theme, which all Bond composers have quite possibly been contracturally obliged to employ at the right moment, and sometimes at the wrong moment, and sometimes not at all (Eric Serra wasn’t asked back after the GoldenEye (1995) score was adjudged too light on proper Bond moments).

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Would this be the greatest Bond film of them all if Sean Connery had stayed in the part for this one and let Roger Moore take over on Diamonds Are Forever (1971)? The question that haunts Bond fandom. George Lazenby is not as bad as has been suggested, and the extreme, almost avant garde editing of the fight scenes is something to behold, as is that ski chase I remarked upon earlier. I could listen to John Barry’s opening title theme forever and if you don’t start feeling a bit misty when Louis Armstrong promises you All the Time in the World, then you’re probably in the wrong cinema. And it’s only a Bond movie, after all. This never happened to the other fellow, indeed.

Spoiler Alert: This post contains no films. I went on holiday to Rhodes, Greece, and didn’t do that much really. Here is a post all about the not much that I did. By the way, if I remember correctly, The Aphrodite Inheritance (1979) was a slightly spooky 70s non-sequel to Who Pays the Ferryman? (1977) in which a lucky BBC production team got to spend some months filming an arty drama series with a bit of nudity on location in Greece instead of what they do nowadays, which is redo Robin Hood or Merlin on location in Deptford and do the rest with CGI. Boring.

Saturday 20th September 2008

With Sox [my sister’s cat] fed, we proceed to [Birmingham International] airport. Dad had already been on a practice run for this yesterday when he took Lou [my sister] and Roz [her friend] to Brum for Lou’s birthday weekend in Barcelona. Check in very quick. Bloke in front had doubts about leopard-skin camouflage stetson; I urged him to go for it. Hilariously, evil bastards at Monarch wanted £25 for legroom seats. So that didn’t happen. Can’t discriminate against disabled anymore, so tall people now legitimate target. Quickly through security after removing all shoes and metal items including belt. Spent most of time browsing shops in departure lounge. WHSmiths had lots of books that looked promising, but hit paydirt with Impulse record shop which had four interesting CDs in a 4 for £20 deal plus a cheapie for £1. Ker-ching! Barely time to urinate before we walk to plane through boarding gate and then building site and then on the taxiway to the plane. I turn out to be in seat 23C next to a couple of couples who spend the whole flight drinking hideously overpriced miniature bottles and cans of spirits and lager whilst I, Mr Boring Seasoned Traveller, paid £1.50 in Boots for a couple of Coke Zeros before boarding. Finally resolved Sennheiser earphone issue: you do need the medium sized attachments for effective noise cut-outage. Time passes in bouts of Stephen King’s Duma Key and Dead Can Dance. Removed shoes for duration of flight. That really works. Usual trolley fest in aisles and piss poor recycled BBC comedy on small fold-down tellies from VHS of all things, the DVD revolution not having reached Monarch Airlines yet. Dinner was cottage pie and a toffee sticky pudding, plus water, plus 2 coffees. Very decent. I start to wane c.1pm and need sleep. It doesn’t come. Good landing smack on time.

Sunday 21st September 2008

With me fed, arrival in Rhodes was curious. Lightning flashes are observed from the aircraft, and there has clearly been an enormous Michael Mann in the city style wetting down of the streets, but no rain is falling now. Hilarious queue for Greek security where first they stamp some passports, then none and the queue speeds up a lot. Case arrives safely. Tigger [stickers] rule! Find ancient Olympic Airways employee who directs me to coach 171. After stopping at every hotel between the airport and Afandou, I arrive and am pleasantly surprised. Edelweiss 1A actually has airconditioning, but no remote to control it. Did find manual and managed to turn it on a bit. Hurrah! 1A is clean and neat and more than adequate. I’m right behind the bar and pool and even though it’s on the main road, you can’t hardly hear anything inside. Provided utensils very basic, will need to supplement (but didn’t). Unpacked very quickly. Had breakfast of Fruit & Fibre and milk. Hilariously discovered I’d picked up the wrong cheese and box from our fridge at home [I chose the ongoing cheese rather than the new one bought Saturday morning]. Still, should be enough to last me the week. Found that the fabled cash and carry supermarket as mentioned by woman online is right next door to Edelweiss. Turned around and walked back up main road find junction I espied on the bus earlier. First located bus stop, and bus times. Then turned left along road and walked towards Afandou village. Cash and carry closed Sunday so I needed another source of food. Road led me to a road that loops through village centre [maybe], and at first convenience shop I found everything I needed: butter, ham, a roll for today and lots of drink. Lots and lots of drink. Said Kalimera to old guy washing pavement. Shop guy spoke pretty good English but I baffled him with apples, bananas request. We agreed on fruit. He had no fruit. Broke 1st €20 note. Walked back hot and sweaty. Had texted Dad earlier; now texted Louise in Barcelona and wrote this. Next: welcome meeting at 12.30pm in the bar.

