Boys Don't Cry

I've seen a lot of films about boy sports recently -- Senna, The Fighter, The Wrestler, The Damned United  and so on. The one common feature of these films is that they have all been described as "not really being about X sport so much as telling the story of two men." Warrior is also tale of two men (brothers) but it is also about a boy sport of sorts, mixed martial arts (MMA), if you don't like the idea of cage fighting, you probably won't enjoy it. Interestingly, although it ran for 2h20, it was pacey enough that I didn't start to get twitchy until 1h45, and that was mainly because the final 40 minutes was almost all fighting and very little "tale of two dudes." I hadn't heard any reviews of Warrior; assuming I probably wouldn't be interested, I even tuned out of Dr Kermode's commentary of this film. It sounded a lot like The Fighter: two estranged brothers, who each have their own demons but who are brought together through their mutual desire to fight. But the two films follow two quite different paths.

In Warrior, Tom Hardy plays Tommy, the younger son of Paddy (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic and former boxer. The two have been estranged since Tommy and his mother left Paddy and Paddy's older son Brendan (Joel Edgerton), presumably because of Paddy's alcoholism, but now Tommy is returning home to small-town Pennsylvania because he wants to fight again. He was a prize-winning wrestler while at school but it is initially unclear what he has been doing since then. It later emerges that he was a marine who, while in the process of deserting after the rest of his unit is killed in friendly fire, tears a door off a tank to rescue some drowning troops. Presumably, he wants to do MMA to numb the pain or to distract him. I say presumably again because we don't find out that much of Tommy's back story and the parts we do learn are revealed briefly and rarely.

We do know a lot about Brendan, however, and initially he seems to have a perfect life: he's a popular physics teacher with a pretty wife and two young daughters. But he also works nights as a bouncer for a club to try to keep on top of the mortgage and after one of his daughters needs a heart operation, he can no longer make his payments and so decides to return to his old MMA ways to prevent his family losing their house. Then the school district superintendent finds out about his extra-curricular activities and suspends him for a semester. The only possible way he can keep his house is if he persuades his old friend Frank to coach him in the art of MMA and then enter Sparta, an MMA contest set up by a bored banker, which offers $5 million prize money. There are 16 contestants and it's a straight knock-out competition.

As Warrior is highly predictable, we know that the two brothers will fight in the final, after one of them has knocked out Koba, the bad-ass, Russian world champ. And although we are supposed to be proud of Tommy's heroism, it's hard to really root for him when it seems as though Brendan seems to have a much better reason for winning--and we when we've seen Brendan's pretty wife and cute daughters and think how awful it would be for them to lose their home. And when we keep cutting to shots of his high school students cheering him on back at home (they are showing the contest at a drive-in movie theatre). If he wins, Tommy has pledged to give the prize money to the wife of his best friend, who died with the rest of his unit, but she only gets about 25 seconds of screen time, so it's hard to be truly sympathetic.

Meanwhile, both brothers fall out with each other and with their father. Tommy's rejection of his reformed father seems so cruel until Paddy relapses and we finally get to see the father that he has been to Tommy and Brendan for most of their lives. None of these family issues are resolved at the end. In fact, not much of anything is resolved at the end and the film ends almost immediately after the winner is unveiled. I was torn between wanting Brendan to win because he was the underdog and because it seemed like he needed it more, and wanting Tommy to win because Tom Hardy is hot, even when he's excessively stacked and tattooed and has a US accent.

I didn't really need to see another movie about boy sports, especially not another one about boys beating the shit out of one another in a cage, for fun and profit, and I probably wouldn't have seen Warrior if O2 weren't giving their customers one free ticket to Odeon cinemas every week at the moment, but I ended up liking Warrior, even though the plot was more complicated than it needed to be and had too many irrelevant, minor sub-plots; even though there were were too many long fighting scenes; and even though only one of the main characters was developed very well.

When Pigs Fly

To commemorate, er, the 38 1/2-year anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon the reissue of Pink Floyd's back catalogue, some clever PR company decided to recreate the famous cover of the album Animals by flying an inflatable pig over Battersea Power Station once again today. It wasn't the same pig, it seems, as the original went on to provide inspiration for the Tamworth Two by escaping from its smoky prison.

Although Wish You Were Here is my favourite Pink Floyd song by quite a long stretch, it isn't every day you get to see a famous album cover being recreated (well, unless you live as close to Abbey Road as I do, that is), and it was just about feasible to get from my office to the river and bank in a (long) lunch break, so off we trotted.

I was expecting quite a crowd on the North Bank, near Pimlico, but there were just a few other joggers and photographers. My photo is, of course, taken from the wrong angle and I don't have any image editing software to flip it. Soon after we arrived, the pig seemed to lose its enthusiasm--or, at least, its helium--and started to sink towards the river, so I'm glad we arrived when we did. I still think it's pretty cool.

