#Croydon Writers

[insidecroydon]

£1.3m in Culture grants, but not a penny for Croydon Writers

CROYDON COMMENTARY: As a herd of fibre-glass giraffes are distributed around the borough – paid for at least in part by a £50,000 grant from the Borough of Culture – ETHEL CORDUFF outlines how one of the borough’s oldest arts organisations has been snubbed Snubbed: world-famous author Cicely Mary Barker, Croydon Writers and the written word have been ignored by the Borough of Culture We were…

[untouchablecow]

i am whole. i am well. i am loved. i am healthy. i am happy. i am getting better. i am growing. i am evolving. i am changing. i am safe. i am supported. i am free. i am worthy. i am grateful. i am a survivor. i am healing. i am a helper. i am a singer. i am a songwriter. i am a multifaceted creative. i am a musician. i am a songwriter. i am living. i am a healer. i am blessed. i am desi. i am south east asian. i am tamil. i am disabled. i am deaf. i am neurodivergent. i am queer. i am everything society told me not to be.

25 going on 26 making another solar return.

i am, i can and i will be everything society told me not to be ♥︎

[denimbex1986]

'Since its debut screening at Telluride, All Of US Strangers has been greeted with critical raves, multiple awards nominations and filmgoers moved to tears by its quietly devastating story. Set in modern London, though featuring periodic detours to one of its southern suburban towns, it tells of a screenwriter, Adam (Andrew Scott), who tentatively begins a relationship with a charismatic neighbour, Harry (Paul Mescal).

As the romance develops and deepens, Adam is drawn back to the place where he grew up and the suburban childhood home he left when he was 11 after his parents died in a car crash. There, both his mum (Claire Foy) and dad (Jamie Bell) appear to still be alive, just as he remembers them from decades earlier.

Writer/director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years) used the home he himself was raised in as the location for the scenes featuring Adam and his parents. It lends a deeply personal resonance to a film that received seven prizes at December’s British Independent Film Awards and is now in contention for six Baftas, including for outstanding British film.

Screen International spoke to the director about four key scenes from the film - spoilers follow.

Adam and Harry meet for the first time

The scene: When a fire alarm drives him from his tower block apartment, Adam sees Harry looking down from a window. Soon after, a drunken Harry turns up at Adam’s door. The pair have a flirtatious conversation, but Adam turns Harry away.

Andrew Haigh: “We found it complicated to find a building to double for Adam’s tower block, because they are usually owned by multinationals who don’t want you to film in them. But we found a building in Stratford, on the edge of London, which suited a person like Adam who has locked himself away from the world and has a routine that keeps him in that aloneness.

“We did the interior of Adam’s apartment on a soundstage, and had big LED panels with the outside of London projected on them. I wanted the film to have a sort of strangeness from the very beginning that felt slightly shifted from reality, and those LED panels gave it that. Director of photography Jamie Ramsey was able to do something slightly different with the focus - the deep background outside is more in focus than it ever would be if you were shooting in a real apartment. That was enormously useful in bringing a slight oddness to being in this room.

“When Adam opens the door on Harry, we first see Harry’s face in a mirror on the wall. There are a lot of mirrors and reflections in the film, and I like it here because it’s as if Adam is being faced with a reflection of himself — someone else who is intensely alone and is reaching out and looking for help. It was a hard scene for Paul — he’s got to play drunk, be flirtatious and sexual, but also some desperation has to be leaking out underneath the surface. It can’t just be a ‘meet cute’, there has to be a reason why Adam shuts the door on him.

“I can’t tell you how many different sounds we listened to with Joakim Sundström and the sound team. There are so many levels of sound going on within this scene — different air vents, different tones, the deep rumble of a lift coming up and disappearing. I love also the moment of silence between them when it gets really quiet. If people are eating popcorn in the cinema, they are going to have to stop eating at that moment.

“There was a bit of dialogue at the end of the scene where Harry got quite angry with Adam. But it just didn’t feel right in the end, it felt like it was pushing it too far in one direction.”

Adam comes out to his mother in the kitchen

The scene: Returning to his childhood home in Sanderstead, Croydon, for the second time, Adam finds his mum alone. Over tea and flapjacks in the kitchen, he tells her that he is gay. Her discomfort and judgmental attitude make for an uncomfortable encounter.

Haigh: “What is important about this scene is that it is doing two things. It is about a son telling his mother that he is gay, but it is also about an adult living now being reminded of what it felt like to be gay in the 1980s. I remember growing up at that time [Haigh was born in 1973] and how Adam’s mum feels is how everybody thought about gay people. It was a rough time to be gay, and suddenly Adam is back there again - all this icky pain starts to bubble up as his mum is talking.

