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In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
I found this quotation attributed to Frank Zappa and Franz Kafka on various internet sites. Frank Zappa is good value. I found some more quotations by him - click here.
I was asked to talk about Colonel Tim Collins' speech before the eve of the Iraq war on Three Counties Radio yesterday. They were talking about it because Kenneth Branagh re-enacts it in the drama Ten Days to War, broadcast this week.
(See Branagh's performance here)
Click here to read the text of the original speech.
It's a brilliant address. That it was delivered off the cuff, does not mean that he didn't do a lot of preparation. Maybe war focuses the mind beautifully. It was a Daily Mail reporter who immortalised it through her shorthand notes.
It's got short words and short sentences, lots of rhetorical threes and contrasts. I read that Collins was a big fan of Branagh's Henry V speech. There's definitely a bit of Shakespeare and the Bible in there.
I have a soft spot for contrarians. So I was intrigued to read the obituary of Tony Dye.
Click here to read it in the Telegraph.
Keynes actually observed that "Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally."
Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.
I'm always on the lookout for humorous geniuses. Alexander Payne is one such man. I was rather underwhelmed by a film called Paris, Je t'aime- a collection of shorts by the top cinema auteurs of the moment. Until I watched his film, which rounds it all off.
They all had to pick an arrondissement in Paris and make a story out of it. Payne took the 14th and had a female American tourist describe her visit to Paris, using the device of her reading out an essay about the trip she had composed for her French class. It's a brilliant monologue - funny, sad and moving.
It reminded me of his other work, About Schmidt, (listen to Jack Nicholson as Schmidt look back on his life on You Tube - or better still watch the whole film). He also wrote Sideways, which is an understated romance, and Election, another sad but very funny film about politics.
What I like about Payne is his sublime sense of place. He captured Paris through the eyes of a postwoman from Denver. He often sets his films in Omaha, Nebraska. He takes very prosaic scenarios and makes them enchanting. He also evokes the pathos of being a loner with sensitivity and intelligence. Don't miss anything by Alexander Payne.