As for my own favourite album cover, I don't really have one. I don't own that many whole albums (many of those albums I once owned in full have since been culled down to my favourite two or three songs, in a bid to save space on a small hard disk drive) and I haven't saved the cover art of most of those. If pushed, I might say The Stone Roses's eponymous debut album but I don't have any strong desires to recreate it.

I've Got Reservations - The Sequel

One day after last week's excited post, detailing the London Film Festival tickets I'd secured, I received a phone call from the BFI telling me that the booking I had made for The Ides of March--the one where they had charged my card, sent me a receipt and a confirmation of my seat number--actually "wasn't associated with a seat." In other words, the BFI had had yet another website SNAFU.

Before I started to get too angry (well, maybe ten seconds afterwards), the very nice and helpful ticket assistant told me they were going to do everything they could to get me another ticket and, as I know that more tickets readily become available, even for the most popular films, during the run-up to the festival, I was fairly confident I would still get my ticket. This isn't quite the point, however; I don't mind when LoFiFest films are sold out but I do mind when I book a ticket, get the confirmation email and then get told that a seat hasn't been allocated for me.

The problem, it seems, was that the tickets that became available on Thursday were supposed to be reserved for Amex card holders (see the above photo of an ad in Saturday's Grauniad, which rubbed some more salt into my sore wounds) but the website didn't reflect this. As of today, I do have a confirmed ticket for the gala screening of The Ides of March and I'm very grateful to the BFI for sorting this out; I just wish they hadn't needed to sort anything out.

Dear BFI,

You have the same website problems every year during London Film Festival season and this year seems to be worse than ever. Please fix it!

Love,
Bex

Sunday in SoMaRo

After spending most of yesterday in Soho and SoBa (OK, the South Bank!) with The Ex, today I didn't roam beyond the quartier. On the way back from my Hyde Park run, I stopped by SoMaRo's newest (and possibly only) espresso bar, The Borough Barista, on Seymour Place, which opened just over a week ago. There are plenty of cafes in Marylebone but not very many places to get really good coffee, as evidenced by the fact that only one Marylebone purveyor of caffeine made my top eight.

I only had enough money for an espresso and although it was pretty good, with a decent crema, I have obviously been spoiled by my recent trip to New York where, these days, it's fairly easy to get a really excellent espresso that is rich, smooth and almost chocolatey. The BB's was a little bit bitter but still much better than the other options nearby. I'll definitely be back to try out a macchiato and maybe a pastry. There are a few small tables inside for drinking in (perfect for a Saturday morning post-run coffee-with-the-papers session), and, for now, some on the pavements. With the newish branch of Vinoteca and Homemade London, a new craft centre, which runs classes like book binding for beginners or making your own shoulder bag, plenty of interesting new places are popping up in this part of Marylebone.

After a shower, it was back down Seymour Place to the ill-designed and badly lit multiplex of doom Odeon to watch Drive (well, as I've seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Page One was only showing in Brixton, this was my best bet), which was interesting. It isn't the kind of film I'd normally rush out to see but Ryan Gosling as the mechanic/movie car stunt man by day and getaway driver by night was strangely compelling, despite the fact that his character barely speaks and we find out almost nothing about him, as he builds up a relationship with his neighbour, single mom Irene (Carey Mulligan).

I liked the juxtapositions of high energy car chases and graphically violent fight scenes with very calm interlude where Gosling's character just drives in contemplative silence, while inappropriate '80s synth pop pumps along on the soundtrack. I also liked the chemistry between Gosling and Mulligan, although I found it harder to care about--or even keep up with--the developments with the various "bad guys." Oh, and Christina "Joanie" Hendricks's ten minutes of screen time were fun, if only to see Hendricks playing the white trash hired to take part in one of his jobs. Overall, though, Drive was a beautifully shot and well executed but ultimately unsatisfying movie.

Ad Absurdum

I am obviously missing Mad Men more than I realised because the protagonists of the two books I read while I was on holiday in New York, Palladio by Jonathan "The Privileges" Dee and Charles McLeod's American Weather, were both ad men. The two books couldn't have been more different, however.

Jonathan Dee's book The Privileges was draped across the window of Daunt Books for most of last summer and I knew it was the kind of book I would like: young, privileged American couple fall in love, get married very young, move to Manhattan, and live out a privileged existence, which only starts to spiral out of control once their kids become teenagers. Palladio was written ten years earlier, in 2002, and although the themes are different, the novel has a very similar feel.

Molly Howe is a pretty, popular teenager growing up in a small town in upstate New York in the late 1980s, but when the whole town seems to find out about her affair with one of her father's friends, her parents shun her and she skips town to Berkeley to stay with her older brother. There, she meets a history of art student called John Wheelwright and they have a passionate relationship until she skips town again. Through alternating chapters, we meet John in the early 2000s, now a Madison Avenue creative for a top agency and with a successful, intelligent, lawyer girlfriend and, seemingly a perfect life. But when the "advertising visionary" Mal Osbourne offers him the job-of-a-lifetime at Palladio, the eponymous, innovative new agency he is setting up in South Carolina.