“I didn’t want to demonise the mother. It is clear to me, and Claire plays it exactly like this, that she absolutely adores her son. But she lives in a time when her opinions have been formed and forged by the culture she lives in. Claire knew she had to be that person from the ’80s, and she absolutely threw herself into how her character would have felt. It’s a hard thing to do, and she did it beautifully.

“The role of tea is paramount and we talked a lot about it. When does the mother pour? When do they just hold their cups? When does Adam play with the flapjacks? They’re all fundamental to understanding the subtext. The mother has made flapjacks, something he always loved as a kid, and at the end she decides not to eat them. That’s quite brutal, as if this beautiful, nostalgic thing has been fundamentally altered.

“Costume designer Sarah Blenkinsop wanted all the costumes to have texture. You know what the teal velour tracksuit Claire wears in this scene feels like to touch, and that is another way to drag you back into the past. The whole film is trying to find ways to transport us back to a past, and if your mother had worn something like that, it would be something that you would always remember. The costumes and the way the house is decorated are to remind the audience we are in the middle of the 1980s.

“The house we shot in was not a big house. It’s a small, semi-detached house with a whole crew in there trying to film the scene. But I love the limitations because it means no-one can be in the room apart from you, the actors, the camera [operator] and the boom op. Everyone else is away, and it makes it feel so intimate.”

Adam and Harry go to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern

The scene: After having sex in Adam’s apartment, Adam and Harry go to a nightclub. There they drink, dance and snort keta­mine. The evening becomes dreamlike and euphoric as the drug kicks in. They kiss passionately on the dancefloor.

Haigh: “Before this, there is a beautiful moment with Adam and his dad where you feel a deep connection and that something has been solved between them. There is a lightness to Adam at this point; a burden has been lifted and he wants to go out and show the world he’s in the early stages of a romantic relationship.

“I used to go to the Vauxhall Tavern all the time in the 1990s. There was a night called Duckie on Saturday night, which I was always going to. I lived in nearby Kennington at the time and it was a special place. It was an alternative venue that played such a wide range of music, so for me it felt the only choice to shoot in.

“Club scenes are difficult to get right, and the only way to get them right is to feel like you are in a club — that it’s late at night, you’re sweating and you’ve been dancing too long. So we played music for ages, and everyone was dancing before the camera was even rolling. We shot during the day in the height of summer with 150 people, so it was really hot and sweaty. But it needed to be loud and feel like you were being pushed from one side to another.

“The lighting in the club was limited, so we put in lots of vibrant pinks and deep purples. There is something sexy and dark and erotic about that colour scheme that speaks to gay clubs of the past. The scene feels so different from the rest of the film, but it also recalls colours that we use elsewhere. I love how the lighting scheme develops and how we start to make it stranger and a little bit uncomfortable.

“I don’t think we planned the shot where Adam and Harry kiss, with the light streaming behind them. But I wanted them to kiss each other and the light was behind them and it felt like such a magical moment. It’s like the whole world disappears around them and you’re just focusing on this beautiful, sensual, wondrous moment. They’re gay people in the safe space of a queer club and they can be exactly who they are, in public.

“There’s no point pretending the club scene is not associated with drug-taking — it has been since the dawn of time. You may as well be matter-of-fact about that, rather than try to make a moral argument.”

Adam and his parents go to the High Hat diner

The scene: Sensing their time together is drawing to a close, Adam goes with his parents to an American-themed diner he enjoyed visiting as a child. There they ask about how they died, before departing.

Haigh: “I knew there would have to be a goodbye scene. This film would make no sense if the parents were constantly going to be there. They’ve come back to help Adam, and he has got to the stage where he doesn’t need them anymore.

“Beginning the scene with ‘If I Could See (Through The Eyes Of A Child)’ by Patsy Cline was a bit of a random choice. I wanted a song that spoke to the Americana of the location — a theme restaurant in a brutalist shopping centre that was actually a TGI Fridays. When I was a kid, the height of glamour was going to a Happy Eater or Little Chef by the side of a motorway, which were the British version of American diners. The most exciting moments from when you were young can be so strange when you look back at them.

“I love the triangular composition, where you see all three heads. You’ve got the parents on both sides of Adam, helping him move forward like angels on his shoulder. They’re like an extension of Adam’s mind, and of course you could see the film that way if you wanted to - that all of this is only existing within his head.

“We had a lot of questions about how the parents would vanish. I wanted it to be simple because that is what happens when you lose someone. We used an optical effect to have the light in their eyes gently fade. And then they are gone, and it’s just Adam alone with three milkshakes on the table and nobody else around him.

