Well, the vast majority of today was spent in bed. Until 5pm to be precise as I had an absolutely cracking hangover. Not sure how I managed that as I didn’t drink that much but I guess I have been pretty sober since I got here. It was bad. Then I got to the stage where I feel hungry and sick at the same time and it’s always a gamble whether eating is going to be a remedy or a curse.
I was dreaming of noodles so I went back to my new favourite Vietnamese area, back to the same cafe in fact (it was too much effort to risk somewhere new in my fragile state) and had chicken noodle soup. A great restorative, and my new crack Vietnamese coffee. It may even have usurped the chocolate covered pretzels. The food and a short, flat bicycle ride in the fresh air made me feel much, much better. It looked as if it had been a sunny day.
Wanting to avoid the sick bay for a while longer I went to the cinema to see ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’. which will not be in UK cinemas until October. When I get back there won’t be anything to see at the cinema because I will have seen it all already. It is a story based in a slightly surreal, Louisiana-esque, watery slum community. It is told through a young girl, Hushpuppy, and is a combination of her story and imaginings. It’s the kind of film that if you like and believe in the characters within the first five minutes then you’ll love it but if you don’t then it would seem over the top and a bit cheesy. But I loved it; the mixture of great performances with fantastical creations and powerful music. Another film that made me cry. The central theme for me was the incredible tie of ‘home’, even if that is a dirty shack in a water logged swamp. There were nods to Katrina and people being displaced to 'better' homes. Your home, is your home, even if to everyone else it looks inhabitable. Just like your own politicians are bad but you'd rather have them than someone else's bad politicians.
The father, who is the second main character was discovered by the crew when they were filming in Louisiana. He ran a bakery where they put up adds for people to audition for parts. When they went back to ask him to try out the bakery was gone. A month later they found that he had moved to bigger premises not far away. He refused to audition, saying that he needed to concentrate on his business. So to persuade him the whole crew went to his bakery and refused to leave until he consented. He agreed on the condition that they work around his bakery hours so rehearsing was done at midnight.
One of the things that had interested me about the international reaction to the opening ceremony was the fact that it was seen as part of an ongoing struggle to find a post-colonial identity. I didn’t realise that we were in need of a new identity, I’ve never thought about it in those terms. It’s interesting to see your own country from a different perspective. I suppose most of the world thinks that we have no power whilst we like to believe that we have a subtle influence abroad, a foil to the USA’s brasher tactics. Part of an innate, understated feeling of self importance. Or maybe that’s just me.
One last observation...I have finished the George Orwell. As a plongeur (bottom of the restaurant hierarchy) he was given a daily ration of two litres of wine. Was wine much less alcoholic then, because that seems like an awful lot of wine to a) drink in one day and b) for an employer to give their employee. In the kitchen that he worked in temperatures often reached 110F.
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