The Last Two Weeks (Part 1)

I have no idea where the last fortnight or so has gone. Okay, that’s an over-exaggeration – I know exactly where it went, but such quick passing of time still freaks me out, as it draws ever closer to the end of term. Here’s a summary of relatively interesting and vaguely relevant things that have happened recently:

My dad came to stay!

Almost two weeks ago, my dad had to go to a National Trust conference event in Swindon, and as our home in East Yorkshire is pretty far and my student flat in Bristol is rather near, it seemed sensible that he should stay with me for a couple of days (especially as you can’t really travel from the north to the south west and back in a day). It felt bizarrely grown-up having one of my parents to stay, as my home life and uni life rarely cross-over. I definitely enjoyed it though – we watched about three hours of 30 Rock and Dad cooked me a steak, plus we finally fulfilled a long-held joint ambition to visit Thali Cafe.

Something of a Bristol institution, there are four cafes dotted around the city, all serving authentic Indian food. We went to the Clifton branch, and were definitely not disappointed. Rather than having a massive serving of curry and a huge plate of rice, for around £8 you get a small bowl of delicious, subtly spiced curry (I had lamb, my dad had fish) surrounded by other dishes of basmati rice, tarka dahl, vegetable subji, Keralan salad and homemade chutney. It was just as filling as the giant portions you normally tend to get at Indian restaurants, but far more exciting to eat, as there was such an interesting range of textures and flavours. They do a killer mango lassi (almost as good as the Mumtaz in Bradford), plus the staff were all really friendly and the decor was very cool (even if there was a mannequin that scared the bejesus out of me). It’s definitely worth a visit!


I went to a comedy night!


In first year, I joined improv comedy society, mainly because my now-best friend Emily wanted to. Two years later, she's the president of ImprovSoc and has performed with them in Edinburgh, so it was a good call for her (I stopped going after first year. I didn't get on with it so much, and workshops always seemed to clash with me going to comedy gigs, especially last year). Anyway, to support Emily, I do still go to a few improv shows and ImprovSoc are pretty good (look at their YouTube channel!). 


They've also recently taken over the running of a comedy night at The Hill pub in the Cotham area of Bristol, punningly called Hill-arity (the pub does really good pizzas too). I went to review it for Inter:Mission, in my capacity as comedy editor, and really enjoyed it. Thankfully, Emily wasn't performing, so there wasn't a massive conflict of interests, but I did know some of the people who were in the show, and found it quite difficult to balance not hurting their feelings and giving an honest critique of the gig. I didn't lie, but I think I did tend to err on the side of being nicer (partly because I was afraid some kind of comment storm like this would happen). Anyway, the review of Hillarity is here. 

I wrote an essay!

It was 3000 words on Moll Flanders and the dominance of women in the eighteenth century novel (I like writing about women). I did pretty well on it. That is all.

I saw a film!

As a post-essay treat, I went to Bristol city centre with some of my lovely course friends. We hung around the German Christmas market (which made me miss my friend Louise, who’s on her year abroad in Regensburg) and I ate freshly made donuts, whilst three of my friends awkwardly ate huge bratwursts near some vegan protesters. Slightly chilly, but full of delicious food, we then went to see My Week With Marilyn – a really sweet movie about the filming of The Prince and The Showgirl. It was quite a light film (which was just what we needed after the gruelling mental exertion of an essay hand-in) but the central performances were all amazing, especially Michelle William’s Marilyn. I wrote a much more articulate review for Inter:Mission (you can read it here). Then we had mulled Somerset cider and talked about murder mysteries. It was a lovely day.

I ate more Indian food!

We tried out the Indian takeaway near our flat – Bristol Raj. It was nice, and the prices were pretty reasonable, but it just couldn’t compare to Thali Cafe. I had quite a big portion of chicken shashlik, which had a good ratio of chicken to vegetables, but wasn’t quite as spicy or flavourful as I would have liked. The garlic rice was tasty though, and the naans were soft and doughy. Plus, the guys at the restaurant also gave us a couple of free poppadoms. However, unless it was just for convenience, I’m not sure if I’d go again, as I know there are better Indian food outlets near us (and not just Thali Cafe).

This concludes week one. I’ll post my accounts of last week’s fun shortly– it includes me eating even more food and seeing another film. Oh the excitement!

Review: Red Riding Hood

Twilight has a lot to answer for. Besides the fact that the books are awful and the films aren’t much better, the success of Stephanie Meyer’s vampiric tetralogy almost undoubtedly led to the production of Red Riding Hood. The film is based loosely on the Charles Perrault and Brothers Grimm versions of the classic fairy tale, though it feels unfair to associate such great writers with such a poor film.