“Crying on camera is a strange thing — it has to feel real and honest or it looks like it’s been forced. With Andrew, there was no holding him back; there was nothing he could do but cry in that moment. It was an emotional scene to shoot and it took some stamina. We spent a whole day on it, and half of the crew were crying.

“Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch did a wonderful job with the music. She was smart in saying we didn’t want much in this scene, and that overplaying it would make it far too sentimental. It is on the edge of sentimentality anyway, but you’ve got to stay on that edge; you can’t fall over the top of it. It was a real balancing act, and I think the way her score builds and shifts and rises is really powerful.”'

[moviereviews101web]

First Man Into Space (1959) Movie Review

First Man Into Space – Movie Review Director: Robert Day Writer: John Croydon, Charles F Vetter (Screenplay) Writer: Wyatt Ordung (Story) Cast Marshall Thompson (Fiend Without a Face) Marla Landi (House of the Baskervilles) Bill Edwards (Floods of Fear) Robert Ayres (A Night to Remember) Bill Nagy (Goldfinger) Plot: The first pilot to leave Earth’s atmosphere lands, then vanishes; but…

[robertleechestateagents]

Amazing Facts About Reigate

We may all think that we know Reigate like the back of our hand but maybe not… here are a few interesting, if not surprising, facts about our beloved town.

On the Rocks

If you were a teenager in the 80’s, Reigate was the not the hub of excitement that it is today. There was no Mishiko’s or Joules but if you were in the know the place to go was On the Rocks, a subterranean nightclub in caves beneath the one-way system – where the Reigate Kebab Shop now stands. The entrance was to a small wine bar but it gave no clue to what was going on below. My own, vague, memory is watching a band while drinking Singapore Slings, it was dark and musty but quite an experience! The club later became Batchelors but sadly was shut down in 1994 due to health & safety reasons and it is believed that these particular caves had to be filled due the traffic going up to the M25.

Churchill Loved Reigate

Throughout history, Reigate and the North Downs have played an important part in the defence of Great Britain. Just 20 miles south of London, this stronghold has the strategic advantage of extensive views southwards, stone, chalk and sand quarries, underground tunnels and hidden byways disguised by plenty of tree cover. This was all familiar territory to Winston Churchill, who became Prime Minister soon after the start of World War II. Over several decades he visited the town, including the grand Georgian manor house on Church Street which is now home to Jack Wills and his signature can also be seen in the guest book of Reigate Priory. The Churchills were often weekend party guests at the Priory, then owned by the former Admiral of World War One, Earl Beatty and his wife.

After the war,m Winston left his legacy in the form of his pet blue & gold macaw Charlie, who rumour had it; lived in an aviary off Flanchford Road until the ripe old age of 105!

The Unusual Church on the Heath

The iconic windmill on Reigate Heath is actually a church. Part of At Mary’s Parish the windmill is thought to be the only one in England consecrated as a church. Regular monthly services are held in the Mill Church during the summer months on a Sunday evening, as well as occasional services throughout the year. The church also holds a popular afternoon Christmas Carol Service each December.

Reigate Heath’s Murky Past

Reigate Heath has had an eventful history; 200 years ago it was a wild unfriendly place, covered with gorse and heather. Woe betide the hapless traveller who ventured into the area on their way from Reigate to Dorking. Highwaymen and brigands lay in wait and it is rumoured that the chimney of a local tavern, ‘The Skimmington Castle’, was used as a look-out post by the robbers to spot their victims approach.

But anyone who was caught and convicted as a highwayman was guaranteed to meet their end on the Heath too. A gibbet was erected at a site now called ‘Galley Hill’, which was named after the gallows which once stood there. Local legend has it, a former landlord of the nearby Black Horse pub in West Street, was hung there after being convicted of highway robbery.

Reigate’s very own Natural History Museum

Behind a wall at the beginning of Croydon Road is one of the UK’s oldest natural history societies. Founded in 1857 the Holmesdale Natural History Club holds a fascinating collection of natural history, archaeology, local history and geology collections. Exhibits range from medieval drainpipes and giant fossil ammonites to an extensive collection of Victorian and Edwardian stuffed birds and locally produced Roman tiles – complete with the footprint of a local Roman dog.

For more information including opening times visit www.hnhc.org.uk

Reigate’s 13 Most Famous Residents

Dame Margot Fonteyn – prima donna ballerina, was born in Reigate in 1919

Spike Milligan – writer and comedian, used to live at Woodhatch in Orchard Way

Norman Cook – Superstar DJ raised in Reigate and attended Reigate Grammar School

David Walliams – TV personality, Author attended Reigate Grammar School

Guy and Howard Lawrence, together as a band known under the alias Disclosure, both born and live in Reigate

Newton Faulkner – English singer-songwriter and musician born in the town

George Best – Manchester United and Northern Ireland football player lived his last years near Reigate

Melvyn Hayes – aka Gloria in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum was a resident of Glovers Road

Cliff Mitchlemore – presenter of the BBC Holiday programme,

Jane Slaughter – Tracey the barmaid from Eastenders.