Jamie, 24, from Kent, cracked bad jokes in the style of someone who’s convinced he’s a standup comedian with potential who gets disabused of this notion every time he does it. He’s nice enough, though. As ever, the welcome meeting, spiced with a small glass of what may have been J2O, was really about selling you trips. Some of the trips are the same as were on offer in the 90s. Couple with kid next to me plumped for island tour by coach, and it is a good trip, but I’ve been there and bought the t-shirt. I drifted away, sun creamed up and headed out in search of the mysterious cut-through, which I didn’t find. I did find the village centre though, and bars and restaurants as recommended online and shall work my way through them, or not, as whim decides. Still seeking short cut I ended up instead on the other leg of the Spanish style road junction and decided to head down and check out the beach. Very sparse. Lots of space. Very few people around as the season draws to a close. Came back, showered, slept and read. Dinner adventure #1 beckons.

Wrote down bus timetable times and actually found the cut through to Afandou Centre, which is deviously unsignposted. May have found a sort of bakery near square, but that’s a long way to go for bread. Wandered back streets a little, eventually ended up at Four Seasons Restaurant with fabulously friendly owners/waiters, a big Greek bloke and a small Greek woman, 7 months pregnant. I had Grilled Chicken Breast Fillet in a pepper sauce with garlic bread and cheese. Delicious. Came with rice, chips, veg and mushrooms in the sauce. Very nice. Had weird-looking cappuccino for dessert. It came in a tall glass with a pile of squirty cream on top and a straw. And it was hot. €14 excluding tip. Wandered back over the cut through hill in darkness, tried to find nearer road [to Edelweiss] without success. By amazing chance, the TV in the pool bar was tuned to the Ryder Cup, but I was so tired I was completely unable to take advantage. Nine hours of sleep ensued.

Monday 22nd September 2008

Up at 7, had breakfast, ablutions, then to supermarket for bread, the fresh stuff not yet stocked on shelves. Great. Found brown-looking stuff with “unique taste” that smelled awful but at noon turned out to be adequate, if a little cakey. It’s true that the Greeks don’t really do bread. Made up brown stuff as rolls, proceeded to bus stop. Met Northern couple who were opposite me, they’ve since moved rooms for one with a safe. We proceeded to Lindos, with diversions. Common sense has raised its head since I last visited in 1995, and now the buses terminate at a car park outside Lindos up the hill from the square. A smaller, free shuttle bus now moves people from the terminus to the beach to the square. Much more sensible. I marched down to the square and wandered the streets of Lindos, looking for views and perspectives I hadn’t shot on my previous visits. Ended up down on the beach for lunch sat in a chair with a table that both looked unused. Thankfully the rapacious sun lounger guys ignored me and I could eat in peace. Wandered up to the tomb of Kleoboulos (the new monument I visited may not have been this tomb) whoever he is and then back to Lindos square. Took the free bus up to the terminus and waited for the not free bus. On the way down to the beach earlier I was toyed with by a very cute kitten with a collar. Cats run wild here and they’re all hardy, slim types, not bulky mature cats like our Thomas [our cat]. Lent my bottle opener keys to some Dutch or German blokes who’d bought bottles and carried no openers with them. They were Dutch or German, so that was their excuse. Bus back took us on a guided tour of Kolimbia, which would appear to have been claimed by Deutschland. Eventually got back via supermarket, which now has fresh bread so great; I had to pick up a stick thing in a liitle market in Lindos. Pause.