I liked the chapters describing Molly's childhood and teenage years, her messed up relationship with her family, especially her mother and her brother, who later turns evangelical Christian and tells her she is damned to hell for her lustful, sinful acts. I also enjoyed the story of John and Molly's relationship (inevitably, their paths collide again in the present day) but the parts of the novel involving Mal Osbourne and Palladio felt like Dee was trying to rewrite The Fountainhead for the advertising industry. The work is satirical in places, of course, but I felt these sections--presumably the cornerstone of the whole novel--didn't grip me or entertain me. I found the ending to be an anti-climax too (the same was true of The Privileges, although I liked that more overall).

As for American Weather, its protagonist Jim Haskin is quite another kind of ad man. Jim runs his own San Francisco-based agency, American Public, although his job mainly seems to consist of handling Etsy-related disputes among his overgrown-teenager employees while his sexy VP makes the important decisions. Jim's wife has been in a coma for months after she reacted badly to one of the antidepressants Jim's company was pimping; oh, and the insurance company won't pay up because they say propensity to this was a "pre-existing condition." Meanwhile, his lonely teenage son Connor has been shipped off to boarding school and writes letters to his father, which we read every other chapter or so. He expresses vague and just-about-caring sentiments about his family from time to time but it feels like he's much more concerned about getting a hot tennis star to pimp a particular product at a gala, or making sure he has the latest eco-friendly gadgets. Some of Jim's childhood friends him up with a demand for money and he comes up with the genius idea of televising death row executions, paying the criminals (well, ensuring the money goes to their favourite family member/friend) and tattooing them with the brands of the sponsors before they get the lethal injection.

Jim is definitely Patrick Bateman with some Don Draper thrown in--he isn't exactly unlikable but he is definitely sociopathic and as with Bateman in American Psycho, we are privy to Jim's every last meticulous, detached thought. He name drops, he brand drops, he's a control freak and just doesn't seem to be able to relate to people. Yet everyone thinks he's a success--a star. American Weather isn't violent like American Psycho but it is just as dark. It's also very funny. My favourite scene was probably when Jim decides to hire a call girl, makes her show up to an expensive hotel room, asks how much it will take for her to work all night, rather than going to her next "appointment" after two hours. Just when she's starting to get scared that he's going to do something really kinky or even dangerous, he sits her down at a computer and asks her to type every single thing she has ever wanted (material, immaterial, general, specific) into a document. Focus groups? Who needs a stinkin' focus group?

"Oh, I've Got Reservations"

This year's London Film Festival programme went live a couple of weeks ago and as I find it hard to browse online, I wanted to wait until I received my print copy before I pored through and made my selections. As I only got the programme when I arrived back from New York on Sunday and as online booking for BFI members opened on Monday morning, I had to get my skates on. I decided that although there was no "killer film" that I was desperate to see this year, my top choices from among the gala screenings were The Ides of March and Anonymous, with The Descendants and We Need To Talk About Kevin in third and fourth place. I was also interested in seeing Like Crazy (which did well at Sundance) from the "Film on the Square" category and, despite crap films for the past two years, the Surprise Film.

I avoided the postal ballot this year after last year's fail where I didn't get any of the good tickets through the postal ballot and had to wait until long after online booking opened before I found out which tickets I had been allocated. And as always, the BFI website completely failed to cope with the traffic on Monday morning and even by the afternoon, it was still very crashy. All of the films I wanted to see appeared to be sold out, apart from Live Crazy, where I got to the stage of entering my payment details before the site crashed. Later, I got an email from BFI apologising for their annual inability to deal with LoFiFest traffic and telling me that a ticket had been held for me for the time when I tried to put the payment through; I just needed to pay for it.

I was glad to have booked at least one ticket but disappointed not to have secured one of my top four. When I spoke to BFI, they told me there wasn't much point checking back on the website for the fully-booked films until 7 October, when more tickets would be released. However, past experience told me to ignore that and to keep checking. Sure enough, this morning, there were tickets available for the opening nights of all four films I wanted to see and so I pounced. For finance reasons, I decided to stick to The Ides of March and Anonymous for now, as although I'd like to see all four at some point, these are the two for which I would most like to attend a gala screening and (hopefully) see the cast and crew.

If a ticket pops up for the Surprise Film (or the free, members' version the following night), I might go for that too--it would be a case of third-time lucky for me, after the disappointments of Brighton Rock and Capitalism: A Love Story. It is the last year for Sandra Hebron, the Artistic Director of Festivals, to choose the surprise film and she has said that the pressure is on. I hope she gets it right this time and picks a) something that isn't a documentary and b) something really awesome, not just a dull and unnecessary remake.