Phil Tuffnell – Cricketer lives near Reigate

Max Chiltern – British racing driver born and lived in Reigate

Ray Mears – English woodsman, author and TV presenter attended Reigate Grammar School

Want to find out more about how the Robert Leech Reigate team can help you with your property needs visit here.

Content source - https://www.robertleech.com/amazing-facts-about-reigate/

[itsrattysworld]

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[ajoytobeheld]

We're gonna walk around this city with our headphones on to block out the noise

October 15th, 2009

Well this totally fucks up my provisional list of Albums of The Year…

Just moments ago I received an email that read like this:

“I came across your blog mentioning Nosferatu D2 as one of your favourite bands & their infamous last gig with you. I thought you may like to know that for the longest of time and noblest of reasons, I’ve been forming a label around releasing their debut album…Tomorrow morning brings the day that the stock arrives (and floods my bedroom)”.

So finally, one of my favourite records of all time gets a tangible CD release.

Nosferatu D2 were brothers Ben and Adam, from Croydon, South London. I’d not want to attempt to explain what they sound like, because I couldn’t do it justice. But Adam is louder and more adept than three men behind the drums, and Ben is one of my absolute favourite lyricists. I honestly believe if enough people had heard his lyrics, he’d be rightly held up as one of the absolute best writers of our generation.

1. Broken Tamagotchi 2. A Footnote 3. Colonel Parker 4. Flying Things and Pests 5. I Killed Burt Bacharach 6. 2 People, 0 Superpowers 7. Mojo Top 100 8. Springsteen 9. We’ll Play The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood A Thousand Times Tonight 10. It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)

If you have a spare £6 and the desire to hear some of the most vitriolic, truthful story telling you’re likely ever to hear, then I recommend you follow this link.

I tip my hat to Audio Antihero for making the bold step of releasing this album, and really hope this helps Nosferatu D2 reach the wider audience their songs have always deserved.

[sims-4-work-daily-task-ch4f]

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[insidecroydon]

In memory of Arno Rabinowitz, always positive, always a friend

ARNO RABINOWITZ died at the weekend. He had been one of Inside Croydon’s earliest and staunchest of supporters, and one of our most frequent and most sage of comment writers, even gracing the pages of Croydon Commentary on occasion. Here, his neighbour and party colleague, Jerry Fitzpatrick, pays tribute to his old friend Arno Rabinowitz, 1934-2024 Fifty years ago, Arnold Rabinowitz was on a list…

[aikainkauna]

As threatened in this post:

http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/176834034958/would-your-oc-what-does-your-ocs-fashion-style

The 800s Persian/Viking dorks if they were introduced to modern fashions.

[denimbex1986]

'So … did you cry? All of Us Strangers has finally been released in the UK after leaving cinemagoers in the US, and at various film festivals, in floods. It’s won seven gongs at the British Independent Film awards and is up for six Baftas, but no Oscars – whatever. For me, the film’s achievement is the way it’s managed to talk about love, grief and loneliness in such a powerful and original way. I first saw it at the end of September when it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I can honestly say that I’ve thought about it every single day since.

When I interviewed writer-director Andrew Haigh before Christmas, he told me that while he had designed the film to be increasingly dreamlike as it went on, the plot underneath was logical. Nonetheless, he said that he was open to other interpretations. So let’s dig into them, shall we?

When did Harry die?

At the end of All of Us Strangers, Adam (Andrew Scott) returns to his flat after meeting the ghosts of his parents for the final time. He goes to Harry (Paul Mescal)’s apartment, which he’s never entered before, and is knocked back by the smell of a decomposing body. Then Harry’s ghost appears, holding the empty bottle of whisky he was drinking when he came to Adam’s door looking for late night company at the start of the film.

It seems reasonable to assume that after being rejected by Adam, Harry went back to his flat, finished the whisky, took ketamine (Adam finds a baggie) and died of a drug and alcohol overdose, meaning that as well as reuniting with his parents who are ghosts, Adam has been having a love affair with one too.

So, about those sex scenes …

Adam is only able to let his guard down enough start his relationship with Harry once he confronts his past and meets the ghosts of his parents – after he’s first come back from Croydon, he gets together with Harry after their discussion about the terms “gay” and “queer”.