Nothing much to report of a quiet night in. Until the Billy Joel kicked in around 10pm. Nice. And then we had another storm with rain, thunder and lightning, but I was mostly out of it.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008

If Kolimbia has been claimed by the Germans it would appear Afandou has been ceded to Italy. There was a crowd of Italians waiting for the bus to Rhodes Town this morning, and me. It was standing room only all the way in. I was standing in the trough by the rear door and was first off the bus when we arrived half an hour later. First I found the information place looking for info about the medieval festival. Bugger all there. Then I went hunting for record shops and found Manuel Music Center first. It turned out to be the best of the three. I earmarked some stuff for credit card action on Friday and then spent the rest of the morning leafing through the vinyl in the basement. It had been picked pretty clean and there wasn’t anything essential. Found a never released in the UK Michael Nyman CD soundtrack in the bargain CDs and then augmented it with a Cibo Matto CD (yay!), a mid-price Vangelis CD and my out on a limb choice of a Guesch Patti CD from 2000, with what looked like a bonus CD glued to the front (this turned out to be the case). Shamefacedly, I then repaired to McDonalds for lunch. Strikingly, the woman serving the counter in Manuel Music had a fag on the go, and McDonalds patrons could smoke! Then tracked down X Musicland, which wasn’t what it was 14 years ago; the vinyl had gone and the choice was smaller, and also Top Ten, which was very weird, a small sidestreet shop run by an older woman.

I then proceeded to the Palace of the Grand Masters in time for the tour of the walls at 2.45pm, except a) the Palace was being repaired and the whole frontage was clad in scaffolding, and b) the tours appear to have been replaced by morning access to the walls from 8am to 11am Tuesdays to Saturdays. All very odd. Back to do that on Friday. I then occupied myself with taking pictures of German tourists; Germans abroad love to have tours organised for them. There was a mime dressed as a pirate and the first of two urchins armed with squeezeboxes. The whole Old Town looked awfully familiar. I then wandered the tourist traps of the most ridiculous [Socratous] street in Old Town, with shops that go on forever and ever. Amazingly, tucked under a stairwell, I found a bottle of Emery [wine] that I have fond memories of from years ago. I then left Old Town and wandered up outside the walls with the two harbours on my right. Appallingly, one of the deer that guards the entrance to Mandraki Harbour has been removed for refurbishment, and the remaining stag statue looks more than a little forlorn.

I relocated Lawrence Durrell’s home in the Turkish cemetery, and far from the neglect apparent last time, now it was all done up and home to a literary association, so hurrah for that. I then repaired to the Yacht Club and spent an hour lounging on a deck chair till it was time to walk back, buy a ticket and squeeze on the Lindos bus. It was No 19, the same bus I was on yesterday when I returned from Lindos, with the same driver. And he was decent enough to drop me off alone (just about) at Afandou Oasis again. Once more, it was standing room only on the bus and I had a heckuva job squeezing to the exit, but I made it. Time for another quiet night in.

Wednesday 24th September 2008

My poor feet are suffering a bit so I’ve decided to have a quiet day in. Very lazy morning with reading and sleeping, then a jaunt down to the Afandou beach in the afternoon. Very little going on. The sunbed didn’t do my back any good either. The Italians, who all seem to be staying at the Hotel Blu, have their own separate beach facilities, to which strangers are not welcome. They also have on beach boule tournaments. Have finally sussed out fruit situation in supermarket. You have to get it weighed separately and sticky labelled before taking it to the tills. Finished off 2nd half of dry Emery wine I bought yesterday. Must have been good as it sent me to sleep early. Now that I can’t get to the Tsambika monastery, I’m spending the next two days in Rhodes Town instead.

