Tumbling Off The Summit Again

We all go to the Forest Rec Parkrun. L runs while Doggo and MD retrieve the balls I chuck. We then take both the dogs in the café for a drink and a bacon sandwich (well, that’s just me), where both dogs are saintly.

Then L heads off to an exercise class whilst I take the boys home and then head off to the match. It’s another early kick off for another TV game, this time the local derby against Nottingham Forest.

Derby dominate the first half but cannot score, so Forest do it for them with a cracking own goal. We sip out half time drinks feeling smug as this is so easy.

Derby lose a player at half time, as the influential Will Hughes goes off. At the same Forest appear to substitute their entire woeful team for something much better and batter Derby in the second half. They equalise with fifteen minutes to go and then strike the winner two minutes into injury time. Yet again, once Derby scale the summit of the league they wobble off again.

Later we are at the cinema again.

Testament of Youth is considered to be one of the greatest war memoirs ever written, telling Vera Brittain's own story of the First World War from the viewpoint of those not actually on the front line.

The film opens pre-war, Brittain (Alicia Vikander) is living in Buxton Derbyshire from where she watches her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and his friends Victor (Colin Morgan) and Geoffrey (Jonathan Bailey) getting ready to head off into the world to better themselves. Convention dictates that she will not follow them but will instead get married and raise a family. Given that particular career path investing in her future would be a waste, so her father (Dominic West) initially rejects her desire to attend Oxford University. 

Then when he is persuaded to relent and she passes the entrance examination, the outbreak of war means she will go there alone. By now she is courting her brother’s close friend Roland (Kit Harington) but Roland will not be joining her at Oxford because he is heading off to war along with the others.

Unable to focus on her studies at Oxford, Vera abandons her hard-earned place to sign up to be a nurse where she tends to the wounded and dying of both sides.

Sadly for the film, it is only at this point that the story develops any bite. Until now, it's all been rather unadventurous and frankly quite dull when such a tale should have been at least inspiring. Never does anyone seem to develop much passion for anything, least of all Vera herself and especially not for her passionless heavily chaperoned romance with Roland. If not inspiring it could at least have been harrowing but by the time we finally move to the trenches for a bit of much missed muck and blood it’s all far too late. Even when the bodies of friends and family start to stack up it often feels like it's no big deal.

Even one possible great scene with Vera speaking German to a dying soldier who had previously been shooting at her own side comes over as overly tame.

The whole film is all rather too much like a Sunday evening costume drama on the BBC, so I guess it was no surprise to see the BBC’s name on the opening titles. An opportunity missed.

(Saturday 17^th January)

Sacked

The old war wound knee injury is playing up a touch this morning after yesterday’s mammoth bike event. I don’t know how L managed her swim this morning.

Swimming apparently wasn’t a problem, although walking was. She can't move her left knee and has a limp, which she’s quite proud of.

Monday dog class restarts this week, so my Monday swims will have to move night but I can’t go tonight, even if my legs could manage it, as I have a committee meeting. Hopefully this won’t be a long one as two of the most argumentative ones have already ducked out.

After their drubbing by Derby on Saturday, Billy Davies is sacked by Nottingham Forest. Shame.  

(Monday 24^th March)

Understudies Eat Crumble Too

Today a dog show on Southwell Racecourse. Doggo does his only run first thing, he's clear but as usual doesn’t get a rosette for it.

MD’s first run was really good until he messed up his weaves. While his second run was scrappy throughout but was clear. Which is the way it always seems to go. So we’ll probably get a rosette for the second run but it won’t be a highly placed one. We come 12^th.

His afternoon runs are also all good but not quite good enough and all have small errors in them including another cock up in the weaves.

My ankle is not as good as yesterday (before my training run) but it’s not too bad. The uneven ground at the racecourse isn’t helping and it’s also a bloody long way to walk from rings 1 to 8 with them placed end to end rather than in a square as normal. No one else is muttering about that though, so perhaps it’s just because I’m injured.

While there I get MD a new bed. I hate it but L will love it. It’s got hearts on it. The beds MD and I preferred had a skull and crossbones on them but weren’t available in the correct size. It looks well comfy though, so MD will put up with it. It also looks well shaggable so Doggo will like it too.