After Adam has come out to his mum (Claire Foy) back in Croydon, he has sex for the second time with Harry, who has encouraged him to take a bath because he’s feverish. It’s never made explicit in the film, but Haigh told me that Adam starts to feel unwell after his mum mentions Aids, and in the bath he tells Harry (who has no such hangups) that for years he had been too frightened of the disease to have sex with anyone. Later on in the film, as Adam runs through the tube train tunnels looking for Harry, there are old public information posters about Aids on the walls. In order to break out of his repression and fall in love, Adam has to lay to rest his terror of catching HIV.

What happens in the club?

Shot in the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, one of Haigh’s old haunts, this is the only big musical moment that isn’t set to an 80s hit – the soundtrack to Adam’s ketamine trip is Blur’s woozy Death of a Party, from 1997. Haigh told me that there’s a subplot buried within All of Us Strangers in which Adam manages to break out of his loneliness and live as a happily out gay man – so perhaps this is the way he would have gone out partying in his early 20s, in the 90s. While he’s high, Adam imagines himself and Harry having the long-term relationship he has yearned for – though sadly it doesn’t seem to last, with Harry gliding past him in the club after locking eyes with someone else, before Adam wakes up screaming.

What’s going on in the diner?

All of Us Strangers takes place in a mysteriously unpopulated world – a metaphor for Adam’s isolation. He and Harry appear to be the sole residents of their tower block, and Adam and his parents are the only guests in the diner where they have their last encounter, a childhood outing Adam never got to experience. The only other person is the waitress: presumably she can’t see Adam’s mum and dad, since she wonders whether he’ll be able to finish the family meal he’s just ordered.

Adam’s mum asks him whether she and Adam’s dad died quickly after their car crash – he tells her that they did, even though we know that his mum took days to die, a white lie that I felt was Adam kindly parenting his parents, shielding them from harsh truths they didn’t need to know in a moment of mature understanding.

The line that really got to me, though, was the part when Adam’s dad (Jamie Bell) tells him that he’s proud of him, and when Adam asks why, given that he hasn’t done anything, his dad replies, “Well you’ve survived. It can’t have been easy.” Finally, his parents recognise his sadness and pain, and the effort it’s cost him to keep going, even if he doesn’t have a wife, kids, a successful career or any of the other trappings of heterosexual manhood to show for it.

And what the hell is the ending about?

In the last scene of All of Us Strangers, Adam and Harry cuddle up together on a bed. Harry asks Adam to put on a record, and without him doing so, The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood comes on – Adam was watching an old Top of the Pops performance of it from 1984 when Harry came knocking at the beginning of the film. The song contains the deeply romantic declaration “I’ll protect you from the Hooded Claw / Keep the vampires from your door”; in a (to him, unconscious) allusion to the lyrics, Harry had told Adam, as the older man turned him away, “there’s vampires outside my door”.

Now Adam and Harry can truly love, console, protect and care for each other, but it’s a brutally bittersweet image as it’s happening in some kind of supernatural realm, not real life. As the camera gets further and further away from the spooning lovers, it depicts them as one of a constellation of stars in a night sky, perhaps the other lonely strangers of the film’s title.

So is Adam also dead? I don’t think Haigh means us to think that he is. I think the image says that love is strong enough to smash the boundary between life and death, and that it’s our only defence against the infinite darkness that surrounds us, something Adam has come to understand after spending a lifetime running away from his own desperate need for human connection. Now, I think I may have something in my eye …'

[unusual-ly]

Thanktival Day 6

Prompt: School/Uni AU

So I’m not usually that big on making AUs but I had a few ideas floating around in my head because, for some reason, any time I tried to put the characters from Bill into a modern setting, I automatically thought of them as students. I only just realised this prompt was on the list yesterday and thought I might as well share what few headcanons I have for today

Feel free to contribute more ideas or suggest changes!

Bill

combined English Literature and Drama student

did a lot of writing in school but is relatively new to the theatre

joins the campus theatre club

gets to know Chris at the club and gets advice from him

constantly has people commenting on how he’s a writer and actor whose full name is actually William Shakespeare, which is why he goes by Bill

gets tricked by Phillip into helping with his plans

Anne

either a Childcare or Home Economics student, maybe combined?

dating Bill

meets Croydon and Phillip when out one night and overhears them talking about a play, suggests they look into the theatre club her boyfriend is in

Chris

combined English Literature and Drama student

Bill’s friend

more experienced than Bill in theatre before going to uni

Phillip

international student from Spain

Rich Kid(tm)

joins the theatre club to cause problems on purpose

sets up some kind of scheme or prank(?)

gets kicked out of the university and sent back to Spain

Juan and Lope

also international students from Spain

friends with Phillip

also kicked out and sent back

Gabrielle

international student from Spain

reluctant friend of Phillip, Juan and Lope

comes out as trans while at uni

befriends Bill when he compliments her acting

reports Phillip, Juan and Lope

changes course to Fashion

actually joins the theatre club

Croydon

unpopular Rich Kid(tm)

clings to Phillip to gain popularity/attention

Ian

Croydon “befriended” him in school so he would look better in comparison and had someone to take out his frustrations on

sticks with Croydon and follows him to uni because he doesn’t know what else to do

reports Croydon for his involvement in Phillip’s plan and gets him kicked out

befriends Bill

may or may not join the theatre club(?)

has a crush on Gabrielle

Walsingham and maybe Elizabeth could be university staff of some kind?