Thursday 25th September 2008

Nasty shock awaits when I get to the bus stop at 9am, there is me and about 40 Italians. Would it be the case that such a giant crowd means no bus is going to stop at Afandou Oasis until such time as the crowd has completely dispersed? Yes, it would. A whole bunch of the Italians disappear in taxis, which, being wealthy but somewhat mean Italians, is what they should have done in the first place. In the meantime, a coach driver at 10.30am takes pity on me {I’m now the only one left standing there) and I arrive in Rhodes too late to walk the walls of the Old Town. But not too late to proceed to Manuel Music Center and work my way through the A-Z rock CDs. Unfortunately, circa 12pm, my diabetic carbo need started to kick in and I had to take a break for sustenance. Had to walk an awful long way to score some Coke Zero 1.5 litre style. After break, trotted back into Manuel Music Center, completed the A-Z search and piled €100 worth of CDs on my credit card. I then took a long detour out to the west of Rhodes Town to the beach, and made a circular tour of the northernmost point of Rhodes, then back down the other side to the Yacht Club where I found myself on Tuesday. I arrived super early for the bus, scored myself a seat, and then got up to leave the bus well before we arrived at Afandou Oasis since I’ve now got the times down. My dinner plans for the evening are currently under reconsideration since a giant thunderstorm including lightning, torrential downpours and hail (great chunks of ice) has rather suddenly appeared, not quite from nowhere since the weather and visibility and sunlight have all been dispersing since mid-afternoon. It’s a storm with a vengeance; the only thing I know about such things is that this level of rainfall will not hold and this storm will pass. The tricky bit is whether there are any more of them. The rain it did not stop, so out I did not go.

Friday 26th September 2008

After yesterday’s embarrassing incident with the Italians, I was determined not to go through all that again. My alternate strategy was to leave my studio at 7am, march over the cut through hill to Afandou, passing a dead cat on the way, and catch the 7.30am bus from there to Rhodes. It arrived at 7.45, fashionably late, and I set down in Rhodes c.8.30, so it sort of worked. Once again, the bus took a different route in than any I had previously been on. I opportunistically got off the bus early and quickly found myself lost in the Old Town for the first time this morning. I eventually made my way to the Palace of the Grand Masters to pick up my €2 for the town wall walk. This certainly lived up to billing as it delivered great vistas across the Old Town as well as a sense of how much work it would all need to bring it up to date. I had the walls practically to myself; there was one other bloke and a couple of Japanese tourists. After descending absurdly dangerous steps at the other end of the walk, I got lost in the Old Town again. I eventually found my way out though and headed over to the commercial port to take some pictures of the enormous cruise liner, the Costa Fortuna [I’m not making this name up!], that was moored there. I bought a sponge loofer thing off a boat that kept moving as I was trying to find the best one. Then the rain came down again in a torrential downpour for an hour, during which I finished gift shopping and got a bit damp. The downpour fortuitously allowed me to find places off the beaten track. It was amusing to note how the hour long downpour turned all of the traders in Socratous Street into umbrella salesmen. I found the Romeo Taverna & Grill as recommended by the AA and inadvertently stumbled into a willkommen meeting for a group of Germans who’d clearly arrived the previous night. The rep’s presentation went on a bit, but was clearly more prepared and organised than our more humble English efforts in this area. Once again, there’s nothing the Germans like more than an authority figure telling them what to do. In the meantime, I was the half eleven rush at the Romeo, basically ordered off the menu and the burger and garlic bread were cheap and good. Result. I redid the circuit of the west, north and east beaches, but there had been some storm damage at the Yacht Club and as my perch was no longer really available, I gave it up as a bad job and returned to Afandou. In the evening, I ventured out again alongside the road in the dark with motorists speeding past me, passed the dead cat, climbed the cut through hill and ended up at the Four Seasons again. This time I had a Mythos beer [my beer of choice this week], more garlic bread this time without cheese, and a fantastic pork fillet in a creamy, mushroomy, garlicky sauce with a baked potato. It was all good; the big debate is what to have tomorrow and whether or not I have enough money to pay for it, though as they take MasterCard this may be a moot point. This late night meal made me very sleepy though, so it was off to dreamland for me. Final day tomorrow.

