Bees, blood and beauty...

I don't know who among you has been enjoying the UK's spell of hot weather this July. Alice actually finds it very troublesome, because it aggravates her hives. No, she doesn't mean annoying the bees, it's her "Urticaria". I don't think you'd really want to know - honestly.

Bees
But speaking of bees, we've seen several harvesting pollen from our lovely window boxes! But they've always flown away before Alice gets the window open and her camera ready for close focus. This photo therefore is a toal cheat, as you might just spot if you look carefully. But I asked Alice to concoct it, and she usually does her best to keep me happy.

Were they honey bees or bumble? I think it's hard to tell the difference, myself.

Bees are in trouble at the moment, too. Their population is declining alarmingly and no-one's 100% sure of the cause, or causes, though there's lots of theories. Very worrying indeed, if you consider the implications. Pollination, crops, and all that. Have a look here.

Blood on TV
Ah - blood. Yes, we've seen quite a lot of it, on screens large and small, recently. That's relatively recently, anyway, becuase there have been big gaps in our blogging.

Well, first on TV there was the terribly shocking (especially if you haven't read the book) slaughter in HBO's Game of Thrones, Season 3 episode 9, The Rains of Castamere.

It was very nasty altogether, and pretty gorey. This photo is of a guy who calls himself NikiPod on Facebook - in case anyone wants to know.

If you're some-one who doesn't have Sky (or can't, like us, babysit for someone who has) and who's going to have to wait til next February (yes, that long!) to get your box set, or still hasn't read the books, don't look at this review at IGN!

And you might not even be willing to risk watching this video of the reaction of a bunch of friends, or this compilation of several such. They don't show the scene in question, but there are hints, plus a soundtrack of clashing noises and screams.

Interesting how many in the know set up their cameras to record the shock and horror of their nearest and dearest!

Warning: Don't click on the next two links if you don't want any hints at all! George R R Martin (the guy on the left) author of the books, explained that this bit of his plotting was loosely based on Scottish history - The Black Dinner of 1440 and the notorious Glencoe Massacre in 1692.


For those who are in the know or just don't care about spoilers, there's a brilliant creation on YouTube: Hitler finds out about the R.. W... No, I won't expand.

It's a cleverly sub-titled scene from the excellent German film Downfall, starring that great actor Bruno Ganz.

Blood on film
We've not reported on many movies lately, mainly because none have struck us as being on a par with our fabulous favourites at the beginning of 2013.

Byzantium, however, is something of an original. Yes, it's a vampire story, but nothing like Neil Jordan's previous 1994 offering Interview with the Vampire. Alice says that was a bit tediously repetitive, one bite after another. This time there are no fangs or bites as such, but a more subtle finger nail.

The pricipal characters are two women, mother and daughter. They're not really supposed to have become vampires at all, according to the patriarchal Vampire Brotherhood. The tale of their initiation is an unusual and fanciful myth-like event, with mountains and simply huge torrents of blood. But we grow to like these renegades (we did, anyway) and their kind-of-feminist campaign. It's beautifully filmed (largely in Hastings, by the way) and all the acting is excellent.

Beauty

The other film we have appreciated lately is Renoir. As one of the critics says, it was shot with an eye for bucolic splendor by the cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee. There's another interesting review in the Guardian (with lots of links.)

Set during the elderly and ailing master painter's last years, it relates the impact on his whole household made by the arrival of an incredibly beautiful young woman who becomes his model. There are many luscious scenes of her posing nude in the heavenly golden light of Provence, on the actual Renoir estate.

We listen to Renoir's personal philosohpy: the flesh is all that matters. If you have not understood that, you have understood nothing. The painting is brilliantly portrayed, apparently using an expert forger to make the brush strokes!

Arriving on the scene later is his son, Jean, wounded in the war and soon to become famous as a filmmaker.  The plot, such as there is, thickens here...

Although all the lovliness is undeniable, we are not allowed to forget the horrors of war and death, which make a subtle counterpoint to the beauty. Well worth watching, or getting the DVD later.

Sorry. Way behind...

I only managed to persuade Alice to at least try and catch up a  bit, by saying she could put up the recent photos, but not worry too much about the worthy information, the obscure links, and all that jazz.

Of course that's the part she takes so much pride in. I'm sure my dear followers just want to see me in interesting places! I told her she can always come back later and add the other stuff when she's feeling better.

Oh, yes, I forgot to say, she's not been feeling at her best, and is down in the dumps again. (I'm not allowed to go into details here.) And just what are The Dumps anyway?

To start on an upbeat: this lovely photo is of me (of course) with the first of the nasturtiums. Or should it be nasturtia? Does anyone really care?

We went off on a June afternoon to do some more Art and see Mr Peploe's paintings. Why they call them still lifes (lives?) I really don't know. Some of it is alive, though it's certainly very still...

Most of it I thought was pretty boring, but Alice said we should keep going round and not give up.

Actually, we both rather liked this one of the lobster - the colours were great!

Open these images, and any others you like, in a new tab or window if you want to see them full size.

Accross the road was a rather more ominously titled exhibition. (Click the pic.) I was glad we weren't going in that way!

We only had time for a quick look and haven't got round to going again, yet. Still, it's on til 8th September, so watch this space - or rather, another space, maybe even soon.

One room wasn't deathly at all. It was super fun. Hee, hee, see me!

It's a construction (with the rather off-putting title of It happens when the body is anatomy of time) by this amazing guy called Ernesto Neto. You can read some stuff about him here, but really he just likes making gorgoeous sensual environments for people to take pleasure in. You'll find more pictures on his own website.

The bases of these mushroom stalk things were filled with cloves, cumin and turmeric. The lady in the shop said when it was first installed, you could smell them as soon as you came in the main door! Now there's imagination for you. I think they should call it Sniff Art, don't you?

This exhibition, which we caught a bit later on, was, not surprisingly, at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which got done-up relatively recently. It has a nice cafe and shop, too.

You can look up Man Ray on Wikipedia (he had an interesting life!) but you'll get more lovely images if you Google for them. We saw lots and lots of photos in this exhibition, many of them surprisingly small. Alice got quite tired reading all the information. He seemed to know so many famous people!

We were also there to catch the unusual House of Annie Lennox show before it closed. There were some costumes and great videos to see. And she was certainly a terrific singer.  Mostly this visit was Alice's nostalgia trip: she was a fan of the Eurythmics in her younger days - good rhythmic (hah!) music to dance to. 

Annie Lennox is now well known as political activist and philanthropist, especially for AIDS charities.

The picture to the left of Annie Lennox with David Bowie was taken at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness in 1992.

Annie  experimented a lot with gender roles and appearance. Always an interesting thing to do, says Alice, who still calls herself a feminist. A long discussion we could get into there, but not now. I'm not sure quite where I stand on issues like that, though I do like a bit of dressing up now and again. But I'm just a simple soul, me.

So, that's us more or less up to date, folks. Alice admits she's cheered up a bit. [I told her it would!]

To wind up, here's another lovely photo of me with a great big nasturtium I just wanted to cuddle up to. No, of course I wouldn't eat it! This variety is called Empress of India, and it's the third year Alice has tried to grow some from seed. Third time lucky. Hurrah! Don't they just cheer you up as well?