[pointnumbersixteen]

A Random and Highly Incomplete List of Things I Love About Bill

1) Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory guest starring for their kids. 

2) “People will remember the name Shakespeare... twenty years from now!” 

3) Shirtless Ben with the oranges. That scene is complete and utter fan service and I have no complaints about that.

4) Jim with the entire character of Christopher Marlowe. 

See also, re: the plague: “It’s taken my play, it might as well have its audience.”

See also, re: turning up in a sausage costume: “I got turned. Playing for the other team now.”

5) Larry with the entire character of Francis Walsingham. 

See also: “What are you doing in a pie?”

6) Also Larry as Ian, Croydon’s increasingly battered manservant. 

7) Also Larry’s guard outside the palace randomly commenting on the weather and music and such. 

8) Also Larry as the thief in the cage, getting progressively more naked as the movie goes on and people steal his clothes. 

9) Also Larry and that torture device. He likes that pear of anguish just a little too much. 

10) “King Phillip the Second of Spain!” “...of Spain.”

11) Almost no one recognizing Phil after he puts on a slightly different mustache. 

12) The Tudor London set is really cool.

13) Mat in the tomato costume. Enough said.  

14) A Series of Funny Misunderstandings and Ben and Simon’s faces watching it. 

15) Dueling banjos, but with lutes. 

16) Martha’s character as the body collector and how she keeps trying to make off with Christopher while Bill’s talking to him.

17) Ben kissing Jim (as Phil and Gabriel) when they’re making plans to invade the court to kill the Queen and also holding his hand on his face afterwards.

18) Also, the intense homo-eroticism that Ben puts into murdering Jim as Phillip and Christopher.

19) And just in general for Ben and Jim enthusiastically carrying the LGBT agenda throughout the entire movie. I love it. 

20) Phil repeatedly glove-slapping Bill. 

21) Ben’s face after kissing the queen’s ring. 

22) “You think you’re so clever, don’t you... with your hair... and your face.” 

23) Southhampton’s utter fabulousness.  

See also: “I’m a writer.” “No, you’re not, darling.”

24) The silly dancing of both Southhampton and Cecil at the end of the movie. 

[twonewgirls]

Introductions :)

Saoirse Murphy has been in London less than a year and she’s already dated her way around the city. From Clapham to Croydon, Saorise is tired of looking for love and not finding it. Saoirse works as a writer and producer in community theatre. She really wants to get into literary fiction but feels it’s too contrived. Her Camden studio has an expensive record player and charity shop furniture. She loves plants and indie music, hates IPAs, and can make a mean cortado. 

[the-paintrist]

Henry Wallis  - The Room in which Shakespeare Was Born - 1853

Height: 41.9 cm (16.4 in) Edit this at Wikidata; Width: 29.2 cm (11.4 in)

Henry Wallis RWS (21 February 1830 – 20 December 1916) was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.

Wallis was born in London on 21 February 1830, but his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname. His artistic training was thorough and influential. He was admitted as a probationer to the RA and enrolled in the Painting School in March 1848. He also studied in Paris at Charles Gleyre's atelier and at the Academie des Beaux Arts, sometime between 1849 and 1853.

A painting by Wallis depicting Gerard Johnson carving Shakespeare's funerary monument. Ben Jonson shows Shakespeare's death mask to the sculptor. Wallis is best remembered for his first great success, The Death of Chatterton, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856. The painting depicted the impoverished late 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton, who poisoned himself in despair at the age of seventeen, and was considered a Romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's day. His method and style in Chatterton reveal the importance of his connection to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, seen in the vibrant colours and careful build-up of symbolic detail. He used a bold colour scheme with a contrasting palette and he exploited the fall of the natural light through the window of the garret to implement his much loved style at the time, chiaroscuro. The size of Chatterton's garret was only fractionally larger than the scope of the painting, with room for Wallis and his easel and little else during the preliminary sketches, which were done on-site. The painting is 25x37" and is in the Tate Britain, with other versions in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. There may have been more examples of Chatterton as it was popular and when Wallis had to pay the rent he would paint another version. He once said that dead poets are more saleable than dead labourers (referring to The Stonebreaker) His next major work, The Stonebreaker (1857, exhibited in 1858), consolidated his reputation as a true Pre-Raphaelite. In total, he showed 35 exhibits at the RA, but later in life developed a greater interest in watercolour painting. He was elected a full member of the RWS (Royal Watercolour Society) in 1878 and exhibited over 80 watercolours at the society.