Saturday 27th September 2008

Long enough sleep but today begins the long unwind. Various bits of food are finally used up and seen off. The packing is rigorously organised as each bit of the room is scrutinised and rescrutinised for leave behinds until there is nothing left to pack. Although it’s more than a bit anal, my checklist makes it very easy. For the first time this week, I cracked open the patio door and gave the studio a pile of fresh air. The inevitable consequence of this was that a giant insect buzzed in. I may have swooshed it out again with a towel, I may not. Cats are very miaowy this morning. Since I packed up ahead of schedule, I decided fuck it, I’m gonna book out of here early, so I delivered my questionnaire to the rep who provided leaving details in return. Our hilarious pickup time is 2am. Left my case in the bar; Anna [owner] seemed terribly keen to unlock the safe I’d locked earlier in the week [and been unable to reopen]. Got to bus stop perfectly timed to catch bus to Lindos, standing all the way. I’d switched my rucksack to my travel bag, not too heavy. On arrival in Lindos, I walked down to the square and headed for my favourite spot halfway down the path [to the beach] for lunch. A boat was in, and there was lots of donkey traffic. Post-lunch, I found a spot by a boat on Lindos beach and lolled away the afternoon reading and also overhearing the travails of three young female Londoners who seemed to have been flooded in their apartment during the great downpour, or one of them, the poor bastards. You don’t expect to escape floodland Britain and end up flooded on one of the driest islands in the Med during one of the driest summers they’ve had. Around five, I left the beach and walked up the hill to the terminus, bought my ticket and was directed to the one leaving in five minutes. Result. Back at the pool bar, I swapped clothes in the pool loo and transferred some items to my case, read a bit, chatted a bit, and then over the cut through, past the dead cat, to the Four Seasons Restaurant. Had giant Coke Light rather than a Mythos, soup of the day which was tomato, onion rings and garlic bread (which was probably a tactical mistake), and then grilled chicken breast fillet with pepper sauce again, another Coke Light and that was it. Am officially low on euros so paid with MasterCard. Wandered up to the town square to see if anything was happening. It wasn’t. Did pass the Afandou equivalent of Rosie’s in Solihull where all the young people appeared to be gathering, being thrown out, riding around on mopeds without helmets, etc. Cats were a bit scampery this evening. Returned over the hill, said last rites over the dead cat, returned to the pool bar. Drifted in and out a bit, ordered my first and last drink from Don, yet another diet Coke, pint-sized. Decided to reignite brain by writing this.

PS. The Flight

Dan very generously provided us with free mineral water as the wait for the coach ticked on inexorably. Eventually, about ten minutes late at 2.15am, the coach arrived with a way too cheery rep and we were transported to the airport where a very curious thing happened. We Brummie travellers were placed in a long slow line behind one check-in desk while an earlier Manchester flight [marked delayed on the departure board] occupied three check-in desks. Only when the Mancunians had all been checked in were we switched to three desks and our Brummie queue began to move. This was all taking a lot longer than it should do, and we hadn’t even passed through security yet. Take off time was approaching. Anyway we checked in our bags and got our tickets, mine was 35A, a window seat at the back which turned out to be okay. As we were queuing (again) to go through security, the exact nature of the Manchester flight delay was revealed. They were meant to be due off at 4.45am, but due to a technical fault on their aircraft, they were instead due off at 3.15pm, 10 and a half hours later. So all the Mancunians had to troop back through passport control, including the young couple who were next door to me at Edelweiss in 1B, trek back down to the departure area, be rejoined with their luggage and shipped off to a hotel for the day (only to come back to the airport and do it all over again). Oh to be able to watch the Olympic Holidays reps who had to face a planeload of sleep-deprived, belligerent Mancunians. The issue here is why the Mancunians were checked in with baggage and passed through security when it must have been clear much earlier that they weren’t going to be leaving on time. By the time we got to the departure lounge, there was only about half an hour to go before we took off, and barely enough time to be gouged for €3.50 for a single Coke Light. Thank you, liquid ban bastards. I spent the flight back in a sleep-deprived daze, drifting in and out. Some excitement was supplied by a passenger who may have swallowed some tea the wrong way and found himself in need of oxygen. Swiftly and quietly through Brum Airport, the Tigger stickers rule.