Meanwhile Derby County are busy losing the local derby at Nottingham Forest 1-0. Hardly a surprising result but it has the surprising effect of getting Nigel Clough the sack. Wasn’t expecting that but YES, about time.

Back home I take L to the new Specialized bike shop in Basford. The Specialized Dolce seems to take her eye more than the Scott Contessa we’d been eyeing up at Evans Cycles. So we decide we’re going to order the Dolce through the insurance.

We stay in with pasta and pudding, topping up my energy for tomorrow’s 13 mile hobble. L insists that my attempt to limp around Nottingham tomorrow is a good reason to have pudding, so she does a crumble. I assumed that was just me, as she’s not doing racing but no, apparently understudies eat crumble too.

(Saturday 28^th September)

Winter Unchained

A busy schedule today, due to an inhuman kick off time of 1pm. So it’s an earlier than usual park session, which I thought would have perhaps been detrimental to Doggo’s limp but no, he copes well with the conditions.

 

 

Not that I expected the game to be on. Last year’s Derby-Forest match was called off in much the same circumstances, at much the same time of year. Perhaps the grief they got for that is the reason this year’s went ahead. One thing that is off is tomorrow’s race. I’m gutted about that but apparently the course is treacherous. 

The weather has also not put off the Military Fitness people and their poor clients.

Sadly the game is disappointing, a 1-1 draw, no fights, no sending offs and both sides seemingly happy with the result. The ‘big’ local derby attracted a capacity 33,000 crowd but it’s always a game that always leaves me a bit cold. Perhaps because I’ve lived in Nottingham for so long. 27 years now. Wow, is it really that long. Still, in all that time I’ve not developed any affection for Nottingham Forest but neither do I have any great disaffection for them either.

If anything, the disaffection is closer to home. Derby have just revealed a loss of almost £7.9m in the last financial year ending June 2012. This is slightly up on the £7.7m in the previous 12 months. When you consider that we are putting on the field a team made up mostly of teenagers, how can it be that we are still losing £8M a year?

In the evening, we head into town which shows no sign of suffering from reduced popularity due to the weather conditions. Mind you, all those who have beaten the elements tonight will presumably be snowed in when faced with making exactly the same journey into work on Monday morning.

Set in the pre-Civil War Deep South, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is a Western and the story of a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who becomes, well, unchained. He is set free by a German dentist turned bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). He needs Django’s help to identify the three guys who are his next bounty and were Django’s previous owners.

Schultz quickly discovers that Django has all the right attributes for the bounty hunting game, basically he’s good at killing people. So they team up and Shultz takes him under his wing. Shultz though makes Django a promise, that once the winter is over, together they will rescue Django’s wife from slavery too.

Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), Django's missus, is owned by Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and works on his plantation home of Candieland. Which he is assisted in the running of by his head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s somewhat of a turncoat for the anti slavery cause.

Tarantino films of course, divide opinion. If you like Tarantino, you’ll like scenes like the one with the KKK arguing for a good ten minutes about not being able to see out of the holes in their pillow case masks before one member rides off in a huff because his wife made them all and feels it’s unappreciated. Or you won’t.

You’ll like the gratuitous, over the top bloodshed. Or you won’t. 

You’ll like the prodigious use of the word nigger, which I assume he gets away with because it’s relevant to the time period but then again he’s got previous with this, having used the word in most of his films, just less often. Or you won’t.

Obviously it’s also got his other trademarks. Such as a great musical score, great acting, a character driven plot and someone losing their testicles. So you’ll like all that as well. Or you won’t.

You might even like Dicaprio, who it has to be said plays probably his best role ever and he talks Tarantino-speak like he’s done it his entire career. Or you won’t. 

It’s still good to see him shot though. You’ll like that.

So yes it’s a good film but I would say it’s not one of his cleverest and it’s a little too long. Certainly for our neighbours who had to make an awful lot of bathroom visits. The last half an hour seemed an unnecessary way of resolving things that could and should have already been resolved but perhaps Tarantino had forgotten to write himself into the script, so had to quickly fit his cameo in, as well as a bit more violence.