About Last Night

I thought about watching Last Night when it came out in cinemas a few months ago but never quite got around to it as I assumed, rightly, that it was the kind of film that would be fine to watch on TV or on DVD--or on a plane, which was where I watched it last week. I was attracted to it in part because of the similar-sounding set-up to Closer, which I like a lot, even though my view is far from universal.

Like Closer, Last Night is about four people and the relationships between them, although unlike Closer, it takes place over the course of three days rather than several years. Jo (Keira Knightley) is a freelance fashion writer, struggling to make headway on her second book. She lives in an amazing Manhattan apartment with her husband Michael (Sam Worthington). They are apparently happy until Michael takes Jo to a work party and she meets his attractive female colleague Laura and her suspicions are aroused. That night they fight but sort of make up over scrambled eggs just before Michael takes off on a business trip to Philly with—wait for it—Laura (Eva Mendes).

Soon after he leaves, Jo goes to get coffee and bumps into Alex (Guillaume Canet), a former lover of hers from Paris whom she hasn't seen for two years. He's only in town until the following day so they agree to go for a drink that evening. And then the film cuts between the two mis-matched couples as Jo and Michael are both sorely tempted by their respective offers of hot Frenchman and flirty co-worker.

I don't know if Last Night is based on a play but it definitely feels very stagey—you would really only need a few locations, Jo and Michael's flat, a bar, a restaurant and a hotel—and I don't think it worked as well as Closer. For one thing, although Canet is hot, he's no Clive Owen (especially when Clive's in sexy, angry, sad mode). For another, I was quite convinced by Knightley and Worthington as a couple; they had good chemistry, and their characters seemed genuinely happy together. In Closer, none of the characters, apart from Owen's Larry, are very likable. They lie and they cheat and they are selfish and they hurt each other and they are really good at messing up relationships. This makes for good drama, however, and Last Night just felt a little too low-key. I was fine with the ending, where Michael returns home and we do not find out whether either or both of them confess what—if anything—they may have done the night before.

But although Closer is sad at times, it is a lively film, filled with Patrick Marber's sparky dialogue, particularly in the break-up scene between Larry and Anna. The characters fight and shout and banter and cry. In comparison, Last Night just felt rather tentative and understated. If the characters have true feelings, true emotions and true passions, they try to hide them and they don't let the audience in enough to really care. That said, I thought Knightley's performance was quite strong, although the script didn't really give the three other leads much opportunity to shine. But my initial summary of "decent plane fodder" turned out to be pretty accurate.

NYC: Goodbye Manhattan; Goodbye Summer

Although this latest New York trip of mine was only three nights long, we did at least have a full day in the city yesterday before our 10 pm flight. After a final Central Park run, we went for breakfast and I then headed down Fifth Avenue, past a host of Germanic marching bands, to do some final shopping.

I had hoped to go to Market NYC in Nolita but thanks to the San Gennaro festival, that part of Mulberry Street was out of action. I had planned to buy a salad from one of the normally ubiquitous salad bars and eat it in Washington Square Park but it took me until Tribeca to find one, by which point my legs were tired and so I ate in. This detour did, however, take me to another new espresso bar, RBC NYC. Their coffee machine is pretty awesome and they do a lot of adventurous blends but I just went for an espresso, which tasted good.

I bought a couple of t-shirts from Banana Republic and a few toiletries and other bits and bobs and then made my way back to the hotel for a last shower and to finish packing. Mum, Dad and I went for a last walk in Central Park, up the Mall and along the lake that starts near 72nd Street. By this point, the sunshine had long since faded and it was getting chilly. There was just about time for a quick visit to Lululemon, where I stocked up for the impending winter (in the pinky purple colour, of course) before we went for dinner at the Lincoln Center location P.J. Clarke's. I'd never eaten at that branch before and although it isn't quite as cool or characterful as the Midtown East restaurant, it was a nice place to sit and people watch on a Saturday evening. And the bacon-cheeseburger was, of course, flawless.

I got upgraded on the flight home and slept OK enough, but now I'm sleepy and it's cold outside and I'm already missing New York. Ah well; until next time...

State license plates spotted: 36 (including Hawaii)
Burgers: 2
Movie sets/near celebrity sightings: 3
New purveyors of espresso sampled: 2

NYC: Whatever Floats Your Boat

After our manicures yesterday morning, Maman and I decided to do a little Brooklyn. We caught the subway to Williamsburg and had a little wander, visiting some familiar places (Momofuku Milk Bar, Catbird and the nice indie book store on Bedford Avenue) and discovering some new ones, such as the lovely book store on Franklin Street, called Word, which had an excellent selection of Moleskines and cards, as well as books.

We had lunch at Five Leaves, sitting at one of the pavement tables in the sunshine. While we waited for our food (a burger for me—my first this trip), we were entertained by the girl at the next table who seemed to be some kind of (amateur?) singer and who talked very loudly about her Twitter followers, how plane travel was crap for short peeps and other exciting details from her life.