Little Red has been transformed into Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), a young woman who lives in the hilariously Olde Worlde named village of Daggerhorn. The village has a terrible problem with werewolves, so they summon legendary wolf-busting priest Solomon (Gary Oldman) to help dispatch the pesky lycanthrope. However, the major problem in tracking down the wolf is that literally anyone in the village could be the beast in human form. Director Catherine Hardwicke is so keen that every villager should be seen as a suspect that you half expect a number of scenes to have subtitles like ‘possible suspect...?’ or  ‘ooh, suspicious!’. Instead Hardwicke has to settle with very pointed camera shots and incredibly laboured dialogue. 

The emotional heart of the film is supposed to be Valerie’s difficult choice between doing what her family wants, by agreeing to her arranged marriage to rich, but dependable blacksmith Jacob Black Henry (Max Irons), or doing what she wants and eloping with moody woodcutter and childhood sweetheart Edward Cullen Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). It does form a heart of sorts, but a heart made of boring wood (probably balsa). Seyfried does her best, and it’s a credit to her abilities that Valerie comes across as wide-eyed and sparky, rather than a bland Bella Swann reboot, but she is a lone glimmer in an otherwise lifeless puddle of disappointing, wooden acting. Even Oscar winner Julie Christie seems to be acting through a layer of heavy sanding and wood polish.

Much of the film really does feel like you’re watching a slightly altered version of Twilight, and so many of Hardwicke’s directorial choices seem only to emphasise these similarities. Even some of the cast are the same: Billy Burke, who plays Bella’s dad, also plays Valerie’s father, and Taylor Lautner was initially touted to play Peter. The soundtrack has a distinctly rock-ish feel, and, though it’s free of contemporary artists such as Muse or Paramore, you could easily imagine it underscoring a tense conversation between Bella and Edward or a vampire vs werewolf scuffle. The cinematography has the familiar Twilight-ish mix of sweeping wide angle shots and jerky close-ups, which is one of the film’s few strengths, as it shows of both the stunning natural surroundings of Daggerhorn, and the pleasing design of the village itself.

Red Riding Hood offered Hardwicke a chance to build on the success of Twilight, but she’s fallen far from the mark, producing a visually pleasing film with no spark, no heart and no humour. 

Mission Burrito

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to go to the recently opened Mission Burrito on Park Street to review it for Itchy Bristol. I've been wanting to go there since I read on Bristol Culture about the free burritos they gave out on the first day, which I was sad to miss, still being at home in Yorkshire at the time.

My official review for Itchy is here. As you'll read, I certainly wasn't disappointed. The food was delicious, if a little bit unevenly temperatured, but I think that's only to be expected when there was such a varied mix of hot and cold food. For instance, my burrito was filled with pork, rice and black beans (all hot) and sour cream, guacamole, salsa and cheese (all cold). As tasty and filling as that combination was, it did mean you were never sure if the next mouthful would be warm or cool. But really, as far as criticisms go, it was hardly a major problem (although my lovely dining companion Emily did suggest that they might consider popping the finished burritos in an oven (a la Subway) for a little bit, to get a more even temperature and so the cheese would melt a little bit). 

Otherwise, I really did love Mission Burrito. It's a little on the expensive side for someone on a student budget, so a trip to MB would be definitely be a treat, but the food is such good quality and the staff were so friendly that I think it's worth it.

Bieber Fever (aka Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome)

A few weeks ago, I had the bizarre experience of paying to see Never Say Never 3D (aka The Justin Bieber Film). My entire family mocked me as a consequence, but I was doing it for Epigram, which justified it somewhat (I still felt kind of, well, dirty asking for a ticket for it. I was worried I'd see someone I knew in there, but then I remembered no-one I know in Bristol is under the age of 12). It was not as bad as I assumed it would be. There was at least some form of narrative, and the 3D was well-used (apart from some really creepy shots of the Bieb's arm reaching out of the screen, like some well coiffured Mr Tickle). Having a younger sister, I am fairly well-versed in 3D "concert experience" films, with The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus being the masters of this particular genre (Miley evens makes a cameo appearance in Never Say Never, talking with a worrying amount of world weariness for someone who's only 18). Never Say Never definitely reaches those upper eschelons of tween moveidom. Clearly I didn't love it, but I feel more culturally aware for having seen it. Also, if you ever need to force yourself to like Justin Bieber, this is definitely the way to do it, the first thing I did when I got back from the film was listen to 'Baby' on Spotify. And that is something I never thought I'd do: 

Justin Bieber’s a nice Christian boy with good hair and some musical talent, who makes his single mum and grandparents proud. Admittedly, Bieber’s film Never Say Never is no cinematic masterpiece, but it’s one of the better examples of the concert experience/pseudo-documentary films that have become the money-spinning vogue amongst American tween superstars. The film makes good use of 3D and zips along quickly enough to hold the attention of even the most sugar-crazed Belieber (though it’s doubtful many of those read The Epigram).

