Comedy Club

 Gorgeous Dave picked me up early evening and we went to the comedy club at Theatre Clwyd , which is an event which is growing in popularity. 

Four comedians ( two ok, one excellent one terrible) faced a rather subdued audience but it was a good evening all told as Dave and I get on, and fill the gaps with flowing and easy conversations.

Dave is half my age, but we are firm and good friends and I like the fact that our friendship isn’t got an age boundary on it.

It’s been a lovely day today. 

I’ve enjoyed it.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting my sister in law for lunch and later I’m walking with another friend down the beach …later on  my sister Janet and I are off to pottery class…..

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Parallel Mothers

 A Pedro Almodòvar film is a wonderful panacea against a drab and miserable Sunday morning for it is crammed to the gunnels with the vibrancy and colour of Spain at its best and Parallel Mothers ( Madres Paralelas) is such a film, which is not only beautiful to look at , but is full of warmth and love and hope and beautiful people being very adult and grown up. 

The film centres about two single mothers who give birth on the same day. Penélope Cruz is Janis, a successful photographer who is looking forward to motherhood and Melina Smit is Ana an isolated teenager who is not. 

A friendship ensues and their lives become linked through fate, a tragedy, complicated relationships and an old war crime with both women exploring the blurring of boundaries of mothers and motherhood. 

It’s a wonderfully old fashioned pot boiler with lots of satisfying plot twists and Almodòvar has crafted a complicated but intensely warm homage to families of blood and the families we blend out of people we love. 

Cruz is luminous in the main role and is ably supported by a cast made mostly ,( with one exception) from women. Smit is impressive as the strong teenage Ana who has to grow up very quickly and Almodòvar stalwart Rossy de Palmer makes a welcome return in the small role of Janis’ best friend.

De Palmer

The denouement is incredibly moving with the female cast revisiting the site of a civil War crime , a background story which underlines the message that babies carry the genes and ghosts of the past.

He leaves the audience with a quote from journalist Eduardo Galeano

“ No matter how hard you try to silence it, human history refuses to shut up” 

I adored this film 

I had something to eat in Chester afterwards, then came home walked the dogs and pottered….a bit later  Gorgeous Dave will pick me up. We are going  to Comedy Night at Theatre Clwyd ( an odd night for a comedy show I always think) 

It’s bloody non stop lol

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Football

 What snacks are you making?

Who are you rooting for?

Favorite sports movie?

Favorite sports book?

Who is your team?

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Coffee Vibe

 Sunday Morning 

Coffee at the Storyhouse which is packed with students writing away at their desks, caffeine in hands

I love the vibe

Just about to see Parallel Mothers , a film I will review later, 

Chatted to a lovely barista who loved the movie

He complemented my New York cap and I blushed like a schoolgirl 

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Buffy

Not Buffy The Vampire Slayer but Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Canadian-American singer songwriter, visual artist and activist. She was the reason I came to Sheffield for the very first time in the autumn of 1971. She appeared in concert at Sheffield City Hall, supported by Loudon Wainwright III.

I had just turned eighteen and I was obsessed with music - especially singer songwriters. In  preceding months, I had listened to two of Buffy Sainte-Marie's albums over and over again. I knew that she had effectively been blacklisted by Presidents Johnson and Nixon for her involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Her style was simple and refreshing. Her voice trembled as she sang of injustice, of love and of memory. Though she came from very humble origins - born on a Native American reservation in Saskatchewan in 1941 - she refused to be unheard and clung fiercely to her originality and to the spirit of her ancestors.

Unlike Norma Waterson and Lata Mangeshkar, Buffy Sainte-Marie is still very much alive. She will be 81 next Sunday and I understand that nowadays she lives mostly in Hawaii. She wrote "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", "Universal Soldier", "Until It's Time for You To Go" (made famous by Elvis Presley) and she also co-wrote "Up Where We Belong" for the film "An Officer and a Gentleman". Of course there are many other songs in her canon of work.

Standing on the pavement outside The City Hall in October 1971, half an hour after the concert, I watched a black limousine approaching and there was Buffy sitting in the back. For a fragment of time our eyes connected and I waved. Of course I have always remembered that moment though she would have forgotten it almost instantly before moving on to the next British city on her tour schedule.

Her she is forty years later, at the age of seventy and still beautiful, recording for the BBC with Donovan Leitch on her right:-

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