We also stumbled upon a shoot for the movie Gods Behaving Badly, which, it turns out, stars Alicia Silverstone, Sharon Stone and Christopher Walken. It was lunchtime so I didn't see anyone I recognised, although I did ask a guy standing on the set who was in it. He didn't tell me, possibly because he wasn't allowed to, possibly because he was trying to eat and possibly because he may have been Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who was also in the film.

Later, we caught the exciting new East River Ferry, which shuttles you from 34th Street in Manhattan to Wall Street, via various Brooklyn stops for the princely sum of $4. We went down to Wall Street and it was great fun—a fast ride and brilliant views of the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, the Empire State Building and the skyline in general.

In the evening, we ate at the Union Square Café, where I had some delicious chicken and a good, peachy cocktail, before it was time to head to the Barrow Street Theater for a production of Cymbeline (AKA Shakespeare was having an off day). The production was pretty good with some fine performances from some of the very small cast (most of whom played at least three characters); two of them (Emily Young and Ben Steinfeld) were also in the excellent production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson that we saw last year. There were a few good songs, although not enough of them, and in general, I was expecting more humour and irony, based on the review, whereas most of the laughs came in the last scene where about 20 different plot twists are revealed one after the other. Still, the intellectual crowd seemed very appreciative and I'd give them an award for best use of a crate in a Shakespeare play and best Milford Haven references...

NYC: Posh and Bex

After my run, Mum and I walked down Madison to Union Square. We wanted to visit Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace but it was closed so we settled for a hot beverage at Everyman Espresso (macchiato for moi, breakfast tea for Mum).

Then we met Dad at his company's NYC office, a few blocks from the north end of the High Line. It had been hot and intermittently sunny all morning but then, as forecast, the heavens opened. We sought shelter under the High Line and found that there were plenty of tables and a couple of food trucks. We opted for Mexican and enjoyed our tacos while watching the rain fall. By the time we had finished, the sun was out again and we were able to walk the length of the High Line, even managing a leap or two.

Let loose in SoHo for a few hours, I was relatively well behaved until I found a new boutique on Broadway called Aritzia, which had lots of cool, smart-casual clothes in nice colours. Best of all, they stocked some blazers from a brand called Talula, which I remembered a petite blogger had praised. Sure enough, the heather grey blazer I tried fitted perfectly and I ended up buying a pretty navy, pleated skirt with purple and pink pattens too, although I did manage to restrain myself from buying a lovely, pink, all-weather running top from Lululemon.

On the way to try out a new-to-me coffee bar, La Colombe Torrefaction, I saw a huge crowd outside Marc Jacobs. It turned out that Victoria Beckham was inside and they had closed the shop for her. I didn't see her, partly because the paparazzi were there with their stepladders and giant cameras and partly because she was in the changing room. I waited for a couple of minutes but then it started to rain again and I realised that I didn't really care about seeing Posh Spice.

We went for dinner with some of Dad's NYC colleagues in the Meatpacking District. We were supposed to go to the trendy steak joint STK, but we had booked a table on the rooftop terrace and it was pouring down with rain so we had to dine elsewhere—at Paradou, just down the street, to be precise. Paradou wasn't as hip as STK but it was much cooler, partly because we were in the tent-like extension out the back and they couldn't work out how to turn off the air con. The entrecôte and potato gratin were very good, however.

Initially, I greeted the cooler climes that accompanied the rain with open arms—yesterday was just too humid—now, though, I'm really glad I have a jacket, two scarves and my boots. Fall, it seems, has fallen upon us.

NYC: Good Morning America

The humidity hasn't died down this morning but the sun was shining, making my Central Park run very enjoyable. The view of the city from the top of the Jackie Onassis reservoir made it more than worth the early—and pre-caffeine—start.

Then I re-fuelled Stockholm-style at Fika, near the park with a very good double espresso and a kanelbülle, so now I'm raring to go.

NYC: Is It Thursday Yet?

After a very successful and punctual journey from NoMaRo to JFK, on disembarking from the plane, I was faced with a seriously long queue at immigration. When I was younger, I remember that it was normal to wait an hour but maybe I was just being an inpatient teenager. In any case, these days it usually seems to take about 15-30 minutes.

Today, however, I waited for over 90 minutes, not helped by the fact that it was roasting hot and there were only about five desks open. The BA rep tried to be helpful, offering to expedite anyone with a good excuse; good excuses included: being old and about to pass out, being loud and claiming to be about to pass out, having a connecting flight, having to board a cruise in two hours' time and being a BA gold member and/or business class passenger and complaining loudly and repeatedly about paying £7,000 for tickets. Sadly, none of these applied to me, although I did ask whether a "connection" to Brooklyn counted (it didn't).

But as my luggage arrived long before I did and the taxi queue was short, I was still in Manhattan by 3.15. The weather in Queens had been gorgeous and sunny but when we emerged from the Midtown Tunnel, the sun had vanished (or perhaps the two boroughs have different micro-climates). Manhattan, at any rate, was cloudy, humid and very hot, even at nine p.m.