However, Never Say Never is also one of the most unsettling children’s films to ever appear in cinemas. Treated somewhere between a prince and a god, Bieber just doesn’t seem real. He rides around on a segway, reducing tweenage girls (and worryingly, their mums) to hysterical tears of joy with a single glance, whilst constantly shaking his trademark fringe out of his eyes.  His fans are so obsessed with his sainted follicles that there’s a montage in the film dedicated entirely to talking about Bieber’s hair, and locks of it are currently being auctioned for charity for thousands of dollars.

Despite Bieber’s eerie precociousness, it’s his fans who are the most terrifying part of the film. They’re generally split between the aforementioned criers and assertive obsessives, who stare into the camera to tell the world that they will marry Justin Bieber and no-one else will ever have him. And thanks to Bieber’s humble YouTube origins, and his constant use of Twitter, his fans all think they discovered him and therefore own him. In many ways, Never Say Never felt like the follow-up companion piece to The Social Network, as the power and danger of social networking is one of the subtler themes you could read into the film.

Though Never Say Never ostensibly follows Bieber’s “journey” to perform at Madison Square Gardens, bar a minor throat infection, there’s never a sense that he won’t make it. The film’s real sense of danger comes from the future. At various points, Bieber is compared to Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson – both of whom were admittedly very successful, very young, but couldn’t be said to have had the happiest or most well-adjusted lives. When, at the end of the film, his team speculate on what the next few years could hold for Bieber, with comparisons to the likes of Culkin and Jackson, let’s just hope he makes it through puberty in one piece

- Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 236, Mar 7th 2011)

Richard II & Pod

I'm really enjoying being a contributor for Itchy. I get to do lovely things, then tell people about what I thought of them. So my two contributions this week are a review of the frankly fantastic Richard II at The Tobacco Factory, and the reassuringly expensive Pod in Clifton Village.

In other good news, I found out yesterday that they've managed to save the Bristol & Bath listings magazine Venue from closure, which is excellent news that I'm really pleased about.

Back to Blogging

I never kept a diary as a child, mainly because I would always read it back the next day and squirm at my own writing. I think I felt somewhat the same about blogging, to begin with (that, and I just kept forgetting to update), hence the six month hiatus. However, I've been doing quite a lot of 'proper' writing recently, mainly writing for Bristol University's student newspaper The Epigram. Also, this week I became an official contributor to cool city guide website Itchy Bristol (my first review, of one of local pubs, The Victoria, is here). So with all this in mind and a bit more confidence in my own writing, I am going to get back into the swing of blogging properly. Watch this space...

REVIEW: Adventures on the High Teas (Stuart Maconie)

It’s clearly great praise for a writer to be compared to both Alan Bennett and Bill Bryson.  However, when these comparisons scream out at you (albeit politely) from the covers of a book, it sets an almost unfeasibly high standard for the writer to live up to. Fortunately, in Adventures on the High Teas, Stuart Maconie rises ably to this challenge. Adventures on the High Teas chronicles Maconie’s search for Middle England – where it is and what it actually means – as he criss-crosses the country by train. (As a non-driver who relies on trains to travel at least 1500 miles a year between home and university, I have a lot of respect for trains). Maconie is a fantastic writer. As he travels from town to town, it feels as if he is taking you on the journey with him, like some benevolent uncle, charged with entertaining his nieces and nephews over the summer. There’s a great balance of fun and information, with a few moments of poignant stillness, which helps to make the fun even funnier. The facts Maconie imparts are all relevant and add to the narrative, rather than being informational window dressing to pad out the story. One of my favourite facts in the book: “Leamington Spa is, according to recent socio-linguistic research, right on the border of the north/south divide over the pronunciation of Bath”. (This is mainly because I have a friend who is living in Leamington Spa next year, but I still like the fact).  Maconie’s writing about the North/South divide is genuinely brilliant, in a way that I can only appreciate now, as a result of moving from Yorkshire to Bristol (term-time only). Even so, the topics within this book are so varied that there will be something for everyone, so, please, go and read it.

NB: Another great piece of writing about the North/South divide is ‘My North-South Divide’ by Laura Barton, an article from The Guardian, which can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/12/laura-barton-wigan-southerner