This 2 parter suggested it was about political correctness gone wrong, but it is an intriguing concept. Dr Javed Abdelmoneim was given access for a month to a class of 7 year olds, chosen as this is the age that gender ideas become fixed. In the first episode the children were asked to describe themselves, … Continue reading
I heard an interview a while ago with the band British Sea Power who provide the soundtrack to this film, so was glad to finally see it. Funded by Sheffield Documentary Festival, it is a fascinating selection of work from the British Film Institute from early black and white to the modern era. We see … Continue reading
This is one of the first foreign language films I saw, and despite its length, I remember being fascinated by it. Set in a farm settlement in 19th century Lombardy where the families have to give 2/3 of their produce to the landlord, it shows a year in the lives of 5 families. They live … Continue reading
Hunt is an artist I’d not heard of, so his show at the Courtauld Institute was an eye opener. Born near Covent Garden in 1790, he was disabled, so unable to do physical work, but fortunately he showed a talent for art so was apprenticed at the age of 14 to John Varley who shared … Continue reading
This is a fascinating exhibition at London’s Somerset House, which encourages participants to re-think how they engage with perfumes and scents. The display is made up of 10 rooms, each with different scents,presented in displays from bowling balls in black sand to a colourful chaise loungue draped in scented fabric. We are given a card … Continue reading
This is from the i paper, an obituary for Marian Diamond Neuroscientist 11/11/1926 – 25/7/2017. Her work has huge implications for how our society is changing: Marian Diamond, a neuroscientist who studied Albert Einstein’s brain and was the first to show that the brain’s anatomy can change with experience, has died aged 90. … Her … Continue reading
I have often wondered why the UK has never produced an equivalent of Kerouac, of Hunter S Thompson, the wild, crazy, drug and alcohol fuelled travellers and story tellers. Yes, I know Britain is a lot smaller. Any road trip would be a lot shorter, but here’s a film that comes close. It begins with … Continue reading
This documentary was screened as part of the BBC’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, i.e., that of males, as the law always assumed that women don’t do such things. It tells the story of journalist Peter Wildeblood who was put on trial with his friends Lord Montague and Michael Pitt-Rivers … Continue reading
This is a series I came to late as I had no interest in things related to Jack the Ripper, especially in the wake of the campaign against the ripper museum in London’s East End. But the series is astounding on so many levels. For a start, it is not about the gruesome killings per … Continue reading
This is another film free to subscribers of the BFI. The film is important in its own right, but also for the scandal that accompanied it – Ingrid Bergman had written to the director Roberto Rosellini as an admirer of his work, wishing to appear in a film. Their scandalous affair produced the actress Isabella … Continue reading
