Such A Saint

We have Saturday night in after a fairly heavy night in Leeds on Friday. We also take Sunday off running with neither the long trek to Draycote Water for two loops of their reservoir in their 10 miler of the mud bath that is Coalville 10k appealing. Well the mud bath may well have been appealing to L and I did offer to hold her coat but she declined.

She goes off shopping instead and meets me later in Broadway. Where despite the fact there are two 5% beers on she’s on the coffee. Such a saint. One of the beers is Shipstone’s Krubera, this time finally on cask. So I pop down to meet her and while we’re there we take in a film.

Sorry We Missed You is a film by Ken Loach about a chap called Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen) who takes a job in the 'gig economy' working as a delivery driver for a parcels firm in Newcastle.

The story goes that after the 2008 financial crash Ricky lost his job in construction and struggled to make ends meet as a handyman. Then he lost his family’s home when Northern Rock went under. Now, with his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) and their two kids, they are back renting.

In a move to try and get his family back where they were, Ricky takes the delivery driver job. However he won’t be an employee, he’ll be a franchisee as the firm’s obnoxious manager Gavin Maloney (Ross Brewster) explains. Maloney is a man who eats unproductive drivers for breakfast.

Unfortunately Ricky doesn’t fully understand the terms of his self-employment. This is a world where there is no sick pay, penalties for missing targets and if you’re absent you have to arrange your own cover. Thankfully the drama doesn't extend to him struggling to do his tax return.

He can either rent a van from the company or buy his own. So he sells Abbie's car to get the deposit for his own van. The only problem with that being that Abbie is a home carer and now she's on the bus. Therefore Ricky makes the mistake of prioritising his job over hers and immediately puts extra pressure on himself to deliver for the family.

It is a job that is largely inappropriate for him because his family’s circumstances were always going to make it difficult for him to do the job. So, from the outset, we know where this is going.

The thing is Ricky is good at his job and at first things go well but then he starts taking harder and more difficult routes. The extra hours take a toll on him while Abbie struggles with the extra restrictions he’s placed on her job. All this damages their relationship with their kids, daughter Lisa (Katie Proctor) and son Seb (Rhys Stone) who has started skipping school, taking up as a graffiti artist instead.

When Ricky needs to get to the school to sort out Seb the only way he can take time off is to accept a fine from the company who are only interested in the bottom line. When he gets mugged there is little sympathy from his boss and he is charged with replacing a scanner that gets damaged in the process. Although I find it incomprehensible that this wouldn’t be insured by either the company or by the drivers themselves.

Of course everything that happens in the film is possible and it makes for great cinema but it's very contrived. Basically all the worst case scenarios have been lumped onto one family. So we get a rather unbalanced view of a business practice that does indeed have many faults but which are maximised here for full effect. 

Despite that it is a good film that captures real life struggles but ones that could have happened in any industry, inside the gig economy or out of it. In all industries there are good employers and bad ones.

Ken Loach gets his political point across but for me it was more of a film about relationships and parenting. If anything I though the plight of Abbie as a care worker was more worthy of highlighting than Ricky’s was.

(Sunday 10^th November)

A Mini Celebration

This morning L and I head over to Draycote Water, where we did the ten miler last year, to run one of their regular monthly 10ks. Mainly because there is nothing else on. It’s not multiple laps like the 10 miler but does require a short out and back to make up the distance. My time of 48:43 isn’t great but then it was very windy again.

After that we head over to the Toby Carvery in Chaddesden for Sunday Lunch and a mini celebration of my brother’s 60^th birthday. The last time I was here it was called the Chaddesden Park and it had a ball pool. It’s not exactly more salubrious now and it’s an odd choice of venue but the carvery is plentiful, if lacking in healthy options e.g. vegetables.

Our packed day continues with an attempt to book into the Round Sheffield Run but their website crashes and everyone is asked to email in their entries. Good old technology.

Then in the evening we head to Broadway for Stan & Ollie.

The film opens in 1937 but only to remind us, not that we really needed telling, that back in the day Laurel and Hardy were one of the biggest (if not the biggest) comedy stars in the world and absolutely everybody loved them.

All is not perfect though. Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan), the more savvy of the two, is not happy that they are paid less than other comedy stars such as Charlie Chaplin. He wants to break with their agent Hal Roach (Danny Huston) but the fact he and Oliver Hardy (John C Reilly) have separate contracts which expire at different times make this difficult as does Ollie’s reluctance to rock the boat. In the end they briefly go their separate ways. Ollie gets a new partner and even makes a movie without Stan.

Fast forward sixteen years to 1953 and the pair have been back together for some time but their time in the limelight has been and gone. As almost a last throw of the dice they come to Britain to do a tour and to try to revive their careers. If it all goes well they hope to be able to make another movie.

The film covers this tour as they play to half empty halls and stay in some seriously seedy accommodation. Their promoter Bernie Delfont (Rufus Jones) is no help, he has his mind now firmly on newcomers such as Norman Wisdom and Abbott and Costello.

To boost ticket sales they are asked to perform embarrassing publicity stunts such as judging a beauty contest etc. Meanwhile Stan has the fruitless task getting hold of the producer who is supposedly financing their new film but the film isn’t going to happen because as the tour has shown, sadly they are no longer the draw they once were.

Towards the end of the tour they are joined by their wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Hardy (Nina Arianda). Who are a double-act in their own right.

The two are by now at their lowest ebb and when Ollie is taken ill he decides to pack it all in. Stan is then paired up with a new partner to complete the tour but he knows it’s not the same. The pair of them may have had their rocky moments but really they both know can’t perform without each other. Soon Ollie climbs off his sick bed against doctor’s order, and his wife’s, to complete the tour.

It’s a lovely film, a nice homage to Laurel and Hardy but a sad one too. Not at all what I was expecting and all the better for that. Both Reilly and Coogan play their parts brilliantly and capture the various mannerisms of the two characters. Highly recommended. 

(Sunday 13^th January)

A Bit More

L, Daughter and I head over to Draycote Water today which is near Dunchurch, not far from Rugby. They have a ten mile race which is good training for all of us even though it is just multiple laps of their reservoir. The reservoir is more suited to the regular 10ks they run as it is 4.7 miles round. Although even their 10ks require ‘a bit more’.

So the course is two laps plus ‘quite a bit more’ e.g. a nice warm up run to the start which we need as its raining. There is also a twenty mile option which involves four laps and an even bigger warm up.

It turns out to be not too bad. The rain eases and the tarmac is nice, Yes, it’s all tarmac. It is a bit undulating but I don’t mind that.

I’m also happy with my time of 1:20:41 which is in the right ball park for a 1:45 half. Even the girls seems to enjoy it. Now for next week, when it's Daughter’s first half marathon...

(Sunday 23^rd September)