Maybe fifteen years ago these were in some kind of alphabetical order and general state of organisation but like molecules in a viscous liquid, they slowly rearranged themselves over time. Returning them to their original state of order has been a days-long job, only finished as I post this (Sunday morning). And it took all that time to find L. A. Confidential (which is what prompted the Sort Out in the first place).
Seeing as I am off work, no reason at all to avoid an afternoon (and free) showing of Some Like It Hot at the Picture House — one of my favourite movies, and surely everyone likes that one. Unexciting photography of a very familiar place, but as the week develops, these things should change.
Well, I got five out of these six. But we didn’t win the quiz. Lost on a tiebreaker. Goddamit.
Landed at 5am at Heathrow. Just over two hours later I was here, looking for a cup of tea, which was surprisingly difficult to find in Leicester Square at this early time in the day. But one could still enter the casino, which two guys in the middle distance are seriously considering. And so ends the monstrously long month that has been January 2025: did it really only have 31 days this year? I don’t believe it.
Another movie reference, courtesy of the exhibition currently running at the Design Museum in London, featuring a range of drawings, models, photos and other artefacts that have poured out of the head of director Tim Burton over the last 50 years or so. Two things are apparent; 1) the guy can have done very little in his life other than pour out this endless stream of creative work, more or less constantly; 2) there is some seriously weird shit going on inside that head. Worth seeing though.
An early post today as I now sit at Heathrow Airport waiting for an overnight flight. Unless something goes seriously wrong, the next three weeks of posts will all be coming from places a damn sight warmer than this one.
More inaccurate replication of some animal or other — koalas are just not this big, or this colour, though nevertheless, that is what it is supposed to be. 4th prize in the Christmas raffle of the Hebden Bridge Picture House (£1/ticket, if you’re interested). This was very early in the evening: the place filled up by the start of the movie, which was Conclave: very good (another unsolicited advertisement).
You’ve gotta like this movie. Not all the jokes work any more, by any means, but Young Frankenstein must be the finest parody-homage of any genre, ever. And at a completely decadent time of day, too, thanks to the Hebden Bridge Picture House’s Thursday morning “Elevenses” deal.
I have several times tried to capture a version of this shot, but it’s never really worked before. I’m quite happy with this one, though. Most of the thirty or so people who were watching have already departed and yet still the credits roll, down to the stage where only the assistant catering key grip’s mother is still watching them. The movie? Trap — which, I suppose, was OK, at least for a while.
In the mid-1970s the esteemed, and very good, photographer Martin Parr (see this page) moved to Hebden Bridge aged 23 and started capturing scenes from local life. These were published as the exhibition and photo-book The Nonconformists. The picture seen here, of the policeman walking in front of the cinema snack bar, was taken in exactly the same spot that this print now hangs, nearly 50 years later. It doesn’t really look a great deal different, on the whole.
Spectacular urban decay. Oldham doesn’t look all that great at the best of times but on a dreich day in December it really comes into — or perhaps gets out of — its own. Bear in mind that not only is this clock wrong, but I suspect has been stopped for a couple of decades by now.
Being 42 