The model for his acclaimed The Death of Chatterton was the young George Meredith, whose first wife Mary Ellen would later run off with Wallis.

Wallis' method of painting, especially in the early years of his career, and in particular on "Death of Chatterton", was to do the initial sketch, saturate it in water, use a grey tint to block in the shade, put on the colour and allow it to dry. When firm, he would use a hair pencil to add in the details, for which he is so renowned. For the light, he would touch the area in question with water and then rub it with a piece of bread. His studio during these years was in Chelsea, a very bohemian and out of the way part of London at the time.

He died, almost blind, at 1 Walpole Road, Croydon, on 20 December 1916.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

2021 Emmerdale Wishlist

(I was inspired by @softlass27 and wanted to do one of my own)

Some Overall Things

- More community involvement. I know, I know Covid, but hopefully they’ll be able to ease the restrictions before the year is out so it still applies. And aside from that, they need to work within the restrictions to do better. I still thought that clothing exchange in the cafe was a really good attempt to allow different characters to mix.

- In general, they need to really figure out how to work within the covid restrictions better because it has been very noticeable at times and the whole show has felt like it’s been a slower pace, including individual scenes and it’s a problem. 

- More appropriate story lengths. I’m tired of these never ending stories that just meander along. 

- Better story structure. Stories seem to either magic into being or they’re so slow to start you wonder if there is a story. I just want stories to have proper lead ins and build up and actual climaxes that feel worthwhile. And I want to understand the point of a story both as it’s going and for sure once it has finished. I don’t want to have to keep asking the question, “Is it going somewhere or is this just bad writing”.

- Work on relationship stories. Stop putting terribly suited people together. At least try and build relationships up naturally and allow them to have some time before just shoving them together. Stop having other characters talk about how people should be together. I want to see the actual couple together and understand why. If a couple isn’t working, actually break them up. Cheating stories can work but make them happen for an actual reason and not just cause you feel like drama. 

- In general, work on motivations for characters because so many people this year have just done things for little to no real reason. 

Character Focused things

- I too am willing to wait till the 50th Anniversary for Robert’s triumphant return. Enjoy that dad and son time Ryan, your time will come. Hopefully post pandemic restrictions and when there’s a new decent producer who has some robron nostalgia. 

- In the meantime, I would like the show to allow Aaron to become a real character again. While, I’ve very much been fine with his massive break this year because it’s given me time to process him not having a tall blond glued to his side, I would like it if he got a bit more screen time next year. And I would like for that screen time to include interactions with characters that are not Liv and Chaddy. I’d love to see him get a friend, whether that’s Mack or someone else, I just want him to have someone else to talk to. I would also like to see him have an actual story even if he is a supporting character, but make him a consistent one, not support to the support and not just a cameo for an episode or two. I’d love to see him have more to do than a relationship story but if he must, for the the love of god at least put some amount of effort into it. Or just let him go on random bad dates that he gets to talk to his new friend about how no one is right. 

- I want Chaddy to break up. Whether it’s actually a cheating story or they just realize how unsuited they are for each other after all, I don’t care. Let the Christmas wedding curse persist. (In lieu of that, I want them on screen as little as possible together and if they are they better not be having any problems or be overly sappy and if I hear more than one or two “Graaacieees” I’m out)

- As for Liv, either Isobel can get a big break with her music and Liv can take a never ending trip to Dublin or they need to do better. If she stays, I want to see her become an adult. I want to see her make some choices about her future, get a job etc. I’d still like them to explore what a relationship means to her without having it be a plot point in the next abuser’s story. That still means something to me and I’d like to see it on screen for real and not just in the background. 

- For the love of god give Matty a story. Let him date, let him and Amy finally get together but like...do it better this time. Let him move out of Moira’s and stop being a footnote in her stories. Let him get promoted at the HOP or get a new job. Go back to his transition story. Let him interact with his friends more. Just almost anything really. 

- With Charity, we all know Vanessa will be back eventually and they’ll put them back together, so in the meantime, I’d like to them to start figuring out a balance for her. I agree somewhat that the regressive behavior she’s engaging in now feels a little ridiculous but that’s mostly because it’s baseless. They need to find real reasons and motivations for her to have her scheming fun the way they did with Robert and Cain. So first things first, I would get her the hell out of the pub because that was always a bad idea. I want her back in a business that allows her to wheel and deal and scheme without it always having to be random criminal activity. I also NEED them to allow her to say she’s bisexual on screen and to own that and to stop having writers put in those stupid unnecessary biphobic jokes. And they need to allow her to realize that she’s okay on her own and that any growth she had wasn’t only down to Vanessa. 