I was only in the hotel long enough to drop my bags and freshen up before heading to the Rockefeller Center with Mum. The pink J. Crew skirt I liked turned out to be too pale and light in real life (I was hoping for fuchsia) but I did buy it in black, along with a pink patent leather belt and a purple scarf (guess my favourite colours...).

We went for dinner with Dad at the Trattoria dell'Arte, a family favourite. Last time we went, I was ill and didn't eat so I had forgotten how ginormous the pizzas are. They are also very tasty with balls of buffalo mozzarella as well as melted cheese. Luckily, the pizzas are also super thin and I had considerable help from Dad.

After the tiring week I've had so far, my brain is very confused as to what day it is and especially what time. I'm hoping that my body will just realise it really needs to catch some zeds and sleep through until seven, local time, when I'm going running in Central Park with Dad.

*Now* All My Bags Are Packed

OK, I lied. This will be my last post before Manhattan. As always, it takes me very little time to pack because I like to travel light. Into my 47x34 cm Kipling case, I packed the following for an almost-four-day trip:

• Two dresses (I'll be wearing the third tomorrow)
• One cardigan (I'll wear the other one)
• Two vest tops (in case I buy any skirts while I'm in NYC)
• Leggings (to sleep in and for the return plane journey)
• Underwear
• My new grey scarf
• Running kit: vest, shorts, trainers, water bottle
• Ballet flats and flip flops (I'll be wearing my boots)
• Toiletries and make-up
• Sunglasses and brolly (hopefully, only the former will be necessary)
• Turquoise wristlet (containing a necklace, a bracelet and the device that allows me to connect my camera's SD card to my iPad)

Once I've properly packed my toiletries and scarf in the morning, there will be plenty of room for all my inevitable NYC purchases. I'll be carrying my beloved Mulberry Mitzy onto the plane and she will contain, in order of importance:

• Passport (no boarding pass as I can apparently use my iPhone)
• iPhone
• Wallet, and purse containing my US currency
• My Moleskine New York city guide and a couple of black rollerballs 
• Camera
• iPad
• A book (Palladio by Jonathan Dee)
• Water (until it gets confiscated)
• Drugs (ibuprofen)
• Chewing gum
• A mini packet of Haribo

NYC: Back to Manhattan

My Moleskine NYC city guide is all fired up...if only I were ready to go! I'm only taking three days off work to go New York tomorrow morning but from the number of hours I spent in the office today, you would be forgiven for thinking I was going for longer. Now I just need to turn my control-freak tendencies from work mode to holiday mode.

J'arrive, NYC!

The easiest way for me to do this is by updating my Moleskine NYC city guide, writing down the addresses of new espresso bars, shops, restaurants and cocktail bars that might merit a visit. To make life easier for myself, I tend to record these in a Google Spreadsheet (which has the same tabs as the notebook--coffee, cafes, restaus, bars, shops, things to do, places to stay, places to avoid) and then copy them into the pending section of my notebook before a trip.

But to get myself in the mood for an NYC trip, I sometimes read some of my old NYC-themed blog posts; some of my favourites can be found in the Bex and the City tab. As for what I'm going to do on this trip, I haven't made a formal to-do list but I expect that it will involve most of the following (many of these are not new things for me):

• Go to directly to J. Crew. Do not pass Abercrombie. Try not to hand over more than $200. I find my J. Crew shopping is usually more successful if I haven't perused the website beforehand; however, I hope the pink skirt I like is still there, in my size and (preferably) on sale.
• After my J. Crew desires have been sated, I'll be visiting the new-to-me Kate Spade boutique. Oh, and on the subject of shopping, I'd also like to visit Market NYC, where I will probably buy yet another colourful necklace. 
• Check out some more new espresso bars from NYT's The Scoop list. Last visit, Bluebird, Think Coffee and Everyman Espresso were all new discoveries via The Scoop. La Colombe Torrefaction is on my to-caffeinate list and as I'm staying in Midtown, Zibetto will definitely come in handy pre- and post-Central park running. 
• Speaking of running, I will definitely do at least one circuit of Central Park; maybe two, unless I decide to run over Brooklyn Bridge on the second run instead.
• The High Line will, no doubt, feature at some point (unfortunately, I'll miss screenings of Strangers on a Train and Some Like It Hot).
• I certainly hope I'll be drinking an exquisitely mixed cocktail, preferably somewhere new like Mulberry Project; well, or my old favourite, Employees Only.
• I don't have any new restaus on my list since my last visit, but I would happily revisit Pulino's, Minetta Tavern, Five Leaves and Fanelli's.

Before I can do any of this, however, I must pack. Farewell until Manhattan!

L'Amore Tradotto

For the first half of my undergraduate degree, I was technically a pure modern languages student (although I was taking so many linguistics papers that my purity may be doubted), studying French and Italian. In both of these first two years, I had to take one general grammar/use-of-the-language paper and one translation class for each language, along with additional literature or, in my case, linguistics papers.