 

One final thought. Django is your typical deadeye movie gunman. He’s always first to the trigger and never gets shot no matter how many bullets are fired at him. He goes off on multiple killing sprees in the name of revenge, even if his victim’s association to him is tenuous. You would have thought that all this would have been on very dodgy ground considering several incidents worldwide in recent times including the most recent in Connecticut but no, apparently not. Just saying. You’ll like that. Or you won’t.

Afterwards Brewdog is so busy we only stay for one before ending up at the Old Bell, which is disappointing. The Abbot is the best option and that’s poor. Then we think we've timed our sprint for the bus to perfection but then see it disappearing into the distance as we arrive. With an hour to the next one it’s time to walk.

(Saturday 19^th January)

All About Money

I get up early to take the dogs on park as we have a 12:15 kick off for the Derby v Forest local derby today but then when I check the news, I find that the match has been called off and promptly get back into bed.

It’s so frustrating. I check the travel reports. Roads clear, buses all running, trains running. Chelsea v Man U on. Newcastle v Aston Villa on. Sainsburys open... clearly unconcerned about the safety of their customers.

Mystified and p***ed off in equal measure but probably not as mystified and p***ed off as all the people who travelled over last night or early this morning to beat the weather including the 30 guys who came over from Switzerland. Even the 'We only had 10 men' banner was ready and draped over a bridge on the A52.

Whilst it’s true that some fans may not have been able to get to the game due to the weather, equally this will also be true for the rearranged game, which will now fall in midweek. The match was even on BBC TV for anyone who couldn’t get. Maybe the sad death of Forest’s owner Nigel Doughty was a factor, if they'd give that as the reason then then we would have understood.

Instead I take boys on the park in the snow, which they love.

Although Doggo over does it and will probably limp for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile L goes for a run in the snow. Jealous. So when I get back from the park, I put my kit on and run as well.

Late afternoon we visit the gym and I do 15k on bike, then it’s this week’s film. Rather bizarrely L chooses one about money. 'Margin Call' which is all about the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the collapse of the Mortgage Backed Security market around 2007/2008.

At some unnamed Wall Street firm they are letting go a massive 80% of the trading floor, security staff watch employees clearing their desks before they escort them from the building. One of these is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), a middle manager in the Risk Management department, who is laid off after 19 years of service. As he is lead from the building he hands a flash drive to one of his young analysts Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto). He tells him to take a look and ‘be careful’.

A few hours later, the remaining staff head out to the bars to celebrate avoiding the axe but Sullivan stays behind to take a look at what Dale has left him. He quickly realises the reason for Dale's warning. So many of the firm’s assets are now toxic that, according to Dale’s projections, they will soon owe a lot more than the company is worth. He calls his boss Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) back from the bar.

The film ‘simplifies’ the crisis in to a single overnight session as the situation is escalated up the corporate ladder and we are introduced, one rung at a time, to the hierarchy. First, sort of nice guy, Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), then top risk officer Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and the unlikable Jared Cohen (Simon Baker). Dale meanwhile has gone AWOL, which is entirely their own fault for letting him go of course.

It all culminates when the CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) arrives by helicopter. Tuld, like his managers below him, doesn't understand the figures presented to him and needs someone to explain them to him, as he puts it, as if he were a Golden Retriever but they didn't really. I think I could have done a better job and I do later, to L in the bar over a beer that she didn't previously think she needed.

Tuld’s only focus is keeping the firm alive, at any cost. Although for others it poses a moral dilemma of sorts but still self-preservation comes first. It’s nothing personal, just business. Rogers, for one, seems a genuine guy, but cries more tears for his dying dog and even forgets to call his son who’s also in finance.

You can't feel sorry for anyone, as they'll all get well paid anyway. When Dale is tracked down, he and Robertson, whose head has been selected to roll for the mistakes, are required to sit in a room all day, doing nothing and getting paid to do so, because they both know too much. Meanwhile their traders attempt to land $1M+ bonuses for offloading the near worthless assets onto their unsuspecting clients before picking up the US equivalent of their P45s.

It’s all done very well, it’s engrossing and at times the tension is immense. The acting is excellent helped by some very good characterisation. We are given time to get to know everybody and understand the golden handcuffs that tie them to their trade. Everyone gets used to spending whatever they earn, however large.

At times the film seems to suggest that some bankers might be human after all... Nah, don’t think so.

(Sunday 5th February)