- For Cain and Moira, I want them to actually stay together this time and not immediately get broken up by something absurd. They can be tested, but only so they can prove that they are really working on their issues. 

- I’d like Laurel and Jai to get through their grief and stay together. 

- I want Jamie to get a fucking back bone and break free of Andrea altogether and break free of Kim too. I’d be cool with him and Mack actually being friends. I’d like him to get a real love interest too. 

- For Mack, I want him to keep being the snarky, fun breath of fresh air he has been but I’d like to ground him a little bit too. I want him to find something real in the village, whether that’s a friend or a love interest. Jamie and Aaron are good friend options for him. Just someone to give him a real solid tie to the village and give him some to talk to/confide in. If they wanted to make him bi, I would not be opposed. I’d also like him to make some progress with Moira in the next year so that doesn’t remain stagnant. 

- For Kim, I want this stupid story with Cain to already be over because it’s based on nothing. I know she’s supposed to get a love interest and I’m already dreading it. I do want her to get a love interest but I want it to feel real with real feelings and not come out of nowhere like I expect it to. I think Kim needs real connections in general. That brief period where she was friends with Rhona was good. They should give her another friend. Just. something to make her feel less like a cartoon villain even if she still is an antagonist. 

- I want someone to run over Luke and Wendy. I want them the hell out of Vic’s life and the hell out of the village. I still can’t fathom why they ever introduced them or had them stick around. 

- I need Harriet and Will to go away. They’re useless and they’ve overstayed their welcome at this point. I want to free Dawn because I feel like she could be a decent character if she wasn’t shackled to them. If the Malone story FINALLY ends with Harriet and Will both leaving, that would be a miracle. 

- I want Dan and Amelia to move to Croydon so someone else can have their house. They’re just not relevant characters anymore. 

- I want the new vicar and his son to be good characters and for more of their family to come in, hopefully female family members so there can be more women of color on the show too. But also I just want them to all be good characters with good connections and good stories. 

- If Marlon and Rhona are going to get together again, I want them to actually work out as a couple because I’ve quite enjoyed their friendship over the years and I think they could work as a couple again if they just maintain what they’ve had and don’t ruin it. 

- I’d like this whole stupid Al story to blow up in his face quick so we can move the hell on. If Al’s going to stick around, I need him to do something interesting. Either ground him more and give him better relationships or have him go full villain. 

- For Gabby, I want to see her continue to grow and get more adult stories, once that don’t include her meddling in people’s relationships. I’d like to see them explore a relationship story with her too. If she wants to realize she’s bi or something too and that she and Liv are meant to be, I’d be fine with that too. 

- More Jimmy and Nicola but don’t use that screen time to destroy them. 

- For Meena, I’d like them to tone her down just a bit and resolve the weird petty stuff between her and Manpreet. I’m cool with them exploring her and David but I don’t want it to feel as rushed or haphazard. 

- For Amy, I kind of want Tracy to just blow the whole Frank thing just so she can deal with the consequences and move on. Or just have her tell Matty as they’re getting closer and have him be like “eh my mum killed Emma so this is fine” and then it brings them closer. I just want it out there so it’s not hanging over her head anymore. I also just want her on screen more and with Matty and being friends with Vic. 

- For Vic, other than being free of the Posners, I’d just like her to reclaim her life a bit more, maybe see her at the HIDE more, maybe catering more, maybe a better love interest.

- I’d like to see Billy get something decent too that’s not just another lame attempt at brothers at war with Ellis. Let him find a career he likes, make a new friend, finally make peace with Aaron, something. 

- Ellis can move to Dubai. 

- Sam and Lydia just need to keep being their perfect selves. Give them some fun little stories. 

- The Mandy/Paul/Vinny saga needs to END now. There’s just no reason Vinny should be keeping all of this quiet. It’s dumb. Paul needs to go. Mandy needs to steal Paddy away from Chas or something. Vinny needs to hang out with Sam and Lydia and Samson again and maybe find a better career than whatever scrap jobs Aaron can throw his way. 

- Belle needs to go back to maybe being a vet and maybe date someone that’s not an affair?! 

- Leyla and Liam need to just stay together or break up for good. 

- Rishi needs to stop being treated like a child.

- Tracy needs to just have this baby so we don’t have to hear about how she’s pregnant anymore (though I have enjoyed the reprieve lately) Are we sure Nate can’t go to prison after all?