In the first year, you translated into English and in the second year, you translated from English. In the translation exams you had, I think, two hours to translate two texts, with no dictionary. This is, of course, highly unrealistic given that in a real-life setting, you would have access to a dictionary and any other reference works you need. At the time, you would also be unlikely to be asked to translate out of your native language, although after having to translate ten highly technical geoscience-related press releases into French as part of my job last year, I am reconsidering this point. How well you did in the exam was a bit of a lottery depending on which texts came up--I remember getting a high first in my translation-from-Italian mock exam in my first year and then only a high 2:1 in the real thing. As for the second year, you try translating an extract from 2001: A Space Odyssey into Italian in one hour with no dictionary! Especially when you didn't even realise it was 2001 because the only identifying information was: "Author: A. Clarke."

Anyway, I always rather liked my translation classes--doing a good translation often felt like solving a tough crossword, with so many things to consider. My first year translation-from-Italian supervisor (who was in the process of translating Dante's Inferno) always insisted that we should be translating "for [our] soul" rather than for the Tripos exams we were taking. I didn't see it that way at the time but I was interested to read David Bellos's new book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, which highlights some of the trials, tribulations, joys and jubilations of translation. It was a relatively quick read for me, partly because some of the material was very familiar, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Bellos, who was brought up in England but has lived and worked extensively in the US, is used to having his English de-Britted or de-Yanked by subeditors. The resultant copy is in a language he calls Tranglish. In the book, he outlines some of the general difficulties translators face on a regular basis and then looks at some more specific cases: politics (at the EU or UN, for example), law, religion news, jokes and literature. What happens when you're translating Tolstoy into French, for example, given that some of the source texts contain sections of dialogue in French, as was standard for the Russian bourgeoisie at that time? This is an example of translation loss and you would have to add the meaning back, perhaps by using a particular dialect or register of French. And although computers can play chess, they still can't produce a very faithful translation of Proust, despite the advances made by Google Translate.

But even when you're looking at translating individual words, it's challenging when very few concepts, except perhaps biological species and some other scientific terms, have exactly the same meaning when translated into another language. The Russians have different words for light blue and dark blue (which is fine if the translator is translating a text about the sky but more difficult if she doesn't know what shade of blue is being described in the source text) and we all know about the Eskimos and their words for snow (Bellos counters this by pointing out the dozens of words we have for coffee, as anyone who has tried to order just "a coffee" in Starbucks will know).

Bellos concludes as follows: we all speak different languages but we're all really the same. So, "translation is another name for the human condition." And I think my first year supervisor would definitely concur.

It's Grim Up North, Episode 94

I don't like period dramas. Brontës, Janes and Austens have never appealed and lest I be accused of bias against female 19th century writers, I don't like Dickens, Hardy or Thackeray either. Call me a philistine, but I really only enjoy reading books written after about 1940 (or in 14th century Italy). And call me a philistine, but I'd just rather watch Clueless than read Emma. I struggled through Wuthering Heights and one of Austen's novels (not P&P; probably S&S) and decided I'd done due diligence.

So, I am not exactly the target audience of the new Jane Eyre film but there aren't many good films out at the moment and although Kill List was higher up on my must-watch list, Odeon currently have a 40% off voucher and Kill List wasn't on at convenient times in any of the central London Odeons.

I haven't read the novel or seen any of the film or TV adaptations but I knew the plot and so there were no great surprises. Mia Wasikowska, doing her third different accent in as many films, was great as the eponymous Jane, although Judi Dench, playing Mrs Fairfax, rather stole the show, even though she didn't have many scenes (almost all of the laughs and titterings were in response to her lines) and although neither of the leads were British, many of the smaller roles were taken by Brits I've seen in other recent films or TV shows, such as Holliday Grainger (Any Human Heart), Tamzin Merchant (last seen losing her head in The Tudors), Craig Roberts (Submarine), Imogen Poots (Bouquet of Barbed Wire), and so on. As for Mr Rochester (Michael Fassbender), well, he was perfectly handsome (despite his claims to the contrary), charming and contradictory.

The film managed to achieve an air of gothic unease and the moors looked beautiful in a dramatic, isolated kind of way but although I tend to prefer dramas to comedies, Jane Eyre was a little too dour and a little too full of miserable, stoical northern peeps for my liking. At just over two hours, it was also a little too long but this wasn't helped by Odeon incompetence: someone thought it would be a good idea to turn on the lights ten minutes before then end of the film. Nice one, Odeon...

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Last week, the ever-reliable Daily Candy recommended a new Clerkenwell restaurant called Meatballs in last week's weekend guide for London. It only opened last week and as it wasn't too much of a jaunt from King's Cross, we paid a visit one lunchtime this week. Before this year I had never eaten meatballs; after nine years of vegetarianism, it still took me a while to get into the whole meat-with-sauce type dishes, such as bolognese. But thanks to the combined efforts of Stockholm and Spuntino, I discovered that they are essentially like mini burgers, especially when they come slider style, in tiny buns.

Meatballs, which is located on the site of The Quality Chop House, on the Farringdon Road. "Meatballs is now proud to make its home at The Quality Chop House and welcome a new generation of working class Londoners," they say on their website. "The only difference is that our customers are now mostly working at a computer." And indeed, the decor is a quirky combination of working men's club and 1950s diner, with plenty of trendy, meedya-friendly fonts thrown in for good measure.

There are a few salads on the menu but if you don't like meatballs, you're really better off choosing another restaurant, although there are some veggie options. You can choose three balls for £3.95 or have them as sliders in mini-buns for £5.95. I went for porky and rosemary, chicken, and one of the current guest ball, Swedish meatballs. I'm not sure what meat was used in the Swedish ball and I also think the waitress misheard and gave me two pork instead of one pork and one chicken, but all three were very tasty. We also had some of the honey and thyme carrots on the side but there was definitely no need for further carbs and I was very full for the rest of the day.

This is partly because they also serve milkshakes (hence the '50s diner feel), and inevitably, I opted for the peanut butter one. Were it not lunchtime, I would definitely have liked to try the blueberry gin and tonic; the chocolate brownie ice cream sandwich, the frozen chocolate cake and the minted lemonade also need sampling on future visits because I will definitely be back. Oh, and they do takeaway too, which could be useful if the English weather doesn't jump straight from summer to Arctic winter again this year.

Meatballs at The Quality Chop House. 92-94 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3EA (Tube: Farringdon). Website. Twitter.

My 2011 LoFiFest Hopes

With only 26 days until the start of the 2011 London Film Festival, I'm already starting to get excited about this year's selection of films. The BFI will, apparently, be announcing the full programme tomorrow and they are holding a members' preview on Thursday, hosted by Sandra Hebron, the Artistic Director of Festivals.

We already know that Fernando Meirelles' movie 360 and Terrence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea will feature as the opening and closing night galas, respectively. Both films sound interesting and have a great cast but I had such a fantastic time at last year's opening night gala for Never Let Me Go (and I was very lucky to spot and nab two great tickets, long after the screening was sold out) and I'm not sure that either of this year's selections can compete. And now that I've done an opening night gala, I know that this year, I don't need to go all out to attend (especially for a £30 ticket price).

As I wait to find out the other films that will form part of this year's festival, I've been scouring the "coming soon" section of IMDb's website for films that will be released in or after October and picked out my top five most anticipated movies. These aren't my predictions; just some films I'd like to see and, in some cases, think a Q&A with the director and/or cast would be interesting. In no particular order (with director; key cast members; IMDb plot summary and my notes):

The Ides of March (George Clooney; George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, etc. An idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. Based on the play by Beau Willimon. What's the betting it's too "stagey"? The trailer looks great, though.)

Contagion (Steven Soderbergh; Matt Damon, Kate Winslett, Jude Law. An action-thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak. OK, so it doesn't sound highly novel but I like the peeps.)

The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg; Craig, Pegg, Serkis, Bell. Tintin and his friends discover directions to a sunken ship commanded by Capt. Haddock's ancestor and go off on a treasure hunt. I really hope this is good, but it could be really bad...)

Anonymous (Roland Emmerich; Rhys Ifans, Rafe Spall, Richardsons Major and Minor (playing Elizabeth I, young and old). A political thriller advancing the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays; set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her. OK, so it doesn't sound highly novel but I can't resist a good Tudor intrigue.)

We Need To Talk about Kevin (Lynne Ramsay; Tilda Swinton.The mother of a teenage boy who went on a high-school killing spree tries to deal with her grief--and feelings of responsibility for her child's actions--by writing to her estranged husband. Based on Lionel Shriver's book of the same name (which I liked). This movie made a pretty big splash at Cannes this year too.)

Token Clive Owen hope: The Intruders. The trailer doesn't look very promising but Clive's so hot when he's being all papa-grizzly and it's either this or Killer Elite...

Also of note:

• The Logan's Run-esque In Time
• Depp goes all Journos of the Caribbean in The Rum Diary
• Immortals, which looks crap but stars the Duke of Phwoar
• Dominic West and Rebecca Hall go back to the 1920s for The Awakening
• Michelle Williams tries her hand at Marilyn, with plenty of Brits, in My Week with Marilyn
• David Fincher's take on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; 

After last year's botched booking-by-post fiasco (which seems to have inspired the ticket process for the 2012 Olympics), I'm going back to online booking this year. For my advice on how to get tickets for your favourite LoFiFest films, take a look at this blog post.

Edit: This year's programme is now online here. Four of my top five are indeed featured (along with many more that didn't quite make my shortlist).
Another edit: Actually, only three out of five are there as I took out another Clooney-fest, The Descendants, at the last minute.